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?
Visit the archives.
Jane Duncan -
At the end of January, an all too familiar pattern of events played itself out in the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court in Durban. Four member of the shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, were arrested after a protest against problematic practices in a housing development in KwaNdengezi. They were accused of public violence, robbery, damage to property, and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
Charges were withdrawn against three in court, with the exception of...
Chris Nineham -
The global demonstrations on 15 February 2003 formed the biggest protest event in history. Researchers have estimated that up to 30 million people marched in around 800 cities. The day evokes an unusual mix of emotions in those who remember it. On the one hand hope and pride in the spectacular turnout and the magnificent feat of global co-ordination involved, on the other, a heavy heart that it failed to stop the Iraq catastrophe.
However, there is a history that can now...
Alternet Staff -
Hospital facing lawsuit after complying with a swastika-tattooed father's request that only white nurses care for his child.
In Michigan (USA), a neonatal nurse reports that she was removed from her job because of a Swastika-tattooed father who didn’t want his daughter treated by any African Americans.
The nurse, Tonya Battle, had been working at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, since 1988. Yet when a newborn girl came into the neonatal intensive care unit recently,...
Snatching people off the streets. Hanging people from the ceiling. A man freezing to death alone on a concrete floor. This is the story of how the United States used its position to cajole, persuade and strong-arm 54 other countries to take part in the CIA’s post-9/11 campaign of secret detention and torture. The Open Society Justice Initiative has released a 216-page report, “Globalising Torture” that exposes the extent of detentions and torture carried out in the name of...
From the tragedy at Marikana to the farm workers' strikes at De Doorns, it is evident that the South African economy is not working for the poor. At the same time, President Jacob Zuma campaigned on a ticket of "economic transformation" in the run up to his re-election as president of the ANC at Mangaung.
Will the ANC succeed in its quest for transformative economic development during President Zuma’s second term in office? Is this president Zuma's Lula moment? On 8...
Paul Jay of the Real News Network talks to Patrick Bond about the African Mining Indaba that took place in South Africa last week. Bond is the director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. While the nationalisation of mines is off the table, Bond argues that what we are seeing in South Africa is "an intensification of class and state capital struggles over mining."
Also watch this report for interesting remarks from Bond about the political...
