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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Jayati Ghosh, economist from India's Nehru University in New Delhi and author of the book After Crisis, says India's economic growth is no miracle. India is often compared to China for its rapid economic growth, but Ghosh argues that the two countries are very different. China has better economic growth and poverty reduction indicators. It also has a completely different institutional system with massive state control over finance, which enables the state to manipulate the nature of the...
One of the key initiatives to emerge from the Bolivian 'World Conference on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth' attended by 15,000 delegates from around the world is the 'Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth'. South African environmental lawyer, Cormac Cullinan, arrived at the summit this week with the draft declaration that has formed the basis of the discussions in Tiquipaya. He explains its purpose. The conference, which has been very poorly covered by the...
On Friday, 16 April 2010, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), charged Goldman Sachs with fraud related to a sub-prime housing mortgage deal. The SEC's press release states, "Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party." Paul Jay of the Real News...
This video presented by the Centre for Civil Society highlights the plight of subsistence fishermen in Durban who's rights have been systematically eroded as a result of poor marine and coastal management in South Africa. The 17-minute feature provides valuable testimony from fishermen about how government policies prejudice them and threaten their livelihoods while allowing big fishing companies to overfish the sea, leading to environmental degradation in the process.
In this video produced by Sleeping Giant, Reverend Mavuso of the Rural Network in KwaZulu Natal shares the story of 11 families evicted from a farm in New Hanover (near Pitermaritzburg) after having lived on it for 20 years. They struggle to rebuild their lives with no support from government. The case of these families brings into sharp relief the preservation of an unjust system in South Africa where land redistribution and rural development for the poor remain in limbo. Mavuso works to...
This clip is an excerpt of an interview that Amy Goodman of Democracy Now conducted with Julian Assange, Co-founder of Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald of the American publication, Salon.com. WikiLeaks is the whistle blowing website that releases sensitive information into the public domain. This week WikiLeaks released what has been confirmed as a valid video of American soldiers massacring innocent Iraqi civilians. Amongst those killed were two Reuters employees, which to some degree helped...
