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.
Richard Pithouse -
Democracy is...the action that constantly wrests the monopoly of public life from oligarchic government. - Jacques Rancière, Hatred of Democracy, 2006.
Now that the African National Congress has issued a clear declaration of its intent to roll back media freedom in the name of the people, civil society is scurrying around like a disturbed ant’s nest.
But as it rallies to the blogs, op-ed pages and debates in the higher reaches of the public sphere to defend its freedoms, we...
Michelle Pressend -
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) celebrated its 30th anniversary at this year’s SADC Summit on the 16th and 17th of August in Windhoek, Namibia. While heads of state congratulated themselves for achievements such as peace and stability - a prerequisite for sustained economic growth - in the region, the reality on the ground contrasts with their embellished sense of accomplishment.
Of approximately 250 million citizens in the SADC, 80% have no access to modern energy...
WikiLeaks is the whistle blowing website that released more than 91,000 classified military records on the war in Afghanistan last month, some of which point to war crimes by coalition forces.
On Friday, 21 August 2010, Swedish authorities charged WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, with two charges of rape and issued an arrest warrant for him. Six hours later, the charges were dropped. Al Jazeera speaks to Assange about these charges and why they were dropped.
According to Assange,...
In a 2009 interview, Indian activist, Vandana Shiva, argued, "Over the last decade, 200,000 farmers have committed suicide (in India)…In Vidharbha, 4,000 are committing suicide annually. This is the region where four million acres of cotton have been grown with Monsanto's Bt cotton. The suicides are a direct result of a debt trap created by ever-increasing costs of seeds and chemicals and constantly falling prices of agricultural produce."
Over the years, the plight of...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
We have been here before. The third major public service strike since 1994 is upon us. During the first major public service strike since democracy, in 1999, trade unions suffered a significant defeat with government’s unilateral implementation of wages. But in 2007, public service unions turned the tables on government conducting an unprecedented strike, and building an unlikely coalition with departments responsible for frontline service delivery. This resulted in the introduction of...
Minqi Li, Professor of Political Economy, from the University of Utah in the US, talks to Paul Jay of the Real News Network about the recent wave of workers' strikes in China. Li is author of the book, "The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy."
In June, leaders of the Chinese Communist Party said that it's time for workers’ wages to go up.
There's been much talk about China restructuring its economy to boost domestic demand. There has been much...
