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?
Saliem is an independent writer and columnist for SACSIS based in Cape Town.
He is currently active in the sustainable energy field and works for the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Saliem was previously a senior lecturer at the Department of Public Administration and Planning and associate Director for the Center for Renewable and Sustainable Energy at the University of Stellenbosch (2007-2008) where he taught a course on renewable energy policy and financing of renewable energy projects.
Saliem previously worked for Lereko Energy (Pty) Ltd (2006) an investment company focusing on project development and financial arrangements for renewable energy, biofuels, waste and water sectors. He also served as Director of the World Conservation Union South Africa (IUCN-SA) office for eight years (1998-2005).
Saliem has served on a number of Boards. Between 2002-2005 he served as a chair of the Board of the National Botanical Institute. He also served on the board of the Fair Trade in Tourism Initiative, and was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Global Reporting Initiative, based in Amsterdam.
He currently serves on the advisory board of Inspired Evolution One, a private fund involved in clean technology.
Saliem's qualifications are: B.Sc Honours molecular biology (WITS), Masters in Environmental Science, Wye College London. He also completed a senior executive management course at Harvard University in 2000.
Saliem Fakir -
It would be a squint-eyed view to read in Obama’s victory just a historic moment for African-Americans in the United States of America (USA).
It should be granted that Obama’s entry through the front door of the White House rather than the back door, once reserved for black cleaners only, does mark a turning point in black history.
African-Americans have come a long way since the days of slavery, the civil rights movement and many other sacrifices they have had to make to claim...
Saliem Fakir -
Ida Tarbell is long forgotten and very few know of her. Tarbell left us with a seminal work -- a piece of investigative journalism that led to the publication of the first expose of the doings of the Standard Oil Company.
She carved a new style of investigative journalism in which personal ethics played a big role. Tarbell was also a feminist and undertook some insightful appraisals of the working of corporations and the business world.
Tarbell was one of the few brave investigative...
Saliem Fakir -
It must have started somewhere of course. Someone let the genie out of the bottle. Thabo Mbeki denies he let it out. He believes he had good grounds to fire Jacob Zuma and disagrees with Judge Nicholson's interpretation that he used the National Prosecuting Authority to pursue a political vendetta.
He has also challenged Zuma to debate him live on TV, Obama and McCain style, in an attempt to once and for all set the record straight. Zuma refuses the duel.
In the meanwhile, Mbeki has filed...
Saliem Fakir -
Book: The Man Who Loved China
The fantastic story of the eccentric scientist who unlocked the mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: Harper Collins
Reviewer: Saliem Fakir
In 1824, the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote off China as 'the booby nation'. Emerson’s attitude marked the pervasive western prejudice doing its rounds on China: a poor backward country, suffering from squalor and poverty. Not much was known...
Saliem Fakir -
The dismissal of Thabo Mbeki and the walkout by eleven ministers and some deputies indicates that a severe split exists within the African National Congress (ANC), despite claims to the contrary.
The fissure began in 2005 when Zuma was fired by Mbeki and persisted well beyond the Polokwane Congress in December 2007. Frantic efforts have been made to keep the fight within the ANC and restore unity --seemingly without avail.
Crises are usually fertile ground for fear, panic and opportunity --...
Saliem Fakir -
We live in interesting times that promise both peril and opportunity. Things have changed so fast within the span of just a year that it's putting a strain on our ability to adapt.
It took five years from 2002-2007 for the oil price to go up by $60/barrel; but in the last 12 months, the price of oil surged by an additional $70/barrel.
The surge in oil prices is making life for everybody uncomfortable, as its ripple effects are being felt throughout the global and South African economies. It...
