Articles by RD
We found 3491 results.
Europe Should Brace for Second Wave, Says EU Coronavirus Chief
Daniel Boffey | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
20 May 2020 – The prospect of a second wave of coronavirus infection across Europe is no longer a distant theory, according to Dr Andrea Ammon, director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. “The question is when and how big, that is the question in my view.”
→ read full articleThe Humans and the Viruses: The World Economic Forum and the Coronaviruses
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
Let me suggest, first, that there is a plausible explanation at the heart of our failure to live out the best of human nature, and that the current pandemic shows how crucial it is to change it. And, second, that the smartest of the business leaders are realizing that their own fate and the fate of all of us depends on replacing the essence of capitalism with an ethics of solidarity.
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(Português) O COVID-19: Ou Cooperamos ou Não Teremos Futuro Nenhum
Leonardo Boff - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
17 maio 2020 – De aqui por diante devemos decidir: Ou obedecemos à nossa natureza essencial, a cooperação, no nível pessoal, local, regional, nacional e mundial, mudando a forma de habitar a Casa Comum ou comecemos a nos preparar para o pior, num caminho sem retorno.
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The Coronavirus Pandemic, Sanctions on Iran, and the Maladies of World Order
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
12 May 2020 – The U.S. depends primarily on its military capabilities to punish and coerce those states that it regards as hostile to its global ambitions. Iran (and Venezuela) is the current leading example, as victimized by ‘the maximum pressure’ approach based on threats and punitive sanctions. In contrast, China has brilliantly extended its influence and increased its prosperity by reliance mainly on non-military instruments of expansion including trade, investment, and foreign assistance. The two global states exemplify an encounter between hard and soft power foreign policies.
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Gangster Geopolitics and Israel’s Annexation Plans
Richard Falk | Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
13 May 2020 – The Israeli plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank shows a shocking disregard for international law.
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Naomi Klein: How Big Tech Plans to Profit from the Pandemic
Naomi Klein | The Intercept/The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
For a few moments during NY governor Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus briefing on Wed 6 May, the grimace was replaced by a smile. The inspiration: a video visit from the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who announced that he will be heading up a panel to reimagine New York state’s post-Covid reality, with an emphasis on permanently integrating technology into every aspect of civic life.
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The Online Double-bind
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
The Internet is a double-bind because we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. News, writing, and information of all sorts are now often not available any other way. The era of paper newspapers is coming to an end. This was meant to be. Other sources of fact and fiction have gradually been eliminated, while the content on the Internet has been dramatically increased and progressively censored.
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Civil Society Is the Second Pillar of West African Nation States
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. | Virginia Commonwealth University - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
Experience from many African nations – as well as America, Asia and Europe – provides compelling evidence that civil society plays a fundamental role in social progress and in promoting peace and democratic governance. Civil society has organised democratic governance in West African for millennia, and not simply since colonial rule began. Our political science research shows how civil society has been and remains critical to the evolution of West African Nation States – nearly all of which are recent post-colonial creations – and that a Five Pillar conception of the Nation State conforms more closely to West African realities than the traditional Western concept of Executive + Legislative + Judiciary.
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U.S. Policy toward Israel/Palestine in a Deglobalizing World: A Pre-Pandemic Perspective
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
7 May 2020 – The text below is from my presentation at the TRT World Forum, 21-22 Oct 2019. What strikes me now is how different the world seems only six months later due to the surreal impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic on all aspects of perception and assessment, the totality of dislocating developments, and the heightening of an existential appreciation of the precariousness of individual and collective experience and of the radical uncertainty clouding our expectations of the future.
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Death: A Simple Idea with a Powerful Punch
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
Since death is one idea that has no history except as an idea and not a reality any of us have experienced, it is the most frightening idea there is and also quite simple. It is the ultimate unknown. It has always haunted human beings, whether consciously or unconsciously. It lies at the root of war, violence, religion, art, love, and civilization.
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Acknowledging Disorientation after COVID-19: Beyond Horizons of Fear and Doubt
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
3 May 2020 – More than earlier crises of my lifetime, including the Great Depression, World War II, 9/11, the COVID-19 pandemic illuminates as never before, how precarious and uncertain is the future wellbeing, and possibly survival, of the human species. The concreteness, immediacy, and haunting uncertainties of the pandemic is quite terrifying on its own, but its heuristic pedagogy seems applicable to a range of potentially catastrophic threats of global scope, most obviously climate change, biodiversity, nuclear weaponry.
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Clean Air in Europe during Lockdown ‘Leads to 11,000 Fewer Deaths’
Jonathan Watts | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
30 Apr 2020 – The improvement in air quality over the past month of the coronavirus lockdown has led to 11,000 fewer deaths from pollution in Europe, a study has revealed. It also finds less asthma and preterm births.
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Malaysia Cites Covid-19 for Rounding Up Hundreds of Rohingya Migrants
Kaamil Ahmed | The Guardian – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
2 May 2020 – In move condemned by UN, refugees including Rohingya detained amid rise in xenophobia.
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From Trump to Erdoğan, Men Who Behave Badly Make the Worst Leaders in a Pandemic
Simon Tisdall | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2020
26 Apr 2020 – Around the world, authoritarian leaders are exploiting, exacerbating or grossly mishandling the response to the pandemic, placing selfish interest ahead of public good. Their behaviour is frequently appalling. They are a modern incarnation of TS Eliot’s “hollow men”. Sex is relevant, in that female leaders are generally thought to be behaving better.
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Second Wave of Locusts in East Africa Said to Be 20 Times Worse
Samuel Okiror | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2020
13 Apr 2020 – UN Warns of ‘Alarming and Unprecedented Threat’ to Food Security and Livelihoods in the Region – A second wave of desert locusts is threatening east Africa with estimates that it will be 20 times worse then the plague that descended two months ago.
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(Português) A Terra Contra-Ataca a Humanidade pelo Coronavírus
Leonardo Boff - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
16 abr 2020 – Mais e mais cresce a consciência de que a Terra e a Humanidade têm um destino comum, pois formam uma única e complexa unidade. Foi o que os astronautas da lua ou de suas naves espaciais nos testemunharam. Uma porção dela é inteligente e consciente: os seres humanos. Desde a mais alta antiquidade a Terra era vista como a Grande Mãe, viva e geradora de todo tipo de vida.
→ read full articleWorld Order and COVID-19 Pandemic
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
19 Apr 2020 – I am aware of the greater strength and role of cooperative movements in European countries, a residue of the socialist movements of the prior century, that give rise to more spontaneous approaches on local levels to immediate threats to well-being, exhibiting both less trust and less dependence on governmental undertakings. Furthermore, European health systems are more evolved, fewer people left out, and more sense of public responsibility, although some deficiencies also emerged.
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The Muslim Religious Community and the Global War on COVID-19
Abbas Aroua | Cordoba Peace Institute Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
30 Mar 2020 – The world is going through an unprecedented multi-dimensional crisis caused by the rapid spread of the virulent COVID-19, which seems to have built a consensus among the community of Muslim scholars on the need to work together with others, despite the diversity of their ideological references and political views, in order to face this health disaster collectively, and to assume fully their role as influencers in society.
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‘Tip of the Iceberg’: Is Our Destruction of Animals and Nature Responsible for Covid-19?
John Vidal | The Guardian, Age of Extinction - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
18 Mar 2020 – As habitat and biodiversity loss increase globally, the coronavirus outbreak may be just the beginning of mass pandemics.
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US and Russia Blocking UN Plans for a Global Ceasefire amid Crisis
Simon Tisdall | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
19 Apr 2020 – The Trump administration and Russia are blocking efforts to win binding UN security council backing for a global ceasefire to help fight the coronavirus pandemic. The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, called for an immediate end to fighting involving governments and armed groups in all conflict areas almost one month ago.
→ read full articleTriple Jeopardy for Palestinian Prisoners
Prof. Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Apr 2020
The allegation of Triple Jeopardy arises from the failure to suspend or mitigate prison condition in light of the Coronavirus Pandemic, and the related failure to take responsible steps to protect those so confined from contracting the potentially lethal disease. A virtual death sentence hangs over every single Palestinian prisoner, and in an especially acute form with respect to particularly vulnerable Palestinians living in crowded unhealthy prisons.
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A Prayer in the Time of Pandemic
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2020
8 Apr 2020 – Affirming spirituality as the power over life and death I aspire to achieve
this spirituality that is nothing other than the blending of love and mystery
cherishing wonder at a precarious precipice, respecting knowledge
National Security or Human Security?
Leonard Eiger – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2020
10 Apr 2020 – We need to step back and ponder the significance of unfolding events, find humility, and reconsider our direction as a nation. As much as we are hugely overfunded and overprepared militarily, we are grossly underprepared in every way to deal with real, human needs. The coronavirus debacle in our nation is a glaring example of that. A pandemic is a deadly as war, yet the resources committed to pandemic prevention and response are a fraction of the resources we commit to military expenditures.
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Leonardo da Vinci (15 Apr 1452 – 2 May 1519)
Leonardo da Vinci – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2020
In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio’s workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities. Leonardo would have been exposed to a vast range of technical skills and had the opportunity to learn drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, metal working, plaster casting, leather working, mechanics and carpentry as well as the artistic skills of drawing, painting, sculpting and modeling.
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12 Experts Questioning the Coronavirus Panic
OffGuardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2020
24 Mar 2020 – Below is our list of twelve medical experts whose opinions on the Coronavirus outbreak contradict the official narratives of the MSM, and the memes so prevalent on social media.
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Here’s How Your Body Gains Immunity to Coronavirus
Zania Stamataki | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Apr 2020
10 Apr 2020 – Unprecedented efforts and diverted resources mean we are fast learning about human defences against this new threat. Importantly, Covid-19 cannot gain entry to our homes or bodies by itself – we have to let it in.
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In Time of Pandemic Praise for the UN
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
3 Apr 2020 – What the COVID-19 experience made clear was the importance of information to virtually every person and governmental body on the planet, and the degree to which the WHO and its Director General were quickly established as a valued source of reliable and trustworthy information. Establishing public trust and informational reliability become paramount goals, and WHO and Tedros Adhanan Grebreyerus, its Director General, have risen to the occasion, gaining media credibility and worldwide respect.
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Coronavirus: Once You Have Antibodies, Are You Safe?
Connor Bamford | The Conversation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
31 Mar 2020 – As more and more people get infected, survive and build up antibodies and T cells against SARS-CoV-2, we may eventually reach a threshold where we achieve “herd immunity”. This refers to the phenomenon where not everyone is immune, but because most people in the population are, the chances that those non-immune susceptible people catch a disease is very small.
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Brazil Scales Back Environmental Enforcement amid Coronavirus Outbreak
The Guardian | Reuters - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
27 Mar 2020- Brazil will reduce efforts to fight environmental crimes during the coronavirus outbreak, despite concerns that reduced protection could lead to a surge in deforestation.
→ read full article(Português) O Coronavírus Resgata a Nossa Verdadeira Humanidade
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
31 mar 2020 – A pandemia do coronavírus nos obriga a todos a pensar: o que conta, verdadeiramente, a vida ou os bens materiais? O individualismo de cada um para si, de costas para os outros, ou a solidariedade de uns para com os outros? Podemos olhar a guerra que o coronavírus está movendo em todo o planeta sob um outro ângulo, e este positivo. O vírus nos faz descobrir qual é a nossa mais profunda e autêntica natureza humana.
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Investigating Israeli Criminality at the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
Amicus Brief submitted to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on 16 Mar 2020 in the jurisdictional phase of a proceeding in which to initiate such a legal proceeding and whether the ICC has jurisdiction, that is, legal authority to investigate and possibly prosecute such alleged. As the Prosecutor indicated, the facts at her disposal indicate a basis for accepting Palestine’s request for an investigation of alleged Israeli criminal conduct.
→ read full articleBob Dylan’s Midnight Message to JFK’s Ghost
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
If you listen to Dylan’s piercing voice and follow the lyrics closely, you might be startled to be told, not from someone who can be dismissed as some sort of disgruntled “conspiracy nut,” but by the most famous musician in the world, that there was a government conspiracy to kill JFK, that Oswald didn’t do it, and that the killers then went for the president’s brothers.
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Inspiration from a Father: Johan Galtung Interviewed by Henrik Urdal
Henrik Urdal | PRIO - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Apr 2020
“When [Gandhi] was shot on 30th January 1948, I found myself crying – much to my puzzlement and dismay. I was 17 and 17-year-olds don’t cry. And a boy to boot. And it wasn’t a habit of mine to cry. Somehow or other, Gandhi’s message had affected me so deeply that I reacted in this unexpected way.”
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A 21st Century Worldview: Interviewing Ahmet Davutoğlu
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
28 Mar 2020 – Interview that I conducted with the former Turkish Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, published in Middle East Monitor on March 23-24, 2020. His responses to questions 18-20 concern the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on the world. The interview is long, yet a worthwhile overview how the most important intellectual political figure in Turkey views global and national reality given the shape of recent developments.
→ read full articleThe Struggle against Coronavirus: Are We at “War”? How Will It Change the World?
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
Like a wartime enemy, the virus is portrayed as a maleficent external threat, an alien force that endangers one’s homeland and personal security. Associating the biological threat with a political adversary, the American president labeled it a “Chinese virus,” while Chinese leaders have insisted that the virus was manufactured at the Pentagon’s biological warfare facility in Fort Detrick. This game of blame-the-adversary is absurd, of course.
→ read full articleExplaining the ‘Asian Miracle’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
20 Mar 2020 – A timely aspect of Nayyar’s book is the emphasis he places on the importance of effective state/society relations in explaining the remarkable growth experience of Asia. Such an insight seems relevant to the degree to which various governments are effectively managing responses to the challenge of the Coronavirus pandemic. It would seem at this stage that well-managed autocracies do better than most democracies, and much better than poorly managed democracies that embody capitalist structures, priorities, and values.
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(Português) O Coronavírus: Auto-Defesa da Própria Terra
Leonardo Boff - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
23 mar 2020 – Seremos capazes de captar o sinal que o coronavírus nos está passando ou continuaremos com o mesmo propósito letal, ferindo a Terra e nos auto-ferindo para acumular irracionalmente bens materiais?
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Libya: A Political Deadlock
Loïc Sauvinet | Cordoba Peace Institute Geneva - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
26 Mar 2020 – In the light of these latest developments, we have to ask ourselves how this country collapsed, how a seemingly strong state could fail and allow the dynamics of violence to set in, and finally what could be done to manage a peaceful way out of the crisis? To find some answers or at least some keys to interpreting the situation, it is important to have a multidisciplinary approach, using the tools of historical science, sociology and political science.
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Venezuela’s Coronavirus Response Might Surprise Some
Leonardo Flores | Resumen - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
26 Mar 2020 – Within a few hours of being launched, over 800 Venezuelans in the U.S. registered for an emergency flight from Miami to Caracas through a website run by the Venezuelan government. This flight, offered at no cost, was proposed by President Nicolás Maduro when he learned that 200 Venezuelans were stuck in the United States following his government’s decision to stop commercial flights as a preventative coronavirus measure.
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Year Six of the War in Yemen
Abubakar Ben Rajeh | Cordoba Peace Institute Geneva - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
26 Mar 2020 – The Yemeni parties must rally around a comprehensive national project, in order to find consensus on the shape of the Yemeni state and its territorial integrity; and the establishment of a transitional authority based on the principle of partnership, leading to a comprehensive political process that is separate from subnational projects and regional polarisation. Otherwise, Yemen will remain subject to international and regional polarisation, which will prolong the war and exacerbate the suffering of the Yemeni people.
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China Shows Way to Ease Lockdowns before Vaccine, Says Report
Sarah Boseley - The Guardian,
30 Mar 2020
25 Mar 2020 – UK Experts Say Easing Physical Distancing Would Depend on Rigorous Testing and Isolation
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An Offer and an Appeal to You…
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Mar 2020
We all have interesting and varied sources of information and analysis. One of the most exciting and insightful that I use and enjoy is TRANSCEND Media Service, founded by Professor Johann Galtung, the “Father of Peace Studies” and leader of a multi-national group of distinguished academics and activists working for peace in all its forms. The articles analyse world affairs from a multitude of different approaches. I would like to offer this information source to you and your students. A University Education should challenge students to seek out ideas and to discover new sources. TMS does some of this preparatory work for your students: they can find many unexpected analyses and varying points of view in a single website.
— Robin Edward Poulton ChONM, ChROSC, UNSM, MBIM, MA (Hons St A), MSc (Oxon), PhD (Paris)
COVID-19: Present, Past, and Future
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2020
17 Mar 2020 – A few days ago when WHO officially declared the COVID-19 a ‘pandemic’ a Rubicon of consciousness and global governance was crossed. Hundreds of millions of individuals around the world are coping physically and mentally with what that word never before used in my lifetime means for themselves and those they care most about. The mental dimensions of self-isolation may turn out to be a big challenge almost as big as the disease itself.
→ read full articleThe Coronavirus Is Not the Plague: The Plague Is US
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Mar 2020
21 Mar 2020 – Intuition tells me that although the emperor has no clothes and a vast PSYOPS occupation is now underway, too many are too grown-up to see it. It’s an old story continually updated. Like ‘The Plague. ‘
→ read full articleThe American Empire and Its Media
Severine Renard | Swiss Propaganda Research - The Transnational,
23 Mar 2020
19 Mar 2020 – Largely unbeknownst to the general public, executives and top journalists of almost all major US media outlets have long been members of the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
→ read full articleCruelty or Humanity?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2020
12 Mar 2020 – This is my foreword to Stuart Rees’ exceedingly important study of the role of cruelty in politics, a mystifying dimension of human experience, which is illuminated by integrating the insights and reflections of poets with the narration of political policies. This fusion gives this book a quality of originality as well of practical relevance.
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Tokyo Olympics: How Coronavirus Is Hitting Preparations
Kari Brossard Stoos and Heather Dichter - The Conversation,
16 Mar 2020
12 Mar 2020 – The World Health Organization’s decision to officially recognise the coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic means organisers are facing difficult decisions on whether to go ahead with major sporting events. There were more than 124,000 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, in 118 countries, and more than 4,600 documented deaths by March 12. This is a problem for sports events around the world – not least the Olympic Games, scheduled to start in Tokyo at the end of July.
→ read full articleToilet Paper Is the People’s Vaccine
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2020
14 Mar 2020 – The coronavirus panic has resulted in hordes of people running after toilet paper in the USA and Australia. Such actions are the flip side of running with the bulls, except that I suspect those who run with the bulls have some sense of why they do it. I imagine the thrill is a bit different, even if the goal is similar.
→ read full articleNow What Do We Do?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2020
Accumulation for its own sake, far from being assumed to be the normal goal for property owners should not be a legitimate goal at all. Markets are created by communities. Property rights are created by communities. They should be regarded as morally legitimate if, when, and to the extent that they function to meet the needs of human communities and of the larger earth community of which we human beings are members.
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Ukraine, Russia, and the USA
Edward Lozansky, Ph.D. - TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Mar 2020
14 Mar 2020 – Why the Conflict in the Donbass Is Still Far from a Settlement Because of the USA
→ read full articleEvasions, Accidents, Engagements, and Fulfillment: An Autobiographical Fragment
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2020
2 Mar 2020 – This post is something new for me, an autobiographical fragment written at the request of an online listserv as a suggestive model for academics at the start of their careers as diplomatic historians. I publish it here. It was found unsuitable for publication by the group that made the initial solicitation for unspecified reasons.
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Pompeo Says US Will Take ‘All Necessary Measures’ to Bar War Crimes Probe of Military
Deirdre Shesgreen - USA TODAY,
9 Mar 2020
5 Mar 2020 – The international court, based in the Hague, Netherlands, ruled today that its prosecutors could move forward with an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Taliban, Afghan forces and American military and CIA personnel. “This is a truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable political institution masquerading as a legal body,” Pompeo said at the State Department.
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Distracting Deal
Khalil Bendib | Other Words – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Mar 2020
… of the Century
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(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.
→ read full article(Castellano) El Nuevo Paradigma Requiere Una Espiritualidad Diferente y Una Ética Propia para Enfrentar los Desastres Ecológicos Actuales y Futuros
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
20 Feb 2020 – Varias amenazas se ciernen sobre el sistema-vida y el sistema-Tierra: el holocausto nuclear; la catástrofe ecológica del calentamiento global y de la escasez de agua potable; la catástrofe económica/social sistémica con la radicalización del neoliberalismo que produce una acumulación extrema a expensas de una pobreza asombrosa; la catástrofe moral con la falta general de sensibilidad hacia las grandes mayorías sufrientes; la catástrofe política con el resurgimiento mundial de la derecha y la corrosión de las democracias.
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Were He Alive Today, Socrates Would Die of Sadness
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
19 Feb 2020 – We are living times of the post: post-modern, post-capitalist, post-neoliberal, post-communism, post socialism, post-democracy, post-religious, post-Christian, post-human and, very recently, post-truth. Practically everything has its “post”. This fact only shows that we have not yet found the term that defines our times, and we are prisoners of the old. However, here and there signs appear that a fitting name is about to come. In other words, we do not know yet how to define our times.
→ read full articleDavid Ray Griffin’s The Christian Gospel for Americans: A Systematic Theology
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
There are very few writers who have done more to try to open the public’s mind to the evil nature of the American empire than David Ray Griffin. His series of books on the false flag attacks of September 11, 2001 will endure for a long time, and they will one day, when it is safe to do so, be recognized as seminal texts exposing the traitorous conspiracy of elements within the Unites States’ government to launch the endless so-called war on terror.
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Here’s How Long Coronaviruses May Linger on Contaminated Surfaces, According to Science
Jacqueline Howard - CNN,
2 Mar 2020
18 Feb 2020 – China’s central bank has taken measures to deep clean and destroy its cash in an effort to contain the virus. It is unknown exactly how long the novel coronavirus can linger on contaminated surfaces and objects, but some researchers are finding clues by studying the elusive behaviors of other coronaviruses.
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History of the Science-Religion Interaction in the West
Howard J. Resnick, Ph.D. (Hridayananda das Goswami) – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
My argument is that, given all the facts, it is not possible to be a fully rational materialist; and it is equally impossible to be a rational religious fanatic – religious fanaticism being clearly irrational. We need to get away from fanaticism – whether it pretends to be science or religion.
→ read full articleHow 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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Evangelicals for Trump
Khalil Bendib | Other Words - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Mar 2020
No comment…
→ read full articleWeaponizing 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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(Português) Ética e Espiritualidade face aos desastres ecológicos atuais
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
15 fev 2020 – As grandes chuvas com inundações desastrosas que afetaram muitas cidades do Brasil e paralelamente os incêndios fenomenais na Austrália, seguidos imediatamente de inesperadas inundações, constituem sinais inequívocos da Terra de que nela algumas mudanças importantes estão ocorrendo. É praticamente consenso de que estas mudanças para pior se devem à ação irresponsável dos seres humanos (a era do antropoceno).
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Painting a True Christ
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
A Review of Terrence Malick’s Film “A Hidden Life”- Franz, a devout Roman Catholic, is deeply disturbed by the rise of Hitler and the thought of participating in his immoral killing machine.
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COVID-19 Contagion: Reality and Myth
Catherine Offord | The Scientist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Feb 2020
21 Feb 2020 – Scientists’ Latest Understanding of the Facts, the Suspicions, and the Discounted Rumors of SARS-CoV-2’s Transmission from Person to Person
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‘All We Can Offer Is the Chain’: The Scandal of Ghana’s Shackled Sick – Exposé
Tracy McVeigh – The Guardian,
17 Feb 2020
3 Feb 2020 – For the families of Ghanaians with mental health or substance abuse issues, shackling their loved ones can seem the only option, as faith healers compete to fill the mental health void.
→ read full articleMeeting 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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Deaths of 16 Rohingya at Sea Raises Fears Trafficking Ring Has Been Revived
Kaamil Ahmed – The Guardian,
17 Feb 2020
12 Feb 2020 – Activists fear a dangerous transnational trafficking network is being revived after at least 16 Rohingya refugees drowned in the Bay of Bengal yesterday morning. Smugglers responsible for mass atrocities in Thailand may be linked to capsized boat carrying refugees from Bangladesh to Malaysia.
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Drought and Hunger: Why Thousands of Guatemalans Are Fleeing North
José García Escobar and Melisa Rabanales – The Guardian,
17 Feb 2020
7 Feb 2020 – The threat of famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognised as major factors in the exodus.
→ 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.
→ read full articleTrump/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 articleThe United States of America’s Doll House: A Vast Tapestry of Lies and Illusions
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
3 Feb 2020 – While truth-tellers Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning sit inside jail cells and Edward Snowden lives in exile in Russia, the American people hole up in an illusionary dwelling constructed to reduce them to children afraid of the truth. Or is it the dark? It has become a more sophisticated haunted doll’s house, an electronic one with many bells and whistles and images that move faster than the eye can see. We now inhabit a digital technological nightmare controlled by government and corporate forces intent on dominating every aspect of people’s lives.
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‘Try to Stop Me’ – The Mantra of Our Leaders Who Are Now Ruling with Impunity
George Monbiot – The Guardian,
10 Feb 2020
5 Feb 2020 – Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, Johnson. Across the world, flouting the law has become normalised. We have to stop it. It is not a sufficient condition for fascism to take root, but it is a necessary one: the willingness of political leaders not only to break the law but to revel in breaking it is a fatal step towards the replacement of democracy with authoritarian terror.
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Figures of Thought
Howard Nemerov – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Feb 2020
To lay the logarithmic spiral on
Sea-shell and leaf alike, and see it fit,
To watch the same idea work itself out…
A 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?
How the ‘Venice of Africa’ Is Losing Its Battle against the Rising Ocean
Monika Pronczuk – The Guardian,
3 Feb 2020
28 Jan 2020 – Saint-Louis, the old colonial capital of Senegal, faces a flooding threat that has already seen entire villages lost to the Atlantic.
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World’s 22 Richest Men Wealthier Than All the Women in Africa, Study Finds
Kate Hodal – The Guardian,
3 Feb 2020
20 Jan 2020 – The world’s 22 richest men have more combined wealth than all 325 million women in Africa. Startling scale of inequality laid bare as Oxfam report highlights chronically undervalued nature of care work.
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The Outbreaks of both the Wuhan Coronavirus and SARS Likely Started in Chinese Wet Markets
Aylin Woodward | Business Insider – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Feb 2020
1 Feb 2020 – The coronavirus spreading in China and the SARS outbreak of 2003 both are from the coronavirus family, and both likely started in wet markets. At such markets, outdoor stalls are squeezed together to form narrow lanes and put people and live and dead animals — dogs, chickens, pigs, snakes, civets, and more — in constant close contact. That makes it easy for a virus to jump from animal to human.
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Trump Extends Travel Ban to Six Countries — But Is OK with Selling Arms to Them
A. Trevor Thrall and Jordan Cohen – NBC News,
3 Feb 2020
31 Jan 2020 – The Trump administration announced today that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. If these places are so threatening, the U.S. shouldn’t continue to give their governments the very weapons that can make them even more unsafe.
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Edward Snowden: Trump Has Created a Global Playbook to Attack Those Revealing Uncomfortable Truths
Edward Snowden – The Washington Post,
3 Feb 2020
27 Jan 2020 – On Tuesday [21 Jan], Brazilian federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against Glenn Greenwald, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and founding editor at the Intercept Brazil, for his explosive reporting on corruption at the very highest levels of Brazil’s government. The public importance of these stories was staggering… The most essential journalism of every era is precisely that which a government attempts to silence. These prosecutions demonstrate that they are ready to stop the presses — if they can.
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The Far-Right Bolsonaro Movement Wants Us Dead. But We Will Not Give Up
Glenn Greenwald and David Miranda – The Guardian,
3 Feb 2020
29 Jan 2020 – Courage is contagious. Those are the people who inspire us and so many like us in Bolsonaro’s Brazil who are confronting state repression to defend the democracy that so many people suffered so much to bring about. Demagogues and despots like Bolsonaro are a dime a dozen. They centrally rely on intimidation, fear and the use of state repression to consolidate power. A refusal to give into that fear, but instead to join hands with those who intend to fight against it, is always the antidote to this toxin.
→ read full articleContesting 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.
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One World Digital Dictatorship
Soren Korsgaard | Crime and Power – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2020
5 Jan 2020 – The accelerating movement by both Western-style democracies and one-party states towards world-wide ongoing digital disempowerment and digital imprisonment of humanity involving mass data collection on everyone, mass surveillance, facial recognition-based tracking, cryptocurrency-based cashless societies, and social credit-based disempowerment. A Must Read.
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UN Biodiversity Chief: Humans Risk Living in an ‘Empty World’ with ‘Catastrophic’ Consequences
Jordan Davidson | EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2020
20 Jan 2020 – Talk is cheap, says the acting executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, who begged governments around the world to make sure that 2020 is not another year of conferences and empty promises, but instead is the year to take decisive action to stop the mass extinction of wildlife and the destruction of habitat-sustaining ecosystems.
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Chilling Role of ‘the Preacher’ Confirmed at CIA Waterboarding Hearing in Guantánamo
Julian Borger – The Guardian,
27 Jan 2020
25 Jan 2020 – There were three men authorised by the CIA to carry out waterboarding on detainees in America’s “war on terror”. Two of them were contractors who are in Guantánamo Bay this week to give evidence. The third has still not been identified 17 years after the torture was committed.
→ read full articleHovering in Cyberspace
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jan 2020
24 Jan 2020 – We live in a fabricated reality where the visible world became nearly meaningless once the screen world became people’s “window on the world.” An electronic nothingness replaced reality as people gleefully embraced digital wraparound apparitions. These days people still move about in the physical world but live in the electronic one. The result is mass hallucination.
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(Português) A História Foi Escrita pela Mão Branca
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – Uma das realidades mais perversas da história humana foi o milenar estatuto da escravidão. Aí se mostra o que também podemos ser: não só sapiens, portadores de amor, empatia, respeito e devoção, mas também demens, odientos, agressivos, cruéis e sem piedade. Este nosso lado sombrio parece dominar a cena social de nosso tempo e também do Brasil.
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Less Unholy Than Thou
Khalil Bendib – Other Words,
20 Jan 2020
The U.S. is condemning China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims, but not with much moral authority.
→ 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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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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James Murdoch Criticises Father’s News Outlets for Climate Crisis Denial
Jim Waterson – The Guardian,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – Rupert Murdoch’s son has strongly criticised his family’s news outlets for downplaying the impact of the climate crisis, as bushfires continue to burn in Australia. James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, issued a rare joint statement directly criticising his father’s businesses for their “ongoing denial” on the issue, which has been reflected in the family’s newspapers repeatedly casting doubt on the link between the climate emergency and the bushfires.
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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.
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Greenpeace Included with Neo-Nazis on UK Counter-Terror List
Vikram Dodd and Jamie Grierson – The Guardian,
20 Jan 2020
17 Jan 2020 – Extinction Rebellion, Sea Shepherd, Stop the Cull and PETA also named in anti-extremism briefing alongside Combat 18 and National Action.
→ 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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Iran Ends Nuclear Deal Commitments as Fallout from Suleimani Killing Spreads
Martin Chulov and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad – The Guardian,
13 Jan 2020
5 Jan 2020 – Iran has announced that it will no longer abide by any of the limits imposed by the unravelling 2015 nuclear deal, and Iraq’s parliament urged its leaders to expel troops from the US-led coalition, as the aftershocks of the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani reverberated through the Middle East.
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