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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The United Nations has called an emergency meeting to discuss the Horn of Africa drought, which it says has already claimed tens of thousands of lives. Famine was declared in two regions of Somalia on Wednesday where 3.7 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Another eight million people need food assistance in neighboring countries including Kenya and Ethiopia.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls the situation a "catastrophic combination of...
Talking about the relationship between medicine and humanism, Oliver Sacks, Professor of Neurology & Psychiatry at Columbia University argues that the human element, i.e., talking with patients about how they are experiencing their lives with a medical condition, needs to be an essential part of medicine, which is sadly lost in today's world of mass medicine.
Sacks contends that there is a tendency in the medical fraternity to just give a diagnosis and then forget it…but...
In the past year or so, we have witnessed a massive increase in food prices, not all of it due to "supply and demand" economics, argues Jayati Ghosh from the University of Delhi in India, as she explains how the markets have speculated in commodities trading playing a significant role in fuelling the food crisis.
According to Ghosh, from the beginning of 2010 to February 2011, there was a very significant increase in food prices. For example, the wheat price doubled...
As South Africa celebrates the 93rd birthday of Nelson Mandela, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now speaks with Ronnie Kasrils, who was on the National Executive Committee of the African National Congress for 20 years.
Kasrils also served as Minister for Intelligence Services from 2004 to 2008.
He recently published a new book "The Unlikely Secret Agent," about his late wife Eleanor, a Scottish South African anti-apartheid activist.
Rupert Murdoch was in London this week trying to neutralize the cell phone hacking scandal engulfing his media corporation.
Following an exposé that journalists from his News of the World newspaper hacked into the cell phone account of a teenage murder victim, amongst others, to embellish media reports, Rupert Murdoch closed down the newspaper.
Despite this radical intervention, whether the power of Rupert Murdoch will be touched is another issue all together.
He still the...
On Friday, 8 July 2011, hundreds of activists from around the world were prevented from landing in Israel's Ben Gurion International airport. The activists were invited by Palestinian groups in a campaign called "Welcome to Palestine."
The Fly In was meant to protest Israel's practice of frequently denying the entry of activists and the Palestinian Diaspora into the occupied territories.
Just as the boat flotilla's are being prevented from leaving Greek and Turkish...
