Peace Journalism Perspective

EDITORIAL

Peace Studies: Inspiration, Objectives, Achievement

#615 | Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service

Peace appeals to the heart; studies to the brain. Both are needed, indeed indispensable. But equally indispensable is a valid link between brain and heart. And that, in a nutshell, is what peace studies and peace practice are all about.

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TRANSCEND VIDEOS

Oxford Campaign to Defend Julian Assange

Jake Lynch | LRC Oxfordshire – TRANSCEND Media Service

Campaign to Defend Julian Assange Conference, 7 Nov 2019

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FEATURED RESEARCH PAPER

Gandhi’s Economics: Practical Ethics for Systemic Transformation

Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service

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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NOBEL LAUREATES

Asia-Pacific: Some Serious Security Challenges

José Ramos-Horta | Nobel Peace Laureate, Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service

25 Nov 2019 — This is not a hypothetical nightmare scenario. Extreme forms of corruption, impunity, abuse of power, scandalous social inequalities and offensive ostentation, food insecurity, severe malnutrition, hunger, diminishing agricultural lands and extreme water scarcity. Nations will go to war over fresh water and extreme water scarcity will kill hundreds of millions.

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Other Commentaries

EXPOSURES - EXPOSÉS

I Worked at Capital One for Five Years–This Is How We Justified Piling Debt on Poor Customers

Elena Botella | The New Republic – TRANSCEND Media Service

The subprime lending giant is a textbook case in creating a corporate culture of denial… A publicly traded company wasn’t going to sacrifice a meaningful amount of income to avoid destroying lives—unless the law required it… Virtually everyone I worked with was 45 or younger. Most were under 30.

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TRANSCEND MEMBERS

Our Vanishing World (Part 4): Wildlife

Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service

Let me explain why this is so by touching on the diverse range of forces driving the extinctions, concepts such as ‘co-extinction’, ‘localized extinctions’ and ‘extinction cascades’, the ways in which extinction impacts are often ‘hidden’ in the short term, thus masking the true extent of the destruction, and the implications of all this for life on Earth, including Homo sapiens, in the near term.

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Envisaging a Comprehensible Global Brain–as a Playful Organ

Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service

The argument follows from the controversial assertion recently made by President Macron of France with respect to the "brain death" of NATO and the potential implications for any "global brain". The question that is obviously raised with respect to the brain metaphor is the nature of the "brain waves" which might be detectable as indicative of life and intelligence in any global collective such as the United Nations or in any "think tank" (originally termed a "brain box").

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Health and Human Rights in Gaza: Shame on the World

Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service

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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Reflecting on Colonization This Thanks-Taking Day

Krystal Two Bulls and James Albertini | Malu 'Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action – TRANSCEND Media Service

28 Nov 2019 - Dear relatives, as a Native American woman, today is not a day of giving thanks. Most of us who were educated in Western schools were taught that today acknowledges the “Native Americans” saving the lives of the “Pilgrims,” by teaching them how to garden and hunt. They then supposedly shared a meal together, which was the predecessor of the Thanksgiving meal most Americans share today. That is not what happened and that is not what today represents for me.

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Oikonomia: Bringing the Economy Back to the Earth

Prof. Vandana Shiva | Navdanya International – TRANSCEND Media Service

Today’s Big Money is also anti nature. It is based on a paradigm of hyper anthropocentrism; of the continued assumption that nature is dead matter, and domination, conquest and control over the earth through violent tools and technologies is the “civilizing” mission of the men with Big Money. It is based on owing life though patents, privatization and enclosures of the commons, and the hubris of trying to engineer the planet through geo engineering.

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Is Peace Possible?

Charles Webel | UNYP – TRANSCEND Media Service

Most of us think we know what peace is, but people often have very different definitions of this apparently simple word. And although almost everyone would agree that some form of peace—however it is defined—is desir¬able, there are often forceful, even violent, disagreements over how to obtain it. Peace is like the human project itself—a work (and a word) in progress.

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Criticism of Israel Is Not Antisemitism

John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service

We can acknowledge the great contributions of Jewish culture and brilliant Jewish individuals and at the same time criticize the state of Israel. There is much to criticize. The international community was unanimous in condemning apartheid in South Africa, but the state of Israel has pursued a policy of apartheid as cruel as that of South Africa - or perhaps even worse.

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Thoughts about Thoughts: Journey into Machine Mind

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service

We seek respite from a relentless assault of information bombarding our senses. An onslaught of daily life trials, media, commercials, TV/radio/music, ambient noise levels, demanding response. Consciousness, conscience beg retreat.

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Gandhi and Tolstoy

Dr Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service

As we celebrate the 190th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy and the 150th of Mahatma Gandhi, we are in fact reinforcing the values of truth, nonviolence, simplicity, peace, justice and harmony as promoted by these great personalities. May their beliefs and actions strengthen our resolve to fight the evils in our societies!

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IN FOCUS

Julian Assange: An Appeal from International Lawyers

Fredrik S. Heffermehl – TRANSCEND Media Service

Britain should follow the proud example of Iceland. That small nation firmly defended its sovereignty against a U.S. attempt in 2011 to exercise undue jurisdiction, when it expelled a huge team of FBI detectives that had entered the country and had started to investigate WikiLeaks and Assange without permission of the Icelandic government. The treatment of Julian Assange is below the dignity of the great nation that gave the world the Magna Carta in 1215 and the Habeas Corpus. To defend its national sovereignty and obey its own laws, the present British government must set Assange free immediately.

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An Open Letter from Doctors: Julian Assange “Could Die in Prison”

WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service

24 Nov 2019 - The following letter was authored by more than 65 eminent medical doctors from the UK and around the world, calling for urgent action to protect the life of imprisoned WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange.

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The Lies about Assange Must Stop Now

John Pilger – TRANSCEND Media Service

24 Nov 2019 - Newspapers and other media in the United States, Britain and Australia have recently declared a passion for freedom of speech, especially their right to publish freely. They are worried by the "Assange effect". It is as if the struggle of truth-tellers like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning is now a warning to them: that the thugs who dragged Assange out of the Ecuadorean embassy in April may one day come for them.

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Groundswell of Support for WikiLeaks Publisher Julian Assange

Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service

30 Nov 2019 - Over the past week, a growing groundswell of opposition to the US-led persecution of Julian Assange has come to the surface of political life internationally. Prominent public figures in Britain, Europe and Australia, including doctors, journalists, politicians and United Nations representatives, have condemned the WikiLeaks founder’s imprisonment in the UK’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison.

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ANGLO AMERICA

Let’s Give Thanks for Indigenous Resistance

Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan – Democracy NOW!

27 Nov 2019 - Thanksgiving is one of the great foundational myths of the United States, turning a single gathering of indigenous people in Massachusetts with English settler colonists in 1621 into one of the greatest whitewashes of genocide in world history. Even by that time, native people throughout the Western hemisphere had already suffered horrific violence for over a century, at the hands of Christopher Columbus and other European explorers intent on enslaving native people and exploiting the region’s vast resources.

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Trump Signs Hong Kong “Democracy” Bill

Nick Beams | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service

29 Nov 2019 - Entitled the "Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act"—and passed by the US Congress with only one dissenting voice, making it veto-proof—the legislation has nothing to do with either.

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Inside the Archive of an LSD Researcher with Ties to the CIA’s MKUltra Mind Control Project

Tom O’Neill and Dan Piepenbring – The Intercept

24 Nov 2019 - On the night of July 4, 1954, San Antonio, Texas, was shaken by the rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl. The man accused of these crimes was Jimmy Shaver, an airman at the nearby Lackland Air Force Base with no criminal record. Shaver claimed to have lost his memory of the incident… Despite the outrage of congressional leaders and more than three years of headlines about the brutalities of the program, no one — not the “Black Sorcerer” Sidney Gottlieb, nor senior CIA official Richard Helms, nor Jolly West — suffered any legal consequences.

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ICE Arrests 90 More Students at Fake University It Created in Michigan

Niraj Warikoo | Detroit Free Press – TRANSCEND Media Service

27 Nov 2019 - A total of about 250 students have now been arrested since January on immigration violations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of a sting operation by federal agents who enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to attend the school that marketed itself as offering graduate programs in technology and computer studies. Attorney: Fake Farmington University Sting by ICE Was Entrapment

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Imagine

Stefan Schindler – TRANSCEND Media Service

A Meditation on Education, History, and Tomorrow

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INTERVIEW

American Exceptionalism Driving World to War – John Pilger

Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service

27 Nov 2019 - John Pilger gives his wide-ranging views on the systematic deterioration of Western mainstream journalism which has come to function as a nakedly propaganda matrix for power and corporate profit.

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ASIA-UPDATES ON MYANMAR ROHINGYA GENOCIDE

‘Boycott Myanmar’ – Rohingyas Plan Global Campaign as ICJ Set to Start Hearing on Genocide Case

Porimol Palma – The Daily Star [Bangladesh]

30 Nov 2019 - Rohingyas across Europe have planned mass rallies and a global campaign, “Boycott Myanmar”, to globally drum up their demands for justice as the International Court of Justice begins its first ever hearing on the genocide case against Myanmar on 10 Dec.

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Boycott Myanmar Campaign

Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service

We urge you to stand with the country's oppressed national minorities.

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The Genocide Convention: The World Court Case Relevant to Myanmar

René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service

2 Dec 2019 - The complaint lodged by The Gambia at the International Court of Justice against Myanmar (Burma) is the first time that rape as a weapon of war will be presented to the World Court, based on violations of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The hearings are scheduled for 10-12 December 2019. Sexual and gender-based violence is an important aspect of the genocide accusation and the discussions should be watched closely.

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BRICS

Hong Kong Is Scared – of the Rioters

Andre Vltchek | New Eastern Outlook – TRANSCEND Media Service

Now, the citizens of Hong Kong are scared. Not of the “government”, not of the police, or Beijing: they are frightened of the so-called protesters, of ninja-like looking young people with covered faces and metal bars in their hands.

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Brazil’s Deepening Malaise

Robert Rotberg - The Globe and Mail

25 Nov 2019 - With the Amazon burning and politicians regaining impunity after corruption scandals recede, Brazil’s rule of law is suffering sharp blows. Although President Jair Bolsonaro campaigned as an anti-corruptionist, and as someone who would crack down on crime, Brazil slides rapidly into a slough of deceit. Modern day brigands are pillaging Brazil’s environment.

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EUROPE

Justice Blind or Blinded by Titles? A Tale of Prince Andrew and Julian Assange

George Galloway – RT

26 Nov 2019 - It is a tale of two cities: Buckingham Palace and Belmarsh Maximum Security Prison. A tale of two individuals: one now a proven liar and one a well attested truth-teller. A tale of two fates: The Prince who became a moral pauper, the other an impecunious journalist who became a moral giant. It is a tale of our times.

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Drug Taxis and Impotent Police: The Avalanche of Cocaine Hitting Europe

Der SPIEGEL Staff *– TRANSCEND Media Service

28 Nov 2019 - Drug syndicates are flooding Europe with very pure cocaine. Consumers need only send an encrypted text and a dealer will show up at their doorstep. And the authorities are all but powerless to stop them.

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LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN

Interview with Ex-President of Bolivia Evo Morales: ‘The Murders Must Stop’

Interview by Jens Glüsing – Der SPIEGEL

28 Nov 2019 - Bolivia's long-time president, Evo Morales, has fled to exile in Mexico. What led to his departure and the conditions under which he would consider returning. At 60, he was Bolivia's first indigenous president. The former head of the coca-farmers' union is a symbolic figure among the Latin American left.

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Bolivia: Post-Coup Update

Eric Zuesse – TRANSCEND Media Service

29 Nov 2019 - In short: rigged ‘elections’ will be held, in which Evo Morales is to be excluded, and in which there will be no repercussions against the U.S.-stooge-regime participants if their side fails to win those ‘elections’. The Bolivian people won’t have any legal right to hang the coupsters. The U.S. regime will see to that.

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MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA

Iraqi Children Born Near U.S. Military Base Show Elevated Rates of “Serious Congenital Deformities,” Study Finds

Murtaza Hussain – The Intercept

25 Nov 2019 - More than a decade and a half after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a new study found that babies are being born today with gruesome birth defects connected to the ongoing American military presence there. “The war has spread so much radiation here that, unless it is cleaned up, generations of Iraqis will continue to be affected.”

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PALESTINE - ISRAEL

UN Commemorates International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

UN News – TRANSCEND Media Service

27 Nov 2019 - The UN has underlined its unwavering commitment to the Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle to achieve self-determination, independence and sovereignty. Senior officials joined ambassadors and other representatives today to commemorate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, officially observed each year on 29 November.

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Israel’s Next Move: The Real Danger in the US Decision to Normalize Illegal Jewish Settlements

Ramzy Baroud | Politics for the People – TRANSCEND Media Service

28 Nov 2019 - The US decision to defy international law on settlements is not dangerous because it violates international law, for the latter has hardly ever been a concern for Washington. The danger actually lies in the fact that US foreign policy regarding the Israeli occupation has become a mere rubber stamp that allows Israel’s extreme right-wing government to determine single-handedly the fate of the Palestinian people and sow the seeds of instability and war in the Middle East for many years to come.

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‘My Dream Was Destroyed’: Home Demolitions Soar in East Jerusalem

Judith Sudilovsky | +972 Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service

25 Nov 2019 - A spike in both home demolitions and settlement building in East Jerusalem is forcing Palestinians out of their houses — and jobs. On 5 Nov Muatasem Abbasi’s home, which he shared with his parents, joined the ranks of the 155 Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem demolished so far this year. The reason: it had been built without a permit. Abbasi, whose home was built in 2011, said they had been trying to get a building permit for years.

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Contra Israeli Apartheid

Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service

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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ENVIRONMENT

Carbon Dioxide in Earth’s Atmosphere Reaches Record High, Researchers Say

Denise Chow – NBC News

25 Nov 2019 - The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has reached a record high, according to a report released today by the World Meteorological Organization. Carbon dioxide traps heat from the sun and can linger in the atmosphere for centuries.

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Brazil’s President Is Blaming Leonardo DiCaprio for the Amazon Forest Fires

Annabelle Timsit | Quartz – TRANSCEND Media Service

1 Dec 2019 - In what activists say is an attempt to direct attention away from his government’s actions, Bolsonaro has repeatedly accused nonprofit organizations of purposefully setting fires in the Amazon. Now President Jair Bolsonaro is blaming another unlikely culprit: American actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio.

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TECHNOLOGY

Contract for the Web: Internet Inventor Tim Berners-Lee Unveils Global Plan to Battle ‘Digital Dystopia’

Jon Queally – Common Dreams

25 Nov 2019 - "The power of the web to transform people's lives, enrich society and reduce inequality is one of the defining opportunities of our time. But if we don't act now—and act together—to prevent the web being misused by those who want to exploit, divide and undermine, we are at risk of squandering that potential."

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Smartphone ‘Addiction’: Young People ‘Panicky’ when Denied Mobiles

Sean Coughlan - BBC News

29 Nov 2019 - Almost a quarter of young people are so dependent on their smartphones that it becomes like an addiction, suggests research by psychiatrists. The youngsters also cannot control the amount of time they spend on the phone. Such addictions have "serious consequences" for mental health.

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INSPIRATIONAL

Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself

Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service

“In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”

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POETRY FORMAT

House of Gods or Plea for Peace

Mitali Chakravarty | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service

Oh house of Gods! Oh house of Gods! Temples or Mosques Churches or Synagogues Displaced they stand—

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ORIGINAL LANGUAGES

(Castellano) Nuevo diseño del Triángulo de la Violencia: La búsqueda de un lugar para curar el Trauma a través de un Trabajo de Paz

Kirthi Jayakumar – TRANSCEND Media Service

Mediante la presentación del argumento de que la violencia cultural y estructural es un trauma que no ha sanado y no ha sido resuelto, este informe investiga más a fondo y defiende la expansión del contexto presentado por Galtung. Al hacer esto, este informe argumenta a favor del abordaje del trauma sin sanar para así poder abordar tanto los factores estructurales y sistémicos que mantienen a la violencia con vida, así como las manifestaciones directas de violencia.

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(Português) O próximo passo de Israel é o verdadeiro perigo contido na decisão dos EUA de normalizar assentamentos ilegais

Ramzy Baroud | Monitor do Oriente Médio – TRANSCEND Media Service

26 nov 2019 - A decisão dos EUA de desafiar o direito internacional sobre assentamentos não é perigosa porque viola o direito internacional, pois este último quase nunca foi motivo de preocupação para Washington. O perigo está no fato de que a política externa dos EUA em relação à ocupação israelense se tornou um mero carimbo de borracha que permite ao governo de extrema direita de Israel determinar sozinho o destino do povo palestino e plantar as sementes da instabilidade e da guerra no Oriente Médio por muitos anos.

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(Português) Bolsonaro culpa ator Leonardo DiCaprio por incêndios na Amazónia

Jornal de Notícias – TRANSCEND Media Service

29 nov 2019 - "DiCaprio é um bom sujeito, não é? A dar dinheiro para incendiar a Amazónia", disse hoje Bolsonaro a apoiantes, à saída do Palácio do Alvorada, em Brasília. A organização ambiental de DiCaprio, que é uma das vozes mais ativas em prol da defesa ambiental, prometeu cinco milhões de dólares (4,5 milhões de euros) para ajudar a proteger a Amazónia, após grandes incêndios terem destruído, em julho e agosto, uma grande parte daquela que é a maior floresta tropical do mundo.

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(Français) Non au coup de force des USA contre les Palestiniens et contre le droit international

Le Mouvement de la Paix – TRANSCEND Media Service

A Paris, le 20/11/2019 - Depuis plusieurs semaines, D. Trump et son administration contribuent à massacrer le droit international. Lachâge lamentable des Kurdes, soutien au coup d’Etat en Bolivie, accord de Paris déchiré, c’est maintenant au tour des Palestiniens de subir la foudre incontrôlée et illégitime tout autant qu’illégale de Trump par l’annonce de son secrétaire d’Etat M. Pompéo déclarant que «l’établissement de colonies de civils israéliens en Cisjordanie n’est pas en soi contraire au droit international».

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