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?
Jane Duncan -
Sick and tired of too much foreign content on television and too much political meddling in the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)? Fed up with some of the most exploitative communications costs in the world? Well, now is your opportunity to say and do something out these problems, in theory at least.
The Department of Communications is reviewing all policies impacting on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Parliament intends to review the laws as well. This...
A new expose by Mother Jones magazine may shock anyone who drinks out of plastic bottles, gives their children plastic sippy cups, eats out of plastic containers, or stores food with plastic wrap. For years, public campaigns have been waged against plastic containing bisphenol-A (BPA), a controversial plastic additive, due to concerns about adverse human health effects caused by the exposure to synthetic estrogen. But a new investigation by Mother Jones reporter Mariah Blake has revealed...
John Feffer -
The Cold War is history. For those growing up today, the Cold War is as distant in time as World War II was for those came of age in the 1970s. In both cases, empires collapsed and maps were redrawn. Repugnant ideologies were laid bare and then laid to rest, though patches of nostalgia persist.
Surely the Cold War has been consigned to the textbooks as irrevocably as the Battle of the Bulge. The Berlin Wall is in pieces. The U.S. president speaks of the abolition of nuclear weapons. The...
Following the overthrow of the government of Ukraine, Russia occupied (some say invaded) strategic locations in Crimea on February, 28. Nevertheless, Russia has had a military presence in Crimea (a province of the Ukraine) for more than a decade. On Thursday this week, the Crimean parliament voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The issue will be put to a public referendum in the next 10 days. Meanwhile President Vladimir Putin has indicated that Russia has no...
Mark Engler and Paul Engler -
Three years ago this month, the 82-year-old president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, stepped down amid historic protests against his dictatorial rule. News of his resignation on Feb. 11, 2011 marked the climax of an uprising that was quickly recognized as one of the most sudden and significant upheavals of the 21st century. As the New York Times reported, “The announcement, which comes after an 18-day revolt led by the young people of Egypt, shatters three decades of political stasis and...
Mohamed Motala -
In the last few weeks, a terrible tragedy has been unfolding right beneath the feet of Johannesburgers. It is estimated that 100 miners have been trapped underground. Their bodies are being recovered very slowly, one by one. To date 24 bodies have been recovered from a mine near Roodepoort and an unknown number from a mine near Benoni.
Nobody knows the actual number of men and women still trapped or dead underground because the work they do is considered illegal. So the authorities simply...
