Articles by RD
We found 3631 results.
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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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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Try Learning Not to Ride a Bicycle So We Can Save the World
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Feb 2018
“Einstein discovered a law of physical change: the way to convert a single particle of matter into enormous physical energy. Might there not also be, as Gandhi suggested, an equally incredible and undiscovered law of spiritual change, whereby a single person or small community of persons could be converted into an enormous spiritual energy capable of transforming a society and a world? I believe that there is.”
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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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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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The Ultimate Guide to Butterflies & How to Prevent Their Decline
Clive Harris | DIY Garden! – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Feb 2018
15 Jan 2018 – Butterflies and moths have been around for millions of years. They used to be a common sight in gardens, but numbers have declined since the 1940s along with our other native wildlife species such as bees and hedgehogs.
→ read full articleDenying the Obvious: Leftists and Crimestop
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Servivce,
5 Feb 2018
3 Feb 2018 – It is well known that effective propaganda works through slow, imperceptible repetition. “The slow building up of reflexes and myths” is the way Jacques Ellul put it in his classic, Propaganda. This works through commission and omission.
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A Rare Glimpse into the Inner Workings of American Empire in the Middle East
Edward Hunt – MintPress News,
29 Jan 2018
22 Jan 2018 – Four former U.S. diplomats provided remarkably candid commentary on recent U.S. involvement in the Middle East, revealing that it is still about oil and regional dominance.
→ read full articleA Genuine Actor: Francesco Serpico
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2018
When this honest cop was lying in a pool of his own blood on the night of February 3, 1971, having been shot in the face in a set-up carried out by fellow cops, Frank Serpico heard a voice that said, “It’s all a lie.” In that moment as he fought for his life, he realized a truth he had previously sensed but never fully grasped in its awful reality.
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I Have a Right (Music Video of the Week)
Sonata Arctica | Nuclear Blast Records – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2018
“A song about how we should not pass the burden we get from the past generation on the shoulders of our future offspring. Children’s rights subject. Not the most metal subject ever, I suppose, but then again I think it fits our band well and is pretty universal.” — Tony Kakko, song’s author
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Animals: Endowed with Rights
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jan 2018
28 Jan 2018 – Whether one acknowledges the dignity of animals depends on that person’s paradigm (vision of the world and values). Two paradigms have been handed down to us. The first understands the human being as part of nature. The second paradigm starts with the idea that the human being is the apex of evolution, and that all things are at his disposal.
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The Earth’s Future Will Not Come from Heaven
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
Even though it is based on the best scientific minds that have been studying the universe, the situation of planet Earth and her eventual collapse, or qualitative leap to another level of reality, for almost a century, it has not penetrated into either the collective consciousness or the major academic centers.
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Thyroid Gland: Functions, Symptoms, Diet, and Natural Support
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
The thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped gland located at the front of your neck, sort of like an internal bowtie. Part of the endocrine system, your thyroid produces and secretes the hormones T4 and T3. These essential hormones regulate growth, development, and metabolism.
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Gilad Atzmon on ‘Jew, Judaism, Jewishness’
Interview with Bill Alford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
The author of the runaway best seller, The Wandering Who?, discusses the three Jewish ID Categories: Religious Jew, Born a Jew, and Politicized Jew–aka Jewishness. What Is Jewishness and what are the relationships between Jews, Judaism, Zionism and Jewishness?
→ read full articleWhy 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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Is Whistleblowing Worth Prison or a Life in Exile? Edward Snowden Talks to Daniel Ellsberg
Edward Snowden, Daniel Ellsberg and Ewen MacAskill – The Guardian,
22 Jan 2018
The two most famous whistleblowers in modern history discuss Steven Spielberg’s new film, The Post, about Ellsberg’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers, the personal cost of what they did – and if they’d advise anybody to follow in their footsteps.
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The 10 Companies That Dominate the Global Arms Trade
Jeff Desjardins | Visual Capitalist – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
12 Jan 2018 – While it is common knowledge that the United States plays a big role in the global arms trade, the numbers are still quite astounding. Of the top ten companies by sales, firms based in the U.S. make up seven of them. Whether it is guns, tanks, jets, missiles, or ships that are on your shopping list, there is a supplier for any weapon your country desires.
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The Kids the World Forgot
Ken Hannaford-Ricardi | Voices for Creative Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
20 Jan 2018 – I spent much of yesterday with some kids the world forgot. Young, remarkably sturdy and resilient, they can often be naïve and almost willfully gullible. They inhabit a world that delights in tripping them up and watching them fall. They are Kabul’s Street Kids.
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How the Heroin Trade Explains the US-UK Failure in Afghanistan
Alfred W McCoy – The Guardian,
15 Jan 2018
9 Jan 2018 – After fighting the longest war in its history, the US stands at the brink of defeat in Afghanistan. How could this be possible? After 16 years and $1tn spent, there is no end to the fighting – but western intervention has resulted in Afghanistan becoming the world’s first true narco-state.
→ read full articleLet 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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Death at the Gate in Afghanistan
Ken Hannaford-Ricardi | Voices for Creative Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Jan 2018
Kabul, January 2017 – The insurgents whose only weapon is violence are clearly gaining sway here, but the Afghan Peace Volunteers are adamant in their knowledge that violence solves nothing. They struggle daily to practice and teach nonviolence, which their charter maintains “is a [personal] value and a way of living, relating, and acting,” a positive force for change in our own lives and in the life of our planet.
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To Honor Albert Camus on the Day He Died: January 4, 1960
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
Albert Camus was criticized by the right, left, and center. His allegiance was to truth, not ideologies. He opposed state murder, terrorism, and warfare from all quarters. An artistic anarchist with a passionate spiritual hunger, an austere and moral Don Juan, this sensual man of conscience and honor earned his reputation by a lifelong literary meditation on death in all its guises.
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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.
→ read full article(Português) Frei Betto: ANO NOVO, VIDA NOVA
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
30 dez 2017 – Ler Frei Betto seja como analista social, escritor e homem espiritual é sempre um aprendizado. Publico este pequeno texto porque me identifico com ele. É bem isso que desejo a tantos que me seguem, ora com críticas severas,ora com benevolência. Não importa. O importante é que estejamos vivos e exerçamos a liberdade com a responsabilidade que cada um sente que pode exercer.
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Military Revealed as Top Funder of Gene Drives
Third World Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
6 Dec 2017 — Gates Foundation Paid $1.6 Million to Influence UN on Gene Drives – Over1,200 emails released under open records requests reveal that the U.S. military is now the top funder and influencer behind a controversial genetic extinction technology known as “gene drives” – pumping $100 million into the field.
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North Korea and South Korea Are Threatening to Seek Peace
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
8 Jan 2018
6 Jan 2018 – Korean Détente Puts Decades of Failed, Corrupt US Policy at Risk – A few gestures of mutual respect between North Korea and South Korea during the first week of January are the best signs of sanity there in decades.
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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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Welcome to Kabul
Ken Hannaford-Ricardi | Voices for Creative Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
31 Dec 2017 – It is a dream come true being back among friends in Kabul! Streams of dented Toyotas (They are all Toyotas!) with windscreens cracked like bolts of lightning still jockey for position on roads where traffic lights and common sense hold little sway.
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Mapping a World from Hell: 76 Countries Are Now Involved in Washington’s War on Terror
Tom Engelhardt – TomDispatch,
8 Jan 2018
4 Jan 2018 – A glance at the map tells you that the war on terror, an increasingly complex set of intertwined conflicts, is now a remarkably global phenomenon.
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Religion – A Source of Conflict or the Path to Peace? Its Role in Preventing Violence
Abbas Aroua | Cordoba Foundation of Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jan 2018
A constant and widespread communication process on religious reflection, inclusion and participation should prevail as a showpiece for conflict prevention, resolution and resilience. Doing good and promoting peaceful behaviour is not enough. Extensive inclusive participation and communication on the subject matter must be undertaken in order to provide a counter-weight to toxic conversations, the spreading of violence and extremism.
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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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Mediation Perspectives: Peace, Conflict and Mediation in Islam
Abbas Aroua | Cordoba Foundation of Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Dec 2017
Religions promote peace and provide moral guidance and legal injunctions to restrict and moderate the use of violence. Followers of a religion can comply with these guidelines or transgress against them as such followers are neither angels nor devils. Instead, they are human beings with all the complex aspirations to peace and temptations to violence that the human condition entails. In that respect, Islam is no exception.
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“Friendship Party” for Countries That Supported US in UN Israel Vote
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Dec 2017
22 Dec 2017 – Though at first glance it sounds straight out of The Onion, Nikki Haley has formally invited the 64 countries who either voted ‘against’ or abstained (or just didn’t show up) for Thursday’s UN General Assembly vote on the Jerusalem resolution to a “friendship” party. Hours after Haley tweeted “We appreciate these countries for not falling to the irresponsible ways of the UN.”
→ read full articleThe 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).
→ read full articleDemocracy, 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).
→ read full articleJerusalem 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.
→ read full articleAn Advent Calendar to Beat the Devil
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
The deeper problems connected with advertising come less from the unscrupulousness of our ‘deceivers’ than from our pleasure in being deceived, less from the desire to seduce than from the desire to be seduced. The Graphic revolution has produced new categories of experience. They are no longer simply classifiable by the old common sense tests of true or false. At no time is this more evident than in the months leading up to Christmas and the holidays.
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(Français) Amérique latine : des pouvoirs et des luttes
Bernard Duterme | CETRI Centre Tricontinental – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Dec 2017
Décembre 2017 – Entre paix et violence, tournant à gauche puis à droite, les reconfigurations à l’œuvre en Amérique latine détonnent. Contention, répression, dilution… les luttes « progressistes » n’en ont pas fini pour autant de hanter le continent des inégalités extrêmes. Face à la poussée « extractiviste », la protestation ne s’est pas unifiée : appels à la redistribution des bénéfices d’un côté, au respect de l’environnement et des territoires de l’autre.
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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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(Français) La R2P comme instrument d’agression
Edward S. Herman | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
27 Nov 2017 – Avec cet article fondamental sur les interventions dites humanitaires, Investig’Action souhaite rendre hommage à Edward S. Herman, décédé le 11 novembre. Avec Chomsky, il avait signé un ouvrage majeur de l’analyse critique des médias, Fabriquer un consentement. Investig’Action va d’ailleurs rééditer ce livre en juin 2018*. Dans cet article, Herman expose avec brio comment les grandes puissances instrumentalisent les concepts de « Responsabilité de protéger » et d’« Intervention humanitaire » pour justifier des guerres totalement illégales au regard du droit international.
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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.
→ read full articleWaiting for the American Dream
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
Waiting – so what’s new? Some sullen sage once said that life is what we do while we wait for death. It’s not the kind of wise-guy wisdom I would try to refute, since I was one of the precocious kids who saw the skull at his first pabulum banquet.
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Fake News on Russia and Other Official Enemies
Edward S. Herman | Monthly Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Dec 2017
Aug 2017 – It has been amusing to watch the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets express their dismay over the rise and spread of “fake news.” These publications take it as an obvious truth that what they provide is straightforward, unbiased, fact-based reporting. They do offer such news, but they also provide a steady flow of their own varied forms of fake news, often by disseminating false or misleading information supplied to them by the national security state, other branches of government, and sites of corporate power.
→ read full articleTaking 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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More Harm than Good with Climate Geo-Engineering
Tim Radford | Climate News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
Geo-engineering might be possible – but so far it doesn’t look practical. Yet another study sees dangers in the technofix. It could create more problems than it could solve.
→ read full articleParallel 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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The Strength of the Lowly: The Theology of Liberation
Leonardo Boff – Other News,
27 Nov 2017
24 Nov 2017 – When one is asked how the Theology of Liberation is coming along, the answer is found in another question: How are the poor, the oppressed, women, the unemployed, Native peoples, Afro-descendants and others who are excluded treated? How do they enter in the liberating practices of the Christians? It is vital to emphasize that it is not the Theology of Liberation that is important, but the concrete liberation of the oppressed.
→ read full article(Português) Concepção do ser humano nos limites de uma ecologia integral
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Nov 2017
19 nov 2017 – Em sua encíclica sobre “o Cuidado da Casa Comum” o Papa Francisco submeteu a uma rigorosa crítica o clássico antropocentrismo de nossa cultura a partir de uma visão de uma ecologia integral, cosmocentrada, dentro da qual o ser humano comparece como parte do Todo e da natureza. Isso nos convida a revisarmos nossa compreensão do ser humano nos limites desta ecologia integral.
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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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(Castellano) Los animales, portadores de derechos y deben ser respetados
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
12 nov 2017 – La aceptación o no de la dignidad de los animales depende del paradigma (visión del mundo y valores) que cada cual asume. Hay dos paradigmas que vienen de la más remota antigüedad y perduran hasta hoy.
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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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Nuclear Disarmament Now a ‘Moral Imperative’ as Pope Francis Rejects Deterrence
Gerard O’Connell | America Jesuit Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
In a landmark statement on nuclear arms on 10 Nov 2017, Pope Francis has categorically condemned not only “the threat of their use” but also “their very possession.” Nuclear weapons, he told participants at a Vatican symposium on “integral disarmament,” exist “in the service of a mentality of fear that affects not only the parties in conflict but the entire human race.”
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Paradise Papers Yet another Example of the Power of Collaboration in Investigative Journalism
Richard Sambrook – The Conversation,
20 Nov 2017
14 Nov 2017 – Established media organisations are collaborating across borders and with new media to break big stories such as global tax avoidance by the rich and powerful.
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Sea Shepherd and Japanese Whaling: A Message from Captain Paul Watson
Captain Paul Watson | Sea Shepherd Global – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Nov 2017
The Japanese whaling fleet has left from Japan bound for the waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherd Founder, Captain Paul Watson, explains why we will not be sending our ships to Antarctica this season. “To continue would be foolish. We would spend a few million dollars and many months only to have another failure to engage, and if we did by some miracle encounter the fleet, we would be subject to lethal force without support from our own cowardly governments.”
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Bob Geldof Hands Back Freedom of Dublin in Aung San Suu Kyi Protest
Isabel Bennett – The Guardian,
20 Nov 2017
13 Nov 2017 – Bob Geldof called Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, “a handmaiden to genocide” today as he returned his Freedom of the City of Dublin award in protest over her response to the repression of Rohingya Muslims. The Live Aid founder criticised the Burmese Nobel peace prize winner for her silence over military operations that have driven more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims into neighbouring Bangladesh.
→ read full articleReviving the Spirit of Existential Rebellion in a World of Propaganda, Lies, and Self Deception
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Nov 2017
9 Nov 2017 – In these very dark times – these end- times created by nuclear weapons – seeing the truth is dependent on the will to truth, and the will to truth only arises when people believe they are free to alter the circumstances in which they find themselves. This belief in freedom is at the core of all existential thought and is why we need to resurrect it today.
→ read full articleHundreds of Whales and Dolphins Slaughtered in Annual Faroe Islands Hunt
Sea Shepherd Global – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Nov 2017
8 Nov 2017 – Over the course of ten weeks from this July to early September, the volunteers documented nine separate grindadrap events (what these yearly hunts are called in Faroese). According to the group, 198 Atlantic white-sided dolphins and 436 pilot whales were killed.
→ read full articleThe Spiritual Sources of Legal Creativity: The Legacy of Father Miguel d’Escoto
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
31 Oct 2017 – Father Miguel d’Escoto was both the Foreign Minister of Sandinista Nicaragua and President of the UN General Assembly, as well as pastor to the poor in the spirit of Pope Francis, an extraordinary person who fused a practical engagement in the world with a deeply spiritual nature that affected all who were privileged to know and work with him.
→ read full articleBalfour: Then and Now
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
2 Nov 2017 – Today, November 2, is exactly 100 years after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the pledge given to the World Zionist Movement in a letter signed by the British Foreign Secretary to support the establishment of a ‘national home’ in the then Ottoman millet of Palestine. Certainly ‘a day of infamy’ for the Palestinian people and their friends around the world, while unfortunately treated as ‘a day of pride’ by the British Government, and all in the West those morally bankrupt enough to regret the passing of the colonial era, and to pretend without embarrassment that the Balfour legacy is something to celebrate, rather than to mourn, in the year 2017.
→ read full article(Português) Adoecemos a Terra e a Terra nos adoece
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Nov 2017
28 out 2017 – De uma ou de outra forma, todos nos sentimos doentes física, psíquica e espiritualmente. Há muito sofrimento, desamparo, tristeza e decepção que afetam grande parte da humanidade. Já o dissemos aqui: da recessão econômica passamos à depressão psicológica. A causa principal deriva da intrínseca relação existente entre o ser humano e a Terra viva. Entre ambos vigora um envolvimento recíproco.
→ read full articleA Visit to Heaven and Hell: Mapping Planet Earth
Eduardo Galeano - TomDispatch,
6 Nov 2017
2 Nov 2017 – The following passages are excerpted from Hunter of Stories, the last book by Eduardo Galeano, who died in 2015. Thanks go to his literary agent, Susan Bergholz, and Nation Books, which is publishing it next week.
→ read full article(Português) A ideologia é como a sombra: sempre nos acompanha
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Oct 2017
24 out 2017 – O tema da ideologia está em pauta: ideologia de gênero, política, econômica, religiosa etc.Tentemos tirar a limpo esta questão.
→ read full articleA Polemic against Liberal Analyses of the Rohingya Crisis
Tim Frewer | Tea Circle Oxford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Oct 2017
19 Oct 2017 – In this time of suffering it is crucial to remain indefatigable to the political realities of a slow burning genocide. Rather than obscuring the forces and processes that allow large scale violence to occur, it is urgent to keep these forces and their effects at the centre of accounts of the unfolding tragedy. The way events are framed and talked about have important political ramifications at all levels. It is the political feebleness of liberal analysis that makes it ideal as a discursive tool on the part of so many states and actors that wish to remain apathetic towards the Rohingya cause.
→ read full article(Italiano) Antropocene e Ecocene: Due Ere Geologiche a Confronto
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Oct 2017
2 ottobre, 2017 – Il primo a elaborare una ecologia della Terra come un tutto è stato il geochimico russo Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. Lui ha conferito carattere scientifico all’espressione “biosfera” creata nel 1875 dal geologo austriaco Eduard Suess. Negli anni 70, insieme a James Lovelock, si sviluppò la teoria di Gaia, la Terra che si comporta come un superorganismo vivo che sempre produce e riproduce vita. Gaia, nome greco per la Terra viva, non è argomento da New Age, ma il risultato di minuziosa osservazione scientifica.
→ read full articleHumanity’s Principal Challenge
Howard Richards and Ela Gandhi – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Oct 2017
20 Oct 2017 – This paper was written for a seminar in Santiago, Chile, with TRANSCEND member Ela Gandhi, a granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi who continues his work. Each participant was asked to write three pages on the topic, “What is the principal challenge facing humanity today?”
→ read full article(Português) O povo do México deu um exemplo ao mundo
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Oct 2017
Nos dias 19 e 23 de setembro, o México foi sacudido por dois terremotos, um de magnitude 7,1 e outro de 6,1 da escala Richter. O que chamou a atenção geral foi o espírito de solidariedade e de cooperação do povo mexicano. Sem que ninguém as conclamassem, milhares de pessoas, especialmente os jovens, se puseram a remover escombros para salvar as vítimas soterradas. Organizavam-se grupos espontaneamente e este espírito de solidariedade pode salvar muitas vidas.
→ read full articleSee It, Say It: Climate Change
Editorial Board - The Washington Post,
23 Oct 2017
14 Oct 2017 – No single fire can be specifically linked to climate change, and certainly other factors, such as increased development or logging and grazing activities, are involved. But scientists say there is a clear connection between global warming and the increase in recent years in the severity and frequency of wildfires in the West.
→ read full articleUN Report on Rohingya Hunger Is Shelved at Myanmar’s Request
Oliver Holmes – The Guardian,
23 Oct 2017
17 Oct 2017 – The United Nations food aid agency withdrew a critical report revealing desperate hunger among the persecuted Rohingya population after the Myanmar government demanded it be taken down, the Guardian has learned. Document warned of spiralling food crisis among Rohingya population.
→ read full articleThree for the Road, in Light and Shadows
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Oct 2017
20 Oct 2017 – It was getting dark on the street as the young man emerged from his high school on New York’s Upper East Side after basketball practice. He had lost track of time as he dreamed his basketball dreams and headed to the subway for the long ride home.
→ read full article(Castellano) La era geológica del antropoceno vs la del ecoceno
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
2 oct 2017 – El primero en elaborar una ecología de la Tierra como un todo fue el geoquímico ruso Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. El autor confería carácter científico a la expresión “biosfera” creada en 1875 por el geólogo austriaco Eduard Suess. En los años 70, con James Lovelock, se desarrolló la teoría de Gaia, la Tierra que se comporta como un superorganismo vivo que siempre produce y reproduce vida. Gaia, nombre griego para la Tierra viva, no es un tema de la New Age, sino el resultado de minuciosas observaciones científicas.
→ read full articleOfcom Clears Al-Jazeera of Antisemitism in Exposé of Israeli Official
Graham Ruddick – The Guardian,
16 Oct 2017
10 Oct 2017 – Watchdog also rejects claims broadcaster broke impartiality rules in film of embassy official vowing to ‘take down’ British MPs.
→ read full articleFinding Our Way Back to Truth by Following a String of Facts
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
14 Oct 2017 – If you find yourself lost and confused in a dark wood, then perhaps following this network of knots strung on a long string of dates listed below will help you find your way back home, where the bread of truth awaits you on the kitchen table.
→ read full article‘Sri Lanka and Myanmar Are Ethnocratic States’ – Dr Maung Zarni
Bashana Abeywardane | Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
9 Oct 2017 – ‘Enemy of the State’ screamed the banner headline of a Burmese national newspaper in September, featuring full page photograph of Maung Zarni. More hatred follows, a week later. “These publications are run by a web of cronies, military propaganda division and racist monk or laymen’s networks’, says Zarni.
→ read full articleInside the CIA’s Black Site Torture Room
Larry Siems – The Guardian,
16 Oct 2017
9 Oct 2017 – There were twenty cells inside the prison, each a stand-alone concrete box. In sixteen, prisoners were shackled to a metal ring in the wall. In four, designed for sleep deprivation, they stood chained by the wrists to an overhead bar. Those in the regular cells had a plastic bucket; those in sleep deprivation wore diapers. When diapers weren’t available, guards crafted substitutes with duct tape, or prisoners were chained naked in their cells. The cellblock was unheated, pitch black day and night, with music blaring around the clock.
→ read full articleThe Flawed and Corrupted Genius of American Republicanism
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
15 Oct 2017 – The odiousness of Trump’s presidency gives the people of America what might be their last chance to achieve political redemption for themselves and for others now and in the future who will drawn into the circle of extreme victimization unless this dynamic of renewal suddenly takes hold.
→ read full articleA Hero Turned Villain: [Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi and the Annihilation of Myanmar’s Rohingya
Neve Gordon – The Nation,
16 Oct 2017
They potentially face the final two stages of genocide—mass annihilation and erasure from the country’s history.
→ read full articleThe One and Only Path to Palestine/Israel Sustainable Peace
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Oct 2017
12 Oct 2017 – We should accept our human responsibility to aid and abet the Palestinian struggle for rights, self-determination, and a just peace. The attainment of such goals would also inevitably reshape the destiny of Israeli Jews toward a more humanistic and benevolent future.
→ read full article(Português) A era geológica do antropoceno versus a do ecoceno
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
1 out 2017 – O primeiro a elaborar uma ecologia da Terra como um todo foi o geoquímico russo Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky. Ele conferiu caráter científico à expressão “biosfera” criada em 1875 por um geólogo austríaco Eduard Suess. Nos anos 70, com James Lovelock e sua equipe se desenvolveu a teoria de Gaia, a Terra que se comporta como um sistema orgânico, portanto, um super-organismo vivo que sempre produz e reproduz vida. Gaia, nome grego para a Terra viva, não é tema da New Age mas o resultado de minuciosa observação científica.
→ read full articleWill Seven Million Starving Yemenis Ever Find Justice?
Catriona Murdoch and Wayne Jordash – Al Jazeera,
9 Oct 2017
2 Oct 2017 – It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the control of food importation into Yemen is being used as a weapon of war, seemingly by all sides. Those responsible should be held accountable as primary perpetrators of, or accessories to, starvation.
→ read full articleHow a 3-Day Fast Resets Your Immune System
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
The benefits of fasting are many and various. Fasting supports good health by promoting a healthy body weight, encouraging normal cognitive function, and even facilitating detoxification. Now, research has also shown that fasting may help reset the immune system.
→ read full articleA New Shock Doctrine: In a World of Crisis, Morality Can Still Win
Naomi Klein – The Guardian,
9 Oct 2017
Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders and Podemos in Spain have shown that a bold and decent strategy can be a successful one. That truth should embolden the left.
→ read full articleNobel Peace Prize 2017: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
8 Oct 2017 – What the BAN Treaty achieves, and the Nobel Prize recognizes, is that the cleavage is now clear between international law and geopolitics with respect to nuclear weapons. The BAN Treaty provides likeminded governments and animated citizen pilgrim throughout the world with a roadmap for closing the gap from the side of law and morality.
→ read full articleVisiting Nuremberg, Reflecting on the Ambiguous Legacies of Nuremberg
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Oct 2017
2 Oct 2017 – I spent two days at Nuremberg to attend the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award ceremony on September 22, 2017. The reason we were in Nuremberg was that my wife had been a member of an international jury that selects an awardee every second year.
→ read full articleMy Ethnographic Moment: In Rome
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Oct 2017
What struck me, in contrast to the U.S, Germany, even France, where I have recently been is that Italy, and specifically Rome, is a deep culture that works for its working and middle classes, or put less structurally, for ‘ordinary people.’ Of course, this is an impression, but for me a rather convincing one, and harmonious with a morning cappuccino and croissant.
→ read full articleThe White Man in That Photo
Riccardo Gazzaniga - GRIOT Magazine,
2 Oct 2017
I always saw the photo as a powerful image of two barefoot black men, with their heads bowed, their black-gloved fists in the air while the US National Anthem played. It was a strong symbolic gesture – taking a stand for African American civil rights in a year of tragedies that included the death of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
→ read full articleMonsanto Banned from European Parliament
Arthur Neslen – The Guardian,
2 Oct 2017
28 Sep 2017 – MEPs withdraw parliamentary access after the firm shunned a hearing into allegations that it unduly influenced studies into the safety of glyphosate used in its RoundUp weedkiller.
→ read full articleApartheid and the Future of Israel/Palestine
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Sep 2017
The interview, associated with my current visit to Belgium and France to speak on the report “Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid,” brings up to date the controversy generated by the UN Secretary General bowing to U.S. pressure and ordering its removal from ESCWA website. It was published in l’Humanité, Sept. 6, 2017.
→ read full articleTrump Misreads North Korea’s Sacred Dynasty at His Peril
Michael Brabazon – The Guardian,
25 Sep 2017
23 Sep 2017 – References to the regime as a cold war relic, or as communist, Stalinist, or a cult of personality, make easy and colourful soundbites. But do they really help in understanding the motivations of what appears to be a dangerous, anachronistic society? The short answer is no. In the escalating war of insults, Trump is a ‘gangster fond of playing with fire’, Kim Jong-un a ‘madman’ who will be tested as never before.
→ read full articleRemembering Ebrahim Yazdi
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
For all those dedicated to the attainment of real democracy, the name and life of Ebrahim Yazdi is a precious legacy worth reflecting upon because it has so much to teach us today. Among those who struggled for an Iranian future that was Islamic, genuinely democratic, and humanly decent no one was more steadfast and clear about their commitment than Dr. Yazdi.
→ read full article
Where Does Your Entertainment Come From?
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
Sea Shepherd Releases Powerful Video on the Same Day Japan Begins Its Annual Dolphin Hunt
→ read full articleThe Unspoken Truth behind the Colin Kaepernick Story
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
16 Sep 2017 – Two recent sports news items have reminded me of incidents from my own athletic past. And those memories in turn have brought my reflections back to the current news regarding the failure of any NFL team to sign quarterback Colin Kaepernick to a contract, and the recent boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor.
→ read full articleHow to Fast Safely: Considerations before Starting a Fast
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Sep 2017
If you haven’t done the research, you might find yourself wondering if fasting is safe. You may have heard from people who’ve never even tried it that it’s crazy, dangerous, or just pointless. And yet, for thousands of years, many cultures have embraced fasting wholeheartedly. This ancient practice leads to numerous health benefits for most people—when done correctly.
→ read full articleHostage to Myopic Self-Interest: Climate Science Is Watered Down Under Political Scrutiny
Ian Dunlop – The Guardian,
18 Sep 2017
Scientific reticence allows politicians to neglect the real dangers we face. But waiting for perfect information means it will be too late to act.
→ read full articleThe Guardian View on the Slaughter in Myanmar: A Crime against Humanity
The Guardian | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
4 Sep 2017 – The brutal, bloody, and ultimately pointless mistreatment of a Muslim minority shames [Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi who appeared for decades as the epitome of principled and unflinching defence of human rights, now the unfeeling figurehead of a vicious regime.
→ read full articleGhostly Voices Dancing in the Rain
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
8 Sep 2017 – A solitary, early Sunday morning walk in the rain. As I like it, my only walking companion was the soothing sound of rain in the trees and on the lake. From the shallow water at the lake’s swampy edge, a blue heron, perched on one leg, froze my gaze as I stopped and stared.
→ read full articleDemocracy Insurance
Hardy Merriman | International Center on Nonviolent Conflict – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Sep 2017
We know that a unified and mobilized population—capable of imposing costs on unaccountable power holders through nonviolent tactics such as strikes, boycotts, and civil disobedience—is often essential to protecting and expanding civic space. There is an art and a science to how ordinary people have done this and nonviolent civil resistance has proven remarkably adaptable at addressing a variety of situations relevant to democratic backsliding, including:
→ read full articleJournalist Interrogated, Fired for Story Linking CIA and Syria Weapons Flights
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
Investigative reporter Dilyana Gaytandzhieva authored a bombshell report for Trud Newspaper, Bulgaria, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company was regularly transporting tons of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply anti-Assad fighters in Syria. Those weapons, Gaytandzhieva found, ended up in the hands of ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
→ read full article(Italiano) Solidarietà’: percorsi dimenticati
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
E’ urgente riscattare il significato antropologico fondamentale della solidarietà. Essa è antisistemica, perché il sistema imperante capitalista e individualista si regge sulla concorrenza e non sulla solidarietà e cooperazione. Questo va contro il senso della natura. Ci dicono gli etno-antropologi che è stata la solidarietà a farci passare dall’ordine dei Primati all’ordine degli umani.
→ read full article(Castellano) Brasil: un barco a la deriva
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
27 ago 2017 – La gravedad de nuestra crisis generalizada hace que nos sintamos como un barco a la deriva, a merced de los vientos y de las olas. El timonel, el presidente, está acusado de delitos, rodeado de marujos-piratas, en su mayoría igualmente corruptos o acusados de otros delitos. Es increíble que un presidente, detestado por el 90% de la población, sin ninguna credibilidad ni carisma, quiera gobernar un barco a la deriva.
→ read full articleThe Lies of 9/11 Miracle Workers
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
A Review of David Ray Griffin’s Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World – David Ray Griffin is an international treasure and truth teller, who, while being ignored by the mainstream corporate media for his extraordinary series of books exposing the false flag attacks of Sep 11, 2001, will someday be lauded as a modern prophet.
→ read full article