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?
Liepollo Pheko -
‘Gedleyihlekisa’ is president Jacob Zuma’s middle name. It means “one who is crafty when faced with conniving people” or “one who is cunning” or even “laughing when people conspire and gang up against you.”
In the last few years Zuma’s political life has been predicated on a series of private issues, which have come into the public domain. His personal finances and rape trial both became the focus of national discourse sharply...
Israeli President Shimon Peres has denied reports that he offered to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa when he was defense minister in the 1970s. The Guardian newspaper of London published top-secret South African documents revealing that a secret meeting between then-defense minister Shimon Peres and his South African counterpart, P.W. Botha, ended with an offer by Peres for the sale of warheads "in three sizes."
The documents were first uncovered by senior editor at...
Throwing my shoes at Bush was a natural reaction to the killing of a million Iraqis and the orphaning of five million Iraqi children, says Muntadhar Al-Zaidi the television journalist who achieved worldwide fame for his brave act aimed at avenging Iraqi's for America's unjust war of aggression.
By flinging his shoes at him, Al Zaidi was sending Bush an unmistakable farewell message -- that he and his army were never welcomed by the Iraqi people, despite Bush's claims to the contrary.
Al...
Harry Browne -
It was April 1999, and I was in a Paris hotel room, idly watching television, amazed to see a TV chef scooping handfuls of "un peu de sel" to add to the soup. Then came an advertisement, from the station itself: "Nine months after World Cup 98... France celebrates the children of victory..." The premise was that the joy of the nation's triumph the previous summer had now emerged from the womb; the images were a series of close-ups of the arms and legs and bellies of...
Richard Pithouse -
When we are the prey and the vulture - Aimé Césaire, 'Batouque', Miraculous Weapons, 1956.
Last week Jacob Zuma visited the Sweetwaters shack settlement near Orange Farm in Johannesburg. He informed the nation that his shock at seeing human beings living like pigs had almost reduced him to tears. He also visited the Siyathemba settlement in Balfour where he, like a typical bullying ward councillor, berated angry residents for asking the questions that mattered.
Zuma's...
Leonard Gentle -
In the streets of Athens, tens of thousands march and protest, unions strike and even sections of the police and public servants join hands against an austerity programme. Daily, we go through a pattern of announcements from European Union (EU) finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB) promising bailouts and relief from market speculation, only to have the whole thing declared insufficient the next day, while “market jitters” continue...
