Articles by RD
We found 3491 results.
Fascism 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.
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Waiting for the American Dream
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
Waiting – so what’s new? Some sullen sage once said that life is what we do while we wait for death. It’s not the kind of wise-guy wisdom I would try to refute, since I was one of the precocious kids who saw the skull at his first pabulum banquet.
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Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies
Edward S. Herman | Monthly Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
Aug 2017 – It has been amusing to watch the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets express their dismay over the rise and spread of “fake news.” These publications take it as an obvious truth that what they provide is straightforward, unbiased, fact-based reporting. They do offer such news, but they also provide a steady flow of their own varied forms of fake news, often by disseminating false or misleading information supplied to them by the national security state, other branches of government, and sites of corporate power.
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Taking 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?
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More Harm than Good with Climate Geo-Engineering
Tim Radford | Climate News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
Geo-engineering might be possible – but so far it doesn’t look practical. Yet another study sees dangers in the technofix. It could create more problems than it could solve.
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Parallel 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.
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The Strength of the Lowly: The Theology of Liberation
Leonardo Boff – Other News,
27 Nov 2017
24 Nov 2017 – When one is asked how the Theology of Liberation is coming along, the answer is found in another question: How are the poor, the oppressed, women, the unemployed, Native peoples, Afro-descendants and others who are excluded treated? How do they enter in the liberating practices of the Christians? It is vital to emphasize that it is not the Theology of Liberation that is important, but the concrete liberation of the oppressed.
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(Português) Concepção do ser humano nos limites de uma ecologia integral
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
19 nov 2017 – Em sua encíclica sobre “o Cuidado da Casa Comum” o Papa Francisco submeteu a uma rigorosa crítica o clássico antropocentrismo de nossa cultura a partir de uma visão de uma ecologia integral, cosmocentrada, dentro da qual o ser humano comparece como parte do Todo e da natureza. Isso nos convida a revisarmos nossa compreensão do ser humano nos limites desta ecologia integral.
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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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(Castellano) Los animales, portadores de derechos y deben ser respetados
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
12 nov 2017 – La aceptación o no de la dignidad de los animales depende del paradigma (visión del mundo y valores) que cada cual asume. Hay dos paradigmas que vienen de la más remota antigüedad y perduran hasta hoy.
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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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Nuclear Disarmament Now a ‘Moral Imperative’ as Pope Francis Rejects Deterrence
Gerard O’Connell | America Jesuit Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
In a landmark statement on nuclear arms on 10 Nov 2017, Pope Francis has categorically condemned not only “the threat of their use” but also “their very possession.” Nuclear weapons, he told participants at a Vatican symposium on “integral disarmament,” exist “in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race.”
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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.
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Sea Shepherd and Japanese Whaling: A Message from Captain Paul Watson
Captain Paul Watson | Sea Shepherd Global – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
The Japanese whaling fleet has left from Japan bound for the waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherd Founder, Captain Paul Watson, explains why we will not be sending our ships to Antarctica this season. “To continue would be foolish. We would spend a few million dollars and many months only to have another failure to engage, and if we did by some miracle encounter the fleet, we would be subject to lethal force without support from our own cowardly governments.”
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Bob Geldof Hands Back Freedom of Dublin in Aung San Suu Kyi Protest
Isabel Bennett – The Guardian,
20 Nov 2017
13 Nov 2017 – Bob Geldof called Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, “a handmaiden to genocide” today as he returned his Freedom of the City of Dublin award in protest over her response to the repression of Rohingya Muslims. The Live Aid founder criticised the Burmese Nobel peace prize winner for her silence over military operations that have driven more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims into neighbouring Bangladesh.
→ read full articleReviving the Spirit of Existential Rebellion in a World of Propaganda, Lies, and Self Deception
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Nov 2017
9 Nov 2017 – In these very dark times – these end- times created by nuclear weapons – seeing the truth is dependent on the will to truth, and the will to truth only arises when people believe they are free to alter the circumstances in which they find themselves. This belief in freedom is at the core of all existential thought and is why we need to resurrect it today.
→ read full articleHundreds of Whales and Dolphins Slaughtered in Annual Faroe Islands Hunt
Sea Shepherd Global – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Nov 2017
8 Nov 2017 – Over the course of ten weeks from this July to early September, the volunteers documented nine separate grindadrap events (what these yearly hunts are called in Faroese). According to the group, 198 Atlantic white-sided dolphins and 436 pilot whales were killed.
→ 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 article(Português) Adoecemos a Terra e a Terra nos adoece
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
28 out 2017 – De uma ou de outra forma, todos nos sentimos doentes física, psíquica e espiritualmente. Há muito sofrimento, desamparo, tristeza e decepção que afetam grande parte da humanidade. Já o dissemos aqui: da recessão econômica passamos à depressão psicológica. A causa principal deriva da intrínseca relação existente entre o ser humano e a Terra viva. Entre ambos vigora um envolvimento recíproco.
→ read full articleA Visit to Heaven and Hell: Mapping Planet Earth
Eduardo Galeano - TomDispatch,
6 Nov 2017
2 Nov 2017 – The following passages are excerpted from Hunter of Stories, the last book by Eduardo Galeano, who died in 2015. Thanks go to his literary agent, Susan Bergholz, and Nation Books, which is publishing it next week.
→ read full article(Português) A ideologia é como a sombra: sempre nos acompanha
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Oct 2017
24 out 2017 – O tema da ideologia está em pauta: ideologia de gênero, política, econômica, religiosa etc.Tentemos tirar a limpo esta questão.
→ read full articleA Polemic against Liberal Analyses of the Rohingya Crisis
Tim Frewer | Tea Circle Oxford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Oct 2017
19 Oct 2017 – In this time of suffering it is crucial to remain indefatigable to the political realities of a slow burning genocide. Rather than obscuring the forces and processes that allow large scale violence to occur, it is urgent to keep these forces and their effects at the centre of accounts of the unfolding tragedy. The way events are framed and talked about have important political ramifications at all levels. It is the political feebleness of liberal analysis that makes it ideal as a discursive tool on the part of so many states and actors that wish to remain apathetic towards the Rohingya cause.
→ read full article(Italiano) Antropocene e Ecocene: Due Ere Geologiche a Confronto
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Oct 2017
2 ottobre, 2017 – Il primo a elaborare una ecologia della Terra come un tutto è stato il geochimico russo Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. Lui ha conferito carattere scientifico all’espressione “biosfera” creata nel 1875 dal geologo austriaco Eduard Suess. Negli anni 70, insieme a James Lovelock, si sviluppò la teoria di Gaia, la Terra che si comporta come un superorganismo vivo che sempre produce e riproduce vita. Gaia, nome greco per la Terra viva, non è argomento da New Age, ma il risultato di minuziosa osservazione scientifica.
→ 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(Português) O povo do México deu um exemplo ao mundo
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Oct 2017
Nos dias 19 e 23 de setembro, o México foi sacudido por dois terremotos, um de magnitude 7,1 e outro de 6,1 da escala Richter. O que chamou a atenção geral foi o espírito de solidariedade e de cooperação do povo mexicano. Sem que ninguém as conclamassem, milhares de pessoas, especialmente os jovens, se puseram a remover escombros para salvar as vítimas soterradas. Organizavam-se grupos espontaneamente e este espírito de solidariedade pode salvar muitas vidas.
→ read full articleSee It, Say It: Climate Change
Editorial Board - The Washington Post,
23 Oct 2017
14 Oct 2017 – No single fire can be specifically linked to climate change, and certainly other factors, such as increased development or logging and grazing activities, are involved. But scientists say there is a clear connection between global warming and the increase in recent years in the severity and frequency of wildfires in the West.
→ read full articleUN Report on Rohingya Hunger Is Shelved at Myanmar’s Request
Oliver Holmes – The Guardian,
23 Oct 2017
17 Oct 2017 – The United Nations food aid agency withdrew a critical report revealing desperate hunger among the persecuted Rohingya population after the Myanmar government demanded it be taken down, the Guardian has learned. Document warned of spiralling food crisis among Rohingya population.
→ read full articleThree for the Road, in Light and Shadows
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Oct 2017
20 Oct 2017 – It was getting dark on the street as the young man emerged from his high school on New York’s Upper East Side after basketball practice. He had lost track of time as he dreamed his basketball dreams and headed to the subway for the long ride home.
→ read full article(Castellano) La era geológica del antropoceno vs la del ecoceno
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
2 oct 2017 – El primero en elaborar una ecología de la Tierra como un todo fue el geoquímico ruso Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. El autor confería carácter científico a la expresión “biosfera” creada en 1875 por el geólogo austriaco Eduard Suess. En los años 70, con James Lovelock, se desarrolló la teoría de Gaia, la Tierra que se comporta como un superorganismo vivo que siempre produce y reproduce vida. Gaia, nombre griego para la Tierra viva, no es un tema de la New Age, sino el resultado de minuciosas observaciones científicas.
→ read full articleOfcom Clears Al-Jazeera of Antisemitism in Exposé of Israeli Official
Graham Ruddick – The Guardian,
16 Oct 2017
10 Oct 2017 – Watchdog also rejects claims broadcaster broke impartiality rules in film of embassy official vowing to ‘take down’ British MPs.
→ read full articleFinding Our Way Back to Truth by Following a String of Facts
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
14 Oct 2017 – If you find yourself lost and confused in a dark wood, then perhaps following this network of knots strung on a long string of dates listed below will help you find your way back home, where the bread of truth awaits you on the kitchen table.
→ read full article‘Sri Lanka and Myanmar Are Ethnocratic States’ – Dr Maung Zarni
Bashana Abeywardane | Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
9 Oct 2017 – ‘Enemy of the State’ screamed the banner headline of a Burmese national newspaper in September, featuring full page photograph of Maung Zarni. More hatred follows, a week later. “These publications are run by a web of cronies, military propaganda division and racist monk or laymen’s networks’, says Zarni.
→ read full articleInside the CIA’s Black Site Torture Room
Larry Siems – The Guardian,
16 Oct 2017
9 Oct 2017 – There were twenty cells inside the prison, each a stand-alone concrete box. In sixteen, prisoners were shackled to a metal ring in the wall. In four, designed for sleep deprivation, they stood chained by the wrists to an overhead bar. Those in the regular cells had a plastic bucket; those in sleep deprivation wore diapers. When diapers weren’t available, guards crafted substitutes with duct tape, or prisoners were chained naked in their cells. The cellblock was unheated, pitch black day and night, with music blaring around the clock.
→ 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 articleA Hero Turned Villain: [Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi and the Annihilation of Myanmar’s Rohingya
Neve Gordon – The Nation,
16 Oct 2017
They potentially face the final two stages of genocide—mass annihilation and erasure from the country’s history.
→ 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 article(Português) A era geológica do antropoceno versus a do ecoceno
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
1 out 2017 – O primeiro a elaborar uma ecologia da Terra como um todo foi o geoquímico russo Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. Ele conferiu caráter científico à expressão “biosfera” criada em 1875 por um geólogo austríaco Eduard Suess. Nos anos 70, com James Lovelock e sua equipe se desenvolveu a teoria de Gaia, a Terra que se comporta como um sistema orgânico, portanto, um super-organismo vivo que sempre produz e reproduz vida. Gaia, nome grego para a Terra viva, não é tema da New Age mas o resultado de minuciosa observação científica.
→ read full articleWill Seven Million Starving Yemenis Ever Find Justice?
Catriona Murdoch and Wayne Jordash – Al Jazeera,
9 Oct 2017
2 Oct 2017 – It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the control of food importation into Yemen is being used as a weapon of war, seemingly by all sides. Those responsible should be held accountable as primary perpetrators of, or accessories to, starvation.
→ read full articleHow a 3-Day Fast Resets Your Immune System
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
The benefits of fasting are many and various. Fasting supports good health by promoting a healthy body weight, encouraging normal cognitive function, and even facilitating detoxification. Now, research has also shown that fasting may help reset the immune system.
→ read full articleA New Shock Doctrine: In a World of Crisis, Morality Can Still Win
Naomi Klein – The Guardian,
9 Oct 2017
Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and Podemos in Spain have shown that a bold and decent strategy can be a successful one. That truth should embolden the left.
→ 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 articleThe White Man in That Photo
Riccardo Gazzaniga - GRIOT Magazine,
2 Oct 2017
I always saw the photo as a powerful image of two barefoot black men, with their heads bowed, their black-gloved fists in the air while the US National Anthem played. It was a strong symbolic gesture – taking a stand for African American civil rights in a year of tragedies that included the death of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
→ read full articleMonsanto Banned from European Parliament
Arthur Neslen – The Guardian,
2 Oct 2017
28 Sep 2017 – MEPs withdraw parliamentary access after the firm shunned a hearing into allegations that it unduly influenced studies into the safety of glyphosate used in its RoundUp weedkiller.
→ 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 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 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.
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Where Does Your Entertainment Come From?
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
Sea Shepherd Releases Powerful Video on the Same Day Japan Begins Its Annual Dolphin Hunt
→ read full articleHow to Fast Safely: Considerations before Starting a Fast
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
If you haven’t done the research, you might find yourself wondering if fasting is safe. You may have heard from people who’ve never even tried it that it’s crazy, dangerous, or just pointless. And yet, for thousands of years, many cultures have embraced fasting wholeheartedly. This ancient practice leads to numerous health benefits for most people—when done correctly.
→ read full articleThe Unspoken Truth behind the Colin Kaepernick Story
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
16 Sep 2017 – Two recent sports news items have reminded me of incidents from my own athletic past. And those memories in turn have brought my reflections back to the current news regarding the failure of any NFL team to sign quarterback Colin Kaepernick to a contract, and the recent boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.
→ read full articleHostage to Myopic Self-Interest: Climate Science Is Watered Down Under Political Scrutiny
Ian Dunlop – The Guardian,
18 Sep 2017
Scientific reticence allows politicians to neglect the real dangers we face. But waiting for perfect information means it will be too late to act.
→ read full articleThe Guardian View on the Slaughter in Myanmar: A Crime against Humanity
The Guardian | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
4 Sep 2017 – The brutal, bloody, and ultimately pointless mistreatment of a Muslim minority shames [Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi who appeared for decades as the epitome of principled and unflinching defence of human rights, now the unfeeling figurehead of a vicious regime.
→ read full articleGhostly Voices Dancing in the Rain
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
8 Sep 2017 – A solitary, early Sunday morning walk in the rain. As I like it, my only walking companion was the soothing sound of rain in the trees and on the lake. From the shallow water at the lake’s swampy edge, a blue heron, perched on one leg, froze my gaze as I stopped and stared.
→ read full articleDemocracy Insurance
Hardy Merriman | International Center on Nonviolent Conflict – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
We know that a unified and mobilized population—capable of imposing costs on unaccountable power holders through nonviolent tactics such as strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience—is often essential to protecting and expanding civic space. There is an art and a science to how ordinary people have done this and nonviolent civil resistance has proven remarkably adaptable at addressing a variety of situations relevant to democratic backsliding, including:
→ read full articleJournalist Interrogated, Fired for Story Linking CIA and Syria Weapons Flights
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
Investigative reporter Dilyana Gaytandzhieva authored a bombshell report for Trud Newspaper, Bulgaria, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company was regularly transporting tons of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply anti-Assad fighters in Syria. Those weapons, Gaytandzhieva found, ended up in the hands of ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
→ read full article(Italiano) Solidarietà’: percorsi dimenticati
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
E’ urgente riscattare il significato antropologico fondamentale della solidarietà. Essa è antisistemica, perché il sistema imperante capitalista e individualista si regge sulla concorrenza e non sulla solidarietà e cooperazione. Questo va contro il senso della natura. Ci dicono gli etno-antropologi che è stata la solidarietà a farci passare dall’ordine dei Primati all’ordine degli umani.
→ read full article(Castellano) Brasil: un barco a la deriva
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
27 ago 2017 – La gravedad de nuestra crisis generalizada hace que nos sintamos como un barco a la deriva, a merced de los vientos y de las olas. El timonel, el presidente, está acusado de delitos, rodeado de marujos-piratas, en su mayoría igualmente corruptos o acusados de otros delitos. Es increíble que un presidente, detestado por el 90% de la población, sin ninguna credibilidad ni carisma, quiera gobernar un barco a la deriva.
→ read full articleThe Lies of 9/11 Miracle Workers
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
A Review of David Ray Griffin’s Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World – David Ray Griffin is an international treasure and truth teller, who, while being ignored by the mainstream corporate media for his extraordinary series of books exposing the false flag attacks of Sep 11, 2001, will someday be lauded as a modern prophet.
→ 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 articleBrazil Abolishes Huge Amazon Reserve in ‘Biggest Attack’ in 50 Years
Jonathan Watts – The Guardian,
28 Aug 2017
Brazilian president has dissolved Renca to attract investment in region thought to contain gold, with critics warning of irreversible damage.
→ read full articleCommemorating Howard Zinn on His Birthday: “No Human Being Is Illegal”
Howard Zinn – The Progressive,
28 Aug 2017
The People’s Historian was born August 24, 1922. We share a piece on immigration he published with us in our July 2006 issue—entirely relevant today. This article is adapted from the introduction Zinn wrote to Deepa Fernandes’s book, Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration. Entirely relevant today.
→ read full articleIn Defense of the Nameless, Invisible Workers
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2017
20 Aug 2017 – In spite of the threats to our Common Home, the Earth, attacked on all fronts by the type of culture that we have developed in the last two centuries, limitless exploitation of her finite goods and services, essentially for the material accumulation of a few; in spite of everything she continues to generously offer us the beauty of the fruits, flowers, plants, animals and broad bio-diversity.
→ read full article[Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi: Still a Noble Democracy Champion?
Oliver Ward – ASEAN Today,
28 Aug 2017
22 Aug 2017 – The Aung San Suu Kyi who won a Nobel Prize and made speeches standing on tables about the importance of democracy and human rights is almost unrecognisable to the woman in government today. Rather than representing the solution, she has become part of the problem, standing idle while Myanmar descends into genocide. If the Aung San Suu Kyi of 1988 could have a conversation with the woman of today would she still see herself as the noble peace prize winner and democracy champion that John Bercow described in 2015?
→ read full article(Português) A Solidariedade: Um Paradigma Olvidado
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2017
É urgente resgatarmos o significado antropológico fundamental da solidariedade. Ela é anti-sistêmica, pois o sistema imperante capitalista é individualista e se rege pela concorrência e não pela solidariedade e pela cooperação. Isso vai contra o sentido da natureza. É urgente resgatarmos o paradigma básico de nossa humanidade, tão olvidado. Fora dela desvirtuaremos nossa humanidade e a dos outros.
→ read full articleCharlottesville through a Glass Darkly
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2017
Anti-Semitism, and its links to Nazism and Fascism, and now to Trumpism, are genuinely menacing, and should encourage rational minds to reconsider any willingness to being manipulated for polemic purposes by ultra Zionists. We can also only wonder about the moral, legal, and political compass of ardent Zionists who so irresponsibly label Israel’s critics and activist opponents as anti-Semites, and thus confuse and bewilder the public as to the true nature of anti-Semitism as racial hatred directed at Jews.
→ read full articleMigrating Birds Use a Magnetic Map to Travel Long Distances
Richard Holland – The Conversation,
21 Aug 2017
17 Aug 2017 – Birds have an impressive ability to navigate. They can fly long distances, to places that they may never have visited before, sometimes returning home after months away. Though there has been a lot of research in this area, scientists are still trying to understand exactly how they manage to find their intended destinations.
→ read full articleExporting Chaos to Venezuela
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
21 Aug 2017
President Trump’s recklessness is felt around the world.
→ read full articleBurma Covers Up Its Systematic Abuse of the Rohingya Minority Group
Editorial Board - The Washington Post,
21 Aug 2017
It is becoming increasingly clear that Burma’s partially democratic government bears many similarities to its autocratic predecessor: It is overly sensitive to criticism, repressive toward minorities and willing to go to great lengths to protect the military.
→ read full articleEnd of Nuclearism or the End of the World: Utopian Dreams, Dystopian Nightmares
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
9 Aug 2017 – We are living amid contradictions whether we like it or not, driving expectations about the future toward opposite extremes. Increasingly plausible are fears that the ‘sixth extinction’ will encompass the human species, or at least, throw human society back to a technology of sticks and stones, with a habitat limited to caves and forests.
→ read full article(Português) A Terra entrou no cheque especial: O ser humano, Satã da Terra
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
13 ago 2017 – No dia 2 de agosto de 2017 ocorreu um fato preocupante para a humanidade e para cada um individualmente. Foi o dia da chamada “Sobrecarga da Terra” (Overshoot Day). Quer dizer: foi o dia em que gastamos todos os bens e serviços naturais, básicos para sustentar a vida. Estávamos no verde e agora entramos no vermelho ou no cheque especial.
→ read full article(Português) Para Entender a Venezuela: Dois Testemunhos do Outro Lado
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
9 ago 2017 – Todas as coisas possuem sempre dois lados. Em direito se diz: “audiator et altera pars”: que se escute também a outra parte. Isso vale em todas as questões que envolvem destinos pessoais e de todo um povo. A questão da Venezuela é complexa e polêmica. Dificilmente poder-se-á emitir um juizo equilibrado tantos são os fatores a serem considerados.
→ read full articleThe Crop Circle Mystery: A Closer Look
Benjamin Radford | Live Science – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
Crop circles — strange patterns that appear mysteriously overnight in farmers’ fields—provoke puzzlement, delight and intrigue among the press and public alike. The mystery has inspired countless books, blogs, fan groups, researchers (dubbed “cereologists”) and even Hollywood films. Despite having been studied for decades, the question remains: Who — or what — is making them?
→ read full article(Português) Os Portões do Desmatamento
Eduardo Pegurier | O Eco – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
19 julho 2017 – Os satélites são cronistas mecânicos do processo de desmatamento da floresta Amazônica. Dois terços da área desmatada virou pasto. Apenas 128 instalações de frigoríficos ativos, pertencentes a 99 empresas, são responsáveis por 93% do abate anual, algo como 12 milhões de cabeças de gado.
→ read full articleThe Health Benefits of Water Fasting
Edward Group, MD | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
3 Jul 2017 – While fasting has been part of human culture for thousands of years, only recently have we begun to investigate the therapeutic benefits of the practice. Interestingly, modern science has found a variety of verifiable positive effects fasting that has on human health.
→ read full articleStudy Links Most Amazon Deforestation to 128 Slaughterhouses
Eduardo Pegurier | O Eco – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
28 Jul 2017 – Satellites are mechanical reporters of the Amazon deforestation process. By documenting the degradation and gaps created by the clear-cutting process over the years, they deliver the verdict: Two-thirds of the Amazon’s deforested area has been turned into pastures. 128 active slaughterhouses belonging to 99 companies are responsible for 93 percent of the annual slaughter—close to 12 million heads.
→ read full articleBerlin Calls for “Countermeasures” to US Sanctions against Russia, Hints at Trade War
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
Germany economy minister Brigitte Zypries said that “we consider this as being against international law, plain and simple.” She added that “of course we don’t want a trade war. But it is important the European Commission now looks into countermeasures.” She also said that “the Americans cannot punish German companies because they operate economically in another country.”
→ read full articleLiving in Dystopian Times
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
3 Aug 2017 – Twenty-five years ago there were three widely held beliefs about future trends on a global level: the assured preeminence of the United States; the continuing globalization of the world economy; and the expanding democratization of national governance arrangements. It was also assumed that these trends were more or less descriptive of regional realities, including the Middle East. Each of these trends that seemed so descriptive 25 years ago now seems to be completely out of touch with what is happening around us.
→ read full articleGeopolitical Dirty Dreams: Israel’s ‘Victory Caucus’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Jul 2017
29 Jul 2017 – The main Trump assignment within the United States will likely be to lend full support to the Congressional and state-by-state pushback against the BDS campaign, slandering this nonviolent civil society movement of militant solidarity and human rights by castigating it as ‘the anti-Semitism of our time.’
→ read full articleBiological Warfare: US & Saudis Use Cholera to Kill Yemenis
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
31 Jul 2017
29 Jul 2017 – Since March 2015, the US has supported Saudi Arabia and its allies in their criminal war of aggression against Yemen, committing daily war crimes, especially against civilians, who are now suffering a cholera epidemic with more than 400,000 victims. Cholera is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholera and has been weaponized by the US, Japan (in World War II), South Africa (under apartheid), Iraq (under Saddam), and other states.
→ read full articleThese Five Countries Are Conduits for the World’s Biggest Tax Havens
Javier Garcia-Bernardo, Eelke Heemskerk, Frank Takes and Jan Fichtner – The Conversation,
31 Jul 2017
Tax sheltering is not just the domain of exotic Caribbean isles. Major world powers, including the United Kingdom, play a critical and previously undisclosed role in global tax avoidance. A new study has now uncovered all the world’s corporate tax havens and, for the first time, revealed the intermediary countries that companies use to funnel their money into these places.
→ read full articleDon’t Feed the Nuclear Club
Khalil Bendib – Other Words,
24 Jul 2017
Nuclear-armed countries completely sat out a new treaty to ban the devastating weapons.
→ read full articleOpen Letter of California Scholar for Academic Freedom (Palestine/Israel)
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jul 2017
22 Jul 2017 – Open Letter prepared under the direction of Vida Samiian of State University of California at Fresno on behalf of California scholars defending against any effort to abridge academic freedom anywhere in the world. Here the focus is on the role of the right-wing media in creating a climate of opinion that supports frantic Zionist efforts to intimidate and punish vocal critics of Israel, creating a crisis of confidence with regard to the exercise of academic freedom.
→ read full articleThe “Deep State” Then and Now
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jul 2017
So much of the ongoing propaganda travels under the banner of “the war on terror,” which is, of course, an outgrowth of the attacks of September 11, 2001, appropriately named and constantly reinforced as 9/11 in a wonderful example of linguistic mind-control: a constant emergency to engender anxiety, depression, panic, and confusion, four of the symptoms that lead the DSM “experts” and their followers to diagnose and drug individuals.
→ read full articleChallenging Nuclearism: The Nuclear Ban Treaty Assessed
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
As of now the NBT is a treaty text that courteously mandates the end of nuclearism, but to convert this text into an effective regime of control will require the kind of deep commitments, sacrifices, movements, and struggles that eventually achieved the impossible, ending such entrenched evils as slavery, apartheid, and colonialism.
→ read full articleEarth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Event Under Way, Scientists Warn
Damian Carrington – The Guardian,
17 Jul 2017
Researchers talk of ‘biological annihilation’ as study reveals billions of populations of animals have been lost in recent decades.
→ read full articleTo Be or Not to Be?
Captain Paul Watson | Sea Shepherd – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
We will be the victims of our own ignorance and our own arrogance. Homo sapiens have devolved into Homo arrogantus ignoramus. We have become trapped within a matrix of our own creation, living in a world of anthropocentric fantasies and ignoring ecological realities.
→ read full articleBiological Annihilation via the Ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction Signaled by Vertebrate Population Losses and Declines
Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich and Rodolfo Dirzo | National Academy of Sciences – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
Using a sample of 27,600 terrestrial vertebrate species, and a more detailed analysis of 177 mammal species, we show the extremely high degree of population decay in vertebrates, even in common “species of low concern.” Dwindling population sizes and range shrinkages amount to a massive anthropogenic erosion of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services essential to civilization. This “biological annihilation” underlines the seriousness for humanity of Earth’s ongoing sixth mass extinction event.
→ read full article(Português) O Encontro Bem-Aventurado da Pachamama com Gaia
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
15 julho 2017 – Quero apresentar as idéias, com as quais comungo, de um livro que sairá brevemente traduzido: A Pachamama e o Ser Humano, de Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, um reconhecido magistrado argentino, ministro da Suprema Corte e professor emérito da Universidade de Buenos Aires. O livro, a meu ver, se inscreve entre as melhores contribuições de ordem ecológica e filosófica que se tem escrito ultimamente.
→ read full articleHow Economics Became a Religion
John Rapley – The Guardian,
17 Jul 2017
Its moral code promises salvation, its high priests uphold their orthodoxy. But perhaps too many of its doctrines are taken on faith.
→ read full articleBetwixt and Between: The Shadowy Politics of Political (In)Correctness
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
3 Jul 2017 – Assessing the exploits of Trump, and Cosby, at least raise these difficult issues of individual and collective responsibility that need to be resolved before the country can hope to recover its moral compass, and learn to respect the dignity of all of its citizens in spite of their diversities of experience and background.
→ read full articleNaomi Klein: How Power Profits from Disaster
Naomi Klein – The Guardian,
10 Jul 2017
Take a group of people who directly profit from ongoing war and then put those same people at the heart of government. Who’s going to make the case for peace? After a crisis, private contractors move in and suck up funding for work done badly, if at all – then those billions get cut from government budgets.
→ read full article(Italiano) Il perche’ della violenza nell’essere umano e nella societa’
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
Stiamo vivendo, a livello nazionale e mondiale, situazioni di violenza che sfidano la nostra capacità di comprensione. Non solo di esseri umani contro altri esseri umani, specialmente nel nord Africa, in Sudan, in Medio oriente e tra noi, ma anche contro la natura e la Madre Terra.
→ read full articleWhat Is Quantum Computing? A Super-Easy Explanation for Anyone
Bernard Marr - Forbes,
10 Jul 2017
4 Jul 2017 – It’s fascinating to think about the power in our pocket—today’s smartphones have the computing power of a military computer from 50 years ago that was the size of an entire room. However, even with the phenomenal strides we made in technology and classical computers since the onset of the computer revolution, there remain problems that classical computers just can’t solve. Many believe quantum computers are the answer.
→ read full articleWho’s Getting Killed Today?
Clive Stafford Smith – The Times Literary Supplement,
10 Jul 2017
28 Jun 2017 – Few people are aware that every week the White House observes “Terror Tuesday”, where the US President personally approves people for death without any legal process at all… Eventually, perhaps, we will haul the world back to the legal rule announced by Emer de Vattel a mere 259 years ago, when assassination was deemed to be simply barbaric.
→ read full articleTwo Students Just Broke a Quantum Computing World Record
Tom Ward | Futurism – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
5 Jul 2017 – Researchers from Sweden have successfully simulated a 45-qubit quantum circuit, breaking the record for the greatest number of qubits to be simulated. This important milestone puts humanity one step closer to “quantum supremacy,” the point at which quantum computers could outperform any traditional computer.
→ read full articleWhat Is Fasting? A Guide to the Different Types of Fasts
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
A fast is a voluntary practice in which people go for extended or structured periods without eating and drinking for spiritual, medical, or weight loss reasons. Others fast to protest or raise awareness for causes. Fasting is not starvation. For those who fast for health reasons, fasting is just a more structured way of eating. Some people may find fasting challenging, but there are many types of fasting regimens and protocols from which to choose.
→ read full articleUN Under Siege: Geopolitics in the Time of Trump
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
1 Jul 2017 – Why the Peoples of the World Need the UN: Multilateralism, International Law, Human Rights, and Ecological Sustainability – This post is a modified and enlarged version of a talk I gave in Geneva a week ago. The audience was a blend of students of all ages from around the world, with almost none from Europe and North America, and several NGO representatives with lots of UN experience.
→ read full article‘The Hotel Tacloban:’ A Poetic Masterpiece of War and Redemption
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
Part ventriloquistic non-fiction memoir, part history, part murder mystery, part war story, part confessional – wholly beyond categorization, really – The Hotel Tacloban is a mesmerizing read that will leave you stunned and shaken, but also awe-struck by the courage and depravity to which humans can rise and fall. So gripping is the story that I find it shocking that it hasn’t yet been made into a movie. Don’t miss it.
→ read full article