Articles by ICH

We found 2433 results.


The Black Hole
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Apr 2015

When Johan Galtung, widely recognized as the founder of the academic discipline of peace research, founded the first International Peace Research Institute in Oslo in 1959, he and his colleagues sent copies of their working papers regularly to about 400 social science institutes around the world, including the Institute for World Economy and International Relations in Moscow.

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Armenians 1915: The Genocide Controversy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Apr 2015

According to the great American novelist William Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” This year being the centenary of the contested events of 1915 makes it understandable that was simmering through the decades has come to a boil, with the anniversary day of April 24th likely to be the climax of this latest phase of the unresolved drama.

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Blessed Ambiguity
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Apr 2015

King Louis XI of France was superstitious. One time, his astrologer predicted nice weather.

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Security versus Peace Discourse (after Johan Galtung)
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Apr 2015

The prevailing discourse used by governments today is the security discourse, which briefly is the following: “We have a problem, our enemies. Through military superiority we can deter or prevent their evil designs and achieve security–and through this peace.”

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Flying Lessons
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Apr 2015

A flock of birds that could not fly met in a nice hotel on top of a cliff overlooking the sea for a training workshop on flying.

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Replacement
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Apr 2015

An attorney telephoned the governor just after midnight, insisting that he talk to him regarding a matter of utmost urgency.

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Jerusalem
Yehuda Amichai – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Apr 2015

The late Israeli poet captured this urban division well.

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Peace Journalism
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Apr 2015

The time has come for “peace journalists” to write not only about war, but also about its causes, prevention, and ways to restore peace. They need not invent solutions to conflicts themselves–in the same way as health journalists need not invent cures for diseases themselves; they ask specialists.

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American Sniper and America’s “War on Terror”
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Mar 2015

The issue I want to emphasize here is how extreme focus, eliminating both breadth and depth, historical context and psychological motivation, afflicts our general approach to the “War on Terror” and effectively rules out conflict resolution.

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How Haiti Abolished Its Military
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Mar 2015

A soft spoken, retired Quaker couple from Troy, New York, took a crucial step that led to the complete abolition of Haiti’s army, which in 1991 had violently overthrown the democratically elected government of President Aristide and arbitrarily arrested, tortured and murdered many Haitian citizens.

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Change versus Continuity in the Philippines
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Mar 2015

When I asked how was it possible that the Marcos past has been so cleanly erased from the contemporary blackboard of Filipino awareness, I received various answers: “They have lots of money” “They never lost popularity in their home province where lots of development took place while Marcos governed ” “The past no longer matters; it is the present that counts” “the oligarchy still rules the country and includes all leading families regardless of their political affiliations.”

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Easter Dress
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Mar 2015

Towards the end of the Sunday morning service, a pastor invited all the children to come forward for a children’s prayer.

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Insurance
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Mar 2015

Three retirees were sitting on a bench in Miami.

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Buddhist Nationalists Stoke Hatred in Myanmar
Richard Bennett – Al Jazeera, 23 Mar 2015

Myanmar’s Proposed ‘Race and Religion Laws’ Fuel Hatred and Fear – Authorities should work for reconciliation between religious and ethnic groups – not play into hatred and fear, and seek to cement already widespread discrimination.

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Iran’s Nuclear Program: Diplomacy, War, and (In)Security in the Nuclear Age
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Mar 2015

Iran is expected not only to forego the option to acquire nuclear weapons, but to agree to a framework of intrusive inspection if it wants to be treated as a ‘normal’ state after it proves itself worthy. As indicated, this approach seems discriminatory and hypocritical in the extreme.

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Stalking Netanyahu’s Victory: Palestine and Iran
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Mar 2015

My immediate reaction to the outcome of the Israeli elections is that for Palestinian solidarity purposes, it was desirable for Netanyahu to receive this electoral mandate. It exhibits as clearly as possible that the long discredited Oslo ‘peace process’ is truly ‘discredited.’

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Don’t Want NSA to Spy on Your Email? 5 Things You Can Do
Michael Liedtke, Associated Press – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Mar 2015

Pew researchers found that a majority of those surveyed don’t know about online shields that could help boost privacy or believe it would be too difficult to avoid the government’s espionage.

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Detail
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Mar 2015

The difference between philosophy and theology…

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A Binational Zone
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Mar 2015

We need a UN Agency for Mediation, with several thousand professionals, who can detect emerging conflicts and help transform them peacefully before they lead to war. That would be an excellent and inexpensive investment for a more peaceful world.

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Why We Occupy: Dutch Universities at the Crossroads
Nicholas Vrousalis, Robin Celikates, Johan Hartle, and Enzo Rossi – Open Democracy, 9 Mar 2015

The upshot is the bureaucratic equivalent of a sausage-factory: the production of the knowledge-sausage at minimum cost for the maximum number of consumers. The process by which one arrives at knowing thus becomes insignificant and secondary: means (degrees) and ends (the free pursuit of knowledge) are completely inverted.

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Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement Pledges Nonviolent Direct Action
Allyson Gross, Miles Goodrich – Common Dreams, 9 Mar 2015

Just as in the struggles against the Vietnam War, for a living wage, and for divestment from apartheid, our movement is powerful because we have risen up together.

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March 5, 1871: Rosa Luxemburg Is Born
Richard Kreitner and The Almanac – The Nation, 9 Mar 2015

5 Mar 2015 – Rosa Luxemburg, founder of the Spartacus League, brutally murdered by proto-fascists in January 1919, was born on this day in 1871, just two weeks before the Paris Commune took hold.

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Netanyahu: The Day After
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Mar 2015

4 Mar 2015 – My reaction to Netanyahu’s theatrical performance yesterday in Congress led me to recall that the deepest thinkers turned against democracy in ancient Greece because of the susceptibility of the Athenian citizenry to demagogic oratory from opportunistic politicians. Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides all became sensitive to the degree to which the rhetoric of demagogues contributed to the decline, and eventual downfall, of ancient Athens.

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The Fantasy World of Benjamin Netanyahu: Responses to His Talk to Congress
Rabbi Michael Lerner – Huffington Post, 9 Mar 2015

3 Mar 2015 – Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was brilliantly deceitful because it played to the fantasies that Israeli propaganda and right wing militarists in the US have been popularizing for the past thirty years.

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Commentary on Netanyahu’s Visit to the United States
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Mar 2015

2 Mar 2015 – It is far too simple to be merely outraged by the arrogant presumptuousness of tomorrow’s speech by the Israeli Prime Minister to a joint session of Congress two weeks prior to national elections in Israel. The Netanyahu visit has encouraged various forms of wishful thinking.

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Former Guantanamo Detainee David Hicks Speaks Up
Richard Phillips, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Mar 2015

Hicks, an Australian citizen, was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance in late 2001, sold to the US military and sent to Guantanamo Bay. He spent five and a half years in the prison hellhole where he was subjected to sleep deprivation, beatings, solitary confinement and was injected with unknown substances.

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Sheherazade
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Mar 2015

A cruel prince in 8th century Baghdad returned early from hunting and surprised his wife in the company of another man. He ordered both of them executed.

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‘Lawfare’ and Liberation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

In opposition to a law-oriented foreign policy for the United States are arguments of ‘American exceptionalism.’ Such arguments condition its applicability to American behavior and insist on the implementation of international law in relation to the alleged unlawful conduct of adversaries (e.g. Russia involvement in eastern Ukraine)

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How Gazan Natural Gas Became the Epicenter of an International Power Struggle
Michael Schwartz – CounterPunch, 2 Mar 2015

The Great Game in the Holy Land – After 25 years and five failed Israeli military efforts, Gaza’s natural gas is still underwater and, after four years, the same can be said for almost all of the Levantine gas.

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(Italiano) Quando un terrorista non è un terrorista
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

Ciò che la polizia di Chapel Hill, nella Carolina del Nord ha inizialmente pubblicizzato nel mondo come ‘un litigio per un parcheggio’, è stata l’uccisione deliberata di tre giovani e devoti studenti musulmani americani per mano di un assassino, ‘nuovo ateo’ di nome Craig Stephen Hicks, motivato ideologicamente. Quello che The Economist chiama senza esitazione ‘terrorismo a Copenhagen ha implicato il tentativo di sparare a un vignettista danese che ripetutamente deride il Profeta e le convinzioni islamiche e ha implicato anche l’uccisione con arma da fuoco di una guardia di sicurezza ebrea davanti a una sinagoga.

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Nonviolent Communication
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

Psychologist Marshall Rosenberg (born 1934) was invited to speak at a meeting of a group of young Palestinians in a refugee camp on the West Bank. The Israeli police had recently entered the camp to quell protests. The ground was strewn with tear gas shells labeled “Made in USA”.

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How to Pay for Social Programmes
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

Chapter Eight of: Economic Theory and Community Development – Where we are going with our analysis: What we need is not so much a new economics as a new psychology. We need alignment with the common good. We need community.

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February 19, 1942: FDR Orders the Internment of the Japanese
The Almanac and Richard Kreitner – The Nation, 23 Feb 2015

19 Feb 2015 – The Nation’s response to the president’s evacuation, relocation and internment order was not nearly as firmly opposed as one now wishes it had been.

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When a Terrorist Is Not a Terrorist
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

What the Chapel Hill police in North Carolina initially pitched as ‘a parking dispute’ was the deliberate killing of three young and devout Muslim American students by an ideologically driven ‘new atheist’ killer named Craig Stephen Hicks. What the The Economist unhesitatingly calls ‘terrorism in Copenhagen’ involved the attempted shooting of a Danish cartoonist who repeatedly mocks the Prophet and Islamic beliefs as well as the lethal shooting of a Jewish security guard outside a synagogue.

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Saint Francis and the Wolf
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

We must understand the causes of violence, in our own interest, to prevent it in the future. In no way does this justify violence, or blame the victims.

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Ukraine Agrees To Monsanto Land Grab for $17 Billion IMF Loan
Christina Sarich, Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are helping biotech run the latest war in Ukraine. Make no mistake: what is happening in the Ukraine now is deeply tied to the interests of Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, and other big players in the poison food game.

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Retraction
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

A member of the United States Senate, known for his hot temper and acid tongue, exploded one day in midsession and began to shout, “Half of this Senate is made up of cowards and corrupt politicians!”

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Interview with William Schabas, Former Chair, UN Commission of Inquiry for 2014 Israeli Attack on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

Interview with Prof. William Schabas, recently resigned under pressure as Chair of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to Investigate Allegations of State Crimes associated with Israel’s military attack on Gaza, code named Operation Protective Edge.

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A Presumption against Intervention
Richard Falk, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

It is important to recall that self-determination remains the most significant anti-intervention norm in a post-colonial global setting, and is so often marginalized in debates for or against intervention.

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On the North Carolina Killings
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

14 Feb 2014 – A short interview on how to interpret the ghastly murder of three young Muslims living in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill.

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Good News!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

During Cheney-Bush’s reign of terror in Iraq many many people were taken to Abu Ghraib and to rendition flights never to be seen again.

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My Tribute to Serena Williams
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

By returning to Indian Wells Serena Williams has made the double point of at once acknowledging the pain of her past victimization and the healing power of forgiveness.

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An Irish Ghost Story
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

This story happened a while ago in Dublin, and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it’s true.

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Is It Time to Make Iran Our Friend and Saudi Arabia Our Enemy?
Michael Axworthy – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

Far from being a guarantee of stability in the Middle East, the western alliance with the kingdom is an impediment to peace.

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The Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Chapter Six of: Economic Theory and Community Development.

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Winston Churchill: The Imperial Monster
Michael Dickinson – CounterPunch, 2 Feb 2015

28 Jan 2015: This week Britain is commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion, breed like rabbits and will outstrip any available food supply.” — Churchill

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Viewing American Sniper
Richard Falk, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

To question this American domination project is to antagonize the entrenched bureaucratic, media, and neoliberal forces that benefit from endless war making and its associated expenditures of trillions. In the end it is this grand project of late capitalism that American Sniper indirectly vindicates, thereby burdening the nation and the world, perhaps fatally.

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Not Again!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

A wife and husband lived in a third floor apartment. One day, the husband died.

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Are We All Lebanese Porn Stars? On Freedom of Speech and Mohammed Cartoons
Michael Brull – New Matilda, 26 Jan 2015

If depicting Mohammed in a cartoon is a noble act of freedom of expression, then why isn’t porn on prime time? And a WARNING. This article contains an image that some readers may find offensive.

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Exactly!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

A reporter asked an American,

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Pope Francis, Salman Rushdie, and Charlie Hebdo
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

The Associated Press reports that despite present tensions and the public celebration of free speech the government in Paris has “ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism, and glorifying terrorism.” But no message by the French government mentioning ‘hate cartooning’ or the surge of ‘Islamophobia’ in the country.

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Sectarianism Rears Its Head as Asean Launches Community
Michael Vatikiotis - The Straits Times, 19 Jan 2015

Without a doubt, South-east Asia’s traditional models of pluralism and tolerance are under stress. Before Asean can really become a community, its leaders must move fast to shore up and protect long-established traditions of tolerance and coexistence.

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European Powers Implement Police State Measures in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attack
Ulrich Rippert, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

Governments throughout Europe have responded to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France by moving quickly to push through a raft of anti-democratic measures that have long been prepared, but that have so far encountered resistance.

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Faith
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

A mountain climber slipped down a slope and barely got hold of a small branch at the edge of an abyss.

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Charlie Hebdo Massacre: a Tragic, Universal Failure
Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

Imagine if Charlie Hebdo drew a big-nosed Moses sitting amid buckets of cash. Does no one understand why if one is wrong the other is as well? In fact, a Hebdo cartoonist derided Nicholas Sarkozy’s son for “doing well” by converting to Judaism to marry a wealthy Jewish heiress. The cartoonist was fired. But cartoonists ridiculing the Prophet are now folk heroes.

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Pope Francis and Religious Cosmopolitanism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

It has never been more important to counter the widely disseminated view that religion is ‘inherently’ responsible for political extremism, and more destructively, to blame Islam as a religion for sociopathic violence when the culprits are Muslim. True, religious doctrine can be twisted to serve any values, however demonic, as can secularist thinking.

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Before & After the Fact
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

Before marriage…

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New Level: Monsanto Tries Patenting Natural Tomatoes
Christina Sarich, Natural Society – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

Stealing a Tomato with No Biotech Traits

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Richard Jackson: Terrorism, Torture, and the Problem of Evil in Our Time
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

Richard Jackson, a professor of peace studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, has written a probing political essay that takes the form of an imagined dialogue between a British interrogator and an Egyptian terrorist who is apparently thought at the time of their conversation to be the mastermind of an imminent attack on Great Britain.

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Monks & Politicians
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

A politician was campaigning for reelection and visited all kinds of people, trying to be folksy.

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When Is Civil Society a Force for Social Transformation?
Michael Edwards – Open Democracy, 5 Jan 2015

There are more civil society organizations in the world today than at any other time in history, so why isn’t their impact growing?

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The Irrelevance of Liberal Zionism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

Frustrated by Israeli settlement expansion, excessive violence, AIPAC maximalism, Netanyahu’s arrogance, Israel’s defiant disregard of international law, various Jewish responses claim to seek a middle ground.

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Remembering 2014 (Badly)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Dec 2014

A posture of cynical hopelessness or despair worsens prospects for positive future developments, however empirically based such a negative assessment seems. All of us should recall that those who struggle for what seems ‘impossible’ today often turn out to be the heroes of tomorrow.

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Three Members of Congress Just Reignited the Cold War While No One Was Looking
Dennis Kucinich - Truthdig, 22 Dec 2014

The Congressional Record will show ONLY THREE of 425 members were present on the floor to consider the sanctions bill. According to the clerk’s records, once the bill was considered under unanimous consent, it was passed in one second, unanimously.

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The Dead End of Post-Oslo Diplomacy: What Next?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

The Oslo framework was an unseemly tacit assumption that the Palestinians would be willing to carry on negotiations without complaining about the Israeli violations of international law, most conspicuously the continued unlawful settlement activity.

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Alkarama Human Rights Award to Shireen Issawi
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

Geneva, 13 December 2014 – A letter written from an Israeli prison by the recipient of the award Ms. Shireen Issawi, a brave, resolute, and inspiring human rights defender who has dedicated her professional career as a lawyer to the long Palestinian national struggle for freedom, human rights, and self-determination.

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Shameless: The Luxury Homes That Torture Built
Michael Daly – The Daily Beast, 15 Dec 2014

The CIA paid torture teachers James Mitchell and Bruce Jesser more than $80 million. Call them the houses that torture built: Two sprawling luxury homes purchased by the CIA-contracted psychologists at the center of the scathing Senate report.

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A Eurasian Gas Bombshell
Alexander Sotnichenko - Oriental Review, 8 Dec 2014

At the Dec. 1 joint press conference held by the leaders of Russia and Turkey, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia was abandoning its ambitious South Stream project that would have significantly increased the supply of gas to Europe.

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Memoir Sketch: Championing Lost Causes
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

To contemplate death without the metaphysical painkillers of an imagined afterlife is to be finally alone. In a sense learning to die is equivalent to learning to live alone, and takes courage and fortitude.

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Gaza 2014 Compilation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

A POMEAS Compilation of Writings Relating to Israel’s 50-Day Attack on Gaza

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The Jump
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were watching TV in the evening.

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New 10 Year Study Finds GMO Corn Contaminates Non-GMO Varieties up to 2.8 Miles Away
Christina Sarich – Nation of Change, 1 Dec 2014

GMO pollen, specifically corn, is contaminating non-GMO crops as far as 2.8 miles away. Won’t this have a ripple effect if nothing is done? This is exactly what organic farmers, and non-GMO supporters warned us about decades ago.

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Remembering Yoshikazu Sakamoto (1927-2014)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

I am sharing these words of appreciation, and hope that anyone from Japan who comes across this text will contact me, especially if they have a way of putting me in touch with either Yoshi’s family or Japanese media. I would like to believe that ‘an American appreciation’ of Professor Sakamoto, an important public intellectual, would be of interest to those who knew and admired him.

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Rethinking Economics: From Scarcity to Abundance
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

The coming crash may be humanity’s golden opportunity to transition to post-economic society. Or it may be the beginning of endless misery, violence, confusion, ignorance parading as technocracy, repression and –what is worse– ecocide.

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Mainstream Media Blackout of the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement
Christina Sarich – Nation of Change, 24 Nov 2014

Why won’t Fox, NBC, CNN, or ABC cover the TTP? These media empires (even Facebook has boosted news feeds of the top 100 media outlets, owned by only six mega-corporations to control public opinion) have decided that the public should be kept in the dark about ‘NAFTA on steroids’ so that biotech corporations can completely take over ‘free-trade’ with Pacific Rim nations.

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Surprised?
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

A little boy got lost at the gym and found himself in the women’s locker room.

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Two Interviews [of mine] on Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

14 Nov 2014 – Two recent interviews seek to assess the Palestinian national movement as it is unfolding at this critical time.

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Looking Back on WW-I One Hundred Years Later: Four Mixed Messages
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

Dorothy Brown Memorial Lecture, Auckland, New Zealand, November 8, 2014

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Right!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

A beggar walked up to a well‑dressed heavy woman shopping on Fifth Avenue in New York and said,

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A Minor Footnote to Australia’s Shameless Persecution of Asylum Seekers
Michael Brull – New Matilda, 17 Nov 2014

When it comes to Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers, I think it is impossible to overstate the sadism of government policy. From the savagery of the conditions in offshore processing, to the cruelty of onshore indefinite mandatory detention, we destroy people.

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(Français) LuxLeaks : L’évasion fiscale, un sport national pour les géants américains
Anne Michel - Le Monde, 10 Nov 2014

Luxembourg, Pays-Bas: Profitant d’une législation fiscale souple aux Etats-Unis, et poussées par des actionnaires avides de rentabilité, elles franchissent l’Atlantique, pour dissimuler une partie de leurs juteux profits, réalisés hors des Etats-Unis, dans ce paradis fiscal pour grandes entreprises.

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[Obscene] US Sends ‘Lessons Learned’ Team to Model Israel Tactics in Gaza Operation
Michael Wilner – The Jerusalem Post, 10 Nov 2014

The United States sent a team of senior officers to Israel to learn from tactics in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last Summer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said on Thursday [6 Nov 2014]. He praised the Israel Defense Forces for taking “extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties” in its war against Hamas.

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Relativity
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

Albert Einstein asked the conductor,

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Discovering Iran
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

As Khalil Gibran rightly observed: “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” With every wrong policy, America adds to the scars, strengthens the character and spirit of this unbreakable nation. This is what Washington is not able to grasp.

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Segregating the Evening Commute to the West Bank
Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man - +972 Magazine, 3 Nov 2014

It’s not really segregation. Not on paper at least. Or at least the paper doesn’t use the word “segregation.” In practice, however, people of one national origin will not be allowed to ride on the same bus lines as people of another national origin — for the benefit and at the request of one group, at the expense and against the desires of the other. Call that what you will.

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In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis
Eric Lichtblau – The New York Times, 3 Nov 2014

CIA Allen Dulles believed “moderate” Nazis might “be useful” to America, records show. J. Edgar Hoover, for his part, personally approved some ex-Nazis as informants and dismissed accusations of their wartime atrocities as Soviet propaganda.

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Why Foreign Military Intervention Usually Fails in the 21st Century
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

We have reached a stage in the political development of life on the planet where civilizational and species survival itself depends on the urgency of building an effective movement against the war system that remains indispensable to sustain hierarchy and exploitation, wastes huge amounts of resources, and dangerously diverts problem-solving priorities.

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New Arrivals
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

A pope arrived at the gate of heaven.

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Major Banks Prepare to Pay Billions for Foreign Exchange Manipulation
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

1 Nov 2014 – Some 19 investigations of multinational banks in ten different legal jurisdictions are on their way to completion and the final tally may hit $41 billion to settle charges of foreign exchange manipulation.

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Resisting U.S. Bases in Okinawa
Ayano Ginoza, Michiko Hase and Gwyn Kirk – Foreign Policy In Focus, 27 Oct 2014

Despite intense crackdowns, activists on the Japanese island of Okinawa continue to resist the construction of new U.S. military bases.

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Amish Farmers Study Plant Immunology, Avoid Using Pesticides Completely
Christina Sarich – Nation of Change, 27 Oct 2014

Amish farmers are studying plant immunology in order to grow healthy organic produce free of harmful chemicals.

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Competition
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Oct 2014

On the last day of school before summer, when all children were itching to go home and play, a teacher promised that those children who could answer her questions correctly could leave earlier.

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Victory: Judge Deprives Monsanto of GM Planting Permit in Mexico, Protects the Bees
Christina Sarich – Natural Society, 27 Oct 2014

Honoring the complaints of a small group of beekeepers in the state of Yucatán, who complained that Monsanto’s planned planting of thousands of hectares of GM soybeans made to withstand RoundUp would demolish their honey industry by decimating bees – a judge in Mexico has removed Monsanto’s planting permit.

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The Zombie System – How Capitalism Has Gone Off the Rails
Michael Sauga – Der Spiegel, 27 Oct 2014

Six years after the Lehman disaster, the industrialized world is suffering from Japan Syndrome. Growth is minimal, another crash may be brewing and the gulf between rich and poor continues to widen. Can the global economy reinvent itself?

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Oslo Is Dead! Long Live Oslo! The UK House of Commons Supports Diplomatic Recognition of Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Oct 2014

On October 13 [2014] the House of Commons by an overwhelming vote of 274-12 urged the British government to extend diplomatic recognition to Palestine. At first glance, it would seem a rather meaningless gesture. It is a non-binding resolution.

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Briefing
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Oct 2014

Donald Rumsfeld is giving President Bush his daily briefing.

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Syria-to-Ukraine Wars Send U.S. Defense Stocks to Records
Richard Clough, Bloomberg – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Oct 2014

Led by Lockheed Martin Corp. the biggest U.S. defense companies are trading at record prices as shareholders reap rewards from escalating military conflicts around the world. Investors see rising sales for makers of missiles, drones and other weapons as the U.S. hits Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq.

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Did Israel Commit Genocide in Gaza?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Oct 2014

In a special session of the Russell Tribunal, Israel’s Operation Protective Edge was critically scrutinized from the perspective of international law, including the core allegation of genocide through testimonies by legal and weapons experts, health workers, journalists and others who experienced the 50 days of military assault.

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Questioning Sweden’s ‘Bold’ Diplomatic Initiative
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Oct 2014

The new center-left Swedish Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven, in his inaugural speech to Parliament indicated on October 3 [2014] the intention of the Swedish government to recognize Palestinian statehood.

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The Genie
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Oct 2014

A New Zealander, a South African and an Australian were the only survivors of a shipwreck on a small South Sea island, surviving on coconuts.

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