Articles by RD
We found 3495 results.
The Ordeal of Hana Shalabi: Medical Urgency and Spiritual Defiance
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Mar 2012
The respected human rights NGOs, Addameer-Palestine and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, have expressed their deep concern for the mortal danger facing Hana Shalabi who continues her historic hunger strike to protest abuse that she experienced and her objections to the Israeli practice of prolonged detention without charges, without trial.
→ read full articleResistance Builds to NATO’s Threat of Permanent War and Nuclear Dominance
Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers - Truthout,
26 Mar 2012
From their separate berths, NATO and the G-8’s heads of state, intelligence personnel, foreign ministers and generals, cabinet members and secret operatives, advisors and bureaucrats – the 1 percent of the 1 percent – will conspire to extend and defend their obscene wealth, to exploit the remaining fossil fuels, natural resources, human labor, and the living planet to the last drop, and to dominate the people of the global majority.
→ read full articleAfghanistan: The War Turns Pathological—Withdraw!
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2012
16 Afghan civilians, including women and children, were shot in their homes in the middle of the night. American soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters, Koran burning, and countryside patrols whose members were convicted by an American military tribunal of killing Afghan civilians for sport: whatever the U.S. military commanders in Kabul might sincerely say in regret and Washington might repeat by way of formal apology has become essentially irrelevant.
→ read full articleHana Shalabi: A Brave Act of Palestinian Nonviolence
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2012
Despite the calls to Palestinian from liberals in the West these extraordinary hunger strikes have met with silence or indifference in both Israel and the West. The UN has not raised its voice, as well. Hana Shalabi seems a young tender and normal woman who is dedicated to her family, hopes for marriage, and simple pleasures of shopping. She had previously been held in prison in Israel between 2009 and 2011, being released in the prisoner exchange that freed 1027 Palestinians. As she was returning to normalcy she was re-arrested in an abusive manner, which allegedly included a strip-search by a male soldier.
→ read full articleHow the News Media Doesn’t Give Peace a Chance
Richard Schiffman - Truthout,
19 Mar 2012
“Israel vs. Iran” reads a recent cover of The New York Times Magazine – the words written ominously in ashes from which smoke and flame still rise. Inside the magazine, Ronen Bergman a military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth argues that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in 2012 is inevitable… War at its root is a failure of imagination, a failure to think creatively about alternatives to violent conflict. Such is the argument of “Peace Journalism,” a field of study and practice which first emerged in the 1970s from the work of Norwegian sociologist, Johan Galtung.
→ read full articleGreece on the Breadline: HIV and Malaria Make a Comeback
Jon Henley in Athens – The Guardian,
19 Mar 2012
The savage cuts to Greece’s health service budget have led to a sharp rise in HIV/Aids and malaria in the beleaguered nation, said the head of Médecins sans Frontières Greece on Thursday [15 Mar 2012]. The incidence of HIV/Aids among intravenous drug users in central Athens soared by 1,250% in the first 10 months of 2011 compared with the same period the previous year while malaria is becoming endemic in the south for the first time since the rule of the colonels, which ended in the 1970s.
→ read full articleReciprocity, Lawfare, and Self-Defense: Targeted Killing
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
There is an emergent Israeli/American controversy on the lawfulness of targeted killing. Although the policy has not yet attained the status of being a national debate, there are signs that it may be about to happen, especially in light of the Attorney General, Eric Holder’s Northwestern Law School speech on March 5, 2012 outlining the Obama’s administration’s controversial approach to targeted killing in some detail.
→ read full articleKoran Burning in Afghanistan: Mistake, Crime, and Metaphor
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
In this regard Koran burning may be as provocative in its assault on Afghan political culture as was the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi with respect to the authoritarian cruelty of the Tunisian regime presided over by the tyrannical rule of Zine El Alindine Ben Ali, who was driven from power as a direct result. When the culture screams it is time to leave!
→ read full articleA Revolution in Botanical Nomenclature
Michael Marder – Al Jazeera,
12 Mar 2012
Since January 1, botanical terms are to be named in English rather than Latin, changing a centuries old practice.
→ read full articleOur Duty to Sri Lanka, And Human Rights
Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson – The Guardian,
27 Feb 2012
This week the UN Human Rights Council has an opportunity and a duty to help Sri Lanka advance its own efforts on accountability and reconciliation. Both are essential if a lasting peace is to be achieved. In doing so, the council will not only be serving Sri Lanka, but those worldwide who believe there are universal rights and international legal obligations we all share.
→ read full articleSaving Khader Adnan’s Life and Legacy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
It is a great relief to those millions around the world who were moved to prayer and action by Khader Adnan’s extraordinary hunger strike of 66 days that has ended due to Israel’s agreement to release him on April 17 [2012].
→ read full articleThe European Union and the Rhetoric of Immaturity
Michael Marder – Al Jazeera,
27 Feb 2012
The tendency to infantalise select member states is in line with their animalisation, evident in the insulting abbreviation of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain in the word PIGS, neither as human nor as rational as the rest of the EU countries. Throughout Western philosophy, both children and animals, with their capricious wills, have been considered deficient from the standpoint of fully developed rational adults and, hence, in need of training, education, and disciplining.
→ read full articleBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement: The Power of the People at Work
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
27 Feb 2012
The issue is not about hummus, chocolate bars or Dead Sea vacations. It is about civil society taking full responsibility for its own actions (or lack of). The issue is not exactly about Israeli products either, but rather about how even a seemingly innocent decision like buying Israeli dates may enable the continued subjugation of the Palestinian people.
→ read full article(Portuguese) O ACTA Ameaça a Net
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Quem nunca ouviu um CD emprestado, viu um DVD de um amigo, recorreu a uma biblioteca? A partilha de bens culturais sempre existiu. Na era digital, tem especificidades próprias, mas é falso que a cópia de um ficheiro não autorizado seja um ‘roubo’. Os Estados Unidos assinaram o ACTA em outubro [2011], assim como a Austrália, o Canadá, a Coreia do Sul e o Japão. A 26 de Janeiro [2012], 22 países europeus e a Comissão Europeia assinaram-no igualmente. Entraria em vigor depois de seis Estados signatários o terem ratificado. Nenhum o fez até à data. E, se depender das populações, tudo indica que nenhum o fará.
→ read full articleWhen Is An ‘NGO’ Not An NGO? Twists and Turns Beneath the Cairo Skies
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
A confusing controversy between the United States and Egypt is unfolding. It has already raised tensions in the relationship between the two countries to a level that has not existed for decades. It results from moves by the military government in Cairo to go forward with the criminal prosecution of 43 foreigners, including 19 Americans, for unlawfully carrying on the work of unlicensed public interest organizations that improperly, according to Egyptian law, depend for their budget on foreign funding.
→ read full articleIceland’s Viking Victory
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – The Telegraph,
20 Feb 2012
Congratulations to Iceland. Fitch has upgraded the country to investment grade BBB – with stable outlook, expecting government debt to peak at 100pc of GDP. The OECD’s latest forecast said growth will be 2.4pc this year, after 2.9pc in 2011. Unemployment will fall from 7pc last year to 6.1pc this year and then 5.3pc in 2013.
→ read full articleSaving Khader Adnan’s Life Saves Our Own Soul
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
The world watches as tragedy unfolds beneath its gaze as Khader Asnan enters his 63rd day as a hunger striker in an Israeli prison being held under an administrative detention order without trial, without charges, and without any indication of the evidence against him.
→ read full articleFalse Flag? Bombing Puts India’s Trade Ties with Iran to the Test
Mayank Bhardwaj, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
“There are U.N. sanctions which India honours, those don’t cover the export of a vast range of products which India can export to Iran,” Trade Secretary Rahul Khullar said. “If the EU and the U.S. both want to stop exports to that country, please tell me why I should follow suit? Why shouldn’t I take up that business opportunity?” Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center said that India will find it increasingly difficult to placate both Iran, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel on the other.
→ read full article“Human Rights” Warriors for Empire
Glen Ford – Black Agenda Report,
20 Feb 2012
“Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have chosen sides in the Washington-backed belligerency – the side of Empire.” Syria has no choice but to secure every square foot of its territory. “Faced with the certainty of superpower-backed attack under the guise of ‘protecting’ civilians in “liberated” territory, Syria cannot afford to cede even one neighborhood of a single city – not one block! – or of any rural or border enclave, to armed rebels and foreign jihadis.”
→ read full articleCapitalism, the Infernal Machine: An Interview with Fredric Jameson
Aaron Leonard – Rabble,
20 Feb 2012
It is not coincidental that Marx’s Capital addresses key elements of the situation we find ourselves in today: how the rich got so rich, how the poor got so poor and how all the various fixes and proposed solutions are based on the illusion that capitalism can somehow be made to meet the needs of the majority of people and still be capitalism. It is a book about unemployment in the sense that the absolute general law of capitalism, as he enunciates it, is to increase productivity.
→ read full articleContesting Ivory Tower Housing Solutions for Haiti
Deepa Panchang – Toward Freedom,
13 Feb 2012
Deutsche Bank and the Clinton Foundation brought on board a joint team from Harvard University and MIT to help design housing strategy for the ‘exemplar’ project. John McAslan & Partners, a British architecture firm, was engaged to help design a “comprehensive community development strategy.” Yet there was no community; the Harvard-MIT design team was designing according to its own ideas, in a vacuum, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. As of October 2011, the team had spent exactly one afternoon meeting with existing residents in Zoranje.
→ read full articleThe Russia-China Veto: Is It Enough?
Matthias Chang – Future Fastforward,
13 Feb 2012
Hypocrisy, another opportunistic gambit or a genuine shift in geopolitical stance? Mao Zedong famously declared that the “US is a paper tiger” and that in war, the people is paramount in winning and not weapons. Atomic weapons will not enable a country to win the war. If there was one statement that galvanised the Chinese people to stand up and be counted in the face of open threats of nuclear war and oppresion, this was it.
→ read full articleThe Menace of Present & Future Drone Warfare
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
This nonproliferation approach has been accompanying by three massive forms of deception that continues to mislead public opinion and discourage serious debate about the benefits of nuclear disarmament even at this late stage: First, the fallacious implication that the states that do not possess nuclear weapons are currently more dangerous for world peace than the states that possess, develop, and deploy these weapons of mass destruction, and have used them in the past; secondly, …
→ read full articleTurkey’s Foreign Policy: Zero Problems with Neighbors Revisited
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
We can only hope that Turkey stays the Dautoglu course, pursuing every opening that enables positive mutual relations among countries and using its diplomatic stature to encourage peaceful conflict resolution wherever possible. Rather than viewing ‘zero problems’ as a failure, it should be a time to reaffirm the creativity of Turkish foreign policy in the course of the last decade that has shown the world the benefits of soft power diplomacy, and a pattern that other governments might learn from while adapting to their own realities.
→ read full article(Portuguese) ACTA: Processo de Censura na Internet Tropeça em Países Europeus
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
A República Checa seguiu o caminho da Polónia e tornou-se agora o segundo país da União Europeia a suspender a ratificação do ACTA [Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement], o tratado que, a pretexto do combate à contrafação, ameaça a livre expressão na Internet. Um acordo que, segundo o relator do PE para o assunto, foi negociado “através de manobras nunca vistas”, o que o fez demitir-se da tarefa.
→ read full articleSupport for BDS [Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions] National Conference at the University of Pennsylvania
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2012
I commend the conveners for taking this initiative in the face of efforts to intimidate and confuse by those who systematically oppose debate and free inquiry concerning the various dimensions of the Israel/Palestine conflict and its bearing on American foreign policy. I have long supported the BDS as a constructive and creative movement that raises awareness and mobilizes support for the Palestinian struggle to achieve a sustainable peace based on international law and a sense of justice.
→ read full articleOne Year On: My Mother as a Protester and A Few Other Dilemmas
Ahmed Badawi, Postcard from Egypt– TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2012
At the risk of stating the obvious, think of revolution not as a single event but as a period of waves. After an initial disturbance, a swell gathers momentum, forms into a crest, breaks just before it hits the shore, creates a splash, dissipates and then starts to move in the opposite direction, breaks on another shore, retreats and then builds up again, and so on and so forth until the revolutionary energy is consumed and a new equilibrium is reached.
→ read full articleMonsanto’s GM Maize Retreat
Gordon Davidson – The Scottish Farmer,
6 Feb 2012
France has held firm in its opposition to Monsanto’s genetically modified MON 810 maize – and the agri-chemical multinational has admitted defeat.
→ read full articleNuclear Free Middle East: Desirable, Necessary, and Impossible
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2012
Finally, there is some argumentation in the West supportive of a nuclear free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the beat of the war drums.
→ read full articleStop Warmongering in the Middle East
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jan 2012
To be objective commentators we must ask ourselves whether Iran’s posture toward its nuclear program is unreasonable under these circumstances. When was the last time [Iran] resorted to force against a hostile neighbor? The surprising answer is over 200 years ago! Can either of Iran’s antagonists claim a comparable record of living within its borders? Why does Iran not have the same right as other states to take full advantage of nuclear technology?
→ read full articleCould Ecuador Be the Most Radical and Exciting Place On Earth?
Jayati Ghosh – The Guardian,
23 Jan 2012
Ecuador must be one of the most exciting places on Earth right now, in terms of working towards a new development paradigm. It shows how much can be achieved with political will, even in uncertain economic times. Just 10 years ago, Ecuador was more or less a basket case, a quintessential “banana republic” (it happens to be the world’s largest exporter of bananas), characterised by political instability, inequality, a poorly-performing economy, and the ever-looming impact of the US on its domestic politics.
→ read full articleHealing Wounds: Seeking Closure for the 1915 Armenian Massacres
Richard Falk & Hilal Elver,
16 Jan 2012
Recently the National Assembly, France’s lower legislative chamber, voted to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide in 1915, imposing a potential prison sentence of up to one year as well as a maximum fine of 45, 000 Euros. The timing of this controversial initiative seemed to represent a rather blatant Sarkhozy bid for the votes of the 500,000 French citizens of Armenian descent in the upcoming presidential election.
→ read full articleDoomsday Clock Moves to Five Minutes to Midnight
Science and Security Board, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2012
It is five minutes to midnight. Two years ago, it appeared that world leaders might address the truly global threats that we face. In many cases, that trend has not continued or been reversed. For that reason, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the clock hand one minute closer to midnight, back to its time in 2007.
→ read full articleHow to Start a War: The American Use of War Pretext Incidents
Richard Sanders – Global Research,
16 Jan 2012
With regard to the confrontation in the Persian Gulf, is the Obama administration prepared to sacrifice the Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain as a means to create public outrage and drum up support for a war on Iran on the grounds of self-defense.
→ read full articleHaiti: From Displacement Camps to Community
Alexis Erkert and Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
9 Jan 2012
As 2012 begins, a growing movement of displaced people and their allies in Haiti is actively claiming the right to housing, which is recognized by both the Haitian constitution and international treaties to which Haiti is signatory. Haitians displaced by the earthquake two years ago face many crises, but perhaps none worse than ongoing homelessness: 520,000 people still living in displacement camps.
→ read full articleCoca-Cola Accused of Propping Up Notorious Swaziland Dictator
David Smith in Johannesburg – The Guardian,
9 Jan 2012
The king has travelled to Coca-Cola’s headquarters in Atlanta in the US, much to the disgust of Swazi political activists. Mswati III has 13 wives and hosts an annual dance where he can choose a new bride from tens of thousands of bare-breasted virgins. With a fortune of about $100m, he presides over one of the worst-off countries in the world, with most people living in absolute poverty. Political parties are banned and activists are regularly arrested, imprisoned and tortured.
→ read full articleCombating Slavery in Coffee and Chocolate Production
Jeff Nall – Toward Freedom,
9 Jan 2012
Quite simply, much of the coffee and chocolate improving our health is simultaneously jeopardizing the freedom and lives of hundreds of thousands around the world including many children. Yet most American consumers are ignorant to the mounting evidence indicating that the laborers whom they have to thank for cultivating these products are being grossly exploited, live in spiraling poverty, and, in some cases, are modern-day slaves.
→ read full articleRemembering the Best and Worst of 2011
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2012
We will learn in 2012 whether we are moving closer to fulfilling our hopes, dreams, and goals or are trying to interpret and overcome a recurrence of disappointment and demoralization with respect to progressive change in world affairs. The stakes for some societies, and for humanity, have rarely been higher.
→ read full articleBrazil Overtakes UK as Sixth-Largest Economy
Phillip Inman – The Guardian,
2 Jan 2012
Brazil has overtaken the UK to become the world’s sixth-largest economy, according to a team of economists. The banking crash of 2008 and the subsequent recession has relegated the UK to seventh place in 2011, behind South America’s largest economy, which has boomed on the back of exports to China and the far east.
→ read full articleWhat is Shame?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jan 2012
‘Shame’ is a disturbing, much admired, Steve McQueen film that has been misleadingly reviewed, but deserves our serious attention. Let me put my reasoning in provocative language: ‘Shame’ depicts with chilling realism the degeneracy of high-end capitalist life style in the urban landscape of Sodom on the Hudson, otherwise known as ‘The Big Apple,’ that is, New York City.
→ read full articleChristopher Hitchens: RIP
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2011
I knew Christopher Hitchens casually, envied his rhetorical fluency, abhorred his interventionist cheerleading, and was offended by his arrogantly dismissive manner toward those he deemed his inferiors in debate or discussion. Perhaps, his sociopathic arrogance is epitomized by the explanation he often gave of why he was such a heavy drinker: “I hate to be bored, and when I drink other people seem less boring.”
→ read full articleBradley Manning Deserves a Medal
Glenn Greenwald – The Guardian,
19 Dec 2011
The prosecution of the whistleblower and alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning is an exercise in intimidation, not justice. After 17 months of pre-trial imprisonment, Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old US army private and accused WikiLeaks source, is finally going to see the inside of a courtroom. This Friday [16 Dec 2011], on an army base in Maryland, the preliminary stage of his military trial will start.
→ read full articleMuddle and Create
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
World leaders and the economists who advise them are now debating whether more stimulus or more austerity, or some combination of the two, is the path toward restoring the normal functioning of capitalist accumulation, and therefore toward higher levels of employment and economic growth. There is no solution within the terms of their debates, only an historical necessity to muddle through somehow. Nor are there well-known solutions waiting in the wings, for both central planning and social democracy are discredited by good logical reasons and by historical experience.
→ read full articleIsrael and Apartheid? Reflections on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine Session in South Africa
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2011
This post is a modified and expanded version of an article published by Al Jazeera and also a continuation of a series of posts on the general theme of a jurisprudence of conscience.
→ read full articleThe New Cyber-Industrial Complex Spying On Us
Pratap Chatterjee – The Guardian,
12 Dec 2011
WikiLeaks has just released the Spy Files – a trove of almost 300 documents from the companies that shine a light into this industry. At the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, where I work, we trawled through these documents, and tracked down yet more material, which our research team – Matthew Wrigley, David Pegg, Christian Jensen and Jamie Thunder – used to create an online database that will soon cover over 160 companies in some 25 countries.
→ read full articleOut of the Backyard: New Latin American and Caribbean Bloc Defies Washington
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
12 Dec 2011
The CELAC meeting comes a time when Washington’s presence in the region is waning. Following the nightmarish decades of the Cold War, in which Washington propped up dictators and waged wars on Latin American nations, a new era has opened up; in the past decade a wave of leftist presidents have taken office on socialist and anti-imperialist platforms.
→ read full articleDurban Climate Deal Struck After Tense All-Night Session
John Vidal and Fiona Harvey in Durban – The Guardian,
12 Dec 2011
Talks came close to collapse when India insisted on concessions for developing countries, forcing 3am ‘huddle to save the planet’. A new global climate deal has been struck after being brought back from the brink of disaster by three powerful women politicians in a 20-minute “huddle to save the planet”.
→ read full articleOn Freedom and Imperialism: Arab Spring and the Intellectual Divide
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
5 Dec 2011
The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ is creating an intellectual divide that threatens any sensible understanding of the turmoil engulfing several Arab countries. Speaking truth to power is still possible, and is more urgent than ever. The fate of a nation, any nation, cannot be polarized to the terrible extent that the Arab uprisings have. On both sides of the divide, some are cheering for foreign intervention, while others are justifying the senseless murder of innocent people by dictators.
→ read full articleFrank Miller and the Rise of Cryptofascist Hollywood
Rick Moody – The Guardian,
5 Dec 2011
Fans were shocked when Batman writer Frank Miller furiously attacked the Occupy Movement. They shouldn’t have been; he was just voicing Hollywood’s unspoken values. American movies, in the main, often agree with Frank Miller, that endless war against a ruthless enemy is good, and military service is good, that killing makes you a man, that capitalism must prevail, that if you would just get a job (preferably a corporate job, for all honest work is corporate) you would quit complaining. And we might repay the favor by avoiding purchase of tickets to Miller’s films.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Presidentes Latino-Americanos Criam Novo Bloco Regional e Deixam EUA de Fora
Claudia Jardim em Caracas - BBC Brasil,
5 Dec 2011
Presidentes e representantes dos 33 países da América Latina se reúnem nesta sexta-feira [2 Dez 2011], em Caracas, para formalizar a criação da Comunidade de Estados Latino-americanos e Caribenhos (Celac). Será a primeira vez que os países do continente se articulam em uma mesma plataforma política – com a tarefa de tentar aprofundar a integração regional – sem a presença dos Estados Unidos e do Canadá.
→ read full articleKuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal: Bush and Blair Guilty
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
This is a modified version of a text published by Al Jazeera. It is a sequel to the piece entitled “Toward a Jurisprudence of Conscience,” and will be followed by an assessment of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine session in Cape Town, South Africa investigating the allegations that Israel is guilty of imposing apartheid on the Palestinian people, considered by the Rome Treaty framework of the International Criminal Court to be a crime against humanity.
→ read full article15 Foods High in Folic Acid
Dr. Edward Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
Folic acid, also known as vitamin B9, is perhaps most well known for its applications in the prevention of fetal deformities, Alzheimer’s disease, as well as several types of cancer. The good news is that there are many rich sources of folic acid that are easy to incorporate into your daily diet. Physiologically, consuming enough folic acid allows the body to perform many of its essential functions, including nucleotide biosynthesis in cells, DNA synthesis and repair, red blood cell creation, and also helps to prevent anemia.
→ read full articleArundhati Roy: ‘The people who created the crisis will not be the ones that come up with a solution.’
Arun Gupta – The Guardian,
5 Dec 2011
The prize-winning author of The God of Small Things talks about why she is drawn to the Occupy movement and the need to reclaim language and meaning.
→ read full articleBradley Manning Hearing Date Set As Court Martial Process Finally Begins
Ed Pilkington in New York – The Guardian,
28 Nov 2011
Manning, accused of leaking secrets to WikiLeaks, to go to pre-trial – known as Article 32 hearing – in Maryland next month. Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, said: “The charges against Bradley Manning are an indictment of our government’s obsession with secrecy. Manning is accused of revealing illegal activities by our government and its corporate partners that must be brought to the attention of the American people.”
→ read full articleUK Urged to Prevent Vulture Funds Preying on World’s Poorest Countries
Greg Palast, Maggie O'Kane and Chavala Madlena – The Guardian,
28 Nov 2011
Britain is being urged to help close down a legal loophole that lets financiers known as “vulture funds” use courts in Jersey to claim hundreds of millions of pounds from the world’s poorest countries. The call came from international poverty campaigners as one of the vulture funds was poised to be awarded a $100m (£62m) debt payout against the Democratic Republic of the Congo after taking action in the Jersey courts.
→ read full articleToward A Jurisprudence of Conscience
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The existence of double standards is part of the deep structure of world politics. It was even given constitutional status by being written into the Charter of the United Nations that permits the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, that is the winners in 1945, to exercise a veto over any decision affecting the peace and security of the world, thereby exempting the world’s most dangerous states, being the most militarily powerful and expansionist, from any obligation to uphold international law.
→ read full articleLanguage, Law, and Truth
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
It may be time to acknowledge that governmental lawlessness in foreign policy has become a bipartisan reality for the United States Government, and that the face in the White House or the political party in control, while not yet irrelevant, is a matter of secondary interest, at least to those who are drone targets or torture victims.
→ read full articleOn (Im)Balance and Credibility in America: Israel/Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
I could not begin to count the number of times friends, and adversaries, have give me the following general line of advice: your views on Israel/Palestine would gain a much wider hearing if they showed more sympathy for Israel’s position and concerns, that is, if they were more ‘balanced.’
→ read full articleOccupy Movement: Two Texts in Solidarity
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
I wish to disseminate two texts that I have signed in support of the Occupy Movement. United for #Global Democracy deserves careful study and reflection. We got comments, suggestions, support, and wrote and rewrote it again and again. The text has been supported by Canadian-based Naomi Klein, Indian-based Vandana Shiva, the US-based Michael Hardt and Noam Chomsky, as well as Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano.
→ read full article(Portuguese) FMI Atribui a Ex-Funcionários Pensões Superiores a 7 Mil Euros
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Os planos de reforma do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) prevêem que os trabalhadores aufiram pensões vitalícias a partir dos 50 anos. Ao mesmo tempo que impõe cortes salariais e diminuição das pensões em países como Irlanda, Grécia e Portugal, o FMI distribui pelos seus ex-funcionários pensões que chegam a ultrapassar os 7 mil euros mensais.
→ read full articleMoney Has Been Privatised By Stealth
Ben Dyson – The Guardian,
21 Nov 2011
Here’s how it works. When you ask the bank for the money to buy a one-bedroom box in London, the money that appears in your account isn’t borrowed from some prudent grandmother’s life savings. In fact, the bank simply types those numbers into your account, creating brand new money that you can now spend. As other banks do exactly the same, the amount of money in the economy grows and grows.
→ read full articleGlobal Revolution after Tahrir Square
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
This history-making global Occupy Movement with a presence in over 900 cities would not have happened without the revolutionary awakening culminating in driving Hosni Mubarak from Egyptian state power. We need also to acknowledge that the courage exhibited by those gathered at Tahrir Square might not have been exhibited to the world if not for the earlier charismatic self-immolating martyrdom of an unlicenced street vendor of vegetables, Mohamed Bouazi, in the interior Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010.
→ read full articleLessons from Iceland: The People Can Have the Power
Birgitta Jónsdóttir – The Guardian,
21 Nov 2011
As early progress in Iceland shows since the banking collapse, the 21st century will be the century of the common people, of us.
→ read full articleHere’s the Risk: Occupy Ends Up Doing the Bidding of the Global Elite
Patrick Henningsen – The Guardian,
21 Nov 2011
History shows us it is easy for ‘grassroots’ campaigns to become co-opted by the very interests they are fighting against.
→ read full articleRedeeming Desire
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
My digital friend, the respected author and journalist, Erik Wahlberg, sent me a message recently suggesting that I abandon the use of ‘horizons of desire’ as a way of framing human aspirations. He believed, with abundant justification, that desire is tied to consumerism, and the social construction of market demand for the luxurious, the wasteful, and the superfluous.
→ read full articleThe 99%: A Community of Resistance
Angela Davis – The Guardian,
21 Nov 2011
In the past, most movements have appealed to specific communities – workers, students, black people, Latinas/Latinos, women, LGBT communities, indigenous people – or they have crystallised around specific issues like war, the environment, food, water, Palestine, the prison industrial complex. In a strikingly different configuration, this new Occupy Movement imagines itself from the beginning as the broadest possible community of resistance – the 99%, as against the 1%.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Quem Governa a Alemanha São os Mercados Financeiros
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Se a sra. Merkel e o presidente do Deutschebank se reúnem para discutir, quem manda?, questiona Klaus Ernst, copresidente do Die Linke alemão. Em entrevista ao Esquerda.net, ele defendeu a separação do financiamento dos Estados dos mercados financeiros privados, através da criação de um banco público para os empréstimos públicos.
→ read full articleTwo Occupations
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
If we are to find ‘solutions’ we all need quickly to liberate our imaginations from the tyranny of ‘the feasible.’ The ‘realists’ presently holding the reins of power are unknowingly inhabiting realms of fantasy while the train of history approaches a station named DOOM. The young people are awakening to this grim realization, and for this the rest of us can be thankful, and even allow ourselves to enjoy the momentary privilege of hope.
→ read full articleThe CIA’s Unaccountable Drone War Claims another Casualty
Pratap Chatterjee – The Guardian,
14 Nov 2011
Last Friday [4 Nov 2011], I met a boy, just before he was assassinated by the CIA. Tariq Aziz was 16, a quiet young man from North Waziristan, who, like most teenagers, enjoyed soccer. Seventy-two hours later, a Hellfire missile is believed to have killed him as he was travelling in a car to meet his aunt in Miran Shah, to take her home after her wedding. Killed with him was his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed Khan.
→ read full articleCriminalizing Diplomacy: Fanning the Flames of the Iran War Option
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
How many times have we heard in recent weeks either outright threats to attack Iran mainly emanating from Israel or the more muted posture adopted by the United States that leaves ‘all options’ on the table including ‘the military option’?
→ read full articleRejecting Neoliberalism, Renewing the Utopian Imagination
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 two dismal consequences followed that have been rarely acknowledged: neoliberal orthodoxy became unchallenged and unchallengeable in the formation of global economic policy; the World Economic Forum, convening annually in Davos, became the true capital of world order after the ending of the Cold War.
→ read full articlePreparing For Revolution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
To be human
is to be
naked
before and after
the law
‘J. Edgar’: Hoover’s Hubris Writ Large
Richard Schickel - Trughdig,
14 Nov 2011
Even by Clint Eastwood’s austere standards, “J. Edgar” is a very plain movie. It simply tells the story of J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—or America’s “top cop” from 1924 until his death in 1972. There were, of course, oddities about him, notably his sexuality. He lived in an era when “perpetual bachelorhood” was not an automatic signal of covert homosexuality. The idea that a highly placed public figure might be gay was simply not thought about.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Retirada dos EUA e Derrota no Iraque
Immanuel Wallerstein – Esquerda.net,
14 Nov 2011
A retirada marca o culminar da derrota americana no Iraque, apenas comparável à derrota dos Estados Unidos no Vietname. Ninguém se deve surpreender se, depois das próximas eleições no Iraque, o primeiro-ministro for Moqtada al-Sadr. Nem os Estados Unidos nem o Irão vão rejubilar.
→ read full article(Portuguese) No Brasil, Executivos do Banco Panamericano São Banidos do Sistema Financeiro por até 20 Anos
Antonio Carlos Lacerda - Pravda,
14 Nov 2011
No Brasil, o Banco Central (BC) decidiu banir de atuar no Sistema Financeiro Nacional por até 20 anos os principais executivos e conselheiros do Banco PanAmericano, que foram considerados responsáveis ou omissos pelo rombo de R$ 4,3 bilhões.
→ read full articleApartheid and the Occupation of Palestine
John Dugard – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
As the Russell Tribunal convenes to discuss apartheid, Israel has already surpassed South Africa’s racist era. This week, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will consider the question of whether Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) constitute the crime of apartheid within the meaning of the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.
→ read full article(Portuguese) No Brasil, Máquina Destrói Câncer de Pulmão sem Cortes e sem Dor
Antonio Carlos Lacerda - Pravda,
7 Nov 2011
No procedimento novo, cuja denominação técnica é radioterapia estereotáxica extra-crânio (SDRT, na sigla em inglês), feixes finos e precisos de radiação elevada provocam a necrose das células tumorais. Três sessões de pouco mais de uma hora, aplicadas com intervalo de dois dias, são suficientes para destruir o câncer de pulmão, o tipo de neoplasia que mais mata no Brasil e no mundo, segundo o Instituto Nacional do Câncer (Inca).
→ read full articleThe Differences Between Synthetic and Natural Vitamins
Dr. Edward Group – Global Healing Center,
7 Nov 2011
Synthetic versions of vitamins contain chemical compounds that were not meant for human consumption and do not occur in nature. Evolution has dictated that we eat the food we can gather from the earth, not the food we create in a lab.
→ read full articlePalestine’s Time
Michel Rocard – Project Syndicate,
7 Nov 2011
For a long time, Israeli leaders have lobbied supporters like me, who, since the Holocaust, have defended the Jewish people’s right to security and statehood. But Israel’s tactics regarding Palestine have been unconscionable. They have strengthened Hamas, a hostile opponent of peace, pushed the US to vote against the Palestinian state whose birth it defends, and refused outright to accept any conditions that might resolve the conflict. No civilized country can permit this behavior.
→ read full articleUNESCO Membership and Palestinian Self-Determination
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
It may not ease the daily pain of occupation and blockade or the endless anguish of refugee status and exile or the continual humiliations of discrimination and second class citizenship, but the admission of Palestine to membership in UNESCO is for so many reasons a step forward in the long march of the Palestinian people toward the dignity of sunlight!
→ read full articleGoldstone’s Folly: Disappointing and Perverse
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Now on the eve of the third session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine scheduled to be held in Cape Town between November 5-7 Goldstone has again come to the defense of Israel in a highly partisan manner that abandons any pretense of judicious respect for either the legal duties of those with power or the legal rights of those in vulnerable circumstances.
→ read full articleFormer US Chief Prosecutor Condemns ‘Law-Free Zone’ Of Guantánamo
Ed Vulliamy in New York – The Guardian,
7 Nov 2011
The former chief prosecutor for the US government at Guantánamo Bay has accused the administration he served of operating a “law-free zone” there, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the order to establish the detention camp on Cuba. Retired air force colonel Morris Davis resigned in October 2007 in protest against interrogation methods at Guantánamo, and has made his remarks in the lead-up to 13 November, the anniversary of President George W Bush’s executive order setting up military commissions to try terrorist suspects.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Pior Que Morrer É Não Pagar
Nelson Peralta – Esquerda.net,
7 Nov 2011
Quando, perante a morte de um povo, a nossa preocupação é que assim não pode pagar a dívida agiota à banca sabemos que chegámos ao grau zero da Humanidade.
→ read full articleOccupy first. Demands come later.
Slavoj Žižek – The Guardian,
7 Nov 2011
Carnivals come cheap – the true test of their worth is what remains the day after, how our normal daily life will be changed. The protesters should fall in love with hard and patient work – they are the beginning, not the end. Their basic message is: the taboo is broken; we do not live in the best possible world; we are allowed, obliged even, to think about alternatives.
→ read full articleThe Two Halves of the Eurozone Are Locked In a Broken Marriage
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – The Daily Telegraph,
31 Oct 2011
One by one, the democracies of Southern Europe are being broken on the wheel of monetary union.
→ read full articleLibya after Muammar el Qaddafi’s Execution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
The death of the despised despot who ruled Libya for forty-two years naturally produced celebrations throughout the country. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s end was bloody and vindictive, but we should remember that his rants against his own people—and his violent repression of what was initially a peaceful uprising—invited a harsh popular response.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Suspends Publishing to Fight Financial Blockade
Esther Addley and Jason Deans – The Guardian,
31 Oct 2011
Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, has announced that the whistleblowing website is suspending publishing operations in order to focus on fighting a financial blockade and raise new funds. Assange, speaking at a press conference in London on Monday [24 Oct 2011], said a banking blockade had destroyed 95% of WikiLeaks’ revenues.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Ocupações Prosseguem em Todo o Mundo
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
O fim de semana contou com mais acções dos movimentos Occupy em muitas cidades, de Sydney a Londres, passando por Nova Iorque. Nos Estados Unidos, a brutalidade da polícia continua em debate.
→ read full articleGM Crops Promote Superweeds, Food Insecurity and Pesticides, Say NGOs
John Vidal, environment editor – The Guardian,
24 Oct 2011
Genetic engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the use of chemicals and the growth of “superweeds”, according to a report by 20 Indian, south-east Asian, African and Latin American food and conservation groups representing millions of people.
→ read full articleMINUSTAH In Haiti: Keeping the Peace, or Conspiring Against It?
Harvard School of Public Health – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2011
Harvard Group Publishes White Paper Reviewing Human Rights Abuses Perpetrated by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti; Calls for MINUSTAH withdrawal.
→ read full articleOral Statement Introducing Report on Israeli Violations of Human Rights in Occupied Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2011
Oral Presentation on 20 October 2011 of Report to the General Assembly by Special Rapporteur on “Situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967,” submitted in 13 September 2011.
→ read full articleUS Seeks to Establish Naval Base on Jeju Island in Spite of Protests
John Lasker – Toward Freedom,
24 Oct 2011
On beautiful Jeju Island, south of the Korean peninsula, the South Korean Navy is building a base that will soon harbor some of the world’s most advanced weapons. But the mystery is: who inspired the base to be built on this island of pristine waters and stunning volcanic peaks in the first place? Peace activist Bruce Gagnon says all one needs to do is call the South Korean embassy in Washington and ask.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Haiti, País Ocupado
Eduardo Galeano – Esquerda.net,
24 Oct 2011
Se perguntar a qualquer enciclopédia qual foi o primeiro país a abolir a escravatura, receberá sempre a mesma resposta: Inglaterra. Mas o primeiro país que aboliu a escravatura não foi a Inglaterra mas o Haiti, que continua ainda a expiar o pecado da sua dignidade.
→ read full articleDrone Attacks: American Citizens and Foreign Civilians
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
The execution of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-Yemeni imam, by a drone attack in Yemen on September 30, 2011 has generated a lively debate among liberally minded lawyers in the United States because al-Awlaki was an American citizen.
→ read full articleThe Fight against Climate Change Is Down To Us – The 99%
Naomi Klein – The Guardian,
17 Oct 2011
If there is one thing I know, it’s that the 1% loves a crisis. When people are panicked and desperate, that is the ideal time to push through their wish list of pro-corporate policies: privatising education and social security, slashing public services, getting rid of the last constraints on corporate power. Amidst the economic crisis, this is happening the world over.
→ read full articleIs this a Global Gandhian Moment?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
Mahatma Gandhi has been dead for more than 63 years, and yet his relevance to the politics of our time has never been greater. It is a tribute to the power of Gandhi’s inspirational ideas and life that his current influence is far greater than that of any other leader of the past century.
→ read full articleMissing the Point Twice: International Law as Empire’s Sunday Suit
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2011
In effect, post-9/11 American ideas of self-defense incorporate by stealth the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war used to justify aggression against Iraq in 2003, which had seemed discredited in international until quietly revived by the Obama presidency.
→ read full articleClass Warfare Indeed
Michael Parenti – Toward Freedom,
10 Oct 2011
And who knows, once we learn to talk about the realities of class power, we are on our way to talking critically about capitalism, another verboten word in the public realm. And once we start a critical discourse about capitalism, we will be vastly better prepared to act against it and defend our own democratic and communal interests.
→ read full article
Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
Stanford University – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks — including death itself — at the university’s 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.
→ read full article(Castellano) Haití, País Ocupado
Eduardo Galeano – La Jornada,
10 Oct 2011
Y si a cualquier enciclopedia pregunta usted cuál fue el primer país que abolió la esclavitud, recibirá siempre la misma respuesta: Inglaterra. Pero el primer país que abolió la esclavitud no fue Inglaterra sino Haití, que todavía sigue expiando el pecado de su dignidad.
→ read full article