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?
"There are six trillion cigarettes smoked every year worldwide. This is enough to make a continuous chain from the Earth to the Sun and back with enough left over for several round trips to Mars," argues Robert Proctor, Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University.
This also translates to 360 million miles of cigarettes depositing 60,000 metric tons of soot, cyanide and radioactive polonium into the lungs of smokers.
Cigarettes persist because of the enormous...
Robin Broad and John Cavanagh -
The statistics upon which most poverty elimination strategies are based are extremely misleading, and often steer experts toward the wrong solutions.
Now here is what sounds like a New York Times headline to celebrate: “Dire Poverty Falls Despite Global Slump, Report Finds.” That report would be a 6-page World Bank briefing note, the press release for which is titled: “New Estimates Reveal Drop in Extreme Poverty 2005-2010.” Echoes The Economist: “For the...
Michelle Pressend -
In June this year, the United Nations Conference of Environment and Development (UNCED) popularly known, as the Rio Earth Summit will commemorate 20 years. It was originally held in Brazil in 1992. You may recall that in 2002, South Africa hosted the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), so this year also marks WSSD+10, though it doesn’t seem to have the same prominence as Rio+20.
The Rio Earth Summit was one of the most significant global environmental gatherings as world...
Glenn Ashton -
While motorists feel the pain of the recent ascent of the oil price to near record levels, the underlying reality of rising oil prices has profound implications right across society.
Barring an unprecedented oil discovery, the world will never again see the return of cheap oil. Oil prices will certainly never return to the levels of the 1990s, or even the first half of the first decade of this century.
The rise in oil prices is the harbinger of a major restructuring of modern...
Jane Duncan -
How many South Africans are aware of the massive changes in the pipeline for free-to-air television? Not many, it would seem.
Most countries need to switch off their analogue signals and replace them with digital signals by 2015, by agreement with the International Telecommunications Union. In South Africa, this means that existing television viewers will need to buy set top boxes for approximately R700 to decode the digital signal, so that they can continue to receive television on...
Nicholas Pell -
What a difference a year makes. It's hard to believe that this time in 2011, the world was abuzz over the Arab Spring. Flying in the face of the "death of history" narrative, the Arab Spring shocked the world by overturning some of its most entrenched authoritarian governments. Soon after, Occupy Wall Street became the American protest movement, both inspired by actions in the Arab world, as well as urging young Arabs on to further action. It seems pretty safe to say that the 21st...
