Articles by RD
We found 3495 results.
Speculation in Agricultural Commodities: Driving up the Price of Food Worldwide and Plunging Millions into Hunger
Edward Miller – Global Research,
10 Oct 2011
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has again delayed the introduction of position limits required under the Dodd-Frank Act. These limits are intended to prevent speculation in (among other things) agricultural commodities, speculation that, many critics argue, have driven up the price of food worldwide and plunged millions into hunger.
→ read full articleInterview on the Palestinian Statehood Bid
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
This post consists of my responses to questions put to me by a Greek journalist, C.J Polychroniou, who long followed intellectual thought in the West, and is a keen analyst of the current European economic crisis.
→ read full articleAn American Awakening?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
We must hope and engage. We can be thankful that this initiative places its focus on financial and corporate structures, and not on the state. Further along these lines, if the struggle will gain momentum it will be totally thanks to politics-from-below. The implicit not so subtle point is that the center of power over the destinies of the American people has shifted its locus from Washington to New York, and from the penthouse to the the basement!! We’ll see!!
→ read full article(Portuguese) O Aumento dos Motins: Um Fenomeno Mundial
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
Entrevista com Alain Bertho, professor de antropologia da Universidade de Paris, realizada por Ivan du Roy.
→ read full articleA Modest Proposal: Is It Time for the Community of Non-Nuclear States to Revolt?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2011
There are 189 countries that are parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that entered into force in 1970. Only India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea have remained outside the treaty regime so as to be free to acquire the weapons. The nuclear weapons states have done an incredibly successful job, especially the United States, in getting a free ride, continuously modernizing their arsenals while keeping the weapons out of most unwanted hands.
→ read full articleThe Dead Begin to Speak Up In India
Arundhati Roy – The Guardian,
3 Oct 2011
So somebody who wants to invest in a dam, or build a steel plant or a buy a bauxite mine is not considered a security hazard, whereas a scholar who might wish to participate in a seminar about, say, displacement or communalism or rising malnutrition in a globalised economy, is. Terrorists with bad intentions have probably guessed that they are better off wearing Prada suits and pretending they want to buy a mine than admitting that they want to attend a seminar.
→ read full article(Portuguese) 737 Donos do Mundo Controlam 80% do Valor das Empresas Mundiais
Ivan du Roy – Esquerda.net,
3 Oct 2011
Um estudo de economistas e estatísticos, publicado na Suíça neste Verão, dá a conhecer as interligações entre as multinacionais mundiais. E revela que um pequeno grupo de actores económicos – sociedades financeiras ou grupos industriais – domina a grande maioria do capital de dezenas de milhares de empresas no mundo.
→ read full articleReflections on the Abbas Statehood/Membership Speech to the UN General Assembly
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2011
There is a natural disposition for supporters of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination to suppose that the Palestinian statehood bid must be a positive initiative because it has generated such a frantic Israel effort to have it rejected.
→ read full articleLockdowns and the IMF on Occupied Wall Street
Richard (RJ) Eskow – Nation of Change,
3 Oct 2011
You know why otherwise smart hedge fund managers say crazy things, why they call themselves “a persecuted minority” or react to the suggestion that they pay the same tax rates as a firefighter by comparing it to the invasion of Poland? Because they’re addicts. Junkies, even the smart ones, say crazy things to get their next fix. Especially the smart ones. Wall Street is occupied by … addiction.
→ read full article(Norwegian) Galtung fikk minnepris
Cathrine Sordal - Fædrelandsvennen,
26 Sep 2011
Johan Galtung mottok i dag Erik Byes Minnepris 2011 under Protestfestivalen.
→ read full articleRethinking Afghanistan After a Decade
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2011
This post is a short essay responding to a question about my dramatic change of position on the Afghanistan War with regard to its initial justification and flawed execution. It is both a reconsideration of errors of judgment and reflections on how the world has changed in the course of this decade, focusing on the inability of the United States to grasp either its own decline or the related decline in the historical agency of hard power approaches to security.
→ read full articleThe Call to Occupy Wall Street Resonates Around the World
Micah White and Kalle Lasn – The Guardian,
26 Sep 2011
On Saturday 17 September, many of us watched in awe as 5,000 Americans descended on to the financial district of lower Manhattan, waved signs, unfurled banners, beat drums, chanted slogans. #OCCUPYWALLSTREET was inspired by the people’s assemblies of Spain. Emboldened by an outpouring of international solidarity, these American indignados said they’d be there to greet the bankers when the stock market opened on Monday.
→ read full articlePunching Back at Big Oil
Robert Redford - Reader Supported News,
26 Sep 2011
When you challenge Big Oil in Houston, you can bet the industry is going to punch back. So when I wrote in the Houston Chronicle earlier this month that we should say no to the Keystone XL pipeline, I wasn’t surprised when the project’s chief executive weighed in with a different view. Let’s set the record straight, point by point.
→ read full articleThe American and Global Experience of 9/10, 9/11, 9/12 +10:
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
There is unacknowledged freedom associated with any event inscribed in our individual and collective experience of profoundly disabling and disturbing public occurrences. For most older Americans what is most vividly remembered among such occurrences is likely to have been Pearl Harbor, the assassination of JFK, and the 9/11 attacks, each coming as a shock to a shared societal sense of exceeding the limits of what could be expected to happen.
→ read full articlePreliminary Libyan Scorecard: Acting Beyond the UN Mandate
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2011
If the governments will not act to uphold agreed and fundamental limits on state violence, especially directed at vulnerable countries and peoples, then as citizens of the world, ‘we the peoples of the United Nations,’ as proclaimed by the Preamble to the Charter need to raise our voices. We have the residual responsibility to act on behalf of international law and morality when the UN falters or when states act beyond the law.
→ read full articlePope Accused of Crimes against Humanity by Victims of Sex Abuse
Karen McVeigh – The Guardian,
19 Sep 2011
Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have accused the pope, the Vatican secretary of state and two other high-ranking Holy See officials of crimes against humanity, in a formal complaint to the international criminal court (ICC). The submission, lodged at The Hague on Tuesday [13 Sep 2011], accuses the four men not only of failing to prevent or punish perpetrators of rape and sexual violence but also of engaging in the “systematic and widespread” practice of concealing sexual crimes around the world.
→ read full articleThe Legal Flaws of the Palmer Commission Flotilla Report
Richard Falk & Phyllis Bennis – TRANSCEND Media Serivce,
19 Sep 2011
The latest United Nations report on last year’s lethal flotilla incident – in which nine people were killed and many injured by Israeli commandos on board a humanitarian ship bound for Gaza – was released at the beginning of September, and generated much controversy. Astonishingly, the only other independent member was its vice-chair, the former president of Colombia. Alvaro Uribe’s notorious history as a human rights abuser who called human rights advocates such as Amnesty International “rats,” as well as his legacy of seeking out the closest possible ties to and defense of Israel while in office, make him wildly inappropriate for such an assignment.
→ read full articleCompanies Ejected From London Arms Fair for ‘Promoting Cluster Bombs’
Nick Hopkins – The Guardian,
19 Sep 2011
Violation of Oslo accord discovered by MP who calls for action to investigate ‘what other breaches are occurring’ at the fair. The action was taken after Caroline Lucas, the Green party leader, discovered that Pakistani arms manufacturers were actively promoting “banned cluster bombs” at their pavilions. Details of the munitions were in brochures readily available to potential customers. The episode is an embarrassment to the fair, which has had 1,300 firms from more than 40 countries seeking orders for weapons.
→ read full article9/11 Did Not Start or End At Midnight
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2011
All too often we view 9/11 from the perspective of the nation-state rather than from a global standpoint.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Selective Vigilantism Will Make as Many Enemies as Friends
Tariq Ali - The Guardian,
12 Sep 2011
A decade after the attentats of 9/11, the US and its European allies are trapped in a quagmire. The events of that year were simply used as a pretext to remake the world and to punish those states that did not comply. And today while the majority of Euro-American citizens flounder in a moral desert, now unhappy with the wars, now resigned, now propagandised into differentiating what is, in effect, an overarching imperial strategy into good/bad wars.
→ read full articleMore of the Same in the Fight Against Child Labor
Neil Howard – Dissent Magazine,
12 Sep 2011
The ” ‘abolitionist approach’ to child labor represents mainstream institutional and political thought about how best to protect the world’s children from economic exploitation,” writes Neil Howard. “But the evidence suggests that it doesn’t work.” Child workers and their families are “caught between the structural injustice that hollows out their incomes and well-meaning but misguided campaigns that prevent them from doing anything about it.”
→ read full articleAnother UN Failure: The Palmer Report on the Flotilla Incident of 31 May 2010
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Sep 2011
Israel has managed up to now to avoid paying the price for defying international law. For decades it has been building unlawful settlements in occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. It has used excessive violence and relied on state terror on numerous occasions in dealing with Palestinian resistance, and has subjected the people of Gaza to sustained and extreme forms of collective punishment.
→ read full articleLibya’s Next Fight: Overcoming Western Designs
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
5 Sep 2011
The Libya that inspired the world is capable of overcoming NATO’s stratagems, if it becomes aware of NATO’s true intentions in Libya and the desperate attempt to thwart or hijack Arab revolts.
→ read full articleThe Race Is On For Libya’s Oil, With Britain and France Both Staking A Claim
Julian Borger and Terry Macalister – The Guardian,
5 Sep 2011
The starting pistol has been fired on bids by Britain and other western powers to secure a slice of the oil prize in Libya when France said it was “fair and logical” for its companies to benefit. Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, planted his flag in the sand as the Guardian was told that BP was already holding private talks with members of Libya’s interim government.
→ read full articleYou Only Believe the Official 9/11 Story Because You Don’t Know the Official 9/11 Story
Jesse Richard – TV News LIES,
5 Sep 2011
During the past 10 years I have not met a single individual who, after doing research on the subject, switched from questioning the official narrative of the events of 9/11/2001 to believing the official narrative of those events.. It is always the other way around. Why do you think that is?
→ read full articleLibya without Qaddafi: Decoding an Uncertain Future
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2011
There is so much spin surrounding the Transitional National Council victory in Libya that it is difficult to interpret the outcome, and perhaps premature to do so at this point considering that the fighting continues and the African Union has withheld diplomatic recognition on principled grounds.
→ read full articleArab Spring Has Created ‘Intelligence Disaster’, Warns Former CIA Boss
Charlotte Higgins – The Guardian,
29 Aug 2011
Michael Scheuer says rendition should be brought back as lack of intelligence has left UK and US unable to monitor militants. The Arab spring has “delighted al-Qaida” and caused “an intelligence disaster” for the US and Britain, the former head of the CIA unit in charge of pursuing Osama bin Laden has warned.
→ read full articleSomalia Tragedy, Islamist Extremists and Climate Change Skeptics
Hilal Elver and Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Aug 2011
The unfolding tragedy in East Africa is a dramatic indicator of what humanity as a whole can expect in the near future ‘if business as usual’ continues to be the phrase that most accurately expresses global climate change policy. The unwillingness of the developed countries to provide adequate humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable peoples in the world also helps explain this worsening regional tragedy has reached such dire extremes.
→ read full articleSyria: Geopolitical Mentoring versus Rehab for Addicted Geopolitical Leaders
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Aug 2011
Of course, the future should not be entrusted to the political leaders representing sovereign states. It is up to the peoples of the world to propose and demand better solutions for the unfolding global tragedies that are sidestepped by the egocentric behavioral goals of national governments. Populist complacency is part of what gives this geopolitical posturing a semblance of credibility in our post-colonial era.
→ read full articleStudy: Phytochemical Found in Broccoli & Cauliflower Attacks Prostate Cancer Cells
Dr. Edward Group – Global Healing Center,
15 Aug 2011
According to a new study conducted at Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Micronutrient Research Institute confirms that sulforaphane, a phytochemical found in broccoli and related cruciferous vegetables, such as cauliflower and cabbage, have a natural ability to target and attack prostate cancer cells without harming neighboring cells.
→ read full articleGreece Begins €50bn Privatisation Drive
Helena Smith in Athens – The Guardian,
15 Aug 2011
Greek officials begin appointing advisers for fire-sale of state assets intended to raise €50bn by 2015. The starting gun for one of the biggest fire-sales in western history was fired as Greek officials began appointing advisers for the country’s ambitious privatisation drive.
→ read full articleThe Afghanistan War in the Mirror of the Tet Offensive: When ‘Defeat’ Became ‘Victory’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Aug 2011
It is true the war dragged on for several more years with heavy casualties on both sides, but the Tet Offensive changed the American goal from ‘victory’ to ‘peace with honor,’ that is, ‘defeat in disguise.’ The subsequent Christmas bombing of the North and the disastrous invasion of Cambodia in 1970 were part of the bloody effort during the Nixon/Kissinger period of American leadership to produce ‘honor.’ Actually, when the war finally came to an abrupt end in 1975, the dominant image at the time being that of Vietnamese collaborators with the American intervention desperately seeking to escape from Vietnam by clamoring aboard a helicopter taking off from the roof of the embassy. Not honor but humiliation, chaos, and defeat…
→ read full articleShell Accepts Liability for Two Oil Spills in Nigeria
John Vidal – The Guardian,
8 Aug 2011
Shell faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars after accepting full liability for two massive oil spills that devastated a Nigerian community of 69,000 people and may take at least 20 years to clean up. Experts who studied video footage of the spills at Bodo in Ogoniland say they could together be as large as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, when 10m gallons of oil destroyed the remote coastline.
→ read full articleOslo: Europe, Islam and the Mainstreaming of Racism
Miriyam Aouragh and Richard Seymour – Jadaliyya,
8 Aug 2011
European media coverage of the Norwegian tragedy has led with dangerous and clichéd arguments about ‘Islamic extremism’ and multiculturalism, even after the identity of the killer was confirmed – thus contributing to the mainstreaming of racism that helped make Breivik what he is.
→ read full articleCan Humanitarian Intervention Ever Be Humanitarian?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Aug 2011
Not since the debate about the Kosovo War of 1999 has there been such widespread discussion of humanitarian intervention, including the semantics of coupling ‘humanitarian’ with the word ‘intervention.’
→ read full article(Castellano) Todavía el Fundamentalismo
Leonard Boff – TeleSur,
8 Aug 2011
Barack Obama de Estados Unidos y David Cameron del Reino Unido se apresuraron a solidarizarse con el gobierno de Noruega y reforzaron la idea de dar batalla mortal al terrorismo, presuponiendo que sería un acto de Al Qaeda. Prejuicio. Esta vez era un nativo, blanco, de ojos azules, con nivel superior y cristiano, aunque The New York Times lo presente como «sin cualidades y fácil de olvidar».
→ read full articlePeak Oil: A Chance to Change the World
Richard Heinberg – Yes! Magazine,
8 Aug 2011
For advice about life after graduation, students at Worcester Polytechnic wanted to hear from peak oil scholar Richard Heinberg instead of Exxon’s CEO. Here’s what he told them.
→ read full articleParadigm Meltdown and Opportunities for Peacebuilding
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2011
A question that it would seem to be reasonable to ask is how to raise wages and employ everyone who wants a job, without raising prices, without militarism, and without damage to the environment.
→ read full articleGround Your Warplanes, Save the Horn of Africa
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
1 Aug 2011
“When you are hungry, cold is a killer, and the people here are starving and helpless.”
→ read full articleWarfare without Limits: A Darkening Human Horizon
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Aug 2011
There are several pressures that push war in the direction of the absolute, and imperil the human future. Perhaps, the foremost of these is emergence, use, retention, and proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as the development of biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction.
→ read full articlePFC Bradley Manning: Conscience and Agency
Ethan McCord – Common Dreams,
18 Jul 2011
The following is a response to last week’s New York Magazine article, Bradley Manning’s Army of One. Serving with my unit 2nd battalion 16th infantry in New Baghdad Iraq, I vividly remember the moment in 2007, when our Battalion Commander walked into the room and announced our new rules of engagement: “Listen up, new battalion SOP (standing operating procedure) from now on: Anytime your convoy gets hit by an IED, I want 360 degree rotational fire. You kill every [expletive] in the street!”
→ read full article(Portuguese) “As Farmacêuticas Bloqueiam Medicamentos que Curam, Porque Não São Rentáveis”
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2011
O Prémio Nobel da Medicina Richard J. Roberts denuncia a forma como funcionam as grandes farmacêuticas dentro do sistema capitalista, preferindo os benefícios económicos à saúde, e detendo o progresso científico na cura de doenças, porque a cura não é tão rentável quanto a cronicidade.
→ read full articleDilemmas of Sovereignty and Intervention
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2011
The Arab Spring (and its troublesome, yet still hopeful, aftermath in Egypt), intervention in Libya, nonintervention in Syria and Bahrain, drone military operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the influx of unwanted immigrants and walls of exclusion, and selective applications of international criminal law draw into question the most basic of all ideas of world order: the sovereignty of territorial states, and its limits.
→ read full articleDefaulting Rescued Argentina. It Could Work for Athens Too
Heather Stewart – The Guardian,
11 Jul 2011
Struggling under an impossible burden after its IMF bailouts, Buenos Aires knew its one hope was to stop paying its debts and become a pariah – and so it proved.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Israel: O Tsunami Que Está a Chegar
Immanuel Wallerstein, Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
Os palestinianos estão a trabalhar para obter o reconhecimento formal da sua soberania na reunião de Outono da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas. A sua intenção é solicitar uma declaração de que o Estado existe dentro das fronteiras de 1967, anteriores à guerra israelo-palestiniana. É quase certo que a votação será favorável. A única questão, no momento, é quão favorável.
→ read full articleEurope Declares War on Rating Agencies
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor – The Telegraph,
11 Jul 2011
A chorus of policy-makers from Europe and across the world have denounced Moody’s drastic downgrade of Portuguese debt as an act of financial vandalism, accusing the “Anglo-Saxon” rating agencies of driving states into bankruptcy and destabilising the global system.
→ read full article(Italian) La Possibile Scelta di Nonviolenza dei Palestinesi e Israele
Maria Grazia Enardu – Centro Studi Sereno Regis,
11 Jul 2011
Fra le nuove generazioni di palestinesi si sta diffondendo, con esiti ancora difficili da prevedere, una forma di lotta che, fino a poco tempo fa, sarebbe stata quantomeno definita bizzarra per quella regione: la nonviolenza. Di certo, se riuscisse a coinvolgere un grande numero di persone, rischierà di mettere in seria difficoltà l’esercito israeliano.
→ read full articleSabotaging Flotilla II: Waging War against Civil Society
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
It is useful to compare the Flotilla II unfolding experience with the Rainbow Warrior incident. At the time, the French nuclear tests in the Pacific were considered legal, although intensely contested, while the blockade of Israel is widely viewed as a prolonged instance of collective punishment in violation of international humanitarian law, specifically Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention.
→ read full articleRighting Wrongs the Maori Way
Allan MacRae & Howard Zehr – Yes! Magazine,
11 Jul 2011
Instead of prison, New Zealand chooses restorative justice and community problem-solving.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Mercados Começam as Apostas Sobre Qual Será o Próximo País a Cair
Marco Antonio Moreno, Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jul 2011
O casino está aberto. William Hill, a maior casa de apostas de Londres, vaticina que o próximo país a pedir auxílio será a Espanha. Paga 1,1 euros por cada euro apostado, enquanto que o resgate italiano é pago a 3 por 1, o da Bélgica a 5 por 1 e o hipotético resgate da Alemanha é pago a 500 por 1. Rendida a Grécia, e submetida aos draconianos planos de ajustamento e cortes que a troika UE/BCE/FMI impõe, o apetite dos mercados começa a procurar a próxima vítima. Portugal e a Itália são os favoritos.
→ read full articleInstances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2010
Richard F. Grimmett, Congressional Research Service – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2011
March 10, 2011 – This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes.
→ read full articleThe International Criminal Court Plays Politics? The Qaddafi Arrest Warrants
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2011
This politicized use of the ICC in the course of the Libyan War offers an opportunity for those dedicated to global justice, especially in the Arab world, to insist that international law should no longer serve as a plaything for those who intervene with hard power in their region from the comfort zone of NATO headquarters.
→ read full articleChad Signs Plan to End Recruitment and Use of Children in National Army and Security Forces
Cassandra Clifford – Foreign Policy Association,
4 Jul 2011
Last week on 16 June 2011 the government of the African nation Chad signed an action plan to end recruitment and use of children in its national army and security forces.
→ read full articleWorld’s Wealthiest People Now Richer Than Before the Credit Crunch
Jill Treanor – The Guardian,
4 Jul 2011
We are not all in this together. The UK economy is flat, the US is weak and the Greek debt crisis, according to some commentators, is threatening another Lehman Brothers-style meltdown. But a new report shows the world’s wealthiest people are getting more prosperous – and more numerous – by the day.
→ read full articleA Few Notes on WHAT IS LEFT (or Toward a Manifesto for Revolutionary Emancipation)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2011
These notes are meant as tentative and conversational expressions of an emergent political point of view, and will be revised in response to commentary by others. Obviously, also, there is no pretension on my part of comprehensiveness, or else many other issues would have been addressed.
→ read full articleNo Impunity for Killing by Drones
Richard Johnson, Oxford Research Group - InDepth News,
27 Jun 2011
“If you use drones you must confirm and report who they killed,” international lawyers say, adding: “Drones don’t allow hit and run.” In fact, states that authorize or use armed drones as well as those who launch and control them are obliged to identify the deceased so as to provide reparations or compensation for possible wrongful killing, injury and other offences.
→ read full articleTurkey, the Region, and the West after the Elections
Richard Falk & Hilal Elver – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2011
What emerges overall is this American led reluctance to accept Turkey as an independent regional force in the Middle East that has achieved enormous influence in recent years by relying on its own brand of soft power diplomacy. A dramatic indicator of this influence is the great popularity of Erdogan throughout the region, including among the youth who brought about the uprisings against authoritarian rule throughout the Arab world. It is an encouraging sign of the times that these new Arab champions of democracy are coming to Ankara and Istanbul, not Washington, Tel Aviv, or Paris, for guidance and inspiration.
→ read full articleLeaked: Mainstream Media’s Dictionary – Letter C (satire)
Imran Garda – Al Jazeera,
27 Jun 2011
caliphate. n.
Future involving Ayman Al-Zawahiri sitting on a throne watching bearded footballers in long shorts contesting the Islamic Cup final in Seville.
(Portuguese) Vida nos Oceanos Pode Enfrentar Extinção sem Precedentes, Diz Estudo
Richard Black - BBC News,
27 Jun 2011
Um novo estudo indica que os ecossistemas marinhos enfrentam perigos ainda maiores do que os estimados até agora pelos cientistas e que correm o risco de entrar em uma fase de extinção de espécies sem precedentes na história da humanidade.
→ read full articleOur Battle to End Hunger
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva – The Guardian,
20 Jun 2011
No country can achieve sustainable development without improving the living conditions of its people; and the Brazilian experience shows that overcoming hunger requires co-ordinated actions, political will and the participation of all society.
→ read full articleLeaked: Mainstream Media’s Dictionary (satire) – Letters A to B
Imran Garda – Al Jazeera,
20 Jun 2011
academic. adj.
Man in bow-tie. Usually represents think-tank or university. Explains the science behind global warming and/or new CERN project while anchor nods pretending to understand.
baggage. n.
Part of travelling entourage left unfondled by the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
(Portuguese) Italianos Votam pela Água Pública, Rejeitam Energia Nuclear e Imunidade de Berlusconi
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2011
Nos quatro referendos realizados em Itália participaram 57% dos eleitores, tendo o “Sim” ganho por largas maiorias, próximas ou superiores a 95%. Assim, os italianos votaram pela água pública e contra o aumento do preço das tarifas, rejeitaram a energia nuclear e a imunidade de Berlusconi.
→ read full articleIs the State a Monster? Pro and Contra Nietzsche
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2011
In Part One of Friederich Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra there is a particularly provocative section entitled ‘Of the New Idol.’ Remembering that this pivotal writing of the great German thinker/philosopher, so often misinterpreted, was written in 1881, it is surprising how relevant and invigorating its strong language remains in 2011.
→ read full articleLifting the Lid on Sri Lanka’s War Crimes
Callum Macrae – The Guardian,
20 Jun 2011
My film Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields exposes atrocities committed against civilian Tamils that the UN must not ignore. If the UN fails yet again, the message to every tyrant and repressive government will be clear: if you want to kill your own people with impunity, you will probably get away with it. (Watch a 2-min video clip in SHORT VIDEOS and the full documentary in IN-DEPTH VIDEOS).
→ read full articleInterpreting the AKP Victory in Turkey
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2011
The following post was written jointly with Hilal Elver, who is a Turkish scholar and public intellectual. It offers commentary on the recent AKP victory, which is viewed as a significant and hopeful development in Turkish, and regional, politics.
→ read full articleHope in the Andes: What Ollanta Humala’s Victory Means for Peru
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
13 Jun 2011
Ollanta is an Incan name meaning “the warrior everyone looks to.” Indeed, all eyes were on the leftist president-elect as he greeted the crowd. This election puts Humala among a growing number of leftist presidents in Latin America and offers hope to the poorest sectors of Peruvian society. The poverty rate in Peru is just over 31 percent. In Sunday’s elections, it was the impoverished rural areas that went for Humala over Kieko Fujimori.
→ read full articleUnderstanding Political Reality in Syria
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2011
In his OpEd of June 3rd entitled The Depravity Factor, David Brooks writes emotionally about a murdered 13-year-old Syrian boy called Hamza Ali al-Khateeb. The descriptions and internet photographs of Hamza’s tortured body are horrible, but Brooks draws from this story a set of political conclusions that are unjustified by anything we know about Syria or the region we vaguely think of as the ‘Middle East’.
→ read full articleBankers and Politicians Have Turned Food into a Betting Game
Aditya Chakrabortty – The Guardian,
13 Jun 2011
The Result Is Soaring Prices and Starving Children
→ read full articleA Shameless Secretary General versus Freedom Flotilla 2
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2011
In light of these surrounding circumstances, including the failure of Israel to live up to its announced promise after the attack in 2010 to lift the blockade, it shocks our moral and legal sensibilities that the UN Secretary General should be using the authority of his office to urge member governments to prevent ships from joining Freedom Flotilla 2.
→ read full articleDumb Question of the Twenty-first Century: Is It Legal?
Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch,
6 Jun 2011
Is the Libyan war legal? Was Bin Laden’s killing legal? Is it legal for the president of the United States to target an American citizen for assassination? Were those “enhanced interrogation techniques” legal? These are all questions raised in recent weeks. Each seems to call out for debate, for answers. Or does it? My answer is this: they are irrelevant.
→ read full articleJulian Assange Wins Martha Gellhorn Journalism Prize
Jason Deans – The Guardian,
6 Jun 2011
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has won the 2011 Martha Gellhorn prize for journalism. The annual prize is awarded to a journalist “whose work has penetrated the established version of events and told an unpalatable truth that exposes establishment propaganda, or ‘official drivel’, as Martha Gellhorn called it”.
→ read full articleBilderberg 2011: All Aboard the Bilderbus
Charlie Skelton – The Guardian,
6 Jun 2011
As Europe groans, and austerity bites, as defaulting looms, and once proud nations fall to their knees in debt, there’s only one annual conference of bankers and industrialists that can step in and save us all… Bilderberg! Next week, in Switzerland, Henry Kissinger and his brave band of corporate CEOs, high-wealth individuals and heavyweight thinktankers will lock arms with Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and David Rockefeller, and stand their ground against the economic contagion. The last thing a bunch of bank bosses and multinational executives wants is for the nation-states of Europe to collapse, allowing their assets to be bought up on the cheap. Right?
→ read full article(Castellano) Chile: Senado Vendió a Monsanto la Semilla Campesina e Indígena
Lucía Sepúlveda Ruiz - Movimiento Anti Nuevo Orden Mundial (NWO),
30 May 2011
Con 13 votos a favor (de la derecha y uno de la Concertación), 5 en contra y 6 abstenciones, el Senado de Chile aprobó el 11 de mayo [2011] el Convenio Upov 91 que impedirá a los campesinos guardar la semilla y extenderá el tiempo de vigencia de los derechos y garantías de las transnacionales que vendan semillas híbridas y transgénicas en el país.
→ read full articleManuel Zelaya Pushes for Peace on Return to Honduras
Associated Press-AP – The Guardian,
30 May 2011
Former president Manuel Zelaya’s return to Honduras almost two years after being forced into exile by a military coup has ended a crippling political crisis and paved the way for the impoverished nation’s reintegration into the international community. The Organisation of American States (OAS), which expelled Honduras following the June 2009 coup, is expected to bring the Central American nation back into the fold this week.
→ read full articleObama’s AIPAC Speech: A Further Betrayal of the Palestinian People
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2011
After such a speech the only responsible response by the Palestinian leadership is to conclude once and for all, however belatedly, that it is no longer possible to look to Washington for guidance in reaching a peaceful, just, and sustainable resolution of the conflict.
→ read full article16 Foods High in Vitamin C
Dr. Edward Group – Global Healing Center,
30 May 2011
Vitamin C is one super important, naturally-occurring nutrient. From preventing colds and flu, rebuilding tissue, bones and blood vessels, to boosting the body’s ability to synthesize calcium and other minerals, Vitamin C is something we want to be eating more of on a daily basis. In fact, studies are now confirming the need for Vitamin C to boost brain function, heal from injuries and recover from illness. A potent antioxidant for neutralizing free radicals, a diet lacking Vitamin C may cause health problems over time.
→ read full articleGlobal Leadership: American Retreat, BRIC Ambivalence, and Turkey’s Rise
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2011
As the American president, Barack Obama, sets forth his views on the future of the Middle East it seems a good time to take stock of the leadership vacuum in world affairs, and whether there are alternatives to the role the United States has played ever since World War II.
→ read full articleObama’s Flawed Approach to the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2011
In many respects, Obama’s speech, aside from the soaring rhetoric, might have been crafted in Tel Aviv rather than the White House. It is a tribute to Israel’s extraordinary influence upon the American media that has been able to shift the focus of assessment to the supposed Israeli anger about affirming Palestinian statehood within 1967 borders.
→ read full articleEscaping the Matrix
Richard K. Moore – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2011
The defining moment in The Matrix occurs when Morpheus invites Neo to choose between a red and a blue pill. The red pill promises “the truth, nothing more.” Neo takes it and awakes to reality. What Neo had before assumed to be reality was only a collective illusion. The story is intended as metaphor, and the parallels that drew my attention had to do with political reality. Are you ready for the red pill?
→ read full article(Castellano) Escapar de la Matriz
Richard K. Moore – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2011
El momento dramático definitivo en la película La Matriz ocurre inmediatamente a continuación de la invitación de Morfeo a que Neo escoja entre una píldora roja y una azul. La píldora roja promete “la verdad, nada más”. Neo toma la píldora roja y despierta a la realidad. Lo que Neo había antes tomado por la realidad resulta ser sólo una ilusión colectiva, inventada por la Matriz. La intención de la trama es metafórica, y el paralelo que atrajo mi atención tiene que ver con la realidad política.
→ read full articleObserving the 63rd Nakba
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
The Nakba is of course a day of grievance and resolve for all Palestinians including the several million living in refugee camps for decades in the countries surrounding Palestine and other millions in exile throughout the region and the world. A sustainable peace must realize the rights of all Palestinians, and must be broader and deeper than ending the occupation or establishing a Palestinian state. Palestinian representation to be legitimate and effective must keep faith with this wider Palestinian reality, and not confine its political program to a territorial imaginary.
→ read full articlePress Release-UN High Commission for Human Rights: Palestinian Nakba
Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
On May 15 2011 the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mr. Richard Falk, marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophic beginning of the Palestinian tragedy of dispossession and occupation, with the following statement.
→ read full article(French) «En Afrique, les Homosexuels Sont des Boucs Emissaires»
Quentin Girard – Libération,
16 May 2011
Au Cameroun, mon pays, ou au Sénégal, des arrestations d’homosexuels ou de personnes soupçonnées telles ont lieu très régulièrement. Le profil des individus interpellés est presque toujours le même: ce sont toujours des personnes pauvres, d’un niveau d’éducation faible, souvent sans emploi. Est-ce que cela veut dire qu’il n’y a pas d’homosexuels chez les riches? Évidemment non. Cela signifie surtout que les pauvres sont instrumentalisés à des fins politiques. Si les gens protestent contre la famine, la mauvaise gouvernance, les abus, on leur livre des homosexuels.
→ read full articleForty-Eight Women Raped Every Hour in Congo, Study Finds
Jo Adetunji – The Guardian,
16 May 2011
Research shows 12% of the country’s women have been raped at least once, and the problem is not confined to conflict areas.
→ read full articleIsrael Stripped 140,000 Palestinians of Residency Rights, Document Reveals
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem – The Guardian,
16 May 2011
Israel stripped thousands of Palestinians of their right to live in the West Bank over a 27-year period, forcing most of them into permanent exile abroad, a document obtained under freedom of information laws has disclosed.
→ read full articleJulian Assange Awarded Australian Peace Prize
Reuters – The Guardian,
16 May 2011
WikiLeaks’ Australian founder Julian Assange, who enraged Washington by publishing thousands of secret US diplomatic cables, has been given a peace award for “exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights”. Assange was awarded the Sydney Peace Foundation’s gold medal on Tuesday [10 May 2011] at the Frontline Club in London, only the fourth such award to be handed out in its 14-year history. The not-for-profit organisation is associated with the University of Sydney and supported by the City of Sydney.
→ read full articleHazards and Hopes of Limitless Freedom of Expression
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2011
One of the glories of the Western Enlightenment, especially as embodied in the lifeblood of political democracies is freedom of expression, the right to give voice in public spaces to unpopular, tasteless, provocative, and even outrageous ideas, and especially those critical of the prevailing political order without fear of retaliation.
→ read full article
Barenboim Conducts Peace Concert in Gaza
Khadija Magardie – Al Jazeera,
9 May 2011
The Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim has given his first concert inside Gaza. Barenboim is a lifelong activist for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He entered the blockaded strip from Egypt, along with an orchestra of top European musicians.
→ read full articleFukushima Nuclear Power Plant Update [6 May 2011]: Get All the Data
Ami Sedghi - The Guardian,
9 May 2011
Japan is racing to gain control of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Where does the most detailed data come from?
• Get the data
Who Will Reshape the Arab World: Its People, or the US?
Tariq Ali – The Guardian,
9 May 2011
Phase one of the Arab spring is over. Phase two – the attempt to crush or contain genuine popular movements – has begun. Here one has to say that whatever the final outcome, the Libyan people have lost. The country will either be partitioned into a Gaddafi state and a squalid pro-west protectorate led by selected businessmen, or the west will take out Gaddafi and control the whole of Libya and its huge oil reserves. This display of affection for “democracy” does not extend elsewhere in the region. In Bahrain,
→ read full articleIs the Arab Spring a Black Swan?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2011
Having just visited Egypt for a week I came away with this dual sense that the revolutionary dynamics have produced remarkable results that form a glorious chapter of Egyptian history, but also that there are a variety of dark forces that are working under the radar to contain if not reverse this exhilirating democratizing momentum.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Acordo entre a Fatah e o Hamas na Palestina
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2011
Principais facções vão formar um governo transitório de personalidades independentes e realizar eleições presidenciais e legislativas dentro de um ano. Decisão pode facilitar o reconhecimento da ONU ao Estado Palestiniano.
→ read full articleThe Guantánamo Files: Leaks Lift Lid on World’s Most Controversial Prison
David Leigh, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke - The Guardian,
2 May 2011
• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held
• 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release
• Interactive guide to all 779 detainees
Civil Society Stand In Solidarity with African Negotiators: “Developed Countries, Put Up or Shut Up”
Third World Network Africa – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2011
At a press conference hosted by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), a network of over 300 organisations from over 45 countries, civil society leaders stood in solidarity with African negotiators. These negotiators were continuing to fight against the EU’s refusal to sign up to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and against the United State’s blocking tactics over the adoption of a comprehensive work plan for the negotiations for 2011.
→ read full articleWhat Future for the Goldstone Report? Beyond the Name
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2011
Only half satirically, I would think that the Goldstone Report might be time to rename the Goldstone Report as the Chinkin Report or blandly let it be henceforth be known as the ‘Report on Israeli and Hamas War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity during Operation Cast Lead.’ Whatever the name, the main allegations have been confirmed over and over again, and it is now up to the governments making up the UN General Assembly and Security Council to show the world whether international criminal accountability and the International Criminal Court is exclusively reserved for sub-Saharan African wrongdoing!
→ read full articleIsrael and Palestine Don’t Need More Friends – But the Peace Process Does
Jonathan Freedland – The Guardian,
25 Apr 2011
Roleplaying PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat made me see how easily one slips from problem-solving to point-scoring.
→ read full articleSleepwalking into the Imperial Dark
Tom Engelhardt – TomDispatch,
25 Apr 2011
But then, how often do empires end well, really? They live vampirically by feeding off others until, sooner or later, they begin to feed on themselves, to suck their own blood, to hollow themselves out. Sooner or later, they find themselves, as in our case, economically stressed and militarily extended in wars they can’t afford to win or lose.
→ read full articleActivists Occupy Oil Rig in Fight to Prevent Arctic Drilling
John Vidal in Sarkoy, Turkey – The Guardian,
25 Apr 2011
The fight to stop the global oil industry exploring the pristine deep waters of the Arctic has been dubbed the new cold war, and early on Friday [22 Apr 2011] it escalated as environmental activists from 12 countries occupied the world’s second largest rig on its way from Turkey to Greenland to drill among the icebergs.
→ read full articleUK: The Endgames of Our Empire Never Quite Finished – Just Look At Bahrain
Madeleine Bunting – The Guardian,
25 Apr 2011
It has all the ingredients of a John le Carré novel. For decades there are allegations of terrible abuse during the Mau Mau rebellion; historians are baffled by missing documentation. A court case finally prompts the Foreign Office to discover hundreds of boxes of previously hidden papers stored in a house, Hanslope Park, in Buckinghamshire. They reveal not just the brutality – which historians had already unearthed – but official recognition of the illegal violence and dogged determination to cover it up.
→ read full articleClimategate: What Really Happened?
Kate Sheppard – Mother Jones,
25 Apr 2011
How climate science became the target of “the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known.”
→ read full article