Articles by M
We found 33802 results.
Death from the Sky: Searching for Ground Truth in the Kunduz Hospital Bombing
May Jeong – The Intercept,
2 May 2016
While patients and more than 100 employees and caretakers slept in the Kunduz Trauma Center, an American AC-130 gunship prepared to strike. The 211 shells fired at a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Afghanistan one night last October were felt by the 42 men, women, and children killed, victims of incompetence or prejudice or both. Someone along the US military chain of command gave the order.
→ read full articleTouring Tragedy: A Day of Disaster Porn in Chernobyl
Hilmar Schmundt and Phil Thoma - Der Spiegel,
2 May 2016
It is the site of the most devastating nuclear disaster in history, but the Chernobyl exclusion zone has also become a magnet for tourists seeking a thrill. Join us for a tour.
→ read full articleNuclear Emergencies and the Masters of Improvisation
Sonja Schmid – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
2 May 2016
April 26 marks the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, and those old enough to remember the event can recall the explosion, the evacuation, and the dread. But they rarely remember an immense milestone in the response to the disaster: the completion in November 1986 of a concrete encasement of Chernobyl’s reactor number four. Workers drawn from all across the Soviet Union built this “sarcophagus” under extreme radiological conditions, on the ruins of the destroyed reactor.
→ read full articleUS Military Whitewashes Attack on Afghan Hospital
Peter Symonds, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
30 Apr 2016 – The Pentagon’s final report into last October’s deadly US airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in northern Afghanistan is a brazen whitewash. General Joseph Votel, commander of US Central Command, told a press conference yesterday that the attack was not a war crime because it had not been intentional. He claimed that neither the gunship crew members nor the Special Forces on the ground directing the attack “knew they were striking a medical facility.”
→ read full articleKenya Burns Huge Pile of Ivory Tusks to Protest Poaching
Tom Odula, Associated Press – Reader Supported News,
2 May 2016
Kenya’s president set fire Saturday [30 Apr 2016] to 105 tons of elephant ivory and more than 1 ton of rhino horn in a dramatic statement against the trade in ivory and products from endangered species. Kenya decided to destroy the ivory instead of selling it for an estimated $150 million. Pres. Kenyatta said that Kenya wants to make the point that ivory should not have any commercial value.
→ read full articleCall of the Forests – Seeking Joy and Peace
Dr Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
Forests are symbols of life. If we did not have forests on the planet Earth it would be difficult to visualise what type of life could be present. But life as we know it would not exist. How is this so? The world celebrates Earth Day on 22nd April. It would be wonderful if we also started celebrating World Forest Day.
→ read full articleIn Israel, an Ugly Tide Sweeps Over Palestinians
Jonathan Cook – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
The trigger-happy soldier Elor Azaria and the peace camp leader Isaac Herzog have more in common than either might wish to admit. In their different ways, both have helped to turn all Palestinians into outcasts – and crush any hope of concessions from Israel to peace.
→ read full articleObama’s War Summit in Europe
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
President Barack Obama ended his six-day trip through Saudi Arabia, Britain and Germany Monday [25 Apr 2016] with what amounted to a mini-war summit. The American president’s message to his European counterparts was that they must stop being “complacent” and work to build up their own military forces for interventions in the Middle East, North Africa and against Russia to the east. Obama’s host, Chancellor Merkel, proudly declared, “We are ready and willing to be militarily engaged,” citing the German military’s participation in ongoing interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali.
→ read full article2016 World Press Freedom Index: Leaders Paranoid about Journalists
Reporters Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
20 Apr 2016 – Most of the movement in the World Press Freedom Index unveiled today by Reporters Without Borders is indicative of a climate of fear and tension combined with increasing control over newsrooms by governments and private-sector interests. 180 Countries Ranked According to Freedom Allowed to Journalists
→ read full articleDebacle at Doha: The Collapse of the Old Oil Order
Michael T. Klare - TomDispatch,
2 May 2016
For a country that more than any other has rested its claim to wealth and power on the production and sale of petroleum, this is a revolutionary statement. If Saudi Arabia says it is ready to begin a move away from reliance on petroleum, we are indeed entering a new world in which, among other things, the titans of oil production will no longer hold sway over our lives as they have in the past.
→ read full articleYou’re More Likely to See an Oil Industry Ad than a Climate Report on CNN
Xian Chiang-Waren, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
Planet Earth is shattering climate records left and right. But don’t expect CNN viewers to know that. Over two recent weeks, the network aired more oil industry advertising than climate change coverage — nearly five times more.
→ read full articleAmy Goodman: How the Media Ruins Elections
Al Jazeera - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
Amy Goodman, of Democracy NOW!, tells us about Trump-land and how the media is ruining this election.
→ read full articleMorbid Insecurity
M. Wuerker – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
A Psychiatric Condition
→ read full articleThis Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
May 2–8 ~ QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do.” – Leo Tolstoy
→ read full articleDilemma for [Nobel Peace Laureate] Suu Kyi in Push for Peace Process in Burma/Myanmar
Nirmal Ghosh – The Straits Times,
2 May 2016
29 Apr 2016 – Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has called for a major peace conference with ethnic minorities – a chance again for Myanmar to progress towards the federal state the minorities have fought for decades. Tough task ahead despite public support as backing of military is needed, say observers.
→ read full articleCan We Feel the Heat?
Cathy Breen, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
27 Apr 2016 – I am travelling as a peace witness in Iraqi Kurdistan. We visited a sheikh whom I had met in Fallujah in 2012. He and his family were forced to flee to Kurdistan about two years ago. Fallujah is being held by ISIS. None of the residents is allowed to leave. People are dying of starvation.
→ read full articleAmid Media Megamergers, a Mosaic of Community Media Thrives
Amy Goodman and Denis Moyhihan – Democracy NOW!,
2 May 2016
Even in this high-tech digital age, all we get is static: that veil of distortion, lies, misrepresentations and half-truths that obscure reality. We need the media to give us the dictionary definition of static: Criticism. Opposition. Unwanted interference. We need a media that covers power, not covers for power. We need a media that is the Fourth Estate, not for the state. And we need a media that covers the movements that create static and make history. That is the power of independent media.
→ read full articleContributing to the Catholic Church’s Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
Presentation to the International Conference on Nonviolence and Just Peace – Rome, April 11-13 2016 – I would like to see Pope Francis and the Catholic Church call for the total abolition of militarism (an aberration/dysfunction in human history.) Also For Pope Francis and the Church to renounce war and develop a ‘Theology of Nonkilling and Nonviolence’ rejecting the ‘Just War’ theology, which continues to lead people to an acceptance of militarism and war as alleged legitimate ways of solving conflict.
→ read full articleAny Way to Halt Extremism?
Baher Kamal – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
“While it may be inevitable to draw on examples, such as Da’esh [also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL] or Boko Haram, the phenomenon of violent extremism conducive to terrorism is not rooted or confined to any religion, region, nationality or ethnic group. Let us also recognize that today, the vast majority of victims worldwide are Muslims,” — UN chief Ban Ki-moon
→ read full articleI Lost My Childhood
José María Lopera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
I lost my childhood
at seven years old I was a man
a man of war and of death
a man of a weapon that whistles
and the bomb that explodes in surprise
Happiness Inequality Is a Better Measure of Well-Being than Income Inequality
Kira M. Newman, The Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley– TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
Why Does Happiness Inequality Matter? According to a new report, income inequality isn’t the only thing we should be concerned about. Happiness reveals more about human welfare than standard indicators like wealth, education, health, or good government.
→ read full articleThe Battle over the Word ‘Rohingya’ [in Burma aka Myanmar]
Adam Taylor – The Washington Post,
2 May 2016
Hundreds of people gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon, Burma, on Thursday [28 Apr] with a demand: The United States must stop using the word “Rohingya.” To most of the world, the Rohingya are a Bengali-speaking Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Burma, also known as Myanmar. More than 1 million Rohingya are thought to live in Burma, the majority of them in Rakhine state. Despite the size and long-standing presence of this community, the government does not consider its members Burmese citizens.
→ read full articleLearning from Nuclear Accidents, Expanding Nuclear Energy
Augustin Simo – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
2 May 2016
The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 was caused by factors including a flawed reactor design, insufficient training of plant operators, and a lack of nuclear safety culture.
→ read full articleThe Story behind Prince’s Low-Profile Generosity to Green Causes
Katie Herzog, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
“Prince heard me in the media and sent a $50,000 check to support the work I was doing. But he did all his giving completely anonymously, so I sent the check back. You never know when someone is trying to set you up — it could have been from Chevron or from a drug dealer or whatever. So then he sent the check back and I sent it back again, and then he sent it back and then I sent it back, until finally a representative called and said, ‘Will you please accept this check? I won’t tell you who it is from, but the guy’s favorite color is purple.’
→ read full articleRefugee Crisis: When Is a Tragedy a Massacre?
Richard Seymour – Al Jazeera,
2 May 2016
The EU is simply determined not to be a destination for refugees. With illegal pushbacks, brutal detainment, and harassment at sea, the options for refugees are increasingly severe.
→ read full articleThe Return of the Coup in Latin America
Manuel E. Yepe - CounterPunch,
2 May 2016
Venezuela and Brazil are the scenes of a new form of coup d’état that would set the continent’s political calendar back to its worst times. What has been shown so far in Argentina is no less cruel, in terms of contempt for the masses, than the coups carried out by the bloodthirsty dictatorships that sprouted in time of Operation Condor.
→ read full articleThe Evolution of Union Co-ops and the Historical Development of Workplace Democracy
James Anderson, Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
“Every worker has an equal, democratic vote at weekly meetings that decide all matters of the organization. And we are all members of the Industrial Workers of the World to protect that process so that it can’t be hijacked.”
→ read full articleEscalating U.S. Air Strikes Kill Hundreds of Civilians in Mosul, Iraq
Nicolas J S Davies, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
The war commander, Lt Gen McFarland, now orders air strikes that are expected to kill up to 10 civilians without prior approval from U.S. Central Command, and U.S. officials acknowledge that air strikes are killing more civilians under the new rules. The fundamental contradiction of the militarized “war on terror” is that U.S. aggression and other war crimes only reinforce the narratives of jihadis who see themselves as a bulwark against foreign aggression and neocolonialism in the Muslim world.
→ read full articlePalestine and Zionism: The Whole Truth
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Brainwashed and idiotic Zionists in Sardinia tried and failed to have some of my lectures and debates cancelled by accusing me of being an anti-Semite who is inciting anti-Semitism. They knew nothing about my book and its contents and were reading from Zionism’s script. Their efforts resulted in increased sales of my book!
→ read full articleDon’t Heed the Haters: Albert Einstein’s Wonderful Letter of Support to Marie Curie in the Midst of Scandal
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
“If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don’t read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.”
→ read full article(Italiano) Lettura collettiva dei primi 12 articoli della Costituzione italiana. Aosta. Biblioteca regionale sezione ragazzi
Silvia Berruto – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
« Se voi volete andare in pellegrinaggio nel luogo dove è nata la nostra Costituzione, andate nelle montagne dove caddero i partigiani, nelle carceri dove furono imprigionati, nei campi dove furono impiccati. Dovunque è morto un italiano per riscattare la libertà e la dignità, andate lì, o giovani, col pensiero, perché lì è nata la nostra Costituzione. »
→ read full articleClimate Change: Will the Middle East Become ‘Uninhabitable’? (I)
Baher Kamal – Inter Press Service-IPS,
25 Apr 2016
This is the first of a two-part series of reports focusing on the impact of climate change on the Middle East & North of Africa region, ahead of the signing ceremony of the Paris climate agreement, on 22 April 2016 in New York.
→ read full articleOn the Coming Decline and Fall of the US Empire
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system, in macro-space and in macro-time, with a culture legitimizing a structure of unequal exchange between center and periphery:
• economically, between exploiters and exploited, as inequity;
• militarily, between killers and victims, as enforcement;
• politically, between dominators and dominated, as repression;
• culturally, between alienators and alienated, as conditioning.
Climate Change and the Middle East: No Water in the Kingdom of the Two Seas—Nor Elsewhere (II)
Baher Kamal – Inter Press Service-IPS,
25 Apr 2016
This is part II of a two-part series of reports focusing on the impact of climate change on the Middle East & North of Africa region, ahead of the signing ceremony of the Paris climate agreement, on 22 April 2016 in New York.
→ read full articleUNOPS Becomes Third UN Agency in Jordan to Drop G4S Following Campaign
BDS Movement – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
18 Apr 2016 – The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in Jordan has not renewed its contract with security company G4S following a campaign over the firm’s role in Israeli human rights abuses.
→ read full articleThe Rwanda Genocide: The Israeli Connection
Gilad Atzmon – Dissident Voice,
25 Apr 2016
16 Apr 2016 – It would be encouraging to imagine a genocide that is totally free of any Jewish involvement. Sadly, the Rwanda genocide doesn’t fit into this mythical category. Haaretz reported last week that the Israeli Supreme Court decided to uphold the denial of a Freedom of Information request to make public documents about Israeli ‘defense’ exports to Rwanda at the time of the 1994 genocide in that country.
→ read full articleThis Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga - TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Apr 25–May 1 QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Ask yourself this: If I could have everything I wanted, would I want this, or continue to do that?” – Nancy Garen
→ read full articlePeople Still Don’t Get the Link between Meat Consumption and Climate Change
Annick de Witt – Scientific American,
25 Apr 2016
A new kind of messaging could make it easier to appreciate the enormous benefits of moving away from a meat-heavy diet. Considering that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time, wouldn’t we want people to know the power of a simple solution that is in their own hands?
→ read full articleCan Lemon Water Detox Your Body?
Dr. Edward Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Adding a little lemon to your water is a great way to add flavor and experience the benefits offered by lemons. It’ll also help cleanse your body of toxins and waste. The American Cancer Society recommends hot lemon water for alleviating constipation and clearing the bowels. [4] Let’s look at four more benefits of lemon water.
→ read full articleChernobyl, and Cesium, at 30
John LaForge, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
April 26 is the 30th anniversary of the reactor meltdown and radiation disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine, which brings to mind cesium. Thirty years is how long it takes for half a given amount of cesium-137 — dispersed in huge quantities from Chernobyl (and Fukushima) — to decay into radioactive barium.
→ read full articleThe Seas Will Save Us: How an Army of Ocean Farmers Is Starting an Economic Revolution
Bren Smith - YES! Magazine,
25 Apr 2016
I’m a fisherman who dropped out of high school in 1986 at the age of 14. Over my lifetime, I’ve spent many nights in jail. I’m an epileptic. I’m asthmatic. I don’t even know how to swim. This is my story. It’s a story of ecological redemption. Ocean farming isn’t just about food, it’s about transforming a workforce and restoring the sea.
→ read full article(Français) « L’ambassade des USA au Brésil ressemble à celle aux temps d’Allende au Chili »
Carlos Aznarez et Tarik Bouafia, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
21 avril 2016 – Après plus de quinze ans de progressisme et d’avancées sociales, l’Amérique Latine est en pleine recomposition. De l’Argentine au Venezuela en passant par le Brésil, la contre-offensive de la droite est en marche. Dans un contexte marqué par une forte crise économique et des tensions politiques, les Etats-Unis tentent de reconquérir leur ancien « pré-carré ».
→ read full articleIt’s Way Past Time to Stop Mistreating Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
Syed Hamid Albar – Los Angeles Times,
25 Apr 2016
The Rohingya are the indigenous people of southwestern Myanmar, or so-called Rakhine State. For years now, they have taken to overcrowded and leaky boats on the open sea, submitted to dangerous human trafficking networks, and seen their families split apart in a desperate bid to find safety somewhere, anywhere. Like many of the world’s refugees, they are Muslim.
→ read full articleGlyphosate Found in Popular Breakfast Foods
Alliance for Natural Health – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
“Glyphosate has been linked to increases in levels of breast, thyroid, kidney, pancreatic, liver and bladder cancers and is being served for breakfast, lunch and dinner around the world. The fact that it is showing up in foods like eggs and coffee creamer, which don’t directly contact the herbicide, shows that it’s being passed on by animals who ingest it in their feed. This is contrary to everything that regulators and industry scientists have been telling the public.”
→ read full articleCatching-Up with Cynthia McKinney… And Looking (Worriedly) Ahead
Gary S. Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
“Parrhesia” is a type of leadership that involves a special type of speech–it is a leadership that has the authority to speak and that uses that authority to speak what we would call “truth to power” and that does so despite the imminent and immanent risk posed to the speaker. Foucault explains Parrhesia in a lecture that he gave at the University of California at Berkeley and it is in that sense that I use the word.
→ read full article(Italiano) Mediazione da parte di giudici, della polizia
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Polizia? I giudici hanno uno status sociale più alto ma la polizia conosce meglio la situazione locale ed eventuali trasgressori.
→ read full articleAn Anecdote about Fascism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
I tried to engage her in conversation about evolving Israeli attitudes toward the Palestinians and the related failed diplomacy, but she seemed rather uninformed and perhaps even disinterested as if the peace agenda was not really present in her active consciousness. Then all at once she said something that surprised me. “I am not looking forward to returning to Israel, it is becoming a fascist state.”
→ read full articleThe Church’s Turn toward Nonviolence
Fr. John Dear, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
For the last 1700 years, as we all know, Christians have waged war, led crusades, burned women at the stake, systematically persecuted Jews and Muslims, kept millions of people as slaves, ran concentration camps, blessed conquest, prayed for successful bombing raids, and built and used nuclear weapons. Throughout Catholic history, Jesus’ teachings of nonviolence were rarely discussed, much less implemented.
→ read full articleAP Investigation: Are Slaves Catching the Fish You Buy?
Robin Mcdowell, Margie Mason and Martha Mendoza, AP –TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Update: On 18 Apr 2016 the all-woman Associated Press team won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for this investigation [published on TMS in 30 Mar 2015].
25 Mar 2015 – The men the AP interviewed on Benjina were mostly from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world. They were brought to Indonesia through Thailand and forced to fish. Their catch was then shipped back to Thailand, where it entered the global stream of commerce.
DNA Instrument of Life – Phonon Beholds Life Consciousness: New Hypothesis
Prof. Chandra Prakash Trivedi – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
The Phonon is earliest. It has activated the dark matter with resonance. The phonon and photon manifested with blast and light as dualistic complimentary force of vital energy. The phonon stimulates the event to happen and photon under go synthesis and degradation with time Einstein’s equation E=Mc².
→ read full articleTough Questions about Haiti for Hillary Clinton
Mark Schuller - CounterPunch,
25 Apr 2016
Obviously Haitian people must hold their government accountable, and are, but one must pause to ask why Clinton intervened in this election. And why the so-called international community looked the other way while four years of elections did not occur. And why the U.S. government pre-empted Haiti’s independent electoral commission investigating massive fraud.
→ read full articleOxfam: US Corporate Tax Cheats Hiding $1.4 Trillion in Profits in Offshore Accounts
Patrick Martin, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
The biggest tax dodger is technology giant Apple, with $181 billion held offshore. General Electric had the second-largest stash, at $119 billion, enough to repay four times over the $28 billion GE received in federal guarantees during the 2008 Wall Street crash. Microsoft had $108 billion in overseas accounts, with companies like Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top ten.
→ read full articleHistory Has Knocked Very Loudly on Our Door. Will We Answer?
Jakob von Uexkull – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Opening Speech, World Future Forum, 15 Mar 2016
→ read full articleStill in the Bush Embrace – What Really Stands in the Way of Closing Guantánamo
Karen J. Greenberg – TomDispatch,
25 Apr 2016
19 Apr 2016 – Can you believe it? We’re in the last year of the presidency of the man who, on his first day in the Oval Office, swore that he would close Guantánamo. In case, despite the odds, it should be closed in this presidency, Donald Trump has already sworn to reopen it and “load it up with bad dudes,” while Ted Cruz has warned against returning the naval base on which it’s located to the Cubans.
→ read full articleThe New Gilded Age: Close to Half of All Super-PAC Money Comes from 50 Donors
Matea Gold and Anu Narayanswamy – The Washington Post,
25 Apr 2016
15 Apr 2016 – A small core of super-rich individuals is responsible for the record sums cascading into the coffers of super PACs for the 2016 elections, a dynamic that harks back to the financing of presidential campaigns in the Gilded Age.
→ read full articleOPEC Oil and Climate Change
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
In an amazing display of collective schizophrenia, our media treat oil production and the global climate emergency as though they were totally disconnected.
→ read full articleMinor Mistake
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
A new monk shows up at a monastery where the monks spend their time making copies of ancient books.
→ read full article300+ Arrests as Pro-Democracy Forces Converge for Final Day of Spring Revolt
Deirdre Fulton, Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Sunday saw thousands rally in Washington, D.C., while hundreds risked arrest during mass sit-in on Monday [18 Apr]. Capitol Police say 1,240 people have been arrested in the last seven days. Civil Disobedience may be more important than voting.
→ read full articleDrone Whistleblowers Step Out of the Shadows: In Washington’s Drone Wars, Collateral Damage Comes Home
Pratap Chatterjee – TomDispatch,
25 Apr 2016
“I just want people to know that not everybody is a freaking terrorist and we need to just get out of that mindset. And we just need to see these people as people — families, communities, brothers, mothers, and sisters, because that’s who they are,” says Lisa. In addition to those they kill, Washington’s drones turn out to wound (in ways both physical and psychological) their own operators and the populations who live under their constant surveillance.
→ read full articleCreating the Future
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
I strongly believe that we must not allow ourselves the luxury of fatalism, especially today, when our future is darkened by the twin threats of catastrophic climate change and thermonuclear war. We must accept our responsibility for both the near and the distant futures. We must save the environment, plants and animals from extinction, and make a world in which our children and their descendants can survive.
→ read full articleDid the Vatican Just Throw Out Its Just War Doctrine?
Erica Chenoweth, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
19 Apr 2016 – The just war tradition—which contains numerous doctrines morally justifying violence and war, as well as defining appropriate conduct during war—has served for the past 1500 years as the primary normative basis to validate waging of war. Last week, eighty conference participants recommended that Pope Francis I reject Just War Doctrine as a viable or productive Catholic tradition.
→ read full articleDuty to Warn – A Glossary of Terms to Help De-Mystify This and Future Political Campaigns
Gary G. Kohls, MD – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
American Exceptionalism is the errant theory that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world because of its alleged “generosity” to immigrants, “mercy” to persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, its “honorable” democratic ideals and its historical origins from an oppressed nation (despite its having evolved into an oppressor nation).
→ read full articleOxfam: Most of World Bank’s Private Investments Linked to Tax Havens
teleSUR – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Oxfam says poor countries are cheated out of an estimated US$100 billion in taxes a year by companies using offshore havens and other tax-dodging tricks.
→ read full articlePost-Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Nepal: Bleak Future
Kedar Neupane – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Analysis of the government’s response in the past year and some suggestions – as a way forward.
→ read full articleWorld Bank Orders Venezuela to Pay Crystallex $1.4 Billion for Imataca Forest Reserve Gold Mine
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Imataca, one of four major pristine forest reserves in the country, is home to the indigenous Akawaio, Arawako, Karina, Pemon and Warao peoples. It also sits above what geologists believe to be the largest gold deposits in the continent worth some $20 billion. The court decision marks yet another milestone in corporate victories against national governments using international trade treaties.
→ read full articleYemen: Is This War Necessary?
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
The title of the aggression of Saudi Arabia against Yemen changed its name from “Operation Decisive Storm” to “Operation Restoring Hope” probably on the advice of the public relations firm that advises the US Pentagon on the names of its operations. Saudi bombing from the air of cities, hospitals and refugee camps, created a storm, but the results were in no way “decisive”. It is not likely that Saudi bombing will ”Restore Hope”.
→ read full articleClimate: Africa’s Human Existence Is at Severe Risk
Baher Kamal – Inter Press Service-IPS,
25 Apr 2016
This is how clear the Nairobi-based United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is when it comes to assessing the negative impact of climate change on this continent of 54 countries with a combined population of over 1,200 billion inhabitants. “No continent will be struck as severely by the impacts of climate change as Africa.”
→ read full articleIf Obama Visits Hiroshima
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Obama has this rare opportunity to choose the road not often traveled upon, and there is no better place to start such a voyage than at Hiroshima. We in civil society would then with conviction promote his nuclear legacy as ‘From Prague to Hiroshima,’ and feel comfortable that this president has finally earned the honor of the Nobel Peace Prize prematurely bestowed.
→ read full articleEvaluating the Grossness of Gross Domestic Product
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
As a complement to the widely cited indicator of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Refugees per Kiloton (RPK) could usefully focus on the number of refugees from a country in relation to the kilotons of explosive to which the country was exposed.
→ read full articleNauru: Suicide and Punishment
Binoy Kampmark – Dissident Voice,
25 Apr 2016
Nauru has ceased being a country of any worth. It has assumed value as a (non)processing centre for asylum seekers and refugees Australia does not want. A camp designed for criminalising and for condemning, it has become the cruelest exemplar of treatment of refugees. News emerged from the Nauru detention centre of “suicide pacts”. “There was a group of teenage girls, there was a group of fathers, there was a group of mothers.”
→ read full articleAn Appeal for Pope Francis to Share with the World an Encyclical on Nonviolence and Just Peace, and for the Church to Stop Teaching ‘Just War Theory’
The Peace People – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire from Rome: “The appeal to the Pope said that ‘we believe there is no ‘just war’. Too often the ‘just war theory’ has been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war. Suggesting that a ‘just war’ is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict’. I hope also that Pope Francis will unambiguously proclaim that ‘violence is always wrong, it is not the way of Jesus and reject militarism thereby calling upon Catholics not to join armies and take up arms to kill people, thus becoming a true peace church.”
→ read full articleNoam Chomsky on Organizing for a Next System
Noam Chomsky | The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
24 Mar 2016 – Philosopher, linguist, and social critic Noam Chomsky recently spoke about his experiences in campus activism and his vision of a just society. An initial signatory to the Next System statement, Chomsky explores the connections between culture, mass movements, and economic experiments—which in “mutually reinforcing” interaction, may build toward a next system more quickly than you may think.
→ read full article
What Would Happen If You Didn’t Drink Water?
TED Ed – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Water is essentially everywhere in our world, and the average human is composed of between 55 and 60% water. Therefore, what role does water play in our bodies, and how much do we actually need to drink to stay healthy? The health benefits of hydration.
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Peace May Be With You (Music Video of the Week)
Die Apokalyptischen Reiter [The Horsemen of the Apocalypse] – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Politically Correct Heavy Metal from Germany
→ read full articleBroken at the Top – The Oxfam Report
Oxfam America – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
The gap between rich and poor is reaching new extremes. The richest 1% have accumulated more wealth than the rest of the world put together. Meanwhile, the wealth owned by the bottom half of humanity has fallen by a trillion dollars in the past five years. Just 62 individuals now have the same wealth as 3.6 billion people – half of humanity.
→ read full articleNonviolence Charter: Progress Report #8 (April 2016)
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D., Anita McKone and Anahata Giri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Here is the latest six-monthly report on progress in relation to ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ and a sample of news about Charter signatories. Building a worldwide consensus against the use of violence in all contexts is quite a challenge but we are making solid progress!
→ read full articleThe Man Who Wants to Impeach Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff Named in Panama Papers
TeleSUR – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Brazilian House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who claims he wants to root out corruption, is again exposed as a criminal. Cunha, of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party or PMDB that recently broke with Rousseff’s Workers’ Party, was paid bribes allegedly funded by Portuguese business mogul Idalecio de Castro Rodrigues de Oliveira who owned a conglomerate of 14 companies registered in the British Virgin Islands from 2003 to 2011.
→ read full articleSixty-Two Billionaires Own Half the World
Samuel Harris – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
The latest in a series of annual reports from Oxfam, detailing the level of economic inequality in our world, is a striking example of Marx’s prediction that capitalism concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands.
→ read full articleWhere Are Marx and Lenin When We Need Them?
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Marx and Lenin were ahead of their time. Marx wrote before offshoring of jobs and the financialization of the economy. Lenin presided over a communist revolution that jumped the gun by taking place in a country in which feudal elements still predominated over capitalism. Today capitalism is being financialized with the consequence that its productive power is being drained into the service of debt.
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TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Needs help…
→ read full articleThis Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Apr18-24 QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Being HUMBLE is much more important than being WISE! Because GOD doesn’t need a PROUD mouth that SPEAKS much. But a KIND heart that LISTENS.” – Unknown
→ read full articleIs US-Funded Destabilization in Latin America Now Paying Off?
Francisco Dominguez - teleSUR,
18 Apr 2016
Riots, street demonstrations, anti-corruption campaigns, protests about the impact of the world economic crisis, general strikes, impeachment efforts, economic sabotage, and the like, have become the battle horses on which oligarchic forces in cahoots with Washington are riding to carry out ‘regime change’ in various Latin American countries.
→ read full articleRestoring Our Cultural Heritage in Syria —The Debate over Why, How, When, By Whom, In What Order, & Who Pays? Intensifies!
Franklin Lamb – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
This observer has been advised by two Congressional sources that concerns for the restoration of our shared global cultural heritage in Syria, widespread relief that Palmyra has been liberated from ISIS iconoclasm, and American public support for the repair and restoration of Palmyra’s treasures, are major reasons for moving the tough new and most welcomed ban on Syrian cultural property forward.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Democratic Transition: What Does That Mean for the Persecuted Rohingya?
Prof. Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
One-Day Open Research Conference, the University of Oxford: 11 May 2016. To continue shining the spotlight of university and independent research onto Myanmar’s slow genocide of the Muslim Rohingya among international genocide and legal scholars and world’s icons such as Desmond Tutu, George Soros, Mairead Maguire, Amartya Sen, the Dalai Lama etc.
→ read full articleWhy We’re Never Told Why We’re Attacked
Joe Lauria – Consortium News,
18 Apr 2016
Connecting terrorism to Western intervention could spark a serious self-examination of the West’s behavior in the region leading to a possible retreat and even an end of this external dominance. But that is clearly something policymakers in Washington, London and Paris – and their subservient media – aren’t prepared to do.
→ read full article(Italiano) Realpolitik vs Politica realistic
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Gli americani che si rivoltarono contro il colonialismo ed abolirono la propria schiavitù possono anche mettere in discussione la propria politica estera ed abolire il proprio imperialismo e la propria disinvoltura guerrafondaia. Dopo aver abolito due flagelli istituzionali dell’umanità, farebbero solo bene ad abolirne altri due. I vantaggi sono ovvi e di pronto incasso: vera grandezza, affetto, posizione guida, uscita dalla spirale di crescente irrilevanza.
→ read full articleAnokhe Lal – A Simple Man of Peace and Kindness
Dr Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Anokhe Lal was a do-gooder — a man of simple tastes and limited money. The name was appropriate since the name meant a strange person, a man whom we see rarely in society. He lived in a small hut in a poor colony.
→ read full articlePanama Papers: Reigniting the Debate for a Global Tax Body
Share the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Establishing a globally agreed tax body under the auspices of the United Nations and putting an end to dubious tax avoidance activities would bolster government revenues and help finance the provision of essential public services, especially in the Global South.
→ read full article22 April: On Earth Day, Commit to the Great Turning
Rivera Sun, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Hold actions to slow the destruction of human-based systems on the Earth and other beings. These activities include all the political, legislative, and legal work required to reduce the destruction, as well as direct actions–blockades, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of noncooperation and nonviolent intervention.
→ read full articleCreating Resilient Communities
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Real peace — positive peace, which transcends violence and turns conflict into opportunity — is and always has been part of who we are. We know a lot more about how to create peace than we think we do. We’re perfectly capable of transcending violent solutions to our troubles and building a sustainable future. The first step is to take our conflicts out of isolation.
→ read full articleWhat Does “Nuclear Terrorism” Really Mean?
Elisabeth Eaves – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
18 Apr 2016
There are few scarier pairs of words: “nuclear,” evoking the great 20th century fear of atomic annihilation, and “terrorism,” the bogeyman of the 21st. Put them together and you’ve got a frightening specter.
→ read full articleNegotiating Syria’s Future with Terrorists?
Catherine Shakdam – Human Wrongs Watch,
18 Apr 2016
Jaysh al-Islam used chem weapons in Syria & has delegate at UN peace talks. Beyond the catchy headlines and talk of democratization, reforms and just retribution, Western powers and their regional allies are in fact debating Syria’s right to self-govern; everything else has been political white noise.
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Money (Music Video of the Week)
Pink Floyd – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
‘Money’ by Pink Floyd from the iconic album The Dark Side of the Moon. Originally released in 1973, it became one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time.
In 2016, *Banksters* rule the world above governments and all other human institutions. Read the Lyrics.
Can an Animal Heist Fable Help Solve the Middle East Crisis?
Baher Kamal – Human Wrongs Watch,
18 Apr 2016
Make no mistake-the Middle East is the longest and perhaps the most complex crisis in recent History, this explaining the innumerable, successive –and frustrating- attempts to solve it.
→ read full articleI’m on the Kill List – This Is What It Feels Like to Be Hunted by Drones
Malik Jalal – The Independent,
18 Apr 2016
Friends decline my invitations and I have taken to sleeping outside under the trees, to avoid becoming a magnet of death for my family.
→ read full articleThe Panama Papers and the 1%
Mel Gurtov, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Global companies do not simply “go abroad”; they shift capital, as well as labor and technology, to wherever the advantages are greatest. This reality of globalization is well known, and it is matched by the similar behavior of powerful, wealthy individuals, including present and former top government officials who find tax shelters abroad where their money is completely hidden from public view. It’s what the One Percent do.
→ read full articleEcho Papa Exposed: Inside Erik Prince’s Treacherous Drive to Build a Private Air Force
Jeremy Scahill and Matthew Cole – The Intercept,
18 Apr 2016
The conversion of crop dusters into light attack aircraft had long been part of Prince’s vision for defeating terrorists and insurgencies in Africa and the Middle East. In Prince’s view, these single-engine fixed-wing planes, retrofitted for war zones, would revolutionize the way small wars were fought. They would also turn a substantial profit.
→ read full articlePanama Papers: City of London Is ‘Beating Heart’ of Tax Cheats Empire
teleSUR – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Filmmaker and journalist Mark Donne says British tax avoidance policies amount to a second British Empire. Even the media reporting on the issue “such as News UK and the Murdoch empire have more than 192 shell companies in tax havens. The messengers that are telling you the story are absolutely using tax avoidance.”
→ read full articleWorld Military Spending Resumes Upward Course in 2015: SIPRI
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
5 Apr 2016 -World military expenditure totaled almost $1.7 trillion in 2015, an increase of 1 per cent in real terms from 2014, according to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The data is being released to coincide with the start of the Stockholm Forum on Security and Development.
→ read full articleShould We Vote for Hillary Clinton? A Meditation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
14 Apr 2016 – It seems now almost inevitable that Hillary Clinton will be the candidate for the Democratic Party in November. This inevitability came about by a combination of ‘a Southern strategy’ […] Should feelings of solidarity and revolutionary patience outweigh a principled refusal to go along with militarist opportunism?
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