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?
Lauren McCauley -
During his historic trip to Bethlehem on Sunday, Pope Francis made waves after taking a surprise detour to pray at what is known as the "apartheid wall."
The stop at the barrier—which annexes Palestinian land, cutting off Palestinians from their fields, livelihood, and each other—was made on the second day of the pontiff's Middle East visit after touring Jordan on Saturday.
Describing the detour, the Guardian reports:
His route had been planned to pass...
Attending an event hosted by SACSIS on 22 May 2014, NUMSA's Dinga Sikwebu, education officer and the co-ordinator of its newly formed "United Front" said that the union "recognised that the shadow of the ANC is going to be with us for a long time."
The remark was made in response to the question that framed a discussion, which evaluated the outcome of South Africa’s 2014 General Election: "Will the ANC rule until Jesus returns?"
Sikwebu took the...
Signs of overt racism are still prevalent in America, evident in a New Hampshire police commissioner’s use of an ethnic slur to describe President Obama. Despite the media highlighting the problem and people shaking their heads in disbelief, the problem of racism is rarely, if weakly addressed.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor at The Atlantic magazine, thinks it’s time for a bold step to change the way people talk and think about race in America. Bill Moyers speaks to Coates...
Glenn Ashton -
Antibiotic resistant bacteria have brought humanity to the dawn of a new era of medical uncertainty and risk. This has emerged through a simple evolutionary trend, where some of the most basic organisms on earth have managed to thwart our ingenuity over the course of slightly more than half a century.
Recent medical and scientific progress has extended human longevity well beyond the traditional biblical time-span of 70 years, across many parts of the world. One of the most important...
Six Iranian youth who danced in a YouTube video to the song by Pharrell Williams "Happy", were arrested by Iranian authorities. Following a public outcry, they have been released. But the director of the video is still being held in custody. What is all this about? Why were these kids arrested in the first place? Analyst Trita Parsi argues that there’s a cultural war going on in Iran. Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani is seen as a reformist with a softer stance on the...
Fazila Farouk -
Inequality is hard to avoid here in the most unequal country in the world, yet South Africa’s chattering classes have for a very long time done exactly that. Admittedly there are many titillating distractions, from our polygamous president engulfed in corruption scandals to the vulgar display of wealth by our black economic empowerment beneficiaries, there is much to keep the chins of the more established sections of South African society wagging in gloomy disapproval.
However, as...
