The World

SACSIS seeks to examine global issues, particularly as they relate to South Africa.

USS Romney Goes Titanic

Picture: New Left Project Pepe Escobar - Willard "Mitt" Romney comfortably sees himself as the chief executive officer of a US$1 billion enterprise - the Republican Party election campaign that should place him as the next President of the United States (POTUS). Meanwhile, current POTUS Barack Obama is increasingly convinced he just needs to deploy a secret weapon to clinch re-election. That weapon is Mitt Romney. USS Romney is like one of those state-of-the art aircraft carriers parked somewhere between the Persian...

Holland Election Leaves Up in the Air the Question of 'Weed Pass' and the Future of Dutch Coffee Shops for Tourists

Picture: Alternet Elisabeth Garber-Paul - If the center-left Labor Party PvdA had won, or the Socialists, who made pot legalization a centerpiece of their campaign, there would be no question about the future of the world-famous Dutch coffeeshops, at least in the short term, and their ability to serve pot to visitors to Holland. But alas, the conservative leader Mark Rutte will be the next Dutch prime minister. Rutte's free-market VVD party won 41 seats in Parliament, versus 38 for the Labor Party, which came in...

Noam Chomsky: Why America and Israel Are the Greatest Threats to Peace

Picture: Alternet Noam Chomsky - It is not easy to escape from one’s skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let’s take a few examples. The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Imagine the situation to be reversed. Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power participation. Its leaders announce that negotiations are going nowhere. Israel refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation...

Corporate Greed Causes Empty Seats at the London Olympics

Picture: cstein96 Tom Walker - Rows upon rows of empty seats. That was the dominant image of the first few days of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The seats are empty because the fat cats and the preening Olympic officialdom have seats reserved for them, but they can’t be bothered to turn up. TV footage has shown huge areas of the venues left empty during sold out events - angering people who were denied tickets. Olympics spokespeople said these are the seats reserved for the “Olympic family”,...

African Migrants and the Israeli Apartheid Debate

Picture: Indy News Israel Joel Schalit - The name of the neighborhood could not have been more symbolic. Located in southern Tel Aviv, the impoverished Hatikva quarter has always born the stigma of sharing a name with Israel’s national anthem, while playing home to some of the poorest, most marginalized Jews in the country—as well as a growing population of African asylum seekers, mostly from Eritrea and South Sudan. On May 23, Hatikva had the dubious distinction of hosting the worst race riots since Israel’s...

A Win for the Spanish Indignados: Spain Opens Criminal Probe of Ex-IMF Chief in Case Linked to Global Financial Crisis

Picture: cabiados.net Amy Goodman - In Madrid, Spain, protesters are celebrating a major victory after that country’s high court opened a criminal investigation into the former head of Spain’s biggest mortgage lender. Rodrigo Rato, the former head of the IMF, has been ordered to appear in court to face criminal fraud accusations related to the downfall of Bankia, a banking giant that has sought tens of billions of dollars in bailout money. The news marks a rare case where a former executive is facing a criminal...