Articles by ICH
We found 2475 results.
America’s Shkreli Problem
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
9 Mar 2018 – Martin Shkreli was sentenced today to seven years in prison. The Shkreli personality disorder can be found on Wall Street, in the executive suites of America’s largest corporations, in Hollywood, in Silicon Valley, in our prestigious universities, and in Washington, even in Trump’s White House. Face it: America has a Shkreli problem.
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Behind Bars: Australia’s Shocking Cruelty to Aboriginal People with Disabilities (Part 5)
Michael Brull - New Matilda,
19 Mar 2018
The abuse of Aboriginal prisoners with disabilities in Australian jails is confronting, and ongoing. In the final piece in this special 5-part series, Michael Brull makes the case for urgent action.
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The Gulf Crisis Reassessed
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
12 Mar 2018 – The dysfunctionality of the Gulf Crisis, pitting a coalition of four countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt against tiny Qatar, is emblematic of the descent into multi-dimensional chaos, conflict, and coercion that afflicts much of the Middle East. Qatar may be tiny, but it is wealthy and has chosen for itself a somewhat independent path, and for this reason has experienced the wrath of the more reactionary forces operative in the region and world.
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A Debate on Peacemaking: Ending Occupation or Apartheid?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2018
9 Mar 2018 – The core disagreement is whether to retain the emphasis on ending occupation as still the best, and some say, the only path to peace, and my view that a sustainable peace can only be obtained by a process of eliminating the apartheid structure by which Israel currently subjugates the Palestinian people as a whole.
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U.S. Holocaust Museum Revokes Award to Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
Michael Schwirtz – The New York Times,
12 Mar 2018
7 Mar 2018 – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has revoked a prestigious human rights award it had given to the Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, now Myanmar’s civilian leader, faulting her for failing to halt or even acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of her country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
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Schooling
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2018
A young cowboy from Wyoming went off to college, but half way through the semester, he had foolishly squandered all his money. He called home.
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I Saw a Genocide in Slow Motion in Burma/Myanmar
Nicholas Kristof – The New York Times,
12 Mar 2018
2 Mar 2018 — Sometimes Myanmar uses guns and machetes for ethnic cleansing. But it also kills more subtly and secretly by regularly denying medical care and blocking humanitarian aid to Rohingya. Myanmar and its Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, are trying to make the Rohingya’s lives unlivable, while keeping out witnesses.
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The End of Dueling
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2018
During medieval times, it was a sign of honor and courage for men to challenge a rival to a duel by sword, typically someone who was in love with the same woman.
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Book Launch: Revisiting the Vietnam War-The Views and Interpretations of Richard Falk, edited by Stefan Andersson
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2018
Revisiting the Vietnam War: The Views and Interpretations of Richard Falk, edited by Stefan Andersson, Cambridge University Press, 2017 – Why the Legal and Political Debate on the Vietnam War Still Matters
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(Italiano) Pace e giustizia per il popolo Palestinese: una conversazione
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2018
La crisi umanitaria a Gaza è entrata nell’11° anno di un assedio crippling di Israele che rende le condizioni di vita dei palestinesi via via più complicate. Il blocco di quella che si definisce popolarmente “la prigione all’aperto più grande al mondo” vuol dire disoccupazione crescente, accesso intermittente ad acqua pura, un’economia sballata e infrastrutture carenti e mancanza di fondi che rendono la popolazione di due milioni vulnerabile alle forti piogge e a fenomeni meteorologici estremi.
→ read full articleOdds
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2018
A patient did not feel well and went to see his doctor. The doctor examined and told him, “I have some bad news and some good news.”
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Hot Water
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
If a frog is put into hot water, he jumps out. If he is put into tepid water, and the water is gradually heated, he remains in the water until he is boiled.
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America’s ‘Liberalism’ & Other Inhumane Styles of Governance at Home and Internationally
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
25 Feb 2018 – With apologies for this long post, which attempts to situate the struggle for an ethically and ecologically viable political future for the United States and the world in the overheated preoccupation with Trump and Trumpism, which is itself a distraction from the species challenges confronting the whole of humanity at the present time. Many of us, and I include myself, have allowed the side show to become the main attraction, which is itself a reason for struggle against the enveloping darkness.
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Coca-Cola and Nestlé to Privatize the Largest Reserve of Water in South America
Amanda Froelich | Truth Theory – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
5 Feb 2018 – Private companies such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé are allegedly in the process of privatizing the largest reserve of water, known as the Guarani Aquifer, in South America. The aquifer is located beneath the surface of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay and is the second largest-known aquifer system in the world.
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Why the Experience of Ahed Tamimi Matters So Much
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
13 Feb 2018 – It is now known by virtually everyone that a 16-year-old girl, now 17, named Ahed Tamimi, confronted Israeli soldiers on her family’s land shortly after her cousin, Mohammed, was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, causing a coma. The video of her actions has gone viral, showing the world a courageous young woman engaging in nonviolent acts of resistance, and then a day later in the middle of the night being arrested in her home and then charged with a series of crimes.
→ read full articleSounds Familiar… ?
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
A man is taking a walk in Central park in New York. Suddenly he sees a little girl being attacked by a pit bull dog. He runs over and starts fighting with the dog.
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Bisons and Bears
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2018
In the past, when the main danger bisons faced were predators such as bears, the best protection they had against danger was for them to form a circle, with the strong bulls on the outside and the females and young protected inside. But when hunters with guns arrived, forming a circle was the worst thing they could do. Instead of dispersing and running away, they presented a fixed, easy target and were massacred in large numbers.
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Where to Resist?
Richard Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2018
“I hear a lot from my students about ‘walking the talk,’” Eqbal Ahmad, a Pakistani scholar and anti-war activist said. “But I tell them that you can’t walk the talk without first having the talk. First you decide what’s real and what’s right; then you act on the basis of that understanding. Finally, the results of your action can force you to re-define what’s real and what’s right. That is what we call praxis.”
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Winter Olympics – Forging Peace or False Dawn?
Christa Case Bryant and Michael Holtz – The Christian Science Monitor,
19 Feb 2018
9 Feb 2018—If US threats of “fire and fury” do not stop them, try Olympic ice skates. That seems to be the thinking behind South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s eagerness to welcome North Korea to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics – and share the global stage that Seoul has been seeking for more than 15 years. But he is taking a big gamble.
→ read full articleIsrael Claims to Be a Jewish State and a Democratic State: Legalism vs Justice
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2018
11 Feb 2018 – The book is an important contribution to an understanding of two dimensions of the Palestinian experience within the state of Israel: first, the reliance on law to ‘legalize’ discrimination, and the accompanying denial of fundamental rights that has resulted; secondly, to develop a distinct Israeli jurisprudence that seeks to legitimize ‘ethnocracy,’ yet disguise this reality by claiming that the nationality laws and regulations distinguishing Jews and non-Jews do not invalidate Israeli claims to be a democracy.
→ read full articleForgetfulness
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2018
An elderly man went for his annual checkup to the doctor. After examining him, the doctor said, “I have two bad news for you. The first is that you have cancer.”
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Behind Bars: Australia’s Shocking Cruelty to Aboriginal People with Disabilities (Part 1)
Michael Brull – New Matilda,
19 Feb 2018
15 Feb 2018 – The abuse of Aboriginal prisoners with disabilities in Australian jails is confronting, and ongoing. In this special series Michael Brull profiles the shocking revelations uncovered.
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Peace and Justice for the Palestinian People: a Conversation
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Feb 2018
This is a modified text of an interview conversation with Khourosh Ziabari, initially published on the website of the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence on February 4, 2018.
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(Français) Que la solution à deux États meure de mort naturelle!
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – Investig’Action,
5 Feb 2018
30 Jan 2018 – Il soutient que les défenseurs sincères de la paix entre les Israéliens et les Palestiniens devraient accorder la priorité à combattre l’apartheid plutôt que de vouloir ranimer un « processus de paix » style Oslo (toujours une imposture) ou de proclamer que l’objectif d’une Palestine indépendante et souveraine est réalisable sans d’abord démanteler les structures d’apartheid, qui asservissent le peuple palestinien dans son ensemble, afin de préserver l’exigence sioniste qui veut qu’Israël soit l’état du peuple juif (plutôt que de lui procurer un foyer à l’intérieur d’un État légitime et normal dont les fondements sont l’égalité ethnique et religieuse, les droits de l’homme, et les principes laïcs.
→ read full articleClever
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Feb 2018
President Bush was informed that there was a threat of a bird flu epidemic.
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For Myanmar’s Army, Ethnic Bloodletting Is Key to Power and Riches
Richard C. Paddock – The New York Times,
5 Feb 2018
27 Jan 2018 – Myanmar’s army was born in blood 76 years ago and has been shedding it ever since. Its founders, known as the Thirty Comrades, established the army in 1941 with a ghoulish ceremony in Bangkok, where they drew each other’s blood with a single syringe, mixed it in a silver bowl and drank it to seal their vow of loyalty. It has spent the past seven decades warring with its own people.
→ read full articleCouples
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
A man believed his wife was hard of hearing.
→ read full articleWhy the United Nations Matters (even for the Palestinians)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
Despite understandable degrees of disillusionment, people of good will dedicated to UN ideals should not give up on the Organization or its potentiality, but work harder to make the UN come closer to fulfilling its original promise, needed now more than ever. Justice for the Palestinian people, however long deferred, remains the defining moral prism by which to assess the shifting balance between achieving global justice and bowing to the whims of geopolitics at the UN and elsewhere.
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Does the US Military “Own the Weather”? “Weaponizing the Weather” as an Instrument of Modern Warfare?
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
22 Jan 2018
8 Jan 2018 – Environmental modification techniques have been available to the US military for more than half a century. The issue has been amply documented and should be part of the climate change debate.
→ read full articleLet the Two-State Solution Die a Natural Death
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jan 2018
7 Jan 2018 – The proper priority for genuine advocates of peace between Israelis and Palestinians should be centered around apartheid rather than be devoted to reviving an Oslo style ‘peace process’ (always a sham) or proclaiming the goal of an independent and sovereign Palestine as attainable without first dismantling the apartheid structures that subjugate the Palestinian people as a whole so as to maintain the Zionist insistence on Israel as the state of the Jewish people.
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The Empire’s “Lefty Intellectuals” Call for Regime Change. The Role of “Progressives” and the Antiwar Movement
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
15 Jan 2018
9 Jan 2018 – The anti-war movement is dead. The war on Syria is tagged as “a civil war”. The war on Yemen is also portrayed as a civil war. While the bombing is by Saudi Arabia, the insidious role of the US is downplayed or casually ignored. Funded by corporate charities, via a network of non-governmental organizations, social activism tends to be piecemeal. The economic crisis is not seen as having a relationship to US led wars.
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Designing a Miracle to Save South Africa
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
3 Jan 2018 – This article is an offer of new ideas, designed to be food for thought for the first group, the questers; to question the certainties of the second group, those on either the right or the left or in the centre who believe the right path is known but just not followed; and to inspire hope and clarity in the third group, those whose emotions are deep but whose thoughts are muddled and incoherent.
→ read full articleEndings and Beginnings: A Commentary on 2017 to 2018
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
1 Jan 2018 – The bad news is that the world crisis worsened during 2017, largely due to the inept and anachronistic orientation exhibited by the Trump presidency. His influence was an immense distraction from facing challenges that required urgent and creative national and global attention, including climate change, biodiversity, global migration, Middle East turmoil, nuclearism, and scandalous levels of income and wealth inequalities.
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Jack
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
A fifth grade teacher began her first day with a new class. All the students were neat and well behaved, except for Jack, a boy in the front row, who was slumped in his chair and seemed to need a bath.
→ read full articleInfected
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
After an interval of four million years, two planets meet again in the universe.
→ read full articleCover-up
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jan 2018
A man comes home and finds his dog with the neighbor’s pet rabbit in his mouth. It is dead.
→ read full articleTrump, the UN, and the Future of Jerusalem
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jan 2018
31 Dec 2017 – The wider implications of the UN reaction to Trump’s Dec 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to follow this by relocating the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
→ read full articleOh, God!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Dec 2017
A very good hearted young man came to the gates of heaven. He asked God, “Why have you brought me here so early? I was still in perfect health and wanted to do many more good deeds.”
→ read full articleThe Jerusalem Votes at the UN
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Dec 2017
23 Dec 2017 – What discussions gloss over is the degree to which issues of substance prevailed over matters of geopolitical alignment. Not one of America’s closest allies (UK, France, Germany, and Japan) heeded the arguments of Haley and Trump. Every important country in the world backed the GA Resolution on Dec 21 regardless of geography or political orientation (China, Russia, India, Brazil, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran).
→ read full articleDemocracy, Development, and Reputation: Vietnam, Turkey, and International Liberalism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Dec 2017
The cases of Vietnam and Turkey strongly support the central claim here that national reputations of legitimacy should rest on a comprehensive assessment of material, ethical, and spiritual wellbeing of individuals and communities, and no longer be a reflection of geopolitical agendas (with respect to Turkey) and ideological arrogance (with respect to Vietnam).
→ read full articleJerusalem Is (Is Not) the Capital of Israel
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
10 Dec 2017 – Donald Trump: “Israel is the only state in the world that is not allowed to locate its capital in a national city of its choice.” It seems like an innocent enough proclamation, and even accurate pushback against global double standards, until one considers the political, moral, and legal dimensions of the actual situation.
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We Saved Net Neutrality Once. We Can Do It Again
Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen - YES! Magazine,
18 Dec 2017
12 Dec 2017 – Democracy lives or dies on the quality of public conversation. Just a few years ago, powerful grassroots pressure rose up to protect a free and open internet.
→ read full articleTitles
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
Someone who farms is a farmer.
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Is This Genocide?
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times,
18 Dec 2017
15 Dec 1017 — “Ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide” are antiseptic and abstract terms. What they mean in the flesh is a soldier grabbing a crying baby girl named Suhaifa by the leg and flinging her into a bonfire. Or troops locking a 15-year-old girl in a hut and setting it on fire. Survivors describe Myanmar soldiers killing men, raping women and burning babies in a Rohingya village.
→ read full articlePut Out the Fire Before It Is Too Late
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
There was a man called Nicolas who was happy in life except for one thing: he and a neighbor distrusted each other. One day, his chicken strayed into the neighbor’s garden.
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Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
15 Dec 2017 – Critics, including myself, regard the initiative as a slap at the Palestinians and a confirmation of Trump’s disregard of international law and morality, and the authority of the UN. The status of Jerusalem is a focal point for the tension between the old geopolitics of hard power realism and the normative geopolitics of soft power new realism.
→ read full articleAmy Biehl
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Dec 2017
Amy Biehl was a young Princeton graduate who went to Capetown, South Africa, in 1992 as a volunteer to work with an NGO to help overcome apartheid.
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A Religion Called Economy
Michele Migliorino | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Dec 2017
4 Dec 2017 – You can see how the Economy Religion destroys everything: forest, seas, living species, ourselves and our infinite cultures existing over the whole planet. By now, realism would tell us that it is time to throw the Economy GOd into the wastebasket history and try to create a society which won’t imply such a despicable waste of energy and resources.
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Seven Men and an Elephant
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
Seven men were in a dark room touching an elephant. One touched his leg and said, “An elephant is like a tree trunk.”
→ read full articleFascism in America: A Preventable Danger
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
Over the past few months, the possibility of a fascist America has moved from the realm of academic speculation to that of common concern… If these are some of the causes of potential fascism, what can be done to eliminate or mitigate them before the fascist movement gets stronger? A key concept here is the existence of systemic problems and the need for systemic solutions. Dialogue is a key starting point for this sort of rethinking.
→ read full articleGood Deed
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
A reverend walking down the street noticed a little boy trying to reach the doorbell of a house.
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How Peace Journalism Can Deescalate Conflict in the Age of Trump and North Korea
Michael Greenwell – The Conversation,
4 Dec 2017
29 Nov 2017 – Close analysis of events through the lens of Peace Journalism can help theorise when media coverage may have helped escalate or deescalate conflict. PJ aims to improve the conditions for peace through a considered editorial approach and practice. It is a means to peace. Johan Galtung first theorised the notion of Peace Journalism in contrast to the notion of “War Journalism”.
→ read full articleTaking Stock: One Year after Trump
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017 – This post addresses the need for dialogue with the political, economic, and cultural ‘other,’ that is, those multitudes acutely alienated from and angry with secular globalism and the Enlightenment legacy often equated with ‘modernity’ and ‘modernization.’ At the core is a search for closure on the nature of reality as well as feelings about equity (given many dimensions of inequality) and ethical innovation (revisionist approaches to gender, sexuality, marriage). Does reason or faith or tradition provide greater closure?
→ read full articleParallel Universes: Vietnam and Palestine
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
26 Nov 2017 – Not surprisingly, my sixth visit to Vietnam stirred many memories, among them, a recognition of the parallels between the Vietnamese and Palestinian experiences. Dreams don’t become the new reality without the dedication of a people brave and creative, and helped by the inspirational effects on friends and supporters. This blessing of empowering and charismatic resilience is the core identity of the Vietnamese and the Palestinian people, their point of most profound convergence.
→ read full articleAnalogy
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
The following analogy characterizes the attitude of a typical Trump administration official in relation to the looming energy crisis.
→ read full articleGetting to the Roots of the Problem
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
A man had frequent nightmares. Someone was hiding under his bed what made him wake up sweating and trembling every night.
→ read full article
(Italiano) Papa Francesco: il disarmo integrale non è un’utopia
M.Michela Nicolais | Servizio Informazione Religiosa – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
10 novembre 2017 – Non utopia, ma sano realismo. Così Papa Francesco, ricevendo in udienza i partecipanti al Simposio vaticano, ha definito l’ambizioso obiettivo del disarmo integrale. Le armi nucleari producono “catastrofiche conseguenze umanitarie”, il grido d’allarme contro la “logica della paura”.
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Failing the People of Syria during Seven Years of Devastation and Dispossession
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
13 Nov 2017 – What follows is a wide-ranging interview in November 2017 that that concentrates on the failure of the UN and the world to rescue the people of Syria by a timely and effective humanitarian intervention. The interview is to be published in the Turkish magazine Causcasus International.
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U.S. Congress Approves Defense Bill to Pump $700 Billion into Military
Richard Lardner | Associated Press – PBS News Hour,
20 Nov 2017
14 Nov 2017 — House Republicans and Democrats joined forces today to decisively approve a defense policy bill that authorizes $700 billion to restock what lawmakers have described as a depleted U.S. military and counter North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons program.
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Paradise Papers Yet another Example of the Power of Collaboration in Investigative Journalism
Richard Sambrook – The Conversation,
20 Nov 2017
14 Nov 2017 – Established media organisations are collaborating across borders and with new media to break big stories such as global tax avoidance by the rich and powerful.
→ read full articleOldest Profession
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
A surgeon, an engineer and an economist were arguing which was the oldest profession.
→ read full articlePentagon Trained Syria’s Al Qaeda “Rebels” in the Use of Chemical Weapons
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
20 Nov 2017
18 Nov 2017 – The Western Media Refute Their Own Lies: Not only do they confirm that the Pentagon has been training the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons, they also acknowledge the existence of a not so secret “US-backed plan to launch a chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad’s regime”
→ read full article
The Dull Ax
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
A lumber jack worked long hours every day to exhaustion, wasting a lot of time and energy cutting trees with a dull ax.
→ read full articleQuickies
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Nov 2017
George Bush came late to a cabinet meeting. He explained that he wanted to finish a puzzle.
→ read full articleOne of the World’s Poorest Countries Confronts Ethnic Cleansing on Its Doorstep
Omar Waraich – The Washington Post,
13 Nov 2017
6 Nov 2017 — Over the past two months, more than 600,000 Rohingya refugees have crossed the border from Burma, also known as Myanmar, to seek shelter in Bangladesh. Not since the Rwandan genocide has a humanitarian crisis unfolded so fast and on such a scale. If one counts the hundreds of thousands who were already based here, driven out by earlier waves of violence in Rakhine state, there are now more than a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
→ read full articleThree for the Week Ahead
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Nov 2017
A young woman suffered from cancer. Her doctor asked her what she enjoyed most in life.
→ read full articleThe Spiritual Sources of Legal Creativity: The Legacy of Father Miguel d’Escoto
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
31 Oct 2017 – Father Miguel d’Escoto was both the Foreign Minister of Sandinista Nicaragua and President of the UN General Assembly, as well as pastor to the poor in the spirit of Pope Francis, an extraordinary person who fused a practical engagement in the world with a deeply spiritual nature that affected all who were privileged to know and work with him.
→ read full articleBalfour: Then and Now
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
2 Nov 2017 – Today, November 2, is exactly 100 years after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the pledge given to the World Zionist Movement in a letter signed by the British Foreign Secretary to support the establishment of a ‘national home’ in the then Ottoman millet of Palestine. Certainly ‘a day of infamy’ for the Palestinian people and their friends around the world, while unfortunately treated as ‘a day of pride’ by the British Government, and all in the West those morally bankrupt enough to regret the passing of the colonial era, and to pretend without embarrassment that the Balfour legacy is something to celebrate, rather than to mourn, in the year 2017.
→ read full articleJokes to Be Taken Seriously
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
The philosophers of ancient Greece concluded that by far the wisest among them was Socrates. They went to him and asked how he had become so wise.
→ read full articleA Tax on the Arms Trade to Fund Peacebuilding?
Michael Brzoska | Vision of Humanity – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
An old idea has recently come up again in the search for new funds for peacebuilding.
→ read full articleHow a Seemingly Bad Luck Can Turn Out to Be a Good Luck
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Oct 2017
How a Loss Can Turn into a Gain – What looked like a total disaster at first turned out to be a lucky coincidence.
→ read full articleHumanity’s Principal Challenge
Howard Richards and Ela Gandhi – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Oct 2017
20 Oct 2017 – This paper was written for a seminar in Santiago, Chile, with TRANSCEND member Ela Gandhi, a granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi who continues his work. Each participant was asked to write three pages on the topic, “What is the principal challenge facing humanity today?”
→ read full article‘Drug Dealers in Lab Coats’
Nicholas Kristof – The New York Times,
23 Oct 2017
18 Oct 2017 – For decades, America has waged an ineffective war on drug pushers and drug lords, regarding them as among the most contemptible specimens of humanity. One reason our efforts have failed is we ignored the biggest drug pushers of all: American pharmaceutical companies, which helped get America hooked on opioids.
→ read full articleLucky Coincidence
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Oct 2017
Kenneth Boulding once said, “History is like a pinball machine. A slight change in initial conditions can bring vastly different outcomes.” Johan Galtung gave an illustration of this that he had heard from André Fontaine, the editor of Le Monde, on a flight from Seoul–where they had attended a conference together–to Paris.
→ read full articleMysterious Sounds and Scary Illnesses as Political Tools
Lisa Diedrich And Benjamin Tausig – The New York Times,
16 Oct 2017
10 Oct 2017 – The narrative around the “sonic attack” on the American embassy in Cuba fits a troubling pattern for Trump as the latest example of the way he has attempted to harness vague, unspecified threats to inspire fear and advance his political agenda. He has long signaled his desire to reverse President Obama’s normalization of relations with Cuba.
→ read full articlePicking Berries
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
This is a metaphor for work on peaceful conflict transformation. If you look at a conflict from only one point of view, you see a very limited set of problems and possible solutions.
→ read full articleWhich Direction?
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
After a summit meeting, Reagan, Brezhnev and Deng Xiaoping were being driven to the airport in a limousine. The driver arrived at an intersection and asked which way to go.
→ read full articleThe Flawed and Corrupted Genius of American Republicanism
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
15 Oct 2017 – The odiousness of Trump’s presidency gives the people of America what might be their last chance to achieve political redemption for themselves and for others now and in the future who will drawn into the circle of extreme victimization unless this dynamic of renewal suddenly takes hold.
→ read full articleThe One and Only Path to Palestine/Israel Sustainable Peace
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
12 Oct 2017 – We should accept our human responsibility to aid and abet the Palestinian struggle for rights, self-determination, and a just peace. The attainment of such goals would also inevitably reshape the destiny of Israeli Jews toward a more humanistic and benevolent future.
→ read full articleKeeping Peace in Transilvania
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
The media tend to report about cases where mediation fails and fighting breaks out, but they almost never report about cases where fighting has been avoided, and how this was achieved. They have turned the old adage “no news is good news” into “good news is no news.” Better coverage of success stories could encourage others to help prevent war.
→ read full articleDisarmament
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
When someone argued, “We have had nuclear weapons for 50 years and nothing has happened,” Helen Caldicott replied,
→ read full articleNobel Peace Prize 2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
8 Oct 2017 – What the BAN Treaty achieves, and the Nobel Prize recognizes, is that the cleavage is now clear between international law and geopolitics with respect to nuclear weapons. The BAN Treaty provides likeminded governments and animated citizen pilgrim throughout the world with a roadmap for closing the gap from the side of law and morality.
→ read full articleVisiting Nuremberg, Reflecting on the Ambiguous Legacies of Nuremberg
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
2 Oct 2017 – I spent two days at Nuremberg to attend the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award ceremony on September 22, 2017. The reason we were in Nuremberg was that my wife had been a member of an international jury that selects an awardee every second year.
→ read full articleMy Ethnographic Moment: In Rome
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Oct 2017
What struck me, in contrast to the U.S, Germany, even France, where I have recently been is that Italy, and specifically Rome, is a deep culture that works for its working and middle classes, or put less structurally, for ‘ordinary people.’ Of course, this is an impression, but for me a rather convincing one, and harmonious with a morning cappuccino and croissant.
→ read full articleEfficiency
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Oct 2017
During the French Revolution, a doctor, a lawyer and an engineer were sentenced to be beheaded on the guillotine.
→ read full articleApartheid and the Future of Israel/Palestine
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Sep 2017
The interview, associated with my current visit to Belgium and France to speak on the report “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” brings up to date the controversy generated by the UN Secretary General bowing to U.S. pressure and ordering its removal from ESCWA website. It was published in l’Humanité, Sept. 6, 2017.
→ read full articleWill Opioid Lawsuits by County Officials against Big Pharma Set Legal Precedent to Sue Vaccine Makers?
Catherine J. Frompovich - Activist Post,
25 Sep 2017
“They know what they’ve been doing. They’ve been misrepresenting the dangers of these dangerous addictive drugs for years.” – “Those pharmaceutical companies have made billions of dollars off the deaths of our children and our loved ones.”
→ read full articleCommon Ground
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Sep 2017
Unity based conflict resolution does not focus on the points of disagreement, but seeks points of unity, common interest, and gradually expands from there, to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution to problems.
→ read full articleTrump Misreads North Korea’s Sacred Dynasty at His Peril
Michael Brabazon – The Guardian,
25 Sep 2017
23 Sep 2017 – References to the regime as a cold war relic, or as communist, Stalinist, or a cult of personality, make easy and colourful soundbites. But do they really help in understanding the motivations of what appears to be a dangerous, anachronistic society? The short answer is no. In the escalating war of insults, Trump is a ‘gangster fond of playing with fire’, Kim Jong-un a ‘madman’ who will be tested as never before.
→ read full articleThe Great Nutrient Collapse
Helena Bottemiller Evich - POLITICO,
25 Sep 2017
The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.
→ read full articleFairness
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Sep 2017
Taking his seat in his chambers, the judge faced the opposing lawyers.
→ read full articleGovernment by Goldman: Gary Cohn Is Giving Goldman Sachs Everything It Ever Wanted from the Trump Administration
Gary Rivlin and Michael Hudson – The Intercept,
25 Sep 2017
Gary Cohn and Trump’s Wall Street Agenda – “Yet now Cohn’s in charge of the economy and talking about eliminating financial reform and basically putting the country back to where it was in 2005, as if 2008 didn’t happen. I’ve started the countdown clock to the next financial crash, which will make the last one look mild.”
→ read full articleRemembering Ebrahim Yazdi
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
For all those dedicated to the attainment of real democracy, the name and life of Ebrahim Yazdi is a precious legacy worth reflecting upon because it has so much to teach us today. Among those who struggled for an Iranian future that was Islamic, genuinely democratic, and humanly decent no one was more steadfast and clear about their commitment than Dr. Yazdi.
→ read full articleTrue Skill
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
The yogi Raman was a true master of the art of archery. One morning, he invited his favorite disciple to watch a display of his skill. The disciple had seen this more than a hundred times before, but he nevertheless obeyed his teacher.
→ read full articleWeather Forecasters
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
A tribe of American Indians on a reservation heard on their radio that there would be a cold winter. So they stacked up plenty of firewood.
→ read full articleCourtroom
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
A man caught in embezzlement asked his lawyer, “Would it help my case if I sent the judge a box of cigars?”
→ read full articleDouble
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
The people of Minas Gerais in Brazil are said to love cheese. A man there met a fairy and she promised to grant him three wishes.
→ read full articleCamp David
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
The key to successful negotiations is to find creative solutions that give all parties what is most important to them.
→ read full articleEvolving International Law, Political Realism, and the Illusions of Diplomacy
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2017
21 Aug 2017 – International law is mainly supportive of Palestinian grievances with respect to Israel, as well as offering both Israelis and Palestinians a reliable marker as to how these two peoples could live normally together in the future if the appropriate political will existed on both sides to reach a sustainable peace.
→ read full articleThe Place Where We Are Right
Yehuda Amichai – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2017
“From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the Spring.