Articles by RD
We found 3491 results.
(Castellano) El porqué de la violencia en el ser humano y en la sociedad
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
20 Jun 2017 – Vivimos a nivel nacional y mundial situaciones de violencia que desafían nuestro entendimiento. No solo de seres humanos contra otros seres humanos, especialmente en el Norte de África, en Sudán y en Oriente Medio, sino también contra la naturaleza y la Madre Tierra.
→ read full articleAmerica at War since 9/11: Reality or Reality TV?
Rebecca Gordon - TomDispatch,
3 Jul 2017
I now face students who have lived their entire conscious lives in a country we are told is “at war” since 2001 when George W. Bush declared a War on Terror. Theirs is the strangest of “wars,” one without sacrifice. It lacks the ration books, the blackouts, the shortages experienced during World War II. It lacks the fear that an enemy army will land on our coasts or descend from our skies. None of us fears that war will take away our food, electricity, water, or most precious of all, our Wi-Fi. For us, that is only an endless make-believe war, one that might as well be taking place on another planet in another universe.
→ read full articleJewish Ethnicity, Palestinian Solidarity, Human Identity
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
23 Jun 2017 – The following interview with Abdo Emara, an Arab journalist, was published in Arabic. There are no substantive changes from my earlier responses. I think it worthwhile to share this text because the questions asked by Abdo Emara are often directed at me in the discussion period after talks I have given recently.
→ read full article(Português) O porquê da violência no ser humano e na sociedade
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
A existência da violência, não raro sob forma de aterradora crueldade, representa um desafio para o entendimento. Teólogos, filósofos, cientistas e sábios não encontraram até hoje uma resposta convincente.
→ read full articleGrowing Awareness of Colonial Past Fuels Radicalisation, Says Czech Minister
Patrick Wintour – The Guardian,
26 Jun 2017
An awakening in the Muslim world about the atrocities committed in the West’s colonial past is feeding contemporary radicalisation of communities, said the Czech foreign minister on Wednesday [14 Jun]. Lubomír Zaorálek, likely Social Democrat candidate for prime minister, says in dark speech that the West has 20 years to reach a settlement with Muslim world.
→ read full article
Soldier Boy
Keely Hutton and Anywar Ricky Richard – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
Greetings from Friends of Orphans in Uganda. I am delighted SOLDIER BOY has been released on June 13, 2017. I am happy that I have lived to tell the world my story, and what is happening to war victims especially the children who did not get the opportunities to tell their stories. It is my honor to represent the voice of the voiceless and I hope that many people will get to know and learn about the plight of children being used in armed forces around the world.
→ read full articleOperation Condor: US, Latin American Slaughter, Torture Program
Edward Rhymes – teleSUR,
26 Jun 2017
The United States was a major backer of the military dictatorships during the 1970s that overthrew some Latin American democracies. [From TMS Editor: I was tortured after Brazil’s 1964 CIA military coup with electric shocks to my limbs, genitals as Operation Condor ravaged Latin America in my 20’s. For the record.]
→ read full articleWhy International Justice Still Faces Roadblocks
Richard Dicker – The Washington Post,
26 Jun 2017
22 Jun 2017 – The prospects for justice for crimes against humanity and war crimes are more daunting today than at any time in the past two decades. The Rome Statute’s upcoming 20th anniversary – July 17, 2018 — may provide just such a rallying point. The ICC’s founding document, while imperfect, represents a major historical achievement when impunity, and not accountability, has for too long been the norm.
→ read full article(Português) François Houtart e Miguel d’Escoto: Servos dos Oprimidos – Frei Betto
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
13 junho 2017 – Associo-me ao Frei Betto na homenagem de dois grandes amigos comuns que tínhamos e que concluiram, na semana passada, a sua peregrinação por este mundo: o teólogo e sociólogo belga vivendo no Equador, François Hourtart e o ex-chanceler da Nicaragua e ex-presidente da ONU 2008-2009, o padre Miguel d’Escoto. Foram os servos dos oprimidos duante toda a vida. Dele aprendemos a política unida à espiritualidade e a reconhecer a diplomacia como caminho para a paz entre os povos.
→ read full articleOvercoming Nuclear Crises: North Korea and Beyond
Richard Falk and David Krieger | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
This jointly authored essay was initially published in The Hill on May 30, 2017 under the title, Averting the Ticking Time Bomb of Nukes in North Korea. We did not choose such a title that is doubly misleading: our contention is not that North Korea is the core of the problem, but rather the retention of nuclear weapons by all of the states pose both crises in the context of counter-proliferation geopolitics and with respect to the possession, deployment, and development of the weaponry itself; a second objection is with the title given the piece by editors at The Hill. While acknowledging the practice of media outlets to decide on titles without seeking prior approval from authors, this title is particularly objectionable to me. The term ‘nukes’ gives an almost friendly shorthand to these most horrific of weapons, and strikes a tone that trivializes what should be regarded at all times with solemnity.
→ read full articleRemembering a Priest, a Diplomat, and a Voice for Palestine: Miguel D’Escoto
Richard Falk and Phyllis Bennis – The Nation,
19 Jun 2017
14 Jun 2017 – Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, who died a few days ago, was a Catholic priest and former president of the UN General Assembly. The Nicaraguan diplomat was also a leading voice of conscience on Middle East peace — as well as a cherished friend, loved and admired by both of us, who became an inspirational figure to many around the world.
→ read full articleOldest Homo Sapiens Bones Ever Found Shake Foundations of the Human Story
Ian Sample – The Guardian,
19 Jun 2017
Idea that modern humans evolved in East Africa 200,000 years ago challenged by extraordinary discovery of 300,000-year-old remains in Moroccan mine.
→ read full articleThe Galtung-Institut’s 2017 Summer Academy
Naakow Grant-Hayford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
At the heart of the Galtung-Institut’s Summer Academy is a resolve to equip enrolled participants with the capacity to solve complex societal conflicts by using means that are nonviolent, empathetic and constructive. A resolve that has led us to become active in the field of training peace professionals.
→ read full articleA General Solution to Economic Problems
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
I refer to the unsolved ones, not to those that are pretty satisfactorily solved already. I focus on our two acronyms SF1 and SF2, where SF can be read as Staggering Fact or as Structural Fact.
→ read full articleThe Declaration of Peace
Kent Drummond Shifferd | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
These are self-evident truths:
That all humans are a single family living on a fragile and endangered planet whose life support systems must remain intact if we are to survive; …
The Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy: Questions, Hints and Allegations
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
Robert Kennedy, like his brother John, was a great danger to those virulent forces of war and oppression within his own government, and he died opposing them as a true patriot. We should honor him on this day – June 6th – that he died; honor him by pursuing the truth of why he died and why it still matters. Because it does.
→ read full articleInterrogating the Qatar Rift
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
7 Jun 2017 – The abrupt announcement that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, UAE, Yemen, the Maldive Islands, and the eastern government in divided Libya have broken all economic and political ties with Qatar has given rise to a tsunami of conjecture, wild speculation, and most of all, to wishful thinking and doomsday worries… We can gain some glimmers of understanding of what is motivating these Arab governments to act against Qatar, but little sympathy.
→ read full articleDangers and Adventures in United Nations Peace Making
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
For TRANSCEND members to read and to encourage them to share their own experience of risk management.
→ read full articleOscar Winning Industry Heavy Weights Team with Sea Shepherd on Student Film Contest
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
8 Jun 2017 – Sea Shepherd Conservation Society partnered with a group of Hollywood industry heavyweights and a middle school from the Los Angeles Unified School District on a student filmmaking contest.
→ read full articleAverting the Ticking Time Bomb of Nukes in North Korea
Richard Falk and David Krieger | The Hill – TRANSCEND Media Service~,
5 Jun 2017
30 May 2017 – Alarmingly, tensions between the United States and North Korea have again reached crisis proportions. Until this structure of nuclearism is itself overcome, crises will almost certainly continue to occur. It is foolhardy to suppose that nuclear catastrophes can be indefinitely averted without addressing these deeper challenges that have existed ever since the original atomic attack on Hiroshima.
→ read full articleThe Galtung-Institut’s 2017 Summer Academy
Naakow Grant-Hayford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jun 2017
From August 7 to 13, Paul Scott (USA), Kees van Der Veer (NL), Johan Galtung (NO) & Naakow Grant-Hayford (GH), all members of the TRANSCEND International Network, will be offering an intense 7 day Summer Academy dedicated to teaching actionable skills for solution-indicative conflict analysis and conflict transformation.
→ read full articleOn Zbigniew Brzezinski: Geopolitical Mastermind, Realist Practitioner
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jun 2017
When it comes to Brzezinski’s legacy, I believe it to be mixed. He was a brilliant practitioner, always able to present his views lucidly, forcefully, and with a catchy quality of coherence. In my view, his Cold War outlook was driven toward unacceptable extremes by his anti-Soviet preoccupations. After the Cold War he seemed more prudent and sensible, especially in the last twenty years, when his perceptions of world order were far more illuminating than those of Kissinger, his geopolitical other.
→ read full articleAlternate Worldviews: Davutoğlu, Kissinger, Xi Jinping
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 May 2017
This post is a much modified version of a shorter opinion piece published by the global-e online publication on May 18, 2017. It is a response to and commentary upon an essay of Ahmet Davutoğlu, former foreign minister and prime minister of Turkey.
→ read full articleTwo Sides of the Palestinian Coin: Hunger Strike/Gaza
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 May 2017
28 May 2017 – The Palestinian hunger strike protesting Israeli prison conditions was suspended on May 27th after 40 days, at a time when many of the 1000 or so strikers were experiencing serious deteriorations of health, most were by then hospitalized, and the holy period of Ramadan about to commence creating continuity between the daytime fasting of the faithful and the prior desperate protest of the strikers.
→ read full article(Português) A fome como desafio ético e espiritual
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
A pobreza é sistêmica, pois é fruto de um tipo de sociedade que tem por objetivo acumular mais e mais bens materiais sem qualquer consideração humanitária (justiça social) e ambiental (justiça ecológica). Ela pressupõe pessoas cruéis, cínicas e sem qualquer sentido de solidariedade, portanto, num contexto de alta desumaniação e até de barbárie
→ read full articleThe Palestinian Hunger Strike: “Our chains will be broken before we are…”
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
Even if this commitment is not carried through to a grim finality, it will not tarnish the significance of what has been undertaken, and the great reluctance of the world to focus its attention on such a display of nonviolent martyrdom. It appears to be the most consequential due to the participation of Marwan Barghouti along with so many other Palestinian prisoners as well as producing many displays of solidarity beyond the prison walls.
→ read full articleTrumped Up Diplomacy in the Middle East
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
20 May 2017 – As Trump dominates the news by his visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel we should not be tricked into thinking that his ‘achievements’ are hopeful developments. The only true beacons of hope for the peoples of the Middle East are the contrarian affirmations of the Palestinian hunger strike, the Rouhani electoral victory, and the BDS Campaign.
→ read full articleChelsea Manning Released from Military Prison
Ed Pilkington – The Guardian,
22 May 2017
17 May 2017 – Chelsea Manning, the army private who released a vast trove of US state secrets and was punished by the US military for months in penal conditions denounced by the UN as torture, has been released from a military prison in Kansas after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence.
→ read full articleEscaping the Iron Cage of Hopelessness
Prof. Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
In a previous article I argued that those who think science can solve our major social problems – in particular, world destruction with nuclear weapons and the poisoning of the earth’s ecology and atmosphere – were delusional and in the grip of the myth of science and technology. These problems were created by science when it became untethered from any sense of limits in its embrace of instrumental rationality.
→ read full articleOn the Intransitive Objects of the Social (or Human) Sciences
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
Jan 2017 – When Roy Bhaskar first introduced his concept of intransitive objects of knowledge in A Realist Theory of Science, his first examples of such objects were the specific gravity of mercury, the process of electrolysis, the mechanism of light propagation, sound and heavy bodies falling to earth. Such objects would continue to exist in a world where there was no science to know them. In such a world, which has existed in the past and which might come again, the causal laws that science has now discovered would prevail in the absence of knowledge of them.
→ read full articleMyanmar Army Allegedly Left Rohingya Refugees with Bullet Wounds and Burns
Emanuel Stoakes – The Guardian,
15 May 2017
Shocking photographic evidence showing children among the injured adds weight to claims that military committed atrocities against Rohingya people.
→ read full articleConflict-sensitive Repatriation
Tatsushi Arai | ACCORD – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 May 2017
Lessons from Displaced Communities in Northeastern Nigeria
→ read full articleAt the Crazier Than Thou Contest
Khalil Bendib - OtherWords,
15 May 2017
Anything your leader can do, mine can do worse.
→ read full articleThe Industry of Inequality: Why the World Is Obsessed with Private Security
Claire Provost – The Guardian,
15 May 2017
New Guardian research shows private security workers outnumber public police officers for the majority of the world – in a business that now dwarfs what is spent trying to end global poverty.
→ read full articleIsrael’s New Cultural War of Aggression
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
A Small Battleground in a Large Culture War – The real institutional scandal is not that the UN is obsessed with Israel but rather that it is blocked from taking action that might exert sufficient pressure on Israel to induce the dismantling of apartheid structures relied upon to subjugate, displace, and dispossess the Palestinian people over the course of more than 70 years with no end in sight.
→ read full articleLet’s Call Western Media Coverage of Syria by Its Real Name: Propaganda
Michael Howard – Paste Magazine,
8 May 2017
26 Apr 2017 – In his essential study of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, University of Kent Professor Richard Sakwa writes that, somewhere down the road, Western media’s reductive, ideological coverage of the conflict “will undoubtedly become the subject of many an intriguing academic study.” That’s if the human race isn’t wiped out by environmental catastrophe or nuclear holocaust first.
→ read full article(Français) Le Portugal, l’Union Européenne et l’Euro – interview avec João Ferreira
Ricardo Vaz | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
3 Mai 2017 – Au Portugal, un changement de gouvernement après les élections législatives de 2015 a mis fin à l’austérité imposée par la troïka ce qui a permis un revirement de certaines politiques. Mais des problèmes structurels persistent en raison de la nature de l’UE et de ses mécanismes, en particulier la monnaie unique. Pour discuter de la situation politique au Portugal, nous avons interviewé João Ferreira du Parti Communiste Portugais; il est membre du Comité Central du PCP, conseiller municipal à Lisbonne et deux fois élu au Parlement européen.
→ read full articleScientists and Sea Shepherd Team on Humpback Whale Research and Microplastics in Ocean
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
26 Apr 20917 – Sea Shepherd joined forces with a group of scientists last month to conduct research on two separate projects off the coast of Mexico: humpback whales and ocean plastics.
→ read full articleThe CIA Has a Long History of Killing or Trying to Kill Leaders around the World
Ewen MacAskill – The Guardian,
8 May 2017
US intelligence agency has since 1945 succeeded in deposing or killing a string of leaders, but was forced to cut back after a Senate investigation in the 1970s. The US never totally abandoned the strategy, simply changing the terminology from assassination to targeted killings, from aerial bombing of presidents to drone attacks on alleged terrorist leaders.
→ read full articleMarching in Circles: Faustian Thinking and the Myth of Science
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
Nature and all living creatures, including ourselves, have become our enemies and are rejected as ends in themselves. Everything and everyone is a means. We must bomb, bulldoze, manipulate, drug, control, poison, etc. – all in the service of a diabolical willfulness that brooks no resistance.
→ read full articleWhen NGOs Save Children Who Don’t Want to Be Saved
Neil Howard – Al Jazeera,
1 May 2017
Western media misrepresent voluntary child labour as slavery.
→ read full articleTrump versus International Liberalism: Should We Care?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 May 2017
Only civil society militancy on an unprecedented scale can create a mandate for the kind of global transformation in ideas and structures are necessary to enable a sustainable future resting on the values of eco-humanism. If this analysis is correct, Trumpism and liberalism are nothing but sideshows.
→ read full articleStuck in the Middle, South Korea Has Few Options for Securing Peace with Its Northern Neighbour
Bernard Loo Fook Weng – The Conversation,
1 May 2017
South Korea must seek to strike a balance in its respective strategic and economic relationships.
→ read full articleWho Is Behind the State Department’s Coup Plot in Venezuela?
Misión Verdad – teleSUR,
1 May 2017
Creating a distorted image of the humanitarian crisis is the starting point. Painting a picture of a country on the verge of collapse is the alibi.
→ read full articleMarch for Science Puts Earth Day Focus on Global Opposition to Trump
Oliver Milman – The Guardian,
24 Apr 2017
More than 600 marches held around the world, with organizers saying science ‘under attack’ from a White House that dismisses the threat of climate change. • Why March for Science? Because when it is attacked, only elites benefit
→ read full articlePutting a Value on Injuries to Natural Assets: The BP Oil Spill
Richard C. Bishop, et al* | American Association for the Advancement of Science – Science Magazine,
24 Apr 2017
21 Apr 2017 – BP Oil Spill Damage to Natural Resources Valued at $17.2 Billion, Scientists Find: When large-scale accidents cause catastrophic damage to natural or cultural resources, government and industry are faced with the challenge of assessing the extent of damages and the magnitude of restoration that is warranted.
→ read full articleThe Zookeeper’s Wife: Reflections on Past and Present
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
I do honor the memory of the Holocaust as a prime experience of unrestrained evil, forever a source of mourning and foreboding, and acknowledge that I have a certain degree of ‘survivor guilt’ having been so arbitrarily spared despite my ethnic eligibility for the gas chamber. At the same time, I refuse to defer to that past by disregarding present evil, no matter the perpetrator. The Palestinian experience of victimization is severe, prolonged, ongoing, without an end in sight.
→ read full articleCelebrating the Fifth of May
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
If you have successfully freed your twenty-first century mind from enslavement to the jurisprudence of the eighteenth century, you will have no trouble accepting the cancellation of debts. If you are a realist about the evolution of the human species on the planet earth, you will see necessary or desirable debt cancellation as just another adjustment of culture to its physical functions.
→ read full article(Português) Bugios: eles não precisam de mais uma ameaça!
Leonardo Merçon | Conexão Planeta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
Quando parei para fotografar a cena, um destes macacos, que estava com o grupo, que dormia todo encolhido e junto para se proteger do frio, levantou a cabeça me direcionou um olhar bem profundo. Aquele olhar me comoveu. Na hora, senti que aquela foto um dia serviria para uma causa maior. Fui para casa, editei a imaem e guardei para utilizá-la no momento certo.
→ read full article‘A National Disgrace’: Catalogue of Animal Suffering at Scottish Abattoirs Revealed
Andrew Wasley and Rob Edwards - The Bureau of Investigative Journalism,
24 Apr 2017
19 Apr 2017 – Cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens have been found injured, emaciated, diseased or dead on arrival at abattoirs. Numerous animals were slaughtered while heavily pregnant or had to be repeatedly stunned before they were killed. “It shows without a shadow of a doubt that the business of slaughtering animals is brutal and all too often is conducted without a thought for either the law or the appalling suffering of the animals involved.”
→ read full articleIrish Recollections: After the Cork Conference on ‘International Law and the State of Israel’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Apr 2017
14 Apr 2017 – Palestinian wounds will not heal until a credible reconciliation process is established that includes Israeli official acknowledgements of historic wrongdoing centered on the nakba, conceived of as a process of dispossession, displacement, and domination.
→ read full articleHow the Refugee Crisis Is Dealing another Blow to Europe’s Roma
Julija Sardelic and Aidan McGarry - teleSUR,
17 Apr 2017
Romani minorities like Manouche, Kale and Sinti have lived in Europe since the 14th century when they arrived from India, and have been in Europe often for as long as majority populations. You will find Roma in every European country. There are some 10-12 million Romani people on the continent and they often suffer from socio-economic marginalization. They are singled out as unwanted foreigners and deemed perpetual migrants and outsiders.
→ read full articleLeonardo da Vinci (15 Apr 1452 – 2 May 1519)
leonardodavinci – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio’s workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities.
→ read full articleThe U.S. Attack on al-Shayrat Airfield
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
There are two clusters of serious questions raised. Is this a new turn toward belligerent internationalism by the Trump presidency that will shape the near future of American foreign policy in the Middle East, and possibly elsewhere? Does the reversion to unilateralism with respect to international uses of force heighten the risks of geopolitical escalation and large-scale warfare, including possibly the threat or use of nuclear weapons?
→ read full articleThe Silent Cries of Hiding Children: Fifty Years after MLK’s Riverside Church Speech
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
“A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war. This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social up lift is approaching spiritual death.” — MLK
→ read full articleThe Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Is Over – What’s Needed Now Is a Boycott
Mike Merryman-Lotze | OtherWords, Institute for Policy Studies – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
With the U.S. now firmly in the pro-settler camp, nonviolent campaigns to impose a cost on Israel’s occupation matter more than ever. The White House is creating new problems in Israel-Palestine, but ordinary people can start setting things right.
→ read full article(Français) Richard Falk : de nombreux dirigeants israéliens ont eux-mêmes annoncé depuis longtemps qu’Israël deviendrait un État d’apartheid…
Richard Falk | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
Une enquête sur l’apartheid dans le contexte israélien n’est pas quelque chose de scandaleux, ni même de particulièrement nouveau.
→ read full articleIsraeli Guidelines Point to Largely Unconstrained Settlement Expansion
Peter Beaumont – The Guardian,
3 Apr 2017
31 Mar 2017 – Israel has indicated it will pursue a unilateral policy of largely unconstrained settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories, as it announced the first new settlement in two decades. Plan outlined by Benjamin Netanyahu would allow building within boundaries of existing blocks, adjacent to them, or close to the blocs.
→ read full articleHow the United Nations Should Respond in the Age of Global Dissent
Richard Falk, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck – New Statesman,
3 Apr 2017
Three Former UN Insiders on the Future of the World’s Most Ambitious Organisation
→ read full article(Castellano) A la cultura de la violencia oponemos la cultura de la paz
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
Al abordar el tema de la paz en su encíclica, el obispo de Roma, Francisco, repite lo que Gandhi y otros maestros han dicho antes: «la paz no es ausencia de guerra. La paz interior de las personas tiene mucho que ver con el cuidado, con la ecología y con el bien común, porque cuando es auténticamente vivida, se refleja en un equilibrado estilo de vida, aliado con la capacidad de admiración que lleva a la profundidad de la vida; la naturaleza está llena de palabras de amor».
→ read full articleAung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar’s Great Hope Fails to Live Up to Expectations
Poppy McPherson – The Guardian,
3 Apr 2017
31 Mar 2017 – It was never meant to be this way. A year after her party swept to power, the Nobel laureate faces questions over her leadership and silence on persecution of Rohingya Muslims.
→ read full articleU.S. Military Personnel Deployments by Country
Jeff Desjardins | Visual Capitalist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
18 Mar 2017 – The U.S. spends more on defense than the next 7 countries combined. Part of that money goes to supporting 200,000 troops abroad in 177 countries. Look at the charts.
→ read full articleThe Inside Story on Our UN Report Calling Israel an Apartheid State
Richard Falk – The Nation,
3 Apr 2017
A people cannot be permanently repressed in all these ways without viewing the structure that has emerged as an apartheid regime.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Reveals “Marble”: Proof CIA Disguises Their Hacks as Russian, Chinese, Arabic…
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
31 Mar 2017 – WikiLeaks’ latest Vault 7 release contains a batch of documents, named ‘Marble’, which detail CIA hacking tactics and how they can misdirect forensic investigators from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to their agency by inserted code fragments in foreign languages. The biggest malicious hacker on Earth was, and still is, the CIA.
→ read full articleIs Israel an Apartheid State?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Mar 2017
This post was originally published on March 22, 2017 by The Nation under the title “The Inside Story of Our UN Report Calling Israel an Apartheid State.” What is below is somewhat modified.
→ read full articleThe Multibillion-Dollar U.S. Spy Agency You Haven’t Heard of
James Bamford - Foreign Policy Magazine,
27 Mar 2017
On a heavily protected military base some 15 miles south of Washington, D.C., sits the massive headquarters of a spy agency few know exists. Even Barack Obama, five months into his presidency, seemed not to have recognized its name.
→ read full article(Castellano) Una ética para la Madre Tierra
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Mar 2017
14 mar 2017 – Hoy es un hecho científicamente reconocido que los cambios climáticos, cuya expresión mayor es el calentamiento global son de naturaleza antropogénica, con un grado de seguridad del 95%. Es decir, tienen su génesis en un tipo de comportamiento humano violento con la naturaleza.
→ read full articleSnow, Death, and the Bewildered Herd
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Mar 2017
Wherever you go these days, you sense a generalized panic and an inability to slow down and focus. Depression, anxiety, hopelessness fill the air. Most people sense that something is seriously wrong, but don’t know exactly what. So they rage and rant and scurry along in a frenzy. It seems so huge, so everything, so indescribable. Minds like pointilliste canvases with thousands of data dots and no connections.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Human Rights Spies: Manipulating the Discourse
Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini – Al Jazeera,
27 Mar 2017
22 Mar 2017 – A fascinating expose in Haaretz reveals how, in the mid-1970s – not long after the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights – Israel used university faculty members to infiltrate Amnesty International. Revelations shocked many but human rights ‘spies’ are still out there.
→ read full articleUN Sponsored Report on Israel’s Responsibility for Apartheid in Relation to the Palestinian People
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
19 Mar 2017 – Below is the text of a report co-authored by Virginia Tilley and myself, commissioned by the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA) that examines the argument for regarding Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ with respect to the whole of the Palestinian people, that is, not only those Palestinians living under occupation, but also those living as residents of Jerusalem, those living as a minority in Israel, and those enduring refugee camps and involuntary exile.
→ read full article(Castellano) Estado y Ciudadanía: el rol de la educación en DDHH para su construcción cultural y política
Howard Richards y Alicia Cabezudo – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
Adelantamos la tesis de que hay una oportunidad prometedora y desafiante que tenemos los profesores para cambiar en sentido positivo el rumbo de la historia. Es una oportunidad también peligrosa. Cuando usamos la frase “rumbo de la historia” tenemos en mente la diferencia entre, por una parte, los innumerables sucesos que pasan; y, por otra, aquellos sucesos, o constelaciones de sucesos, que cambian de una manera fundamental la forma de vida de un pueblo, o de unos pueblos.
→ read full article(Italiano) Un’ Etica Per la Madre Terra, Nuestra Casa Comune
Leonardo Boff - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
Abbiamo bisogno urgente di un’etica rigeneratrice della Terra. Questa deve restituirle la vitalità ferita, affinché possa continuare a regalarci tutto come aveva sempre fatto. Sarà un’etica della cura, del rispetto dei suoi ritmi e della responsabilità collettiva.
→ read full articleNorth Korea Tensions Pose Early, and Perilous, Test for Trump
David E. Sanger, Choe Sang-Hun, Chris Buckley and Michael R. Gordon – The New York Times,
20 Mar 2017
7 Mar 2017 – The United States began deploying a missile defense system in South Korea this week. China condemned the new antimissile system as a dangerous opening move in what it called America’s grand strategy to set up similar defenses across Asia, threatening to tilt the balance of power there against Beijing.
→ read full articleThe East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders
William Dalrymple – The Guardian,
20 Mar 2017
For a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant. It was not the British government that seized India, but a private company, run by an unstable sociopath.
→ read full articleThe Radical Jesus: How Would the Baby in a Manger Fare in the American Police State?
John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
Jesus was good. He was caring. He had powerful, profound things to say—things that would change how we view people, alter government policies and change the world. He went around helping the poor. And when confronted by those in authority, he did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Jesus was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state.
→ read full articleAsking Foolish Questions about Serious Issues
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
Serious and worrisome parallel issues are raised by recent disclosures of serious cyber attacks by the US Government on the North Korean nuclear program. The American media and government officialdom treat the conduct of cyber warfare against North Korea’s nuclear program as something to be judged exclusively by its success or failure, not whether it’s right or wrong, prudent or reckless.
→ read full article(Português) Uma ética da Mãe Terra, nossa Casa Comum
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
12 março 2017 – É um fato cientificamente reconhecido hoje que as mudanças climáticas, cuja expressão maior se dá pelo aquecimento global é, num grau de certeza de 95%, de natureza antropogênica, Quer dizer, possui sua gênese num tipo de comportamento humano violento face à natureza… Uma ética da Terra não se sustenta sozinha por muito tempo sem esse supplément d’ame que é a vida do espírito. Ele nos faz sentir parte da Mãe Terra a quem devemos amar e cuidar.
→ read full articlePaying for Imperialism? Fury in Cambodia as US Asks to Be Paid Back Hundreds of Millions in War Debts
Lindsay Murdoch – The Age,
13 Mar 2017
11 Mar 2017 – Half a century after United States B-52 bombers dropped more than 500,000 tonnes of explosives on Cambodia’s countryside Washington wants the country to repay a $US 500 million war debt. The demand has prompted expressions of indignation and outrage from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh.
→ read full articlePeeping Pigs and Propaganda by Omission
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
5 Mar 2017 – While there is much talk these days about “fake news,” omitting important news is perhaps as widespread and egregiously harmful to an informed public. The following report tries to remedy the way the mainstream media have for years ignored one of the oddest but more important news stories of the last sixty years.
→ read full articleUN Experts Denounce ‘Myth’ Pesticides Are Necessary to Feed the World
Damian Carrington – The Guardian,
13 Mar 2017
Report warns of catastrophic consequences and blames manufacturers for ‘systematic denial of harms’ and ‘unethical marketing tactics.’
→ read full articleReading Elisabeth Weber’s KILL BOXES
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
Kill Boxes: Facing the Legacy of US-Sponsored Torture, Indefinite Detention, and Drone Warfare, by Elisabeth Weber – The purpose of this post is to recommend highly the above book addressing the interrelated issues of torture, indefinite detention, and drone warfare from a perspective that is both humanistic and deeply steeped in European philosophical thought.
→ read full articleOur Sons-of-Bitches: Western Media and the Syrian “Rebels”
Ricardo Vaz | Dissident Voice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
“He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch,” U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt once said about Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. We examine how the western media, always so full of editorials and columns praising western values (whatever those may be), have covered the Syrian opposition, focusing on three groups in particular.
→ read full articleA Nuclear Weapons Ban Should First Do No Harm to the NPT
Adam Mount and Richard Nephew | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Mar 2017
Simple additions to the text of a new ban treaty would keep it from being used as a cover for non-compliance with the existing non-proliferation regime.
→ read full article‘Worst View in the World’: Banksy Opens Hotel Overlooking Bethlehem Wall
Emma Graham-Harrison – The Guardian,
6 Mar 2017
British artist launches Walled Off hotel in hope of bringing Israeli tourists–and dialogue–to West Bank city. The Walled Off hotel may sound utilitarian, even bleak. Its owner says it has “the worst view of any hotel in the world”, while its 10 rooms get just 25 minutes of direct sunlight a day.
→ read full articleDalai Lama Adds Voice to Pope’s in Calling for the Persecution of Rohingya to End
Lindsay Murdoch | People’s Tribunal on Myanmar – The Sydney Morning Herald,
6 Mar 2017
3 Mar 2017 – The Dalai Lama has joined Pope Francis in calling for Myanmar Buddhists to end violence against Rohingya Muslims in what the United Nations says amounts to ethnic cleansing and possibly crimes against humanity.
→ read full articleWill Trump’s America Make the World Safer or More Dangerous?
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Mar 2017
Donald Trump’s speech to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday February 28th certainly had a different tone from his usual, irascible midnight tweets. Some of the speech sounded quite similar to speeches given by previous presidents. Some of it was even boring (which is rare for Trump: he may be a horrible misogynist, but he is seldom boring).
→ read full articleThe Role of Biodiversity Scientists in a Troubled World
Arturo Gómez-Pompa | American Institute of Biological Sciences, Oxford University Press – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Mar 2017
As a society, we are torn apart by conflicting views on issues of enormous importance. In the debate on many of these issues, both sides have persuasive arguments for their position. I hear convincing views from opposite extremes: pro-war or antiwar, pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, pro-GMO or anti-GMO, pro-life or pro-choice, pro-bioprospecting or anti-bioprospecting. I feel the anguish of having to take sides on issues I do not know well and whose reconciliation seems impossible.
→ read full articleThe Art of the Trumpaclysm: How the U.S. Invaded, Occupied, and Remade Itself
Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch,
6 Mar 2017
We’re now living in Donald Trump’s America (which I certainly didn’t either predict or imagine in March 2015); we’re living, that is, in an ever more chaotic and aberrant land run (to the extent it’s run at all) by billionaires and retired generals, and overseen by a distinctly aberrant president at war with aberrant parts of the national security state.
→ read full articleMem Fox on Being Detained by US Immigration: ‘In That Moment I Loathed America’
Mem Fox – The Guardian,
6 Mar 2017
The celebrated Australian children’s author tells how on her 117th visit to the US she was suddenly at the mercy of Donald Trump’s visa regime. I kept thinking that if this were happening to me, a person who is white, articulate, educated and fluent in English, what on earth is happening to people who don’t have my power? That’s the heartbreak of it. Remember, I wasn’t pulled out because I’m some kind of revolutionary activist, but my God, I am now. I am on the frontline.
→ read full articleErasing the UN
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Mar 2017
We have reached a stage of human development where future prospects are tied to finding institutional mechanisms that can serve human and global interests in addition to national interests, whether pursued singly or in aggregate. In this central respect, Trump’s ardent embrace of American nationalism is an anachronistic dead end. We need a greatly empowered UN, not an erased UN.
→ read full articleShould the Palestinians Seek Justice NOW at the International Criminal Court?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2017
23 Feb 2017 – This post calls particular attention to the punitive treatment of recourse to international law tribunals to address perceived grievances that is meant to discourage Palestinians from seeking relief at the International Criminal Court. It seems almost certain that the Palestinian Authority will not act to take advantage of the ICC option any time soon. The PA is likely to adopt a posture of neither/nor, that is, neither explicitly ruling out recourse to the ICC, nor activating the option.
→ read full articleStanding Rock Is Burning – But Our Resistance Isn’t Over
Julian Brave NoiseCat – The Guardian,
27 Feb 2017
Water protectors near Standing Rock have set their camp on fire. It’s an act of defiance against a system of oppression that can only be described as colonial.
→ read full articleThe Migrant Slave Trade Is Booming in Libya. Why Is the World Ignoring It?
Ross Kemp – The Guardian,
27 Feb 2017
I’ve seen the dangerous route to Europe through Libya, with thousands of people at the mercy of cruelty for profit. But our leaders prefer to keep them there.
→ read full articleChelsea Manning: To Those Who Kept Me Alive All These Years, Thank You
Chelsea E Manning – The Guardian,
20 Feb 2017
13 Feb 2017 – When I was afraid, you taught me how to keep going. When I was lost, you showed me the way. To those who have kept me alive for the past six years: minutes after President Obama announced the commutation of my sentence, the prison quickly moved me out of general population and into the restrictive housing unit where I am now held.
→ read full articleIsrael Legalizes Settlement Options as a Prelude to the Netanyahu Visit to Trumpland
Richard Falk | Social Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2017
13 Feb 2017 – Responses to four questions posed by Rodrigo Craveiro, a journalist from the Brazilian newspaper Correio Braziliense.
→ read full articleHow to Save the World from Fascism and Meet Human Needs in Harmony with Nature
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2017
President Franklin Roosevelt had declared that America was fighting for the Four Freedoms: speech, worship, from want, and from fear. Jack wrote home that the U.S. troops in Europe were called “The Four Freedoms Boys.” First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt would soon play a leading role in drafting a Universal Declaration of Human Rights that would establish social rights to education, health care, employment, and social security in old age.
→ read full articleFukushima: Still Getting Worse After Six Years of Meltdowns
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
20 Feb 2017
After a week of limited coverage of “unimaginable levels” of radiation inside the remains of collapsed Unit 2 at Fukushima, Nuclear-News.net reported Feb 11, 2017 that radiation levels are actually significantly higher than “unimaginable.”
→ read full articleOperation Milagro III Update: Day of the Dead Dolphins
Sea Shepherd – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2017
18 Feb 2017 – February 11th, three days before the international World Love for Dolphin’s Day, Sea Shepherd discovered 14 dolphin corpses floating in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. At least two of them showed signs of a violent death, with net marks on their bodies, stab wounds or fins crudely cut off in order for the fisherman to remove them quickly from their nets.
→ read full articleIt’s Too Late to Stop the Senseless Capture of Palestinian Land
Sarah Helm – The Guardian,
20 Feb 2017
Spineless world leaders have failed to implement international law, stopping the expansion of Israeli settlements.
→ read full articleWays of Living with ‘Alternative Facts’: An Anecdote
Richard Falk | Social Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2017
This brings me inevitably to Kellyann Conway’s reliance on ‘alternative facts’ to validate the claim that Donald Trump’s inaugural crowd was bigger than that of Barack Obama. She was contesting contrasting pictures shown by CNN and other media outlets in which even the most casual observer could tell that Trumps crowd was by far smaller.
→ read full article