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?
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa continues to haemorrhage jobs. This in a country that by the kindest description is already beset by unemployment, with estimates of unemployment varying between an optimistic 23% to a more realistic 35%. What factors underlie our failure to open up employment to more people?
Despite improved levels of education and huge resources being poured into job training schemes through the controversial SETA programmes, opportunities for matriculants – and even graduates - to...
During the past four decades Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a financial haemorrhage, much of it as a result of corrupt, kleptocratic dictatorships that funnelled money out of the country to international banks during the Cold War. While many dictators have fallen, the results of their corrupt ways still affect the people of the subcontinent. Is it fair to ask Africans to pay back the loans of corrupt dictators?
Africa’s people are poor because “the subcontinent's...
Charlene Houston -
October 15, 2011 was World Revolution Day – a physical manifestation of the discontent sweeping through the world at this time. South Africans joined in the protest action. October has also historically been “Transport Month” in South Africa and as the long brewing discontent increasingly spills over, I can’t resist wondering if we will see collective action emerging to champion public transport issues.
The absence of organised public reaction to the pathetic...
Richard Pithouse -
On Thursday and Friday this week the ANC Youth League will lead marches on the JSE, the Chamber of Mines and the Union Buildings. Julius Malema's disciplinary hearing is likely to be concluded earlier in the week and these protests are planned as a show of force intended to either weaken the resolve of the disciplinary committee or to make it look like a reactionary clique opposed to the interests of the people as a whole.
Malema is power hungry, corrupt, authoritarian and brutish. But he's...
On 18 October 2011, Hilary Clinton was in Tripoli, Libya, and according to the Associated Press, said in unusually blunt terms, that the United States would like to see Muammar Gaddafi dead. "Well, two days later, they got their wish," says Paul Jay of The Real News Network.
Jay talks to Firoze Manji, editor-in-chief of Pambazuka News about the significance of Gaddafi's death. "This was an extrajudicial killing supported by Hilary Clinton," says Manji.
Jane Duncan -
South Africa has a sorry history of its intelligence services being abused for political ends. In 1994, the country was promised that never again would those in power be in a position to misuse the state apparatus to spy on their political opponents.
This promise was repeated after the bruising succession battle between then president Thabo Mbeki and his successor, Jacob Zuma, after evidence emerged that National Intelligence Agency (NIA) officials took sides in the battle. The NIA has...
