Articles by RD

We found 3495 results.


Diagnosis & Prognosis: The Ukrainian Conflict-Formation
Naakow Grant-Hayford - TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

The successful expansion of the economic-political-military codes and institutions of both EU and NATO in the general direction of Russia since the end of the cold war, has again, as in the case of Georgia in 2008, openly clashed with Russian interests in its immediate orbit and set ablaze Eastern Ukraine.

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Iceland Convicts Bad Bankers and Says Other Nations Can Act
Alistair Scrutton and Ragnhildur Sigurdardottir, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

13 Feb 2015 – Iceland’s Supreme Court has upheld convictions of market manipulation for four former executives of the failed Kaupthing bank in a landmark case that the country’s special prosecutor said showed it was possible to crack down on fraudulent bankers.

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New Jersey Judge Rules ‘Gay Conversion Therapy’ Is Consumer Fraud
Associated Press – The Guardian, 16 Feb 2015

11 Feb 2015 – A judge in New Jersey has ruled that claims of gay conversion therapy that describe homosexuality as a curable mental disorder and made male clients stand naked with other men to quell attraction are fraud.

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A Presumption against Intervention
Richard Falk, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

It is important to recall that self-determination remains the most significant anti-intervention norm in a post-colonial global setting, and is so often marginalized in debates for or against intervention.

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On the North Carolina Killings
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

14 Feb 2014 – A short interview on how to interpret the ghastly murder of three young Muslims living in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill.

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My Tribute to Serena Williams
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

By returning to Indian Wells Serena Williams has made the double point of at once acknowledging the pain of her past victimization and the healing power of forgiveness.

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Greece’s New Finance Minister Looks like a Normal Person – How Refreshing
Simon Jenkins – The Guardian, 9 Feb 2015

With his casual shirt and jeans, Yanis Varoufakis is throwing down the gauntlet to the established European banking order. Greece, and now all of Europe, are suffering because Europe is still being run by and for bankers who simply want their money back. This cannot continue.

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Monsanto Crops Pushing Monarch Butterfly to ‘Verge of Extinction’
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams, 9 Feb 2015

Herbicide-resistant genetically modified crops have brought the iconic monarch butterfly to the brink of extinction, according to a new report presented by the Center for Food Safety to Congress on Thursday [5 Feb 2015].

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What They Don’t Tell You about Dementia
Dawn Vance – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

My mum was diagnosed when she was 64 and I was 30: now, instead of going out for coffee together, I’m desperately feeding her hospital jelly.

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Is It Time to Make Iran Our Friend and Saudi Arabia Our Enemy?
Michael Axworthy – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

Far from being a guarantee of stability in the Middle East, the western alliance with the kingdom is an impediment to peace.

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The Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Chapter Six of: Economic Theory and Community Development.

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Viewing American Sniper
Richard Falk, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

To question this American domination project is to antagonize the entrenched bureaucratic, media, and neoliberal forces that benefit from endless war making and its associated expenditures of trillions. In the end it is this grand project of late capitalism that American Sniper indirectly vindicates, thereby burdening the nation and the world, perhaps fatally.

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(Português) Plano económico do Syriza é mais realista que o da troika, diz Krugman
Esquerda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Economista Prémio Nobel de 2008 afirma que se há algum defeito no plano do Syriza, é o de não ser suficientemente radical. E defende que “o resto da Europa devia dar-lhe a oportunidade de pôr fim ao pesadelo no seu país”.

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The Davos Oligarchs Are Right to Fear the World They’ve Made
Seumas Milne – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

The billionaires and corporate oligarchs who met in Davos last week are getting worried about inequality. It might be hard to stomach that the overlords of a system that has delivered the widest global economic gulf in human history should be handwringing about the consequences of their own actions. Escalating inequality is the work of a global elite that will resist every challenge to its vested interests.

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WikiLeaks Demands Answers after Google Hands Staff Emails to US Government
Ed Pilkington and Dominic Rushe – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

• Search giant gave FBI emails and digital data belonging to three staffers
• WikiLeaks told last month of warrants which were served in March 2012

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Sea Shepherd Receives € 8.3 Million from the Dutch Postcode Lottery for the Protection of the Southern Ocean
Sea Shepherd – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Sea Shepherd will use the donation to build a new ‘dream’ ship, which will enable the organization to be more effective than ever in the fight against poaching, whaling on the high seas.

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(Português) Tsipras: “O veredicto do povo grego significa o fim da troika”
Esquerda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

25 Jan 2015 – No seu discurso de vitória, Alexis Tsipras, líder do Syriza, vencedor das legislativas gregas, afirmou este domingo que “o povo grego escreveu História” e “deixou a austeridade para trás”.

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GCHQ Captured Emails of Journalists from Top International Media
James Ball – The Guardian, 26 Jan 2015

Emails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post were saved by GCHQ and shared on the agency’s intranet as part of a test exercise by the signals intelligence agency, analysis of documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

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El Salvador: Pardon Granted for One of 17 Women Jailed for Miscarriage, Accused of Homicide
Danica Jorden – Upside Down World, 26 Jan 2015

Cinthia, who gave birth alone to an infant she says had its cord wrapped around its neck, was denied pardon, ostensibly because she smoked and drank beer on a daily basis. She was 18 when she miscarried was found guilty of aggravated homicide and has been serving a 30-year sentence.

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Drones and the New Ethics of War
Neve Gordon – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

If Guantanamo was the icon of George W. Bush, drones have become the emblem of the Obama presidency. He has adopted a totally different doctrine: kill rather than capture, replace torture with targeted assassinations. Drones change the ethics of war. To kill exposing one’s life to danger is bad; to kill without endangering one’s own is good.

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Pope Francis, Salman Rushdie, and Charlie Hebdo
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

The Associated Press reports that despite present tensions and the public celebration of free speech the government in Paris has “ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism, and glorifying terrorism.” But no message by the French government mentioning ‘hate cartooning’ or the surge of ‘Islamophobia’ in the country.

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Why Can’t the World’s Greatest Minds Solve the Mystery of Consciousness?
Oliver Burkeman – The Guardian, 26 Jan 2015

Philosophers, spirituality practitioners, and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots.

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(Português) A Jaula de Aço, Max Weber e o Marxismo Weberiano
Jorge Costa, Esquerda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

No seu novo livro, Michael Löwy aborda a paradoxal influência de Max Weber, pensador pessimista e resignado, sobre a teoria crítica e revolucionária. Um estudo cativante, nesta época de submissão total a forças impessoais – mercados, finança, dívida, austeridade – em que a barbárie moderna identificada por Weber volta a apresentar-se como destino inevitável.

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Russia Cuts Off Ukraine Gas Supply to 6 European Countries
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

14 Jan 2015 – The EU raged that the sudden cut-off to some of its member countries was “completely unacceptable,” but Gazprom later added that Russia plans to shift all its natural gas flows crossing Ukraine to a route via Turkey; and the Russian Energy Minister stated unequivocally, “the decision has been made.”

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Calling All Whistleblowers: afriLeaks Offers a Secure Platform
Mail & Guardian Africa – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

In the post-Snowden world with government and corporate surveillance a reality, it has become critically important for journalists and whistleblowers to ensure their digital safety. Enter afriLeaks, a joint project of the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting and the Hermes Centre for Transparency and Digital Human Rights.

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Dieudonné Arrested over Facebook Post on Paris Gunman [French shooting themselves on the foot]
Agence France-Presse – The Guardian, 19 Jan 2015

French comedian accused of justifying terrorism after linking attacker to tribute slogan by writing ‘I feel like Charlie Coulibaly’. The French government has in the past banned Dieudonné’s shows because it considers them “antisemitic”.

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Investigation – Secret America
Alex Jordanov – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

Over 1 million people inhabit the parallel world created by the US Secret Services after September 11.

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The Bankster International
Mark Hackard – The Soul of the East, 12 Jan 2015

In their quest to liquidate the American, the Russian, and every other unique people, the predators from the bankster international consider themselves above all laws human and divine. Yet the swelling arrogance of sociopaths brings about their downfall – and the sooner their crime spree comes to an end, the better chance we all might have for peace and reconciliation.

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On Freedom of Speech
David van Mill, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

The discussion moves on from the harm principle to assess the argument that speech can be limited because it causes offense rather than direct harm. [From TMS Editor – Of interest, in view of recent atrocities in Paris: 3.3 HATE SPEECH AND THE OFFENSE PRINCIPLE]

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Charlie Hebdo Massacre: a Tragic, Universal Failure
Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

Imagine if Charlie Hebdo drew a big-nosed Moses sitting amid buckets of cash. Does no one understand why if one is wrong the other is as well? In fact, a Hebdo cartoonist derided Nicholas Sarkozy’s son for “doing well” by converting to Judaism to marry a wealthy Jewish heiress. The cartoonist was fired. But cartoonists ridiculing the Prophet are now folk heroes.

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Pope Francis and Religious Cosmopolitanism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

It has never been more important to counter the widely disseminated view that religion is ‘inherently’ responsible for political extremism, and more destructively, to blame Islam as a religion for sociopathic violence when the culprits are Muslim. True, religious doctrine can be twisted to serve any values, however demonic, as can secularist thinking.

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In ‘Epic’ Chase, Sea Shepherd Vows to Pursue Poachers to ‘Ends of the Earth’
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams, 12 Jan 2015

9 Jan 2015 – The dramatic chase, which has gone on for 22 days, is thought to be the world’s longest pursuit of an illegal fishing vessel. Sea Shepherd’s sister ship, the Sam Simon, retrieved what it described as a “monster” gillnet more than 30 miles long.

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Monsanto Earnings Fall 34% after a Year of Global Protests
Associated Press – The Guardian, 12 Jan 2015

Monsanto said Wednesday [7 Jan 2015] its earnings fell 34% in its first fiscal quarter, as South American farmers cut back on planting corn, reducing demand for the company’s biotech-enhanced seeds.

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Global Outrage at Saudi Arabia as Jailed Blogger Receives Public Flogging
Ian Black – The Guardian, 12 Jan 2015

Kingdom stays silent as protesters contrast its opposition to Paris attacks on free speech with its own attacks on free speech.

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Doubling Down on Dictatorship in the Middle East
Amanda Ufheil-Somers, Other Words – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

Even the collapse of multiple governments failed to upend the decades-long U.S. policy of backing friendly dictators. Washington has doubled down on maintaining a steady supply of weapons and funding to governments willing to support U.S. strategic interests, regardless of how they treat their citizens.

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(Português) Je ne suis pas Charlie, eu não sou Charlie
Leonardo Boff – Carta Maior, 12 Jan 2015

Alguns chamam os cartunistas mortos de “heróis” ou de os “gigantes do humor politicamente incorreto”, ou de “mártires da liberdade de expressão”. As charges polêmicas do Charlie Hebdo são de péssimo gosto, mas isso não está em questão. O fato é que elas são perigosas, criminosas até, por dois motivos.

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Richard Jackson: Terrorism, Torture, and the Problem of Evil in Our Time
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

Richard Jackson, a professor of peace studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, has written a probing political essay that takes the form of an imagined dialogue between a British interrogator and an Egyptian terrorist who is apparently thought at the time of their conversation to be the mastermind of an imminent attack on Great Britain.

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When Is Civil Society a Force for Social Transformation?
Michael Edwards – Open Democracy, 5 Jan 2015

There are more civil society organizations in the world today than at any other time in history, so why isn’t their impact growing?

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The Irrelevance of Liberal Zionism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

Frustrated by Israeli settlement expansion, excessive violence, AIPAC maximalism, Netanyahu’s arrogance, Israel’s defiant disregard of international law, various Jewish responses claim to seek a middle ground.

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Who’s The True Enemy of Internet Freedom – China, Russia, or the US?
Evgeny Morozov – The Guardian, 5 Jan 2015

Beijing and Moscow are rightly chastised for restricting their citizens’ online access – but it’s the US that is now even more aggressive in asserting its digital sovereignty. One’s man internet freedom is another man’s internet imperialism.

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Remembering 2014 (Badly)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Dec 2014

A posture of cynical hopelessness or despair worsens prospects for positive future developments, however empirically based such a negative assessment seems. All of us should recall that those who struggle for what seems ‘impossible’ today often turn out to be the heroes of tomorrow.

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How Movies Embraced Hinduism (Without You Even Noticing)
Nirpal Dhaliwal – The Guardian, 29 Dec 2014

From Interstellar to Matrix, Batman and Star Wars the venerable religion has been the driving philosophy behind many hit movies. Why? A philosophy to which many are keen to subscribe is what makes religions successful. Movies, too.

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(Italiano) L’Impero Del Consumo
Eduardo Galeano, Come Don Chisciotte – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Dec 2014

Società dei consumi. La bocca è una delle porte dell’anima, dicevano gli antichi. Ma se da lì passa solo cibo spazzatura, la vita è ridotta a un insieme infinito di acquisti di merci usa e getta. E lo struscio domenicale nel centro delle città è sostituito dal pellegrinaggio negli shopping mall che accerchiano le periferie.

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Death Toll among Qatar’s 2022 World Cup Workers Revealed
Owen Gibson, and Pete Pattisson – The Guardian, 29 Dec 2014

Nepalese migrants building the infrastructure to the 2022 World Cup have died at a rate of one every two days in 2014 – despite Qatar’s promises to improve their working conditions. The figure excludes deaths of Indian, Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi workers, raising fears that fatalities would be more than one a day.

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Architects of Atrocity Remain at Large, and Unrepentant
William Boardman - Reader Supported News, 22 Dec 2014

We know who the torturer-in-chief was, and we know his vice-torturer has said George Bush was as fully informed as he, Dick Cheney, was. Along with everything else we know about these men who still defend their criminality, why isn’t that enough for probable cause and a criminal indictment? There’s much more to be said about this defining moment in our history.

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There Is Life after a Dementia Diagnosis
Rebecca Ley – The Guardian, 22 Dec 2014

Our ageing society urgently needs to replace stigma with understanding, and ostracism with acceptance. They live among us – drinking tea, watching television, smiling more on sunny days. Many of them still drive, push supermarket trolleys, and prop up their local bars with a pint.

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Obama and Raúl Castro Thank Pope for Breakthrough in US-Cuba Relations
Dan Roberts and Rory Carroll – The Guardian, 22 Dec 2014

Barack Obama and Raúl Castro thanked Pope Francis for helping broker a deal to normalising relations between US and Cuba after 18 months of secret talks over prisoner releases brought a sudden end to decades of cold war hostility.

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Taliban Butchers Are Pashtun Cowards
Robin Edward Poulton – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

If you sit of an evening beside a fire in the Pashtun heartlands, you will hear tales of bravery, honour and generosity. You will hear stories about how the Pashtuns were never defeated by Alexander the Great nor by Genghis Khan nor by the British Empire nor by the Soviet or American imperial armies. If you remind the Taliban about surats from the Holy Koran that tell Muslims never to kill another Muslim, how will your brave Pashtun slaughterer-of-children reply?

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5 Ways to Protect Your Spine at Work
Dr. Edward F. Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

Regardless if your job requires heavy lifting or you spend most of your days at a desk, back injuries you want to avoid. They can happen from physical strains and many people don’t realize that they can happen under conditions that don’t appear as strenuous.

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(Português) Pressão dos Países Latino-Americanos Foi Decisiva para o Fim do Embargo a Cuba
Leonardo Ferreira – Brasil de Fato, 22 Dec 2014

Decisão é fruto de negociações secretas entre Washington e Havana, com ajuda fundamental do Papa Francisco. Também tiveram peso a formação de grupos internacionais, como a Celac e a pressão da Unasul.

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I’m an ‘Anonymous’ Hacker in Prison, And I Am Not a Crook. I’m an Activist
Jeremy Hammond – The Guardian, 22 Dec 2014

We are condemned as criminals without consciences, dismissed as anti-social teens without a cause, or hyped as cyber-terrorists to justify the expanding surveillance state. But hacktivism exists within the history of social justice movements. Hacktivism is still the future, and it’s good to see people still doing something about it.

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It’s Not Cuba That Has Just Decided to Rejoin the Modern World – It’s the US
Martin Kettle – The Guardian, 22 Dec 2014

From its very earliest days, the US has seen Cuba as an American offshore interest. It is more than 200 years since the US, under Thomas Jefferson, first tried to buy Cuba from Spain. At the end of the 19th century America instead seized Cuba from Spain at gunpoint. Later on it leased Cuba back to US-approved Cubans on US terms, which included the retention of the Guantánamo Bay base.

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The Joke Is on Them: Gay Conversion Group’s Billboard Star IS GAY
Ed Pilkington – The Guardian, 22 Dec 2014

The poster claimed that of identical twins, one was gay and one straight. In fact the ‘twins’ were a single model and he is openly gay.

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The Dead End of Post-Oslo Diplomacy: What Next?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

The Oslo framework was an unseemly tacit assumption that the Palestinians would be willing to carry on negotiations without complaining about the Israeli violations of international law, most conspicuously the continued unlawful settlement activity.

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Alkarama Human Rights Award to Shireen Issawi
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

Geneva, 13 December 2014 – A letter written from an Israeli prison by the recipient of the award Ms. Shireen Issawi, a brave, resolute, and inspiring human rights defender who has dedicated her professional career as a lawyer to the long Palestinian national struggle for freedom, human rights, and self-determination.

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Full Scale of Plastic in the World’s Oceans Revealed for First Time
Oliver Milman – The Guardian, 15 Dec 2014

Over five trillion pieces of plastic weighing nearly 269,000 tonnes are floating in our oceans says most comprehensive study to date on plastic pollution around the world.

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UN Official Wants US Administrators Involved in Torture to Be Prosecuted
Samuel Oakford – Vice News, 15 Dec 2014

Following the publication on Tuesday [9 Dec 2014] of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Bush-era CIA interrogation practices, a top United Nations expert has called for US officials involved in torture to be prosecuted — and he says that they can be tried in any country.

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Sending Troops to Protect Dictators Threatens All of Us
Seumas Milne – The Guardian, 15 Dec 2014

CIA torture, crushing democracy and Britain’s new military base in Bahrain all deliver a toxic message. The heavily censored summary of the US senate torture report turns the stomach in its litany of criminal barbarity unleashed by the CIA on real and imagined US enemies.

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Cop 20: UN Climate Change Conference | Lima – Talks Reach Global Warming Agreement
Suzanne Goldenberg in Lima – The Guardian, 15 Dec 2014

Sunday 14 December 2014 – International negotiators at the Lima climate change talks have agreed on a plan to fight global warming that would for the first time commit all countries to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. •Full text of the deal (pdf)

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Facebook’s ‘Emotional Experiment’ Is Most Shared Academic Research
Alex Hern - The Guardian, 15 Dec 2014

9 Dec 2014 – Facebook’s notorious emotional manipulation study received more online attention than any other scientific research in 2014, according to an analytics company.

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Rectal Rehydration and Broken Limbs: The Grisliest Findings in the CIA Torture Report
Dominic Rushe, Ewen MacAskill, Ian Cobain , Alan Yuhas and Oliver Laughland – The Guardian, 15 Dec 2014

Parts of the CIA interrogation programme were known, but the catalogue of abuse is nightmarish, especially knowing much more will never be revealed.

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Right Livelihood Award Acceptance Speech by Edward Snowden
Right Livelihood Award Foundation – Pressenza Int’l Press Agency, 15 Dec 2014

I am far below qualified for this kind of honor. It is an extraordinary privilege to be counted among so many around the world who have fought for human rights even at great personal cost, even when it was hard, even when no one was watching, when they were not seeking recognition and when they never received it.

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Edward Snowden Wins Swedish Human Rights Award for NSA Revelations
Ewen MacAskill – The Guardian, 8 Dec 2014

Whistleblower receives several standing ovations in Swedish parliament as he wins Right Livelihood award. Speaking by video from Moscow he said: ‘All the prices we’ve paid, all the sacrifices we made, I believe we would do again – I know I would.’ The Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, was also among the recipients.

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The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy
Edward Curtin - TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

Review of [TRANSCEND Member] Graeme MacQueen’s Book – The anthrax letters were instrumental in getting tyrannical legislation passed by Congress. The US tried to blame Muslim terrorists but the anthrax was a version that only existed in US military labs.

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(Português) Onde está o nó da questão ecológica (I)?
Leonardo Boff – Carta Maior, 8 Dec 2014

Estamos cansados de meio-ambiente. Queremos o ambiente inteiro, vale dizer, uma visão sistêmica do sitema-Terra, do sistema-vida e da civilização humana.

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(Português) Eduardo Galeano: Ayotzinapa, México
Eduardo Galeano – Carta Maior, 8 Dec 2014

Os governantes perderam o controle sobre o medo, a fúria que desencadearam está se voltando contra eles. A raiva digna fará o México despertar e questionar.

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Cuba’s Extraordinary Global Medical Record Shames the US Blockade
Seumas Milne – The Guardian, 8 Dec 2014

Four months into the Ebola emergency that has devastated West Africa, Cuba leads the world in direct medical support to fight the epidemic. The US and Britain have sent thousands of troops and promised aid that has yet to materialise. From Ebola to earthquakes, Havana’s doctors have saved millions. Obama must lift this embargo.

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US Control Is Diminishing, but It Still Thinks It Owns the World
Noam Chomsky – The Guardian, 8 Dec 2014

The United States has long assumed the right to use violence to achieve its aims, but it is now less able to implement its policies.

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Business and Entrepreneurs Seize Opportunities in Rise of Veganism
Damien Clarkson – The Guardian, 8 Dec 2014

With a growing consumer interest in plant-based healthy eating, vegetarian and vegan options present a chance new business and competitive advantage.

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Could Your Smart Tablet Be Damaging to Your Health?
Dr. Edward F. Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

A new report is showing that many tablets and phones are using chemicals that are drastically affecting the health of consumers.

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EU Divided on Issue of Net Neutrality
Alex Hern – The Guardian, 1 Dec 2014

European commission vice-president for single digital market has criticised Italian proposals to weaken net neutrality within the common market.

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In Praise of Buffer States
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

Buffer states keep armies apart and allow important countries to trade in peace.

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Memoir Sketch: Championing Lost Causes
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

To contemplate death without the metaphysical painkillers of an imagined afterlife is to be finally alone. In a sense learning to die is equivalent to learning to live alone, and takes courage and fortitude.

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41 Men Targeted but 1,147 People Killed: US Drone Strikes – The Facts on the Ground
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian, 1 Dec 2014

New analysis of data conducted by human rights group Reprieve raises questions about accuracy of intelligence guiding ‘precise’ strikes. ‘They are only as precise as the intelligence that feeds them.’

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Gaza 2014 Compilation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

A POMEAS Compilation of Writings Relating to Israel’s 50-Day Attack on Gaza

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Remembering Yoshikazu Sakamoto (1927-2014)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

I am sharing these words of appreciation, and hope that anyone from Japan who comes across this text will contact me, especially if they have a way of putting me in touch with either Yoshi’s family or Japanese media. I would like to believe that ‘an American appreciation’ of Professor Sakamoto, an important public intellectual, would be of interest to those who knew and admired him.

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Israeli Cabinet Approves Legislation Defining Nation-State of Jewish People
Peter Beaumont – The Guardian, 24 Nov 2014

23 Nov 2014 – A controversial bill that officially defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people has been approved by cabinet despite warnings that the move risks undermining the country’s democratic character.

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Fivefold Increase in Terrorism Fatalities since 9/11, Says Report
Ewen MacAskill – The Guardian, 24 Nov 2014

Terrorism is on the rise, with an almost fivefold increase in fatalities since 9/11, in spite of US-led efforts to combat it in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world, according to a report published on Tuesday [18 Nov 2014].

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UN Presses Myanmar over Rohingya Rights
ReliefWeb – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 24 Nov 2014

The United Nations adopted a resolution Friday [21 Nov 2014] urging Myanmar to grant citizenship to its Rohingya Muslim minority, ramping up pressure on Yangon to scrap a controversial identity plan.

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Rethinking Economics: From Scarcity to Abundance
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

The coming crash may be humanity’s golden opportunity to transition to post-economic society. Or it may be the beginning of endless misery, violence, confusion, ignorance parading as technocracy, repression and –what is worse– ecocide.

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Why NATO Is a Danger to World Peace
Immanuel Wallerstein - Toward Freedom, 24 Nov 2014

NATO and what it symbolizes today represents a severe danger because it represents the claim of western countries to interfere everywhere in the name of western interpretations of geopolitical realities.

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Tanzania Accused of Backtracking over Sale of Masai’s Ancestral Land
David Smith, Africa correspondent – The Guardian, 24 Nov 2014

Masai told to leave historic homeland by end of the year so it can become a private hunting reserve for the Dubai royal family.

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(Português) Se Conhecêssemos os Sonhos do Homem Branco
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

A crise econômico-financeira que está afligindo grande parte das econonomias mundiais criou a possibilidade de os muito ricos ficarem tão ricos como jamais na história do capitalismo, logicamente à custa da desgraça de países inteiros como a Grécia, a Espanha, Portugal e outros e de modo geral toda a zona do Euro, talvez com uma pequena exceção, da Alemanha.

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Two Interviews [of mine] on Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

14 Nov 2014 – Two recent interviews seek to assess the Palestinian national movement as it is unfolding at this critical time.

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Looking Back on WW-I One Hundred Years Later: Four Mixed Messages
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

Dorothy Brown Memorial Lecture, Auckland, New Zealand, November 8, 2014

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(Português) Assim se constrói o Estado Global de Vigilância–e como sabotá-lo
Tom Englehardt entrevista Laura Poitras – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

Diretora de “Citizenfour”, o documentário sobre denúncias de Edward Snowden, alerta: controle social e esvaziamento da democracia ampliaram-se, após revelações. Esperança é consciência.

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Burma [Myanmar] Genocide: Case of Burmese Rohingyas Presented at Harvard
Alvin Powell, Harvard Gazette – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

Burma’s Rohingya people are being slowly squeezed from their homeland by decades-long government policies that critics say deny them citizenship, health care, work, and schooling, with such tactics punctuated by killings, destroyed homes, and tens of thousands sent to camps.

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ICC Rules Out Investigation into Israeli Raid on Gaza-Bound Flotilla
Agence France-Presse at The Hague – The Guardian, 10 Nov 2014

War crimes court [International Criminal Court] says killing of Turkish activists by Israeli commandos in 2010 not of sufficient gravity to warrant inquiry.

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Looking for a Leader in the Caribbean to End Discrimination against Homosexuals
Robin Guittard, CPNN – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

Trinidad and Tobago’s laws prohibit entry of “homosexuals” into the country and consensual same-sex relationships can be punished with prison sentences of up to 25 years… Positive change on the island could reverberate across the region.

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Mark Udall’s Loss Is a Blow for Privacy, but He Can Go Out With a Bang: ‘Leak’ the CIA Torture Report
Trevor Timm – The Guardian, 10 Nov 2014

The outgoing Senator and champion of civil liberties has one last chance to read the truth about American atrocities out loud, for the world to see – before it’s too late.

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Luxembourg Tax Files: How Tiny State Rubber-Stamped Tax Avoidance on an Industrial Scale
Simon Bowers – The Guardian, 10 Nov 2014

Leaked documents show that one of the EU’s smallest states helped multinationals save millions in tax, to the detriment of its neighbours and allies.
•What do you want to know about Luxembourg’s tax secrets?
•Video: The $870m loan company above a stamp shop
•Explore the documents in full

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UN Review of US “International Criminal Program of Torture”
The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, et al. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

Since the United States last reported to the Committee Against Torture in 2006, even more evidence has emerged confirming that civilian and military officials at the highest level created, designed, authorized, and implemented a sophisticated, international criminal program of torture.

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Ecuador’s FM Wants Transnational Corporations Held Accountable
Ricardo Patino – Al Jazeera, 3 Nov 2014

It’s time to reign in the arbitrary actions of corporate power and create the conditions for a more just world.

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Foreign Jihadists Flocking to Iraq and Syria on ‘Unprecedented Scale’ – UN
Spencer Ackerman – The Guardian, 3 Nov 2014

30 Oct 2014 – A report by the UN Security Council finds that 15,000 people have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside the Islamic State (Isis) and similar extremist groups. They come from more than 80 countries, “including a tail of countries that have not previously faced challenges relating to al-Qaida”.

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Tim Cook: ‘I Consider Being Gay among the Greatest Gifts God Has Given Me’
Rupert Neate and Alex Hern – The Guardian, 3 Nov 2014

30 Oct 2014 – Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple, has officially come out as gay and described his sexuality as “among the greatest gifts God has given me.” He has written about his sexuality for the first time, in the hope that he can ‘help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is.’

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UK Axes Support for Mediterranean Migrant Rescue Operation
Alan Travis – The Guardian, 3 Nov 2014

Refugees and human rights organisations react with anger as minister says saving people encourages others to risk voyage.

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Why Foreign Military Intervention Usually Fails in the 21st Century
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

We have reached a stage in the political development of life on the planet where civilizational and species survival itself depends on the urgency of building an effective movement against the war system that remains indispensable to sustain hierarchy and exploitation, wastes huge amounts of resources, and dangerously diverts problem-solving priorities.

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Major Banks Prepare to Pay Billions for Foreign Exchange Manipulation
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

1 Nov 2014 – Some 19 investigations of multinational banks in ten different legal jurisdictions are on their way to completion and the final tally may hit $41 billion to settle charges of foreign exchange manipulation.

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Edward Snowden and the Golden Age of Spying
Tom Engelhardt interviewing Laura Poitras – TomDispatch, 20 Oct 2014

19 Oct 2014 – Having seen her film in a packed house at the New York Film Festival, I sat down with Poitras in a tiny conference room at the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City to discuss just how our world has changed and her part in it.

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Catholic Bishops Veto Gay-Friendly Statements Leaving Pope Francis the Loser
Lizzy Davies – The Guardian, 20 Oct 2014

Final report of Roman Catholic extraordinary synod on the family removes talk of ‘welcoming’ gay people.

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