Articles by ICH
We found 2610 results.
(Castellano) Mas Cordura, Menos Violencia, la Organización Ilimitada
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
2 Mar 2020 – La apuesta de este bosquejo es: Si uno comprende que la estructura cultural básica (junto con las leyes de la física, química, biología y otras ciencias naturales — todas ellas resumidas en la ecología) es el poder causal que más determina el rumbo de la historia; entonces uno comprenderá que la metodología de organización ilimitada es una metodología (no la única) apta para cambiar el rumbo de la historia.
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Staatenlos—Stateless
Michael David Morrissey – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
Renouncing citizenship is not easy, either, and it has become expensive. A fee of $450 was introduced in 2010, and raised in 2014 to $2350. You have to have filed faithfully to the IRS every year and prove you have been in full “compliance” for at least the past five years, regardless of whether you earned any of your income in the US. If not, or if you are worth more than $2 million, you will have to pay an “expatriation tax.”
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World Game
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
Buckminster Fuller, the US architect, designer and philosopher, designed a “world game,” in which the players assume the role of heads of state, and their goal is to meet the needs of their people for food, housing and education.
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How Sanders Wins and Governs–Winning and Losing in 2020
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
24 Feb 2020 – Anyone sensitive to the American political scene has become aware of an emerging collision between surging citizen support for Bernie Sanders and the lamentations of portfolio (stocks & bonds) driven Democrats who purport to question Sanders’ electability, and even if they now most reluctantly acknowledge the robustness of his electoral challenge to Trump, contend that he will be never be able to govern given his left agenda and considering the likely embitterment of the DNC establishment.
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Tariq Ali Speaks Out on Assange’s Case and US Wars
AcTVism Munich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
In this 4 Feb 2020 speech in a public rally for Julian Assange at the Royal National Hotel in London, author, writer, filmmaker and public intellectual Tariq Ali speaks about Julian Assange and contextualizes his case by focusing on U.S. wars pointing out the double standards observed when it comes to the application of international law. Ali emphasizes the importance of collective action around the plight of Julian Assange.
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Weaponizing Lawfare in the Philippines
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
22 Feb 2020 – Rodrigo Duterte, despite leaving by now a long trail of blood-stained abuse, retains an approval rating of more than 80%. As in the United States, we ask the question that prompted the leading thinkers in ancient Athens to abandon democracy—‘how can we trust the citizenry if they are drawn to support demagogues whose policies are self-destructive for the political community?” If not, the people, then whom? Surely, not the financial oligarchs. Plutocracy is not the answer.
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Compassion
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
Mother Teresa was bandaging an old man with an advanced stage of leprosy.
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Meeting Grand Ayatollah 41 Years Ago
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
15 Feb 2020 – In February 1979, along with two others, I had a meeting with Ayatollah Khomeini. The post below is an edited text of an interview by two Iranian journalists, Maryam Khormaei & Javad Heiran-Nia, which was published a few weeks ago in Iran. As few Westerners had such an opportunity to meet the leader of the Iranian Revolution in a relatively relaxed atmosphere and for an ample length of time, there seemed interest in Iran and elsewhere in my recollections of that meeting.
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The Golden Age of White Collar Crime
Michael Hobbes, Matt Giles, et al. | HuffPost – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
10 Feb 2020 – Elite lawbreaking is out of control. This is the grotesque story of an existential threat to American society. One of the most conspicuous aspects of white-collar cases is the doting, near-veterinary care with which judges try to prevent defendants from facing harsh punishment. 32% of American managers said they were comfortable behaving unethically to meet financial targets. –Ernst and Young Global Fraud Survey
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Arendt, Eichmann and the Banalization of Blame
Michael Brenner | HuffPost – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
Hannah Arendt, who originated the term “banality of evil” in her provocative writings, was not interested in explaining Eichmann’s blandness per se. She had more profound thoughts to convey. He was a symbol of something much deeper. Her forcefully argued conclusions that ordinary people can commit horrific crimes created a furor – a blazing fire of argument and recrimination whose embers smoldered for decades.
→ read full articleWhy International Law Is Crucial for Human Wellbeing
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Feb 2020
If we are attentive to current events, as the media reports war/peace issues we would quickly conclude that invoking international law in these high profile settings is to be out of touch with how sovereign states go about pursuing their most important economic and political interests, which in areas touching on security is by trusting their defensive capabilities and alliance relations, and not by believing that as long as their actions and policies stay on the right side of the law, they have nothing to worry about.
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Trump/Netanyahu Diplomacy: Orientalism by any Other Name
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
1 Feb 2020 – This so-called contribution to ‘peace’ requires Palestine to give up its most fundamental rights, and accept a permanent condition of subjugation and victimization. It is framed in such a one-sided pro-Israel manner as if designed to ensure its instant and overwhelming rejection by Palestinian government representatives and by Palestinian public opinion.
→ read full articleA Rationale for Unbounded Organization: A Path to Positive Peace
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
This is a proposal for a pragmatic, functional and realistic framework for talking, thinking and building institutions.
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Making the Earth Charter Happen: A Necessary Utopia
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
7 Feb 2020 – Twenty years ago Kamla Chowdhry, one of the founding members of the Earth Charter Commission asked, “How can we ensure that ethical and spiritual values get a fair hearing with the economist, technologist, and the industrialist? How do we weld economics with ethics, and have a technology with a human face?” Answering those questions remains central to our efforts today for a more just, sustainable and peaceful world.
→ read full articleThe Decline of International Law: Reflections of a True Believer
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2020
27 Jan 2020 – There is widespread agreement that international law is experiencing a sharp decline in relevance when it comes to foreign policy, especially in the eye of the public. At first glance, this seems surprising. The impression of decline derives from high profile issues of governments acting without regard for international law, especially in the area of peace and security.
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On the Eve of the Release of Trump’s ‘Deal–Farce of the Century’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2020
28 Jan 2020 – Interview by Rodrigo Craveiro from the Brazilian daily Correio Braziliense –
Craveiro: Why are Palestinian leaders rejecting to talk with president Trump about this new peace plan?
‘Good’ Deeds?
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2020
A scout master asked three little scouts what good deed they had done today. The first one replied, “I helped an old lady cross the street.”
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Interview with Football Leaks Whistleblower Rui Pinto ‘This Football Mafia Is Everywhere’
Nino Seidel and Michael Wulzinger – Der Spiegel,
3 Feb 2020
2 Jan 2019 – In an interview, Rui Pinto, the Portuguese young man who kept the industry in suspense over revelations from Football Leaks, discusses his life in anonymity, the explosive power of his documents and accusations that he is a hacker.
“I am not a hacker, I am a whistleblower.” – Rui Pinto
Contesting Nuclearism: Management or Transformation? An Urgent Challenge
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2020
22 Jan 2020 – This essay calls attention to the generally unappreciated tensions between managing nuclear weapons and eliminating them altogether. It stresses the crucial point that management inevitably produces a structure of ‘nuclear apartheid’ that is to some extent ‘legalized’ by way of the Nonproliferation Treaty of 1961, and depends for implementation, not on law, but on geopolitical muscle, including war. This geopolitical pattern of NPT enforcement has been mainly undertaken by the United States, but is generally supported by most of the other nuclear weapons states.
→ read full articleFacing the Global Crisis
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
16 Jan 2020 – This is an amplified version of an interview published on 7 Jan in the online journal, Global Policy. As the interview was conducted in Dec 2019, it fails to address the various disruptive consequences of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, including the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, Baghdad being the site of the drone attack, as well as the risks of war arising from an escalating tit-for-tat cycle of actions and reactions.
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The Art of Listening
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
Dr. Bernard Lown, Professor of Cardiology emeritus at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-recipient with Yevgeniy Chazov of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize as Chairman of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said that he once toured a hospital as a young intern with other interns observing their professor.
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America, an Empire on Its Last Leg: To Be Kicked Out from the Middle East?
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
20 Jan 2020
7 Jan 2020
• A US president committed to war crimes,
• A failing “War on Terrorism” narrative,
• Weakened military command structures,
• Failing alliances,
• Sleeping with the enemy,
• Unpredictable foreign policy analysts,
• Deception and mistakes.
At this juncture: The US’ most powerful weapon remains dollarization, neoliberal economic reforms and the ability to manipulate financial markets.
With Costs Approaching $100 Billion, the Fires Are Australia’s Costliest Natural Disaster
Paul Read and Richard Denniss – The Conversation,
20 Jan 2020
17 Jan 2020 – It’s hard to estimate the eventual economic cost of Australia’s 2019-20 megafires, partly because they are still underway, and partly because it is hard to know the cost to attribute to deaths and the decimation of species and habitats, but it is easy to get an idea of its significance – the cost will be unprecedented.
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Iran Jet Disaster Setup
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich and Finian Cunningham | Sputnik – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – The 19-second video published by the New York Times last week showing the moment an Iranian missile hit a passenger jet has prompted much social media skepticism. Questions arise about the improbable timing and circumstances of recording the precise moment when the plane was hit.
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2020 U.S. Presidential Elections: Reflections outside the Box
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – Four Reflections on What Would Help Democrats Defeat Trump
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The Prosecution of Julian Assange, the Destruction of Legality and the Rise of the National Security State
Richard Hoffman | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
15 Jan 2020 – It is worthwhile to consider briefly the lawless character of Assange’s persecution by Britain, the United States and Sweden. Since the beginning, Assange has been subjected to endless procedural abuses and political interference in the legal process. Virtually every customary precept, practice and procedural protection, which an accused is traditionally afforded, has been discarded in the effort to railroad him. The disintegration of the democratic system and the rise of the national security state are hallmarks of the deepening crisis of imperialism.
→ read full articleOpen Letter to Members of the U.S. Congress
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2020
8 Jan 2020 – I listened to Trump from my own perspective and with an attempt to hear his words as if I were an Iranian living in Iran. I found the statement belligerent, and formulated in an imperialist/hegemonic language, avoiding a diplomatic sequel, and instead resuming the ‘maximum pressure’ approach involving threats and further intensified sanctions and other coercive moves that will bring additional suffering to the Iranian people.
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Welcome to Hawaii’s ‘Plastic Beach’, One of the World’s Dirtiest Places
Liz Barney and Michelle Broder Van Dyke – The Guardian,
13 Jan 2020
10 Jan 2020 – Hawaii has long evoked images of a Pacific paradise but Kamilo Beach, located on the Big Island, presents a starkly different reality.
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Changing Perceptions on Homosexuality
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2020
Until the mid-1970s, Swedish law defined homosexuality as a disease.
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The Sham of Corporate Social Responsibility
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
31 Dec 2019 – Boeing recently fired CEO Dennis Muilenburg in order “to restore confidence in the Company moving forward.” Restore confidence? Muilenburg’s successor will be David Calhoun, who allowed Muilenburg to remain CEO after the first 737 Max crash and the jetliner posed an unacceptable risk of accident. It caused the deaths of 346 people. Muilenburg raked in $30 million in 2018. He could walk away from Boeing with another $60 million.
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(Italiano) Che cosa muove l’antisemitismo? Forme fasulle e reali
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
30 Dicembre 2019 – Solo il tribalismo più estremo può spiegare l’etichettatura di coloro che si oppongono al trattamento abusivo di Israele nei confronti del popolo palestinese come “antisemiti”. Consideriamo l’incapacità di Aung San Suu Kyi di condannare l’abuso da parte del Myanmar dei Rohingya come il lancio delle nuvole più scure sul suo Nobel Premio per la Pace. È un insulto agli ebrei e agli altri semiti consentire ai sionisti di imprimere solidarietà alla lotta palestinese per i loro diritti fondamentali come antisemitismo.
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Forgetting 2019
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
31 Dec 2019 – At this age, having exhausted prose options, I indulge myself during holidays by sharing poems that seek also your indulgence. I searched 2019 for some glimmers of good news, and felt stymied. Of course here, there, everywhere there were glorious private exceptions.
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Latin America: The Conservative Offensive and the Return of Class War
Antoine Pelletier interviews Franck Gaudichaud | CETRI – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
15 Dec 2019 – Several countries in Latin America are currently experiencing very powerful class conflicts and extremely violent repression on the part of reactionary forces and the state. The following is an overview of the situation in various countries and the dynamics of their struggles.
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Three Cheers for the Cheerfully Deluded!
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Let’s hear three cheers for the cheerfully deluded! Instead of telling them that their dreams are very likely to be disappointed, let’s change the world to make it possible for more of their dreams to come true. Soul medicine. What is not possible in pure neoliberal markets is possible in impure African and Latin American markets. Public policies and human sympathy can rescue not only the bodies of the poor, but also the dignity of the poor.
→ read full articleWhat Drives Anti-Semitism? Fake and Real Forms
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Only the most extreme tribalism can explain labeling those who oppose Israel’s abusive treatment of the Palestinian people as ‘anti-Semites.’ We look upon Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to condemn the Myanmar abuse of the Rohingya as casting the darkest of clouds over her Nobel Peace Prize. It is an insult to Jews and other Semites to allow Zionists to brand solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for their most basic rights as anti-Semitism.
→ read full articleReconciling Ecological Imperatives and the Right to Food at a Time of Bio-Ethical Crisis
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2019
15 Dec 2019 – Humanity faces an unprecedented challenge in the coming decades that threatens the foundations of life itself, and yet to date societal reactions have been disappointingly weak and evasive, aside from voices in the wilderness. Despite expertly documented studies from the most qualified climate scientists, the overall response of supposedly responsible political and economic elites has been tepid, escapist, and even denialist.
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(Italiano) Pax Gandhiana: La Filosofia Politica del Mahatma Gandhi
Howard Richards | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
In un mondo in cui gli studi prevalenti di pace e politica sono dominati da ciò che passa per realismo e ciò che passa per ordine mondiale, l’emerito studioso di Gandhi Anthony Parel ha derivato da un attento studio delle opera di Gandhi una filosofia politica che promette di essere alla lunga più realistica di quella/e dei cosiddetti realisti.
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Europe Agonistes
Michael Brenner – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
If America in the late eighteenth century was born against others’ history, Western Europe in the mid-twentieth century succeeded in liberating itself from its own history.
→ read full articleLearning from Others: Germans and White Supremacists in South USA
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
8 Dec 2019 – Susan Neiman has written a remarkable book, Learning from Others: Race and the Problem of Evil. We are challenged by Neiman not to consider racism or evil as matters of destiny, but fully subject to the vagaries of human responsibility, which includes the domain of a free society.
→ read full articleIgnorant Good Intentions Lost in Translation
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
During the Iranian hostage crisis, UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim flew to Teheran and announced at a news conference at the airport, “I have come here to mediate a compromise.”
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Inside the Organized Crime Syndicate Known as the CIA
Heidi Boghosian and Michael Steven Smith | CovertAction Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
21 Nov 2019 – Douglas Valentine is an investigator and author with a rare and tenacious approach toward research. His writing results in uniquely incisive and revealing books on the dark side of U.S. intelligence activities and the National Security State. His latest book draws parallels between CIA operations in Vietnam and recent/current operations in Afghanistan, El Salvador, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
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Climate Tipping Points — Too Risky to Bet Against
Timothy M. Lenton, Johan Rockström, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmstorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber - Nature Magazine,
9 Dec 2019
27 Nov 2019 – Politicians, economists and natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points in the Earth system — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet — are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing the world to long-term irreversible changes.
→ read full articleHealth and Human Rights in Gaza: Shame on the World
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
27 Nov 2019 – I take alarmed note of the refusal of the mainstream media to accord attention to the misery so long endured by the people of Gaza. If ever the norm of ‘the responsibility to protect’ was applied according to humanitarian need, Gaza would be at the top of the list, but of course there is no list, and if ever there were one, given the present international atmosphere, Gaza would remain among the unlisted! This neglect of the people of Gaza is so acute as to extend the web of criminal complicity far beyond the borders of Israel.
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Contra Israeli Apartheid
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
1 Dec 2019 – This is a modified version of remarks made at the opening plenary session of the “1st Global Conference on Israeli Apartheid: Dimensions, Repercussions and the Means to Combat It,” 29-30 Nov 2019, Istanbul.
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Gandhi’s Economics: Practical Ethics for Systemic Transformation
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
Here the concept of basic cultural structure is used to argue that Gandhi, with deep roots in a different basic cultural structure, is able to offer a deeper and in the end more realistic critique of, and alternative to, neoliberalism than critiques that remain within the basic cultural structure of modernity. Why have moral economies failed to materialize? Is it now too late to prevent inevitable irreparable disastrous ecocide? Is it really true that by practicing the ideals of Gandhi and other great moral exemplars we are contributing to building a peaceful, just and sustainable world?’
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A New Cycle of Gaza/Israel Violence
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
22 Nov 2019 – Whether this latest cycle of violence has ended as of now is difficult to assess, and it should not be confused with the violence at the Gaza Fence as a result of weekly demonstrations of Palestinians in the course of the Great March of Return, a civil society initiative that has continued since March 30, 2018, a remarkable exhibition of sumud on the Palestinian side and of excessive lethal force on the Israel side.
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Pax Gandhiana: The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
In a world where mainstream studies of peace and politics are dominated by what passes for realism and for world order, the distinguished Gandhi scholar Anthony Parel has derived from a close study of Gandhi’s works a political philosophy that promises in the long run to be more realistic than the so-called realists. It rests on a deeper order, an order in the human soul, than the global political and economic order established after World War II whose current disintegration mainstream scholars are now lamenting.
→ read full article(Castellano) La Transformación de la Estructura Cultural Básica (ECB): Nada Menos nos Salvará
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
11 Nov 2019 – Chile no es un caso único. También se registran ahora mismo conflictos sociales masivos en Argelia, Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Egipto, Estados Unidos, Francia, Guinea, Haití, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iraq, Kazakstán, Kashmir, Líbano, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistán, Rusia, Siria, Sud África, Venezuela, Yemen unos cuantos países más. No hay país donde, aunque sea relativamente tranquilo ahora mismo, no se encuentre germinando las semillas de la rebelión.
→ read full article(Castellano) Chile Despertó, pero Chile no Despertó
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
11 Nov 2019 – De lo que he podido constatar, participando en unas manifestaciones en la quinta región, y enterándome por los medios y por las redes sociales de lo que pasa en el resto del país, los manifestantes son principalmente jóvenes, sinceros y comprometidos con el bien común, y sin ninguna intención de hacer mal a nadie. Simplemente quieren una vida digna normal, garantizada en el plano material por una seguridad económica confiable, es decir, no precaria. Otra cosa es la violencia que ha acompañado el despertar.
→ read full articleBecoming 89
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
— Istanbul, 13 Nov 2019 [From TMS editor: Richard was born on 13 Nov 1930]
→ read full articleThe Basic Cultural Structure: A Comment from Chile as It Burns
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
An immediate payoff for peace is that once one analyses the main causes at work in history as structures, not as people, one should (if one is logical) tone down one’s anger. The world works the way it does because its main dynamics (capital accumulation, war) and other principal dynamics were socially constructed during long centuries when none of our contemporaries had yet been born. Another immediate payoff for peace is guidance on how to do peace-making.
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The War in Syria
Prof. Richard Falk | TRT – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
24 Oct 2019 – Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, UC Santa Barbara, author of 40 books, and a speaker and activist. In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Falk to a six-year term as a UN Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009).
→ read full articleDid the West Win the Cold War?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
6 Nov 2019 – It was assumed and almost never challenged that the outcome of the Cold War was a victory for liberal values, human rights, political democracy, economic growth, and certainly world peace. And since democracies supposedly do not go to war against each other, and if Communism was discredited, then democracy would spread naturally and quickly, and the world would become more peaceful and its people better off.
→ read full articleCasting Doubt: Trusting Whistleblowers More Than International Institutions–Syrian Alleged Chemical Weapons Attack on Douma
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
Courage Foundation Panel Challenges International Finding of Syrian Responsibility for the 2018 Attack on Douma
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The Future of Human Rights: Regressive Trends and Restorative Prospects
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
31 Oct 2019 – The main objective of this essay is to sketch the profound challenges to human rights that arise from a series of interrelated and overlapping developments, and to give some sense that to restore and enhance human rights is a difficult undertaking that now seems almost impossible given the ultra-nationalist outlook of the governments of most leading states. Yet the future is uncertain, and will be influenced by what peoples variously situated choose to do or refrain from doing.
→ read full articleInterpreting Turkey’s Military Operation in Syria
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
18 Oct 2019 – Ever since things started to go badly wrong in Syria after the uprising prompted by the 2011 Arab Spring, the situation has converted the customary fog of war into an impenetrable black box. None of the intervening political actors including Turkey, United States, Iran, Russia, Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia calculated correctly, nor did the various non-state extremist groups associated with al Qaeda and later ISIS, as well as a variety of anti-Damascus Syrian insurgencies.
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Courtroom
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
Taking his seat in his chambers, the judge faced the opposing lawyers.
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Narrative: Whistleblower Denounces Lies, Deceit and Cover-up by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Report on Syria
Courage Foundation & Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
23 Oct 2019 – Panel Criticizes ‘Unacceptable Practices’ in the OPCW’s Investigation of the Alleged Syria Chemical Attack of April 2018 – The Courage Foundation convened a panel of concerned individuals in Brussels on 15 Oct, which met with a member of the investigation. On this basis the panel issued the following statement. [Foreword by Richard Falk]
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In Praise of Kamila Shamsie’s ‘Home Fire’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
13 Oct 2019 – It took the withdrawal of the Nelly Sachs Prize to make me familiar with the fine literary achievements and compassionate politics of Kamila Shamsie. Selfishly, I cannot thank the Dortmund City Council enough for its outrageous behavior, evidently canceling the award because a right-wing newspaper outed Shamsie as a supporter of the BDS Campaign. I can imagine Shamsie’ feeling of hurt as well as disappointment as this incident unfolded.
→ read full articleThe Climate Crisis (and Other Crises) Require the Transformation of the Basic Cultural Structure of the Modern World (Part 2)
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
This is a revised version of the TMS Editorial with same title published on 14 Oct 2019–to clarify and answer questions from readers.
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The Eurozone in Crisis? New President of the European Central Bank has a Criminal Record. Christine Lagarde
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
21 Oct 2019
14 Oct 2019 – Lagarde was found “guilty” without the enforcement of a one year jail term ordered by the Court: criminals in high office are given special treatment. She was accused of “negligence” rather than “complicity” in a multimillion euro fraud. In a bitter irony, Lagarde was rewarded rather than penalized. Despite her criminal record, she was appointed to lead both the IMF (2011-2019) and the ECB (2019- ).
→ read full articleWhen Is It ‘Politically Correct’ to Be Politically Correct?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
Only a day after I published ‘In Praise of Kamila Shamsie’ [posted in TRANSCEND Members below], the Nobel Committee awarded their 2019 Literature Prize to Peter Handke, the Austrian novelist known for his support of ultra-nationalist behavior and endorsement of the crimes of Serbian leaders during the Bosnian War. By contrast, in Shamsie’s case her sin was to honor her conscience by supporting the nonviolent BDS-Boycott Divestment Sanctions Campaign that seeks an end to the violation of the basic rights of the Palestinian people.
→ read full articleIran’s Gulf Peace Proposal: HOPE
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
7 Oct 2019 – As I understand President Hassan Rouhani’s plan it concentrates upon regionalizing the protection of navigation and safeguarding of energy flows in the Persian Gulf with a particular emphasis on providing security for oil tanker traffic. The proposal comes against a background of months of warmongering threats, harsh sanctions, and dangerous incidents that pose unacceptable risks of provoking violent incidents, and even war.
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Ecuador under President Neo-coño Moreno: The IMF’s Deadly “Economic Medicine”, the Weaponization of Neoliberal Reforms
Prof. Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
14 Oct 2019
12 Oct 2019 – A popular insurrection is unfolding against the adoption of sweeping IMF reforms imposed by the government of President Lenin Moreno, aka Neocon Moreno. In March 2019, a 4.2 billion dollar IMF loan was granted to Ecuador: payment for Julian Assange’s arrest.
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Why We Need Resistance Studies
Richard Jackson | Waging Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
5 Oct 2019 – The challenges we face are daunting. That’s why we need Resistance Studies now more than ever. This could be the Golden Age for the study of resistance. For starters, we are going to need a great deal of nonviolent resistance to cope with the coming climate warming crisis.
→ read full articleThe Kurdish-Turkish Crisis
Michael Brenner – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
12 Oct 2019 – Here we are again: a major series of events in the Middle East accompanied by thin and misleading MSM coverage. It is the background, context and interpretation of implications that are distorted and prejudiced; also, spiked with a drizzle of lies. Par for the course.
→ read full articleThe Climate Crisis (and Other Crises) Require the Transformation of the Basic Cultural Structure of the Modern World (Part 1)
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
It is in the news that millions of people around the world –inspired by a Swedish teenager so honest that looking at a picture of her will cure a headache—have taken to the streets demanding that something must be done. I will use this editorial to offer an answer to the question what must be done: The basic cultural structures of the modern world must be transformed. I will not try to prove this thesis here. I will try to state clearly the thesis to be proven.
→ read full articleWill Confronting Iran Lead to War or Peace?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
1 Oct 2019 – This is a slightly modified version of an interview published in The Nation on 25 Sep following the 14 Sep attack on Saudi oil facilities. It follows a pattern, with respect to Iran, of accusations, denials, and public uncertainties. This combination of elements, given the leadership in Washington and Tehran, one blustering, the other inflexible, can easily produce an unintended stumble into war.
→ read full article(Castellano) Eventos actuales en una perspectiva histórica
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
Pretoria: Cyril Ramaphosa, anteriormente presidente de la Unión Nacional de Mineros, y ahora presidente de la República de Sudáfrica, ha estado hablando recientemente mientras dormía: “no entiendo lo que me pasó. No entiendo lo que me pasó. No entiendo lo que me pasó”. Un ratón, que se abrió paso debajo de sus mantas y estaba en condiciones de morder uno de sus dedos de los pies, al escuchar sus gemidos, como el Daily Maverick y el Globe and Mail, y aparentemente por razones similares, decidió no atacar.
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Work Partnership
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
Rufus Jones (1863-1948), the American Quaker who helped found the American Friends Service Committee in 1917, went to England after World War I to help with the reconstruction.
→ read full articleDark Clouds and the Human Condition: Youth to the Rescue!
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
25 Sep 2019 – If the young and old act together this kind of UN can be nurtured. In the meantime, we should resist the temptation to pretend that this UN of the peoples already exists, but we should never forget that we have it within our potential collective power to make it happen, and by doing, to make the sort of difference that youth are rightfully demanding.
→ read full articleRisk-Taking
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
Never be afraid to try something new.
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The Origins of European Unification
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
After World War II, the French economist and diplomat Jean Monnet thought that the best way to end the century old hostility between Germany and France was to tie the two countries together in some mutually beneficial economic venture.
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Chained to Its Past: A German Recipe for Injustice toward the People of Palestine
Hans von Sponeck and Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
17 Sep 2019 – The Bundestag resolution that condemned the BDS Campaign as contributing to a rising threat of antisemitism in Europe is a grave cause of concern. It brands the BDS, a nonviolent Palestinian initiative, anti-Semitic and takes this stand pointing out Germany’s special responsibility toward Jews, without any reference at all to Israel’s prolonged abuse of the most fundamental of human rights, that of self-determination, of the Palestinian people.
→ read full articleCurrent Events in an Historical Perspective
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
To rebuild the world, to build a world that works, we do not need ‘other economists’ as much as we need people trained in other fields who are able to look at problems now classified as ‘economic’–like ‘unemployment’–from other perspectives using different conceptual and mathematical tools.
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A Lake without Fish
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
Someone flew in a seaplane over a lake and saw two people fishing down there.
→ read full articleRight!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
Sunday school teacher: “What do we have to do so that our sins can be forgiven?”
→ read full articleDonald Trump’s Foreign Policy Sows Confusion
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2019
If Democrats are unable to recognize Trump’s (and their own) addiction to power as the sole means of dealing with conflicts, they will not understand that “toughness” and “softness” constitute a false dichotomy in foreign affairs. Power does not solve the social problems that generate war. Creativity, empathy, analysis, and determination are needed to solve those problems and generate effective options for conflict resolution. We have reason to believe that younger members of the opposition, in particular, have already begun to understand this.
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The Pompeo Doctrine
Michael T. Klare - TomDispatch,
16 Sep 2019
How to Seize the Arctic’s Resources, Now Accessible Due to Climate Change (Just Don’t Mention Those Words!) Perhaps no aspect of humanity’s response to the climate crisis is more diabolical than this. The greater the number of fossil fuels we consume, the more rapidly we alter the Arctic, inviting the further extraction of just such fuels and their contribution to global warming.
→ read full articleBy the way…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2019
A little girl comes running and says, “Father, my toothbrush fell into the toilet!”
→ read full articleBurning Amazonia, Denying Climate Change, Devastating Syria, Starving Yemen, Ignoring Kashmir
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
5 Sep 2019 – What is suggested is the dependence of human wellbeing on the emergence of a transnational activist movement that demands major structural reforms of world order that seek a favorable resolution of the bio-ethical crisis. If this seems utopian, you are quite right to react as if there is no plausible path leading from here to there. Yet I believe it is more illuminating to insist that activating the utopian imagination is the only source of a transformed realism that is sensitive to the distinctive challenges and opportunities of the 21stcentury.
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It’s Coming Soon: Can the UN Rethink Its Future in a Few Months?
Richard Ponzio and Cristina Petcu | PassBlue – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
On 26 Jun 2020 the international community will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter. That doesn’t leave much time to hammer out a “concise, substantive, forward-looking and unifying declaration” that captures member states’ commitment to multilateralism and to the UN before the world leaders’ summit meeting on Sept. 21, 2020 — as the General Assembly resolved this month.
→ read full articleIntelligent Design
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
A little boy went up to his father and asked:
→ read full articleClarification
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Sep 2019
During the German occupation of France, a German soldier entered Picasso’s studio and saw a small reproduction of his painting “Guernica”.
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Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes, Michael Oppenheimer and Dale Jamieson | Scientific American – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
19 Aug 2019 – Recent updates, suggesting that climate change and its impacts are emerging faster than scientists previously thought, are consistent with observations that we and other colleagues have made identifying a pattern in assessments of climate research of underestimation of certain key climate indicators, and therefore underestimation of the threat of climate disruption.
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White Supremacy before Trump: The U.S. Conquest of Hawaii
Michael K. Smith – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
August 21 marks the sixtieth anniversary of Hawaiian statehood. Many Americans know little more than package tours and “Pearl Harbor” about the fiftieth state, and few realize that when the U.S. naval base was attacked by the Japanese, it was not at the time U.S. territory. Even fewer have any idea how Hawaii came to have an important American naval base capable of triggering a world war.
→ read full articleWill Trump’s War-Mongering Lead to War with Iran?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
12 Aug 2019 – This is an edited version of an interview on 11 Aug 2019 by Iranian journalist Nozhan Etezad and published in Iran News. It addresses various aspects of the troubled recent Iran/U.S. relationship.
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Speaking for the Silenced: The Holy Inquisition in Portugal
Richard Zimler | Tikkun – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
Prisoners in Inquisitorial prisons who refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah and make a full confession of their Jewish practices would be burnt at the stake in a public ceremony known as an auto-da-fé, meaning act of faith. In 1560, Portugal imposed this same religious dictatorship in Goa, where tens of thousands of converted Hindus and their descendants were arrested and tortured – and hundreds burnt alive – by the Inquisition from 1560 to 1820. The Inquisition was also a diabolically effective money-making scam, since all the assets of its victims were confiscated and given to the Church.
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Banning U.S. Congresspersons from Israel
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Aug 2019
18 Aug 2019 – The decision to ban, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, two sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives, disgraces the leaders of both the United States and Israel, confirms the illegitimacy of both political parties by their tepid responses, and confirms once more the unhealthy relationship that has evolved between Trump and Netanyahu, these two most reactionary of political figures, and badly reflects on the political atmosphere in the countries they represent.
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‘A New Hawaiian Renaissance’: How a Telescope Protest Became a Movement
Michelle Broder Van Dyke – The Guardian,
19 Aug 2019
17 Aug 2019 – On Hawaii’s Big Island, a protest against a $1.4bn observatory on Mauna Kea, a mountain considered sacred by many Native Hawaiians, is entering a second month. In that time, the protest site has swelled from a few hundred to several thousands, attracted celebrity visitors, and built a community of Native Hawaiians who see it as a pivotal moment.
→ read full articleFrom Legitimacy Wars to the Politics of Impossibility: Horizons of Hope
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Aug 2019
The Palestinian people are being cruelly pushed hard against walls of submission by violence and threats, which amounts to what has become ‘a lost cause’ somewhat along the lines of Tibet, Western Sahara, and the fates that have befallen most indigenous peoples. This is what Trump is promoting as ‘the deal of the century’ and seems to be what the Arab dynastic autocrats would like to see happen so that they can get on with their business of confronting Iran and keeping their own peoples forever captive.
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“That Was Then, This Is Now.” “Oh, yeah?” The Problem of Anti-Relativism in Political Morality
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2019
Anti-relativist thinking insists that certain values approved by the speaker are constant and unchangeable. This means that behaviors that we now believe are wrong were ‘always’ unacceptable, and should always have always been recognized as such. Anti-relativism’s opposite, moral relativism, can be summed up in the phrase, “Other times, other customs.” Historical eras, social conditions, and cultural environments change, altering commonly accepted definitions of right and wrong.
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Tulsi Gabbard Has Done the Unpardonable: Criticized US Global Hegemony
David Bromwich | Mondoweiss – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Aug 2019
3 Aug 2019 – The Times’ yellow journalism half disguised as human interest, with a few random points of political information. Headline: “Unorthodox Campaign Shows Isolationism May Have a Hold.” Opening sentence: “Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that she believes has wrought horror on the world.”
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Untitled…
Michael de Adder – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Aug 2019
… and legend unnecessary. Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder was dropped after creating this drawing.
→ read full articleContext Matters Except for the Palestinians
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Aug 2019
2 Aug 2019 – Palestinians could and should have done better in setting forth their own vision of peace. The extreme one-sidedness of the Trump approach handed Palestinians a golden opportunity to declare as forcibly as possible the urgent and immediate need for a new peace intermediary that was a facilitator, and not a partisan as past American presidents, or an imposer as this one seems to be. The United States had long overplayed its hand as ‘honest broker.’
→ read full articleGeopolitical Crimes: A Revolutionary Proposal
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2019
23 Jul 2019 – International criminal law has developed a framework for judging the criminal conduct of states with respect to armed conflict but is silent about even the most severe crimes of diplomacy. It is these ‘geopolitical crimes’ that are more responsible for inflicting mass suffering on civilian populations than are most of the forms of international behavior currently criminalized. I am aware that criminalizing acts of diplomacy is a revolutionary idea, but no less for that, deserving of commentary and debate.
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Nikola Tesla (10 Jul 1856 – 7 Jan 1943)
Biography and Michel Chossudovsky – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2019
Very few people know who Nikola Tesla is. They have heard of the Tesla electric car, but generally the broader public is unfamiliar with Nikola Tesla, the Serbian scientist and his path breaking inventions in electricity and wireless technology. Many of his inventions were stolen by US corporations. Wireless technology was in large part based on Tesla inventions. He contributed to the development of the alternating-current electrical system that’s widely used today and discovered the rotating magnetic field (the basis of most AC machinery).
→ read full articleRequired Reading: Noura Erakat on Palestine and Law
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jul 2019
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine, by Noura Erakat, Stanford University Press, 2019 – I make no claim to approach this book with an open mind. Making a fuller disclosure, I acknowledge with some pride that I have endorsed Justice for Some even before it was published, and my blurb appears on its back cover.
→ read full articleTwo Necessary and Sufficient Principles
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jul 2019
Life’s (humanity’s and the earth’s) bottleneck problems can be solved, I dare to suggest, by applying just two general principles. The two can be regarded as principles of unbounded organization. Unbounded organization is the name of a conversation, an academy and a movement (one of many, but not one that duplicates what the others do) devoted to making the impossible possible. Here I contribute to its conversation the proposal that implementing just two principles will make the impossible possible; namely, a pro-social attitude plus doing what works; or alternatively, a pro-social attitude plus structural understanding.
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This Dutch City Has Transformed Its Bus Stops into Bee Stops
Michiel de Gooijer | EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jul 2019
8 Jul 2019 – In the Dutch city Utrecht 316 bus stops now have a green roof. They do not only look great, they also help capture fine dust, storage of rainwater and provide cooling in the summertime. From Bus Stops to Bee Stops
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