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?
A shop steward talks about HIV on the factory floor, highlighting challenges facing poor workers who are unable to afford treatment. She argues that it takes three months for workers to qualify for their sick benefits. Given the high cost of HIV drugs, poor workers continue to die despite the fact that they contribute to the economy.
This advertisement produced a few years ago was banned from South African television. It shows white and black South Africans in reversed roles. Whites as maids, blacks as madams and so on. How odd that the advertisment invoked such controversy so as to get banned. This reaction is particularly problematic in light of the fact that few seem to be objecting to the reality of seeing black people living poorly.
Fazila Farouk -
Nouveau environmentalists and the super rich are queuing up to fill their hybrid cars with ethanol blends. Agribusiness is selling its corn to the highest bidder while many millions around the world are being deprived of the right to eat.
It doesn’t seem to matter much that the production of corn-based ethanol releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than is actually gained by burning it as a fuel. In today’s world, the market dictates whether you eat grain or not --- and...
Benjamin Dangl -
In early July in Sicaya, Cochabamba, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that if he wins the August 10 recall vote on his presidency, "I'll have two and half years left." But if he loses the vote, "I'll have to go back to the Chapare" to farm coca again. Though the recall vote is likely to favor Morales, it's unclear if it will resolve many of the divided nation's conflicts.
This upcoming recall vote on the president, vice president and eight of nine departmental...
Jean Triegaardt -
The first decade of democratic dispensation in South Africa was hailed in many ways as an economic success. Macroeconomic stability was restored, the country’s debt level was reduced to internationally accepted norms, and the country attained an investment-grade credit rating. Growth was high in 2005, there were capital inflows and the rand was strong at that time. As a result of these achievements, economic growth and employment were finally beginning to increase, with observers, as...
Robert Weissman -
Tuberculosis, a treatable disease, kills 1.7 million people a year worldwide.
TB incidence, according to the World Health Organization seems to be correlated to broad social factors, like access to clean water and sanitation, HIV incidence and national health expenditures.
A just published study in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine investigates the role of a different possible explanatory factor: the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The researchers’ study focuses...
