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?
The UN Climate Conference, COP 18, gets underway this week in Doha, as the Kyoto Protocol winds down and is set to expire by the end of this year. COP 18 is unlikely to emerge with a suitable replacement for Kyoto, as yearly climate talks grind on and disagreements about emissions reductions continue to foil any meaningful agreement that would halt global warming.
Kyoto set binding targets for industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% against 1990...
Eddie Cottle -
In 2008-09 Israel’s Blitzkrieg against Gaza resulted in the deaths of over 1400 Palestinians, four-fifths of whom were civilians and of which 350 were children. Amnesty International and other human rights groups had officially reported that Israel was in violation of international law as Israel had bombarded defenceless Palestinians with the white phosphorous bombs which caused most of its victims to be burned alive. Ironically in Greek, the word Holocaust means “sacrifice by...
Commenting on Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi's move to grant himself sweeping powers that has brought Egyptians back to the streets in protest, Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York, says Egypt has had an "open-ended revolution". After negotiating a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, Morsi passed edicts, which allow him to overrule any judicial oversight, essentially giving him dictatorial powers.
It is very...
Anna Majavu -
A recent Supreme Court of Appeal judgment has undermined the plight of incest victims who keep quiet about their ordeals after being threatened with death or given tokens by their abusive father figures.
In this recent judgment, Supreme Court of appeal judge Jeremiah Shongwe - with judges Lex Mpati, Carole Lewis, Belinda van Heerden and Nathan Erasmus concurring - reduced a rapist's life sentence to 15 years. The Limpopo High Court had earlier sentenced Edson Ndou to the mandatory...
James North -
At first, the latest awful news from the Democratic Republic of Congo sounds like just another installment of an ongoing saga common in the Western media, “Vicious African Tribal Factions Hate Each Other.” Several thousand armed predators who call themselves the M23 Movement and are inappropriately described as “rebels” have just seized control of Goma, a regional capital, and the renewed fighting is adding to a death toll that has already risen above 5 million since...
To call attention to the oftentimes-salacious methods of fundraisers and campaigns aimed at ending poverty in Africa, which profit handsomely from perpetually presenting Africans as needy, “Africa for Norway”, is a musical parody that turns the tables on convention by showing concerned Africans fundraising for freezing Norwegians. It’s counterintuitive, cheeky and very effective at calling attention to the fact that Africans are tired of negative stereotypes....
