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.
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Editor’s Note: This article is the second in a three-part series on public service performance. The first article in the series examined holding politicians accountable. The final instalment will focus on performance management at lower levels in the public service.
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Recent reports by the Auditor-General on lapses in the Public Service Code of Conduct by senior managers provide a worrying picture of the state of the public service. The major finding of the report was that there...
Richard Gizbert of Al Jazeera's Listening Post reports that Venezuela's media is divided along racial and political lines. Venezuela's media war is unrivalled with President Hugo Chavez's state-controlled media in one corner and the privately owned opposition media, in the other. The conflict between Chavez and the opposition media began almost as soon as he was elected as president. That said, Chavez does have some legitimate beefs with the private media. Some of them openly backed a coup...
The Woodstock music festival took place from 15-17 August 1969 and celebrates its 40th anniversary this weekend. Woodstock is remembered as an iconic counter culture event, which spread the message of peace and love during a period of intense racial tension in America when the civil rights movement was at its peak. Woodstock is also credited for galvanizing America's youth against the war in Vietnam. Almost 500,000 young people descended on a farm in upstate New York to participate...
Richard Pithouse -
In recent weeks people have been willing to risk arrest, violence and in some cases death at the hands of our habitually brutal police force to assert a whole range of demands. These demands have included an insistence on the right to the cities, the right to an income, the right to a decent education and the right to a living wage.
The issuing of these demands has often, in direct contrast to the legalism of much of civil society, taken the practical form of the assertion of rights...
Michelle Pressend -
Since the last World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting took place in Hong Kong in 2005, the WTO Doha negotiations have remained at an impasse. Attempts to revive negotiations last year during the July 2008 mini Ministerial meeting failed.
In principle what the Doha Declaration agreed to in 2001 was meant to foster ‘development’ in developing countries and address the adverse impact of trade liberalization and deregulation.
Since then, Doha negotiations have been...
Scott Thill -
Stop me if you think you've heard this one before:
Investment banks, sovereign wealth funds and other barely regulated financial entities in search of fat paydays go on buying binges structurally adjusted to maximize their earnings reports and employee bonuses, while simultaneously screwing their business associates and everyone else in the process. It's all done in near-total secrecy, and by the time everyone finds out about it, they're already in the poorhouse.
That's more or less the...
