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Peace Journalism Perspective

EDITORIAL

The Humans and the Viruses: The World Economic Forum and the Coronaviruses

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.

TRANSCEND VIDEOS

COVID-19 Dashboard: Live Data Continuously Updated

Permanently displayed on TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS for the duration of the pandemic. The dashboard shows global, localized, specific data in real time.

FEATURED RESEARCH PAPER

Civil Society Is the Second Pillar of West African Nation States

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.

TMS PEACE JOURNALISM

20 Peace and Solutions-oriented News Media Outlets You Never Knew Existed

There are alternatives to mainstream news media that can keep you well-informed and feeling inspired: the peace and solutions-oriented media outlets. The challenge is that mainstream news across the political spectrum tend to dominate what we are exposed to on TV and social media. To take control of your media consumption, you have to not only know viable alternatives, but you have to be intentional about the news you consume.

Other Commentaries

SPECIAL FEATURE

Studies on COVID-19 Lethality

20 May 2020 - In response to the very broad international interest in our work, SPR has been renamed into Swiss Policy Research. A new and comprehensive overview of Studies on Covid-19 lethality is now published, including a section on hospitalization rates. A new update on medical and political developments will follow shortly.

Better World Info: Extensive COVID-19 Resource

I invite all TMS readers to visit our specialized online directory of the novel coronavirus pandemic. This is an outstanding medical resource updated daily by myself. Here you can find reliable information which will help you in your professional and day-to-day life.

TRANSCEND MEMBERS

Living Together in Peace

The UN has designated 16 May as Living Together in Peace day. It therefore seems appropriate to mark this day by discussing the reasons why war must be eliminated as a human institution. On our small but beautiful Earth, made small by technology, made beautiful by nature, there is room for one group only: the family of humankind.

COVID: Collective Overpopulation Vitiating Individual Dreams?

Neglected Critical Factor Undermining Global Strategic Viability - The attention of the media and governments worldwide to "COVID" can be seen as unprecedented. It is now a primary preoccupation of international institutions, most obviously the UN and the WHO. The strategic response has been variously framed as a "war."

Another Bank Bailout under Cover of a Virus

18 May 2020 - Insolvent Wall Street banks have been quietly bailed out again. Banks made risk-free by the government should be public utilities.  

World Bee Day: Poisons Mean Extinction for Bees and Humanity

To raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development, the UN designated 20 May as World Bee Day. The choices before humanity are clear, a Poison Free Future to save Bees, Farmers, our Food and Humanity. Or continue to use poisons, threatening our common future by walking blindly to extinction through the arrogance that we can substitute bees with artificial intelligence and robots.

Planetary Transformations: A Progressive Quest

20 May 2020 - Below are three texts: a paper by the widely respected writer and progressive scholar, Val Moghadam, which describes what it might mean to have a left transformative movement of planetary scope; followed by a short explanatory essay by Paul Raskin, who exercises intellectual leadership of the Great Transition Network. The third text is my comment on Moghadam’s paper.

Another Pandemic: Sexual Violence during War

19 May 2020 - The COVID-19 pandemic has brought renewed worldwide attention to gender-based and sexual violence. In particular, women with abusive partners face heightened danger during the mandatory lockdowns that bring unanticipated stresses while limiting freedom of movement and access to outside resources.

The Elite’s COVID-19 Coup: Fighting for Our Humanity, Our Liberty and Our Future

On 26 March 2020, the World Intellectual Property Organisation granted Microsoft a world patent. Titled ‘1. WO2020060606 – Cryptocurrency System Using Body Activity Data’, this patent gives Microsoft (that is, Bill Gates) extraordinary power over our lives. It is dramatically changing the meaning of being human. Firstly, it is redefining us as ‘mines’ for data – robbing us of our autonomy, our sovereignty, and control over our bodies and minds.

Racism & Bias at the Court of Arbitration for Sports: The Sun Yang Decision

20 May 2020 - Over the past 5 years, the sport’s "anti doping movement" has been distorted into a political tool to attack Russia and now China. This article reveals the bias behind the decision to ban Chinese athlete Sun Yang for eight years. For example, the president of the panel tweeted against a "yellow faced Chinese monster!" and secretly mocked the athlete's mother in the hearing. I hope the facts presented here help get a new fair hearing for Sun Yang.

Max Müller – A Scholar Extraordinaire

Although being German, Müller spent a considerable period of his life in England. He taught at Oxford University and was admired for his knowledge of classical Indian texts including the Upanishads and Vedas. He had access to several scholarly Sanskrit works that the East India Company had brought from India.

SPOTLIGHT

Bill Gates Will Use Your Microchipped Body to Mine Cryptocurrency

20 May 2020 - Microsoft has patented a system that uses human biometrics such as body heat and brain-wave activity to mine cryptocurrency. The patent, filed under international patent number WO-2020-060606 and titled ‘Cryptocurrency System Using Body Data Activity’, leverages human body activity as proof-of-work.

IN FOCUS

Ethics and Governance for Digital Disease Surveillance

11 May 2020 - The Question Is Not Whether to Use New Data Sources but How - Digital epidemiology—the use of data generated outside the public health system for disease surveillance—has been in use for more than a quarter century. But several countries have taken digital epidemiology to the next level in responding to COVID-19.

First Iranian Fuel Tanker Reaches Venezuelan Waters without US Interference

24 May 2020 - The first of five tankers loaded with gasoline sent from Iran has reached Venezuelan waters, expected to temporarily ease the South American nation’s fuel crunch while defying Trump administration sanctions targeting the two US foes. Iran’s president had earlier warned the US not to try to stop the flotilla sent to ease Venezuela’s fuel shortage.

New Leadership for a New Normal

The response to Covid-19 of countless people confirms that people everywhere see the value of solidarity and unity.  The opportunity is here for leaders to create a new global peace movement to promote kindness, compassion, trust, respect, and stopping war! 

Prostitution, the Sex Trade, and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Spring 2020 - The pandemic reveals the exploitation and violence in all forms of prostitution, including sugar daddy/sugar baby prostitution, cell phone/escort prostitution, massage parlor prostitution, street prostitution, webcam prostitution (Moran & Farley, 2018; Farley, 2016). A San Francisco group mainstreaming prostitution as work admitted, “People who are doing street-based sex work may not be able to stop doing sex work to survive,”

ANGLO AMERICA

What Kind of Country Do We Want?

A narrative has emerged over time that capitalism is the single defining trait of American civilization, the force that has propelled the country not only to unprecedented wealth but also to high levels of personal and political freedom… We are left with the certainty that a civilization can be wholly described by its economy, and that ours is exhaustively and triumphally capitalist.

Venezuela Failed Raid: US Has a History of Using Mercenaries to Undermine Other Regimes

18 May 2020 - US denies backing failed raid to remove Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro – but it has a long history of sponsoring private armies elsewhere.

American Hubris Robust in a Cataclysmic Global Pandemic

22 May 2020 - Few can deny that a perfect storm is brewing and the early foundations for war are being set up by the obvious protagonists. That China has cancelled the dollar peg in its stock exchange transactions opting for the Chinese Yuan is an ominous sign. Washington, meanwhile, is fast creating an anti-China sentiment among its population, blaming China for what President Trump calls the “Wuhan virus” aka Covid-19.

Despite the Danger of COVID-19, the US Military Continues War Practice in Europe and Pacific and Plans for More in 2021

19 May 2020 - During the COVID-19 pandemic, not only will the U.S. military have the largest maritime military maneuvers in the world, with Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) coming to the waters off Hawaii August 17-31, 2020 bringing 26 nations, 25,000 military personnel, up to 50 ships and submarines and hundreds of aircraft in midst of a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, but the U.S. Army is having a 6,000-person war game in June 2020 in Poland.

US Withdraws from Open Skies Treaty, Heightening Danger of War with Russia

22 May 2020 - The treaty, signed in 1992 after the dissolution of the USSR, has been in full force since 2002. It has been ratified by 34 states, including almost all NATO and EU members, Russia and most countries of the former Soviet Union. The US withdrawal from Open Skies, which will take effect within six months, comes amidst growing tensions with Russia.

The Price of America’s Quest for an External Enemy

22 May 2020 The US spent so much fighting phantom enemies and creating the myth of good versus evil that it ignored the real threat.

Trump Administration Quietly Adds Foreign Arms Sale to List of “Essential Work”

19 May 2020 - Buried on the 18th page of a recently updated federal government memo defining which workers are critical during the Covid-19 pandemic is a new category of essential workers: defense industry personnel employed in foreign arms sales. The original March memos made no mention of the lucrative foreign arms sales that U.S. companies make in the order of $180 billion a year.

Republican Party’s Corona Big Book

17 May 2020 - The book was assembled by Brett O’Donnell, who has worked for and is close to Secretary of State Mike ​Pompeo. It is basically a script for what Republican Senate candidates are to say. O’Donnell currently serves as a message and media strategist for numerous members of congress and for profit and nonprofit corporations. The Republican Party is using the text to deflect their failed COVID-19 leadership. They believe that if you create a set of lies, muddle them in a conspiracy theory, and have every Republican repeat them over and over, they can succeed in framing the political conversation.  -- Rolf Melheim

REVIEWS

How Does the US Rally Support for Wars That Kill Millions of Innocent People Worldwide?

21 May 2020 - These wars have killed millions of innocent men, women and children around the world. Yet more often than not they have been based on weak evidence, questionable motives, and outright lies. Why, then, do large portions of the public staunchly support the US troops?  Why are so many Americans satisfied with the U.S. bombings of Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Middle Eastern countries, knowing that this is creating starvation and refugee crises of catastrophic proportions?

BIG BROTHER - SPYING - SURVEILLANCE - WHISTLEBLOWING

Hacking COVID-19

23 May 2020 - Hacking is back in the headlines. The Chinese are accused of breaking into the computers of unnamed American labs – corporate &/or non-corporate - doing research on a coronavirus vaccine. The operative words are ‘China/Chinese’ and ‘hacking’. The two go together like gin & tonic.

Inside the NSA’s Secret Tool for Mapping Your Social Network

24 May 2020 - In the summer of 2013, I spent my days sifting through the most extensive archive of top-secret files that had ever reached the hands of an American journalist. Edward Snowden had transmitted tens of thousands of classified documents to me, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. He revealed the agency’s phone-record tracking program. But thanks to “precomputed contact chaining,” that database was much more powerful than anyone knew.

Since I Met Edward Snowden, I’ve Never Stopped Watching My Back

Jun 2020 issue - “What time exactly does your clock say?” asked the voice on the telephone, the first words Edward Snowden ever spoke to me aloud. I glanced at my wrist—3:22 p.m. “Good. Meet me exactly at four. I’ll be wearing a backpack.” The rendezvous point Snowden selected on 5 Dec 2013 was a casino hotel called the Korston Club in Moscow. After receiving a trove of documents from the whistleblower, I found myself under surveillance and investigation by the U.S. government.

ASIA-UPDATES ON MYANMAR ROHINGYA GENOCIDE

Yanghee Lee: Champion of Justice for Rohingyas

19 May 2020 - At a time when the world, including neighbouring Malaysia and Thailand, have shunned the Rohingya (acknowledged as the most persecuted minority in the world), at a time when the Burmese state audaciously tramples the whole corpus of international human rights instruments being aided and abetted by major powers; at a time when those who stand for reason, rule of law and justice feel betrayed by the high and mighty of the world, Yanghee Lee stood firm as a beacon of hope.

EUROPE

Europe Should Brace for Second Wave, Says EU Coronavirus Chief

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.”

PALESTINE - ISRAEL

How We Became Refugees: The Day My Grandfather Lost His Village in Palestine

15 May 2020 - Starting on March 27, 1948, a beautiful, small Palestinian village called Beit Daras, came under Zionist militias attacks. With little means – a few old rifles and kitchen knives – the Badrasawis fought back, repelling the first raid and the second. The final attack on the peaceful village followed a scorched-earth military strategy, leaving in its wake scores of dead and wounded, and the entirety of the village on the run. Among the thousands of ethnically-cleansed Palestinians in Beit Daras, a family of six, including an infant, salvaged a few old blankets and some supplies and went searching for a safe place, with the hope that they would return home in a few days. Their nearly one hundred descendants are yet to return to Beit Daras, 72 years later. 

INSPIRATIONAL

Mango Trees

A very old man was planting mango trees. Someone asked him,

BIOGRAPHIES

Ralph Waldo Emerson (25 May 1803 – 27 Apr 1882)

Emerson had become quite famous, a major figure in the American literary landscape, a celebrity which brought both adulation and satire. He had been a profound inspiration for many writers, especially Henry Thoreau and Walt Whitman.

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (30 May 1814 – 1 Jul 1876)

Bakunin formulated no coherent body of doctrine, and his voluminous and vigorous writings were often left incomplete. Anarchist movements owing allegiance to Bakunin flourished in Italy and especially in Spain, where as late as 1936 the anarchists were the strongest revolutionary party. Bakunin died in Bern, Switzerland as chief propagator of 19th-century anarchism, a prominent Russian revolutionary agitator, and a prolific political writer.

Walt Whitman (31 May 1819 – 26 Mar 1892)

Walt Whitman was an American poet whose verse collection ‘Leaves of Grass’ is a landmark in the history of American literature. Fascinated by this newcomer to the poetry scene, Emerson dispatched writers Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott to Brooklyn to meet Whitman.

POETRY FORMAT

WAR!

U.S. Memorial Day 2020: War! Side pitted against other! Human against human! Primitive!

ORIGINAL LANGUAGES

(Português) Veganos Incomodam Porque Não Vêem Animais como Produtos

Por que não mostrar a outras pessoas que é possível viver bem gerando menos violência? Como consequência, isso reduz a objetificação animal.

(Italiano) Il problema oltre il COVID-19: fermare la militarizzazione del mondo

Sembra che non accenni a scemare il flusso, ripetitivo e ormai noioso, di aggiornamenti post-COVID 19. Il mondo dei media si è rappreso intorno ai numeri, alle polemiche, alle foto ripetute all’infinito di presidi medici, bare, interviste agli esperti, piazze deserte, cori incoraggianti… Intanto il mondo va avanti… ma in che direzione? Con i telegiornali e gli ‘speciali’ tutti concentrati sul coronavirus, non c’è più spazio per altro.

(Italiano) La Guerra [Non Santa] a Papa Francesco

Qui raccolgo alcune osservazioni da varie persone attente, su questa vera e propria "guerra al papa", condotta da determinate forze. L'accusa a Francesco di non essere vero cristiano e papa è falsa e malevola, perché - con la pazienza di non abbandonare nessuno, di stare in mezzo al gregge, di farsi anche condurre, di avere l'odore del gregge – egli procede davvero al fedele compimento graduale, per processi e non strappi, del vangelo di Gesù nel mondo di oggi.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Battle of the Heavyweights

A pic is worth a thousand Twitters...

IN-DEPTH VIDEOS

“America Exists Today to Make War”

“America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of what the American Empire is,” says Wilkerson. “We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That’s the truth of it. And that’s the agony of it.” -- Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

SHORT VIDEO CLIPS

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Click on the link below and join/enjoy the Heavy Duty party...

Hotel California (Music Video of the Week)

Hotel California - Eagles 1976 (Lyrics)

JOKE OF THE WEEK

Instant Feedback

One shop owner asks another,