The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
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Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez succumbed to cancer on 5 March 2013 at 16h25. Chavez left an indelible mark on Venezuela and on global politics not only for his robust focus on alleviating poverty, but also for his strong stance against American imperialism. He was particularly critical of the human cost of the global war on terror.
Chavez was revered by Venezuela's poor, but reviled by its middle and upper classes, including the country's private media that actively participated in a...
Heidi-Jane Esakov -
Mido Macia, a 27-year-old Mozambican immigrant to South Africa was found dead in his police cell in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg, on 26 February 2013. In a brutal scene captured on film by onlookers, Macia, with hands bound and tied to the back of a police van, was dragged 500 metres by police officers. His torture continued in a police cell with allegations of brutal beatings.
His crime: blocking traffic and resisting arrest.
Three days before that, on 23 February, 30-year-old Arafat...
John Feffer -
The GDR Museum in Berlin is actually two museums in one. And these two parts, both devoted to everyday life in the German Democratic Republic, subtly contradict one another. That might not have been the intention of the museum founders. But this tension actually captures the ambiguities of East Germany and the ambivalence that many Germans feel today about the erstwhile communist state.
The experience inside the main part of the museum is quite interactive. You can put on headphones and...
American Attorney for Julian Assange, Michael Ratner, reports he was in the courtroom and witnessed Bradley Manning speak with confidence and intelligence as he detailed the outrages that drove him to upload documents to WikiLeaks. While Manning has not pleaded guilty to charges of espionage and aiding the enemy, he has pleaded guilty to lesser charges related to distribution. One of the many atrocities he helped expose was the killing of unarmed Reuters staff members in Iraq by a US military...
David Bruce -
If one wants to understand the common thread behind police brutality in South Africa, the cruelty that last week killed taxi driver Mido Macia, the massacre of the miners at Marikana or the killing of Andries Tatane, it is helpful to go back to the ANC’s 2009 election manifesto.
The manifesto largely rehashes old ideas. But in describing how the ANC will “intensify the fight against crime and corruption” there is one word in the manifesto that is relevant to understanding...
