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?
Democracy Now -
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now interviews the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist, lawmaker and civil society activist, Wangari Maathai. Her latest book, The Challenge for Africa, tackles the broad obstacles to living in peace, justice, environmental and economic security for the one billion people across the continent of Africa.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist, lawmaker and civil society activist, Wangari Maathai. She spearheaded...
Michael Hudson -
Not much substantive news was expected to come out of the G-20 meetings that ended on April 2 in London – certainly no good news was even suggested. Europe, China and the United States had too deeply distinct interests. American diplomats wanted to lock foreign countries into further dependency on paper dollars. The rest of the world sought a way to avoid giving up real output and ownership of their resources and enterprises for yet more hot-potato dollars. In such cases one expects a...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa has one of the most progressive water regulatory regimes in the world, based upon the constitutional right of access to sufficient food and water for all. This right is being realised by the government policy of supplying free water of 6000 litres a month to all households in South Africa.
Taking this a step further, a court ruling against pre paid water meters by Judge Moroa Tsoka stated "Water is life, sanitation is dignity - this case is about the fundamental...
Colette Francis -
In my first year of business school I sat on a fold-down seat in a crowded lecture theatre, listening to a professor with a Texan drawl hammer home the central principle of modern economics. I looked around to see hundreds of eighteen-year-olds swallow his words like bait on a hook. Self-interest is good. Self-interest is better. Self-interest is best. Tentatively I raised my hand.
"Excuse me, sir,’ I asked. ‘Shouldn’t we care about poor people?"
He started up...
The G20 was not about bringing about the 'new world order' touted by Britain's Gordon Brown. It was an attempt to maintain the 'old world order', contends Leo Panitch, Professor of political science at York University and author of "The American Empire and the Political Economy of Global Finance." In his view, the G20 countries have come together with an agreement around a bunch of rhetoric and some "not insignificant measures." The rhetoric is that they are united...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
The anti-colonial writer, Rabindranath Tagore reminds us, "The only real gift is the gift of strength, all other offerings are vain." To illustrate this he tells the story of the lamb and the Lord. The lamb constantly besieged by beasts, which are more powerful, turns to the Lord and asks, "Lord, how is it that all creatures seek to devour me?" The Lord replied "What can I do, my child? When I look at you, I myself am so tempted."
Tagore, a nationalist and a...
