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?
Saliem Fakir -
About 2.5 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.
Culture and coffee are treated as synonymous. Ever since the first coffee shops opened doors in the Middle East, around the 15th century onwards, coffee culture spread like wild fire in the western world.
Coffee houses are places where artists, writers, intellectuals and those seeking the pleasures of good conversation are meant to hang out. However, this image of civility belies the real world of coffee trade, which is far more...
The Doha trade talks are grinding to a slow halt and might soon be declared dead.
When this round of trade negotiations was launched in Doha, Qatar, about a decade ago, It was called the "development round" and the promise was that the rules would benefit the least developed countries in the world of trade and that other developing countries including emerging markets would not have to take the same market opening steps as developed nations.
After ten years, the Doha talks are...
Greg Grandin -
Tensions over Middle East policy are increasing, despite Barack Obama's recent visit to Latin America
At some point in the run-up to Barack Obama’s just concluded tour of Latin America, which included stops in Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador, the US press decided that coverage of the trip would focus on expected friendly meeting with Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's recently inaugurated president.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, and National Public Radio, along with a host of...
Patrick Bond -
The decade since the Seattle World Trade Organisation (WTO) fiasco on November 30, 1999, taught civil society activists and African leaders two powerful lessons.
First, working together, they have the power to disrupt a system of global governance that meets the Global North’s short-term interests against both the Global South and the longer-term interests of the world’s people and the planet.
Second, in the very act of disrupting global malgovernance, major concessions can be...
Michelle Pressend -
I'm in Geneva, Switzerland and wrote this article on the eve of the 7th World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting taking place from 27 November to 2 December 2009 at the WTO's head quarters.
I've also just returned from a protest march against the WTO here in Geneva, attended by many people, including activists from many parts of the world.
The march was, unfortunately, marred by a handful of violent protestors on the fringes of the main demonstration. They've been getting...
Rebecca Solnit -
Next month, at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the wealthy nations that produce most of the excess carbon in our atmosphere will almost certainly fail to embrace measures adequate to ward off the devastation of our planet by heat and chaotic weather. Their leaders will probably promise us teaspoons with which to put out the firestorm and insist that springing for fire hoses would be far too onerous a burden for business to bear. They have already backed off from any binding...
