Articles by ICH
We found 2477 results.
Depends
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jul 2014
A Chinese businessman arrived on his first flight to the United States.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Creative Extortion
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich – TRANSCEND Media Servicde,
14 Jul 2014
Admittedly, America has always devised creative means to execute its vast array of crimes against other nations – coups, wars, occupation, exploitation, terrorism, genocide, and so forth. One crime often neglected is America’s creative extortion. America has made a legal judgment to rob Iran of $1.75 billion.
→ read full articleRemembering Fouad Ajami
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jul 2014
For me Fouad Ajami’s legacy is that of ‘sleeping with the enemy.’ And it is an enemy that is politically, morally, and legally responsible for millions of deaths, displacements, and devastating losses.
→ read full articleCountries Spending the Most on the Military
Thomas C. Frohlich and Alexander Kent – USA Today,
14 Jul 2014
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. spent $618 billion on its military last year, more than three times the $171 billion budget of second place China. Based on SIPRI’s 2013 data, these are the countries with the largest military budgets.
→ read full articleWhat Is Israel’s Shurat Hadin and Why Is It Suing a Sydney University Academic?
Michael Brull - Crikey,
7 Jul 2014
Shurat HaDin, a pro-Israel law centre, is taking legal action over an Australian academic’s support for the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement against Israel. Juris doctor student Michael Brull takes a look at the case.
→ read full articleShifts in the Climate Change Debate: Hope and Suspicion
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jul 2014
The intense lobbying efforts by climate deniers, reinforced in the United States by a right wing anti-government tsunami that has paralyzed Congress, succeeded in blocking even modest market-based steps to induce energy efficiency.
→ read full articleThe World’s Most Important Spectator
David Bromwich – London Review of Books,
30 Jun 2014
‘If we have to use force,’ Madeleine Albright said, ‘it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.’ Very much in that spirit, Obama told the graduating West Point cadets that the US must lead the world even though it cannot police the world.
→ read full articleHonesty about Lies
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jun 2014
A reporter asked the mother of Jimmy Carter whether he ever lied. She said, “Maybe once in a while a white lie.”
→ read full articleForeign Aid Funding Luxury Hotels in Myanmar
Michelle Tullo, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jun 2014
New investments from the World Bank’s private-sector investment arm may perpetuate economic inequality rather than alleviate poverty in Myanmar. “A significant factor contributing to the urban versus rural income inequality is that the vast majority of investment in Burma is concentrated in the urban sector, despite the fact that only one-third of the population lives in these areas,”
→ read full articleSuccessful Elections
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jun 2014
President Carter was worried about his prospects for reelection.
→ read full articleUkraine’s Kiev Regime Is Not “Officially” a Neo-Nazi Government
Prof Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
16 Jun 2014
There are “ultra-conservatives” in the Kiev government but “they are not Neo-Nazis,” says the Western media. The alternative media says that the Kiev regime is integrated by two Neo-Nazi parties (Svoboda and Right Sector) “but it is not a Neo-Nazi government”. When the Kiev regime “officially” displays Nazi emblems to identify entities of their National Security and Military apparatus one would normally assume that it is a Neo-Nazi government.
→ read full articleThere’s a Kind of Hush
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times,
16 Jun 2014
Aung San Suu Kyi should be one of the heroes of modern times. Instead, as her country imposes on the Rohingya Muslim minority an apartheid that would have made white supremacists in South Africa blush, she bites her tongue. It seems as though she aspires to become president of Myanmar, and speaking up for a reviled minority could be fatal to her prospects. The moral giant has become a calculating politician.
→ read full articleObama Success, or Global Shame?
Nicholas Kristof – The New York Times,
9 Jun 2014
What’s odious about what is happening here is that the suffering is deliberately inflicted as government policy. The authorities are stripping members of one ethnic group of citizenship, then interning them in camps or villages, depriving them of education, refusing them medical care — and even expelling humanitarians who seek to save their lives.
→ read full articleObama’s Legacy: “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff”
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jun 2014
Cautioning against militarism at West Point President on May 22nd Obama in a speech mostly notable for its reassertion of what might be best understood as imperial nationalism of global scope declared the following:
→ read full articleProsecuting Syrians for War Crimes Now
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jun 2014
Is justice served when the authority of the ICC is invoked as a political instrument to influence the outcome of a civil war? Why was there never any initiative to pursue leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom during the course of the Iraq War, which also included many incidents that seemed to qualify as crimes against humanity? Double standards?
→ read full articleGood Care
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jun 2014
Vice President Dick Cheney underwent surgery. When he woke up from his anesthesia, all shades were closed.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Appalling Apartheid
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times,
2 Jun 2014
Welcome to Myanmar, where tremendous democratic progress is being swamped by crimes against humanity toward the Rohingya, a much-resented Muslim minority in this Buddhist country. Budding democracy seems to aggravate the persecution, for ethnic cleansing of an unpopular minority appears to be a popular vote-getting strategy.
→ read full articlePope Francis Visit to Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jun 2014
Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Land raises one overwhelming question: ‘what is the nature of religious power in our world of the 21st century?’ ‘Can it have transformative effects’?
→ read full articleThe Struggle to Ban Killer Robots
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik, Nicholas Marsh and Maral Mirshahi – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
26 May 2014
The campaign must balance technical expert conversations with active participation in public debate. Identifying and arguing for broad ethical principles while keeping the objective narrow appears to be the most feasible strategy, along with insisting that the development of lethal autonomous weapons is not inevitable.
→ read full articleRussia, China Sign Deal to Bypass U.S. Dollar
Michael Pizzi – Al Jazeera America,
26 May 2014
In a blow to U.S. global financial hegemony, Russia and China on Tuesday [20 May 20114] signed a deal to pay each other in domestic currencies, followed by the announcement on Wednesday of a $100 billion annual trade on natural gas, 10 years in the making.
→ read full articlePhilantrocapitalism: Gates, the World’s Largest and Most Powerful Foundation
Jacob Levich - Global Research,
26 May 2014
Wielding “huge power that could reshape nations according to their will,”5 billionaire donors would now openly embrace not only the market-based theory, but also the practices and organizational norms, of corporate capitalism. Yet the overall thrust of their charitable interventions would remain consistent with longstanding traditions of Big Philanthropy, as discussed below:
→ read full articleOn Citizenship in the 21st Century
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 May 2014
Reading Robert Paehlke’s carefully crafted essay on global citizenship provides the occasion both for an appreciation of his approach and some doubts about its degree of responsiveness to the urgencies of the present or more specifically its adequacy in relation to the call for ‘transformative vision and praxis’ that lies at the heart of the ‘Great Transition Initiative.’
→ read full articleSuccess Story
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 May 2014
A retired mathematics teacher met the worst student he had ever had during his 40 years of teaching.
→ read full articleCitizens versus Subjects in a Democratic Society: The American Case
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2014
In my understanding silence is passivity as a way of being. Silence can be much more than the avoidance of speech and utterance, and is most poignantly expressed through evasions of body, heart, and soul.
→ read full articleHumor but Not Humiliation: Finding the Sweet Spot in Nonviolent Conflict Resolution
Michael Nagler and Karen Ridd – Open Democracy,
12 May 2014
Humor is a time-honored strategy in the repertoire of nonviolence, but we must learn to use it properly. Poke fun at the problem not the person.
→ read full articleFollow the Honey: 7 Ways Pesticide Companies Are Spinning the Bee Crisis
Michele Simon, Friends of the Earth - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2014
As my new report with Friends of the Earth details, three of the leading pesticide corporations — Bayer, Syngenta, and Monsanto — are engaged in a massive public relations disinformation campaign to distract the public and policymakers from thinking that pesticides might have something to do with bee death and destruction.
→ read full articleDoing Math
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 May 2014
A little boy was doing his math homework. He said to himself, “Two plus five, that son of a bitch is seven.
→ read full articleArmenian Grievances, Turkey, United States and 1915 (I)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
The Turkish government has reiterated its offer to establish a joint commission composed of Armenian, Turkish and international historians to establish an authoritative narrative. The idea that core concern is ‘historical’ misses a main point that such a traumatic series of events need to be interpreted from multiple perspectives, including that of international criminal law.
→ read full article‘Genocide’ in 1915: Law, Language, and Politics (II)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
I am arguing that the historical argument should be put to rest, and that the issues that need to be resolved relate to the legal questions surrounding the applicability of genocide, as well as the related semiotic and political questions associated what be called ‘the politics of genocide.’
→ read full articleSchool Compositions
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
Children at school must write a composition about the topic, “When visitors come.”
→ read full articleHow to Keep the Internet Open and Free
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship – Common Dreams,
5 May 2014
Don’t Let Net Neutrality Become another Broken Promise – Barack Obama told us there would be no compromise on Net neutrality. We heard him say it back in 2007, when he first was running for president.
→ read full articlePalestine: Why the Peace Talks Collapsed—And Should Not Be Resumed
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 May 2014
It is important that world public opinion reject as meaningless the diplomatic charade of peace talks while the fate of a people continues to be daily sacrificed on the altar of geopolitics.
→ read full articleThe New Interventionists: Civil Society Activists
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Apr 2014
Debates about intervention are inevitable in an interdependent world order in which ideals of territorial sovereignty clash with the interests and values of hegemonic political actors. There are no either/or solution for the dilemmas posed. What seems preferable is a contextual assessment tempered by humility arising from the experience of past interventions.
→ read full articleModeling
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Apr 2014
On a cold winter day, a model arrived at the painter’s apartment blue, almost freezing.
→ read full articleNegotiators [not really a joke]
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Apr 2014
Albert Einstein compared the disarmament negotiations sponsored by the UN with…
→ read full articleOuch!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Apr 2014
Napoleon came to inspect his troops, and every soldier had to appear before him. They were a little nervous and intimidated.
→ read full articleNonviolent Geopolitics: Law, Politics, and 21st Century Security*
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Apr 2014
In this short essay, my attempt will be to articulate a conception of a world order premised on nonviolent geopolitics, as well as to consider some obstacles to its realization.
→ read full articleHuman Life’s Price-Tag for General Motors: 10 Bucks
Michael Moore – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Apr 2014
I am opposed to the death penalty, but to every rule there is usually an exception. If their top people crunch the numbers and can show that they will save more money by NOT fixing or replacing the part, then that is what they are going to goddam well do. F*** you, f*** me, and f*** everybody they sent to their deaths.
→ read full articleWhy Did GM Take So Long to Respond to Deadly Defect? Corporate Culture May Hold Answer
Michael A. Fletcher and Steven Mufson – The Washington Post,
7 Apr 2014
It’s relatively cheap and easy to replace the flawed ignition switch that has been blamed for at least 13 deaths, including a fatal June 2013 crash in Quebec newly linked to the defect. Yet General Motors waited more than a decade before recalling 2.6 million Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars.
→ read full articleSecret Weapon
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Apr 2014
One day Satan challenged Heaven to a baseball game. Peter took a quick look at the rosters and accepted.
→ read full articleLawyer Good Samaritan
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Mar 2014
One afternoon a wealthy lawyer was riding in his limousine through the country-side when he saw a man along the roadside eating grass. Disturbed, he ordered his driver to stop and got out of his car.
→ read full articleIsraeli Boycott Case: Sydney Academic’s Lawyers Say Claims Are Pumped Up
Michael Safi – The Guardian,
31 Mar 2014
25 Mar 2014 – Lawyers for a Sydney University academic who is accused of unlawful discrimination for his boycott of Israel say the case against [TMS advisor, TRANSCEND member] Jake Lynch is full of “pumped-up claims” that are “embarrassing in the legal sense, and embarrassing in the non-legal sense”.
→ read full articleThe Obsolescence of Ideology: Debating Syria and Ukraine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Mar 2014
To insist that the left/right distinction obscures more than it reveals is not the end of the story. To contend that ideology is unhelpful as a guide for action is not the same as saying that it is irrelevant to the public debate.
→ read full articleWelcome to Sweden
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Mar 2014
Condoleezza Rice was going to come to Sweden for a state visit. The Swedish foreign minister, who had to go and greet her on arrival at the airport, did not speak English.
→ read full articleGlobal Military Spending Is Now an Integral Part of Capitalism
Richard Seymour – Gulf News,
17 Mar 2014
The idea of a ‘peace dividend’ is gone, high levels of military spending are an entrenched part of the global landscape.
→ read full articleWhy Do I Persist?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Mar 2014
I have been asked recently why do I persist in working hard for the things that I believe in, knowing that I will die in the next several years, and am almost certain not to be around for the catastrophic future that seems to cast its dark shadow across the road ahead, and can only be removed by a major transnational movement of the peoples of the world.
→ read full articleSafe!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Mar 2014
The head of a Mexican drug cartel recently took three suitcases full of money to a Swiss bank and demanded to see the bank president. He asked him,
→ read full article$3 Billion for Ukraine to Go Straight to…Russia
Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, CNBC – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Mar 2014
As Western leaders prepare a bailout package for embattled Ukraine, they face a startling irony: Thanks to the almost bizarre structure of a bond deal between Ukraine and Russia, billions of those dollars are almost certain to go directly into the coffers of the Putin government.
→ read full articleCalifornia Bill Would Ban Orca Shows at Seaworld
Michael Martinez - CNN,
10 Mar 2014
A California state legislator is proposing to ban the captivity of killer whales for entertainment at SeaWorld in the wake of CNN’s controversial documentary Blackfish. “It is time that we embrace that the long-accepted practice of keeping orcas captive for human amusement must end,” state Assemblyman Richard Bloom, a Democrat from Santa Monica, said at a press conference Friday [7 Mar 2014] at the city’s oceanfront pier.
→ read full articleBreaking Free: Choosing a Better Human Future
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2014
I have long believed that prospects for a hopeful human future depend on radical and visionary feelings, thought, and action… Citizenship, then, becomes enacted in time and is not conceived only as a dimension of space as, for instance, in opting to be ‘a world citizen.’
→ read full articleDecember 2013 – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied Since 1967
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2014
5 Mar 2014 – This is my last report as Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine as my term is coming to an end after six years. The mandate is important as a source of information pertaining to the realities of occupation from the perspective of international humanitarian law and international criminal law
→ read full articlePoverty
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2014
Recently a zoo offered jobs to unemployed workers to disguise themselves as animals and play in the cages.
→ read full articleWorld’s Largest Grid Operator Reveals Why Increased Wind Energy Means Increased Savings
Michael Goggin, American Wind Energy Association – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Mar 2014
The largest grid operator in the world, serving 60 million customers, issued the final results of a major wind integration study on Monday [3 Mar 2014] and they are even better than the preliminary results.
→ read full articleGigabytes Gone Wild
Neil Richards and Jonathan King – Al Jazeera America,
3 Mar 2014
Big data has outpaced our legal system’s ability to control it — we need a new ethics for a new digital age.
→ read full articleFracking Siberia: Gazprom Teams Up With Shell
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Mar 2014
Gazprom of Russia has begun fracking in western Siberia with Anglo-Dutch giant Shell to tap a reserve of oil under a 2.3 million square kilometer expanse. Ironically Russia Today, a state run television station, has been actively broadcasting protests against the fracking industry in Europe, where companies like Chevron have been aggressively trying to get a toehold in countries like Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.
→ read full articleImelda Marcos Stamp
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Mar 2014
For Imelda’s 50th birthday, President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines ordered as a surprise for her that a postage stamp with her picture be issued.
→ read full articleSyria: What to Do Now
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Mar 2014
It is not only that the interventionists, and perhaps the anti-interventionists are motivated by a convergence of humanitarian/moral considerations with geostrategic ambitions, but that the nature of these hidden calculations are discussed in governmental circles behind locked doors and transcribed in secret policy memoranda.
→ read full articleSochi 2014: Does Sochi Success Signal a New Russia?
Richard Conway – BBC,
24 Feb 2014
23 Feb 2014 – Russia Top Medal Table as Olympics Come To an End. The tagline of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games was “Hot, Cool, Yours”, but another slogan on display here, the phrase “Russia – Great, New, Open” provides a better insight.
→ read full articleMonsanto’s Bt-Toxins Found to Kill Human Embryo Cells
Christina Sarich, Natural Society – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2014
New research from Canada show that BT toxins are showing up in pregnant women, and low and behold – they are killing human embryo cells.
→ read full articleSaudis Agree to Provide Mercenary Jihadists in Syria with Mobile Antiaircraft Missiles
Maria Abi-Habib and Stacy Meichtry – The Wall Street Journal,
24 Feb 2014
U.S. Also Giving Fighters Millions of Dollars for Salaries – Washington’s Arab allies, disappointed with Syria peace talks, have agreed to provide rebels there with more sophisticated weaponry, including shoulder-fired missiles that can take down jets, according to Western and Arab diplomats and opposition figures.
→ read full article(Português) Quem rotula nossa sexualidade?
Marília Moschkovich – Outras Palavras,
24 Feb 2014
E se formos muito mais que gays ou héteros? E se houver uma galáxia de identidades sexuais, que devem ser definidas, antes de tudo, por cada um@? Na sexta-feira [14 fev 2014] a atriz Ellen Page se assumiu lésbica em um discurso público pela primeira vez. Entre tantas coisas lindas que disse, refletiu sobre a dificuldade em “sair do armário”.
→ read full articleThe Spoils of War: Afghanistan’s Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade
Prof Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
24 Feb 2014
In the course of the last four years, there has been a surge in Afghan opium production. The Vienna based UN Office on Drugs and Crime reveals that poppy cultivation in 2012 extended over an area of more than 154,000 hectares, an increase of 18% over 2011. A UNODC spokesperson confirmed in 2013 that opium production is heading towards record levels.
→ read full articleDivorcing
Dietrich Fisher – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2014
An elderly man in Phoenix calls his son in New York and says, “I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing; forty five years of misery is enough.”
→ read full articleIs a Boycott of Israel Just?
Sonya Michel – International New York Times,
24 Feb 2014
B.D.S. is, in fact, a legal, moral and inclusive movement struggling against the discriminatory policies of a country that defines itself in religiously exclusive terms, and that seeks to deny Palestinians the most basic rights simply because we are not Jewish.
→ read full articleTalking Roles
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2014
Daughter: “Mother, what is an ‘extra’ in the theater?” Mother explains,
→ read full articleTerrorism with a “Human Face”: Syria Al Qaeda “Freedom Fighters” are “Not Killing Civilians”
Prof Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
17 Feb 2014
The attacks by opposition forces largely integrated by Al Qaeda terrorists can no longer be denied. What is now occurring is a re-branding of the various terrorist formations covertly support by Western intelligence. The latest slur of media disinformation consists in providing a “human face” to Al Qaeda.
→ read full articleSuicides of Bank Executives, Fraud, Financial Manipulation: JPMorgan Chase Advisor Tony Blair Is Not Involved
Prof Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
17 Feb 2014
JPMorgan Chase is the unspoken architect of fraud, corruption, not to mention the establishment of the largest Ponzi scheme in World history. The agenda is to steal and appropriate wealth through market manipulation.
→ read full articleCluster-Bomb Imperialism: The Lethal Legacy of US Interventions
Sheldon Richman - CounterPunch,
17 Feb 2014
“The tragic upsurge of violence in Iraq in recent months, including the temporary takeover of two major cities by al-Qaida, is a direct consequence of the repression of peaceful dissent by the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad and of the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation…” 40 years after America’s war of aggression against the people of Southeast Asia, American munitions continue to kill people.
→ read full articleClimate Change Is Here Now and It Could Lead to Global Conflict
Nicholas Stern – The Guardian,
17 Feb 2014
Extreme weather events in the UK and overseas are part of a growing pattern that it would be very unwise for us, or our leaders, to ignore, writes the author of the influential 2006 report on the economics of climate change.
→ read full articleOMAR: Uncovering Occupied Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2014
OMAR is the second film directed by Hany Alu-Assad to be a finalist among foreign language films nominated to receive an Oscar at the 2014 Academy Awards ceremony on March 2nd.
→ read full articleIndustrial Band Skinny Puppy Demand $666,000 after Music Is Used in Guantánamo Torture
Sean Michaels – The Guardian,
10 Feb 2014
“We sent them an invoice for our musical services considering they had gone ahead and used our music without our knowledge and used it as an actual weapon against somebody,” keyboardist Cevin Key recently told CTV News.
→ read full articleComputers
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2014
A French teacher in the USA explained to her class that in French every noun is either masculine or feminine. A student asked, “How about a computer?”
→ read full articleShould David Cameron Be Prosecuted for Recruiting Brits to Fight in Al Qaeda Ranks in Syria?
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
10 Feb 2014
A top British prosecutor has “warned that Britons who travel to join the Syrian conflict will face prosecution and potential life sentences on their return.” What she fails to address is that the British “freedom fighters” are being recruited with the full support of Prime Minister David Cameron in defiance of UK laws.
→ read full articleA Meeting with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini 35 Years Ago
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2014
Khomeini by insisting on all or nothing against the Shah did create an Iranian transition to a new political order. In contrast the 2011 militants in Tahrir Square were content with the removal of Mubarak and promises of reforms, and ended up succumbing to a counter-revolutionary tsunami that has reconstituted the repressive Mubarak past in a more extreme form.
→ read full articleDark Lands: The Grim Truth behind the ‘Scandinavian Miracle’
Michael Booth – The Guardian,
3 Feb 2014
Television in Denmark is rubbish, Finnish men like a drink – and Sweden is not exactly a model of democracy. Why, asks one expert, does everybody think the Nordic region is a utopia?
→ read full articleBe Careful What You Wish…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2014
A husband and wife, both sixty years old, were walking through a forest.
→ read full articleCorporation Carte Blanche: Will US-EU Trade Become Too Free?
Michaela Schiessl – Der Spiegel,
27 Jan 2014
Opposition to the planned new trans-Atlantic free trade agreement is growing. So far, criticism has focused on the fact that the deal seems directed exclusively at economic interests. Now fears are growing that corporations will be given too much power.
→ read full articleAn American Idol: The United States Should ‘Govern’ the World?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2014
This post consists of a much expanded text of an opinion piece that was published by AJE on January 18, 2014; it seeks to discredit imperial and neoliberal claims that the United States is a benevolent hegemon, providing global public goods to the world as a whole, including supposed geopolitical and ideological rivals.
→ read full articleThe Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) vs. Syria’s “Moderate” Al Qaeda Terrorists
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
27 Jan 2014
The Western media has tacitly acknowledged, faced with overwhelming evidence, that the opposition rebels have not only committed countless atrocities, they were also behind the chemical weapons attack of August 21. The evolving media narrative –which coincides in a timely fashion with the Geneva 2 Peace Conference– consists in distinguishing between two categories of Al Qaeda affiliated rebel organizations.
→ read full articleImperiled Polities: Egypt and Turkey—Two Visions of Democracy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2014
The recent disturbing political turmoil in Turkey and Egypt, each in its own way, is illustrative. In both countries there are strong, although quite divergent, traditions of charismatic authoritarian leadership, reinforced by quasi-religious sanctification. Very recently, however, this authoritarian past is being challenged by counter-traditions of populist legitimacy.
→ read full articleTPP: Poison for Local Community Resilience
Richard Heinberg – Common Dreams,
20 Jan 2014
If a city, county, or state were to ban fracking within its jurisdiction, oil companies could overturn the ban and sue for millions of dollars in lost profits. Want to label GM foods? Sorry, that’s a barrier to trade. Want local schools to buy healthy food from local farmers? Nope, that might violate the rights of Big Ag. Want to protect a forest? Stand aside, you’re in the way of profits.
→ read full articleClimate Activists Slapped With Terrorism Charges for Devon Energy Protest
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2014
10 Jan 2014 – Two climate activists who staged a protest at the headquarters of Devon Energy, a Fortune 500 company based in Oklahoma city, have been charged with a “terrorism hoax” after black powder drifted down from a banner that they unfurled.
→ read full articleRelax!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2014
On a flight from New York to Sydney, the pilot announced that they had engine trouble and would have to make an emergency landing at sea near a small uninhabited South Pacific island.
→ read full articleSewage Sludge as Fertilizer: Safe?
Jill Richardson – Food Safety News,
20 Jan 2014
Despite sludge’s relative obscurity, the newly formed Food Rights Network is taking on sewage sludge as its flagship issue. Simply put, the group says that it is not safe to grow food in sewage sludge [industrial, hospital, human excrements/waste].
→ read full articleCONFIRMED: The DEA Struck a Deal with Mexico’s Most Notorious Drug Cartel
Michael Kelley – Business Insider,
20 Jan 2014
An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.
→ read full articleHarassment of Climate Scientists Needs to Stop
Richard Schiffman – The Guardian,
13 Jan 2014
When Michael Mann chose a career in science, he didn’t think that he would be denounced on billboards, grilled by hostile legislators on Capitol Hill and in the British House of Commons, have his emails hacked and stolen, receive letters laced with an anthrax-like white powder, and become the target of anonymous death threats.
→ read full articleThou Shalt Not Bear False Witness against Thy Government: The Case of John Kiriakou
Alyssa Rohricht - CounterPunch,
13 Jan 2014
To date, only one person has been jailed in connection to the US torture program. One man has been put behind bars for the part that the United States has played in torturing prisoners of war around the globe.
→ read full articleThe Emergent Palestinian Imaginary
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2014
It is often overlooked that as early as 1988, and possibly earlier, the unified Palestinian leadership has decisively opted for what I would call a ‘sacrificial’ peace. By sacrificial I mean an acceptance of peace and normalization with Israel that is premised upon the relinquishment of significant Palestinian rights under international law.
→ read full articleObsession
Richard Wiseman – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2014
A psychoanalyst shows a patient an inkblot, and asks him what he sees. The patient says: “A man and woman making love.”
→ read full articleBeholding 2014
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2014
2013 was not a happy year in the chronicles of human history, yet there were a few moves in the directions of peace and justice. What follows are some notes that respond to the mingling of light and shadows that are flickering on the global stage, with a spotlight placed on the main war zone of the 21st century—the Middle East, recalling that Europe had this negative honor for most of the modern era.
→ read full articleNSA Seeks to Build Quantum Computer That Could Crack Most Types of Encryption
Steven Rich and Barton Gellman – The Washington Post,
6 Jan 2014
The US National Security Agency is racing to build a computer that could break nearly every kind of encryption used to protect banking, medical, business and government records around the world, according to documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
→ read full articleThe Eleventh Hour – Decision Time
R. Teichmann – News Beacon Ireland,
6 Jan 2014
It is a well-known fact in biology that pressures of an existential nature on a species result in two possible outcomes. The first outcome is that the species evolves. It adapts by way of biological evolution to the new conditions and survives. The second is that the species does not evolve and thus perishes.
→ read full article2014: International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2014
In a little noted initiative the General Assembly on November 26, 2013 voted to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
→ read full articleSamer Issawi, Hunger Strikes, and the Palestinian Struggle
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2013
For the last three years Palestinian prisoners unlawfully detained in Israeli jails have been engaged in hunger strikes to protest administrative detention, imprisonment without indictment, charges, and access to allegedly incriminating evidence, abusive arrest procedures…
→ read full articleI Am Outraged – A Christmas Poem
Rudi Teichmann – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2013
I am outraged
Because every second children die of hunger by design
Because every second old people die lonely
Because brother fights against brother
Transatlantic Trade Agreement Threatens Environment and Health in U.S. and Europe
Erich Pica – Huffington Post,
30 Dec 2013
24 Dec 2013 – Negotiations between the United States and European Union for a free trade agreement, which resumed this week in Washington, represent one of the biggest threats we have seen in our lifetimes to an environmentally sustainable and socially just world.
→ read full articleWashington’s New Islamic Front: Expanded U.S. Support to Al Qaeda Rebels in Syria
Prof Michel Chossudovsky - Global Research,
23 Dec 2013
What the US and its allies are establishing are new effective “direct channels” for increasing their support to their Al Qaeda foot soldiers, essentially using the new Islamic Front as a “Go Between”. This procedure is contemplated following the apparent demise of the Supreme Military Command of the FSA.
→ read full articleNorthern Ireland and the Israel/Palestine ‘Peace Process’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2013
I visited Belfast the last few days during some negotiations about unresolved problems between Unionist and Republican (or Nationalist) political parties, I was struck by the absolute dependence for any kind of credibility of this process upon the unblemished perceived neutrality of the mediating third party.
→ read full articleThe Palestinian National Movement Advances
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2013
The Palestinian shift toward Legitimacy Wars is a recognition that in this kind of conflict the decisive battles are generally not won by the side with the superior weaponry and technology but rather by the side that prevails in the realm of ideas and symbols of just cause.
→ read full articleSettled!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2013
A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin, 5, and Ryan, 3.
→ read full article