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?
Shannon de Ryhove speaks with author and journalist Hein Marais about his new book, "South Africa Pushed to the Limit: The Political Economy of Change."
History's legacy is one of the reasons South Africa's black majority lives in poverty, says Marais.
The structure of the economy, its ability to create jobs and poverty trends that date back to the 1970's were not just going to go away because we have a democratic government, he contends.
Marais says his book is an attempt to...
Saliem Fakir -
Recently I walked into a public hospital and experienced first-hand rudeness and disdain from the staff when enquiring about the whereabouts of an ill friend.
I ask for directions to the emergency ward. I am given a half-hearted answer at the reception. The person’s directions are unhelpful. They are just waves and wild gestures, as if I were a nuisance who arrived at an inconvenient moment. It is as if I never should have asked.
Eventually, I come to a ward.
I ask a...
Chris Hedges -
Jess Goodell enlisted in the Marines immediately after she graduated from high school in 2001. She volunteered three years later to serve in the Marine Corps’ first officially declared Mortuary Affairs unit, at Camp Al Taqaddum in Iraq. Her job, for eight months, was to collect and catalog the bodies and personal effects of dead Marines. She put the remains of young Marines in body bags and placed the bags in metal boxes. Before being shipped to Dover Air Force Base, the boxes were...
US and allied forces have launched a wave of airstrikes in Libya to enforce a "no-fly zone." European and American planes have been pounding Libyan air defences.
In The Real News Network clip above, Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University - who has been studying the Libyan situation for years - offers a view on the US-led UN resolution to institute a no fly zone over Libya to protect the Libyan pro-democracy movement from Muammar Gaddafi's violent and...
Richard Pithouse -
A forensic investigation has concluded that more than R500 million has been misspent from the housing budget in Durban and recommended that criminal charges be brought against top officials, including the city’s manager Mike Sutcliffe.
It’s also emerged that tenders worth more than R80 million have been awarded to the immediate family of the city’s mayor, Obed Mlaba, and that the Mlaba Family Trust was part of an attempt to seize a tender worth R3 billion. There has also...
Glenn Ashton -
It is appropriate that Cape Town has been selected as the designated global focal point for this year's UN sponsored World Water Day on the 22nd of March.
South Africa faces serious threats from its increasingly scarce water supplies. We are one of the world's most water-stressed nations and have much in common with many other regions and nations around the world such as Australia, the south-west of the USA and north-west China.
South Africa provides the ideal context for this...
