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?
Tom Walker -
Rows upon rows of empty seats. That was the dominant image of the first few days of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The seats are empty because the fat cats and the preening Olympic officialdom have seats reserved for them, but they can’t be bothered to turn up.
TV footage has shown huge areas of the venues left empty during sold out events - angering people who were denied tickets.
Olympics spokespeople said these are the seats reserved for the “Olympic family”,...
Saliem Fakir -
The Democratic Alliance (DA) released its “Working for Change, Working for Jobs” economic plan for South Africa a week ago.
Where the ANC’s economic plan lacks a united front and coherence - as demonstrated in a recent ANC policy conference - the DA hopes to capture the public imagination with its own image for the future and by taking the gap created by a faltering ANC.
Where the ANC is mesmerised by the virtues of the state, the DA is mesmerised by the virtues of the...
Africa generates massive amounts of money from its natural resources, government revenue and official development assistance. But up to 60% of these funds leave the continent and ends up financing private wealth in offshore financial centers, such as London, New York and Paris - centers that thrive on the tradition of banking secrecy. Léonce Ndikumana, a professor and academic at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, argues that dealing with corrupt African leaders is only half...
Joel Schalit -
The name of the neighborhood could not have been more symbolic. Located in southern Tel Aviv, the impoverished Hatikva quarter has always born the stigma of sharing a name with Israel’s national anthem, while playing home to some of the poorest, most marginalized Jews in the country—as well as a growing population of African asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and South Sudan.
On May 23, Hatikva had the dubious distinction of hosting the worst race riots since Israel’s...
Saliem Fakir -
Is the mining sector in crisis?
It was a source of lively debate at a conference titled, “Mining Dialogue 360 Degrees”, hosted by the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) from 10-12 July 2012 and sponsored by the Royal Bafokeng (disclosure: the author was one of the moderators at this event).
The post-1994 accord that was bridged in Lusaka with business and the multi-party negotiations process led to a compromise. The private sector would be...
Musician and activist, Dave Randall, has written a superb article about the music behind the Arab revolutions highlighting some great music videos from Syria, Egypt and Tunisia. We feature the Syrian clip above and link to the others from this post.
Syria
In the clip above, listen to firefighter and part-time poet, Ibrahim Qashoush, singing in the "traditional call and response folk form of the region", as he criticises the Assad regime at a protest. "A few days...
