Articles by RD
We found 3599 results.
With Costs Approaching $100 Billion, the Fires Are Australia’s Costliest Natural Disaster
Paul Read and Richard Denniss – The Conversation,
20 Jan 2020
17 Jan 2020 – It’s hard to estimate the eventual economic cost of Australia’s 2019-20 megafires, partly because they are still underway, and partly because it is hard to know the cost to attribute to deaths and the decimation of species and habitats, but it is easy to get an idea of its significance – the cost will be unprecedented.
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James Murdoch Criticises Father’s News Outlets for Climate Crisis Denial
Jim Waterson – The Guardian,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – Rupert Murdoch’s son has strongly criticised his family’s news outlets for downplaying the impact of the climate crisis, as bushfires continue to burn in Australia. James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, issued a rare joint statement directly criticising his father’s businesses for their “ongoing denial” on the issue, which has been reflected in the family’s newspapers repeatedly casting doubt on the link between the climate emergency and the bushfires.
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2020 U.S. Presidential Elections: Reflections outside the Box
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
14 Jan 2020 – Four Reflections on What Would Help Democrats Defeat Trump
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The Prosecution of Julian Assange, the Destruction of Legality and the Rise of the National Security State
Richard Hoffman | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jan 2020
15 Jan 2020 – It is worthwhile to consider briefly the lawless character of Assange’s persecution by Britain, the United States and Sweden. Since the beginning, Assange has been subjected to endless procedural abuses and political interference in the legal process. Virtually every customary precept, practice and procedural protection, which an accused is traditionally afforded, has been discarded in the effort to railroad him. The disintegration of the democratic system and the rise of the national security state are hallmarks of the deepening crisis of imperialism.
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Greenpeace Included with Neo-Nazis on UK Counter-Terror List
Vikram Dodd and Jamie Grierson – The Guardian,
20 Jan 2020
17 Jan 2020 – Extinction Rebellion, Sea Shepherd, Stop the Cull and PETA also named in anti-extremism briefing alongside Combat 18 and National Action.
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Open Letter to Members of the U.S. Congress
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jan 2020
8 Jan 2020 – I listened to Trump from my own perspective and with an attempt to hear his words as if I were an Iranian living in Iran. I found the statement belligerent, and formulated in an imperialist/hegemonic language, avoiding a diplomatic sequel, and instead resuming the ‘maximum pressure’ approach involving threats and further intensified sanctions and other coercive moves that will bring additional suffering to the Iranian people.
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Welcome to Hawaii’s ‘Plastic Beach’, One of the World’s Dirtiest Places
Liz Barney and Michelle Broder Van Dyke – The Guardian,
13 Jan 2020
10 Jan 2020 – Hawaii has long evoked images of a Pacific paradise but Kamilo Beach, located on the Big Island, presents a starkly different reality.
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Iran Ends Nuclear Deal Commitments as Fallout from Suleimani Killing Spreads
Martin Chulov and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad – The Guardian,
13 Jan 2020
5 Jan 2020 – Iran has announced that it will no longer abide by any of the limits imposed by the unravelling 2015 nuclear deal, and Iraq’s parliament urged its leaders to expel troops from the US-led coalition, as the aftershocks of the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani reverberated through the Middle East.
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(Italiano) Che cosa muove l’antisemitismo? Forme fasulle e reali
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
30 Dicembre 2019 – Solo il tribalismo più estremo può spiegare l’etichettatura di coloro che si oppongono al trattamento abusivo di Israele nei confronti del popolo palestinese come “antisemiti”. Consideriamo l’incapacità di Aung San Suu Kyi di condannare l’abuso da parte del Myanmar dei Rohingya come il lancio delle nuvole più scure sul suo Nobel Premio per la Pace. È un insulto agli ebrei e agli altri semiti consentire ai sionisti di imprimere solidarietà alla lotta palestinese per i loro diritti fondamentali come antisemitismo.
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Forgetting 2019
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
31 Dec 2019 – At this age, having exhausted prose options, I indulge myself during holidays by sharing poems that seek also your indulgence. I searched 2019 for some glimmers of good news, and felt stymied. Of course here, there, everywhere there were glorious private exceptions.
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The Searching Life and Enigmatic Death of Albert Camus
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
Albert Camus’ search ended sixty years ago on January 4, 1960, the day he died. Although he had already written The Stranger, The Rebel, The Plague, and The Fall, and had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, he felt his true work had barely begun.
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The Fight to Expose Israel’s Arms Sales to the World’s Most Repressive Regimes
Sahar Vardi | +972 Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jan 2020
25 Dec 2019 – In the span of less than 10 years, activists from across the political spectrum went head to head with the Israeli government, trying to bring an end to its arms exports to tyrannical governments worldwide.
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(Français) Paroles sur les Crises au Mali et les Limites de la Démocratie
Dr Robin Edward Poulton – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2019
Expériences et Analyses Pour Favoriser la Paix – Le Mali est victime d’un Choc des Corporations – Extrait Du Livre
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House of Mirrors: Who Is the Mostest?
Benton – Other Words,
30 Dec 2019
Ughh!!
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The Most Important Free Press Stories of 2019
Leonard C. Goodman | Independent Media Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2019
23 Dec 2019 -Assange and Manning are being persecuted for speaking truth to power.
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Four Criteria for Differentiating Faith-Based Entities
Abbas Aroua | Cordoba Peace Institute Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Religious currents, especially Islamic schools of thought, are often considered as monolithic blocs, and sometimes opposed to each other. In fact, not only do some academic and political elites regard various currents of Islamic thought as a form of extremism, but they also do the same with regard to the practice of religion itself.
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Canada, Netherlands Join Gambia’s Fight for Rohingyas
The Standard [Gambia] – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
5 Dec 2019 – On 11 Nov 2019, The Gambia filed a lawsuit at The Hague demanding accountability on the systematic violations of the rights of minority Rohingya Muslims by the Government of Myanmar. Following this, Canada, Netherlands and The Gambia have agreed to form a tripartite joint working group to pursue the case.
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Terra Incognita
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Sitting dark and tight
In crepuscular light,
You pass the shuttered houses
That line the half-lit streets,
DRC: I Saw the Unbearable Grief Inflicted on Families by Cobalt Mining–I Pray for Change
Siddharth Kara – The Guardian,
23 Dec 2019
16 Dec 2019 – When Raphael turned 15, he started digging tunnels at the cobalt mine where he worked – two years later he was dead. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is that global tech companies have yet to devote adequate attention and resources to ensure safety, dignity, and decency for those who mine their cobalt in DRC.
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Three Cheers for the Cheerfully Deluded!
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Let’s hear three cheers for the cheerfully deluded! Instead of telling them that their dreams are very likely to be disappointed, let’s change the world to make it possible for more of their dreams to come true. Soul medicine. What is not possible in pure neoliberal markets is possible in impure African and Latin American markets. Public policies and human sympathy can rescue not only the bodies of the poor, but also the dignity of the poor.
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Nepal Makes First ‘Period Hut’ Arrest after Woman Dies during Banned Custom
Arun Budhathoki – The Guardian,
23 Dec 2019
9 Dec 2019 – A 21-year-old woman has died after spending three nights in an outdoor “period hut”, prompting police in Nepal to make their first ever arrest in connection with the illegal practice. The tradition of chhaupadi, where menstruating women in Nepal are banished from their homes, is still widespread in remote and poorer parts of the country.
→ read full articleWhat Drives Anti-Semitism? Fake and Real Forms
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2019
Only the most extreme tribalism can explain labeling those who oppose Israel’s abusive treatment of the Palestinian people as ‘anti-Semites.’ We look upon Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to condemn the Myanmar abuse of the Rohingya as casting the darkest of clouds over her Nobel Peace Prize. It is an insult to Jews and other Semites to allow Zionists to brand solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for their most basic rights as anti-Semitism.
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‘I Feel Constant Pain’: Drug Resistance Adds to Misery of Gaza Gun Victims
Karen McVeigh and Hazem Balousha – The Guardian,
23 Dec 2019
5 Dec 2019 – The suffering of people wounded in conflict zones is being compounded by what doctors say are ‘horrifying levels’ of antibiotic resistance. “I thought about suicide several times,” says Nasser, 28, a former blacksmith. “I was wishing the Israeli soldier [who shot me] had killed me with the bullet.”
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(Português) O Complô dos USA para Derrubar o Papa Francisco
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2019
7 dez 2019 – É importante que os católicos, os cristãos e pessoas interessadas em assuntos religiosos saibam da enorme e até perversa campanha articulada por multibilionários estadounidenses, ultraconsrevadores, junto com pessoas de dentro do Vaticano, ocupando altos cargos, interessados em distorcer suas doutrinas, criticar suas práticas pastorais e diretamente difamar a pessoa do Papa Francisco.
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Reconciling Ecological Imperatives and the Right to Food at a Time of Bio-Ethical Crisis
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2019
15 Dec 2019 – Humanity faces an unprecedented challenge in the coming decades that threatens the foundations of life itself, and yet to date societal reactions have been disappointingly weak and evasive, aside from voices in the wilderness. Despite expertly documented studies from the most qualified climate scientists, the overall response of supposedly responsible political and economic elites has been tepid, escapist, and even denialist.
→ read full articleThe Art of Doublespeak: Bellingcat and Mind Control
Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2019
The U.S./U.K./NATO propaganda outfit Bellingcat, like all effective war-promoting intelligence agency propaganda, needs the support of left-wing intellectuals to give it credence. The CIA recognized this in the 1950s and created multiple methods to get that support, which it has done effectively up to the present day. This left-wing support is necessary to control the thinking of the portion of the population that considers itself “educated” and in the know, who in turn pass on their compromised “knowledge” to others in a sophisticated game of mind control.”
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(Italiano) Pax Gandhiana: La Filosofia Politica del Mahatma Gandhi
Howard Richards | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
In un mondo in cui gli studi prevalenti di pace e politica sono dominati da ciò che passa per realismo e ciò che passa per ordine mondiale, l’emerito studioso di Gandhi Anthony Parel ha derivato da un attento studio delle opera di Gandhi una filosofia politica che promette di essere alla lunga più realistica di quella/e dei cosiddetti realisti.
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(Português) Ecologia e Teologia da Libertação
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
4 dez 2019 – A Ecologia Integral e a Teologia da Libertação ambas partem de um grito. A ecologia do grito da Terra, dos seres vivos, dos ecossistemas agredidos pelo crescimento material ilimitado. A Teologia da libertação nasceu ao escutar o grito dos pobres econômicos, das classes exploradas, das culturas humilhadas, dos negros discriminados, das mulheres oprimidas pela cultura patriarcal, dos LGBT e portadores de necessidades especiais. Todos gritam por libertação.
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Persecution of the Uyghurs: The West Must Respond to Chinese Oppression
Bernhard Zand – Der Spiegel,
9 Dec 2019
4 Dec 2019 – There are many disturbing aspects to modern-day China, but its treatment of the Uighurs is the most despicable. The West must come up with a response to the inhuman persecution.
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Turner Prize Awarded Four Ways after Artists’ Plea to Judges
Mark Brown – The Guardian,
9 Dec 2019
3 Dec 2019 – All four artists shortlisted for the 2019 Turner prize have been named winners after they came together and made a plea for judges to recognise the causes of “commonality, multiplicity and solidarity”.
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Learning from Others: Germans and White Supremacists in South USA
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
8 Dec 2019 – Susan Neiman has written a remarkable book, Learning from Others: Race and the Problem of Evil. We are challenged by Neiman not to consider racism or evil as matters of destiny, but fully subject to the vagaries of human responsibility, which includes the domain of a free society.
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Climate Tipping Points — Too Risky to Bet Against
Timothy M. Lenton, Johan Rockström, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmstorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber - Nature Magazine,
9 Dec 2019
27 Nov 2019 – Politicians, economists and natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points in the Earth system — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet — are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing the world to long-term irreversible changes.
→ read full articleHealth and Human Rights in Gaza: Shame on the World
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
27 Nov 2019 – I take alarmed note of the refusal of the mainstream media to accord attention to the misery so long endured by the people of Gaza. If ever the norm of ‘the responsibility to protect’ was applied according to humanitarian need, Gaza would be at the top of the list, but of course there is no list, and if ever there were one, given the present international atmosphere, Gaza would remain among the unlisted! This neglect of the people of Gaza is so acute as to extend the web of criminal complicity far beyond the borders of Israel.
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Oxford Campaign to Defend Julian Assange
Jake Lynch | LRC Oxfordshire – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
Campaign to Defend Julian Assange Conference, 7 Nov 2019
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Contra Israeli Apartheid
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
1 Dec 2019 – This is a modified version of remarks made at the opening plenary session of the “1st Global Conference on Israeli Apartheid: Dimensions, Repercussions and the Means to Combat It,” 29-30 Nov 2019, Istanbul.
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Gandhi’s Economics: Practical Ethics for Systemic Transformation
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Dec 2019
Here the concept of basic cultural structure is used to argue that Gandhi, with deep roots in a different basic cultural structure, is able to offer a deeper and in the end more realistic critique of, and alternative to, neoliberalism than critiques that remain within the basic cultural structure of modernity. Why have moral economies failed to materialize? Is it now too late to prevent inevitable irreparable disastrous ecocide? Is it really true that by practicing the ideals of Gandhi and other great moral exemplars we are contributing to building a peaceful, just and sustainable world?’
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A New Cycle of Gaza/Israel Violence
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
22 Nov 2019 – Whether this latest cycle of violence has ended as of now is difficult to assess, and it should not be confused with the violence at the Gaza Fence as a result of weekly demonstrations of Palestinians in the course of the Great March of Return, a civil society initiative that has continued since March 30, 2018, a remarkable exhibition of sumud on the Palestinian side and of excessive lethal force on the Israel side.
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Pax Gandhiana: The Political Philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
In a world where mainstream studies of peace and politics are dominated by what passes for realism and for world order, the distinguished Gandhi scholar Anthony Parel has derived from a close study of Gandhi’s works a political philosophy that promises in the long run to be more realistic than the so-called realists. It rests on a deeper order, an order in the human soul, than the global political and economic order established after World War II whose current disintegration mainstream scholars are now lamenting.
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(Castellano) La Transformación de la Estructura Cultural Básica (ECB): Nada Menos nos Salvará
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
11 Nov 2019 – Chile no es un caso único. También se registran ahora mismo conflictos sociales masivos en Argelia, Bolivia, China, Ecuador, Egipto, Estados Unidos, Francia, Guinea, Haití, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iraq, Kazakstán, Kashmir, Líbano, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistán, Rusia, Siria, Sud África, Venezuela, Yemen unos cuantos países más. No hay país donde, aunque sea relativamente tranquilo ahora mismo, no se encuentre germinando las semillas de la rebelión.
→ read full articleEt Tu, Macron?
Khalil Bendib | OtherWords – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
RIP Cold War
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The 2001 Anthrax Deception: Review of the Book by Graeme MacQueen
Antony C. Black | OffGuardian – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Nov 2019
If the notion that, ‘truth always lies 180 degrees opposite to the direction pointed by the corporate media’ is not yet a modern maxim, it should be. A useful corollary might be added to the effect that, ‘the depth to which an event is consigned to the establishment memory hole is inversely related to its actual significance’.
→ read full article(Castellano) Chile Despertó, pero Chile no Despertó
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
11 Nov 2019 – De lo que he podido constatar, participando en unas manifestaciones en la quinta región, y enterándome por los medios y por las redes sociales de lo que pasa en el resto del país, los manifestantes son principalmente jóvenes, sinceros y comprometidos con el bien común, y sin ninguna intención de hacer mal a nadie. Simplemente quieren una vida digna normal, garantizada en el plano material por una seguridad económica confiable, es decir, no precaria. Otra cosa es la violencia que ha acompañado el despertar.
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A Brief Account of «the Destruction of the Indians» in Brazil
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
11 Nov 2019 – Due to the white invader’s diseases, against which the Indigenous people had no immunity: flu, chickenpox, measles, malaria and syphilis; to the Cross and the sword; the degradation of their lands, making hunting and farming impossible; because of slavery; the wars officially declared by Don João VI on May, 1808, against the Krenak in the Rio Dulce Valley; the systematic humiliation and denial of their identity… the five million indigenous were reduced to the current 930.000.
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The Costs of Post 9/11 Wars through FY2020: $6.4 Trillion
Prof. Neta C. Crawford - Global Research,
18 Nov 2019
14 Nov 2019 – Since late 2001, the United States has appropriated and is obligated to spend an estimated $6.4 Trillion through Fiscal Year 2020 in budgetary costs related to and caused by the post-9/11 wars—an estimated $5.4 Trillion in appropriations in current dollars and an additional minimum of $1 Trillion for US obligations to care for the veterans of these wars through the next several decades.
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Becoming 89
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
— Istanbul, 13 Nov 2019 [From TMS editor: Richard was born on 13 Nov 1930]
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Good Old US of A
Tango Gao – Other Words,
18 Nov 2019
Nothing New Under the Sun…
→ read full articleThe Basic Cultural Structure: A Comment from Chile as It Burns
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
An immediate payoff for peace is that once one analyses the main causes at work in history as structures, not as people, one should (if one is logical) tone down one’s anger. The world works the way it does because its main dynamics (capital accumulation, war) and other principal dynamics were socially constructed during long centuries when none of our contemporaries had yet been born. Another immediate payoff for peace is guidance on how to do peace-making.
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The War in Syria
Prof. Richard Falk | TRT – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
24 Oct 2019 – Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, UC Santa Barbara, author of 40 books, and a speaker and activist. In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Falk to a six-year term as a UN Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009).
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What’s Joker’s Joke?
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
The joker’s joke is no joke at all. It is deadly serious. When Arthur Fleck says, “I used to think my life was a tragedy, but now I realize it’s a comedy,” and unleashes his murderous violent rage with a Joker’s smile, he was turning into those he condemned as his oppressors. Their nihilism became his own; their violence his. The film asks us to contemplate such a marriage of seeming opposites, its dialectic, and not turn away from the faces in the mirror.
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Did the West Win the Cold War?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
6 Nov 2019 – It was assumed and almost never challenged that the outcome of the Cold War was a victory for liberal values, human rights, political democracy, economic growth, and certainly world peace. And since democracies supposedly do not go to war against each other, and if Communism was discredited, then democracy would spread naturally and quickly, and the world would become more peaceful and its people better off.
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‘Our only Aim Is to Go Home’: Rohingya Refugees Face Stark Choice
Sarah Marsh and Redwan Ahmed – The Guardian,
11 Nov 2019
4 Nov 2019 – Life in the world’s largest refugee camp has grown harder in the past few months. With citizenship in Myanmar still denied, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh must either live under severe restrictions or move to an isolated island.
→ read full articleCasting Doubt: Trusting Whistleblowers More Than International Institutions–Syrian Alleged Chemical Weapons Attack on Douma
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
Courage Foundation Panel Challenges International Finding of Syrian Responsibility for the 2018 Attack on Douma
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Critique of Nonviolent Politics from Mahatma Gandhi to the Anti-Nuclear Movement
Howard Ryan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
Critique of Nonviolent Politics may be the only comprehensive critique of nonviolent theory that has been written. Since 1977, I had been active in the movement against nuclear power and weapons which, in California, focused its protests at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant and at the Lawrence Livermore Labs where nuclear weapons are designed. Nonviolence was the prevailing political theory in the movement, especially in the “direct action” wing which organized mass blockades and occupations at nuclear facilities. Nonviolence informed our tactics and strategies, our group processes, and our general ethos and outlook.
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A Foie Gras Ban Was Overdue – but What About Other Foods Made from Animal Suffering?
Jacy Reese – The Guardian,
4 Nov 2019
On 30 Oct the New York City Council passed a ban on foie gras, which has transformed many animal lovers from conscious consumers to passionate protesters. Its production process is particularly disturbing: a bird is painfully force-fed three times a day with a long, metal pipe down their throat. But there are countless other foods made from animal suffering. Fish and octopus are chewed to death while still alive. Others are boiled alive, ripped or cut apart, or even salted to death.
→ read full articleThe Metamorphosis of the Deep State
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
2 Nov 2019 – To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is plain idiocy and plainer propaganda, just as denying its existence was. It is a trick, not the treat it is made to seem.
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(Português) A Vantagem da Imperfeição
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
30 out 2019 – Em tempos em risco de nossa liberdade, é importante pensarmos em sua importância. Nascemos completos mas imperfeitos. Não possuímos nenhum órgão especializado, como a maioria dos animais. Para sobreviver, temos que trabalhar e intervir na natureza. Os mitos esclarecem esta asituação.
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The Future of Human Rights: Regressive Trends and Restorative Prospects
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
31 Oct 2019 – The main objective of this essay is to sketch the profound challenges to human rights that arise from a series of interrelated and overlapping developments, and to give some sense that to restore and enhance human rights is a difficult undertaking that now seems almost impossible given the ultra-nationalist outlook of the governments of most leading states. Yet the future is uncertain, and will be influenced by what peoples variously situated choose to do or refrain from doing.
→ read full articleInterpreting Turkey’s Military Operation in Syria
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
18 Oct 2019 – Ever since things started to go badly wrong in Syria after the uprising prompted by the 2011 Arab Spring, the situation has converted the customary fog of war into an impenetrable black box. None of the intervening political actors including Turkey, United States, Iran, Russia, Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia calculated correctly, nor did the various non-state extremist groups associated with al Qaeda and later ISIS, as well as a variety of anti-Damascus Syrian insurgencies.
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The Pathocracy of the Deep State: Tyranny at the Hands of a Psychopathic Government
John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians. Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent lives by uncaring, unfeeling, selfish, irresponsible, parasitic criminals and elected officials who lie to their constituents, trade political favors for campaign contributions, turn a blind eye to the wishes of the electorate, cheat taxpayers out of hard-earned dollars, favor the corporate elite, entrench the military industrial complex, and spare little thought for the impact their thoughtless actions and hastily passed legislation might have on defenseless citizens.
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Amazon Rainforest ‘Close to Irreversible Tipping Point’
Dom Phillips – The Guardian,
28 Oct 2019
23 Oct 2019 – Soaring deforestation coupled with the destructive policies of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, could push the Amazon rainforest dangerously to an irreversible “tipping point” within two years, a prominent economist has said. Forecast suggests rainforest could stop producing enough rain to sustain itself by 2021.
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Narrative: Whistleblower Denounces Lies, Deceit and Cover-up by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Report on Syria
Courage Foundation & Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
23 Oct 2019 – Panel Criticizes ‘Unacceptable Practices’ in the OPCW’s Investigation of the Alleged Syria Chemical Attack of April 2018 – The Courage Foundation convened a panel of concerned individuals in Brussels on 15 Oct, which met with a member of the investigation. On this basis the panel issued the following statement. [Foreword by Richard Falk]
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In Praise of Kamila Shamsie’s ‘Home Fire’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
13 Oct 2019 – It took the withdrawal of the Nelly Sachs Prize to make me familiar with the fine literary achievements and compassionate politics of Kamila Shamsie. Selfishly, I cannot thank the Dortmund City Council enough for its outrageous behavior, evidently canceling the award because a right-wing newspaper outed Shamsie as a supporter of the BDS Campaign. I can imagine Shamsie’ feeling of hurt as well as disappointment as this incident unfolded.
→ read full articleThe Climate Crisis (and Other Crises) Require the Transformation of the Basic Cultural Structure of the Modern World (Part 2)
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
This is a revised version of the TMS Editorial with same title published on 14 Oct 2019–to clarify and answer questions from readers.
→ read full articleWhen Time Stands Still
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
I am finding that far too much of what is being published about our world situation is doing little good. We need different approaches. Here’s one.
→ read full articleThe Neo-Liberal Project in the World and in Brazil Is Anti-Life and the Enemy of Nature
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
18 Oct 2019 – I will address the reflections of one of our best philosophers, Manfredo de Oliveira, from the Federal University of Ceara, specialist in the relationship between the economy, society and ethics. His work on the topic is vast. We will summarize here a lengthy study on the project developed elsewhere, and now in Brazil: the ultra radical neo-liberalism.
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Kashmir–The Curious Case of Indian Collective Conscience
Dr Mudasir Firdosi | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
19 Oct 201 9 – Kashmir has been cut off from the rest of the world for more than two months now. The perpetual worry about that ‘phone call’ has traumatized so many. One fears that people are developing traumatic stress even when not physically present in the valley. Even when people do manage a phone call after begging or borrowing, the harrowing silence on the other side says it all.
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‘It Breaks Down Innocent People’: The Interrogation Method at Center of Ava Duvernay Lawsuit
Sam Levin – The Guardian,
21 Oct 2019
16 Oct 2019 – Police consulting firm behind widely criticized ‘Reid interrogation technique’ claims Netflix drama When They See US misrepresents method. The Central Park Five case is one of the most notorious examples of police coercing people into giving false confession. The five teens went to prison and were eventually exonerated by DNA evidence.
→ read full articleWhen Is It ‘Politically Correct’ to Be Politically Correct?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
Only a day after I published ‘In Praise of Kamila Shamsie’ [posted in TRANSCEND Members below], the Nobel Committee awarded their 2019 Literature Prize to Peter Handke, the Austrian novelist known for his support of ultra-nationalist behavior and endorsement of the crimes of Serbian leaders during the Bosnian War. By contrast, in Shamsie’s case her sin was to honor her conscience by supporting the nonviolent BDS-Boycott Divestment Sanctions Campaign that seeks an end to the violation of the basic rights of the Palestinian people.
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Without Encryption, We Will Lose All Privacy. This Is Our New Battleground
Edward Snowden – The Guardian,
21 Oct 2019
15 Oct 2019 – The vulnerability of our computers and computer networks has been ranked the number one risk in the US Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment – that’s higher than terrorism, higher than war. Your bank balance, the local hospital’s equipment, among many, many other things, all depend on computer safety. The US, UK and Australia are taking on Facebook in a bid to undermine the only method that protects our personal information.
→ read full articleIran’s Gulf Peace Proposal: HOPE
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
7 Oct 2019 – As I understand President Hassan Rouhani’s plan it concentrates upon regionalizing the protection of navigation and safeguarding of energy flows in the Persian Gulf with a particular emphasis on providing security for oil tanker traffic. The proposal comes against a background of months of warmongering threats, harsh sanctions, and dangerous incidents that pose unacceptable risks of provoking violent incidents, and even war.
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Why We Need Resistance Studies
Richard Jackson | Waging Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
5 Oct 2019 – The challenges we face are daunting. That’s why we need Resistance Studies now more than ever. This could be the Golden Age for the study of resistance. For starters, we are going to need a great deal of nonviolent resistance to cope with the coming climate warming crisis.
→ read full articleThe Climate Crisis (and Other Crises) Require the Transformation of the Basic Cultural Structure of the Modern World (Part 1)
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
It is in the news that millions of people around the world –inspired by a Swedish teenager so honest that looking at a picture of her will cure a headache—have taken to the streets demanding that something must be done. I will use this editorial to offer an answer to the question what must be done: The basic cultural structures of the modern world must be transformed. I will not try to prove this thesis here. I will try to state clearly the thesis to be proven.
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Revealed: The 20 Firms behind a Third of All Carbon Emissions
Matthew Taylor and Jonathan Watts – The Guardian,
14 Oct 2019
9 Oct 2019 – New data from world-renowned researchers reveals how this cohort of state-owned and multinational firms are driving the climate emergency that threatens the future of humanity, and details how they have continued to expand their operations despite being aware of the industry’s devastating impact on the planet.
→ read full articleWill Confronting Iran Lead to War or Peace?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
1 Oct 2019 – This is a slightly modified version of an interview published in The Nation on 25 Sep following the 14 Sep attack on Saudi oil facilities. It follows a pattern, with respect to Iran, of accusations, denials, and public uncertainties. This combination of elements, given the leadership in Washington and Tehran, one blustering, the other inflexible, can easily produce an unintended stumble into war.
→ read full article(Castellano) Eventos actuales en una perspectiva histórica
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
Pretoria: Cyril Ramaphosa, anteriormente presidente de la Unión Nacional de Mineros, y ahora presidente de la República de Sudáfrica, ha estado hablando recientemente mientras dormía: “no entiendo lo que me pasó. No entiendo lo que me pasó. No entiendo lo que me pasó”. Un ratón, que se abrió paso debajo de sus mantas y estaba en condiciones de morder uno de sus dedos de los pies, al escuchar sus gemidos, como el Daily Maverick y el Globe and Mail, y aparentemente por razones similares, decidió no atacar.
→ read full articlePublic Notices/Private Questions/Musical Dreams
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
3 Oct 2019 – Throughout our days we all notice many things that elicit questions that quickly pass through us as in a dream. Here are some questions that I caught on the fly before they melted from my mind, and when I asked myself what the answers were, only songs came to me, songs that didn’t exactly answer the questions but set me to dreaming. This is an invitation to dream along.
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Wall Street Is Killing Local Newspapers
Olivia Snow Smith | Other Words – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Oct 2019
We can’t put a price tag on our free press — but unless we stop them, predatory investors can.
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Those Fancy Tea Bags? Microplastics in Them Are Macro Offenders
Adrienne Matei – The Guardian,
7 Oct 2019
30 Sep 2019 – “The tea bag… is in the process of a large-scale reinvention.” So reads a 2006 New York Times article on the rise of nylon mesh tea bags, an innovation that diversified the tea market. New study finds nylon tea bags leech billions of microplastics into every single cup of tea.
→ read full articleDark Clouds and the Human Condition: Youth to the Rescue!
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
25 Sep 2019 – If the young and old act together this kind of UN can be nurtured. In the meantime, we should resist the temptation to pretend that this UN of the peoples already exists, but we should never forget that we have it within our potential collective power to make it happen, and by doing, to make the sort of difference that youth are rightfully demanding.
→ read full articleWhy Does Chris Hedges Hedge His Bets?
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Sep 2019
27 Sep 2019 – The CIA’s mind control operations need to be exposed, as Hedges does to a degree in this latest article. But revealing while concealing is unworthy of one who condemns “creeps who revel in human degradation, dirty tricks, and murder.” It itself is a form of mind control. Perhaps he will see fit to publicly explain why he has done this.
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(Português) A Destruição das “Indias Brasileiras”
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
17 set 2019 – Em função do Sínodo panamazônico de outubro, comvém relembrar o que foi a destruição das Indias Brasileiras, no linguajar de Bartolomé de las Casas. Com a dizimação de mais de mil povos, em 500 anos de história brasileira, desapareceu para sempre uma herança humana construída em milhares de anos de trabalho cultural, de dialogação com a natureza, de invenção de línguas e de construção de uma visão do mundo, amiga da vida e respeitosa da natureza.
→ read full articleAmazon: The Common Wealth of the Earth and Humanity
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
17 Sep 2019 – The Amazonian biome covers an area of 8,129,057 square kilometers in nine countries: Brazil (67%), Peru (13%), Bolivia (11%), Colombia (6%), Ecuador (2%), Venezuela (1%), Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana (0.15%). It has over 37,700,000 inhabitants, of which 2.8 million are Indigenous, from 390 different nations, who speak 240 languages, of the rich matrix of 49 linguistic branches, a unique phenomenon in the history of world linguistics.
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“Never Be Ashamed:” Why I Decided Not to Delete My Old Internet Posts
Edward Snowden – The Intercept,
23 Sep 2019
21 Sep 2019 – While working for the National Security Agency, Edward Snowden helped build a system to enable the United States government to capture all phone calls, text messages, and emails. Six years ago, he provided documents about this electronic panopticon to journalists, and the shocking revelations that ensued set off massive changes — changes in attitudes and behaviors, in policies and technologies, across private industry and the public sector, in the U.S. and around the world.
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US Drone Strike Kills 30 Pine Nut Workers in Afghanistan
Reuters – The Guardian,
23 Sep 2019
19 Sep 2019 – A US drone strike intended to hit an Islamic State hideout in Afghanistan has killed at least 30 civilians who were resting after harvesting pine nuts. Forty were also injured in the Wednesday [18 Sep] attack which struck farmers and labourers who just finished work. The UN says nearly 4,000 civilians were killed or wounded in the first half of the year. Afghan Government and NATO Killing More Civilians than the Taliban
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Chained to Its Past: A German Recipe for Injustice toward the People of Palestine
Hans von Sponeck and Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
17 Sep 2019 – The Bundestag resolution that condemned the BDS Campaign as contributing to a rising threat of antisemitism in Europe is a grave cause of concern. It brands the BDS, a nonviolent Palestinian initiative, anti-Semitic and takes this stand pointing out Germany’s special responsibility toward Jews, without any reference at all to Israel’s prolonged abuse of the most fundamental of human rights, that of self-determination, of the Palestinian people.
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On the Precipice: The Collective Asteroid of Human History
Tom Engelhardt - TomDispatch,
23 Sep 2019
17 Sep 2019 – From Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro to the CEOs of all those fossil-fuel companies, we’re still left with the pyromaniacs largely in charge. If they have their way, they will undoubtedly take their pleasures and profits and not give a damn about turning much of this world into an oven for the Greta Thunbergs of the future. Think of this as a planet on the precipice. If Pyromaniacs, Inc., succeeds, if the arsonists are truly able to persevere, there will have been no crime like this in history, none at all.
→ read full articleCurrent Events in an Historical Perspective
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Sep 2019
To rebuild the world, to build a world that works, we do not need ‘other economists’ as much as we need people trained in other fields who are able to look at problems now classified as ‘economic’–like ‘unemployment’–from other perspectives using different conceptual and mathematical tools.
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The 5G Electromagnetic “Mad Zone” Poised to Self-Destruct: The 5G “Dementors” Meet the 4G “Zombie Apocalypse”
Claire Edwards – Global Research,
23 Sep 2019
Incisive Research and Carefully Documented Analysis of the Impacts of 5G Electromagnetic Radiation
→ read full articleDonald Trump’s Foreign Policy Sows Confusion
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2019
If Democrats are unable to recognize Trump’s (and their own) addiction to power as the sole means of dealing with conflicts, they will not understand that “toughness” and “softness” constitute a false dichotomy in foreign affairs. Power does not solve the social problems that generate war. Creativity, empathy, analysis, and determination are needed to solve those problems and generate effective options for conflict resolution. We have reason to believe that younger members of the opposition, in particular, have already begun to understand this.
→ read full articleWill NPR Now Officially Change Its Name to National Propaganda Radio?
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Sep 2019
Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to “court the compatible left.” He knew that drawing liberals and leftists into the CIA’s orbit was the key to efficient propaganda. Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.
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India: Almost 2 Million People Left Off Assam Register of Citizens
Rebecca Ratcliffe and Kakoli Bhattacharya – The Guardian,
16 Sep 2019
31 Aug 2019 – Almost 2 million people in north-east India face the threat of statelessness and detention after they were excluded from an official list designed to root out illegal immigrants. Rights groups warn of possible humanitarian crisis as those left off list face statelessness and detention.
→ read full articleBurning Amazonia, Denying Climate Change, Devastating Syria, Starving Yemen, Ignoring Kashmir
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
5 Sep 2019 – What is suggested is the dependence of human wellbeing on the emergence of a transnational activist movement that demands major structural reforms of world order that seek a favorable resolution of the bio-ethical crisis. If this seems utopian, you are quite right to react as if there is no plausible path leading from here to there. Yet I believe it is more illuminating to insist that activating the utopian imagination is the only source of a transformed realism that is sensitive to the distinctive challenges and opportunities of the 21stcentury.
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It’s Coming Soon: Can the UN Rethink Its Future in a Few Months?
Richard Ponzio and Cristina Petcu | PassBlue – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Sep 2019
On 26 Jun 2020 the international community will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter. That doesn’t leave much time to hammer out a “concise, substantive, forward-looking and unifying declaration” that captures member states’ commitment to multilateralism and to the UN before the world leaders’ summit meeting on Sept. 21, 2020 — as the General Assembly resolved this month.
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Inside Exarcheia: The Self-Governing Community Athens Police Want Rid of
Alex King and Ioanna Manoussaki-Adamopoulou – The Guardian,
9 Sep 2019
26 Aug 2019 – The central Athens neighbourhood of Exarcheia, which has helped house refugees, is in the crosshairs of a government crackdown. Ringed by university buildings, Exarcheia has long been the home of Greece’s intellectual left, antiauthoritarian and anarchist movements.
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(Português) O legado de Chico Mendes para o Sínodo Panamazônico
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Sep 2019
27 ago 2019 – Chico Mendes é um lídimo filho da floresta, identificado com ela. Cedo se deu conta de que o atual desenvovlvimento prescinde da natureza e que se faz contra ela, pois a vê antes como um estorvo que como um aliado. Foi um dos poucos que entendeu a sustentabilidade como equilíbrio dinâmico e autoregulador da Terra. Chico Mendes será para o Sínodo Panamazônico a realizar-se em outubro de 2019 em Roma, um exemplo paradigmático e uma fonte de inspiração.
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Bolivian Fires Are Threatening People and Wildlife–It’s Not Just Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest That’s Ablaze
Claire F.R. Wordley – The Conversation,
2 Sep 2019
23 Aug 2019 – Up to 800,000 hectares of the unique Chiquitano forest were burned to the ground in Bolivia between August 18 and August 23. That’s more forest than is usually destroyed across the country in two years. Experts say that it will take at least two centuries to repair the ecological damage done by the fires, while at least 500 species are said to be at risk from the flames.
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Amazon’s Indigenous Warriors Take on Invading Loggers and Ranchers
Fabiano Maisonnave – The Guardian,
2 Sep 2019
29 Aug 2019 – Trincheira Bacajá indigenous land: Under threat from fire, deforestation and Bolsonaro, Xikrin people take matters into own hands.
→ read full article
(Français) Google est ton ami… Ou pas, en fait
Philippe Huysmans | Le Vilain Petit Canard – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
18 août 2019 – Tous les éditeurs de médias alternatifs pourraient vous le dire, Google pratique une censure féroce, sous couvert de lutter contre les « fake news ». Ce n’est même plus un secret de polichinelle, chacun peut bien le voir. Voici presque trois ans, un ami qui se trouve être aussi un éditeur de presse m’avait demandé si je serais prêt à écrire un bouquin sur le sujet.
→ read full articleWill Trump’s War-Mongering Lead to War with Iran?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
12 Aug 2019 – This is an edited version of an interview on 11 Aug 2019 by Iranian journalist Nozhan Etezad and published in Iran News. It addresses various aspects of the troubled recent Iran/U.S. relationship.
→ read full article
Speaking for the Silenced: The Holy Inquisition in Portugal
Richard Zimler | Tikkun – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Aug 2019
Prisoners in Inquisitorial prisons who refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah and make a full confession of their Jewish practices would be burnt at the stake in a public ceremony known as an auto-da-fé, meaning act of faith. In 1560, Portugal imposed this same religious dictatorship in Goa, where tens of thousands of converted Hindus and their descendants were arrested and tortured – and hundreds burnt alive – by the Inquisition from 1560 to 1820. The Inquisition was also a diabolically effective money-making scam, since all the assets of its victims were confiscated and given to the Church.
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