Articles by News
We found 1805 results.
UN: Nearly 470,000 Cholera Cases Reported In Haiti over the Past Year
UN News Service – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2011
21 October 2011 –Almost 470,000 cases of cholera, including 6,595 deaths, have been reported in Haiti since an epidemic of the disease erupted in the Caribbean country one year ago, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.
→ read full articleIs Time Ripe to Abandon the IMF?
Raúl de Sagastizabal - InDepth News,
17 Oct 2011
Hedging behaviour, a high degree of groupthink, intellectual capture, a general mind-set that excludes contrary views, fiefdom battles, inadequate analytical approaches, and lack of accountability should make governments ask themselves whether the time has not come to withdraw their support for the IMF.
→ read full articleDon’t Sleep Through the Revolution
Rev. Jesse Jackson - Reader Supported News,
17 Oct 2011
Entrenched privilege does not surrender its privilege easily. Occupy Wall Street is taking on the most powerful interests. But nothing, as Victor Hugo wrote, is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. As Dr. King urged, “Don’t sleep through the revolution.” It is time to take a stand. So 99’ers, maintain your disciplined focus, your peaceful nonviolent approach to protest, and demand change. In the end we will win.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Saiba Como o Álcool Afeta Seu Corpo
Philippa Roxby, Repórter de Saúde - BBC News,
10 Oct 2011
Os efeitos do consumo do álcool a curto prazo são conhecidos: ressacas, cansaço, má aparência. A longo prazo, a ingestão da substância está associada a várias condições, entre elas o câncer da mama, câncer oral, doenças cardíacas, derrames e cirrose hepática, entre outras. Pesquisas também associaram o consumo de álcool em doses elevadas à problemas de saúde mental, perda de memória e diminuição da fertilidade.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Centenas de Vítimas de Tráfico Sexual São Resgatadas na Amazônia Peruana
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
Quase 300 mulheres foram resgatadas de situação de exploração sexual na Amazônia peruana, informou a polícia do país na última segunda-feira [3 out 2011].
→ read full article
The Deadliest Place in the World for a Journalist
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
Mini-documentary on the critical Honduran journalists that have watched 15 colleagues assassinated in 19 months under the Lobo regime, a government Barack Obama praises for its “strong commitment to democracy”.
→ read full articleEurope Vying with U.S. to Sell Arms
J.C. Suresh - InDepth News,
10 Oct 2011
The United States and its four major European allies – France, Britain, Germany, and Italy – are locked in an “intense” competition for selling arms to affluent developing nations, says a new report prepared for the U.S. Congress.
→ read full articleAnger, Violence and Reconciliation in Mindanao
Ayesah Abubakar - Mindanao News,
3 Oct 2011
While it may be true that anger can translate into physical violence, we have to make the distinction between anger and violence. Anger is a human emotion that finds its source from a person’s sense of desperation and failure. If we want to find peace between the Moros and the Christian settlers in Mindanao, it is crucial that we somehow study this anger and violence that permeate us. Professor Adam Curle supported the idea of “structural violence” by Johan Galtung. He reiterated that the assumptions and impositions of a majority over a minority is in itself the essence of this structural violence that we have in our society.
→ read full article
“Governments don’t rule the world; Goldman Sachs rules the world.”
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2011
In a scary and painfully frank interview a freaked out BBC interviewer is visibly shaken when market trader Alessio Rastani predicts that the “Market is Toast.” Apparently, there is nothing Euro governments can do. “Anyone can make money from a crash,” he affirms. The worst thing to do now is nothing. People should act to protect themselves against an inevitable crisis still approaching.
→ read full articleIMF’s Forecast Mistakes Are Not Trivial
Raul de Sagastizabal - InDepth News,
3 Oct 2011
The storm that threatens the global economy has been raging ever since the toxic assets crisis started five long years ago. That crisis has not ended, or receded, but transformed into multiple crises: from fiscal deficit and sovereign debt to poverty, unemployment and the rise in food and fuel prices… What makes things worse is that experts are not inclined to admit their mistakes and apologize – not to speak of offering their resignation – as if their blunders were inconsequential, and just a minor oversight in a cooking recipe.
→ read full articlePunching Back at Big Oil
Robert Redford - Reader Supported News,
26 Sep 2011
When you challenge Big Oil in Houston, you can bet the industry is going to punch back. So when I wrote in the Houston Chronicle earlier this month that we should say no to the Keystone XL pipeline, I wasn’t surprised when the project’s chief executive weighed in with a different view. Let’s set the record straight, point by point.
→ read full article
Modern Slavery in Gulf Arab Countries (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Paul Jay – The Real News Network,
19 Sep 2011
Scandalous, Inhuman Exploitation of Migrant Workers in GCC Countries – Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states created a super exploited migrant work force after facing a radicalized Arab working class in the 60’s.
→ read full articleTarred and Feathered: Exxon/Murdoch/Cheney … At It Again
Leslie Griffith - Reader Supported News,
19 Sep 2011
“It is said those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And, in my experience, to report on it … again and again … as if the failures of the past offer no instruction at all.” That thought slapped me sober while thinking about tar sands and, moments later, when running across this story on Rupert Murdoch’s and Dick Cheney’s forays into the sticky boondoggle of tar sands’ predecessor – oil shale.
→ read full article
UK: Police Raid Travellers’ Site to Free Men ‘Kept As Slaves’ for 15 Years
ITN News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
A group of men have been freed by police after being found imprisoned as slaves at a caravan site at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Memorabilia Auction on eBay to Raise Funds
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
The computer, which has a buy it now price of $552,615, was used to “prepare the cables for media partners and releases”. “In this exclusive auction item you will get the full set of WikiLeaks Cables, the WikiLeaks computer and its passwords,” WikiLeaks said in a statement released on Twitter.
→ read full articleResource Rich Arctic Severely Threatened
Devinder Kumar - InDepthNews,
12 Sep 2011
A new study is pleading for the resource rich Arctic located at the northern-most part of the planet Earth to be treated as “a global common and a common heritage of mankind”, in the interest of preserving an important ecosystem and halting morbid militarisation of the region.
→ read full articleEgypt’s Military Ruler Tantawi and the American Siege of Gaza
Ali Abunimah – Pambazuka News,
12 Sep 2011
Revelations from WikiLeaks – As a WikiLeaks cable reveals, the US was even more actively involved than originally thought in ‘enforcing the siege of Gaza along Egypt’s border’.
→ read full articleItaly Faulted for Xenophobia and Ignoring Human Rights
Jaya Ramachadran - InDepthNews,
12 Sep 2011
The 47-nation Council of Europe has faulted Italy for “the presence of racist and xenophobic political discourse” targeting Roma and Sinti, and the protection of the human rights of migrants, including asylum seekers.
→ read full articleOfficial: Some 140 Countries to Vote for Palestinian State
M&C News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2011
‘Around 140 countries would vote in favor of an independent state of Palestine during the United Nations General Assembly meetings due to start on September 23,’ Nabil Shaath, a senior negotiator, told a news conference in Ramallah. He said his estimated number was the result of marathon visits by Palestinian leaders across the globe over the past months.
→ read full articleYou Only Believe the Official 9/11 Story Because You Don’t Know the Official 9/11 Story
Jesse Richard – TV News LIES,
5 Sep 2011
During the past 10 years I have not met a single individual who, after doing research on the subject, switched from questioning the official narrative of the events of 9/11/2001 to believing the official narrative of those events.. It is always the other way around. Why do you think that is?
→ read full articleHow Zenawi ‘Weaponizes’ Famine in Ethiopia
Alemayehu G. Mariam - InDepth News,
29 Aug 2011
“Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?” These are the two enduring questions Time Magazine of December 21, 1987 asked in a cover story. The reply in short was couched as a question: “Is the latest famine wholly the result of cruel nature, or are other, man-made forces at work that worsen the catastrophe?” Something that should strike as déjà vu 24 years later.
→ read full articleHow Best to Remove Guns from Post-Conflict Zones?
IRIN News (UN) – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2011
Cash for guns or buy-back programmes in post-conflict states have fallen out of favour as a method of ridding a society of weapons, and have been replaced by often elaborate schemes designed to remove money from the equation, but the debate continues as to the best way forward.
→ read full articlePakistan Rock Firm against New Nuclear Treaty
J. C. Suresh - InDepth News,
8 Aug 2011
Pakistan is standing like a rock in the surf resisting growing international pressure to endorse a global treaty that would ban production of fissile material used as fuel for nuclear weapons. Reiterating its adamant opposition, Pakistan has warned that it would boycott any process to negotiate a U.S.-backed treaty outside the deadlocked UN Conference on Disarmament (CD), the sole negotiating forum for multilateral disarmament.
→ read full articleUS Expands Its Presence in Mexico, Ramping Up Drug War
Ginger Thompson - The New York Times News Service,
8 Aug 2011
The United States is expanding its role in Mexico’s bloody fight against drug trafficking organizations, sending new C.I.A. operatives and retired military personnel to the country and considering plans to deploy private security contractors in hopes of turning around a multibillion-dollar effort that so far has shown few results.
→ read full articleChina Alone Abides by Commitments to World’s Poorest
Raúl de Sagastizabal - InDepth News,
8 Aug 2011
The WTO agreed, back in 2001, to grant to the LDC a special and differential treatment, which includes a more flexible and faster mechanism to open the markets of developed countries and/or developing to products from LDCs and technical assistance to help them increase their production and trade. To date, unfortunately, after ten years of negotiations, such commitments have yet to be translated into practice.
→ read full articleConcern about U.S. Plan to Cut UN Funding
S J Chandler - InDepth News,
25 Jul 2011
A 25 percent cut in contributions to the cash strapped United Nations, embargo on funding for the UN Human Rights Council and making assistance conditional on countries’ voting behaviour at the UN are some of the salient features of a new U.S. legislation. Called the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of Financial Year 2012, the bill was passed by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on July 21.
→ read full articleNew Born South Sudan Has Ambitious Goals
Jerome Mwanda - InDepth News,
18 Jul 2011
While top government leaders of the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, have announced plans to make the country not only the “hub” of Africa but also the bread basket for the Eastern African region, the Civil Society Taskforce is stressing the need for creating a just, peaceful and equitable society.
→ read full articleNeocons Fume over US Boat to Gaza
Ray McGovern – Consortium News,
18 Jul 2011
My co-passengers and I of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have now gone from “High-Seas Hippies,” according to the right-wing Washington Times, to participants in a flotilla full of “fools, knaves, hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism,” says Alan Dershowitz in his usual measured prose.
→ read full articleHaiti 18 Months After Devastating Quake
Ashley Smith – InDepth News,
18 Jul 2011
Some eighteen months after the disastrous earthquake that killed 300,000 people and drove 2 million into temporary camps, Haiti’s crisis remains as difficult as ever. Ashley Smith talked to Kim Ives, a journalist and editor with Haiti Liberté, a weekly newspaper published in Port-au-Prince and New York City, about what the Caribbean country could expect from the U.S.-backed Michel Martelly, who won a presidential runoff election in March 2011. He was sworn in as president on May 14, 2011.
→ read full articleAnti-Zionism Growing Among Jews
As'ad Abdul Rahman - Gulf News,
11 Jul 2011
Pro-Palestine Jewish activists and organisations blame Israel for ‘crimes against humanity’.
→ read full articleOn Flotillas and the Law
Lawrence Davidson - Reader Supported News,
11 Jul 2011
Civil Society Movements vs. Corrupt Politics – Most of us are unaware of the potential of organized civil society because we have resigned the public sphere to professional politicians and bureaucrats and retreated into a private sphere of everyday life, which we see as separate from politics. This is a serious mistake. Politics shapes our lives whether we pay attention to it or not. By ignoring it we allow the power of the state to respond not so much to the citizenry as to special interests.
→ read full articleFragile Peace Greets Independent South Sudan
Jerome Mwanda - InDepth News,
11 Jul 2011
South Sudan declaring its independence, forming the world’s newest state, and initiating a new era for North Sudan on July 9, 2011, is a historic moment for Sudan and the surrounding region, and a vital opportunity to promote peace and stability in a volatile territory. But this historic moment looks set to be scarred by violence, a group of civil society organisations has warned.
→ read full articleDRC: Children Still in Prison despite Law
IRIN News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
The law, which came into effect in January 2009, replaced a 1950 colonial law on juvenile delinquency that set the age of criminal responsibility at 16, leading to a number of severe penalties against children, including life imprisonment and the death sentence.
→ read full articleAmericans Now Questioning Israeli Apartheid Policies
Sherry Wolf - InDepth News,
27 Jun 2011
Opinion polls in the U.S. regarding Israel-Palestine are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they reflect the dominant narrative in the West that at turns defends and denies Israel’s racist policies toward Palestinians. On the other, they show disgust with the periodic mass killings of the virtually imprisoned Palestinians, punctuated in people’s minds by last year’s massacre of nine humanitarian aid activists — murdered at sea in cold blood.
→ read full articleNo Impunity for Killing by Drones
Richard Johnson, Oxford Research Group - InDepth News,
27 Jun 2011
“If you use drones you must confirm and report who they killed,” international lawyers say, adding: “Drones don’t allow hit and run.” In fact, states that authorize or use armed drones as well as those who launch and control them are obliged to identify the deceased so as to provide reparations or compensation for possible wrongful killing, injury and other offences.
→ read full articleHuman Rights Yes, Bombing No
Pia Figueroa – InDepth News,
27 Jun 2011
Today it is not the state-owned media corporations that form public opinion, but transnational media companies at the service of multinationals in diverse sectors such as banking, industry and the military. In this context and in order to serve the media corporations that control the global information market, “journalistic objectivity” ends up ignoring inequality, unemployment, exploitation, racism, discrimination, intolerance and the day to day violence experienced by millions of human beings.
→ read full articleOf Nuke States, Outliers and Global Security
Jayantha Dhanapala - InDepth News,
27 Jun 2011
One definition of an outlier, in the original field of statistics, is “one that appears to deviate markedly from other members of the sample in which it occurs.” Thus, in a world where the global norm is membership of the Treaty for the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), nuclear weapon armed states outside the NPT have been referred to as the outliers. The use of the term has an undeniably pejorative implication but in modern realpolitik no value judgments hold sway.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Vida nos Oceanos Pode Enfrentar Extinção sem Precedentes, Diz Estudo
Richard Black - BBC News,
27 Jun 2011
Um novo estudo indica que os ecossistemas marinhos enfrentam perigos ainda maiores do que os estimados até agora pelos cientistas e que correm o risco de entrar em uma fase de extinção de espécies sem precedentes na história da humanidade.
→ read full articleWorld Bank Blamed for Fuelling Climate Chaos
Jutta Wolf - InDepth News,
20 Jun 2011
Reflecting profound concerns of developing countries, a new report has strongly criticised the World Bank group for promoting false solutions to climate change, such as carbon trading, megadams, agrofuels and industrial monoculture tree plantations. The report – ‘Catalysing Catastrophic Climate Change’ – also gives vent to anxieties of social movements, environmental and social justice organisations, and affected communities.
→ read full articleNew Insights into Beleaguered Africa
Jaya Ramachandran - InDepth News,
20 Jun 2011
“Africa has gone through a remarkable decade of economic transformation. The continent is abuzz with talk of new investment, new cities, new airports, new refineries: The new African Lions,” says a new study offering an upbeat insight into the continent and expanding South-South relations.
→ read full articleJournalism 101 – How to Avoid Being a Propaganda Tool
Leslie Griffith - Reader Supported News,
20 Jun 2011
It’s been a long, slow slide for CNN. The once-proud cable news pioneer has consistently crawled under the media’s lowering bar, but this week it blazed a new trail to the bottom.
→ read full articleWhy the Pentagon Papers Matter Now
Daniel Ellsberg - Reader Supported News,
20 Jun 2011
“While we go on waging unwinnable wars on false premises, the Pentagon papers tell us we must not wait 40 years for the truth. Don’t wait until thousands more have died, before you go to the press and to Congress to tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes or internal projections of costs and dangers. Don’t wait 40 years for it to be declassified, or seven years as I did for you or someone else to leak it.”
→ read full articleNuclear Energy on the Anvil in Vienna
Ronald Joshua - InDepth News,
13 Jun 2011
When 151 ministers of United Nations’ atomic energy agency gather in Vienna on June 20, for four days, they will be dealing with a world that has changed in the aftermath of Fukushima nuclear disaster, the third after serious accidents in Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986, thus imposing a global review of the regulations governing nuclear safety.
→ read full articleTel Aviv: Thousands Rally in Support of Palestine
Boaz Fyler - YNetNews,
6 Jun 2011
[4 Jun 2011] Thousands of people took part in a march in central Tel Aviv in support of a Palestinian state. The protest was held under the banner “Israel says yes to a Palestinian state.” The organizers called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognize that the establishment of Palestine serves vital Israel interests. It is estimated some 20,000 people attended the rally. Dozens of rightists staged a counter-protest nearby.
→ read full articleTowards the Eradication of Global Hunger and Undernutrition
Xin-Ying Ren and Fred Dubee, UN MaximsNews – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2011
While we tend to think in terms of hundreds of millions of deprived and stunted lives, the reality is that each starving child, each malnourished expectant mother, each person who does not have the energy to develop, learn or contribute is a horrible tragedy, and together these individual tragedies add up to an unacceptable loss to the human commonwealth. Simply stated hunger and undernutrition are among the most severe and least addressed challenges facing humanity today.
→ read full articleWho’s Killing the Journalists of Honduras?
Andrew O'Reilly - Latin American News Dispatch,
23 May 2011
While many blame drug-trafficking organizations that use Honduras as a stopover point between South America and Mexico for the spike in violence against media workers, others point a finger at the Honduran government and their crackdown on opposition journalists after the June 2009 coup.
→ read full article
New Egyptian Stance towards Israel, Hamas and Iran
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
Paul Jay interviews Samer Shehata: Egyptian government may not cooperate with siege of Gaza and isolation of Hamas; restoring relations with Iran.
→ read full articleOsama bin Laden: Everyone’s Missing the Point
Barry Lando - Reader Supported News,
9 May 2011
Indeed, from the point of view of America and many of its allies, the most menacing symbol in the Arab World today is not Osama bin Laden but another Arab who recently met a violent death – Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor who chose to set himself on fire. His act, of course, ignited the storm that has spread across the Arab World and proven a much more serious threat to America’s allies in the region than al Qaeda ever was. Ironically, his sacrifice probably also dealt a far more devastating blow to al Qaeda’s fortunes than the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
→ read full articleBrazil Supreme Court Awards Gay Couples New Rights
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2011
5 May, 2011 – Brazil’s Supreme Court has voted overwhelmingly in favour of allowing same-sex couples the same legal rights as married heterosexuals. The decision was approved by 10-0 with one abstention. The ruling will give gay couples in “stable” partnerships the same financial and social rights enjoyed by those in heterosexual relationships.
→ read full articlePanamanian Corruption Concealed Amidst Free Trade Negotiations
Eric Jackson, Panama News - Council on Hemispheric Affairs-COHA,
2 May 2011
Obama welcomes Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli in the midst of major scandal and corruption in Panama. Once again, Obama falls short of his commitments to Latin America as he collaborates with Martinelli to negotiate a flawed trade agreement. It’s not possible to have a reliable anti-drug ally in a Panamanian government that is in bed with the mob.
→ read full articleWorld Bank President: ‘One Shock Away From Crisis’
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2011
The president of the World Bank has warned that the world is “one shock away from a full-blown crisis”. Robert Zoellick cited rising food prices as the main threat to poor nations who risk “losing a generation”. He was speaking in Washington at the end of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
→ read full articleSri Lanka ‘War Crimes’ Is ‘Srebrenica Moment’
Channel 4 News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2011
The former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka Gordon Weiss tells Channel 4 News that a leaked UN report into “credible allegations” of war crimes represent Sri Lanka’s “Srebrenica moment”. A leaked United Nations report estimates that tens of thousands of civilians were killed during the fighting between Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE – known as the Tamil Tigers in 2009. The document cites “credible allegations” that government forces deliberately shelled civilians and repeatedly targeted hospitals. If proven, the allegations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
→ read full articleLibya: Use of Depleted Uranium, Partition and Regional Risks
Farouk James – Pambazuka News,
25 Apr 2011
In the wake of NATO’s imposition of the ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya on 31 March 2011, there is serious scepticism around the United States Pentagon’s denial of the use of depleted uranium (DU), writes Farouk James. With the US, the UK and France now calling for a full-scale invasion the veto powers of the UN Security Council’s permanent members should be called into question once again.
→ read full articleTime to End Corporate Impunity
Nnimmo Bassey – IDN-InDepthNews,
18 Apr 2011
Think how instructive it would have been to line up the directors of Chevron for the environmental crimes in the Ecuadorian Amazonia or those of Shell, Exxon, Chevron, Agip and the rest for their human rights and ecocide in the Niger Delta. If manslaughter charges are pressed against officials of BP, then the days of companies only being fined and the directors avoiding the dock will soon become history.
→ read full articleThe Reconstruction of Haiti: A Record of Failure
Colette Lespinasse – Pambazuka News,
18 Apr 2011
Last March, donors pledged billions of US dollars for the reconstruction of Haiti, after an earthquake devastated the country. But a year later, a group of 40 Haitian organisations finds that ‘nothing significant has really been undertaken’. Instead Haitian players have been excluded from strategic decision-making and the ‘millions of people affected directly or indirectly by the earthquake continue to face the consequences in destitution, and with no support whatsoever.’
→ read full articleThe Hypocrisy of the West’s ‘Humanitarian Interventions’
Peter Lavelle – The Moscow News,
4 Apr 2011
Western sponsored “humanitarian intervention” always picks a side – and the winning side does what it pleases. This is one of the unspoken spin-offs of “humanitarian interventionism”.
→ read full articleTransnational Capitalism or Collective Imperialism?
Samir Amin – Pambazuka News,
28 Mar 2011
Responding to the work of scholars like William Carroll, Samir Amin considers the evolution and shape of globalised capitalism and the extent to which it might be termed ‘transnational’ or ‘collective imperialism’. He stresses: ‘Globalisation is an inappropriate term. Its popularity is commensurate with the violence of ideological aggression that has prohibited henceforth the utterance of “imperialism.”
→ read full articleLet’s Make Female Genital Mutilation a Part of History
Bernadette Sesay – Pambazuka News,
28 Mar 2011
At age 18, I was told the time had come for me to go through Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). I didn’t want to. It was my mother and maternal grandmother’s idea: they’d also been responsible for the initiation of all of my female siblings. My mother cried and pleaded with me, begging me not to bring shame to my family. She told me it was not going to be hard because I was having it done in a hospital. I didn’t know it could be done in hospital; at the time this came as a shock.
→ read full articleJulian Assange on 60 Minutes (Part 1)
CBS News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2011
Julian Assange appeared on 60 Minutes on 30 Jan 2011 in his longest televised interview while in house arrest in England. One of the most interesting aspects of the interview: behind-the-scenes shots of Assange and colleagues, mundanely sitting around a kitchen table on laptops that presumably contain some of the most explosive secrets on earth.
→ read full articleJulian Assange on 60 Minutes (Part 2)
CBS News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2011
Julian Assange appeared on 60 Minutes on 30 Jan 2011 in his longest televised interview while in house arrest in England. One of the most interesting aspects of the interview: behind-the-scenes shots of Assange and colleagues, mundanely sitting around a kitchen table on laptops that presumably contain some of the most explosive secrets on earth.
→ read full articleDenmark to Upgrade Status of Palestinian Representation to ‘Mission’
Haaretz Service & News Agencies – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Mar 2011
Upgrade from third-highest ranking of general delegation mirrors move made recently by number of other countries, including Britain.
→ read full articleThe World Social Forum and the Battle for COP17
Vishwas Satgar – Pambazuka News,
21 Feb 2011
In a world plunged ever deeper into an uncivilised global capitalist condition, the World Social Forum is a crucial beacon of hope. But while news of Egypt and Tunisia’s revolutions electrified activists at this year’s gathering in Dakar, Vishwas Satgar asks whether progressive civil society is powerful enough to organise for a genuine climate change solution at COP17.
→ read full article
Cairo Intifada
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Feb 2011
A report on the nonviolent movements for Mubarak’s ouster.
→ read full articleUN Falling Apart Under ‘Ban Ki-Who’
Ida Karlsson – IPS News,
7 Feb 2011
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon is under fire again. Inga-Britt Ahlenius – until recently one of the highest-ranking officials at the U.N. – explains to IPS her blistering attacks on Ban’s leadership.
→ read full articleShell Annual Profits Double to $18.6bn
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Feb 2011
The oil giant Shell has reported profits almost doubled from $9.8bn to $18.6bn (£11.5bn) for 2010, partly thanks to rising oil prices and output.
→ read full article(French) Capitalisme Transnational ou Impérialisme Collectif?
Samir Amin – Pambazuka News,
31 Jan 2011
Samir Amin pense que le capitalisme est une réalité historique et sociale – et non seulement économique – qu’il importe d’étudier comme un ensemble de sociétés capitalistes à caractère nationale. Cela en dépit la transnationalisation. Et pour lui, «dans l’analyse de ces capitalismes nationaux, aujourd’hui comme hier, l’accent dans la recherche ne doit sans doute pas négliger l’examen des réalités que les firmes capitalistes représentent».
→ read full articleStakeholders in the Côte d’Ivoire Crisis
Sanou Mbaye – Pambazuka News,
31 Jan 2011
What is at stake in Côte d’Ivoire ‘are the consequences of French ongoing colonisation and ruthless exploitation in connivance with unscrupulous local leaders of swathes of west and central Africa’, writes Sanou Mbaye, in an analysis of the five parties affected by the country’s post-election crisis.
→ read full articleVenezuela-Cuba Undersea Cable Link Work Starts
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Jan 2011
Work has begun on laying an underwater fibre-optic cable to link Venezuela and Cuba. It will stretch 1,600km (1,000m) and considerably improve telephone and internet services to Cuba, which currently relies on a costly and slow internet connection via satellite.
→ read full article
One Year Later, Life No Better in Haiti
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jan 2011
Nicole Lee: Stability of markets depends on countries like Haiti remaining poor. Europe’s, US’s commitment is to their own subsidies only.
→ read full articleTribute to Patrice Lumumba on the 50th Anniversary of His Assassination [17 Jan 1961]
Carlos Martinez – Pambazuka News,
24 Jan 2011
Why was Lumumba killed? Because he was a relentless, dedicated, intelligent, passionate anti-colonialist, Pan-Africanist and Congolese nationalist; because he had the unstinting support of the Congolese masses; because he stood in the way of Belgium’s plan to transform Congo from a colony into a neo-colony.
→ read full articleAfrica: Letter to AU over Homophobia Concerns
AIDS-Free World – Pambazuka News,
17 Jan 2011
We are writing to express our grave concern about the recent escalation of homophobia throughout the African continent. A vocal minority spouting hatred, paranoia, and intolerance is dominating public discourse. In response, increasing numbers of parliaments are attempting to criminalise homosexuality, and increasing numbers of African leaders are publicly endorsing this criminalisation. Currently, over two-thirds of countries in the African Union have legislation that criminalises homosexuality. AIDS-Free World is disturbed by the silence of AU leaders in the face of this discrimination, and we urgently call upon the African Union to hold a special session to address the issue.
→ read full articleMauritania: Activists’ Trial Puts Spotlight on Anti-Slavery Law
IRIN News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jan 2011
Six anti-slavery activists are in prison in Mauritania in a case rights experts say points to the challenges of ensuring a 2007 law criminalizing slavery is more than just words on paper.
→ read full articleThe US Media Hit on Helen Thomas
Danny Schechter – ConsortiumNews,
3 Jan 2011
Editor’s Note: Last June when the mainstream Washington press corps rode the 89-year-old journalistic icon Helen Thomas out of the news business on a rail, a key count in the professional “indictment” against her was that she lacked “objectivity” with her impertinent questions to U.S. presidents and in her criticism of Israel. However, for years among big-time U.S. journalists, “objectivity” has been a principle most noticeable in its absence, especially on the sensitive issue of Israel, the topic that touched off the furor that ended Thomas’s career, as Danny Schechter notes in this guest essay.
→ read full articleHomophobia Plagues Africa
Pambazuka News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Dec 2010
Monday’s [20 Dec 2010] statements by a prominent Ghanaian activist provide further evidence of the alarming homophobia that is sweeping across Africa. Bernice Sam, National Programme Coordinator of WiLDAF (Women in Law and Development) in Ghana argued publicly for the Constitution Review Commission to limit Ghana’s definition of marriage to include heterosexual couples only. Sam then went even further. She was quoted as saying that it will be ‘almost impossible for the act of homosexuality to be considered criminal’ if the constitution is not reworded in this way.
→ read full articleNobel Peace Prize 2010: Norwegian Dynamite
Annar Cassam – Pambazuka News,
20 Dec 2010
New head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, one-time leader of the Labour Party, one-time prime minister, one-time foreign minister of Norway and currently secretary general of the Council of Europe, is bit of a national joke…. Furthermore, [Wen Huibao, writing in Le Monde 10 December 2010] explains that [Liu Xiaobo] caused a second scandal by publicly supporting George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, an act of war which was condemned in China, Scandinavia and all over the globe. So the question has to be asked, what links the Nobel Peace Prize with its current laureate’s support for this illegal war in Iraq?
→ read full articleHaitian Diary: SOPUDEP and Local Organisation
Sokari Ekine – Pambazuka News,
13 Dec 2010
As she visits Haiti, Sokari Ekine writes of the history behind the community-run SOPUDEP school, the efforts of local organisations to organise in response to the devastation of the country’s earthquake, a micro-credit scheme and people’s broad lack of faith in the power of the current elections to promote change.
→ read full articleDiscovery of “Arsenic-bug” Expands Definition of Life
NASA Science News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Dec. 2, 2010: NASA-supported researchers have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism, which lives in California’s Mono Lake, substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in the backbone of its DNA and other cellular components.
→ read full articleIsrael Starts Building Barrier on Egypt Border
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Work is beginning in Israel on a barrier along the border with Egypt, aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into the country. The barrier, including an electric fence and surveillance technology, will run for 250km (155 miles). Work on the $372m (£232m) project is expected to take up to a year.
→ read full articleGlobal Currency Wars and US Imperialism
Samir Amin – Pambazuka News,
29 Nov 2010
Samir Amin speaks to Pambazuka News on the misleading rhetoric over the so-called currency war. The real problem, he argues, is the disequilibrium in the global integrated monetary and financial system in which the US insists legitimately on the right to control their currency, but denies the same rights to others, such as China, who seek to do the same. The countries of the global South need to leave the US and its allies to sort out their own problems and concentrate on developing regional currencies and exercising strict control over capital flows, Amin argues.
→ read full articleOn Korea, Here We Go Again!
Robert Parry – Consortium News,
29 Nov 2010
If American journalism should have learned one thing over the years, it is to be cautious and skeptical during the first days of a foreign confrontation like the one now playing out on the Korean Peninsula. Often the initial accounts from the “U.S. side” don’t turn out to be entirely accurate.
→ read full articleWhich Way Sudan?
Horace Campbell – Pambazuka News,
29 Nov 2010
A Pan-African Reflection: Is North and South Sudan’s recent agreement to establish a ‘soft border’ between the two areas ahead of a referendum on southern independence ‘another recipe for war?’
→ read full articleInsanity and Robotisation: Militarisation and US Society
Horace Campbell – Pambazuka News,
22 Nov 2010
A rally to restore sanity was held in the Washington Mall on 30 October 2010. Called by two comedians, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the rally drew over 200,000 persons (CBS News: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20021284-503544.html). Another 4 million persons watched this rally on cable television. The escalation of intolerance and use of violent language by the conservative forces gave this rally tremendous importance in the politics of the USA.
→ read full articleThe Art of War Journalism
Mwaura Kaara – Pambazuka News,
22 Nov 2010
Reflecting on how the media and war industries often feed off each other for political and commercial ends, Mwaura Kaara considers the prospects for ‘peace journalism’ that ‘captures the truths as they are without bias or favour’.
→ read full articleThe US, the AU and the New Scramble for Africa
Jason Hickel – Pambazuka News,
8 Nov 2010
The past few years have seen a dramatic up-tick in American diplomatic efforts in Africa, which has coincided with a decisive shift in political rhetoric about the continent. At first glance this might seem like a positive development, reflecting a more progressive attitude toward what has long been considered an unimportant global backwater. But a closer look reveals that American diplomacy in Africa is less about serving the good of African people than it is about securing the interests of private American capital. Nowhere has this been more flagrantly clear than on the lips of Michael Battle, the US ambassador to the AU.
→ read full articleNigeria: Shell Oil’s ‘License to Kill’?
Abena Ampofoa Asare – Pambazuka News,
25 Oct 2010
Following a controversial ruling by US Judge José A. Cabranes of the Manhattan-based federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals that transnational corporations ‘cannot be held responsible for torture, genocide, war crimes and the like’, Abena Ampofoa Asare discusses the challenges for establishing responsibility and valuing human rights over profit.
→ read full articleMoldova Becomes Latest State Party to International Criminal Court
UN News Centre – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Oct 2010
Moldova has become the latest country to ratify the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is tasked with trying people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
→ read full article
9/11 Coverup Finds a Voice on FOX with Judge Napolitano
Fox News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Oct 2010
‘Operation Dark Heart’ Author Alleges 9/11 Cover Up. Judge Napolitano’s Ground-breaking interview with Lt. Col, Anthony Shaffer and Former CIA Intelligence officer, Michael Scheuer. — Shaffer’s book, “Operation Dark Heart” was essentially “censored” by the Pentagon in order that some classified details could be “redacted”.
→ read full articleHaiti: Finding Butterflies among the Rubble
Judith Scherr – IPS News,
11 Oct 2010
Michele Garlin had massive headaches after Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake killed some 230,000 people and left 1.3 million others, like herself, homeless. “I also had insomnia and, even if there was no aftershock, I thought my bed was shaking all the time,” Garlin said, speaking in the shade of an open-air community tent, in the Bon Repos camp for displaced people she now calls home. Along with some 2,000 others in four different camps, Garlin has found relief in a mental health programme called Soulaje Lespri Moun or Relief for the Spirit.
→ read full articleLessons from Honduras
Marcela Valente – IPS News,
11 Oct 2010
With the 2009 coup d’etat in Honduras still a fresh memory, the presidents of the Unasur bloc gathered as quickly as they could to vigorously condemn Thursday’s [30 Sep 2010] attempted coup in Ecuador and warn that they would not tolerate any such assault on democracy in the region.
→ read full articleU.S. Apologizes for ‘Abhorrent’ Guatemala Syphilis Study in 1940s
Tim Johnson - McClatchy Newspapers,
4 Oct 2010
Exposing a dark page in its history, the U.S. government acknowledged Friday [1 Oct 2010] that government scientists had infected some 1,500 Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea in experiments from 1946 to 1948 in “appalling violations” of medical ethics. U.S. scientists infected prostitutes with syphilis or gonorrhea and sent them to have unprotected sex with soldiers or prison inmates, later testing them for possible cures, U.S. officials said. When few became infected, scientists turned to patients at a mental health hospital, exposing them to infection by rubbing it on their genitals. None of the subjects were informed about the study or offered consent, U.S. officials said. At least one patient is known to have died.
→ read full articleUN-Backed Anti-Corruption Academy Inaugurated in Austria
UN News Centre – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Oct 2010
2 September 2010 – An anti-corruption academy co-sponsored by the United Nations opened today in Austria with the aim of filling the rising global need for training, research and contemporary measures and techniques in the fight against corruption. The International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA), based in Laxenburg, will educate public and private sector anti-corruption practitioners in more effectively implementing the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC).
→ read full article
The Int’l Effort to Criminalize War
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Sep 2010
Debate about “wars of agression” at conference of jurists from international tribunals.
→ read full articleHomes for 27,000 Constructed During Israeli Settlements Freeze
Nasouh Nazzal, Gulf News - Philippine Times,
20 Sep 2010
The so-called settlement freeze in the Palestinian territories is a myth. No freeze has ever been implemented, in fact the settlements have been expanding dramatically during the moratorium. Additionally, another 13,000 homes have been approved for the West Bank, together with two new colonies near Nablus and the Jordan Valley.
→ read full articleCNN Report: IDF Sexually Abused Palestinian Children
Ynetnews – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Sep 2010
Damning CNN report cites uncorroborated sexual abuse charges of Palestinian children detained by IDF; army says detention of minors undertaken in line with international law, cannot respond to abuse charges as no details provided.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Own Christian Taliban: Eat, Pray, Hate
Christopher Dickey - Newsweek,
13 Sep 2010
The threat to burn Qurans in Florida is a perfect example of the way America’s own Christian Taliban are creating, promoting, and exploiting our national paranoia.
→ read full articleGuide to the Most Crucial Bank Meeting You Never Heard of
Kevin G. Hall - McClatchy Newspapers,
13 Sep 2010
International bank regulators from around the globe will meet in the Swiss town of Basel on Sunday [12 Sep 2010] to finalize an important agreement that most Americans have never heard of: one to redraw rules so that banks can’t bring the world economy to the brink of collapse again.
→ read full articleJapanese Hunt Dolphins into the Cove, Once More
Ravi Somaiya - Newsweek,
6 Sep 2010
Activists protest start of annual chase, which locals see as a cultural event.
→ read full article
Behind Mexico’s Bloodshed (Part 1)
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Sep 2010
Interview with investigative journalist Bruce Livesey, who recently returned from Ciudad Juárez, scene of some of the most concerning violence in Mexico’s ongoing drug cartel conflict. According to Livesey, the problem has its roots in the free trade agreement that wiped out Mexico’s traditional agriculture economy, after which the drug cartels moved in to fight for each other’s market share.
→ read full article
Behind Mexico’s Bloodshed (Part 2)
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Sep 2010
According to investigative journalist Bruce Livesey, in Ciudad Juarez, the murder capital of Mexico, the military is picking winners amongst the cartels.
→ read full articleHarvard University Fund Sells All Israel Holdings
Hillel Koren - Globes Israel's Business News,
23 Aug 2010
No reason for the sale was mentioned in the report to the SEC. In another blow to Israeli shares, the Harvard Management Company notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday [13 Aug 2010] that it had sold all its holdings in Israeli companies during the second quarter of 2010. No reason for the sale was mentioned. The Harvard Management Company manages Harvard University’s endowment.
→ read full article