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?
SACSIS seeks to examine global issues, particularly as they relate to South Africa.
Max Blumenthal -
Few political terrorists in recent history took as much care to articulate their ideological influences and political views as Anders Behring Breivik did. The right-wing Norwegian Islamophobe who murdered 76 children and adults in Oslo and at a government-run youth camp spent months, if not years, preparing his 1,500 page manifesto.
Besides its length, one of the most remarkable aspects of the manifesto is the extent to which its European author quoted from the writings of figures from...
Vijay Prashad -
Sitting on an Amtrak train from New Haven to Washington DC on Friday, I was enjoying my thriller, Kjell Ola Dahl's The Man in the Window. Dahl's police procedural novels are set in Oslo, Norway, where the remarkable detectives Frank Frølich and Gunnarstranda confront the heart of modern evil: Property is often the hub of the conflict, but so too is the ineluctable history of Nazism and the Second World War. A brave history of pacifism, partly contained in the Norwegian Labour Party,...
Mark Weisbrot -
The Euro is crashing today to record lows against the Swiss Franc, and interest rates on Italian and Spanish bonds have hit record highs. This latest episode in the Eurozone crisis is a result of fears that the contagion is now hitting Italy. With a two-trillion dollar economy and $2.45 trillion in debt, Italy is too big to fail and the European authorities are worried. Although there is currently little basis for the concern that Italy’s interest rates could rise high enough to put its...
Mark Weisbrot -
The European authorities are playing a dangerous game of “chicken” with Greece right now. It is overdue for U.S. members of Congress to exercise some oversight as to what our government’s role is in this process, and how we might be preparing for a Greek debt default. Depending on how it happens, this default could have serious repercussions for the international financial system and the U.S. (and world) economy.
The U.S. government has a direct and significant role...
Fazila Farouk -
When I first heard that America's first lady, Michelle Obama, was coming to South Africa, I thought to myself, “There goes the news - column inches upon column inches are going to be wasted on the colour of her lipstick.” The fact that she’s America’s “fashion ambassador” already made the news in the run up to her visit.
Obama’s transformation from understated and perfectly well groomed woman to glorified clotheshorse has been disappointing to...
M K Bhadrakumar -
Former United States secretary of state Henry Kissinger once complained that Europe didn't have a single telephone number. He didn't know who to turn to as the authentic voice of Europe. The same can be said today about BRICS, the grouping that has come to personify the best and the brightest emerging powers in the global order. BRICS comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn's summary exit from his job as the managing director of the...
