Articles by RT

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(Português) O Sonho de Uma Civilização Realmente Planetária
Leonardo Boff – Carta Maior, 29 Apr 2013

Desamparo atual em parte provém de nossa incapacidade de sonhar e de projetar utopias. Não qualquer utopia. Mas aquelas necessárias que podem se transformar em topias, quer dizer, em algo que se realiza nas condições de nossa história.

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Newly Released Tim DeChristopher Finds a Movement Transformed by His Courage
Melanie Jae Martin – YES! Magazine, 29 Apr 2013

Tim DeChristopher, who was released from federal custody yesterday [21 Apr 2013], is best known as the man who disrupted an auction of pristine public lands. This Earth Day, we thank Tim DeChristopher for steering our movement toward the path of courage. With countless lives on the line, it’s the path we need to take.

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Deadly Sins in the Brazilian Amazon
Bianca Jagger - Reader Supported News, 22 Apr 2013

The trampling of indigenous rights, military force used against protesters, impunity, megadams and environmental destruction. The controversial Belo Monte Dam, which is under construction on the Xingu River, is roughly twenty percent completed. It will displace over 20,000 people, gravely endanger the survival of indigenous peoples and local communities and cause irreparable environmental damage to the Brazilian Amazon.

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Tales of Reagan’s Guatemala Genocide
Robert Parry – Consortium News, 22 Apr 2013

Guatemala is finally putting ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt on trial for genocide in the extermination of hundreds of Mayan villages in the 1980s, but Ronald Reagan remains an American icon despite new evidence of his complicity in this historic crime.

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Would You Believe That the United States Tried To Do Something That Was Not Nice Against Hugo Chávez?
William Blum, The Anti-Empire Report – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Apr 2013

WikiLeaks has done it again. I guess the US will really have to get tough now with Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. In a secret US cable to the State Department, dated November 9, 2006, and recently published online by WikiLeaks, former US ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, outlines a comprehensive plan to destabilize the government of the late President Hugo Chávez. The cable begins with a Summary:

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(Français) Mali : Résolument Contre l’Intervention Française
Paul Martial – Forum des Alternatives, 15 Apr 2013

On ne peut pas être contre l’ingérence française au Mali, et plus généralement en Afrique, et être en même temps pour l’intervention militaire française.

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Anarchism, Socialism & Libertarianism: Alternatives for Peace
Abby Martin, Breaking the Set – Russia Today, 15 Apr 2013

Abby Martin highlights the disproportionate nature of the American political and media establishments, and moderates a debate between three people who represent the voices of US growing political alternatives: Anarchism, Socialism & Libertarianism.

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Radiating Remnants: Nuclear Waste Barrels Litter English Channel
Nicola Kuhrt – Der Spiegel, 15 Apr 2013

Some 28,500 containers of radioactive waste were dropped into the English Channel between 1950 and 1963. Experts have assumed that the containers had long since rusted open, spreading the radioactivity throughout the ocean and thus rendering it innocuous. But a new investigative report from the joint French-German public broadcaster ARTE has concluded that the waste is still intact at the bottom of the sea.

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Paranoia Sells
William Boardman - Reader Supported News, 8 Apr 2013

North Korean “Threats” to World Peace Can Sell Military Hardware – Which is the more paranoid statement?
1. AMERICAN MEDIA: “North Korea is threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons.”
or:
2. NORTH KOREAN MEDIA: “The United States is threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons.”

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Cyprus: Do You Understand What Has Really Happened?
Roberto Savio - Human Wrongs Watch, 8 Apr 2013

The story of Cyprus story is an excellent example of how inadequate media coverage has now become. Very few will have understood what has really happened, and what its implications are. Following events, without any background or placing them in their contexts, is one of the main reasons for the decline of media as windows on the world, and for having informed and therefore active citizens.

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(Português) A Troika Afunda o Chipre e Ameaça a Europa
Alejandro Inurrieta – Cuarto Poder, 8 Apr 2013

A batalha entre credores, representada fundamentalmente pela Alemanha, e devedores se travou de forma cruenta durante estas longas jornadas, sabendo que a mensagem para o resto de países devedores é clara: a dívida vai ser paga integramente, ainda que na tentativa se possa chegar a destruir boa parte do tecido social e produtivo da UE.

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A Bradley Manning Panel Discussion with MP Birgitta Jonsdottir
Bradley Manning Support Network – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Apr 2013

Friday 5 April, 2013 New York – Video of the discussion panel held with Birgitta Jonsdottir, Kevin Gosztola (of FireDogLake), Alexa O’Brien (independent journalist long covering the Bradley Manning trial), Peter Hart (FAIR media critic). The discussion is moderated by Sam Seder.

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When George Bush Invaded Iraq, Life Imitated Art
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 8 Apr 2013

Born-again Christians often don’t realise their ‘God-given’ right to invade Iraq destroyed one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East.

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Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar | Interview with Independent Journalist Assed Baig
Abby Martin, Breaking the Set – Russia Today, 8 Apr 2013

The ongoing genocidal crisis of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The UN has coined the Rohingyas one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

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The Washington Post’s Unbridled Arrogance
Robert Parry – Consortium News, 1 Apr 2013

Perhaps more than any news organization, the Washington Post steered the United States into the illegal invasion of Iraq. But a Post editorial, which belatedly takes note of the war’s tenth anniversary, admits to no mistakes and acknowledges no lessons learned.

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(Castellano) El Bien Común de la Humanidad: Un Paradigma Post-Capitalista Frente a la Ruptura del Equilibrio del Metabolismo Entre la Naturaleza y el Genero Humano
François Houtart – Forum Mundial de Alternativas, 1 Apr 2013

La reconstrucción del equilibrio del metabolismo entre la naturaleza y los seres humanos por un cambio de paradigma y las transiciones El problema de la ruptura del metabolismo socio-ambiental es el resultado de una lógica más amplia que abarca el modo de acumulación y el predominio del valor de cambio, la organización colectiva al servicio de la reproducción del capital y la visión del mundo orientada por un progreso lineal en un planeta inagotable al servicio de una minoría.

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Iceland Offers Hard Lessons for Cyprus on Capital Controls
Alistair Scrutton and Robert Robertsson, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Apr 2013

For Iceland, there was a sense of deja vu when Cyprus’s finance minister said capital controls would probably last “a matter of weeks”. Five years after a banking meltdown, the north Atlantic island has just extended its own controls indefinitely… Cyprus, by contrast, cannot devalue because it is a member of the euro zone.

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World Focus: The Eyes of the World Are Trained on Israel – But Will There Be Anything to See?
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 25 Mar 2013

The winner of the Nobel Prize for Public Speech-making will be at least a super-tourist – with 10,000 armed Israeli and American tour guides in Jerusalem alone. Now that, Mr President, is the wall. No, not That Wall, we’re talking about the Ottoman palisade on each side of the city’s Damascus Gate.

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From Detroit to Cyprus, Banksters in Search of Prey
Glen Ford – Black Agenda Report, 25 Mar 2013

From Nicosia to Detroit the global financial octopus is squeezing the life out of society, stripping away public and individual assets in a vain attempt to fend off its own, inevitable collapse. The bankers “troika” that effectively rules Europe prepares to reach into the individual accounts of ordinary depositors on the island nation of Cyprus to fund the bailout of their local banking brethren.

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China Replaces Britain in World’s Top Five Arms Exporters – Report
Michael Martina, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Mar 2013

China has become the world’s fifth-largest arms exporter, a respected Sweden-based think-tank said on Monday [18 Mar 2013], its highest ranking since the Cold War, with Pakistan the main recipient.

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Iraq after Ten Years
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Mar 2013

March 19, 2013. Ten years ago today the Bush regime invaded Iraq. It is known that the justification for the invasion was a packet of lies orchestrated by the neoconservative Bush regime in order to deceive the United Nations and the American people.

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Powers Seek Influence in Burma’s Conflict
Bertil Lintner, YaleGlobal – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Mar 2013

Burmese government battles insurgents as China and the US scramble for influence. In Burma, there’s rivalry among peace organizations, often with lack of understanding of the conflicts’ root causes.

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AP: Chavez Wasted His Money on Healthcare When He Could Have Built Gigantic Skyscrapers
Jim Naureckas – Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting-FAIR, 25 Mar 2013

One of the more bizarre takes on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s death comes from Associated Press business reporter Pamela Sampson (3/5/13): Chavez squandered his nation’s oil money on healthcare, education and nutrition when he could have been building the world’s tallest building or his own branch of the Louvre. What kind of monster has priorities like that?

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NATO Proxies Using WMD’s in Syria – Dozens Dead
Tony Cartalluci, Land Destroyer Report – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Mar 2013

It is outrageous hypocrisy to see the West arming, funding, and politically backing terrorists in Syria who in fact both possess, and are now using such weapons against the Syrian people.

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The Cost of War Must Be Measured by Human Tragedy, Not Artefacts
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 18 Mar 2013

What does heritage matter in the face of such tragic desolation? What is a child’s life worth against all the antiquities of Syria?

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Media Fakes War Propaganda | Weapons of Mass Distraction
Abby Martin, Breaking the Set – Russia Today, 18 Mar 2013

A look at MSNBC’s recent documentary about the lies leading up the Iraq war, and the closer look at the corporate media’s complicity in selling war to the American people by highlighting multiple staged events.

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Hugo Chavez
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Mar 2013

On March 5, 2013, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and world leader against imperialism, died. Washington imperialists and their media and think tank whores expressed gleeful sighs of relief as did the brainwashed US population. An “enemy of America” was gone. Chavez was not an enemy of America. He was an enemy of Washington’s hegemony over other countries, an enemy of Washington’s alliance with elite ruling cliques who steal from the people they grind down and deny sustenance.

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A Huge Hunger Strike at Guantánamo
Andy Worthington – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Mar 2013

When is a hunger strike not a hunger strike? Apparently, when the government says it doesn’t exist. Despair is entirely appropriate at Guantánamo for the 166 men still held, because, although 86 of them were cleared for release at least three years ago and some were cleared for release under President Bush, between 2004 and 2007, they are still held because of Congressional obstruction.

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John Kerry wants the Gulf to support the Syrian rebels. But which rebels? The soft, safe ones? Or those horrible, ‘terrorist’ Islamists?
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 11 Mar 2013

John Kerry has had a miserable time of it in the Gulf. He has to love them all – the kings and princes and emirs – and he needs their support against Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Because, of course, they are sending cash and weapons to the rebels. But which rebels? The soft, secular safe guys of the Free Syrian Army or the horrible ‘terrorist’ Islamists who are also fighting Assad and who, give and take a few thousands square yards, have just captured the Syrian provincial capital of Raqa?

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The Green Light for Zionism’s Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Mar 2013

On this 65th anniversary of the authorization of the ethnic cleaning of Palestine [10 Mar 2013], the questions I would like to see put to our leaders today, President Obama in particular, are the following: Are you aware of Plan Dalet? If not, why not? If you are aware of it, could it not said be said that your refusal to call and hold Zionism to account for its crimes makes you (and your predecessors) complicit in those crimes by default?

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How the Media Sanitize Honduras’s Brutal Regime
Keane Bhatt – North American Congress on Latin America-NACLA, 11 Mar 2013

On the evening of Saturday, September 22 [2012], human rights lawyer Antonio Trejo stepped outside a wedding ceremony to take a phone call. Standing in the church parking lot he was shot six times by unknown assailants. In this insulated world, Honduran victims of economic hardship and state terror remain invisible. Pinochet, the original administrator of shock therapy, distilled the insouciance of today’s intellectual and media culture when, in 1979, he remarked, “I trust the people all right; but they’re not yet ready.”

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(Português) Libor: A Gigantesca Transferência de Fundos da Sociedade a Bancos
Marcelo Justo – Carta Maior, 11 Mar 2013

Para o economista grego Costas Lapavitsas, da Universidade de Londres, autor de “Crisis in the Eurozone” (Crise na zona do euro), o escândalo da manipulação da taxa Libor envolve uma gigantesca transferência de fundos em nível mundial da sociedade para os bancos.

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(Português) Franz Kafka e a Segunda-feira
Flávio Ricardo Vassoler – Carta Maior, 4 Mar 2013

Ao contrário do que dizem os apologistas do fim da História, a luta de classes não se calou. No entanto, diante da assepsia publicitária por que passam os discursos contestatórios, a lógica poética de Kafka nos leva a pensar a contrapelo de nós mesmos: se o movimento da contradição histórica não for estancado e reconfigurado, continuaremos a figurar como coadjuvantes da cadeia alimentar que nos coage à frieza, à brutalidade e ao cinismo do entrechoque entre gato e rato, de modo que a “Pequena Fábula” possa receber um título mais adequado aos tempos atuais: “segunda-feira”.

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Israel-Palestine: THE Question
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Mar 2013

THE question arising is this: Why are most Jews unable and/or unwilling to acknowledge the wrong done to the Palestinians? My Gentile answer begins with a short, one-sentence statement that begs another question. Most Jews do not want to know about Zionism’s crimes. The question is – why don’t they want to know?

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(Português) A Rara Coragem de Bradley Manning
Marjorie Cohn, CounterCurrents – Carta Maior, 4 Mar 2013

As ações de Bradley Manning fazem lembrar o que fez Daniel Ellsberg, que divulgou os “Papéis do Pentágono”, no qual se expunham as mentiras do governo dos EUA e que apressaram o fim da Guerra do Vietname.

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Transcend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University, 4 Mar 2013

All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th

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Alawite History Reveals the Complexities of Syria That West Does Not Understand
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 4 Mar 2013

Never once has a Western newspaper shown a map of Bradford with Muslim and non-Muslim areas marked off, or a map of Washington divided into black and white people. No, that would suggest that our Western civilisation could be divvied up between tribes or races. Only the Arab world merits our ethnic distinctions. The problem, of course, is that Syria – as secular and assimilated as any Arab nation before its current tragedy – doesn’t lend itself to this neat distribution of religious minorities.

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Manning Plea Statement: Americans Had a Right to Know ‘True Cost of War’
Ed Pilkington at Fort Meade, Maryland – The Guardian, 4 Mar 2013

After admitting guilt in 10 of 22 charges, soldier reveals how he came to share classified documents with WikiLeaks and talks of ‘bloodlust’ of US helicopter crew. The soldier related that in the video a man who has been hit by the US forces is seen crawling injured through the dust, at which point one of the helicopter crew is heard wishing the man would pick up a weapon so that they could kill him. “For me that was like a child torturing an ant with a magnifying glass.”

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‘Pervasive’ Fraud by Our ‘Most Reputable’ Banks
Bill Black - Reader Supported News, 4 Mar 2013

The key conclusion of the study is that control fraud was “pervasive.” Finance scholars are not known for their sense of humor, but the irony of calling the world’s largest and most harmful financial control frauds our “most reputable” banks is quite wondrous. The point the financial scholars make is one Edwin Sutherland emphasized from the beginning when he announced the concept of “white-collar” crime.

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War on Terror Is the West’s New Religion
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 25 Feb 2013

But All the Crusading and Invading Simply Plays into Al-Qa’ida’s Hands – Just Ask the French

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Man-Made Chemicals Cited in Health Scourges: UN Report
Robert Evans, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Feb 2013

Man-made chemicals in everyday products are likely to be at least the partial cause of a global surge in birth deformities, hormonal cancers and psychiatric diseases, a U.N.-sponsored research team reported on Tuesday [19 Feb 2013].

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Transcend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University, 25 Feb 2013

All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th

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‘We Grow, They Bulldoze, We Re-Plant’
Eva Bartlett – Inter Press Service-IPS, 18 Feb 2013

“The Israeli army destroyed my house and my five dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square metres), as well as 20 other homes,” he says. With signs reading ‘Boycott Israeli Agricultural Products’ and ‘Support Palestinian Farmers’, Mandil and others protesting Israeli oppression of Palestinian farmers joined together Saturday [9 Feb 2013] to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce.

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(Português) Historiador Conecta Desinteresse dos EUA pela América Latina a Avanços da Região
Martín Granovsky – Carta Maior, 18 Feb 2013

O historiador Erick Langer, diretor do Centro de Estudos Latino-americanos da Universidade de Georgetown, em Washington, fala nesta entrevista sobre vários temas da história continental, como o populismo, a ascensão e as crises do neoliberalismo, as conexões das terras baixas com os Andes e a influência da China e dos EUA.

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[Tragicomic] Pentagon Urges Delay in “Devastating” $46 Billion Budget Cuts
David Alexander and Phil Stewart, Reuters – Chicago Tribune, 18 Feb 2013

The Pentagon’s civilian and military leaders warned in dire terms on Tuesday [12 Feb 2013] that $46 billion in budget cuts due to go into effect in two weeks would erode the nation’s ability to go to war and appealed to Congress to delay the reductions.

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Hypocrisy: US Arms Al Qaeda in Syria, Mass-Slaughters Civilians in Afghanistan
Tony Cartalucci – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Feb 2013

In other words, the very underwriters of the armed militancy that is consuming Syria are sitting along side the head of the UN commission producing reports portraying the Syrian government as guilty of “war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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Syria – It Is Illegal to Back Rebels Fighting a Legitimate Government
Dr. Curtis Doebbler, international lawyer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Feb 2013

Several countries, mostly from the Arab League (dominated by the Gulf kingdoms) and the West, have recognized the coalition of Syrian opposition militias that was born in Doha (Qatar), under the auspices of the Western and Gulf countries. We asked international lawyer Curtis Doebbler, a peace and human rights activist, whether it could be legal to provide weapons to the this armed opposition as France asks the EU. Here is his answer.

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Transcend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University, 18 Feb 2013

All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th

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(Português) Os BRICS de Olho na África
Antonio Martins, Outras Palavras – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Feb 2013

Quinto encontro dos grandes emergentes debaterá criação de um banco de desenvolvimento comum, voltado para continente. Cooperação ou novo imperialismo?

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(Português) 54 Países, Tortura & CIA Ilimitada
Flávio Aguiar – Carta Maior, 11 Feb 2013

Relatório da Open Society Foundations traz 216 páginas em que se reúnem casos de 136 “cidadãos do mundo” sequestrados a mando da CIA, em diferentes países, levados para diferentes países, neles eventualmente torturados, alguns terminando a trajetória na infame Guantánamo. Para isso, 54 governos colaboraram com a CIA e os EUA.

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Transcend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University, 11 Feb 2013

All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th

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Resource Nationalism: Beyond Ideology
Hal Weitzman – Americas Quarterly, 11 Feb 2013

The hemisphere revives an old policy standby. Latin America’s political Left has displayed symptoms of bipolarity for much of the past decade. One Left had “truly socialist and progressive roots” that was “following pragmatic, sensible and realistic paths.” The other stemmed from “a populist, purely nationalist past” that had “proven much less responsive to modernizing influences.”

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High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program-HAARP: Weapon of Mass Destruction
Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., GNSH – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Feb 2013

One of the ways in which HAARP is thought to work is similar to firing a cap gun in an avalanche area. The snow is built up, ready to collapse and even the slightest disturbance causes an avalanche. That’s one way that HAARP works. In key areas where seismic pressures are ready to shift, HAARP bombards the already sensitive area with an incredible amount of energy in the form of a beam that reflects off the ionosphere. The earth’s tectonic plates vibrate and an earthquake results.

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It Has Happened Here
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Feb 2013

Whether a person believes the official story of 9/11 which rests on unproven government assertions or believes the documented evidence provided by a large number of scientists, first responders, and structural engineers and architects, the result is the same. 9/11 was used to create an open-ended “war on terror” and a police state. It is extraordinary that so many Americans believe that “it can’t happen here” when it already has.

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2013 World Press Freedom Index: Dashed Hopes after ‘Springs’
Reporters Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Feb 2013

The ranking of most countries is no longer attributable to dramatic political developments. This year’s index is a better reflection of the attitudes and intentions of governments towards media freedom in the medium or long term. (See full list of countries in the end)

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Criminals Use Webcams for Spying
Rossen Reports, NBC – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Feb 2013

Authorities are saying criminals can now hack into your webcam remotely, using it to watch your most intimate moments without you ever knowing it.

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Anti-Semitism: What It IS and Is NOT
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Feb 2013

“An anti-Semite used to be a person who disliked Jews. Now it is a person who Jews dislike.” Today much (meaning not quite all) of what supporters of Israel right or wrong claim to be anti-Semitism is actually anti-Israelism, which in my view is best described as anti-Zionism. And contrary to the assertions of Zionism’s spin doctors, anti-Zionism is not by definition anti-Semitism. Short or long, any discussion of anti-Semitism should include the fact that Zionism needs it.

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Repression, Resistance, and Indigenous Rights in Guatemala
Anita Isaacs and Rachel Schwartz – Americas Quarterly, 4 Feb 2013

Can centuries of exploitation be reversed?

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It’s Good to Be a Goldman
Robert Scheer - Truthdig, 4 Feb 2013

Here’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, and while we’re at it, take this obscenely huge bonus for having wrecked the economy.

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The Geopolitics of the Modern Resource Boom
Bernice Lee – Americas Quarterly, 4 Feb 2013

Intensified resource stress, driven in part by the booming demand from emerging economies and a decade of tight commodity markets, is reshaping the global economy. Whether the resources are actually diminishing is a matter of debate, but one thing is clear: the resources sector is increasingly characterized by supply disruptions, volatile prices and rising political tensions over access. In many places, myopic government policies have exacerbated the challenges.

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From Algeria, a Lesson in How to Bypass Democracy
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 28 Jan 2013

Our Middle East Correspondent on the Bouteflika regime, Pentagon folly, the many faces of Assad, and precious lessons from an old handbook in his Beirut briefcase.

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Torture Is Trivial
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera, 28 Jan 2013

The focus on torture in “Zero Dark Thirty” ignores more significant US policies of dubious legality. When I look at the decade since 9/11, torture is hardly the greatest crime of the US war machine. Since 9/11, the United States has helped destroy two countries with, at best, sketchy moral and legal justification.

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Why Is Guantanamo Still Open?
William Boardman - Reader Supported News, 28 Jan 2013

Official US policy pretty much still supports everything that was done and continues to be done at Guantanamo.

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Secrecy and National Security Whistleblowing
Daniel Ellsberg - Reader Supported News, 21 Jan 2013

The mystique of secrecy in the universe of national security…is a compelling deterrent to whistleblowing and thus to effective resistance to gravely wrongful or dangerous policies.

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Different Rules for Plutocrats
Carl Gibson - Reader Supported News, 21 Jan 2013

26-year-old Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz faced up to 35 years in federal prison for the ‘crime’ of downloading academic files from the JSTOR database for anyone to have, free of charge. Contrast that with recent news of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who gambled and lost $6 billion in other people’s money in a high-risk trading scheme. Jail wasn’t even considered, despite their open complicity in bilking millions of people out of their money, and aiding criminals.

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Algeria, Mali, and Why This Week Has Looked Like an Obscene Remake of Earlier Western Interventions
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 21 Jan 2013

We are outraged not by the massacre of the innocents, but because the hostages killed were largely white, blue-eyed chaps rather than darker, brown-eyed chaps. Odd, isn’t it, how our “collateral damage” is different from their “collateral damage”.

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By Design: French Mali Invasion Spills into Algeria
Tony Cartalucci – Global Research, 21 Jan 2013

Al Qaeda is both a casus belli and mercenary force, deployed by the West against targeted nations. French operations seek to trigger armed conflict in Algeria as well as a possible Western military intervention there as well, with the Mali conflict serving as a pretense.

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The Master as “Guest”: The U.S. Military Swarms over Africa
Glen Ford – Black Agenda Report, 14 Jan 2013

A long-planned U.S. escalation of its military presence in Africa will soon get underway, with the permanent deployment of a 3,500-strong brigade. The heavy combat team will make itself at home in African bases in 35 countries. “This is a very different kind of invasion – more like an infiltration-in-force.”

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Oil and War
Robert Newman, Brasscheck TV – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Jan 2013

Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years – but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion.

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A Feel-Good Movie about Fracking?
Fran Korten – YES! Magazine, 14 Jan 2013

Chris Moore, who co-produced “Good Will Hunting,” has a new film starring Matt Damon as a corporate salesman trying to open up a small town to fracking. Moore’s take on the ideas behind the film.

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Could Saudi Arabia Be Next?
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 7 Jan 2013

Nobody can predict which way the ‘Arab Awakening’ will turn this year. But Robert Fisk has ventured a very tentative punt or two…

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How The New York Times Erases Israel’s Crimes
Robert Ross, The Electronic Intifada – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Jan 2013

The New York Times keeps the American public in the dark about the true nature of Israel’s occupation. According to The New York Times, there is no siege of Gaza, no occupation of the West Bank, and never was there a Nakba (the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine). Three recent articles erase these key Israeli crimes from the historical record.

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How Anonymous Got Political
Quinn Norton – New Internationalist Magazine, 31 Dec 2012

A look behind the mask of the hacker network, charting its evolution into a global activist force. Anonymous’ swagger grew with outrageous hacks of companies, governments, and law enforcement. ‘Anonymous was born out of a need to exact retribution,’ said a Chanology anon. ‘Scientology tried to fuck with our internet, attempting to shut down the Cruise video. It was punished, hard, and continues to be punished nearly four years later.’

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The P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2012
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting-FAIR – TRANSCEND Media Service, 31 Dec 2012

Recalling Some of the Stinkiest Media Moments of the Year [2012]

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China Is Opening a Confrontation on the Sea
Roberto Savio – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Dec 2012

The victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the recent Japanese elections, with LDP leader Shinzō Abe coming back as Prime Minister after five years, will probably mean an escalation of tension with China. Both countries are embarking on a fresh burst of nationalism, but for different reasons.

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The Shameful Exploitation of Bradley Manning
Robert Scheer - Truthdig, 17 Dec 2012

The major news outlets that were thrilled to profit from the information that Bradley Manning uncovered are deeply afraid of being associated with the brave whistle-blower himself. Keep an American soldier locked up naked in a cage and driven half mad while deprived of all basic rights, and you will be instantly condemned as a barbaric terrorist. Unless the jailer is an authorized agent of the U.S. government, in which case even treatment approaching torture will go largely unnoticed.

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US Admits Hundreds of Afghan Teens Detained
Peter James Spielmann - Reader Supported News, 17 Dec 2012

The U.S. military has detained more than 200 Afghan teenagers who were captured in the war for about a year at a time at a military prison next to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, the United States has told the United Nations.

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All We Can Do
Morton Marcus – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Dec 2012

All we can do on this earth is step into the future
with a sense of the many people behind us,
the living and the dead, as if we carried our bodies…

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Facebook’s Privacy Vote: What the Email Actually Means
Rob Waugh, Yahoo! News – Reader Supported News, 10 Dec 2012

Facebook has sent all its users an email this week about a vote on its proposed changes to Data Use Policy – the site’s term for its privacy policy. The dry, quietly worded email is more significant than it sounds.

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Bradley Manning and Our Decade of Denial
Seamus McKiernan - Reader Supported News, 10 Dec 2012

Manning has been in the dark for more than 900 days — with most of that time spent in solitary confinement. The extreme conditions of Manning’s detention have been widely reported. A Navy psychiatrist who treated Manning testified that his medical recommendations were consistently ignored by commanders. A UN investigation last spring described Manning’s conditions as “cruel” and “inhuman.” But the first rule about denial is that no one talks about denial.

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Bradley Manning: A Window into the American Soul
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Dec 2012

The three branches of our government have united to destroy US civil liberties in the name of a hoax, “the war on terror.” The window into America’s political soul reveals total evil. The US government constitutes Satan’s Chosen People. Nothing else can be said for those who rule and oppress us.

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Methods of Analysis in Social Sciences and Research for Peace – An Introduction
Alberto L’Abate – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Dec 2012

This study deals with its subject in a rather original way if compared with the usual research methodology texts. First of all, it discards the traditional standpoint of research “neutrality”, which according to the author favours the preservation of the “status quo”, since research is increasingly financed by the state, by the army or by important economic entities, which are more concerned in furthering their own power rather than promoting peace.

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Are Israel’s Jews, Some of Them, on Their Way to Becoming Nazis?
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Dec 2012

Some and perhaps many will regard my headline question as offensive but I make no apology for asking it; and I take comfort from the fact that my decision to pose it is fully supported by one of my very dear Jewish friends – Nazi holocaust survivor Dr. Hajo Meyer. He has said in public that Zionism is seeking to dehumanize the Palestinians in the same way the Nazis sought to dehumanize him in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

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(Português) Uri Avnery: Fúria e Humor de um Pacifista Israelense
Robert Fisk, The Independent – Outras Palavras, 3 Dec 2012

Uri Avnery dispara: Netanyahu quer estado judeu do Mediterrâneo ao rio Jordão; mas isso levará a beco sem saída.

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5 Persistent Myths about Bipolar Disorder
Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S., Psych Central – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Dec 2012

Bipolar disorder is a serious and difficult illness that affects all facets of a person’s life: their education, work, relationships, health and finances, said Julie A. Fast, author of several bestselling books on bipolar disorder, including Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder and Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder, and a coach who works with partners and families.

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The Latest War with Hamas Over Gaza Proves Benjamin Netanyahu Is Leading Israel into Isolation
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 3 Dec 2012

Israelis are congratulating themselves on the success of their Iron Dome missile shield. But across Israel these past years has fallen a different kind of iron dome, one that isolates the country rather than protects it, which shields its people from the realities of the Middle East, from Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world.

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(Português) Equador Enfrenta a Ditadura dos Bancos
Ana Maria Passos, Diário Liberdade/Carta Maior – Outras Mídias, 3 Dec 2012

O país se mantém na vanguarda democrática da América Latina: desta vez, com lei que aumenta tributação sobre os bancos e reduz poder do sistema financeiro.

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Uri Avnery, One of Israel’s Great Leftist Warriors, Wants Peace With Hamas and Gaza – But Does the Knesset?
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 26 Nov 2012

Old [TRANSCEND member] Uri Avnery is 89 but he’s still a fighter. In fact, the famed writer is still one of the great old leftist warriors of Israel, still demanding peace with the Palestinians, peace with Hamas and a Palestinian state on the old ’67 borders – give or take a few square miles. He still believes Israel could have peace tomorrow or next week.

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As Israel and Hamas Open the ‘Gates of Hell’ in Gaza, All the Journalistic Clichés of War Are Here Again
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 26 Nov 2012

‘Surgical air strikes’, ‘rooting out terror’, and ‘cyber-terrorism’ cannot conceal reality. Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Here we go again. Israel is going to “root out Palestinian terror” – which it has been claiming to do, unsuccessfully, for 64 years – while Hamas, the latest in “Palestine’s” morbid militias, announces that Israel has “opened the gates of hell” by murdering its military leader, Ahmed al-Jabari.

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Puppet State America
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Nov 2012

The German assault on the Warsaw Ghetto is one of the horror stories of Jewish history. Such an event is happening again, only this time Jews are perpetrators instead of victims. No hand has been raised to stay Israel from the goal of the operation declared by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai to be “to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages.”

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We Are All Israeli’s Now: Its Brutality, Unlike Syria’s, Is Fought in the Name of the West’s War on Terror
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 26 Nov 2012

Who set the precedent when it comes to “collateral damage”? The West did. We Westerners set the precedents in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq – trains, bridges, TV stations, wedding parties, blocks of civilian apartments, you name it – and now the Israelis can trot along behind and produce, whenever necessary, the same tired list of excuses we invented for NATO.

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(Portuguese) Israel Conspira Contra Si Mesmo
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 26 Nov 2012

Robert Fisk alerta: num Oriente Médio transformado, operação militar brutal de Telaviv ameaça, a médio prazo, própria existência do país.

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Latin America’s Middle Class in Global Perspective
Jamele Rigolini – Americas Quarterly, 19 Nov 2012

Different patterns of economic growth in BRIC countries have brought different social changes. Comparing the middle class in Latin America to the new middle classes in the BRIC countries.

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Why BP Isn’t a Criminal
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Nov 2012

BP plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and agreed to pay $4 billion over the next five years. But it defies logic to make BP itself the criminal. Corporations aren’t people. They can’t know right from wrong. They’re incapable of criminal intent. They have no brains. They’re legal fictions — pieces of paper filed away in a vault in some bank.

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Beyond Regulators’ Grasp: How Shadow Banks Rule the World
Martin Hesse and Anne Seith – Der Spiegel, 19 Nov 2012

Beyond the banking world, a parallel universe of shadow banks has grown in the form of hedge funds and money market funds. They’re outside the reach of conventional financial regulation, prompting authorities to plan introducing new rules to prevent the obscure sector from triggering a new financial crisis. But in doing so they risk drying up an important source of funding to banks and firms.

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A ‘Grand Bargain’ or a Grand Uprising?
Carl Gibson - Reader Supported News, 19 Nov 2012

What will we look like a year from today? Will we be another Greece, under the control of greedier banks and a crueler government, or will we take our economy back from the banks like Iceland did? The choice isn’t up to our politicians- it’s up to us. Let’s get to work.

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(Portuguese) Amizade – Um Poema
Albert Einstein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Nov 2012

Pode ser que um dia deixemos de nos falar…
Mas, enquanto houver amizade,
Faremos as pazes de novo.

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Iran/USA: Who Is Threatening Who? Weapons of Mass Distraction (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Abby Martin – Russia Today, 19 Nov 2012

Iran-US Relations: Reality, History, Causes, Consequences

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Are You Man Enough To Go Vegan?
Victoria Martindale – The Independent, 12 Nov 2012

As we enter World Vegan Month it’s time to reconsider the vegan stereotype. Admittedly, veganism has been given a bad name over the years, it’s very mention conjuring up images of pale hirsute hippies who zip about on their bikes to spread the love. I remember the only vegan on my course (and quite probably in the whole university) turned up at our graduation ball dressed in sackcloth and sandals.

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California: Prop 37 Fails – Why We Can’t Rely on Policy to Change Our Food System
Kristin Wartman and Erika Lade – Huffington Post, 12 Nov 2012

On Tuesday [6 Nov 2012], Californians voted on Proposition 37, which if passed, would have required the mandatory labeling of genetically-modified foods (GMOs). According to public health lawyer Michele Simon, Big Food companies like Monsanto, Coca-Cola, ConAgra, Nestle, and Kraft, which donated funds to “No on 37” engaged in lying, scare tactics, misrepresentation, and various dirty tricks to protect their profits and keep California voters uninformed about their food choices.

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