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?
The clip above is Part One of an Al Jazeera interview conducted by Riz Khan. Watch Part Two of the interview here. On Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez won a referendum for a constitutional amendment to lift the country's presidential term limit, paving the way for him to run again in 2013. Electoral Authorities say that 54% of the electorate approved the amendment to the constitution to remove the presidential term limit. Chavez's critics, who include former Venezuelan trade...
Kim Nicolini -
It's no wonder Revolutionary Road was shut out of the Oscars. As stated in this article from the New York Times, this year the Academy is looking to stories of the “indomitability of human will” to grace with its little gold statues. All of the nominees for best picture are “films built on individual successes” that provide “a nice, big chunk of uplift.” From Slumdog Millionaire to Milk to Frost/Nixon, these are stories where the little guy can beat the big...
What would make you start a revolution - living under a dictatorship, having your freedom of expression threatened, slavery, hunger, corporate hegemony? This clip provides some interesting viewpoints making the case for and against revolutions. "The possibility that it might succeed," is Canadian novelist, Margaret Attwood’s whimsical response to the question. "Revolutions betray themselves and eat their own children,” says Oxford Professor, Stein Ringen in his...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Minister Trevor Manuel referred to debates on the size of deficits as an illusionary delusion, asking South Africans to focus on the effectiveness and quality of spending. Underlying this perspective is an important assumption that tough choices in economic policy have placed us in a better position.
Today, we have more money, and are able to responsibly increase the deficit, because of these choices, argues Minister Manuel. Assessing the record of government in this manner is however, an...
Rebecca Solnit -
In December, reports surfaced that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pushed his Wall Street bailout package by suggesting that, without it, civil unrest in the United States might grow so dangerous that martial law would have to be declared. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned of the same risk of riots, wherever the global economy was hurting. What really worried them wasn't, I suspect, the possibility of a lot of people thronging the...
Saliem Fakir -
The impact of the power revolution is most felt in the way in which the new steam and electrical technologies transformed human life in general – forever, so to speak. One thing fed another, producing a cacophony of innovation and redefining the very nature of abundance.
What industrialisation and the power revolution have unleashed for the west has become the dream of not only of one power, but many powers who feel they have been excluded from its magic and capacity to bring seemingly...
