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?
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...
Leonard Gentle -
On one side of the world NATO bombs Libya and on the other, the newly expanded BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) meet on the island of Hainan, off the south coast of China. Two seemingly unrelated events. But there are links and forces at play fuelling important new power contestations in the world.
Western bombs are raining down on Libya and a “no-fly zone” is being imposed after a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution. At the UN,...
Saliem Fakir -
On the international scene South Africa plays diplomacy for high stakes. Often in the name of Africa and for itself, but this may receive some heckles from those who know that the game of diplomacy is mostly about enlightened self-interest, as the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables more than capably demonstrate.
South Africa’s joining of the BRICS group (as it will henceforth be known since the announcement of South Africa’s membership to the group on Christmas eve last year),...
Leonard Gentle -
Quietly, but inexorably, the world is changing. In the past three months a number of events have occurred, which, in and of themselves may go nowhere, but indicate the emergence of tectonic shifts that will change the world as we have known it for much of the 20th century.
These changes may not necessarily be for everyone’s good, they may even portend more frightening developments, but if we don’t know about them we’ll only experience their effects like the...
Saliem Fakir -
They go by different names: IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). These formations all amount to more or less the same thing: the new “emerging economies” seeking to redefine relations between themselves and the rest of the world.
They are widely seen as new symbols of power in the global arena.
The shaping of the alliances between these powerful new emerging economies raises...
US senator, Sam Brownback called the SCO (Shangai Cooperation Organisation), "The most dangerous institution, the American people have never heard of." Founded in 2001, the SCO consists of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran have observer status. The organisation aims to promote mutual cooperation and maintain regional peace, security and stability. On 16 June 09, the SCO hosted its annual meeting in the...
