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?
South Africa plays an important role in the Southern African region and on the African continent, as a whole. SACSIS will provide news about the region and the continent, with a particular focus on South Africa's relationship to the rest of the African continent.
Glenn Ashton -
We are more than a decade into the global experiment to utilise biotechnology to genetically engineer some of our major food crops, yet the facts around this supposed agricultural revolution remain as disputed as ever.
We were told there were two primary motivations to promote genetically modified (GM) crops. The first was that they would be able to increase agricultural productivity in order to feed a burgeoning global population on less land. The second was that we would be able to...
Julie Hollar -
The wars that have wracked the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1996, killing well over 5 million people (International Rescue Committee, 1/08) in what may be the deadliest conflict since World War II, are officially over. A peace agreement was signed in 2002, and general elections were held in 2006.
But conflict and the humanitarian crisis continue. The most recent survey (IRC, 1/08) estimated that 45,000 people are dying each month from conflict-related causes (primarily hunger and...
Democracy Now -
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now interviews the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist, lawmaker and civil society activist, Wangari Maathai. Her latest book, The Challenge for Africa, tackles the broad obstacles to living in peace, justice, environmental and economic security for the one billion people across the continent of Africa.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Kenyan environmentalist, lawmaker and civil society activist, Wangari Maathai. She spearheaded...
Glenn Ashton -
The new international land and agricultural resources grab – neo-colonialism writ large...
Just when colonialism was considered dead and buried, along comes neo-colonialism in its latest guise. Allied with its close relatives globalisation, free marketeering and lack of transparency, it is currently launching a new offensive on the disempowered population of this continent.
Kwame Nkrumah, along with others in the post-colonial Pan Africanist movement, coined the term 'neo-colonialism'...
Michelle Pressend -
More than 80 percent of the population is still dependent on biomass for energy in the Southern African region, particularly, wood, cow dung and coal. It is mainly women and children in rural areas that bear the brunt of the lack of access to modern, safe and affordable energy. They are the ones that collect wood and search for coal in and around operating and abandoned mines.
As a consequence of no access to modern, safe, clean and affordable energy -- such as electricity -- many...
Loren Landau & Tara Polzer -
With Robert Mugabe begrudgingly accommodating Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara at the bridge of Zimbabwe’s sinking ship, there is at last hope that the once proud country will soon find its way to calmer waters. Although anxious of snags ahead, no one is more relieved than the millions of Zimbabweans both in and outside the country who have suffered through more than eight years of violence, persecution, and economic tragic-comedy.
Cheering almost as loud are...
