Articles by ICH

We found 2516 results.


World Order after the Cold War
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 May 2018

The aftermath of the Cold War exhibited several forms of dysfunctionality: failures by the American-led West to recognize and act upon a new global agenda that served the ‘human interest’ rather than continue to pursue ‘geopolitical ambitions’ by relying on coercive diplomacy and militarism. What is politically ‘feasible’ at this point will not do. The peoples of the world deserve and require a politics that recognizes what is ‘necessary’ and aspires to achieve what is ‘desirable.’

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A Warm Room
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 May 2018

As long as peace negotiators focus on the elimination of weapons, anyone with a gun or bomb can sabotage the peace process. Violence relates to an unresolved conflict like smoke to fire. To stop the smoke, it is necessary to quench the fire, not the other way round.

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Transforming Violent Systems: The Key to Social Peace
Dr. Richard Rubenstein | TED – TRANSCEND Media Service, 14 May 2018

12 Apr 2018 – Richard E. Rubenstein is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and a professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. His recent book, Resolving Structural Conflicts, was published by Routledge in 2017.

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A New Friendship
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 May 2018

Al was walking home from school. Suddenly he saw that the boy in front of him had fallen and dropped a large pile of books and other things that he was carrying. Al bent down and helped him pick up the scattered items.

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Opportunisms
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 May 2018

Dan was a single guy living at home with his father and working in the family business.

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“Creating Wealth” through Debt: The West’s Finance-Capitalist Road
Michael Hudson – CounterPunch, 7 May 2018

Speech at Peking University’s School of Marxist Studies, May 5-6, 2018 – Volumes II and III of Marx’s Capital describe how debt grows exponentially, burdening the economy with carrying charges.

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Postscript: Additional Indonesian Impressions
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 May 2018

1 May 2018 – It occurs to me that two additional impressions of Indonesia seem relevant enough to be worth a short supplement to my post of a few days ago.

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Social Skill
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Apr 2018

A Swiss farmer’s son was for the first time at a ball.

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Indonesian Impressions
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Apr 2018

Impressions from a Third Visit to Indonesia

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Words Can Save Lives
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Apr 2018

A group of frogs were walking through a forest. Suddenly, two of them fell into a hole. All the other frogs gathered around the hole and looked down over the edge.

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Economic Theory and Community Development
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Apr 2018

22 Apr 2018 – One of several key theses of this book is the ethical principle: we should share the surplus. It is an ancient principle that in modern times the principal founder of economic theory, Adam Smith, took great pains to deny. It is present in one form or another in most of the cultures homo sapiens has constructed. It survives today in most religions. It is, implicitly at least, a centrepiece of socialism and of responsible capitalism. We do not think of ourselves as proposing a new idea, but as reviving an old one whose time is now returning.

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Attacking Syria
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Apr 2018

18 Apr 2018 – These strikes raise questions of international law, domestic constitutional authorization for international uses of force, strategic logic, and moral imperatives and rationalizations. Each of these issues is capable of multiple interpretations raising further concerns about the appropriate location of the authority to decide given the nature of world order in the 21stcentury.

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“War Is Good for Business”: Insider Trading, Secret Information and the US-Led Attack against Syria
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research, 23 Apr 2018

21 Apr 2018 – Philip May, husband of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May happens to be a senior executive of Capital Group which is a major holder of both Lockheed Martin and British Aerospace shares. The value of Lockheed and BAE shares soared on the World’s stock markets, on the Monday morning following the Friday April 13 bombing of Syria.

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Whatever…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Apr 2018

A father told his young son, “You have gotten a little sister.”

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Let the People, Not the Politicians or Generals, Decide
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Apr 2018

The province of Schleswig had changed hands between Denmark and Prussia several times during the 19th century and was under German control before World War I.

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A Socialist Economy for the 21st Century
Richard Rosen | The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Apr 2018

Richard A. Rosen explores the changes necessary for a modern definition of “socialism” and describes key concepts and issues that arise when aiming to restructure the American economy to include social and environmental sustainability in the Twenty-First Century.

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North Korea Is Changing
Richard Javad Heydarian – Al Jazeera, 23 Apr 2018

I visited North Korea with an official delegation and here’s what I saw and learned.

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‘Super Gonorrhea’ Raises the Stakes in the War against Superbugs
Mark Blaskovich – The Conversation, 16 Apr 2018

5 Apr 2018 – Superbugs used to pose the greatest risk to people with compromised immune systems and those who had surgery. But their sexual transmission means antibiotic resistance can spread much more widely.

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Department of Homeland Security Compiling Database of Journalists and ‘Media Influencers’
Michelle Fabio – Forbes, 16 Apr 2018

6 Apr 2018 – The details of the Statement of Work outline a plan to gather and monitor the public activities of media professionals and influencers and are enough to cause nightmares of constitutional proportions, particularly as the freedom of the press is under attack worldwide. And “attack” is not hyperbolic.

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Toward the Creation of a World Parliament: Strongly Recommended Reading
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Apr 2018

13 Apr 2018 – This is a brief promotional comment to call attention to the publication of a truly outstanding contribution to creative and restorative world order thinking. The book is entitled A World Parliament: Governance and Democracy in the 21stCentury by Jo Leinen and Andreas Bummel.

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Not Crazy
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Apr 2018

A mental patient believed he was a mouse.

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Middle East Turmoil: Israeli Massacre, Palestinian Grievances
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Apr 2018

The Middle East Is Heating Up–Again – A Postscript on the Land Day Massacre (‘Great March of Return’)

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Will ‘Democracy’ Survive? How? Whether? Hard Questions in Dark Times
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Apr 2018

7 Apr 2018 – Global democracy has become, is becoming, a matter of ultimate concern. Issues raised concern transparency, accountability, participation, and responsiveness of global policy processes, and of course, how the global is to be linked with the regional and national so as to pursue the goal of global humane governance: equitable, stable, sustainable, peaceful, compassionate, and above all, mindfulness.

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Social Activism Funded by Global Capitalism, Serves the Neoliberal World Order. The 2018 World Social Forum in Salvador, Brazil
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research, 9 Apr 2018

28 Mar 2018 – The WSF movement is largely “funded by neoliberalism”. People who participated in the WSF Venue did not know that “RESIST” GLOBAL CAPITALISM is funded by “GLOBAL CAPITALISM”. They have been misled by the WSF organizers.

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Moral Education for Structural Change
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Apr 2018

The experience of the education for social responsibility program at the University of Concepción suggests the viability of large-scale moral education programmes, aimed at forming a functional, realistic, and solidary ethical conscience. Three educational principles supported by scientific findings are proposed to guide moral education: understanding, participation, and empathy. Taking as an example the ‘structural trap’ by which the good intention of complying with social human rights, such as health, ends up discouraging economic investment…

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The Whole Truth
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Apr 2018

“Seek the company of those who are searching for the truth, but avoid those who have found it.” — Vaclav Havel

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A Vedic Alternative to Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’
Michael Cremo [Drutakarma dasa] | New Thinking Allowed – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Apr 2018

The nature of a human being, the mind, consciousness, and a Vedic alternative to Darwin’s ‘theory’–not ‘science.’ Very articulate and precise explanations in a way that can be understood by everybody.

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By the Way…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Apr 2018

John Kenneth Galbraith called Reaganomics “horse and sparrow economics.”

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The Banality of Evil: Diverting the Palestinian Struggle
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Apr 2018

28 Mar 2018 – The Banality of Evil: Language Entrapment or Political Malevolence? It seems a language game is being played. Or is it better understood as a political maneuver suffused with bad intentions?

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Following Foucault: The Trail of the Fox
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Apr 2018

A Kindle E Book on Amazon – by Howard Richards, with Catherine Odora Hoppers and Evelin Lindner, with a Foreword by Magnus Haavelsrud.‘I found this a truly fascinating work: timely, original, dynamic. There is such a huge secondary literature on Foucault; one is almost sceptical about new additions to the corpus. This, however, is certainly worth the read; partly because of the ways it also counters and contradicts many accepted ways of reading Foucault, especially on power.’

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Framing Questions
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Apr 2018

The psychologists Amos and Tversky developed the theory of “framing” by demonstrating that people give different answers depending on how a question is asked. The following are two examples.

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Explaining to a Blind Person [Jokes to Be Taken Seriously]
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Apr 2018

Someone asked Albert Einstein at a party: “Oh, you are Albert Einstein, could you please explain me your relativity theory in three or four sentences?”

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The UN: Instrumental or Normative?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Mar 2018

Giving the veto power to the five permanent members of the Security Council almost assured that when ideological and geopolitical views clashed, which was virtually all the time, during the first 40 years after 1945, the UN would watch unfolding war-threatening events and violent encounters between ideological adversaries from the sidelines.

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Pentagon Trained Syria’s Al Qaeda “Rebels” [Terrorists] in the Use of Chemical Weapons, Confirmed by CNN
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research, 26 Mar 2018

On 17 March 2018 Russia’s Ministry of Defense stated the following: “We have reliable information at our disposal that US instructors have trained a number of militant groups in the vicinity of the town of At-Tanf, to stage provocations involving chemical warfare agents in southern Syria. … The provocations will be used as a pretext by the United States and its allies to launch strikes on military and government infrastructure in Syria.’ In a bitter irony, Moscow’s allegations directed against the U.S. are confirmed by CNN.

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Renaming the 1948 War: Partition, Dispossession, and Fragmentation–On the Politics of Language
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Mar 2018

24 Mar 2018 – Israel has been brilliant over the years in shaping and misdirecting the public discourse on the future of Palestine. Among its earliest achievement along these lines was the crucial propaganda victory by having the 1948 War known internationally as the ‘War of Independence.’ Such a designation erases the Palestinians from political consciousness, and distorts the deeper human and political consequences of the war. Language matters, especially in vital circumstances where there are winners and losers, a reality that applies above all to a war of displacement.

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Analog/Digital International Relations and Global Politics
Oliver P. Richmond | Global Dynamics, Univ. California Santa Barbara – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Mar 2018

25 Jan 2018 – This essay outlines a new, preliminary perspective of global studies resting on analog and digital processes, and discusses their implications for longstanding key debates in the discipline about war and peace, sovereignty, order, and legitimacy. Digital phenomena were initially thought to be a breakthrough for global civil society and rights. However, a brewing ‘counter-revolution’ of what might be now called the ‘ancien regime’ instead points to digital forms of governmentality closely connected to older, analog hierarchies.

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(Deutsch) Den Kaukasus wach küssen – Friedensbildung in einer eingefrorenen Region
Otto Ulrich – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Mar 2018

Hinter diesem spielpädagogischen Friedensbildungsansatz steht die von Johan Huizinga in seinem 1936 herausgegebenen, hochaktuellen Klassiker „Homo Ludens“ aufgezeigte kulturgeschichtliche Tatsache: durch 6000 Jahre Menschheitsgeschichte war es offenbar das Spiel, das die Transformation, die Übergänge in neue Formen des Zusammenlebens, unter veränderten Rahmenbedingungen, übend und gemeinsam spielend, zumindest erleichtert hat. An diese so starke und unkonventionelle Tradition des Aufbaus von Friedenskapazitäten und Friedensmentalitäten versucht das Projekt: „Peace in Caucasus“ anzuknüpfen.

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The Ocean Currents Brought Us a Lovely Gift Today…
Rich Horner – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Mar 2018

British diver Rich Horner posted footage of his swim off Bali’s Manta Point on Sat 3 Mar 2018: “Some plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic cups, plastic sheets, plastic buckets, plastic sachets, plastic straws, plastic baskets, plastic bags, more plastic bags, plastic, plastic, so much plastic!”

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Behind Bars: Australia’s Shocking Cruelty to Aboriginal People with Disabilities—In Their Own Words (Part 2)
Michael Brull – New Matilda, 19 Mar 2018

In Part 2, Michael Brull gives voice to the victims.

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Behind Bars: Australia’s Shocking Cruelty to Aboriginal People with Disabilities–Solitary Confinement (Part 3)
Michael Brull – New Matilda, 19 Mar 2018

Part 3 of this special series looks at the use of solitary confinement against disabled Aboriginal prisoners.

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Behind Bars: Australia’s Shocking Cruelty to Aboriginal People with Disabilities–Overcrowding, No Medical Treatment, No Accessibility (Part 4)
Michael Brull – New Matilda, 19 Mar 2018

Part 4 of this special series looks at the conditions prisoners are forced to live in.

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America’s Shkreli Problem
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Mar 2018

9 Mar 2018 – Martin Shkreli was sentenced today to seven years in prison. The Shkreli personality disorder can be found on Wall Street, in the executive suites of America’s largest corporations, in Hollywood, in Silicon Valley, in our prestigious universities, and in Washington, even in Trump’s White House. Face it: America has a Shkreli problem.

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Behind Bars: Australia’s Shocking Cruelty to Aboriginal People with Disabilities (Part 5)
Michael Brull - New Matilda, 19 Mar 2018

The abuse of Aboriginal prisoners with disabilities in Australian jails is confronting, and ongoing. In the final piece in this special 5-part series, Michael Brull makes the case for urgent action.

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The Gulf Crisis Reassessed
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Mar 2018

12 Mar 2018 – The dysfunctionality of the Gulf Crisis, pitting a coalition of four countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt against tiny Qatar, is emblematic of the descent into multi-dimensional chaos, conflict, and coercion that afflicts much of the Middle East. Qatar may be tiny, but it is wealthy and has chosen for itself a somewhat independent path, and for this reason has experienced the wrath of the more reactionary forces operative in the region and world.

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A Debate on Peacemaking: Ending Occupation or Apartheid?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Mar 2018

9 Mar 2018 – The core disagreement is whether to retain the emphasis on ending occupation as still the best, and some say, the only path to peace, and my view that a sustainable peace can only be obtained by a process of eliminating the apartheid structure by which Israel currently subjugates the Palestinian people as a whole.

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U.S. Holocaust Museum Revokes Award to Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
Michael Schwirtz – The New York Times, 12 Mar 2018

7 Mar 2018 – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has revoked a prestigious human rights award it had given to the Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, now Myanmar’s civilian leader, faulting her for failing to halt or even acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of her country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

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Schooling
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Mar 2018

A young cowboy from Wyoming went off to college, but half way through the semester, he had foolishly squandered all his money. He called home.

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I Saw a Genocide in Slow Motion in Burma/Myanmar
Nicholas Kristof – The New York Times, 12 Mar 2018

2 Mar 2018 — Sometimes Myanmar uses guns and machetes for ethnic cleansing. But it also kills more subtly and secretly by regularly denying medical care and blocking humanitarian aid to Rohingya. Myanmar and its Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, are trying to make the Rohingya’s lives unlivable, while keeping out witnesses.

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The End of Dueling
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Mar 2018

During medieval times, it was a sign of honor and courage for men to challenge a rival to a duel by sword, typically someone who was in love with the same woman.

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Book Launch: Revisiting the Vietnam War-The Views and Interpretations of Richard Falk, edited by Stefan Andersson
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Mar 2018

Revisiting the Vietnam War: The Views and Interpretations of Richard Falk, edited by Stefan Andersson, Cambridge University Press, 2017 – Why the Legal and Political Debate on the Vietnam War Still Matters

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(Italiano) Pace e giustizia per il popolo Palestinese: una conversazione
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Mar 2018

La crisi umanitaria a Gaza è entrata nell’11° anno di un assedio crippling di Israele che rende le condizioni di vita dei palestinesi via via più complicate. Il blocco di quella che si definisce popolarmente “la prigione all’aperto più grande al mondo” vuol dire disoccupazione crescente, accesso intermittente ad acqua pura, un’economia sballata e infrastrutture carenti e mancanza di fondi che rendono la popolazione di due milioni vulnerabile alle forti piogge e a fenomeni meteorologici estremi.

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Odds
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Mar 2018

A patient did not feel well and went to see his doctor. The doctor examined and told him, “I have some bad news and some good news.”

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Hot Water
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Feb 2018

If a frog is put into hot water, he jumps out. If he is put into tepid water, and the water is gradually heated, he remains in the water until he is boiled.

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America’s ‘Liberalism’ & Other Inhumane Styles of Governance at Home and Internationally
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Feb 2018

25 Feb 2018 – With apologies for this long post, which attempts to situate the struggle for an ethically and ecologically viable political future for the United States and the world in the overheated preoccupation with Trump and Trumpism, which is itself a distraction from the species challenges confronting the whole of humanity at the present time. Many of us, and I include myself, have allowed the side show to become the main attraction, which is itself a reason for struggle against the enveloping darkness.

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Coca-Cola and Nestlé to Privatize the Largest Reserve of Water in South America
Amanda Froelich | Truth Theory – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Feb 2018

5 Feb 2018 – Private companies such as Coca-Cola and Nestlé are allegedly in the process of privatizing the largest reserve of water, known as the Guarani Aquifer, in South America. The aquifer is located beneath the surface of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay and is the second largest-known aquifer system in the world.

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Why the Experience of Ahed Tamimi Matters So Much
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Feb 2018

13 Feb 2018 – It is now known by virtually everyone that a 16-year-old girl, now 17, named Ahed Tamimi, confronted Israeli soldiers on her family’s land shortly after her cousin, Mohammed, was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, causing a coma. The video of her actions has gone viral, showing the world a courageous young woman engaging in nonviolent acts of resistance, and then a day later in the middle of the night being arrested in her home and then charged with a series of crimes.

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Sounds Familiar… ?
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Feb 2018

A man is taking a walk in Central park in New York. Suddenly he sees a little girl being attacked by a pit bull dog. He runs over and starts fighting with the dog.

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Bisons and Bears
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Feb 2018

In the past, when the main danger bisons faced were predators such as bears, the best protection they had against danger was for them to form a circle, with the strong bulls on the outside and the females and young protected inside. But when hunters with guns arrived, forming a circle was the worst thing they could do. Instead of dispersing and running away, they presented a fixed, easy target and were massacred in large numbers.

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Where to Resist?
Richard Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Feb 2018

“I hear a lot from my students about ‘walking the talk,’” Eqbal Ahmad, a Pakistani scholar and anti-war activist said. “But I tell them that you can’t walk the talk without first having the talk. First you decide what’s real and what’s right; then you act on the basis of that understanding. Finally, the results of your action can force you to re-define what’s real and what’s right. That is what we call praxis.”

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Winter Olympics – Forging Peace or False Dawn?
Christa Case Bryant and Michael Holtz – The Christian Science Monitor, 19 Feb 2018

9 Feb 2018—If US threats of “fire and fury” do not stop them, try Olympic ice skates. That seems to be the thinking behind South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s eagerness to welcome North Korea to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics – and share the global stage that Seoul has been seeking for more than 15 years. But he is taking a big gamble.

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Israel Claims to Be a Jewish State and a Democratic State: Legalism vs Justice
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Feb 2018

11 Feb 2018 – The book is an important contribution to an understanding of two dimensions of the Palestinian experience within the state of Israel: first, the reliance on law to ‘legalize’ discrimination, and the accompanying denial of fundamental rights that has resulted; secondly, to develop a distinct Israeli jurisprudence that seeks to legitimize ‘ethnocracy,’ yet disguise this reality by claiming that the nationality laws and regulations distinguishing Jews and non-Jews do not invalidate Israeli claims to be a democracy.

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Forgetfulness
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Feb 2018

An elderly man went for his annual checkup to the doctor. After examining him, the doctor said, “I have two bad news for you. The first is that you have cancer.”

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Behind Bars: Australia’s Shocking Cruelty to Aboriginal People with Disabilities (Part 1)
Michael Brull – New Matilda, 19 Feb 2018

15 Feb 2018 – The abuse of Aboriginal prisoners with disabilities in Australian jails is confronting, and ongoing. In this special series Michael Brull profiles the shocking revelations uncovered.

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Peace and Justice for the Palestinian People: a Conversation
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Feb 2018

This is a modified text of an interview conversation with Khourosh Ziabari, initially published on the website of the Organization for Defending Victims of Violence on February 4, 2018.

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(Français) Que la solution à deux États meure de mort naturelle!
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – Investig’Action, 5 Feb 2018

30 Jan 2018 – Il soutient que les défenseurs sincères de la paix entre les Israéliens et les Palestiniens devraient accorder la priorité à combattre l’apartheid plutôt que de vouloir ranimer un « processus de paix » style Oslo (toujours une imposture) ou de proclamer que l’objectif d’une Palestine indépendante et souveraine est réalisable sans d’abord démanteler les structures d’apartheid, qui asservissent le peuple palestinien dans son ensemble, afin de préserver l’exigence sioniste qui veut qu’Israël soit l’état du peuple juif (plutôt que de lui procurer un foyer à l’intérieur d’un État légitime et normal dont les fondements sont l’égalité ethnique et religieuse, les droits de l’homme, et les principes laïcs.

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Clever
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Feb 2018

President Bush was informed that there was a threat of a bird flu epidemic.

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For Myanmar’s Army, Ethnic Bloodletting Is Key to Power and Riches
Richard C. Paddock – The New York Times, 5 Feb 2018

27 Jan 2018 – Myanmar’s army was born in blood 76 years ago and has been shedding it ever since. Its founders, known as the Thirty Comrades, established the army in 1941 with a ghoulish ceremony in Bangkok, where they drew each other’s blood with a single syringe, mixed it in a silver bowl and drank it to seal their vow of loyalty. It has spent the past seven decades warring with its own people.

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Couples
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jan 2018

A man believed his wife was hard of hearing.

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Why the United Nations Matters (even for the Palestinians)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jan 2018

Despite understandable degrees of disillusionment, people of good will dedicated to UN ideals should not give up on the Organization or its potentiality, but work harder to make the UN come closer to fulfilling its original promise, needed now more than ever. Justice for the Palestinian people, however long deferred, remains the defining moral prism by which to assess the shifting balance between achieving global justice and bowing to the whims of geopolitics at the UN and elsewhere.

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Does the US Military “Own the Weather”? “Weaponizing the Weather” as an Instrument of Modern Warfare?
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research, 22 Jan 2018

8 Jan 2018 – Environmental modification techniques have been available to the US military for more than half a century. The issue has been amply documented and should be part of the climate change debate.

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Let the Two-State Solution Die a Natural Death
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jan 2018

7 Jan 2018 – The proper priority for genuine advocates of peace between Israelis and Palestinians should be centered around apartheid rather than be devoted to reviving an Oslo style ‘peace process’ (always a sham) or proclaiming the goal of an independent and sovereign Palestine as attainable without first dismantling the apartheid structures that subjugate the Palestinian people as a whole so as to maintain the Zionist insistence on Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

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The Empire’s “Lefty Intellectuals” Call for Regime Change. The Role of “Progressives” and the Antiwar Movement
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research, 15 Jan 2018

9 Jan 2018 – The anti-war movement is dead. The war on Syria is tagged as “a civil war”. The war on Yemen is also portrayed as a civil war. While the bombing is by Saudi Arabia, the insidious role of the US is downplayed or casually ignored. Funded by corporate charities, via a network of non-governmental organizations, social activism tends to be piecemeal. The economic crisis is not seen as having a relationship to US led wars.

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Designing a Miracle to Save South Africa
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jan 2018

3 Jan 2018 – This article is an offer of new ideas, designed to be food for thought for the first group, the questers; to question the certainties of the second group, those on either the right or the left or in the centre who believe the right path is known but just not followed; and to inspire hope and clarity in the third group, those whose emotions are deep but whose thoughts are muddled and incoherent.

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Endings and Beginnings: A Commentary on 2017 to 2018
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jan 2018

1 Jan 2018 – The bad news is that the world crisis worsened during 2017, largely due to the inept and anachronistic orientation exhibited by the Trump presidency. His influence was an immense distraction from facing challenges that required urgent and creative national and global attention, including climate change, biodiversity, global migration, Middle East turmoil, nuclearism, and scandalous levels of income and wealth inequalities.

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Jack
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jan 2018

A fifth grade teacher began her first day with a new class. All the students were neat and well behaved, except for Jack, a boy in the front row, who was slumped in his chair and seemed to need a bath.

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Infected
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jan 2018

After an interval of four million years, two planets meet again in the universe.

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Cover-up
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jan 2018

A man comes home and finds his dog with the neighbor’s pet rabbit in his mouth. It is dead.

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Trump, the UN, and the Future of Jerusalem
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jan 2018

31 Dec 2017 – The wider implications of the UN reaction to Trump’s Dec 6 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and to follow this by relocating the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

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Oh, God!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Dec 2017

A very good hearted young man came to the gates of heaven. He asked God, “Why have you brought me here so early? I was still in perfect health and wanted to do many more good deeds.”

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The Jerusalem Votes at the UN
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Dec 2017

23 Dec 2017 – What discussions gloss over is the degree to which issues of substance prevailed over matters of geopolitical alignment. Not one of America’s closest allies (UK, France, Germany, and Japan) heeded the arguments of Haley and Trump. Every important country in the world backed the GA Resolution on Dec 21 regardless of geography or political orientation (China, Russia, India, Brazil, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran).

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Democracy, Development, and Reputation: Vietnam, Turkey, and International Liberalism
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 25 Dec 2017

The cases of Vietnam and Turkey strongly support the central claim here that national reputations of legitimacy should rest on a comprehensive assessment of material, ethical, and spiritual wellbeing of individuals and communities, and no longer be a reflection of geopolitical agendas (with respect to Turkey) and ideological arrogance (with respect to Vietnam).

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Jerusalem Is (Is Not) the Capital of Israel
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Dec 2017

10 Dec 2017 – Donald Trump: “Israel is the only state in the world that is not allowed to locate its capital in a national city of its choice.” It seems like an innocent enough proclamation, and even accurate pushback against global double standards, until one considers the political, moral, and legal dimensions of the actual situation.

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We Saved Net Neutrality Once. We Can Do It Again
Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen - YES! Magazine, 18 Dec 2017

12 Dec 2017 – Democracy lives or dies on the quality of public conversation. Just a few years ago, powerful grassroots pressure rose up to protect a free and open internet.

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Titles
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Dec 2017

Someone who farms is a farmer.

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Is This Genocide?
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times, 18 Dec 2017

15 Dec 1017 — “Ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide” are antiseptic and abstract terms. What they mean in the flesh is a soldier grabbing a crying baby girl named Suhaifa by the leg and flinging her into a bonfire. Or troops locking a 15-year-old girl in a hut and setting it on fire. Survivors describe Myanmar soldiers killing men, raping women and burning babies in a Rohingya village.

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Put Out the Fire Before It Is Too Late
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Dec 2017

There was a man called Nicolas who was happy in life except for one thing: he and a neighbor distrusted each other. One day, his chicken strayed into the neighbor’s garden.

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Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Dec 2017

15 Dec 2017 – Critics, including myself, regard the initiative as a slap at the Palestinians and a confirmation of Trump’s disregard of international law and morality, and the authority of the UN. The status of Jerusalem is a focal point for the tension between the old geopolitics of hard power realism and the normative geopolitics of soft power new realism.

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Amy Biehl
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Dec 2017

Amy Biehl was a young Princeton graduate who went to Capetown, South Africa, in 1992 as a volunteer to work with an NGO to help overcome apartheid.

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A Religion Called Economy
Michele Migliorino | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Dec 2017

4 Dec 2017 – You can see how the Economy Religion destroys everything: forest, seas, living species, ourselves and our infinite cultures existing over the whole planet. By now, realism would tell us that it is time to throw the Economy GOd into the wastebasket history and try to create a society which won’t imply such a despicable waste of energy and resources.

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Seven Men and an Elephant
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Dec 2017

Seven men were in a dark room touching an elephant. One touched his leg and said, “An elephant is like a tree trunk.”

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Fascism in America: A Preventable Danger
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Dec 2017

Over the past few months, the possibility of a fascist America has moved from the realm of academic speculation to that of common concern… If these are some of the causes of potential fascism, what can be done to eliminate or mitigate them before the fascist movement gets stronger? A key concept here is the existence of systemic problems and the need for systemic solutions. Dialogue is a key starting point for this sort of rethinking.

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Good Deed
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Dec 2017

A reverend walking down the street noticed a little boy trying to reach the doorbell of a house.

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How Peace Journalism Can Deescalate Conflict in the Age of Trump and North Korea
Michael Greenwell – The Conversation, 4 Dec 2017

29 Nov 2017 – Close analysis of events through the lens of Peace Journalism can help theorise when media coverage may have helped escalate or deescalate conflict. PJ aims to improve the conditions for peace through a considered editorial approach and practice. It is a means to peace. Johan Galtung first theorised the notion of Peace Journalism in contrast to the notion of “War Journalism”.

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Taking Stock: One Year after Trump
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Nov 2017

20 Nov 2017 – This post addresses the need for dialogue with the political, economic, and cultural ‘other,’ that is, those multitudes acutely alienated from and angry with secular globalism and the Enlightenment legacy often equated with ‘modernity’ and ‘modernization.’ At the core is a search for closure on the nature of reality as well as feelings about equity (given many dimensions of inequality) and ethical innovation (revisionist approaches to gender, sexuality, marriage). Does reason or faith or tradition provide greater closure?

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Parallel Universes: Vietnam and Palestine
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Nov 2017

26 Nov 2017 – Not surprisingly, my sixth visit to Vietnam stirred many memories, among them, a recognition of the parallels between the Vietnamese and Palestinian experiences. Dreams don’t become the new reality without the dedication of a people brave and creative, and helped by the inspirational effects on friends and supporters. This blessing of empowering and charismatic resilience is the core identity of the Vietnamese and the Palestinian people, their point of most profound convergence.

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Analogy
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Nov 2017

The following analogy characterizes the attitude of a typical Trump administration official in relation to the looming energy crisis.

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Getting to the Roots of the Problem
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Nov 2017

A man had frequent nightmares. Someone was hiding under his bed what made him wake up sweating and trembling every night.

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(Italiano) Papa Francesco: il disarmo integrale non è un’utopia
M.Michela Nicolais | Servizio Informazione Religiosa – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Nov 2017

10 novembre 2017 – Non utopia, ma sano realismo. Così Papa Francesco, ricevendo in udienza i partecipanti al Simposio vaticano, ha definito l’ambizioso obiettivo del disarmo integrale. Le armi nucleari producono “catastrofiche conseguenze umanitarie”, il grido d’allarme contro la “logica della paura”.

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Failing the People of Syria during Seven Years of Devastation and Dispossession
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Nov 2017

13 Nov 2017 – What follows is a wide-ranging interview in November 2017 that that concentrates on the failure of the UN and the world to rescue the people of Syria by a timely and effective humanitarian intervention. The interview is to be published in the Turkish magazine Causcasus International.

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U.S. Congress Approves Defense Bill to Pump $700 Billion into Military
Richard Lardner | Associated Press – PBS News Hour, 20 Nov 2017

14 Nov 2017 — House Republicans and Democrats joined forces today to decisively approve a defense policy bill that authorizes $700 billion to restock what lawmakers have described as a depleted U.S. military and counter North Korea’s advancing nuclear weapons program.

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