Articles by RD
We found 3631 results.
Technology Should Be Used to Create Social Mobility – Not to Spy on Citizens
Cory Doctorow – The Guardian,
16 Mar 2015
NSA and GCHQ mass surveillance is more about disrupting political opposition than catching terrorists.
→ read full articleThe CIA’s Torturers and the Leaders Who Approved Their Actions Must Face the Law
Chelsea E Manning – The Guardian,
16 Mar 2015
According to the Senate Torture Report these programs were authorized at the highest levels of government and carried out in foreign places to avoid domestic detection and the issues of custody and jurisdiction: a premeditated and intentional conspiracy to violate US law and to avoid oversight and criminal liability.
→ read full articleThe Untold Story of How the Sugar Industry Shaped Key Government Research about Your Teeth
Roberto A. Ferdman – The Washington Post,
16 Mar 2015
11 Mar 2015 – Decades-old documents have surfaced showing that the powerful U.S. sugar industry skewed the government’s medical research on dental care. More recently, the industry attempted to influence changes to the nutrition facts label, for the inclusion of “added sugar,” to communicate how much sugar was added during processing. The industry is vehemently opposed.
→ read full article7 Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Colon Cancer
Dr. Edward F. Group III – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2015
Not only is there a sharply increasing rate in patients under 50, but also advanced stages of the cancer are being developed.
→ read full articleThe Sinister Treatment of Dissent at the BBC
Nick Cohen – The Guardian,
9 Mar 2015
9 Mar 2015 – The BBC is forcing out or demoting the journalists who exposed Jimmy Savile as a voracious abuser of girls. As Meirion Jones put it to me: “There is a small group of powerful people at the BBC who think it would have been better if the truth about Savile had never come out. And they aim to punish the reporters who revealed it.”
→ read full article(Português) Kiev [Ucrânia], Um Ano Depois
Rafael Poch - La Vanguardia,
9 Mar 2015
A população ucraniana dribla massivamente o recrutamento militar e vive uma situação econômica catastrófica. Um ano depois daquele desfile de ministros europeus néscios repartindo solidariedades e bolinhos na praça de Kiev, encontramo-nos com uma guerra na qual não se vê a marcha para trás.
→ read full articleMarch 5, 1871: Rosa Luxemburg Is Born
Richard Kreitner and The Almanac – The Nation,
9 Mar 2015
5 Mar 2015 – Rosa Luxemburg, founder of the Spartacus League, brutally murdered by proto-fascists in January 1919, was born on this day in 1871, just two weeks before the Paris Commune took hold.
→ read full articleNetanyahu: The Day After
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
4 Mar 2015 – My reaction to Netanyahu’s theatrical performance yesterday in Congress led me to recall that the deepest thinkers turned against democracy in ancient Greece because of the susceptibility of the Athenian citizenry to demagogic oratory from opportunistic politicians. Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides all became sensitive to the degree to which the rhetoric of demagogues contributed to the decline, and eventual downfall, of ancient Athens.
→ read full article
Turn! Turn! Turn! (MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
The Byrds – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
–1960’s the Golden Decade–
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late!
Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Silencing Techniques: As Terrifying As Child Abuse Itself
Candace Conti – The Guardian,
9 Mar 2015
Elders in my congregation knew that there was a predator in our midst. But they threatened to punish those who spoke out. Candace Conti was the first child sexual abuse victim to win a jury trial against Watchtower.
→ read full articleUnder The Sun: Australia’s Largest Solar Farm Set to Sprout in a Queensland Field
Joshua Robertson – The Guardian,
9 Mar 2015
A sea of glass panels may soon be sprawling across Queensland cranking out 100 times more energy than the largest solar farm in Australia today. “Obviously there’s a great amount of opportunity out there but it does take a fair bit of boldness as well to be able to participate in this paradigm shift.” — Angus Gemmell
→ read full articleCommentary on Netanyahu’s Visit to the United States
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
2 Mar 2015 – It is far too simple to be merely outraged by the arrogant presumptuousness of tomorrow’s speech by the Israeli Prime Minister to a joint session of Congress two weeks prior to national elections in Israel. The Netanyahu visit has encouraged various forms of wishful thinking.
→ read full articleFormer Guantanamo Detainee David Hicks Speaks Up
Richard Phillips, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2015
Hicks, an Australian citizen, was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance in late 2001, sold to the US military and sent to Guantanamo Bay. He spent five and a half years in the prison hellhole where he was subjected to sleep deprivation, beatings, solitary confinement and was injected with unknown substances.
→ read full articleNew Zealand Spying on Pacific Allies for ‘Five Eyes’ and NSA, Snowden Files Show
Toby Manhire – The Guardian,
9 Mar 2015
5 Mar 2015 – New Zealand is spying indiscriminately on its allies in the Pacific region and sharing the information with the US and the other “Five Eyes” alliance states, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
→ read full articleSilicon Valley Pioneers and Michael Jordan Join Forbes Billionaires List
Rupert Neate – The Guardian,
9 Mar 2015
3 Mar 2015 – As list swells to 1,826 global billionaires, poverty charity Oxfam calls extreme inequality a ‘moral outrage’ as billions ‘go to bed hungry every night’. Silicon Valley created 23 new billionaires last year as the global elite increased its total wealth to an obscene $7tn.
→ read full article‘Lawfare’ and Liberation
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
In opposition to a law-oriented foreign policy for the United States are arguments of ‘American exceptionalism.’ Such arguments condition its applicability to American behavior and insist on the implementation of international law in relation to the alleged unlawful conduct of adversaries (e.g. Russia involvement in eastern Ukraine)
→ read full articleThe Warming World: Is Capitalism Destroying Our Planet?
Alexander Jung, Horand Knaup, Samiha Shafy and Bernhard Zand – Der Spiegel,
2 Mar 2015
25 Feb 2015 – World leaders decided in Copenhagen that global warming should be limited to 2 degrees Celsius. Achieving that target, though, would take nothing less than a miracle. With another round of climate negotiations approaching, it is becoming increasingly clear that mankind has failed to address its most daunting problem.
→ read full article(Italiano) Diagnosi & Prognosi: Valutazione del conflitto ucraino. Formazione da una prospettiva di pace
Naakow Grant-Hayford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
La riuscita espansione dei codici e delle istituzioni economico-politico-militari dell’UE e della NATO nella direzione generale della Russia sin dalla fine della Guerra Fredda, confligge di nuovo apertamente, come nel caso della Georgia nel 2008, con gli interessi russi nella sua orbita immediata e ha incendiato l’Ucraina orientale.
→ read full article(Italiano) Quando un terrorista non è un terrorista
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
Ciò che la polizia di Chapel Hill, nella Carolina del Nord ha inizialmente pubblicizzato nel mondo come ‘un litigio per un parcheggio’, è stata l’uccisione deliberata di tre giovani e devoti studenti musulmani americani per mano di un assassino, ‘nuovo ateo’ di nome Craig Stephen Hicks, motivato ideologicamente. Quello che The Economist chiama senza esitazione ‘terrorismo a Copenhagen ha implicato il tentativo di sparare a un vignettista danese che ripetutamente deride il Profeta e le convinzioni islamiche e ha implicato anche l’uccisione con arma da fuoco di una guardia di sicurezza ebrea davanti a una sinagoga.
→ read full articleRohingya and National Identities in Burma [Myanmar]
Carlos Sardiña Galache, New Mandala – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
Rather than attempting to defend Rohingya claims, I argue that the notion of “national races” itself, and thus the set of assumptions hitherto determining the terms of the debate, are fundamentally false and do not facilitate any understanding of the history and present social realities of Burma.
→ read full articleSpy Cables: Greenpeace among Intelligence Targets
Rahul Radhakrishnan & Will Jordan – Al Jazeera,
2 Mar 2015
S Korea asked for a “specific security assessment” of Greenpeace Director Kumi Naidoo
Cameroon’s agency asked to spy on an opposition leader weeks ahead of elections
Rwanda tried to list “genocide fugitives” and “negationists” as surveillance targets
A deal with Zimbabwe to spy on “rogue NGOs”
Continuous requests from Sri Lanka for S Africa to spy on Tamil diaspora groups
Morgan Stanley Strikes $2.6bn Deal to Settle Mortgage Bubble Case
Associated Press – The Guardian,
2 Mar 2015
The investment bank said late on Wednesday [25 Feb 2015] the $2.6bn will go to “resolve certain claims” the Justice Department intended to bring against Morgan Stanley over its role in the mortgage bubble and subsequent financial crisis.
→ read full articleMulticulturalism and Its Dilemmas
Immanuel Wallerstein – Toward Freedom,
2 Mar 2015
And then there are in-migrations of wealthy persons from the Global North into zones where they buy out the desirable land, raise costs generally, and force groups that had been previously there into marginal existences. This is now happening around the globe in zones that are climatically more desirable.
→ read full articleHow to Pay for Social Programmes
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
Chapter Eight of: Economic Theory and Community Development – Where we are going with our analysis: What we need is not so much a new economics as a new psychology. We need alignment with the common good. We need community.
→ read full article(Português) Internet de banda larga como ‘bem público’ nos EUA
Esquerda – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2015
Por três votos contra dois, a neutralidade da rede ganhou uma importante batalha nos EUA contra os grandes distribuidores e produtores de conteúdos online.
→ read full article(Português) SwissLeaks: revelações sobre um sistema de fraude fiscal internacional
Fabrice Lhomme e Gérard Davet - Le Monde,
23 Feb 2015
19 Fev 2015 – Os números são de tirar o fôlego. A série de reportagens publicada pelo jornal Le Monde, espetacular e inédita, é fruto de investigações realizadas entre Paris, Washington, Bruxelas e Genebra, e revela os bastidores de um grande sistema de evasão fiscal aceito, e até encorajado, pelo britânico HSBC, o segundo maior banco do mundo, através da sua filial suíça HSBC Private Bank.
→ read full articleFebruary 19, 1942: FDR Orders the Internment of the Japanese
The Almanac and Richard Kreitner – The Nation,
23 Feb 2015
19 Feb 2015 – The Nation’s response to the president’s evacuation, relocation and internment order was not nearly as firmly opposed as one now wishes it had been.
→ read full articleWorld Press Freedom Index 2015: Decline on All Fronts
Reporters Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
The Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index ranks the performance of 180 countries according to a range of criteria that include media pluralism and independence, respect for the safety and freedom of journalists, and the legislative, institutional and infrastructural environment in which the media operate.
→ read full articleWorld’s Biggest Offshore Windfarm Approved for UK Yorkshire Coast
Fiona Harvey – The Guardian,
23 Feb 2015
17 Feb 2015 – Plans for the world’s biggest offshore windfarm have been given the green light by the energy secretary, with planning permission for an array of up to 400 turbines 80 miles off the Yorkshire coast on the Dogger Bank.
→ read full articleThe CIA Asked Me about Controlling the Climate – This Is Why We Should Worry
Alan Robock – The Guardian,
23 Feb 2015
Geoengineering has many risks, and we don’t yet know the CIA’s intentions. But given the lack of political will on climate change, we have to look at it.
→ read full articleWhen a Terrorist Is Not a Terrorist
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
What the Chapel Hill police in North Carolina initially pitched as ‘a parking dispute’ was the deliberate killing of three young and devout Muslim American students by an ideologically driven ‘new atheist’ killer named Craig Stephen Hicks. What the The Economist unhesitatingly calls ‘terrorism in Copenhagen’ involved the attempted shooting of a Danish cartoonist who repeatedly mocks the Prophet and Islamic beliefs as well as the lethal shooting of a Jewish security guard outside a synagogue.
→ read full article(Português) Morrem Três Jornalistas Que Investigavam a Participação dos EUA na Demolição das Torres Gêmeas
Diário Liberdade – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
Três jornalistas que trabalhavam em um documentário sobre o envolvimento do governo norte-americano na demolição das torres gêmeas morreram nos últimos dias. Trata-se do ex-repórter internacional da NBC Ned Colt, o correspondente da CBS News [60 Minutes] Bob Simon, e o jornalista do New York Times David Carr.
→ read full article(Português) O Bem Comum Foi Enviado ao Limbo
Leonardo Boff – Carta Maior,
23 Feb 2015
O neoliberalismo demoliu a noção de bem comum. Em seu lugar, entraram as noções de rentabilidade, de flexibilização, de adaptação e de competitividade.
→ read full articleYanis Varoufakis: How I Became an Erratic Marxist
Yanis Varoufakis – The Guardian,
23 Feb 2015
Before he entered politics, Yanis Varoufakis, the iconoclastic Greek finance minister at the centre of the latest eurozone standoff, wrote this searing account of European capitalism and how the left can learn from Marx’s mistakes.
→ read full articleInterview with William Schabas, Former Chair, UN Commission of Inquiry for 2014 Israeli Attack on Gaza
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Feb 2015
Interview with Prof. William Schabas, recently resigned under pressure as Chair of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to Investigate Allegations of State Crimes associated with Israel’s military attack on Gaza, code named Operation Protective Edge.
→ read full articleUSA: Accused of ‘Terrorism,’ Animal Rights Activists Head to Federal Court
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams,
23 Feb 2015
“The profits of these industries depend not only on keeping animals inside cages but, more significantly, on keeping the idea of animal rights marginalized.” — Rachel Meeropol, Center for Constitutional Rights
→ read full articleDiagnosis & 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.
→ read full articleIceland 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.
→ read full articleNew 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.
→ read full articleA 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.
→ read full articleOn 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.
→ read full articleMy 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.
→ read full articleGreece’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.
→ read full articleMonsanto 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].
→ read full articleWhat 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.
→ read full articleIs 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.
→ read full articleThe Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Feb 2015
Chapter Six of: Economic Theory and Community Development.
→ read full articleViewing 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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full article(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”.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks 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
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.
→ read full article(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”.
→ read full articleGCHQ 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.
→ read full articleEl 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.
→ read full articleDrones 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.
→ read full articlePope 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.
→ read full articleWhy 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleRussia 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.”
→ read full articleCalling 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.
→ read full articleDieudonné 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”.
→ read full articleInvestigation – 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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleOn 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]
→ read full articleCharlie 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.
→ read full articlePope 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.
→ read full articleIn ‘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.
→ read full articleMonsanto 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.
→ read full articleGlobal 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.
→ read full articleDoubling 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleRichard 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.
→ read full articleWhen 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?
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleWho’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.
→ read full articleRemembering 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.
→ read full articleHow 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleDeath 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.
→ read full articleArchitects 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.
→ read full articleThere 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.
→ read full articleObama 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.
→ read full articleTaliban 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?
→ read full article5 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleI’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.
→ read full articleIt’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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleAlkarama 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.
→ read full articleFull 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.
→ read full articleUN 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.
→ read full articleSending 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.
→ read full articleCop 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)
→ read full articleFacebook’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.
→ read full articleRight 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.
→ read full articleRectal 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.
→ read full articleEdward 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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full article