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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Gaming has become such an integral part of people’s lives in the new millennium. Jane McGonigal, talks about pioneering research on the impact of gaming on important aspects of our lives. She refers to a study done at Oxford University, which claims that people who played Tetris within six hours of experiencing a traumatic event could minimize the possibility of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and flashbacks. Playing Tetris within six hours of any traumatic event...
Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s largest and most influential human rights organizations, is facing an unusual amount of public criticism. Two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel and Mairead Maguire, and a group of over 100 scholars have written an open letter criticizing what they describe as a revolving door with the U.S. government that impacts HRW’s work in certain countries, including Venezuela. The letter urges HRW to bar those who have crafted...
Stella Young is a comedian and journalist who happens to go about her day in a wheelchair - a fact that doesn't, she'd like to emphasize, automatically turn her into a noble inspiration to all humanity. In this funny talk, Young breaks down society's habit of turning disabled people into "inspiration porn”. She highlights the fact that it is not fair to objectify and exceptionalise disabled people simply for doing the mundane things that non-disabled people do. Referring to the...
More than 200,000 troops have been deployed in Brazil, ostensibly to protect tourists during the 2014 FIFA Soccer World Cup. However, this media report argues that the military has been deployed to sanitize Brazil’s streets of its homeless and suppress protests. Many Brazilians are dismayed by the diversion of public funds towards the erection of new soccer stadiums while other domestic priorities are being neglected. As the World Cup looms, metro workers are on strike in Sao Paulo...
Comedian John Oliver now has his own comedy show on the HBO channel. This week Oliver tackled the issue of “net neutrality”, as encroaching corporate (and government) control over the internet threatens to reduce internet freedom. Oliver takes this grave issue – he calls it “boring” – and turns it into a hilarious sketch that educates the public about a threat we ignore at our peril. Net neutrality refers to all data being treated equally on the internet,...
June 5th marks the one-year anniversary of Edward Snowden's revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency’s egregious overstepping of its bounds into ordinary people's private communications. Journalist Glenn Greenwald who broke the story recently said that the U.S. government is making an example of Snowden and Chelsea Manning to scare future whistleblowers. He argues that the U.S. government is "furious" about Snowden being protected because he’s created a...
