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 Rio+20 summit is taking place from 20-22 June 2012 in Brazil where world leaders will be asked to make "voluntary commitments" towards a global plan for sustainable development.
But, it looks like prospects for a new global agreement, which everybody signs on to, are looking bleak.
The Inter Press Service reports that after two weeks of closed-door negotiations, a United Nations preparatory committee (PrepCom) has failed to reach consensus on a global plan of action for...
Walden Bello -
The freer flow of commodities and capital has been one of the features of the contemporary process of globalization. Unlike in the earlier phase of globalization in the 19th century, however, the freer flow of commodities and capital has not been accompanied by a freer movement of labor globally. The dynamic centers of the global economy, after all, have imposed ever tighter restrictions on migration from the poorer countries.Yet the demand for cheap labor in the richer parts of the world...
Glenn Ashton -
UNISA, the University of South Africa, has established an excellent reputation over its 138-year history. Even during apartheid it served everyone in the country through its open distance education model. Many past and present leaders earned their degrees whilst incarcerated for anti-apartheid activities, this fact recently receiving praise from President Zuma. There are still prisoners within the corrections system receiving UNISA tuition. UNISA extends the possibility to realise our...
Amy Good man of Democracy Now! talks to world-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky about the Palestinian hunger strike. A tentative deal has reportedly been reached to end a landmark action that’s seen more than 2,000 jailed Palestinians go without food to pressure Israeli prison authorities to end the use of solitary confinement and ease a wide range of restrictions. "The hunger strikes are a protest against ... violations of the elementary human...
Social strategist Renny Gleeson talks about the rise of a culture of availability with the proliferation of mobile devices such as cell phones -- and an obligation to that availability. In this funny and poignant 3-minute talk, Gleeson breaks down our always-on social world where the experiences of the moment are less interesting than our documentation of these moments, which we tweet about or find other ways to record and share.
© TED Talks
Richard Pithouse -
On the first day of March in 1981 Bobby Sands, imprisoned in the Long Kesh for links to the armed resistance to the British occupation of Northern Ireland, began a hunger strike. For seventeen days he was able to keep a diary. The first entry begins with two lines that have become immortal: “I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul.”
In 1976 Margaret Thatcher's government had introduced a policy of 'criminalisation' that denied...
