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.
Stephen Greenberg -
The World Bank’s recently released 2009 World Development Report - titled Reshaping Economic Geography - suggests South Africa may be out of step with mainstream thinking on economic development approaches. But what is this ‘mainstream’ thinking, and is South Africa really so out of step with it? In the report, the Bank argues that successful development will result from increasing economic concentration in urban areas, and that the role of the state is to enable...
Michelle Pressend -
Genetically modified (GMO) crops have more unknowns than knowns. Yet the South African government whole-heartily embraces this technology in the production of food crops, particularly maize, a staple food in South Africa.
The South African pro-GMO lobby is very proud of the fact that South Africa is the eighth biggest GMO producer in the world among the 13 largest biotechnology-producing countries. They also make claims that this technology is accepted worldwide, however many African...
On 30 June 2009, "Spirit of Humanity," a ship carrying activists from eleven countries with humanitarian aid for Gaza was hijacked by Israeli forces and forcefully prohibited from completing its mission. On 15 July 2009, a convoy of 200 human rights activists managed to drive a truck caravan into Gaza after ten days of delays and harassment at the hands of Egyptian and US officials, reports Laura Flanders of GRITtv. Flanders speaks to Huwaida Arraf, a human rights...
Fazila Farouk -
Throughout my encounters with the healthcare system, it's been the doctors that have left a lasting impression on me. I've wanted to say something about them for a long time. Long before the well-publicised doctors' strike started. After all, a visit to the doctor is an intensely personal experience.
The thing that I am most struck by is the number of doctors I have access to.
I am not one of those ill-fated South Africans referred to by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its...
Eamonn McCann -
Shuffling out from U2’s Popmart tour — the one with the McDonalds-style Golden Arch — at Lansdowne Road 10 years ago, I chanced on Philip King, singer, songwriter, television producer and music adviser to the Irish Arts Council.
"Whaddya think?"
"Whatever it is," pronounced the elfin Kerry sage, "it’s a fucking big one of them."
Which has always been the way with the emperors of bombast. Now they, or at least their stage sets, are...
Renowned journalist, Bill Moyers of America's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) interviews former health insurance industry executive, Wendell Potter and discovers that the industry devised a premeditated and intensive campaign to discredit filmmaker, Michael Moore's documentary about health care in America, Sicko. According to Moyers, the anti-Moore strategy document set out clear lines of attack to radicalize the filmmaker in the eyes of politicians, specifically Democrats. The message...
