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.
Deena Stryker -
An Italian radio program's story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with...
Compared with men, the lives of women are so often hidden: behind the walls of tradition; poverty; and isolation. Compared with men, the stories of women just aren't told. But these documentaries are different: they put women in front of the lens, and behind it. And through photography, film, and even animation, they show us women stepping out from behind those walls, surviving, and even thriving, in the poorest countries in the world. Take a look across the global gender gap, and see the...
On Monday this week the stock market melted in New York, as did markets around the world.
While most of the commentary is about Standard & Poor (S&P) downgrading US debt, most people realize that S&P's downgrading was meaningless. This was proven by the fact that when the stock market crashed, investors bought more American treasury bills.
Garry Epstein, Co-director of the PERI Institute, says S&P's downgrading is a factor to the extent that investors think that the...
Richard Pithouse -
The riot has been a feature of English life for a lot longer than William Shakespeare, village cricket matches or, for that matter, The Clash. The English have rioted against the enclosure of common land, fences, press gangs, factories, prisons, bread prices, tolls and banks. Arson, tearing down fences, smashing machines, setting prices from below, looting and throwing prisons open are all time honoured tactics.
The historians of the English riot stress that elites have, usually in...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa's agricultural landscape remains essentially unchanged. Landed white farmers pursue an industrial farming model that relies on high external inputs. Farm ownership patterns have changed little, despite continual promises. Food security remains unresolved. Significant sectors of our people, particularly women and children, remain under or malnourished. To top it off, the ecological impacts of our farming – soil erosion, high water use and abstraction, overuse of chemicals,...
Laurie Penny -
I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and Wood Green were looted; there have been hundreds of arrests and dozens of serious injuries, and it will be a miracle if nobody dies tonight. This is...
