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?
Economists never in their wildest imagination anticipated a technology revolution whose productivity was so extreme that it is bringing marginal costs to near zero, making goods and services essentially free, abundant and beyond profit in the exchange capitalist economy. That's what's beginning to happen, argues Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends. We saw the zero marginal cost phenomenon sweep through the information goods industry when, facilitated by the...
Joeva Rock -
As the world remains transfixed by the kidnapping of almost 300 Nigerian girls, there have been increasing calls for international intervention in the effort to rescue them. But what many Americans don’t know is that the U.S. military has been active in the region for years. With the Iraq War over and the war in Afghanistan slowly ending, it is becoming increasingly apparent—from interviews with generals, recommendations from influential think tanks, and private conversations with...
Richard Pithouse -
Narendra Modi, a politician who combines a form of hyper-capitalism that produces fabulous wealth for some at the cost of ruination for many others with a narrow and dangerously chauvinistic form of hyper-nationalism, will soon take office as the new Prime Minister of India. The results of the election that bought Modi into office should give anyone who retains a naïve faith that democratic processes will always favour democrats, or that the assertion of nationalist sentiment from within...
The Western Cape produces more than 80 percent of South Africa’s table grapes and the Berg and Hex River Valleys are the country's primary production areas. Table grapes are among the world's most traded fruits and the prevailing climatic conditions in these valleys provide an unusually long eight-month window for production.
IRIN's latest film, Land of Dust, looks at the conditions of the workers in the Hex River Valley, where long hours, low wages, poor health and education...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa is about to embark on a radical restructuring of its health industry in order to provide universal access to good medical resources.
The astronomical cost of medicine has consistently outstripped inflation. These costs are driven by three primary factors: Firstly the progressively technological nature of intervention, using devices like CAT scans in sophisticated facilities. Secondly, doctors are increasingly specialised and innovative, which raises costs, particularly in...
Loneliness has become the most common ailment of the modern world. One of the possible reasons for this is the online social network. We're collecting friends like stamps and not distinguishing between quantity and quality. We're exchanging the deep meaning and intimacy of friendship for chats instead of having conversations. By doing so, we're sacrificing conversation for mere connection. And so a paradoxical situation is created in which we claim to have many friends while actually...
