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?
America's General Motors filed for bankruptcy on 1 June 2009, and will be bailed out by the federal government, making the government a 60% shareholder in the company. The bailout is valued at US$30bn. The company is to be remodeled and emerge as a "new GM," which will be smaller. Thousands of GM jobs are on the line. Somewhat disappointingly, President Obama announced that "the federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most...
Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine," Matt Taibbbi, contributing editor for Rolling Stone Magazine and Reza Aslan, author of "How to Win a Cosmic War" are interviewed by Bill Maher. They debate topical American issues of the day, including President Barack Obama going after tax cheats, as well as the need to prosecute those responsible for torture -- often described as the Bush/Cheney torture scandal. On Tax Havens Obama is going after corporations who keep...
Glenn Ashton -
Alan Greenspan was wrong. Free market ideology is rotten to the core. There is mayhem on main streets, with jobs haemorrhaging from every sector. It is not only first world working stiffs who are feeling the pain. The poor and working classes are suffering a great deal more, due to problems created on the other side of the world by a system that may as well operate in a parallel universe.
The self serving greed and accumulative gathering of wealth through nefarious instruments of finance...
The suicide forest can be found in the foothills of Mount Fuji, Japan. It is difficult to be found in this forest. A phenomenon that attracts people contemplating suicide. In the past year, 170 people have committed suicide in the forest. For the vulnerable, its become a forest of fears: fear of debt, fear of loneliness and fear of failure. Yukio Sugiyama, a suicide survivor who was found in the forest says that one's occupation takes a very important place in one's life in...
Stephen Greenberg -
The South African Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) recent announcement that it is considering the reversal of some tariff cuts appears to fly in the face of a global anti-protectionist rhetoric. At the recent G20 Summit to discuss responses to the crisis engulfing the world’s economies, politicians were falling over each other to reject ‘isolationism’ and protectionism. Everywhere the bogey of protectionism is being warned against - not only by the same...
Michael Hudson -
Not much substantive news was expected to come out of the G-20 meetings that ended on April 2 in London – certainly no good news was even suggested. Europe, China and the United States had too deeply distinct interests. American diplomats wanted to lock foreign countries into further dependency on paper dollars. The rest of the world sought a way to avoid giving up real output and ownership of their resources and enterprises for yet more hot-potato dollars. In such cases one expects a...
