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?
Nick Turse -
They call it the New Spice Route, an homage to the medieval trade network that connected Europe, Africa, and Asia, even if today’s “spice road” has nothing to do with cinnamon, cloves, or silks. Instead, it’s a superpower’s superhighway, on which trucks and ships shuttle fuel, food, and military equipment through a growing maritime and ground transportation infrastructure to a network of supply depots, tiny camps, and airfields meant to service a...
Jane Duncan -
Recently the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications held the third in a series of public hearings on print media transformation. Many in the print media industry have been sceptical about the Committee’s motives in calling the sector to account on this issue, and understandably so.
Coming in the wake of the African National Congress's (ANC) threat of statutory regulation, as well as the Protection of State Information Bill, sections of the industry read these...
Anna Majavu -
With the DA beginning their campaign to wrest control of another few provinces from the ANC in the 2014 elections, the impoverished residents of Cape Town’s Lavender Hill and Hanover Park have become the latest convenient political footballs.
Like other so-called “Coloured” communities - Delft, Grassy Park, Ocean View and Bishop Lavis - Lavender Hill and Hanover Park remain derelict ghettoes, which appear to be stuck in a long forgotten era. A part-privatised leaky...
Fazila Farouk -
Highlighting the need for a more skilled workforce, Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor, recently encouraged youngsters to choose science and technology as a career path at a prize-giving event linked to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope - the world’s largest radio telescope that will be hosted in the Karoo.
Pandor said, "We don't want to rely on extracting raw materials from mines and exporting them to other countries any longer. Many leading economies in...
The Sky is Pink a recently released “emergency” short film from Josh Fox, Oscar-nominated director of the documentary Gasland, which addresses the urgent crisis of drilling and fracking in New York State, as that state’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, increasingly appears disposed to reversing a temporary moratorium on natural gas fracking.
The people of the Karoo in South Africa find themsleves in a similar situation, as our Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu,...
A Japanese parliamentary inquiry has concluded that the 2011 nuclear meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was "a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented".
The more than 600-page report urged greater safety around nuclear plants. It also urged the Japanese government to be more transparent about its relationship with the nuclear industry. In a surprise turn, the report also leveled criticism at the Japanese culture of...
