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?
Visit the archives.
Jane Duncan -
The South African Police Service (SAPS) has issued a directive to a number of municipalities not to allow marches for the duration of the 2010 World Cup. How many have received it is unclear.
This ban came to light when a civil society march for quality public education, scheduled to take place on 10 June to Constitution Hill in Braamfontein, was banned last week. The Anti-privatisation Forum (APF) also planned to march to protest against aspects of the World Cup and general...
Subhankar Banerjee -
Will the Obama Administration Allow Shell Oil to Do to Arctic Waters What BP Did to the Gulf?
Bear with me. I’ll get to the oil. But first you have to understand where I’ve been and where you undoubtedly won’t go, but Shell’s drilling rigs surely will -- unless someone stops them.
Over the last decade, I’ve come to know Arctic Alaska about as intimately as a photographer can. I’ve been there many times, starting with the 14 months I spent back in...
Israeli President Shimon Peres has denied reports that he offered to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa when he was defense minister in the 1970s. The Guardian newspaper of London published top-secret South African documents revealing that a secret meeting between then-defense minister Shimon Peres and his South African counterpart, P.W. Botha, ended with an offer by Peres for the sale of warheads "in three sizes."
The documents were first uncovered by senior editor at...
Liepollo Pheko -
‘Gedleyihlekisa’ is president Jacob Zuma’s middle name. It means “one who is crafty when faced with conniving people” or “one who is cunning” or even “laughing when people conspire and gang up against you.”
In the last few years Zuma’s political life has been predicated on a series of private issues, which have come into the public domain. His personal finances and rape trial both became the focus of national discourse sharply...
Throwing my shoes at Bush was a natural reaction to the killing of a million Iraqis and the orphaning of five million Iraqi children, says Muntadhar Al-Zaidi the television journalist who achieved worldwide fame for his brave act aimed at avenging Iraqi's for America's unjust war of aggression.
By flinging his shoes at him, Al Zaidi was sending Bush an unmistakable farewell message -- that he and his army were never welcomed by the Iraqi people, despite Bush's claims to the contrary.
Al...
Harry Browne -
It was April 1999, and I was in a Paris hotel room, idly watching television, amazed to see a TV chef scooping handfuls of "un peu de sel" to add to the soup. Then came an advertisement, from the station itself: "Nine months after World Cup 98... France celebrates the children of victory..." The premise was that the joy of the nation's triumph the previous summer had now emerged from the womb; the images were a series of close-ups of the arms and legs and bellies of...
