Articles by RD
We found 3602 results.
‘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.
→ read full articleWho 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.
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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Lesson Learned from a Pandemic Year
Ted Howard | The Democracy Collaborative - TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Mar 2021
11 Mar 2021 – A year ago today, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 had become a global pandemic. The twin crises that unfolded with that declaration—an unprecedented health crisis and an unprecedented economic crisis, both revealed the wrongly constructed and badly corroded foundations of a system that not only failed to protect our health and wellbeing but actively helped to make both worse as the year progressed.
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Fukushima Meltdowns Turn Ten, Still Getting Worse
William Boardman | Reader Supported News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Mar 2021
9 Mar 2021 – Fukushima Daiichi’s multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns started ten years ago. They are not over. They are not even close to over. Nuclear disasters don’t ever end. The radioactive danger slowly decays over decades, during which it needs constant safety management. Fukushima continues to be a low-level nuclear disaster, as it has been for ten years.
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The Geopolitics of the Normalization Agreements
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Mar 2021
Listen Closely to the Israeli Discourse in an American Liberal Idiom: Geopolitical Dreams, Ethical Nightmares
→ read full articleSaturday Night Live Joke over Israel’s Vaccination Sparks Fury
Michael Che | Saturday Night Live - TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Mar 2021
23 Feb 2021 – Michael Che’s joke about Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign pokes fun at a regime that does little to hide its supremacist and anti-Palestinian policies.
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Corrupting Democracy One Dollar at a Time
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Mar 2021
Commodifying Democracy is a Costly Failure in America – Everyday I receive ten to twenty times more appeals for money to support this or that political campaign than I receive any kind of serious substantive statement of explanation or concern. And because this storm has become so deadening, the language of most appeals is nearly always hysterical, wildly exaggerating good or bad marginal developments designed to create a sense of urgency on the part of recipients.
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A German Court Punishes an International Crime Committed in Syria
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Mar 2021
26 Feb 2021 – The case is significant because it asserts the legal authority of a national court to impose accountability when the territorial sovereign is itself the culprit and international tribunals lack the means to pursue those most responsible for the commission of the most serious international crimes. In this instance, Russia and China vetoed an attempt in the UN Security Council to authorize allegations against Syria.
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Chalmers Johnson: Portrait of a Sagging Empire
Chalmers Johnson and Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Mar 2021
21 Feb 2021 – Today, an oldie but goodie. Peering into the future is usually a perilous undertaking no matter who you are, which makes Chalmers Johnson’s final piece, just months before he died in Nov 2010, little short of remarkable. In terms of the American imperial project, he had a striking sense of just what might happen if we didn’t begin dismantling that empire (and all the global military garrisons and wars that went with it).
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(Italiano) La violenza nucleare è il motivo per cui viviamo nell’Antropocene
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis - TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Mar 2021
26 Febbraio 2021 – Comprendo l’essenza del consenso emerso da questa discussione dell’eloquente scritto di Paul Raskin. Infatti si tratta di un’accettazione dell’Antropocene come un terribile avvertimento che la specie umana è destinata al disastro, se non all’estinzione, se la sua impronta ecologica non sarà notevolmente ridotta in un futuro relativamente prossimo.
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Glossary of Civil Resistance: A Resource for Study and Translation of Key Terms
Hardy Merriman and Nicola Barrach-Yousefi | International Center on Nonviolent Conflict,
1 Mar 2021
Jan 2021 -The field of civil resistance is dedicated to understanding how people can fight for rights, freedom, and justice, without the use of violence. This glossary provides definitions and expansive commentary on civil resistance terminology to support sharing of lessons learned and research across different languages.
→ read full articleThe Pine-eyed Boy Escapes from the Belly of the Dark Night in the Fish’s Tale
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Mar 2021
24 Feb 2021 – We are now living in a world where freedom has been replaced by dim grim grimaces of widespread depression and resignation as the shroud of solicitous neofascism descends upon us. Human freedom is under widespread assault. Free speech is being attacked. Censorship is widespread and growing. Flesh and blood life is being sucked into a whirlpool of “a universe of disembodied data.”
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Revealed: 6,500 Migrant Workers Have Died in Qatar as It Gears Up for Soccer World Cup
Pete Pattisson, Niamh McIntyre, et al. | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Mar 2021
23 Feb 2021 – More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago. Hocking figure likely to be an underestimate, as preparations for 2022 tournament continue.
→ read full articleNuclear Violence Is Why We Are Living in the Anthropocene Age
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
15 Feb 2021 – Violence: Another Existential Crisis – As I grasp the essence of the consensus emerging from this discussion of Paul Raskin’s eloquent essay, it is an acceptance of the Anthropocene as a dire warning that the human species is headed for disaster, if not extinction, if its ecological footprint is not greatly reduced in the relatively near future.
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Opening the CIA’s Can of Worms
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
13 Feb 2021 – To denounce censorship, as they have done, is admirable. But now Greenwald, Taibbi, and Hedges need go up to the forbidden gate with the sign that says – “This far and no further” – and jump over it. That’s where the true stories lie. That’s when they’ll see the worms squirm.
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This Database Is Exposing Decades of Israel’s Shady Arms Deals
Sahar Vardi | +972 Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
10 Feb 2021 – Israel has been exporting arms to the world’s most repressive governments. A new project aims to hold it accountable by tracking these confidential sales. There are good reasons Israel wants to hide these sales, since its clientele has involved some of the world’s most tyrannical dictatorships and human rights abusers.
→ read full article5 Questions to Ask Your Friends Who Plan to Get the Covid Vaccine
Kit Knightly | OffGuardian – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
15 Feb 2021 – Ask your friends these questions. It is a rushed and untested vaccine, made using unprecedented technology, with no legal recourse should it do you harm, TO TREAT A VIRUS 99.8% OF PEOPLE WILL SURVIVE. So the question that really matters is: Do you really want, or need, to take that risk?
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How Do You Say Ku Klux Klan in Hebrew?
Michael Sfard | Haaretz - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
1 Feb 2021 – Those subjected to Israel’s occupation have been abandoned to the occupiers’ cruelty, as a result of the weakness of the country’s army, law enforcement and security establishment, which do not provide effective protection. Israeli TV stations barely report it and most Israelis are simply apathetic.
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(Português) Brasil sob Bolsonaro: A Democracia como Farsa e as Instituições como Disfarce
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
17 fev 2021 – É fato confessado pelo ex-chefe supremo das FFAA, Gen.Villas Boâs, que o Alto Comando em 2018 deu um golpe na democracia brasileira, ferindo a Constituição. O sentido era utilizar o juiz Sérgio Moro (exímio na aplicação do law fare) para alijar Lula do pleito presidencial, condenando-o por qualquer crime que fosse, no caso, “por crime indeterminado” e pô-lo na prisão onde ficou por mais de 500 dias. Desta forma abrir-se-ia o caminho para eleição do ex-capitão compulsoriamente reformado por mau comportamento, Jair Bolsonaro. O que de fato ocorreu.
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(Italiano) Un Bilancio Palestinese: Vittorie Normative, Delusioni Geopolitiche
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2021
Nei decenni a venire la decisione ICC può risultare il punto di svolta, non così diverso dal Massacro di Sharpeville. Prima dell’alba la notte è più buia. La maggioranza Africana attese allora oltre 30 anni per la propria emancipazione dall’apartheid. I palestinesi hanno già sopportato gli stenti e le umiliazioni della soggiogazione razzista e della supremazia ebraica per più di 70 anni. Quando finirà, e come?
→ read full articleIran’s Islamic Republic Celebrates Its 42nd Anniversary
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
9 Feb 2021 – Iran is in the process of celebrating the 42nd Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution that led to the downfall of the Shah of Iran’s dynastic rule and its replacement by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has defied the odds by resisting successfully a variety of attempts to restore the old established order either by an Iraqi encouraged war in the 1980s, destabilization efforts all along pushed by the U.S. and Israel, and an undisguised goal of regime change.
→ read full article(Português) Uma Dissertação Histórico-Filosófica sobre Nossa Barbárie
Leonardo Boff | Opinion Sur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
10 fev 2021 – Existem inúmeras análises excelentes do antifenômeno Jair Messias Bolsonaro, sociológicas, históricas e econômicas. Acho que devemos cavar mais fundo para capturar o surgimento desse Negativo em nossa história.
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Brazilian Butt Lift: Behind the World’s Most Dangerous Cosmetic Surgery
Sophie Elmirst | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
9 Feb 2021 – The BBL is the fastest growing cosmetic surgery in the world, despite the mounting number of deaths resulting from the procedure. What is driving its astonishing rise?
→ read full articleThe Invincible Green Stick of Happiness
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
6 Feb 2021 – After a night of haunting dreams that flowed as if they were written like running water, written on air, as the Roman poet Catullus once said, in the depth of a dark winter morning, I decided that I would take a walk in the afternoon, hoping that the sun would then appear, and it did, so I went walking toward the woods through deep white new-fallen snow all around me…
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Living by Love [Haiku]
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
30 Jan 2021 – Haiku is my form of lockdown therapy.
→ read full articleA Palestinian Balance Sheet: Normative Victories, Geopolitical Disappointments
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
In decades to come the ICC decision may turn out to be a turning point not unlike the 1960 Sharpeville Massacre. Before dawn, the night is darkest. The African majority waited more than 30 years for their emancipation from apartheid. The Palestinian people have already endured the hardships and humiliations of racist subjugation and Jewish supremacy for more than 70 years. When will it end, and how?
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(Italiano) Una società non-razziale (senza razzismo) dev’essere per forza una società sconfinata
Howard Richards | Centro Studi Sereno Regis - TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
“Arcobalenismo” è da non confondere con “Non-razzialismo” o “Una società non razziale.” La differenza è che in “una Società Arcobaleno” vivono insieme in pace e armonia persone di diverse razze, mentre in una “Società non-razziale” non esiste razza, si riconosce la verità. Che è che non esiste una tal cosa come la razza. L’umanità è una.
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Remembering George Shultz after 53 Years
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
I recall nostalgically, George’s civility, which according to reports, nevertheless required backbone, resisting the Nixon’s tactics that prefigured Trump’s antic presidency. George impressively stood his ground firmly whenever political leaders asked him to cross his red lines, so unlike the Republicans who inhabit Congress, and toe the Trump line no matter what. [He died on 6 Feb 2021 at the age of 100.]
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Family of Girl, 12, Forced to Marry Abductor Condemn Pakistan Authorities
Haroon Janjua | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2021
10 Feb 2021 – The family of a 12-year-old girl in Pakistan who was chained up in a cattle pen for more than six months, after allegedly being kidnapped and forced to marry her abductor, have attacked the authorities for refusing to act.
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The B’Tselem Report on Israeli Apartheid
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2021
3 Feb 2021 – The significance of the B’Tselem Report, which recently concluded that Israel imposes an apartheid regime to sustain Jewish supremacy on both Israel itself and all of the Occupied Palestine.
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Message to Joe Biden and His Foreign Policy Team: Beware the King Cyrus Fallacy!
Richard Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2021
Will the Biden appointees listen to anti-imperialist voices in both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as among activists outside the two-party system? Will they recognize and avoid the King Cyrus fallacy? I have little confidence that hardened “national security” officials will do the right thing, but with Mr. Trump gone, hope still flowers. One therefore offers a prayer of sorts: ut imperii cadunt. May the U.S. Empire be dismantled as speedily and peacefully as possible!
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JFK, Allen Dulles, and Indonesia
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2021
2 Feb 2021 – Before I digress slightly, let me state from the outset that the book by Greg Poulgrain that I am about to review is extraordinary by any measure. The story he tells is one you will read nowhere else, especially in the way he links the assassination of President Kennedy to former CIA Director Allen Dulles and the engineering by the latter of one of the 20th century’s most terrible mass murders. It will make your hair stand on end and should be read by anyone who cares about historical truth.
→ read full articleA Non-racial Society (a Society without Racism) Must Necessarily Be an Unbounded Society
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2021
“Rainbowism” is contrasted with “Non-racialism” or “A Non-racial Society.” The difference is that in “a Rainbow Society” people of different races live together in peace and harmony, while in a “Non-racial Society” race does not exist; the truth is acknowledged. The truth is that there is no such thing as race. Humanity is one.
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(Português) O proto facismo brasileiro e seu ¨Duce” e “Führer” de araque
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Feb 2021
29 jan 2021 – Nosso “Führer/Duce”de araque afirma que o Brasil está em primeiro lugar no mundo no combate ao Corona-vírus quando no ranking internacional figura em último lugar. O ministro das relações exteriores, conhecido terraplanista, considera um louvor ser “pária internacional” e o afirma dentro do próprio prédio do Itamaraty para vergonha da memória de notáveis diplomatas e chanceleres. Se há um poço em nossa história, encontramo-nos no mais profundo, embora o seu “Führer/Duce” tresloucado, acha que estamos no monte das bem-aventuranças.
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G4S Migrant Workers ‘Forced to Pay Millions’ in Illegal Fees for Jobs
Pete Pattisson | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Feb 2021
18 Jan 2021 – Migrant workers working for the British security company G4S in the UAE have collectively been forced to pay millions of pounds in illegal fees to recruitment agents to secure their jobs. Firm faces calls to repay charges for jobs in Gulf states and conflict zones.
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Vaccines May Not Work as Well against the Coronavirus Variant Detected in South Africa, Research Shows–People May Also Face a Risk of Reinfection
Aylin Woodward | Business Insider - TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2021
22 Jan 2021 – At first, there was little evidence to suggest that COVID-19 vaccines wouldn’t work against the mutated, more infectious versions of the virus that have emerged in the last few months. But preliminary research published this week suggests that a coronavirus variant detected in South Africa in December can partially evade the defenses vaccines build in our bodies’ immune systems.
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Is There an American ‘Deep State’?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2021
23 Jan 2021 – Trump’s foreign policy was indeed disastrous, but it did somewhat illuminate the anachronistic character of the zombie like ‘bipartisan consensus’ that yet be revived in the course of reaffirming the old Cold War/neoliberal globalization orthodoxy of pre-Trump America.
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(Português) Brasil: Dois Anos de Desgoverno–A Crise de Legitimidade
Leonardo Boff e Juarez Guimarães – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2021
21 jan 2021 – A situação do Brasil, assaltado por múltiplas crises, representa um desafio a qualquer analista. No meu entender, um dos melhores e mais argutos é JUAREZ GUIMARÃES, professor de Ciência Política da UFMG. Combina de forma inteligente a análise com a síntese, oferecendo-nos grelhas de interpretação que nos ajudam a entender o intrincado jogo de poderes que se escondem por trás do bolsonarismo. Este na verdade imita de forma cabocla, até nos mínimos detalhes, o trumpismo dos USA.
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An Open Letter to President Biden
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2021
One of my sad conclusions: the U.S.A’s foreign policy has been a major cause of war in the world since 2001, a source of poverty and misery, a manufacturer of refugees and of terrorists. As an expert on the origins of terrorism, I know that the U.S.A. is a major supporter of terrorism and terrorist organizations.
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Nuclear Weapons Are Finally Outlawed, Next Step Is Disarmament
Robert Mardini | Al Jazeera - TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2021
22 Jan 2021 – More than 75 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world’s first multilateral agreement banning nuclear weapons finally enters into force today.
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UN Predicts ‘Famine Not Seen in 40 Years’ Due to Pompeo’s Yemen Policy
Patrick Wintour | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Jan 2021
14 Jan 2021 – Mike Pompeo’s designation of Houthis as foreign terror group will block food and other aid, senior humanitarian says.
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“Orders to Kill” Dr. Martin Luther King: The Government That Honors MLK with a National Holiday Killed Him
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2021
A Review of ‘The Plot to Kill King’ by William Pepper – Very few Americans are aware of the truth behind the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Few books have been written about it, unlike other significant assassinations, especially JFK’s. For almost fifty years there has been a media blackout supported by government deception to hide the truth.
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The Correct Response to Fascism Is Not Compromise: QAnon and Hate Speech Need to Be Dealt with Head-On
Robin Edward Poulton - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2021
11 Jan 2021 – After the invasion of – and temporary suspension of – Congress, what is the correct response? As a peace maker, you might think I would opt for compromise, but that is not my position. A surgeon faced with a cancerous tumor does not wait until the tumor gets bigger: he cuts it out as soon as possible, and radiates the surrounding area to ensure the cancer does not grow back. QAnon is a cancer in the American body politic, and it needs to be treated like the Fascist Cancer it has become.
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‘There Is No Noise’: Inside the Controversial Rohingya Bhasan Char Refugee Camp – A Photo Essay
Anonymous, as told to Shafiur Rahman | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2021
11 Jan 2021 – Amid concern from charities and NGOs, Bangladesh is relocating Rohingya refugees to a remote island. One resident describes his new life there.
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Billionaires Add $1tn to Net Worth during Pandemic as Their Workers Struggle
Michael Sainato | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2021
15 Jan 2021 – Billionaires in the US have increased their net worth by more than $1tn during the coronavirus pandemic, while many of their US workers have struggled with coronavirus risks in workplaces, for little to no extra pay to work in hazardous conditions.
→ read full articleBlocking Twitter & Twitter Blocking Trump: Why We Should Worry
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2021
Should a government have the authority to limit the dissemination by social media of material derogatory to or defamatory of the elected leadership of the country, as well as have a mandate to impose limits on access to sexually explicit material in deference to public morals?
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The Trump Administration’s Parting Outrage against Cuba
Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores | Intrepid Report - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jan 2021
On 11 Jan 2021, in his final days before leaving office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added one parting blow to the series of bludgeons his administration has inflicted on Cuba for four years: putting the island on the list of “state sponsors of terror” that includes only Iran, North Korea and Syria. The designation drew swift condemnation from policymakers and humanitarian groups.
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A Simple Way to Understand What’s Happening … and What to Do
Richard Heinberg | Post Carbon Institute - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
Energy is necessary in order for any organism to do anything whatsoever. For humans, food is energy that powers labor. But, in addition, people long ago learned how to harness energy from fire, water, and wind. Using firewood, paddle wheels, and sails, we built agrarian societies with irrigation systems, cities, cathedrals, mills, and seagoing ships, and created some pretty great art, music, and literature along the way.
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The 7 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Not the Answer to Solve Climate Change
Mark Z. Jacobson | Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
There is a small group of scientists that have proposed replacing 100% of the world’s fossil fuel power plants with nuclear reactors as a way to solve climate change. Many others propose nuclear grow to satisfy up to 20 percent of all our energy (not just electricity) needs. They advocate that nuclear is a “clean” carbon-free source of power, but they don’t look at the human impacts of these scenarios. Let’s do the math…
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Big Pharma’s Finest Hour?
Nick Dearden | Human Wrongs Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
9 Jan 2021 – The roll-out of COVID vaccines gives much-needed hope. But without fundamental reform of the drug industry, inequality and mistrust will cost lives both nationally and globally.
→ read full articleState Terrorism: Remembering General Soleimani
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
8 Jan 2021 – This first anniversary of the assassination of General Qassim Soleimani, provides an occasion to remember not only the man but the nature of the act, the precedent set, and degree to which Iran and the region have become the main hunting ground of post-colonial Western imperialism. It is also relevant to take note of Mossad’s apparent responsibility for the targeted killing of Iran’s leading nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, ten months later.
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After 50 Years, the Pentagon Papers Give Up Their Final Secrets
Edward Helmore | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
10 Jan 2021 – It is to many the greatest journalistic scoop in a generation. Journalist behind scoop reveals how he tricked whistleblower to get copies of explosive Vietnam War reports.
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The Trump Pardons and Fast-Tracking Capital Punishment
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
31 Dec 2020 – Among the disquieting dimensions of this strangest of all Christmas holidays has been the lurid spectacle of misplaced empathy by Donald Trump, placating cronies and criminals who helped him circumvent law and morality while exhibiting hard heartedness toward those unfortunate souls awaiting execution on death row in federal prisons.
→ read full articleThe Assault on the U.S. Capitol and the Problem of Right-Wing Radicalization
Richard Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jan 2021
The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. was invaded on January 6th by right-wing protestors bent on disrupting the joint session of Congress to certify Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s election as U.S. president and vice-president. The house in which I am writing this editorial is two blocks from the Capitol, and from my study I could hear the crowd, sirens, helicopter noises, and explosive “bangs” of flash grenades detonating.
→ read full article(Português) Por que chegamos a Jair Bolsonaro? Uma disquisição histórico-filosófica
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2021
31 dez 2020 – Há um sem número de excelentes análises do anti-fenômeno Jair Messias Bolsonaro, predominando as de ordem sociológica, histórica e econômica. Creio que devemos cavar mais a fundo para captar a irrupção deste Negativo em nossa história.
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I’m a Consultant in Infectious Diseases – ‘Long Covid’ Is Not a Mild Illness
Joanna Herman | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2021
27 Dec 2020 – Nine months on from the virus, I am seriously debilitated. This is how the new NHS clinics need to help thousands of us.
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From Counterterrorism to Geopolitics: Reviving the U.S. Deep State
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2021
25 Dec 2020 – The challenge of transnational non-state violence, what the media dutifully criminalizes as ‘terrorism’ while whitewashing the abuses of state and state-sponsored violence as ‘counterterrorism’ or exercises of every state to act in self-defense. Language matters as those who wanted to sugarcoat ‘torture’ by such phrases as ‘enhanced interrogation.
→ read full articlePeace and Peacefulness: Reaching for the Stars
Richard Falk | The Transnational - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2021
29 Dec 2020 – This interview is not about current political concerns. It rather explores ‘peace’ in its manifold identity. The interview was conducted by Miguel Mendoça a couple of months ago for a book project.
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Colonialist Injustice: The Pardoning of the Blackwater Killers
Richard Becker | Liberation News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2021
27 Dec 2020 – Along with a motley collection of wealthy swindlers and fraudsters, President Donald Trump on Dec. 22 pardoned four former Blackwater private contractors (mercenaries) convicted in the infamous 16 Sep 2007 massacre in Baghdad. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and 14 seriously wounded in an unprovoked attack by the four including two boys, 9 and 11 years of age, and a woman burned alive in her car.
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Collision at Sea as Sea Shepherd Vessels Attacked in Mexico’s Vaquita Refuge
Sea Shepherd - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2021
At approximately 07:00 on the morning of December 31st, a group of assailants in 5-7 fishing boats (known locally as pangas) launched a violent attack on Sea Shepherd vessels Farley Mowat and Sharpie inside the Zero Tolerance Area of Mexico’s federally-protected Vaquita Refuge.
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Water, “the Ultimate Commodity”, (*) Has Entered the Stock Market. Poor Water!
Riccardo Petrella | Pressenza - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jan 2021
31 Dec 2020 – Entering the stock exchange is the result of a long series of steps. In the beginning there was …. the ‘petrolization’ of water. They announced it, proclaimed it since the 1970s. The “petrolization of water” (1) has driven the way we imagine and see water in industrialized and “developed” societies. Thus, in 2020, black gold […]
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Peace and Peacefulness: Reaching for the Stars
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
I recall being rather bemused more than 25 years ago when a meditation practice was premised on the confidence that if enough people meditated for a few minutes each day on the reality of a peaceful world it would bend the arc of history toward peace. I know that spiritual attentiveness has wider implications but I find no evidence that links connect my meditation with the policies and actions of performers in ongoing world dramas.
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Trump Pardons Blackwater Contractors Jailed for Massacre of Iraq Civilians
Michael Safi | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
23 Dec 2020 – Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war.
→ read full articleEmbrace Communities to Save Humanity and the Planet
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
The unbounded idea includes sharing surplus, moving resources from where they are not needed to where they are needed, following the ancient principle Pope Francis is repeating every day: our property belongs not only to us but also to those we can help with our surplus. It is about peace by peaceful means; education, ethics, and practical applications; more than about playing hardball with people who choose to live by a different philosophy.
→ read full articleWhat Time Is It in Lockdown?
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
24 Dec 2020 – Here where I dwell in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice has just occurred. The darkest day of the year in a dark year. A few days ago was also the Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, which is interesting to those who like the musical Hair and believe their fates lie in the stars and not in themselves.
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What Went Right in 2020: The Top 20 Good News Stories of the Year
Lucy Purdy | Positive News magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Dec 2020
22 Dec 2020 – It’s been a year like no other. As challenging as 2020 has been, the past 12 months have also seen big wins for the environment, society and culture, human rights – and even health. Read on for 20 stories of progress that got hidden behind the headlines in 2020.
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(norsk-Norwegian) Nedrusting må begynne hjemme
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
Vi ruster opp og bruker nærmere 100 milliarder bare på F-35-jagerfly. USAs og våre militære ledere anser Russland som en potensiell fiende. Den erfarne forskeren Richard Falk mener at global nedrustning neppe er mulig å få til før USA avruster sin egen, tungt bevæpnede befolkning.
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Palestine Legal: Please Support & Donate
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
18 Dec 2020 – Palestine Legal’s work is necessary not only for those of us involved in work for Palestinian human rights, but for anyone who believes in preserving space for open political debate and upholding our rights to protest, which are sacred elements of any genuine constitutional democracy. Needless to say, Palestine Legal’s work will remain urgently necessary under the next U.S. administration.
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Will China Run the World? Should It?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
14 Dec 2020 – Responses to interview questions from Javad Heiran-Nia on ‘World Order in the Time of COVID-19,’ with emphasis on China & United States, especially as reflected in the restructuring of the world economy. The underlying issue is whether the Chinese or U.S. approach to global policy and world order will gain the upper hand, and at what costs to humanity.
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Trump Is Spending the Last Days of His Presidency on a Literal Killing Spree
Austin Sarat | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
15 Dec 2020 – In disregard for political precedent or basic humanity, Trump is turning the anger and resentment which burnishes his brand into a virtually unprecedented string of fast-tracked federal executions before Biden takes office.
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Move of Rohingya Refugees Poses Environmental and Human Rights Concerns
Tina Gerhardt | EcoWatch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Dec 2020
18 Dec 2020 – On December 4, about 1,600 Rohingya traveled across the Bay of Bengal in seven navy boats from Chattogram to Bhasan Char. Bangladesh plans to move 100,000 families to the island. The move poses serious concerns, both with regard to the environment and human rights.
→ read full articleMurdering Nuclear Scientists Does Not Prevent Proliferation–A Nuclear Free Middle East Does
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
Interview published in the Tehran Times on 2 Dec 2020. Fakhrizadeh’s assassination cannot be legally and politically justified by any acceptable theory governing the use of force in international relations and has very negative implications as an international precedent.
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The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
1 Dec 2020 – Or What It Means to Fall on a Failing Planet
→ read full articleQatar: Between the Scylla of Coercion and the Charybdis of Accommodation: An Inquiry into Sub-Regional Geopolitics
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
11 Dec 2020 – Qatar is caught between seeking the end of the coercive diplomacy led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and not wanting to end its necessary cooperation with Iran, especially with respect to large maritime natural gas deposits. The efforts at accommodation can turn out to be either a lessening of a confrontational approach to Iran or its intensification.
→ read full article(Português) O que é ser, de fato, pró-vida?
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
10 dez 2020 – Magali Cunha é jornalista e professora universitária e escreve com paixão e com-paixão pelas vítimas das continuadas violência aos direitos humanos, especialmente, de inocentes crianças das periferias de nossas cidades. Neste dia 10 celebramos 72 da proclamação solene da Declaração dos Direitos Humanos da ONU
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Partly Truth and Partly Fiction – Totally Genius: Kris Kristofferson
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
While great songs usually take but a few minutes to travel from the singer’s mouth to the listener’s ears, they keep echoing for a long time, as if they had taken both singer and listener on a circular journey out and back, and then, in true Odyssean fashion, replay the cyclic song of the shared poetic mystery that is life and death, love and loss, the going up and coming down, the abiding nostalgia for a future home.
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(Italiano) La sofferenza degli animali selvatici e il dilemma dei vegani
Jordi Casamitjana | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
10 Dicembre 2020 – L’etica vegana è per definizione anti-specista, così la definisce la Vegan Society. Per cui lo sfruttamento degli animali è inammissibile in tutte le sue forme, non solo quelle relative all’alimentazione. I vegani non hanno ancora raggiunto un accordo sul come affrontare la sofferenza degli animali selvatici, non sottoposti al diretto controllo degli esseri umani.
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Why Are Palestinians Being Forced to Prove Their Humanity?
Mohammed El-Kurd | +972 Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
3 Dec 2020 – What is happening has a clear name: ethnic cleansing. Over the last few months, the Israeli Court of Jerusalem has ruled to displace at least 12 Palestinian families in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah — including mine. Our homes, at any minute, might be taken by squatters backed by police. If your oppressor is the judge, to whom do you complain?
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To Force Climate Action, We Need More Than Just Protests
Edward Carver | Jacobin Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2020
11 Dec 2020 – Two years ago, the Sunrise Movement and Extinction Rebellion both captured media attention through bold direct action. Since then, Sunrise has combined protest with political work challenging fossil-fuel interests. XR and other groups tepid about electoral politics should do the same.
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Warp Speed Ahead: COVID-19 Vaccines Pave the Way for a New Frontier in Surveillance
John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
1 Dec 2020 – Like it or not, the COVID-19 pandemic with its veiled threat of forced vaccinations, contact tracing, and genetically encoded vaccines is propelling humanity at warp speed into a whole new frontier—a surveillance matrix—the likes of which we’ve only previously encountered in science fiction.
→ read full articleImportance of the “Practice-Research-Training” Nexus in Peacebuilding
Abbas Aroua | Cordoba Peace Institute Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
Peacebuilding, the equivalent of medicine in “social health”, benefits highly from this scheme to improve its approaches and tools and to be more effective and impactful. In fact, the development of peace studies in the last seven decades was grounded on the “practice-training-research” triad.
→ read full article(Português) O Cotidiano, a Fantasia e o Carisma
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
2 Dez 2020 – Nós viemos do útero comum donde vieram todas as coisas, da Energia de Fundo, daquele oceano sem margens, do big bang, do bóson Higgs que originou o top-quark, o tijolinho material mais primordial do edifício cósmico, passando por todas as fases da evolução até chegarmos ao computador atual e à inteligência artificial. E somos filhos e filhas da Terra. Melhor, somos a Terra que anda e dança, que freme de emoção e pensa, que quer e ama, que se extasia e adora o Ser que faz ser todos os seres.
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Robodoc: How India’s Robots Are Taking on Covid Patient Care
Kalpana Sunder | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
2 Dec 2020 – The pandemic has spurred on robotics companies building machines to perform tasks in hospitals and other industries.
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The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Tom Engelhardt | TomDispatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
1 Dec 2020 – Donald Trump was the messenger from hell when it came to a falling empire on a failing planet. Whether, on such a changing world, the next empire or empires, China or unknown powers to come, can rise in the normal fashion remains to be seen. As does whether, on such a planet, some other way of organizing human life, some potentially better, more empathetic way of dealing with the world and ourselves will be found.
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Listening to the Silence with Don DeLillo
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Dec 2020
5 Dec 2020 – In 1997, Don DeLillo, the author of seventeen novels, published what many consider his masterpiece, Underworld. It was a prophetic book in many ways, especially with its focus on the World Trade Towers and the way the book’s cover, front and back, pictured the towers shrouded in smoke or clouds with what seemed like a large bird approaching it at its upper floors.
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Unspeakable Memories: The Day John Kennedy Died
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2020
23 Nov 2020 – There is a vast literature on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who died on this date, November 22, 1963. Unless one is a government disinformation agent or is unaware of the enormous documentary evidence, one knows that it was the U.S. national security state, led by the CIA, that carried out JFK’s murder. Confirmation of this fact keeps arriving in easily accessible forms for anyone interested in the truth.
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Study Finds Meatpacking Plants Were Responsible for 8% of Coronavirus Cases in Opening Phase of Pandemic in the US
Cordell Gascoigne | WSWS - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2020
27 Nov 2020 – A recent study by Charles Taylor of Columbia University, and Christopher Boulos and Douglas Almond of the University of Chicago, found that outbreaks at meatpacking plants were responsible for 8 percent of all COVID-19 cases in the USA during the early months of the pandemic.
→ read full articlePompeo’s Diabolical Diplomacy
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2020
29 Nov 2020 – This interview, devoted to Pompeo’s three-day visit to Israel and Occupied Palestine, was conducted by Eshrat Mardi and published in the Tehran Times Interview Nov. 28, 2020.
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Remembering Robert Fisk
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
15 Nov 2020 – ‘Remembering Robert Fisk’ is the text of an interview conducted by Daniel Falcone, and published below on Nov. 9, 2020 in Counterpunch. There is one insertion mentioning Seymour Hersh as a fourth journalist in this style of exceptional devotion to the courage and craft of truth telling in place of danger or where transparency is obscured by state secrets.
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An Invitation to Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
16 Nov 2020 – The following is the Introduction to my new book, Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies. I offer it here as an invitation to consider joining me in the book so we may seek together. In putting together this selection of essays, I was reminded of what Albert Camus once wrote: “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.”
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How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps
Joseph Cox | Vice/Motherboard - TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
16 Nov 2020 – The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of people around the world, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, Motherboard has learned. A Muslim prayer app with over 98 million downloads is one of the apps connected to a wide-ranging supply chain that sends ordinary people’s personal data to brokers, contractors, and the military.
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