Articles by RD
We found 3495 results.
Reading Jeff Halper’s ‘War against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
I believe that Jeff Halper’s book deserves the widest possible reading. It explains clearly and convincingly one of the deepest and least understood roots of Israel’s diplomatic support throughout the world, which is its role as a niche arms supplier and influential tactical specialist in waging wars against peoples who dare offer resistance to state power as variously deployed against them.
→ read full articleThree Unshakeable Pillars of American Foreign Policy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2016
3 Apr 2016 – It deserves to be noticed that it is only the two anti-establishment candidates who have challenged the foreign policy consensus that has guided American politicians ever since the end of World War II: consistently express unconditional support for the Pentagon, Wall Street, and Israel.
→ read full articleRevealed: How Associated Press Cooperated with the Nazis
Philip Oltermann – The Guardian,
4 Apr 2016
German historian shows how news agency retained access in 1930s by promising not to undermine strength of Hitler regime.
→ read full articleCIA Photographed Detainees Naked Before Sending Them to Be Tortured
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
4 Apr 2016
28 Mar 2016 – The CIA took naked photographs of people it sent to its foreign partners for torture, the Guardian can reveal. A former US official who had seen some of the photographs described them as “very gruesome”. The CIA declined to comment for this story.
→ read full articleReflections on the Brussels Attack
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Mar 2016
The themes addressed and the policies proposed are advanced in a tentative spirit. Debate and reflection are urgently needed with respect to the political violence that is being unleashed in various forms in the West and non-West.
→ read full articleUS-Saudi Terror in Yemen Dwarfs ISIS Attacks in Europe
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
28 Mar 2016
25 Mar 2016 – Why are two of the richest countries in the World, the United States and Saudi Arabia, engaged in unrelenting, aggressive war against one of the poorest countries in the world, Yemen?
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Moment of Truth
Nick Davies – The Guardian,
21 Mar 2016
The country’s military rulers claim to have embraced democracy – and will soon transfer formal power to the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi. But an unsolved double murder may suggest the Burmese army is not yet ready to surrender control.
→ read full articleWorld Bank: Humanitarian Aid or Raid?
Claire Provost and Matt Kennard – Mother Jones,
21 Mar 2016
Is the International Finance Corporation’s primary role to alleviate poverty? I think you could question that. They’re pretending to be an investment bank. Serving as both adviser and investor can create perverse incentives. The tension between the IFC’s mandate to help end global poverty and turn a profit has only grown. The bank’s private investment arm is increasingly chasing profits at the expense of its anti-poverty mission.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s New President Might Not Be Aung San Suu Kyi, but He Does Represent Progress
Maung Zarni – The Guardian,
21 Mar 2016
For the first time in decades, the Burmese people have a civilian president. Now they must weather the clash of military and opposition proxies to come.
→ read full articleHow Neoliberalism Really Works: A Small Anecdote
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
27 Feb 2016 – Along with several million, I suffer from the eye disease known as glaucoma. It can be managed, rather than cured, by taking eye drops several times a day.
→ read full articleThe Benefits of Aloe Vera for Your Heart
Dr. Edward Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
Aloe vera is great for flushing out toxins and waste from the digestive tract [3], which in turn helps the body to absorb nutrients more effectively. This also supports circulation and gets more oxygen-rich blood to cells throughout the body. Today, we’ll look at how aloe vera supports heart health.
→ read full articleThe Impossibility of Politics – And How to Make Politics Possible
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
The thesis that politics today is impossible (or stated a bit less briefly, that the goals that politics sets out to achieve are unattainable) is so far more a provocation than a hypothesis. To make it into a meaningful claim I have to assign meanings to the word “politics” and to the word “impossible.”
→ read full articleWhy Democratic Party Foreign Policy Fails and Will Continue to Fail
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
5 Mar 2016 – An earlier version of this essay appeared on March 2, 2016 in The Progressive Magazine. It tries to explain the entrapment of liberal Democrats in an iron cage of militarism when it comes to international security policy.
→ read full articleNo Standards in Mediation
Daniel Erdmann – World Mediation Organization,
7 Mar 2016
Before starting a reflection on this content, we might have to understand that mediation itself is not a newly developed healing procedure for society, but it forms part of human civilization from the very beginning of our existence.
→ read full articleHollywood’s Grotesque Animal Abuse
Michael Howard - CounterPunch,
22 Feb 2016
Exposing Hollywood’s sordid history of animal cruelty.
→ read full articleGravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory
Dennis Overbye, Jonathan Corum and Jason Drakeford – International New York Times,
22 Feb 2016
A team of scientists announced on Thursday [11 Feb 2016] that they had heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light-years away, a fleeting chirp that fulfilled the last prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
→ read full article(Português) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a vida do espírito e a ética da Terra
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
Sabemos cuidar da vida do corpo, hoje um verdadeiro culto celebrado em tantas academias de ginástica. Os psicanalistas de várias tendências nos ajudam a cuidar da vida da psique. Mas na nossa cultura, praticamente, esquecemos de cultivar a vida do espírit. A vida do espírito se alimenta de bens não tangíveis como é o amor, a amizade, a compaixão, o cuidado e a abertura ao infinito. Sem a vida do espírito divagamos por aí, desenraizados e sem um sentido que nos oriente e que torna a vida apeticida.
→ read full articleAn Open Letter to Ban Ki-moon
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
We need all to realize what else should not be tolerated: while the Palestinian flag flies outside UN Headquarters, the Palestinian people have lived for almost 70 years under the daily brutalities of occupation, refugee camps, Gazan captivity, and involuntary exile. Can you bring yourself to call this ordeal ‘intolerable’? Then at least you could leave your UN post with a feeling that when your career was no longer in jeopardy you spoke truth to power.
→ read full articleWaiting for Rainbows
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
Below is the cover of my recently published book of poems that can be obtained from Amazon. I have received some inquiries, and although I have been writing poems for the past 60 years, I have never gathered the courage to publish them in one place before.
→ read full articleWall Street Worldview: Why Are People Upset?
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
8 Feb 2016
Multi-billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman says he’s puzzled by the discontent felt by other Americans these days. He is a bland-looking, somewhat paunchy, not unattractive, balding man of benign demeanor. He’s worth $12 billion, give or take a few hundred million, and a poster boy for Wall Street success and self-esteem and cluelessness.
→ read full articleBad Blood: The First International and the Origins of the Anarchist Movement – A Book Review
Kristian Williams – Toward Freedom,
8 Feb 2016
Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the canonical authority of Marxism has been much less certain. Yet anarchists have not stepped forward to fill the organizational and philosophical vacuum left behind. The reasons for that failing are numerous, but among them must certainly be counted the fact that we have become accustomed to our own marginalization and have largely ceased to think in terms of mass movements and international revolution.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Security Establishment Makes Public Plea for a Two State Solution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
7 Feb 2016 – Rarely, if ever, has a newspaper ad mobilized such influential backing for a position of prominent Israelis at odds with the elected leadership of the Israeli state. A full page add appeared in the New York Times on February 4, 2016. Its message was proclaimed in large bold type: “Israel’s Security Chiefs Agree: Separation into two States is in Israel’s vital security interest.”
→ read full articleThe Complex Problematics of Palestinian Representation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
This post attempts to address the current quandary that arises from the collapse of Oslo diplomacy and the seeming continuing encroachment of Israel on the territories long believed to provide the Palestinian people with a sovereign state of their own.
→ read full articleEnding the Horror of Myanmar’s Abuse of Muslims
Editorial Board – International New York Times,
1 Feb 2016
By the hundreds of thousands, Muslims in Myanmar have been stripped of their citizenship, sent to concentration camps where they are deprived of basic medical care, jobs and even food, and held prisoners in villages they are not allowed to leave. Thousands more have fled the camps by risking their lives at the hands of criminal syndicates that traffic them to Malaysia and Bangladesh or force them into servitude on fishing boats.
→ read full articleClimate Change: Post-Paris Challenges and Concerns
Hilal Elver and Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Feb 2016
It is time to move on from the aura of good feelings of accomplishment created by the Paris Climate Change Conference and begin asking some hard questions. Above all we need to assess whether an agreement that consists of voluntary pledges is workable and sufficient, and whether its contribution to slowing global warming should be celebrated or lamented at this stage.
→ read full articleTime for Justice in Sri Lanka
Editorial Board – International New York Times,
1 Feb 2016
The wounds of war cannot be healed until a transitional justice process demanded by the UN in a resolution last October moves forward. On that score, President Maithripala Sirisena says his government will not act “in haste.” This is unacceptable.
→ read full articleThe Radical New Face of the Jewish Settler Movement
Naomi Zeveloff, Forward – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
“There is no doubt that the hilltop youth today are outside the boundaries of normal life. That is the way it is perceived in Israel,” said Tzvi Sukkot, a former member. “Some people feel threatened by their lifestyle. They say that these people live on the fringe of society or that they were thrown out of their homes.” The so-called hilltop youth, a loosely affiliated group of Jewish settlers in their teens and 20s live away from their parents on the hilltops surrounding established settlements.
→ read full article(Português) Podem as religiões ajudar a superar a crise ecológica?
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
Agora o que se pede, é ver de que forma, a partir de seu capital religioso positivo, estas religiões podem chegar a convergências para além das diferenças e ajudar a enfrentar a nova era do antropoceno (o ser humano como o meteoro rasante ameaçador) e a sexta extinção em massa que está já há muito tempo em curso e se acelera cada vez mais.
→ read full articleCollapse of a Peace Presidency: Obama’s Speech Highlights Foreign Policy Failures
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian,
25 Jan 2016
The expectations for Obama were so high he received a Nobel Peace Prize within months. Never a pacifist, he accepted the award with a speech defending the use of military force. He will leave office as Bush did: passing on two wars – one the longest in American history, the other a reboot of the conflict he promised to end.
→ read full articleAn Open Letter to the American People: Political Responsibility in the Nuclear Age
Richard Falk, David Krieger and Robert Laney – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
What is most notable about the Nuclear Age is that we humans, by our scientific and technological ingenuity, have created the means of our own demise. The world currently is confronted by many threats to human wellbeing, and even civilizational survival, but we focus here on the particular grave dangers posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear war.
→ read full article‘Voluntary’ International Law and the Paris Agreement
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2016
16 Jan 2016 – Now that the celebrations by the diplomats have ended, it is time to take a hard look at what was and was not accomplished by the Paris Agreement. What we need and should seek is a moral epistemology that reconnects knowledge with human values configured so as to achieve justice, sustainability, and the pleasures of ‘a good life.’
→ read full articleOn Ghada Ageel’s Edited ‘Israeli Apartheid in Palestine’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2016
Ghada Ageel’s expertly edited ‘Israeli Apartheid in Palestine: Hard Laws and Harder Experiences’ has just been published by the University of Albert Press. It is an important contribution to Palestinian studies with an especially welcome linking of activism, scholarly analysis, and experiential narrative, each a vital perspective represented by excellent chapter writers.
→ read full articleSaudi Arabia a Force for Stability? Dream On!
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
11 Jan 2016
The Saudi mass beheadings on January 2 proved nothing new to a world that well knows Saudi Arabia is still a tribal police state with a moral code of medieval barbarity. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-Muslim country that executes people for witchcraft, adultery, apostasy, and homosexuality (among other things).
→ read full article(Castellano) Como Entender la Política y Como Cambiarla
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2016
Lo que distingue el político de los demás oficios y profesiones no es en fin ninguna calidad moral distinta, sino el hecho que le corresponde cumplir una tarea que en la época que nos toca vivir es imposible. La tesis que hoy la política es imposible, o –dicho de una manera menos escueta– que los objetivos que la política se propone sean inalcanzables, es hasta aquí todavía más una provocación que una hipótesis.
→ read full articleWibisono’s Resignation as UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2016
I am surprised, but not shocked. Surprised because he should have known that he was faced with a dilemma between doing the job properly of reporting on Israel’s crimes and human rights abuses and gaining Israel’s cooperation. Not shocked, indeed grateful, as it illuminates the difficulty confronting anyone charged with truthful reporting on the Palestinian ordeal under occupation, and by his principled resignation Wibisono doesn’t allow Israel to get away with neutering the position of special rapporteur.
→ read full articleNuclear Expert Siegfried Hecker Assesses North Korean Hydrogen Bomb Claims
Steve Fyffe, Stanford Center for Int’l Security and Cooperation – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
11 Jan 2016
7 Jan 2015 – One of the world’s top experts on the North Korean nuclear program, former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Siegfried Hecker has visited North Korea seven times since 2004; he is one of the few Western scientists to have set foot inside the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
→ read full articleThe Man Who Exposed the Lie of the War on Drugs
Ed Vulliamy – The Guardian,
4 Jan 2016
“The City of London is a far more important centre for laundering criminal money than the Cayman Islands.” Roberto Saviano already lives under armed guard after writing about the Neapolitan mafia. Now he is determined to uncover capitalism’s complicity with the narco-lords of South America.
→ read full articleDon’t Eat That Shrimp
Roberto A. Ferdman – The Washington Post,
4 Jan 2016
Indentured and Enslaved Workers Fuel the Thai Shrimp Industry – Burmese men, women and children are being sold to factories in Thailand and forced to peel shrimp that ends up in global supply chains.
→ read full articleDespair and Hope for the New Year
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2016
Most needed in these dark times is to hold tight to what we believe with an unruly embrace of faith, patience, and urgency. This is my most fervent New Year’s wish for 2016.
→ read full articleThe Death of Universities
Terry Eagleton – The Guardian,
28 Dec 2015
“What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as centres of critique. The role of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future.”
→ read full articleLarge Pod of Bottlenose Dolphins Endures Brutal Capture and Slaughter in Taiji’s Infamous Cove
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2015
A large pod of approximately 85-90 bottlenose dolphins driven into Taiji, Japan’s infamous cove on Sunday, Dec. 20 was forced to endure brutal captive selection and slaughter that claimed the freedom of 30 dolphins and the lives of 28-30 others.
→ read full articleSlouching toward Global Disaster: Chaos and Intervention in the Middle East
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2015
Even the more thoughtful Democrats limit their proposals to enhanced militarism, hoping to induce the Arab countries to put ‘the boots on the ground’ with nary a worry about either igniting a regional war or the imaginative collapse that can only contemplate war as the recipe for peace, again recalling the degree to which Orwellian satiric irony is relied upon to shape foreign policy prescriptions by ambitious politicians.
→ read full articleA Christmas Message in Dark Times
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2015
Christmas has an ecumenical resonance that calls for bright lights, ornamented trees, celebration, and wishes for peace on earth and good will toward all, bringing together those of diverse faith or no faith at all. The legions of ‘the politically correct’ determined to avoid offending those, especially Jews, who are not Christians, will carefully express their good wishes with such phrases as ‘happy holidays!’
→ read full articleList of Palestinians [and Israelis] Killed between Oct. 1 and Dec. 18, 2015
Celine Hagbard – International Middle East Media Center,
28 Dec 2015
19 Dec 2015 – The Following is a list of names of all Palestinians shot and killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, including one in the Negev, in the period between Thursday October 1st and the end of December 18th, as confirmed by the Palestinian Health Ministry.
→ read full articleRaw Pecans: Discover 7 Health Benefits of Pecans
Dr. Edward Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2015
From 277 different nuts and foods, USDA researchers say pecans are the most antioxidant-rich nut; with more oleic acid than olive oil, they contain 90% unsaturated (heart-healthy) fats, are low sodium, cholesterol free, contain essential vitamins and minerals, and have alpha and gamma-tocopherol forms of vitamin E.
→ read full articleA New World Order? ISIS and the Sykes-Picot Backlash
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2015
The shaping of world order remains mainly the work of the heavyweight states that act on the basis of geopolitical calculations with respect for international law and morality displayed only as convenient. Yet the political monoculture of territorial states remains formally the exclusive foundation of world order, but its political reality is being challenged in various settings and nowhere more so than in the Middle East.
→ read full articleEndless War Crimes in Yemen Slowed by Ceasefire
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
21 Dec 2015
Saudi Arabia’s Yemen Has a Fascist Whiff of Franco’s Spain Circa 1936 – The first lie about Yemen’s dirty war in the world of official journalism is that the fighting there has been a “nine-month conflict” and that “the conflict started in March,” as the New York Times put it on December 17. This is simply not true in any meaningful sense.
→ read full articleSaudi Arabia’s Execution Spree
Editorial Board – The International New York Times,
21 Dec 2015
Saudi Arabia’s justice system has gone into murderous overdrive. More than 150 people have been executed this year, the most since 1995. More than 50 people are reported to be scheduled for imminent execution on terrorist charges, though some are citizens whose only crime was protesting against the government. This wave of killing has prompted some to compare Saudi Arabia to the Islamic State: both follow Shariah law.
→ read full articleFrom Taiji to Tanks: The Barren Life of Captive Dolphins
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2015
16 Dec 2015 – The slaughter of dolphins and small whales that takes place in Taiji, Japan’s infamous cove is a horrific and inhumane massacre of highly intelligent and socially complex cetaceans. It is sad to say, though, that as they are taken from their ocean home to be sold for captivity, an even worse fate is soon to come, because their suffering is just beginning.
→ read full article100 Years On, Is This Einstein’s Greatest Gift to Human Understanding?
Paul Davies – The Guardian,
14 Dec 2015
The detection of gravitational waves will open up a new spectrum of the universe – finally demonstrating a theory presented a century ago.
→ read full articleCorporations Will Never Solve Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes and Auden Schendler – Harvard Business Review,
14 Dec 2015
The facts about VW — combined with recent revelations about Exxon-Mobil’s long history of misrepresenting what they understood about climate change, as well as BP’s failure to get “Beyond Petroleum” — spell the end of the old notion of green business, the idea that a big piece of the environmental fix might come voluntarily from the corporate world.
→ read full articleGerry Spence on America Menaced by Impending Police State
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2015
The book pertains to the situation here in America, but as recent events in Paris, San Bernardino, and Colorado Springs confirm, we are in danger of moving without realizing it toward some kind of ‘global police state,’ all in the name of security, trampling on the rights and self-esteem of billions of people and extinguishing the freedom of all. Such a devastating scenario cannot be separated from the predatory features of global capitalism in its present neoliberal phase.
→ read full articleObama, like Bush, Just Makes It All Worse
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
14 Dec 2015
Fear, doubt, uncertainty, confusion, and secrecy all conspire to defeat confidence, calm, proportionality, and reason. Leadership and populace alike embrace a zeitgeist of agitation and over-simplification, lashing out in one-dimensional military responses to misperceived threats that are not even fundamentally military. Anti-terrorism, as practiced by the US, is an oxymoron.
→ read full articleResponding to Megaterrorism after Paris
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
6 Dec 2015 – The post below is based on an opinion piece published by Middle East Eye on December 1, 2015 under the title “A Different Response to ISIS after Paris.” My modified text places its focus on the originality of megaterrorism and its distinctive challenges, suggesting that the choice of response needs to be extended beyond the iron cage of militarism and vengeance.
→ read full article(Português) Testes em animais: como as novas tecnologias podem evitar?
Carlos Eduardo Matos - ANDA Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais,
7 Dec 2015
3 dez 2015 – Há cerca de dois anos uma notícia repercutiu em toda a imprensa nacional e tomou conta das postagens e comentários em diversas redes sociais: a invasão de ativistas dos direitos animais ao Instituto Royal, na cidade de São Roque, em São Paulo. O grupo resgatou no local animais que eram utilizados como cobaias para testes de medicamentos, incluindo cerca de 200 cachorros da raça Beagle.
→ read full articleMore Pilot Whales Slaughtered on the Shores of the Faroe Islands
Sea Shepherd – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
1 Dec 2015 – Yesterday, a pod of 11 pilot whales was slaughtered at the killing beach of Fuglafirði in the Faroe Islands. It is the sixth grindadráp in the archipelago this year, and brings the total number of pilot whales slaughtered in the 2015 drive hunts to 501.
→ read full articleConfessions of a Terrorist Sympathiser
Richard Jackson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2015
Recovering sympathy for the terrorist, recognising their humanity, their politics, their suffering, their aspirations, their sense of self in this particular historical epoch, is essential for understanding the roots of their violent actions. It is also essential for reconstituting our own shattered sense of collective morality, and for recognising and acknowledging our own role in the constitutive violence of the current system.
→ read full articleIt Will Take 100 Years for the World’s Poorest People to Earn $1.25 a Day
Jason Hickel – The Guardian,
30 Nov 2015
The sustainable development goals will aim to eradicate poverty by 2030 but our current economic model, built on GDP, could never be inclusive or sustainable.
→ read full articleEnough of Aid – Let’s Talk Reparations
Jason Hickel – The Guardian,
30 Nov 2015
Debate around reparations is threatening because it upends the usual narrative of development. The impact of colonialism cannot be ignored. Europe didn’t develop the colonies. The colonies developed Europe.
→ read full articleForget ‘Fighting Demons’. We Must Learn How to Talk Properly about Alcoholism
Liam Byrne – The Guardian,
30 Nov 2015
My dad was an alcoholic – and what every child of someone with this disease learns is that we can’t change things for our parents. But we can for our children.
→ read full articleI Know Isis Fighters. Western Bombs Falling on Raqqa Will Fill Them with Joy
Jürgen Todenhöfer – The Guardian,
30 Nov 2015
Is it really so hard to see that the attempt to defeat terrorism with wars has failed? That we have to rethink the war on terror? That we have to finally start treating the Muslim world as true partners, and not as a cheap petrol station we can raid when we feel like it? Bombing civilians will recruit new terrorists. Again and again.
→ read full articleSaudi Court Sentences Poet to Death for Renouncing Islam
David Batty – The Guardian,
30 Nov 2015
Friends of Palestinian Ashraf Fayadh believe he is being punished for posting video showing religious police lashing a man in public.
→ read full article(Português) O Capitalismo Será Derrotado pela Terra
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
Depois que a sociedade passou a ser de mercado e tudo virou oportunidade de ganho, até as coisas mais sagradas como órgãos humanos, água e a capacidade de polinização das flores, os chefes de Estados, em sua grande parte, são forçados a gerir a macroeconomia globalmente integrada e menos atender ao bem comum de seu povo.
→ read full articleMeet the Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, the Son of Turkey’s President
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
Bilal Erdogan owns several maritime companies. He has allegedly signed contracts with European operating companies to carry Iraqi stolen oil to different Asian countries. The Turkish government buys Iraqi plundered oil which is being produced from the Iraqi seized oil wells.
→ read full articleHow Africa’s Fastest Solar Power Project Is Lighting Up Rwanda
David Smith – The Guardian,
30 Nov 2015
East African plant is completed in less than a year – creating jobs and setting the country on the path to providing half its population with electricity by 2017.
→ read full articleTurkey Could Cut Off Islamic State’s Supply Lines. So Why Doesn’t It?
David Graeber – The Guardian,
23 Nov 2015
Not only has Erdoğan done almost everything he can to cripple the forces actually fighting Isis; there is considerable evidence that his government has been at least tacitly aiding Isis itself. It might seem outrageous to suggest that a NATO member like Turkey would in any way support an organisation that murders western civilians in cold blood.
→ read full articleAnger Rises as Brazilian Mine Disaster Threatens River and Sea with Toxic Mud
Bruce Douglas – The Guardian,
23 Nov 2015
22 Nov 2015 – Conservationists and engineers battle to reduce the ecological fallout as mud and iron-ore residue from the BHP Billiton-Vale dam collapse flows down the Rio Doce to the Atlantic.
→ read full articleEscalation Is Escalation Is Escalation: Lesson of Viet-Nam War
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
23 Nov 2015
Too much truth has not been the traditional path to the White House. But too little truth, as we have seen too often, makes the achievement bitter and pointless. The problem is to put peace on the table in a way that is hard to oppose without seeming to be a monster. And there is an easy approach.
→ read full articleThe Failure of U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2015
22 Nov 2015 – What follows is a modified version of the Morton-Kenney annual public lecture given at the University of Southern Illinois in Carbondale on November 18, 2015 under the joint sponsorship of the Department of Political Science and the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.
→ read full articleWhat Is Really at Stake at the Paris Climate Conference Now That Marches Are Banned
Naomi Klein – The Guardian,
23 Nov 2015
By banning protest at COP21, Hollande is silencing those facing the worst impacts of climate change and its monstrous violence. Once again, the message is: our security is non-negotiable, yours is up for grabs.
→ read full article(Deutsch) Die Regierung blieb Antworten schuldig
Bernard Schmid, Paris - neues deutschland,
17 Nov 2015
Der »Krieg« ist erklärt, nicht aber das Phänomen des Abdriftens junger Leute in den Dschihadismus. Ein halbes Dutzend mal fiel das Wort »Krieg« in der Ansprache von Frankreichs Präsident. Der Begriff wird sonst für zwischenstaatliche Konflikte gebraucht, weshalb seine Verwendung Aufsehen erregte.
→ read full articleWhy Aung San Suu Kyi’s ‘Mandela Moment’ Is a Victory for Myanmar’s Generals
Maung Zarni – The Guardian,
16 Nov 2015
With a constitution that safeguards its immense power and wealth, the military knows that, unlike in 1990, it doesn’t need a crackdown to keep its regime intact.
→ read full articleNow the Truth Emerges: How the US Fuelled the Rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq
Seumas Milne – The Guardian,
16 Nov 2015
The sectarian terror group won’t be defeated by the western states that incubated it in the first place. American forces bomb one set of rebels while backing another in Syria.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Decision Is Clear. But Will the Military Let Aung San Suu Kyi Govern?
Simon Tisdall – The Guardian,
16 Nov 2015
9 Nov 2015 – The last time Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide election victory, the army generals who rule Myanmar rejected the result, placed her under house arrest and jailed thousands of her supporters, many of whom were brutally tortured. That was in 1990. But 25 years later, with “Amay Suu” (Mother Suu) once again triumphant, the key question is whether the men in uniform will accept the people’s verdict and allow her to govern.
→ read full articleA Milestone for Myanmar’s Democracy
The Editorial Board – International New York Times,
16 Nov 2015
The 2008 Constitution also bars Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, from becoming president, because her children are foreign nationals. Nobody doubts that this twisted provision was aimed at excluding her from the nation’s top job. Even so, dismissing the Constitution as “very silly,” she has asserted defiantly that she will be “making all the decisions” behind the scenes.
→ read full articleA misConception of Conflict?
Daniel Erdmann – World Mediation Organization,
16 Nov 2015
2 Nov 2015 – On the origin, the handling, and the finalization of conflict – generally spoken: its nature. I believe that the understanding of a term such as Conflict, War, or Peace is based on the formed personality of each individual. The personality itself is formed by the sum of life experiences, the level of education, the social and cultural background, etc
→ read full articleFrom Taiji to Tanks: Dolphin Captures Show Captive Industry’s Link to Slaughter
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2015
12 Nov 2015 – On November 10 (Japan time), the captive industry’s inextricable link to the slaughter of dolphins and small whales in the infamous cove was on full display once again in Taiji, Japan.
→ read full articleWith ‘Off-Planet’ Mining Bill, US Congress Seeks to Privatize Outer Space
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams,
16 Nov 2015
13 Nov 2015 – In a bipartisan bid to encourage commercial exploitation of outer space, the U.S. Senate this week unanimously passed the Space Act of 2015, which grants U.S. citizens or corporations the right to legally claim non-living natural resources—including water and minerals—mined in the final frontier.
→ read full articleEdward Said’s Humanism versus the U.S. State Department’s Antisemitism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2015
There is an obvious tension that exists more vividly than when Edward Said was alive, and commenting on the Palestinian struggle. Israel has created on the ground a set of circumstances that seem irreversible and are institutionalizing a single apartheid Israeli state encompassing the whole of historic Palestine (minus Jordan).
→ read full article‘Iron-Ass’ Cheney and ‘Arrogant’ Rumsfeld Damaged America, Says George Bush Sr
Claire Phipps – The Guardian,
9 Nov 2015
Former president claims hawkish reaction to 9/11 attacks and desire to ‘get our way in the Middle East’ hurt his son’s administration, says new biography.
→ read full article‘Worse Than We Thought:’ TPP a Total Corporate Power Grab Nightmare
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams,
9 Nov 2015
“Worse than anything we could’ve imagined.”
“An act of climate denial.”
“Giveaway to big agribusiness.”
“A death warrant for the open Internet.”
“Worst nightmare.”
“A disaster.”
UK: This Surveillance Bill Threatens Investigative Journalism
Gavin Millar – The Guardian,
9 Nov 2015
If sources understand they can be identified after communicating with a journalist via a smartphone or laptop they will be reluctant to risk dismissal or prosecution. The free speech provision of the European convention on human rights, Article 10, gives journalists a strong right to protect their confidential sources of information.
→ read full articleHopes for the Morning After in Ankara: Taking Stock (2002-2015)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2015
Let’s hope than when Erdoğan awakens the morning after his glowing victory, he chooses what is best for Turkey rather than to settle for becoming a grandiose figure who is certain to be both revered and feared. Only if he tames his ambitions will Erdoğan ensure his legacy as a great Turkish leader, second only to Ataturk.
→ read full articleSouth Sudan: ‘A Level of Human Suffering I Have Never Seen Anywhere Else’
Sam Jones – The Guardian,
2 Nov 2015
Children are paying the highest price for 22-month conflict that has displaced millions of people and pushed the world’s youngest country close to famine.
→ read full articleAl Jazeera Turka Interview on Turkish Foreign and National Policy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2015
28 Oct 2015 – This is a modified text of an interview conducted by Semin Gumusel Guner of Al Jazeera Turka, and published online in abbreviated form on October 19, 2015. The situation in Turkey is increasingly precarious and troublesome.
→ read full articleThe Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government
Prof. Edward Curtin – Information Clearing House,
2 Nov 2015
The continuing Killing Deep State within the U.S. Empire. David Talbot has exposed the face of evil incarnate in Allen Dulles, the hitman for the power elite.
→ read full articleHow the West Broke Libya and Returned It to the Hatred of the Past
Yasmina Khadra – The Guardian,
26 Oct 2015
When Muammar Gaddafi was toppled the bastion he built crumbled too. Who can restore national unity now? You cannot simply launch an attack on a country without any knowledge of the mindset or character of its inhabitants.
→ read full articleA Tribute to Prof. Johan Galtung’s 85th Birthday
Erika Degortes and Naakow Grant-Hayford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2015
We are here not to offer you a gift dear Johan, but to celebrate the gift you have given to all those interested in bringing about peace as a sociological and as a political responsibility in our multipolar and multicultural world.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: Seventy Years after Hiroshima & Nagasaki – Against Binaries (10)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2015
This is the last in this series of posts prompted by the 70th observance of the atomic attacks in 1945. The intention has been to explore several of the more important dimensions of what is called here ‘nuclearism,’ the securitization of nuclear weaponry in the face of international law, international morality, and simple common sense.
→ read full articleSaudi Arabia, Royal Impunity, and the Quicksand of Special Relationships
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2015
This post challenges the geopolitics of impunity from both principled and pragmatic perspectives, and also casts doubts on ‘special relationships’ that the United States has established in the Middle East with Israel and Saudi Arabia.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: Relying on International Law – Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero Litigation (9)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2015
From the time of the atomic explosions at the end of World War II, there have been two contradictory sets of tendencies at work: the repudiation of the weaponry and its contemplated uses as ultimate criminality and the secret feverish refinement of the weaponry to enhance its precision, destructive effects, battlefield capabilities, and delivery systems. To date, the latter tendency has prevailed.
→ read full article‘Capitalism is Mother Earth’s Cancer’: World People’s Summit Issues 12 Demands
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams,
19 Oct 2015
12 Oct 2015 – Decrying capitalism as a “threat to life,” an estimated 7,000 environmentalists, farmers, and Indigenous activists from 40 countries convened in the Bolivian town of Tiquipaya for this weekend’s World People’s Conference on Climate Change.
→ read full articleEconomic Theory and Community Development – An Exercise in Applied Philosophy
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2015
The Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
→ read full articleThe Fog of Intelligence: Or How to Be Eternally “Caught Off Guard” in the Greater Middle East
Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch,
19 Oct 2015
1,500. That figure stunned me. I found it in the 12th paragraph of a front-page New York Times story about “senior commanders” at U.S. Central Command playing fast and loose with intelligence reports to give their air war against ISIS an unjustified sheen of success: “CENTCOM’s mammoth intelligence operation, with some 1,500 civilian, military, and contract analysts, is housed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
→ read full articleFour More Carmakers Join Diesel Emissions Row
Damian Carrington – The Guardian,
12 Oct 2015
Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi’s cars are shown to emit significantly more NOx pollution on the road than in regulatory tests.
→ read full articleThe Nuclear Challenge: 70 Years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – Civil Society Activism on Behalf of Nuclear Zero (8)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
The Jeffersonian faith in the future of democracy rested on the cumulative impact of education on citizen participation encouraging a robust and vigilant civil society. The advocacy of nuclear disarmament must become joined at the hip with the recognition that global demilitarization and conventional disarmament are part of a retrofitted political package of unconditional anti-nuclearism.
→ read full articleAfter 70 Years: The UN Falls Short, and Yet…
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
Seventy years later the UN disappoints many, and bores even more, appearing to be nothing more than a gathering place for the politically powerful. I think such a negative image has taken hold because the UN these days seems more than ever like a spectator than a political actor in the several crises that dominate the current agenda of global politics.
→ read full articleOctober 9, 1967: Che Guevara Is Executed in Bolivia
Richard Kreitner – The Nation,
12 Oct 2015
Che Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army on this day in 1967. When his self-selected executioner hesitated before firing, Guevara allegedly spat at him and shouted: “Shoot me, you coward! You are only going to kill a man!”
→ read full article(Italiano) L’uomo bianco in quella foto
Riccardo Gazzaniga – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2015
Le fotografie, a volte, ingannano. Prendete questa immagine, per esempio. Racconta il gesto di ribellione di Tommie Smith e John Carlos il giorno della premiazione dei 200 metri alle Olimpiadi di Città del Messico e mi ha ingannato un sacco di volte.
→ read full articleWide Range of Cars Emit More Pollution in Realistic Driving Tests, Data Shows
Damian Carrington – The Guardian,
12 Oct 2015
Diesel cars made by Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat and Volvo among others emitted far more NOx in more rigorous tests, research shows.
→ read full article