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?
Tim Wise -
"He was no angel." That’s the refrain, repeated for over two months on social media by defenders of Officer Darren Wilson, convinced that Michael Brown was little more than a violent and dangerous thug who deserved to die that August day in Ferguson.
From the beginning, Wilson’s supporters used Brown’s strong-arm theft of cigars from a local market as justification for what happened to him. “Thieves deserve their fate,” came the refrain from many a...
Glenn Ashton -
South African economic prospects have recently been downgraded, yet again, by major credit ratings agencies (CRA’s). The nation’s sovereign rating now stands just above junk bond status. Major parastatals like Eskom and Sanral have also been knocked by ratings declines because of poor planning and investment decisions. Similarly, South Africa’s highly regarded and robust banking system has been marked down by the CRA’s, precipitated by the recent blowback of African...
Manuel Perez-Rocha & Julia Paley -
With Republicans winning big in the midterm elections, the debate over so-called “free-trade” agreements could again take center stage in Washington.
President Barack Obama has been angling for “fast-track” authority that would enable him to push the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP—a massive free-trade agreement between the United States and a host of Pacific Rim countries—through Congress with limited debate and no opportunity for amendments....
The Swedish Court of Appeals upheld the continued detention of Julian Assange on Thursday, 20 November 2014. Assange has been held for four years without being charged with a crime, two of which he has spent in asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Michael Ratner, U.S. lawyer for Assange and president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights provides some insights into the implications of this latest development. While the prosecutor in the Assange case was reprimanded by the...
Anna Majavu -
More platitudes can be expected this coming week when Parliament's portfolio committee on environmental affairs goes on a mission to find the facts about air quality in the highly polluted unfortunate Black, working class communities in the Vaal.
Communities in the Vaal seem to be caught up in a ridiculous and perpetual charade whereby the ANC government fails to electrify their homes, then with that in mind, the coalmines dump their “below quality” coal next to the communities...
At a recent event hosted by SACSIS and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in which we explored “left, right and centre” views on South Africa’s economic development, a journalist snuck in a question about the panel’s views on the Economic Freedom Fighters.
It was interesting to hear what Ann Bernstein of the Centre for Development and Enterprise and Trudi Makhaya, economic analyst at eNCA Africa, had to say about the new political party.
Bernstein argued that while...
