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?
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John Nichols political journalist for "The Nation Magazine" and author of the book, "The Death and Life of American Journalism," says, as a country, America is very good at exporting its pathologies.
As a result, the culling of journalists is playing out in every country in the world and having a negative impact on the quality and quantity of traditional journalism.
This is a worrying development because journalism is intricately linked to democracy. There is nowhere in...
Pepe Escobar -
Anteing Up, Betting, and Bluffing in the New Great Game
Future historians may well agree that the twenty-first century Silk Road first opened for business on December 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan (via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan) to Xinjiang Province in China’s far west. Hyperbole did not deter the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Turkmenistan’s...
Richard Pithouse -
In recent weeks the centre of the unstable and diverse social ferment that has been bubbling and boiling at the base of South African society since at least 2004 has shifted to Cape Town. People have often remarked that the conflict on the slopes of the Sentinel in Hout Bay, in which four people lost their eyes to rubber bullets fired by the police, has evoked the past.
But our cities are the most unequal in the world and many of our people are holding firmly to the promise of inclusion in a...
Saliem Fakir -
Two more passenger “fast-train” routes are being mooted, one between Johannesburg and Durban and the other from Johannesburg to the north of the country.
Ordinary citizens may wonder if we need to spend scarce money on new rail infrastructure. Is South Africa’s money not better spent on improving freight rail that could take lots of trucks off our roads by transporting goods safely and easily to and from our harbours? And what about public transport for the poor?
Have we...
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed Chinese human rights activist, Liu Xiaobo, has raised tension between China and the West.
Xiabo advocates for human rights, freedom of expression and democracy in China and his activism has resulted in an 11-year jail sentence for what has been described as "subversion" by the Chinese government.
The Nobel Peace Committee, awarded Xiabo the peace prize for using non-violence to demand human rights, raising China's ire....
Walden Bello -
The problem with us progressives as this time of crisis is not that we lack an alternative paradigm to pit against the discredited neoliberal paradigm. No, the elements of the alternative based on the values of democracy, justice, equality, and environmental sustainability are there and have been there for sometime, the product of collective intellectual and activist work over the last few decades.
The key problem is the failure of progressives to translate their vision and values into a...
