August 2014

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Can the Constitution Respond to the Challenge of Addressing South Africa's Inequality?

Picture: SACSIS Video SACSIS caught up with constitutional law expert Prof. Pierre de Vos, author of the blog, Constitutionally Speaking, to talk about how the South African constitution could be applied to deal with South Africa’s most pressing challenge, our country’s inequality. On the question of whether our constitution could be applied to encourage more redistributive measures, de Vos argues that the constitution doesn’t have the power to change South Africa’s economic policies....

Protests in Venezuela: Struggle against a Dictatorship or Class Warfare?

Picture: The Blaze Video Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines travels to Venezuela on the trail of evidence to support claims from opposition protestors that they are being repressed by a brutal dictatorship, but finds a far more complex situation unfolding in the country. Opposition to the Venezuelan government comes from elite groups who are frustrated with the socialist policies of the state. Meanwhile, large numbers of poor Venezuelans whose lives improved dramatically under the late Hugo Chavez’s government,...

What Your Wi-Fi Reveals about You

Picture: Wondershaft Video How do you pick up a malicious online virus, the kind of malware that snoops on your data and taps your bank account? Often, it's through simple things you do each day without thinking twice. You'd be surprised how much personal information you're giving away simply by using your cell phone to pick up a Wi-Fi network whilst you're out and about. James Lyne reminds us that it's not only the NSA that's watching us, but ever-more-sophisticated cybercriminals, who exploit both weak code and...

Constitutional Crisis: Of What and for Whom?

Picture: Public Protector Thuli Madonsela courtesy GovernmentZA/flickr Dale T. McKinley - If the publicly expressed opinions of many opposition politicians, lawyers, academics, journalists and political commentators are to be believed then South Africa has already had several ‘constitutional crises’ and there are more hovering on the horizon.     Cast your memories back a decade and the messy saga involving then President Mbeki and his highly controversial attempts to protect his Police Chief Jackie Selebi. Claims flew thick and fast from several...

Battle over Austerity Collapses French Government

Picture: French President François Hollande courtesy Jean-Marc Ayrault/flickr Sarah Lazare - French President Francois Hollande took the dramatic step Monday of dissolving the country's government in the midst of a heated row over unpopular austerity policies - a move that effectively forced austerity critics from their positions and created a new cabinet of loyalists. The upheaval marks the second time in less than five months that Hollande has orchestrated a shake-up of the French cabinet and comes amid rising opposition to the austerity policies of the president, whose approval...

How the Brutalized Become Brutal

Picture: Al Arabiya English Chris Hedges - The horrific pictures of the beheading of American reporter James Foley, the images of executions of alleged collaborators in Gaza and the bullet-ridden bodies left behind in Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are the end of a story, not the beginning. They are the result of years, at times decades, of the random violence, brutal repression and collective humiliation the United States has inflicted on others. Our terror is delivered to the wretched of the earth with...