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?
Visit the archives.
Saliem Fakir -
First came Zuma, which seemed to scare a lot of people, then the atrocious matric results, then Eskom, the slow disappearance of the Scorpions, the Zimbabwe crisis, then the disgraceful saga at the SABC, the anarchy at the ANC Youth League conference, racism at Free State university, the food crisis and now xenophobia.
There are a few other issues not worth adding to this litany as the point has been made. Everywhere we look is a seemingly unending verve of one crisis after another....
Glenn Ashton -
Our government is well known for making bizarre decisions. Lets not even go into Eskom, ARVs, the HIV and AIDS ‘debate’, or the arms deals for that matter. Even the small things like why a perfectly good policy on plastic bags was undermined by vested interests, how market related interests constantly trump social interests in seemingly obscure ways all are actions that force us to ask just what was behind that decision?
One of the major swings of policy by our new government was...
Loren Landau -
More than a year ago, the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CoRMSA) requested that the Human Rights Commission (HRC) host public hearings to hold leaders accountable for not addressing xenophobia, hate speech, violence, and threats to human dignity. But CoRMSA was told that the HRC’s agenda was set for the year and that they would see what they could do. Clearly they have not done enough.
Over the past week, South Africa has been shaken by anti-foreigner violence...
SACSIS – the South African Civil Society Information Service - is a platform for policy dialogue that has been established as a news agency to channel social justice news and analysis to the mainstream media. SACSIS is deeply concerned about the fragility of life for the poor, who are disproportionately predisposed to environmental, economic and social hazards. This is apparent in the appalling conditions under which they live and work. We consider these conditions to be...
Black immigrants in South Africa have been bearing the brunt of unfair discrimination for some time. Timechanging have produced a three-part documentary series showing that the brutality of the recent attacks against immigrants in the townships of Gauteng are really the tip of the iceberg in a long saga of hardship and humiliation that black foreigners in South Africa, especially Zimbabweans, face. See South Africa: The New Apartheid (Part 2) here. See South Africa: The New Apartheid (Part...
Glenn Ashton -
How to restore the soil - crop - animal - waste nutrient cycle (and save the world.)
The rather unsavoury issue of how we deal with the end products of our sewage has again reared its ugly head in Cape Town. The agricultural smallholding areas of Philadelphia, to the north of the city, are affected by a serious fly outbreak caused by the spreading of raw sewage sludge on nearby agricultural fields.
Sewage sludge is the semi-solid remnant that remains after the rest of the sewage has been...
