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?
Glenn is a multidisciplinarian with a background in geography. Besides being a published author, he also edited "A Patented World? The Privatisation of Life and Knowledge," published by Jacana in South Africa. He currently is on the editorial board of the SA Journal of Natural Medicine.
Additionally, Glenn has written many commentaries and analyses of wide ranging issues including waste management, water use, food security, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, health, agricultural fuels, marine resources, climate and many other environmental and socially relevant issues.
He has also presented many papers and talks to a wide range of audiences. He specialises in communicating complex scientific issues in an accessible manner. He is a freelance writer and researcher.
Glenn Ashton -
There is widespread outrage at the exposure of collusion by South Africa’s largest construction companies, including the so-called “big six,” by our competition authorities. What is really interesting is that anyone is surprised about these revelations. After all, is this not how business is done?
The primary prerogative of any corporation is to return a profit on investment; everything is subordinate to that objective. We can have as many King III’s, as many...
Glenn Ashton -
Media coverage of the Obama-crew’s flash-mob blitz of South Africa showed the extent to which we have allowed ourselves to be policed by a force that continues to display apartheid era tactics. While Obama was touring Soweto legal demonstrators were treated to percussion grenades and teargas for protesting too vigorously.
South Africans have a proud history of peaceful protest, from the women’s march on Pretoria in the 1950s, the pass protests into the cities across the nation...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa remains stuck in the telecommunication doldrums, a victim of its own apathy. There have been massive investments in unprecedented interconnectivity with the rest of world yet our internet speeds, cost and accessibility remain uncompetitive. The country is missing out for failing to hook into the high speed internet revolution, despite years of promises from the state to break a logjam largely of its own making.
South Africa presently has average internet speeds of 2.3 Mb per...
Glenn Ashton -
Perhaps the greatest single failure of governance in the new democratic dispensation is situated at the local government level. While some improvement has occurred, the lives of far too many citizens, especially those in small towns and rural areas, remain fundamentally unchanged. Desperate migrants from rural areas to the urban heartlands are also seriously compromised, competing directly with better-equipped, more skilled economic refugees from elsewhere on the subcontinent.
The term...
Glenn Ashton -
What does it take to be the most hated corporation on earth? How many global corporations have had an entire day of global protest declared to draw attention to their nastiness? Well, the worlds leading producer of genetically modified seed, Monsanto, has just managed this feat, with millions having participated in over 450 actions across 52 countries on the 25th of May. It is worth examining how and why Monsanto has become so uniformly hated around the planet.
It is difficult to assume...
Glenn Ashton -
It is difficult to be positive about our educational system, supported by a government department that consumes more than a fifth of our total budget. Despite this we languish at the bottom of the international league in maths and science. School facilities are dismal. The educational system in several provinces is in tatters. Additionally, the Minister of Lower Education, Angie Motshekga, is regularly at odds with the dominant teachers union, the South African Democratic Teachers Union...
