Articles by RD

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The Houses of Dead and Crooked Souls
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Aug 2021

Obama’s Vineyard mansion stands as an outward sign of his inner disgrace, his soullessness. Trump’s golden towers and his never-ending self-promotion or the multiple million-dollar mansions of high-tech, sports, and Hollywood’s superstars send the same message. Take Bill Gates’ sixty-three-million-dollar mansion, Xanadu, named after William Randolph Hearst’s estate in Citizen Kane, that took seven years to build.

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What the West Must Learn from China
Marshall Auerback | UnHerd - TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Aug 2021

10 Aug 2021 – The Chinese government has made an existential choice: rather than surviving by betting on the markets, it is going to produce stuff instead. Unlike America’s Federal Reserve, whose increasing tolerance and support of financial bubbles continues to engender profound systemic fragility in the American economy, Beijing is prioritising social cohesion above the narrow interests of financial rentiers.

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(Français) Pour Trouver la Paix au Mali, Il Faudra Ecouter
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Aug 2021

La gouvernance démocratique ne signifie pas voter: elle signifie une vraie participation du peuple, donc la consultation et l’écoute. Injurier et crier n’avane personne et rien. Ecouter permet de comprendre. Voici deux livres qui vont aider les Maliens à s’écouter.

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Demonizing Durban
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Aug 2021

The Durban Conference was a forum at which Israel, colonialism, the legacy of slavery, and victimization of vulnerable ethnicities would be depicted and condemned. It is no longer plausible to contend that associating Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people as antisemitic. As a Jew myself, I regard Israeli justifications for its behavior toward Palestine as the embodiment of antisemitic behavior, bringing discredit to the Jewish people.

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Corporate Courts vs. the Environment
Nick Dearden | Al Jazeera - TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Aug 2021

2 Aug 2021 – Corporate courts were invented to protect the West’s control of the world against decolonisation. They are now undermining attempts to halt climate change. Italy expects to be ordered to hand millions of dollars over to an oil exploration corporation, following the Italian government’s decision to ban such exploration off its coast.

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Apophenia
Edward Snowden | Substack - TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Aug 2021

5 Aug 2021 – How the Internet Transforms the Individual into a Conspiracy of One – The easier it becomes to produce information, the harder that information becomes to consume — and the harder we have to work to separate the spurious from the significant.

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“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it.”
Henry Ford – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Aug 2021

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of industrial mass production.

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Here Is Why We Are Boycotting the UN Food Systems Summit
Elizabeth Mpofu and Edgardo Garcia | Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Aug 2021

25 Jul 2021 – In September this year, the United Nations will host a Global Food Systems Summit in New York. Social movements and scientists are staying out because it represents big agribusiness interests.

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The Insecurity Industry
Edward Snowden | Substack - TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Aug 2021

26 Jul 2021 – The greatest danger to national security has become the companies that claim to protect it. The first thing I do when I get a new phone is take it apart simply because it is unsafe to operate. Surgically removing the two or three tiny microphones hidden inside is only the first step of an arduous process.

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Bolsonaro’s 1,000Km Amazon Railway Will Cause Climate Chaos–It Must Be Stopped
David Miranda | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Aug 2021

28 Jul 2021 – Jair Bolsonaro is determined to expand his exploitation of Brazil’s natural resources. His latest project, one of the most destructive yet, would rapidly deforest large areas of the Amazon, which would wreak havoc on the planet.

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Edward Snowden on Spyware: ‘This Is an Industry That Should Not Exist’ (videos)
The Guardian – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jul 2021

19 Jul 2021 – The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden reacts to the Pegasus project disclosures. Plus: Pegasus spyware is capable of bypassing your phone’s security and gaining complete access to your device: emails, messages, GPS location, photos, video, microphone. Widespread abuse of the Pegasus technology by government clients around the world. People who were selected as possible targets include journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders.

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Evo Morales Denounces New U.S.-led Operation Condor
Nan McCurdy and Nora McCurdy | CovertAction Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jul 2021

19 Jul 2021 – Operation Condor was a U.S.-directed secret intelligence program in the 1970s-’80s in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay, which resulted in the torture and “disappearance” of thousands of people. Plan follows precedent of state-sponsored assassination campaign targeting leftists.

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Syrian Civilians Attacked by Terrorists Using US-NATO Weapons
Vanessa Beeley | OffGuardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jul 2021

23 Jul 2021 – Vanessa Beeley in Idlib – Children are being killed, homes are being shelled, and fields scorched, often by Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists armed with US-made weapons or by Turkish artillery. Where’s the outcry in the West against these war crimes?

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Disrupting Hate in Education
Emilee Rauschenberger and Katherine Crawford-Garrett | Teachers College Record – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jul 2021

To effectively interrupt dominant narratives of hate, one must first understand them. This is a central theme of Rita Verma and Michael Apple’s co-edited volume, Disrupting Hate in Education: Teacher Activists, Democracy, and Global Pedagogies of Interruption. Featuring ten empirical chapters—four focused on the U.S. and six set in countries across the globe—the book is a timely text firmly situated in the current political moment.

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Answering Readers’ Questions
Edward Snowden | Substack - TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jul 2021

19 Jul 2021 – …How do we sort True conspiracies from False?

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Contributions to Methods for Structural Transformation
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

There may be people who believe that the problem of mass unemployment has become a non-problem solved by the Biden Administration. I doubt that any of them read TMS. I also trust that detailed explanations of phrases like “structural transformation” are as unnecessary as they are impossible here. Everyone knows about structural violence. And the reader will tolerate having to rely on context when she or he is not familiar with unusual kinds of structure-talk that I find indispensable.

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Peace by Piece: Harnessing Peace, Conflict and Dialogue
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

Peace by Piece: Harnessing Peace, Conflict and Dialogue, by Uduak-Abasi Akpabio, Amazon, Jun 2021 – Making peace is tough in a world where vast sums of money fuel the makers and users of weapons. Violence enriches the suppliers of ammunition. Arms and automobile manufacturers, petroleum corporations and security companies all get rich from war. Other people’s misery and deaths make weapon corporations rich.

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Amazon Rainforest Now Emitting More CO2 than It Absorbs
Damian Carrington | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

14 Jul 2021 – Cutting emissions more urgent than ever as Amazon rainforest is emitting more than a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, more than it is able to absorb, scientists have confirmed for the first time.

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The Turkish Coup Attempt: Five Years Later
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

16 Jul 2021 – A modified text of my responses to interview questions of Murat Sofuoglu, a Turkish journalist associated with TRT World.

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Drinking Coffee in the Early Morning Rain and Thinking of Donald Rumsfeld
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

17 Jul 2021 – I think of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on his recent deathbed. Here was a man whose entire life was dedicated to the American Empire. He spent all his allotted time making war or making money from the spoils of war. He was a desert maker, a slaughterer for the Empire. No doubt he died very rich in gold.

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What Happens at Sun Valley, the Secret Gathering of Unelected Billionaire Kings?
Hamilton Nolan | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

12 Jul 2021 – We are developing a private class of billionaire kings whose will is omnipotent and untouchable by any democratic force.

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Revealed: Leak Uncovers Global Abuse of Israeli Cyber-Surveillance Weapon
Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Paul Lewis, David Pegg and Sam Cutler | The Guardian – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

18 Jul 2021 – Human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world have been targeted by governments using hacking software sold by the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group, according to an investigation into a massive data leak.

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Frantz Fanon (20 Jul 1925 – 6 Dec 1961)
Jennifer Poulos | Emory Postcolonial Studies and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jul 2021

Born on the island of Martinique under French colonial rule, Frantz Omar Fanon was one of the most important writers in black Atlantic theory in an age of anti-colonial liberation struggle. His work drew on a wide array of poetry, psychology, philosophy, and political theory, and its influence across the global South has been wide, deep, and enduring.

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Data, Not Arms, the Key Driver in Emerging US-China Cold War
Robert Reich | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jul 2021

10 Jul 2021 – Cybersecurity comes down to which side has access to more information about the other and can utilize it best.

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(Italiano) Teoria critica della razza: osservazioni e lezioni apprese
Richard E. Rubenstein | Centro Studi Sereno Regis - TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jul 2021

Per risolvere il conflitto fra propugnatori e oppositori della Teoria Critica sulla Razza, perciò pare che bisogni procedere in due fasi. La prima immediata e la seconda più a lungo termine. Subito, la teoria dev’essere riformulata in termini comprensibili ai non-accademici chiarendo che il nodo della teoria non è condannare i bianchi per la loro razza o eredità culturale oppure impancarsi a giudizio finale sull’America. Si tratta invece di dimostrare le fonti strutturali delle idee e prassi più benefiche e più distruttive dell’America, e la necessitàdi cambiamenti risoluti in un sistema che genera tali profonde contraddizioni.

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Declaration of the Crime of Apartheid: Israel
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jul 2021

9 Jul 2021 – The Declaration on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid in Historic Palestine below is an initiative endorsed by scholars and artists worldwide. Please distribute widely as there is a campaign underway to reach 1,000 signatures. List of the 773 signatories (last update : 8 Jul 2021)

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First Flight
RD – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jul 2021

I don’t think I’m ready for that.

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Lisbon Court Rules Only 0.9% of ‘Verified Cases’ Died of COVID, Numbering 152, Not 17,000 Claimed
Mordechai Sones | America's Frontline Doctors - TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jul 2021

23 Jun 2021 – Following a citizen’s petition, a Lisbon court was forced to provide verified COVID-19 mortality data. According to the ruling, the number of verified deaths from Jan 2020 to Apr 2021 is only 152, not about 17,000 as claimed by government ministries.

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Illusions of Empire: Amartya Sen on What British Rule Really Did to India
Amartya Sen | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jul 2021

29 Jun 2021 – Sen’s counter-history of the institutionalized elite’s delusion that the British Raj was better than French rule, building liberal institutions for the colonized, etc. As a tyrannical blood-sucking alien ruler, Britain did nothing good for the colonized out of the goodness of its heart. Many of the arguments defending the Raj are based on serious misconceptions about India’s past, imperialism and history itself.

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Approaching Iran: The Flaws of Imperial Diplomacy in the Middle East
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jul 2021

28 Jun 2021 – Biden pledged as a candidate to restore JCPOA, but has so far shown only a limited commitment to rejoin the earlier agreement, and seems to be insisting on a new agreement that is more restrictive of Iran’s nuclear program and its regional political activity. The U.S. Government seems to forget that it was its actions that led to the breakdown of the agreement.

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The Battle over Critical Race Theory Heats Up: Observations and Lessons Learned
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jul 2021

To resolve the conflict between the advocates and opponents of Critical Race Theory, it seems that two steps need to be taken, one immediate and the second more long term.  Immediately, the theory needs to be restated in terms understandable to non-academics that make it clear that the point of the theory is not to condemn white people because of their race or cultural heritage or to sit in final judgment on America.  It is to demonstrate the structural sources of America’s most beneficial and most destructive ideas and practices, and the need for thoroughgoing changes in a system that generates such deep contradictions.

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Who Was Edward Said? Biographically Interpreted and Existentially Recollected
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jul 2021

3 Jul 2021 – This is an edited text from the 30 Jun 2021 book launch of Timothy Brennan’s ‘Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said’ (2021), under the auspices of the Cambridge Centre of Palestinian Studies and moderated by its director, Dr. Makram Khoury-Machool.

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Conspiracy: Theory and Practice
Edward Snowden | Substack - TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jul 2021

29 Jun 2021 – Toward a Taxonomy of Conspiracies – The truest conspiracies meet with the least opposition. Conspiracy practices — the methods by which true conspiracies such as gerrymandering, or the debt industry, or mass surveillance are realized — are almost always overshadowed by conspiracy theories: those malevolent falsehoods that in aggregate can erode civic confidence in the existence of anything certain or verifiable. In my life, I’ve had enough of both the practice and the theory.

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The Most Dangerous Censorship
Edward Snowden | Substack - TRANSCEND Media Service, 28 Jun 2021

22 Jun 2021 – Think about it: if the suppression is happening in your own home, if you’re suppressing your own speech, who will know? And how can you ever call for help?

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Brazil: Bolsonaro Government Has Brought Death to Indigenous People
Leonardo Boff - TRANSCEND Media Service, 28 Jun 2021

28 Jun 2021 – The contempt that the current president shows for indigenous peoples is notorious. He considers them sub-people and in 2018 stated quite clearly: “Our project for the Índios is to make them equal to us”. And said further: “There is not going to be a centimeter demarcated for indigenous reserve or for quilombolas”.

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Culture as Combat: Palestinian Voices
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 28 Jun 2021

Festivals, Museums and Awards – In stirring opening remarks at the international 2021 mega-conference, Palestine Writes, Susan Abulhawa asserts that “… this festival is meant to expand Palestine’s cultural imprint in the world.”

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Geneva Summit: Low Expectations, Modest Results, Glimmers of Hope
Edward Lozansky | The Washington Times - TRANSCEND Media Service, 28 Jun 2021

24 Jun 2021 – U.S. political circles and the media: this summit is a huge mistake because it will allow President Putin to appear as an equal partner of the U.S. president. The Hill’s headline screamed that “Biden loses to Putin at Geneva summit just by showing up.” Hudson Institute portrayed it as “Biden’s gift to Putin” because it will lead to “empowering Russia, undermining the EU, a threat to the NATO alliance.”

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To Save Planet, Solve Twin Crises of Climate Change and Species Loss Together, Say UN Scientists
Reynard Loki | Independent Media Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Jun 2021

16 Jun 2021 – Some climate solutions can actually harm biodiversity. But there are synergistic solutions that can tackle both issues.

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Reconsidering Authority: The Pandemic and the Resurgence of Collectivism
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Jun 2021

Economic democracy and cultural federalism: both are much-needed features of a political system now confronting increasing demands for more effective authority, more active mass participation, and the satisfaction of basic human needs. Defusing socioeconomic taboos makes it possible for people to freely consider what systems of production and consumption suit them best.

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The FBI’s Mafia-Style Justice: To Fight Crime, the FBI Sponsors 15 Crimes a Day
John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Jun 2021

17 Jun 2021 – Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a threat manufactured by our own government. Think about it. Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. Bio-chemical attacks. The nuclear arms race. Surveillance. The drug wars. Domestic extremism. The COVID-19 pandemic.

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Activism for Life: “Wake Up, the World Is Dying!”
Leonard Eiger | Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Jun 2021

Do Something about It! ACTIVISM FOR LIFE is published by Luath Press Ltd., and is available from a number of booksellers. All royalties will go to Trident Ploughshares, a campaign to disarm the UK Trident nuclear weapons system in a nonviolent, open, peaceful and fully accountable manner.

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Confronting the Ruling Elite
Chris Hedge interviews Richard Falk | RT – TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Jun 2021

5 Jun 2021 – Richard Falk joins Chris Hedges for a new episode of “On Contact.” Falk has denounced what he calls “the global legalization of rogue behavior embedded in the UN Charter” which vests a right of veto in the five permanent members of the Security Council, the only organ within the UN system with the authority to reach binding decisions.

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IDF Operation ‘Guardian of the Walls’: Prelude, Aftermath, Prospects
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Jun 2021

7 Jun 2021 – The Palestinian ordeal is certainly not over, but for the first time we can envision it ending!

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(Português) Sem Espiritualidade Não Salvaremos a Vida na Terra
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Jun 2021

8 jun 2021 – Em momentos de grandes crises, desastres naturais, e agora do Coronavírus, os seres humanos deixam vir à tona a sua essência: a solidariedade, a cooperação, o cuidado mútuo e a espiritualidade. Michail Gorbachev, na elaboração da Carta da Terra: “Ou desenvolvemos uma espiritualidade com novos valores,centrados na vida e na cooperação, ou não haverá solução para a vida na Terra.”

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Whither Palestine? Whither Israel? After the Violence Spike, after the Abraham Accords, after Netanyahu
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Jun 2021

13 Jun 2021 – The changing circumstances in Israel/Palestine over the last six weeks. Two questions that will shape the Palestinian destiny: Will the post-Netanyahu government push harder the political agenda of the right-wing settler movement? Will the aftermath of the IDF military operation, Guardian of the Walls, increase Palestinian resistance and global solidarity?

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(Français) Réflexions sur le génocide comme crime ultime
Alfred de Zayas et Richard Falk | Investig'Action - TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 Jun 2021

10 Juin 2021 – L’utilisation abusive du mot «génocide» est un manque de respect envers les proches des victimes des massacres arméniens, de l’holocauste et du génocide rwandais. Il est bien plus dangereux de découvrir que nous risquons également d’être immergés dans les eaux troubles du «faux droit» (fake law). Il est urgent de réagir. Une telle évolution n’est pas tolérable.

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We Charge Apartheid? Palestine and the International Criminal Court
Noura Erakat & John Reynolds | Third World Approaches to International Law Review – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Jun 2021

Reflections on Palestinian efforts to engage the International Criminal Court, in the context of Israeli settler-colonialism and both its spectacular and structural violence. Conscious of the limits of international criminal law, we think about Palestinian activist legal tactics – and the charge of the crime of apartheid in particular – in relation to political strategy.

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(Italiano) ‘Ordine internazionale su base normativa’: nuova metafora per un primato geopolitico U.S.A.
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis - TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Jun 2021

3 Giugno 2021 – Questa enfasi su un mondo ‘governato da norme’ implicitamente esprime l’asserzione polemica che gli Stati Uniti si muovono secondo le regole mentre gli avversari no. Ma Snowden ha rivelato che gli USA hanno investito più pesantemente di qualunque altro governo del pianeta nello sviluppo di capacità di sorveglianza intrusiva. I precedenti USA di manipolazione di elezioni estere sono notori, e sono da tempo una parte ben nota del repertorio CIA.

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‘Sponsor a Child’ Schemes Attacked for Perpetuating Racist Attitudes
Karen McVeigh | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Jun 2021

31 May 2021 – International child sponsorship schemes have come under attack for perpetuating racist thinking. Using individual children to ‘sell’ schemes to rich donors is similar to ‘poverty porn’ images of past, say experts, as calls grow to decolonise aid.

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The Etymological Animal Must Slip Out of the Cage of Habit to Grasp Truth
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Jun 2021

2 Jun 2021 – Since Sep 11, 2001, the corona virus lockdowns, and the WEF’s push for a Fourth Industrial Revolution that will lead to the marriage of artificial intelligence, cyborgs, digital technology, and biology, that the USA has been slipping into a new form of fascism. Dissent has become unpatriotic and worse – treasonous. Unless people wake up and rebel in greater numbers, the gates of this electronic iron cage will quietly be shut.

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A New Different Cold War, an Old Geopolitics
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 31 May 2021

30 May 2021 – This text is based on responses to questions posed by C.J. Polychroniou, a skilled interpreter of the global scene and noted author and interviewer.

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‘Rule-Based-International-Order’: A New Metaphor for U.S. Geopolitical Primacy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 31 May 2021

The implication of this ‘rules-governed’ world is that the USA plays by the rules whereas our adversaries do not. But Snowden revealed that the US has invested more than any other government in intrusive surveillance. Its record of manipulating foreign elections is notorious being a well-known part of the CIA’s portfolio. It has projected more deadly force outside its borders than any other state in last 75 years and has intervened repeatedly in disrupting democracies, blocking and sanctioning their governments if they refuse U.S. tutelage.

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Palestine Is Winning the Legitimacy War
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

19 May 2021 – This piece attempts to contextualize the current violence directed against Gaza in earlier Israeli provocations and takes note of Israel’s reliance on excessive force upon a helpless Gazan civilian population of over two million people trapped inside a crowded and unlawfully blockaded enclave. I find it appropriate to recall Gandhi’s famous observation along these lines: “First, they ignore you, then they insult you, then they fight you, then you win.”

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People of Conscience: Palestinians Ask You to Boycott Israel
Omar Barghouti | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

19 May 2021 – Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid struggle, the nonviolent BDS movement needs your support, writes BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti.

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The Xinjiang Genocide Determination as Agenda
Gordon Dumoulin, Jan Oberg and Thore Vestby | The Transnational - TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

27 Apr 2021 – A Critical Analysis of a Report on China by the Newlines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center – It has been produced with the contributions of, and upon consultation with, numerous independent experts, including 33 who have agreed to be identified publicly, as it is stated.

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Conversation at the Crossroads
Joseph Camilleri talks with Richard Falk and Stuart Rees – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

Conversation at the Crossroads have chosen two inspiring books and their celebrated authors for an international event on Tuesday 8 June:
>Public Intellectual-The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim by Richard Falk
>Cruelty or Humanity by Stuart Rees

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Price of Gold: DRC’s Rich Soil Bears Few Riches for Its Miners – Photo Essay
Moses Sawasawa | The Guardian – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

12 May 2021 – In South Kivu province near the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, Kamituga has mineral resources estimated to be worth $24tn (£17tn) in untapped deposits. Yet the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has one of the lowest levels of GDP per capita in the world and people work in dangerous conditions with little hope of scratching out anything more than a meagre existence from tough and dangerous work.

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(Português) Grave Risco para a Terra e a Vida: “A Grande Retomada do Capitalismo” (Great Reset)
Leonardo Boff | Opinion Sur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

16 maio 2021 – Está havendo em todo mundo um grande debate sobre que mundo virá na pós-pandemia. O que causa grave preocupação é “A Grande Reinicialização” (Great Reset),“A Grande Retomada” da ordem capitalista mundial. Essa expressão foi sugerida pelo príncipe Charles juntamente com o Coordenador do Forum Econômico Mundial, Klaus Schwab.

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‘A United Nations of Crime in Spain’: How Marbella Became a Magnet for Gangsters
Nacho Carretero and Arturo Lezcano | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

20 May 2021 – The new international crime organisations have made Marbella their centre of operations. And as violence rises, the police lag far behind.

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And the Brand Played on: Bob Dylan at 80
Neil Spencer | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 May 2021

With a slew of books to mark the songwriter’s birthday (24 May 1941) due , we look at the industry that has grown up around the man who forced academia to take pop seriously.

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Citizen Pilgrim: To Be or Not to Be
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 May 2021

Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim – Conversation with Richard Falk, Noura Erakat, Victoria Brittain and Jeremy Corbyn~
Monday 17 May, 5:30–7:00 PM (GMT-BST), Where: Online

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Second Stage Terror Wars
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 May 2021

11 May 2021 – If you wistfully think the corona crisis will soon come to an end, I suggest you alter your perspective. We are in the second phase of a long war of terror waged with two weapons – military and medical – whose propaganda messaging is carried out by the corporate mainstream media in the pursuit of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset. Part one has so far lasted twenty years; part two may last longer. You can be certain it won’t end soon and that the new terrorists are domestic dissidents.

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How Chileans Went from Jumping Subway Turnstiles to Rewriting the Constitution {Video}
Jordan Flaherty | Waging Nonviolence - TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 May 2021

10 May 2021 – While most Chileans want deep systemic change, the vote to create a new constitution is a historic moment in the struggle to undo the legacy of Pinochet’s dictatorship.

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Climate Emissions Shrinking the Stratosphere, Scientists Reveal
Damian Carrington | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 May 2021

12 May 2021 – Humanity’s enormous emissions of greenhouse gases are shrinking the stratosphere, a new study has revealed. Thinning could affect satellites and GPS.

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Fees Must Fall
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 May 2021

“Fees must fall” is a South African species of a genus found on every continent. The issue is the high price of tertiary education. It is a chant that is easy to repeat, a slogan easy to remember–and a moral demand that deserves to be taken seriously.

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Biden’s Foreign Policy and Nuclear Weapons: A Dialogue
Richard Falk and David Krieger | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 May 2021

5 May 2021 – Biden’s international bipartisan approach risks a renewed arms race in a political and economic atmosphere that makes it unaffordable as well as acutely dangerous. My conversation with David Krieger explores some of the ramifications.

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Remembering My Friend General Hendrik Van Der Graaf, Famous UN Peacemaker Who Died on 10 Mar 2021
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 May 2021

UNIDIR’s General Henny Invented “Weapons-for-Development” – He was a leader in UN and EU peace and disarmament, particularly in reducing the proliferation and illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons.

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Israeli Apartheid and Palestine Grievances
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 May 2021

3 May 2021 – Questions from Rodrigo Craveiro from Correio Braziliense, 27 Apr 2021, in response to Report of Human Rights Watch on Israeli Apartheid; it is followed by my responses to questions of Zahra Mirzafarjouyan on behalf of Mehr News Agency in Tehran, addressing some of the underlying causes of Palestinian grievances.

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[10 Years Ago] The Guantánamo Files: Leaks Lift Lid on World’s Most Controversial Prison
David Leigh, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke - The Guardian, 10 May 2021

Article published on TRANSCEND Media Service in 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

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Between Us
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 May 2021

26 Apr 2021 – He was sick of people, especially those he saw in masks because of their obsessive fear of death… He said to Billy Bush, “Thank you, it took me a while, but between us, that sure explains the masked desperadoes running in packs. But I won’t tell them, for as you told me long ago, they prefer their illusions.”

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(Italiano) Riflessioni sul genocidio come crimine estremo
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis - TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 May 2021

L’abuso del termine genocidio è sdegnoso verso i parenti delle vittime dei massacri armeni, dell’Olocausto, del genocidio rwandese – come pure un disservizio alla storia, al diritto, e alla conduzione prudente dei rapporti internazionali. Sapevamo già di essere alla deriva in un oceano di fake news. E’ ben più pericoloso scoprire che rischiamo anche di venire sommersi nelle acque turbolente del “fake law” [falso diritto]. Dobbiamo reagire, con senso d’urgenza. Tale sviluppo non è tollerabile.

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‘We Are Witnessing a Crime against Humanity’: Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid Catastrophe
Arundhati Roy | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 May 2021

28 Apr 2021 – It’s hard to convey the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and the indignity that people are being subjected to. Meanwhile, Modi and his allies are telling us not to complain.

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How Venezuela Is Rebuilding Its Industrial Base, One Volunteer at a Time
Leonardo Flores | Independent Media Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Apr 2021

22 Apr 2021 – An organization of 2,270 volunteer workers is helping Venezuela boost its industrial capacity, devastated by years of U.S. economic sanctions.

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Afghanistan 2022: Peace without Reconciliation Will Be a Salvaging Operation for Biden
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Apr 2021

19 Apr2021 – What can President Biden’s team and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken salvage from the promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan? American dreams of ‘democracy’ produced the Afghan nightmare President Biden wants to terminate in September 2021. Can he replace the nightmare with something that resembles peace, based on realism?

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Reflections on Genocide as the Ultimate Crime
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Apr 2021

26 Apr 2021 – The misuse of the word genocide is disdainful toward relatives of the victims of the Armenian massacres, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide – and as well a disservice to both history, law, and the prudent conduct of international relations. We already knew that we were adrift in an ocean of fake news. It is far more dangerous to discover that we are also at risk of being immersed in the turbulent waters of “fake law”. We must push back with a sense of urgency. Such a development is not tolerable.

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Remembering Ramsey Clark
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Apr 2021

12 Apr 2021 – Ramsey Clark was a great man, and it was my privilege to work with him closely on several occasions. His death is a time to mourn, but it is also a time to remember who he was and why his life mattered in profound ways to so many people.

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Slaughter Central
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch - TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Apr 2021

13 Apr 2021 – The United States as a Mass-Killing Machine – By the time you read this, it will already be out of date. With so much all-Anglo American weaponry in this world, there’s no way to keep up. Anglo America is the emperor of weaponry. The top five arms makers on the planet — Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics — are all located in the United States.

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Fratelli Tutti and the Great Reset
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Apr 2021

Pope Francis on 3 Oct 2020 released his latest encyclical letter, Fratelli Tutti. Less than four months previously, Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret launched ‘Covid-19: The Great Reset’ at Davos–the World Economic Forum. In some ways their authors might appear to share a common worldview.

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Colombia: An Ideal U.S. Client-State in the Western Hemisphere
Angelo Cardona | Covert Action Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Apr 2021

16 Apr 2021 – Colombia has been living with one of the longest armed conflicts in the world. A peace agreement to end the more than 50-year-old armed civil war was signed in Havana, Cuba, in 2016. Despite this historic event, violence continues in the country relentlessly. Washington has long helped fuel the devastating conflict that goes back to the era of La Violencia in World War II.

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How Law Made Neoliberalism
Jedediah Britton-Purdy, Amy Kapczynski and David Singh Grewal | Boston Review - TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Apr 2021

If we are to emerge from this era of crisis, we need legal thinking that operates on fundamentally different presumptions.

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The Middle East: Geopolitical Battleground
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Apr 2021

18 Apr 2021 – Questions posed on the basis of my memoir, ‘Public Intellectual,’ by an Egyptian journalist. The interview covers several distinct issues that involve interpretations of major foreign policy concerns in the Middle East.

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Among the Covid Sceptics: ‘We Are Being Manipulated, without a Shadow of a Doubt’
Samira Shackle | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Apr 2021

8 Apr 2021 – Who are the people who have come to follow wild conspiracy theories about Covid-19? Covid conspiracies are often presented in the form of complex, pseudo-technical documents. Factchecking is of limited use in changing believers’ minds because sources such as the BBC or the Office for National Statistics are seen as part of the lie.

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How Significant Is the $400 Billion Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between China and Iran
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Apr 2021

This post consists of my responses to questions posed by the Iranian journalist Javad Heiran-Nia, Questions on the China/Iran Agreement (4 April 2021). The agreement, officially known as Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, was signed formally just a few weeks before it was announced that so-called ‘indirect talks’ between Iran and the U.S. were taking place in Vienna.

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Leonardo da Vinci (15 Apr 1452 – 2 May 1519)
Leonardo da Vinci – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Apr 2021

In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio’s workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling.

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Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, Obituary
Stephen Bates | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Apr 2021

Philip Mountbatten-Windsor, Duke of Edinburgh, Baron of Greenwich, Earl of Merioneth, born 10 Jun 1921, died 9 Apr 2021. He was the Queen’s husband for 73 years, the longest-serving royal consort in British history, the family’s patriarch, and a well-known figure in public life for two-thirds of a century until his final disappearance into seclusion in 2019.

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Do We Really Want a Second Cold War?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Apr 2021

31 Mar 2021 – The protection of human rights is being geopolitically manipulated to mobilize public support for an anti-Chinese foreign policy in the West that risks generating a dangerous geopolitical confrontation. Such a confrontation amounts to war-mongering and diverts U.S. attention from self-scrutiny and global peacebuilding. Whether a second cold war is already underway is a matter of interpretation.

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The European Council against the Trade in Instruments of Torture
Riccardo Noury | Pressenza - TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Apr 2021

On 31 Mar the European Council adopted a recommendation, long solicited by Amnesty International and Omega Research Foundation, by which the 47 member states will effectively fight the trade in torture equipment. It provides a total ban to the trading of any instruments aimed to cause pain and requires stricter controls on the trade in police items potentially used to torture.

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The Assassination and Resurrection of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Apr 2021

2 Apr 2021 – Very few Americans are aware of the truth behind the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the United States’ celebrated civil rights icon.  Few books have been written about it, unlike other significant assassinations, especially JFK’s. For more than fifty years there has been a media blackout supported by government disinformation to hide the truth. 

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Myanmar Military a ‘Terrorist Group’ That Should Face International Court, Advisory Council Says
Ben Doherty | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Apr 2021

29 Mar 2021 – The Myanmar military is a “terrorist group” that should be brought before the ICC and imposed a global sanctions regime, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar says. The council has called for a “three cuts” strategy to combat the Tatmadaw, as the military is known. First, the ICC. Second, an arms embargo. And third, financial sanctions against military officials and military-owned companies.

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‘Most Couples May Have to Use Assisted Reproduction by 2045’
Zoë Corbyn | Guardian/Observer - TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Mar 2021

28 Mar 2021 – Shanna Swan is a professor of environmental medicine and public health studying fertility trends. In 2017 she documented how average sperm counts among western men have more than halved in the past 40 years. She explains how chemicals in plastics are causing our fertility to decline – and what we can do about it.

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Adam Thiam’s Death Reminds Us How Europe Harms Africa
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Mar 2021

25 Mar 2021 – Mali’s greatest journalist and political analyst, Adam Thiam, has died of COVID. I mourn a friend whom I greatly admired.

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Elections as Religious Rituals: When Political Conflicts Are Also Conflicts of Faith
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Mar 2021

I am certainly not the first commentator to notice that elections in democratic states (and often in non-democracies) bear a strong resemblance to religious rituals. They are meaningful collective events that take place at special times in an atmosphere both solemn and celebratory.  Like sacred rites, their validity depends upon strict adherence to formal behaviors, such as casting officially sanctioned ballots in officially sanctioned ways at officially sanctioned places.  

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La Vida Tombola–Feat. Diego Maradona (Music Video of the Week)
Manu Chao | Nacional Records – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Mar 2021

From the Latin Grammy-winning album – Filmed in Buenos Aires ~~ Lyrics in English and Castellano

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Palestinian Balance Sheet: Normative Victories, Geopolitical Disappointments
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Mar 2021

21 Mar 2021 – . It seems to me that Israeli leaders understand that South African racism collapsed largely because it lost the Legitimacy War. Maybe some Israeli leaders are beginning to grasp the writing on the wall. The ICC decision may turn out to be a turning point not unlike the Sharpeville Massacre of 1965. This may be so even, as is likely, not a single Israeli is ever brought to justice before the ICC.

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Media Pseudo-Debates and the Silence of Leftist Critics
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Mar 2021

19 Mar 2021 – The Incompetent, Negligent, Mishandling, Miscalculating Elite Blunderers – You’ve heard of them, no doubt, the U.S. rulers who can’t rule too well and are always getting surprised by events or fed bad advice by their underlings. Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned. They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence…

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(Português) Desafios para Educação Face às Mudanças na Vida e na Humanidade
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Mar 2021

17 mar 2021 – A intrusão do coronavírus desde 2019, afetando pela primeira vez todo o planeta e cada uma das pessoas, não nossos animais domésticos como gatos e cachorros, tem um significado que é importante decifrar. Nada na natureza e em Gaia, nossa Mãe Terra, é sem propósito. Que lição devemos aprender com esta pandemia?

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Plummeting Sperm Counts, Shrinking Penises: Toxic Chemicals Threaten Humanity
Erin Brockovich | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Mar 2021

18 Mar 2021 – The chemicals to blame for our reproductive crisis are found everywhere and in everything. The rapid death and decline of sperm must be addressed, and it must be addressed now.

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Who Are We? Where Are We Going? How Will We Get There?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Mar 2021

• We are the species whose ecological niche is the creation of cultures.
• We are going to a global mosaic of green and open societies.
• We will get there by transforming capitalism.

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Naomi Klein: ‘We Shouldn’t Be Surprised That Kids Are Radicalised’
Patrick Barkham | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Mar 2021

9 Mar 2021 – With ‘How to Change Everything’, the activist has written her first book for young people. She explains how she has been inspired by a new, very young generation of protesters.

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China and Russia to Build Lunar Space Station
The Baltic Word - TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Mar 2021

10 Mar 2021 – Russian space agency Roscosmos has signed an agreement with China’s National Space Administration to develop research facilities on the surface of the moon, in orbit or both. A statement says it will be available for use by other nations as Russia prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its first-ever manned space flight.

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