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?
Paul Jay of The Real News Network talks to Danny Schechter, a journalist, author and documentary filmmaker who is involved in a new film called The Making and Meaning of 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom'. His latest book is Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela. This interview looks back at the era of negotiations that ushered in South Africa's democracy 20 years ago and reflects on the enormous compromises that the ANC made when it came into power. According to Schechter, South...
Steven Friedman -
On one level, the question seems ridiculous. All elections offer choices and all of us are allowed to vote. So many parties are likely to appear on this year’s ballot paper that the Independent Electoral Commission might face a serious printing challenge. Isn’t the fact that we can all choose who will govern us from a wide array of parties one of the great achievements of the fight against apartheid?
Yes and No. The vote is an essential tool for citizens who want a share in the...
Jane Duncan -
And another one bites the dust. Yet another Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Lulama Makhoba, has left the beleaguered South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) before her term of office expires. Speculation has been rife that her position had become untenable given the growing power of Chief Operating Officer (COO), Hlaudi Motsoeneng.
This leadership saga has grabbed the headlines, eclipsing another, less-well publicised process, the SABC’s editorial policy review. The...
For many people these days, the last thing you look at before you go to bed is news headlines and the first thing you look at when you wake up the next morning is the news. Meanwhile during the day, people are constantly checking up on the news. What are people expecting to discover with this constant interest in the news? Would we be happier turning away from the news or do we have an obligation to keep up with what transpires around us?
For a fascinating and quite funny talk on the...
Dale T. McKinley -
If you hadn’t already noticed the ever-expanding waistlines of most of our politicians – a tell-tale sign of a political class feeding feverishly at the public trough - then you might have missed the latest bulging of their other ‘stomach’, salaries.
Following enabling recommendations from the ‘Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers’, President Zuma signed off on the most recent salary hike for the country’s national...
"The great inequality in developing countries makes it difficult to see that an advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport," argues Enrique Peñalosa, the former mayor of Bogotá in Colombia. Peñalosa shares some of the tactics he used to change the transportation dynamic in the Colombian capital...and suggests ways to think about building smart cities of the future.
One of the biggest...
