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?
Former Irish president Mary Robinson spoke on a panel about climate change this weekend at the COP16 climate conference in Cancún, Mexico. Robinson talked about the need for a global climate fund that will help poor people protect themselves from the growing threats of global warming.
Robinson recently launched the Mary Robinson Foundation–Climate Justice.
MARY ROBINSON: I believe that this is the biggest human rights issue of the 21st century, and I believe that...
Dale T. McKinley -
I am not sure whether the word ‘polipreneurship’ has ever been part of our political lexicon but I do know that what it represents has been with us for some time now, not just in South Africa, but globally. At its most basic level, polipreneurship can be defined as ‘politics as business’.
While there were no doubt some political figures in the pre-capitalist era that could be more broadly classified as polipreneurs (the practitioners), it was the arrival and...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
As workers celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the whisper of “back to basics” is gaining momentum. This is reassuring, as the celebrations by COSATU suggest a lull in its political programme and raises the danger of what politicos call “triumphalism.”
Certainly there should be pride, as 25 years ago COSATU was launched in a context of political repression. Its very survival was under question. However, what the...
How do moral revolutions occur? How, in today's world, can a universal moral stand bring an end to brutal and questionable social customs, such as honour killings and child marriages?
In trying to provide answers to these questions, Prof. Kwame Anthony Appiah who teaches philosophy at Princeton University explains how cruel and inhumane acts that once qualified as custom (such as slavery), collapsed when they were put under moral scrutiny.
When Appiah was conducting research...
Over the weekend, in Ireland thousands of people protested against austerity measures and against bearing the burden of the Irish crisis. Ireland's austerity program involves raising the sales tax or VAT to 23%. At the same time corporate tax is pegged at 12,5% and will not be raised.
Just how did the Irish miracle turn into the Irish nightmare?
Professor Leo Panitch at York University says Ireland arrived at this mess via the bust of the financial sector that Ireland didn't cause. It...
Jane Duncan -
What ails South Africa’s security cluster? The military has been mired in controversy recently over the cluster’s lack of transparency. Questions that have been asked and answered in the public domain for years about the military’s use of resources are not being answered now on grounds of ‘national security’.
Nyami Booi has been fired as Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Defence, for taking the Zuma administration’s professed commitment to an...
