The release of the Green Paper on National Health Insurance (NHI) has rekindled the heated debate around reforming South Africa’s health system. After a decade of denialism and neglect in the public health sector, it is evident that health is in a state of crisis and...
rural
The Green Paper on Land Reform: no change for the landless | by Stephen Greenberg
In 1994 the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) set a target for the transfer of 30% of land to black ownership within 5 years. But 17 years later, no more than 7% has been transferred. What are the causes of this dismal performance?First, the ‘willing...
The Negev’s Hot Wind Blowing | by Jonathan Cook
Over the past 15 months the dusty plains of the northern Negev desert in Israel have been witness to a ritual of destruction, part of a police operation known as Hot Wind. On 29 occasions since June 2010, hundreds of Israeli paramilitary officers have made the...
The employment guarantee scheme in India | by Kaustav Banerjee
Mass joblessness is an everywhere phenomenon in the developing world. The existence of an ever-growing reserve army of labour manages to keep working wages below a living minimum. Hence, the majority of the working class in any third world economy can get nicely tied...
Marxism in power in Africa: the rise and fall | by Daryl Glaser
Marxism-Leninism as a movement and form of regime in Africa attained the height of its powers – certainly of its access to state power – between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s. Its ‘moment’ followed in the wake of an earlier failed experiment in ‘African socialism’...
The Shape of the Beast | by Arundhati Roy
The Shape of the Beast is our world laid bare by a mind that has consistently and unhesitatingly engaged with its changing realities and often anticipated the way things have moved in the last decade. In the fourteen interviews collected here, conducted between...

