Articles by UN
We found 3918 results.
Putting Myanmar Election Results in Perspective
Maung Zarni | Anadolu Agency – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
19 Nov 2020 – Election cycles will neither reverse colonial treatment of non-Burmese population, nor end genocide against Rohingya.
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The New Elite: Dark Nights Rising
Thomas Klikauer & Nadine Campbell | CounterPunch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
13 Nov 2020 – There is a new elite on the rise.The old elite was defined by leisure and conspicuous consumption . The new elite has to work – mostly in elite professions – to earn money. The new elite’s employment is located in a relatively narrow spectrum of occupations separating the new elite from non-elite. The new elite finds employment mainly in three main categories: CEOs, CFOs, elite law firms.
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Votes Have Changed Little in Myanmar since Suu Kyi Assumed State Counsellorship 5 Years Ago
Maung Zarni | FORSEA – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Nov 2020
13 Nov 2020 – Myanmar’s second experiment with the parliamentary democracy is irredeemably flawed: The constitutional framework in which democratic process is located is categorically anti-democratic.
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(norsk – Norwegian) Hva slags verden er vi på vei inn i?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
Jeg vet ikke. Men jeg tror jeg vet noe … I det minste tenker jeg på det, derfor vet jeg trolig noe…
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A Structural Theory of Imperialism
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
This theory takes as its point of departure two of the most glaring facts about this world: the tremendous inequality, within and between nations, in almost all aspects of human living conditions, including the power to decide over those living conditions; AND the resistance of this inequality to change. The world consists of Center and Periphery nations; and each nation, in turn, has its centers and periphery.
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UN and Partners Express Regret over US Departure from Paris Climate Accord
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
4 Nov 2020 – Today the US formally withdrew from the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a decision originally announced three years ago. The UN climate change secretariat has underlined its commitment to work with stakeholders in the US and beyond, to accelerate climate action, in line with an historic treaty on limiting global warming and curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
→ read full articleHallelujah (Music Video of the Week)
Wuauquikuna – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
Beautiful, Relaxing Music
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A Troubling Discovery in the Arctic
Robert Hunziker | Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
7 Nov 2020 – The satellite call referenced a sleeping giant that has enough carbon firepower to adversely impact the world’s climate system. The expedition discovered methane (CH4) that had been securely frozen in shallow subsea permafrost waters forever, and ever, and ever, now “stirring.” Colloquially, “The Monster of the North awakened.”
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‘High Time for Accountability’, UN Expert Says as Israel Approves Highest Rate of Illegal Settlements
UN News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
30 Oct 2020 – The international community must answer a “grave” breach of international law with “more than mere criticism”, an independent UN expert said on Friday after the Israeli Government announced its approval of nearly 5,000 new settlement homes in occupied Palestinian territory.
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Macron’s Attack on Islam Reveals “Intolerance and Hatred,” Says Nobel Peace Laureate Tawakkol Karman
Steven Sahiounie | Mideast Discourse - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
29 Oct 2020 – The beheading of a teacher in France elicited inflammatory remarks from President Emmanuel Macron, which in turn has been met with an Arab boycott of French goods. “Macron’s attack on Islam reveals intolerance and hatred which is shameful for the head of a state like France,” said Tawakkol Karman.
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The Neoliberal Capitalist Lockdown: Class Consciousness in the Age of COVID
Colin Todhunter | Global Research - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
28 Oct 2020 – Although COVID is being blamed, the shutting down of the old economy was already happening as growth was below the minimum tolerable 3% level to maintain the viability of capitalism. “In order to reverse this serious setback [COVID] to development progress and poverty reduction, countries will need to prepare for a different economy post-COVID, by allowing capital, labor, skills, and innovation to move into new businesses and sectors.” — World Bank, Oct 2020 Report
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Dumping Fukushima’s Water into the Ocean… Seriously?
Robert Hunziker | Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
30 Oct 2020 – For nearly a decade the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has been streaming radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean as TEPCO struggles to control it. Yet, the bulk of the radioactive water is stored in more than 1,000 water tanks. Japan’s government has made a decision to dump the contaminated water into the Pacific.
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The Habit of Passion
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
From the TMS editor: Johan Galtung, my mentor, friend, well-wisher, guide, a great inspirer, just turned 90 years old; he is semi-retired now. I present a text he wrote some time ago and I found in my archives; practical wisdom, optimism, proaction, higher thinking. With my deepest respect and gratitude to Johan for our friendship of 35-years–of uninterrupted learning from my part. — Antonio C. S. Rosa
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Power’s Prophet: Remembering Gene Sharp
Stephen Zunes | The Progressive - TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Nov 2020
His monograph From Dictatorship to Democracy, translated into dozens of languages, became a handbook for nonviolent revolt.
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The U.S. Did Not Defeat Fascism in WWII, It Discretely Internationalized It
Gabriel Rockhill | CounterPunch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
16 Oct 2020 – One of the founding myths of the contemporary Western European and American world is that fascism was defeated in WWII by liberal democracies, and particularly by the United States. With the subsequent Nuremburg trials and the patient construction of a liberal world order, a bulwark was erected—in fits and starts, and with the constant threat of regression—against fascism and its evil twin in the East. American culture industries have rehearsed this narrative ad nauseum, brewing it into a saccharine ideological Kool-Aid and piping it into every household, shack and street corner with a TV or smartphone, tirelessly juxtaposing the supreme evil of Nazism to the freedom and prosperity of liberal democracy.
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Mozart Piano Concerto #3 by Elisha Mysin, 5 Years Old (Music Video of the Week)
Young Talents, Great Geniuses – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
28 Mar 2019 – The youngest pianist in Russia does not get his feet to the piano pedals but masterfully performs the most complex musical works. When Elisha Mysin sits at the piano and music begins to flow from his fingers, it is hard to believe that he is just five years old.
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American Militarism Marches On: No Discussion or Media Coverage of Washington’s War against the World
Philip M. Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
22 Oct 2020 – The most interesting story carefully hidden by the smoke from civil unrest, plague and personal scandals is the continued march of American militarism. Multi billionaire Elon Musk announced that he and the Pentagon are developing a new 7,500 m.p.h. missile capable of delivering 80 tons of military cargo anywhere in the world in under an hour. A major capability for continued U.S. intervention worldwide.
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Socialist Luis Arce Wins Bolivian Election
Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
19 Oct 2020 – A year after former Bolivian president Evo Morales was ousted in a military coup that installed a far-right regime, Morales’ ally Luis Arce declared victory after exit polls showed the socialist candidate with a large advantage over his two main competitors. “Democracy has won,” Arce, who served as Morales’ finance minister, said.
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Belching Cows and Endless Feedlots: Fixing Cattle’s Climate Issues
Henry Fountain | The New York Times - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
The United States is home to 95 million cattle, and changing what they eat could have a significant effect on emissions of greenhouse gases like methane that are warming the world. We traveled to the Texas Panhandle to understand the nation’s immense cattle feedlots.
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After the Fall… What?
EnvisionPeaceMuseum | Johan Galtung & Amy Goodman – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
Fascism or Blossoming after the Fall of the US Empire?
10 Jul 2012 – Prognosis/Prediction
Unite against Washington’s ‘Old-Fashioned Cold War Mentality’, Beijing Urges Asian Nations
Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
14 Oct 2020 – China’s top diplomat has urged neighboring states to guard against Washington’s geopolitical ambitions in Asia and called for regional cooperation to thwart foreign provocations in the South China Sea.
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26 Sep: International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
The United Nations - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
Achieving global nuclear disarmament is one of the oldest goals of the United Nations. It was the subject of the General Assembly’s first resolution in 1946, which established the Atomic Energy Commission, with a mandate to make specific proposals for the control of nuclear energy and the elimination of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.
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Myanmar: ‘Shocking’ Killing of Children Allegedly Used as Human Shields
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
14 Oct 2020 – UN agencies in Myanmar have expressed ‘sadness’ and ‘shock’ over the killing of two boys, allegedly used as human shields by security forces in Rakhine . They were killed in a crossfire between Myanmar’s military and the separatist Arakan Army.
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On the Coming Decline and Fall of the US Empire
Prof. Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Oct 2020
[Paper written in 2015] -> Empires have different profiles. The US Empire has a complete configuration, articulated in a statement by a Pentagon planner: “The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”. In other words, direct violence to protect structural violence legitimized by cultural violence.
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70 Per Cent of COVID Cases Located in Just 10 Countries, WHO Reports
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
5 Oct 2020 – While COVID-19 has affected all countries, the pandemic is “uneven”, and it is estimated that 10 per cent of the global population may have been infected with the virus, senior officials with the World Health Organization (WHO) said today.
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The United Nations and Decolonization: Non-Self-Governing Territories
The United Nations - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
Today, 17 Non-Self-Governing Territories, as listed below, remain on the agenda of the “Special Committee on Decolonization” or the “C-24”. Member States which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of such Territories are called administering Powers. Last updated: 22 Sep 2020
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Myanmar’s Colonial Policies and Crimes Trigger Renewed Liberation Struggles
Maung Zarni | Anadolu Agency – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
9 Oct 2020 – Lack of action from UN and world community encourages Myanmar to commit atrocities against ethnic communities. The decades of failures by the UN and external actors will force the oppressed minorities to resort to armed liberation struggles.
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Fires Raze Nearly Half of Indigenous Territories in Brazil’s Pantanal
Bianca Muniz, Bruno Fonseca and Raphaela Ribeiro | Agência Pública, Mongabay - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
6 Oct 2020 – In September, 164 fires were recorded across Indigenous territories in the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s biggest wetland. In August, there were more than 200. Nearly half of the certified Indigenous areas in the region have already been subject to fires that cut off villages, destroyed homes and farms, and sent community members to hospital for respiratory problems.
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India’s Hindu Right Are Willing to Bury Democracy
Arundhati Roy | Scroll - TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Oct 2020
Two Conspiracies and a Cremation: Let’s keep voting for the people who are leading us into penury and war, tearing us apart limb from limb. While India’s rulers downplay the brutal murder of a Dalit teenager by an upper-caste gang and acquit Hindu nationalists guilty of historic crimes, they are concocting another show trial of Muslims and progressive activists to intimidate dissenters.
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New Silk Road and the Asian Century: India, China and the Empire
Devdan Chaudhuri | Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2020
29 Sep 2020 – For the much of human history on planet earth – till the 18th century – India and China were the two largest economies in the world and periodically interchanged the top position amongst themselves. An Asian century means that from a unipolar hegemonic world order dominated by the empire, a multi-polar world order – more diverse and representative – will emerge.
→ read full articleShared Security–How?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2020
Shared” has a good touch to it, something we have in common. Actually often referred to as “common security”. Same thing. “Security” has a military touch to it, not necessarily bad, but since the military is often used for attack in the name of security, their own, not shared, there is certainly a “how?” to be answered.
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The Hidden Structure of Violence: Who Benefits from Global Violence and War
Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Rountree | Monthly Review - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2020
In this detailed and expansive book, the authors demonstrate that widespread violence is in fact an expression of the underlying social order, and whether it is carried out by military forces or by patterns of investment, the aim is to strengthen that order for the benefit of the powerful.
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Another Wake-Up Call: Sea Ice Loss Is Speeding Up
UN Environment Programme - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Oct 2020
13 September 2020 marked a new, troubling milestone – with Arctic sea ice shrinking to the second-lowest extent ever recorded. We asked United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) climate change expert Pascal Peduzzi to explain the significance of sea ice loss.
→ read full article(Italiano) L’ottagono: rango, squilibrio, discordanza e teoria bellica
Johan Galtung | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2020
Gli USA risultano il paese più inguaiato, e quindi molto attivo in tentativi di riequilibrio. Poi viene l’UE, in breve l’Occidente, seguito da India e Russia. Al minimo, il meno preoccupati in tal senso, sono Cina e LatinAmerica, alquanto equilibrate, seppur una a livello superiore, l’altra inferiore. Supporremmo che entrambe continueranno a salire in tutte le dimensioni, facendosi sentire, ma meno rumorosamente che l’Occidente, Russia e India.
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India: What Lies Ahead?
Arundhati Roy | The Paris Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2020
15 Sep 2020 – Only a year into his second term, through a series of horrifying moves, Modi has changed India beyond recognition. The infrastructure of fascism is staring us in the face, the pandemic is speeding up that process in unimaginable ways, and yet we hesitate to call it by its name. What lies ahead? Reimagining the world. Only that.
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The Dying Planet Report 2020
Robert Hunziker | Pressenza - TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Sep 2020
24 Sep 2020 – The World Wildlife Foundation, in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London, recently issued an eye-popping description of the forces of humanity versus life in nature, the Living Planet Report 2020, but the report should really be entitled the Dying Planet Report 2020 because that’s what’s happening in the real world. Not much remains alive.
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(Italiano) In quale mondo stiamo per entrare?
Johan Galtung | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
Abbiamo il privilegio di vivere in un periodo storico molto stimolante, con l’addio agli stati-nazione e l’accoglienza alle regioni-civiltà. E poi sempre con la possibilità di riscoprire, o ricreare, una realtà di “piccolo è bello”, indipendentemente da quanto “grosso è necessario” possa emergere. Emozionante!
→ read full article(Norsk-Norwegian) Trosforhold, religioner og fred
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
Nedenfor følger en tabell med 15 trosretninger organisert fra mono- via poly- til pan-ateisme. Tabellens fokus er konkrete følger av ulike trosretninger for dagens verden.
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Africa’s Catastrophic Covid Response
Ian Birrell | UnHerd - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
11 Sep 2020 – As Covid-19 began to sweep across the planet earlier this year, the warnings about the disease’s impact on Africa were terrifying. The World Health Organisation predicted ten million cases within six months, raising the horrifying prospect of fragile health systems becoming overwhelmed with corpses piled up in hospital corridors.
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Arakan Resistance Assist Rohingya in Their Common Quest for Int’l Accountability
Maung Zarni | Anadolu Agency – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
9 Sep 2020 – Arakan Army/ULA emerging as an unseemly ally and collaborator of Rohingya victims seeking justice and a peaceful homeland.
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Coronavirus Dons a New Crown
Nuruddin Unchwaniwala and Paul Ahlquist | Science Magazine - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
11 Sep 2020 – Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which causes COVID-19, belongs to the positive-strand RNA viruses, a large class of viruses that includes Zika, hepatitis C, and chikungunya viruses… RNA replication is a major target of antiviral drugs, including remdesivir, which shows promise for treating COVID-19 patients.
→ read full articleWhat World Are We Moving Into?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
We have the privilege of living in a very exciting period in history, saying farewell to nation-states and welcoming civilization-regions. And then always with the possibility of rediscovering, or recreating, a reality of “small is beautiful”, regardless of how much “big is necessary” may be emerging. Exciting!
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TRANSCEND International and the Right Livelihood Foundation Mourn the Passing of 1981 Laureate Mike Cooley (1934 – 4 Sep 2020)
Johan Galtung and Right Livelihood Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Sep 2020
“Dear Mike Cooley–you may no longer be living among us, but you will never leave our minds. You may pass away to some other world, but will keep on living among us as one whose thoughts and dreams, words and actions, are indelible. Thank you, dear Mike.
With Peace and Love, Johan Galtung
TRANSCEND International”
The Octagon: Rank, Disequilibrium, Discordance and War Theory
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2020
USA comes out as the most troubled country, hence very active in equilibrating efforts. Then comes EU, in short the West, followed by India and Russia. Lowest, least worried in this sense, are China and Latin America, quite balanced, one at a higher, the than other at a lower level. We would assume that they will both continue climbing on all dimensions, making themselves heard, but less noisily than the West, Russia and India. Africa is in-between.
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Portuguese Youth Activists Sue 33 Countries over Climate Crisis
Holly Young | Deutsche Welle - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Sep 2020
3 Sep 2020 – In the latest example of a wave of climate litigation across the world, six Portuguese young people this week filed a case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, asking for accountability around the climate crisis.
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The World Cannot Forget the Rohingya
Tun Khin | Al Jazeera - TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2020
25 Aug 2020 – This week marks exactly three years since the Myanmar military poured into Rakhine State and launched a vicious operation against the Rohingya people. Thousands of women, men and children were killed, mutilated and raped, whole villages were burned to the ground, and hundreds of thousands fled into neighbouring Bangladesh. Abandoned by the international community, the Rohingya have only one glimmer of hope: international justice.
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These Poems
June Jordan | Academy of American Poets - TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Aug 2020
These poems
they are things that I do
Modi’s Brutal Treatment of Kashmir Exposes His Tactics – And Their Flaws
Arundhati Roy | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Aug 2020
At midnight on 4 August 2019, phones in Kashmir went dead and internet connections were cut. On 5 August 2019, a year ago today, 7 million people were locked into their homes under a strict military curfew. Up to 10,000 people, from young children and teenage stone pelters to former chief ministers and major pro-India politicians, were arrested and put into preventive detention, where many of them still remain. On 6 August, a bill was passed in parliament stripping the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy and special status enshrined in the Indian constitution. It was stripped of statehood, downgraded into two union territories, Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh would have no legislature and would be governed directly by New Delhi.
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Oliver Stone: It Doesn’t Matter Who’s US President, the Military-Industrial Complex Must Be Funded!
Going Underground | RT - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
5 Aug 2020 – We speak to one of the greatest film directors in the world Oliver Stone. He discusses his new book ‘Chasing the Light’ which details his life directing and involvement in iconic films such as Salvador, Scarface and Midnight Express, why it was hopeless for Donald Trump to change a system ran by the military-industrial complex, and much more!
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Ernest Wamba dia Wamba (1942 – 15 Jul 2020): A Healer from Within
Jacques Depelchin | Africa Is a Country - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
A brother, comrade, philosopher, historian, thinker, healer, and dreamer left us physically. But he is still there to help us navigate through the times, assuming we realize how he understood the senselessness of the managers of a dominant system that presumes it must control and own everything.
→ read full articleFrom Blossoms
Li-Young Lee | Poetry Foundation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy…
The Last of the Zoroastrians
Shaun Walker | The Guardian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
6 Aug 2020 – A funeral, a family, and a journey into a disappearing religion.
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Freakish Arctic Fires Alarmingly Intensify
Robert Hunziker | CounterPunch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2020
12 Aug 2020 – NASA satellite images of fires in eastern Siberia depict an inferno of monstrous proportions, nothing in modern history compares. And, as of July, it’s intensifying. Should people be concerned? Answer: Yes, and double yes.
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BREAKING: Israel Bombed Beirut
Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam תיקון עולם - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
4 Aug 2020 – Exposure: Israel blew up a Hezbollah ammunition depot in the port of Beirut, but did not know in advance that a nearby warehouse contained a huge amount of ammonium nitrate. The government, overwhelmed by the scale of the carnage and destruction, was quick to deny Israeli involvement – even before anyone in Lebanon blamed Israel.
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Venezuela and Trump’s Irrational Electoral Policy
Jorge Arreaza Montserrat, Venezuela Foreign Minister | Council on Hemispheric Affairs - TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
6 Aug 2020 – There is a belief that hard line, regime change policies against Venezuela would lead to electoral success in Florida and therefore, nationwide… Trump would do better if he followed his initial instinct of talking to President Maduro. A respectful dialogue with Venezuela is what is really in the interest of the U.S. electorate.
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Time to Add Myanmar’s Most Influential Genocidal Monk Sitagu to ICC List
Maung Zarni | Anadolu Agency – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2020
5 Aug 2020 – As the ICC proceeds with its full investigation, it needs to look into the instrumental role of Sitagu Sayadaw, Myanmar’s most influential Saffron-robed hate preacher, in the genocidal and other crimes against predominantly Muslim Rohingya. He offered scriptural justifications for ‘killing millions of non-Buddhists’.
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US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Genocide
Gideon Polya | Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Aug 2020
17 Jul 2020 – Genocide of Indigenous People – On 4 Jun 2020 I published in Germany a large book entitled ‘US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide’ that is substantially based on articles I have published in Countercurrents as well as in other progressive media over the last 2 decades.
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Déjà vu All Over Again?
Unknown – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
Or still the same scene? Define progress…
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Computers
Unknown – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
Did you hear about the monkeys who shared an Amazon account?
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AFRICOM and the Guise of Terrorism
Tunde Osazua | Black Agenda Report – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
15 Jul 2020 – If AFRICOM’s mission is to fight terrorism, then why have terror attacks increased five-fold since the US began its military occupation of the continent? “Entities that threaten a liberated, autonomous Africa are the real terrorists, and the United States is the biggest terrorist in the world. AFRICOM’s true purpose is not fighting terrorism.”
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UNHCR Welcomes New Ukrainian Statelessness Law Set to End Legal Limbo for Thousands
UN High Commissioner for Refugees - TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
17 Jul 2020 – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomes a new statelessness law in Ukraine which came into effect this week. The law will give thousands of people who lack a nationality a chance to work legally, study and access healthcare among other rights and opportunities, and will ultimately provide a pathway to citizenship, once they are recognized as stateless.
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Dag Hammarskjöld (29 Jul 1905 – 18 Sep 1961): Second UN Secretary-General
The United Nations – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2020
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 10 Apr 1953 to 18 Sep 1961 when he died in a plane crash in the Congo. He was born on 29 July 1905 in Jonkoping, Sweden. An authority on literature whose translations of poetry were widely admired, Dag’s journal of personal and spiritual reflections was published posthumously as Markings in 1963.
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Cold War with China and the Thucydides Trap: A Conversation with Richard Falk
Daniel Falcone | Counterpunch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
9 Jul 2020 – In retracing the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization, Falk analyses the origins of US resentment towards China’s remarkable market growth that is absent of liberal democratic structures. How a ‘cold war’ with China, an economic rival, is different from 20th century Russian tension, which was largely militaristic and ideological.
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‘Cancel Culture’ Cannot Erase a Strong Argument
Robert Jensen | Countercurrents - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
13 Jul 2020 – In the current squabble on the liberal/progressive/left side of the fence over so-called “cancel culture”—in which one open letter in favor of freedom of expression led to a rebuttal open letter in favor of a different approach to freedom of expression—I can offer a report on the experience of being canceled.
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Revolutions, Revolutionaries, and Me the Facebook Ninja
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
15 Jul 2020 – At a tender age, I was turned on by tales of subversion of repressive political authority or defiance of unjust laws and social order. Retroactively, I hold my beloved mother who impressed upon me that revolutions and revolutionaries, not to mention political defiance and civil disobedience, are noble, worthy of giving up one’s life, career, property, family and all the rest.
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Can Private Finance Really Serve Humanity?
Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury | Human Wrongs Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
14 Jul 2020 – The recent explosion of private finance has nursed the hope, dream or illusion that it can be mobilized for the public good, e.g., to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, associated with Agenda 2030. However, such hopes ignore how changes in financial investing have deeply transformed corporations, national economies and prospects for the world economy and social progress.
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(Italiano) Educazione alla pace e geopolitica
Johan Galtung | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2020
L’educazione-prassi-teoria di pace è compatibile con la mentalità militare – comunque definita, e ci sono molte culture militari al mondo – o no? Seconda Gran Questione: la pace è compatibile con le civiltà?
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UNESCO Expresses Deep Regret over Turkey Decision to Change Status of Historic Hagia Sophia
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2020
10 Jul 2020 – The Turkish President signed a decree today converting the ancient Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque. The majestic building was founded around 1,500 years ago as a cathedral and is widely regarded as the foremost example of Byzantine Christian architecture in the world. Following the rise of the Ottoman Empire, it became a mosque, but in 1934, was designated a secular museum, shared by Christians, Muslims and those of all faiths or none, alike.
→ read full articleThe Sun
Unknown – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jul 2020
Kim Jong-un announced in a news conference that North Korea would be sending a man to the sun within ten years!
→ read full article(Norwegian-Norsk) Trosforhold, religioner og fred
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2020
Johan Galtung har i årtier studert hvordan trosforhold og religioner påvirker menneskets tilværelse. Galtungs skille mellom ”harde” og ”myke” varianter av trosretninger og religioner kan bidra til innsikt: Noen retninger bidrar til positiv fred, andre til fysisk og psykisk vold.
→ read full articleEducation for Peace and Geopolitics
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2020
Is peace theory-practice-education compatible with the military mind–however defined, and there are many military cultures in the world–or not? Second Big Question: is peace compatible with the civilizations?
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Global Peace Index 2020
OCHA-United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2020
11 Jun 2020 – Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, and Denmark.
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UN Marks 75-Year Milestone Anniversary of Founding Charter
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
26 Jun 2020 – The UN Charter “brought rules and hope to a world in ruins”, Secretary-General António Guterres told a virtual ceremony today, commemorating 75 years since the Organization’s foundational text was signed on 26 Jun 1945.
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United Nations in Muir Woods 75th Anniversary
United Nations Association USA – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
Seventy-five years ago, in 1945, the first ever conference of the United Nations took place in San Francisco, California. On May 19th the delegates traveled to Muir Woods for a ceremony to honor the recently deceased US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
→ read full articleGross…
Unknown – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
An old grandma brings a bus driver a bag of peanuts every day.
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US Sanctions against International Court Staff a ‘Direct Attack’ on Judicial Independence
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
25 Jun 2020 – The decision by the United States to authorize sanctions targeting staff at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is “a direct attack to the institution’s judicial independence”, UN human rights experts said today.
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Majority of ICC Members Backs Tribunal in Face of US Sanctions
Mike Corder | AP/Star Tribune – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
23 Jun 2020 – More than half of the member states of the International Criminal Court voiced their support for the institution in a strongly worded statement issued today in response to the Trump administration’s decision to authorize sanctions against court staff.
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Everyday People (Music Video of the Week)
Turnaround Arts | Playing For Change – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
We are proud and honored to share “Everyday People,” produced by Playing For Change in partnership with Turnaround Arts. Turnaround Arts infuses struggling schools with arts as a strategy for reform. The program is run by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
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Feeding the People in Times of Pandemic: The Food Sovereignty Approach in Nicaragua
Rita Jill Clark-Gollub, Erika Takeo and Avery Raimondo | Council on Hemispheric Affairs - TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2020
22 Jun 2020 – In the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere there are no hunger flags flying. The market stalls are stocked, customers are buying, and prices are stable. Nicaraguan small farmers produce almost all the food the nation consumes, and have some leftover for export. We will examine how this is possible.
→ read full articleWorld Refugee Day, 20 Jun: End Conflict That Drives ‘Appalling’ Displacement Numbers
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
In his message to mark World Refugee Day, the UN chief praised those nations and communities hosting refugees and internally displaced people, often amid their own economic and security challenges. “We owe these countries our thanks, our support and our investment,” he said.
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Helen Keller (27 Jun 1880 – 1 Jun 1968)
American Foundation for the Blind – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
American educator Helen Keller overcame the adversity of being blind and deaf to become one of the 20th century’s leading humanitarians, as well as co-founder of the ACLU.
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The Bohemian Club Conspiracy
Brian Dunning | Skeptoid - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
Let’s point our skeptical eye at some of the stories surrounding San Francisco’s Bohemian Club. The membership rolls of this exclusive, men-only social club include US Presidents, captains of industry and banking, military contractors, giants in the arts and sciences, and the absurdly wealthy. Thus, the Bohemians are automatically the subject of charges by some that they are a secret guild of Illuminati, making the decisions that rule the world; manipulating interest rates and choosing political candidates, for example.
→ read full articleUN Refugee Chief Laments Nearly 80 Million People Forcibly Displaced
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
18 June 2020 – Global displacement reached a staggering 79.5 million people last year – almost double the number of people in crisis registered a decade ago – owing to war, violence, persecution and other emergencies, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said today.
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“Black Lives Matter” Is International: Where There Is Oppression, There Will Be Resistance
Roger Harris | Council on Hemispheric Affairs - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
18 Jun 2020 – The police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th was the spark that ignited the tinder of accrued injustice throughout the US and globally. There is a shared history of colonial conquest of the Indigenous and the abominable institution of the enslavement of African peoples. What happened has its roots in systemic oppression that has resonated internationally.
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“Like a Kidney Stone” — Trump vs. Journalists
Founders Sing - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jun 2020
Funny satire on Trump to the Dylan tune “Like a Rolling Stone”
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International Criminal Court Oversight Chief ‘Deeply Regrets’ US Decision to Target Officials Investigating Afghanistan War Crimes
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2020
13 Jun 2020 – Responding to the decision of the US government to sanction ICC officials and their families, O-Gon Kwon, president of the body that oversees the ICC, denounced the measures which, he said, undermine the “endeavour to fight impunity and to ensure accountability for mass atrocities”.
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Walking Blues (Music Video of the Week)
Keb' Mo' | Playing For Change | Song Around The World – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jun 2020
We started in Patagonia, Argentina and added friends as we traveled to create a blues jam around the world. Blues is always from the people for the people and this video creates a moment in time to come together and put all the darkness and division we face as a human race into the music so it can set us free. Turn it up and enjoy!
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Coronavirus Antibody Tests Show only One Fifth of Infections
Alexandra Broehm | Sonntags-Zeitung - Swiss Policy Research,
15 Jun 2020
2 Jun 2020 – A new study shows that possibly many more people have already had contact with the coronavirus than previously thought.
→ read full articleOn the Dialectic between Social Processes and Health/Illness Processes
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jun 2020
From TMS Editor: An editorial from Johan Galtung a bit longer and older but with contemporary relevance. From the context of the 1980’s HIV-AIDS pandemic, Galtung offers unique insights into the hurdles and challenges humanity faces today with COVID-19.
→ read full articleInstant Feedback
Unknown – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 May 2020
One shop owner asks another,
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UN Officials Call for Release of Detained Palestinian Children amid Pandemic
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 May 2020
11 May 2020 – Three senior United Nations officials in the Middle East are calling for the release of Palestinian children from Israeli-run prisons and detentions centres, saying they are at particular risk of COVID-19 infection.
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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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Amid COVID-19 Pandemic, Thousands Stranded in Bay of Bengal ‘Unable to Come Ashore’
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
6 May 2020 – In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, UN agencies called today for South-East Asian governments to show compassion to boats full of vulnerable people adrift in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. Thousands of lives may be at stake if the stranded people are unable to disembark.
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Guantanamera (Music Video of the Week)
Playing For Change | Song Around The World - TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
We started the song with Carlos Varela in Havana and it features over 75 Cuban musicians around the world, from Havana and Santiago to Miami, Barcelona and Tokyo. We recorded and produced this track with Jackson Browne, who explains that “traveling with Playing For Change across Cuba was one of the most rewarding and inspiring musical experiences of my life.”
→ read full articleFeedback
Unknown – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 May 2020
My old aunts would come and tease me at weddings,
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Myanmar: “Possible War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity Ongoing in Rakhine and Chin States”
UN Human Rights Council – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
29 April 2020 – “While the world is occupied with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Myanmar military continues to escalate its assault in Rakhine State, targeting the civilian population,” said Yanghee Lee, who is concluding her tenure as UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.
→ read full articleAre We Having Fun Yet?
Unknown – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
Dog life…
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Oppression Is Bad for Your Health
Kristin Young Christman – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
It has been downright creepy. Why? Because it is such an illogical reaction to a virus that kills – not 50%, not 25%, but an estimated 1 – 3% of those who contract it. When I checked online in mid-March, I found that, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 80% of patients who contracted the coronavirus COVID-19 had only mild symptoms.
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Soul Rebel (Music Video of the Week)
Song around the World | Playing for Change – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
Bob Marley once said, “One good thing about music is that when it hits you feel no pain.” Another good thing about music is that it touches our souls and lifts our spirits. Connecting people is one thing, but connecting souls is a whole different level. Enjoy Bunny Wailer, Manu Chao and Bushman singing the Wailer’s classic, Soul Rebel, with musicians around the world.
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‘No Evidence’ That Recovered COVID-19 Patients Cannot Be Reinfected, Says WHO
UN News - TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2020
25 Apr 2020 – The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that there is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.
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