Articles by RD
We found 3631 results.
Evolving International Law, Political Realism, and the Illusions of Diplomacy
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2017
21 Aug 2017 – International law is mainly supportive of Palestinian grievances with respect to Israel, as well as offering both Israelis and Palestinians a reliable marker as to how these two peoples could live normally together in the future if the appropriate political will existed on both sides to reach a sustainable peace.
→ read full articleBrazil Abolishes Huge Amazon Reserve in ‘Biggest Attack’ in 50 Years
Jonathan Watts – The Guardian,
28 Aug 2017
Brazilian president has dissolved Renca to attract investment in region thought to contain gold, with critics warning of irreversible damage.
→ read full articleCommemorating Howard Zinn on His Birthday: “No Human Being Is Illegal”
Howard Zinn – The Progressive,
28 Aug 2017
The People’s Historian was born August 24, 1922. We share a piece on immigration he published with us in our July 2006 issue—entirely relevant today. This article is adapted from the introduction Zinn wrote to Deepa Fernandes’s book, Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration. Entirely relevant today.
→ read full articleIn Defense of the Nameless, Invisible Workers
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Aug 2017
20 Aug 2017 – In spite of the threats to our Common Home, the Earth, attacked on all fronts by the type of culture that we have developed in the last two centuries, limitless exploitation of her finite goods and services, essentially for the material accumulation of a few; in spite of everything she continues to generously offer us the beauty of the fruits, flowers, plants, animals and broad bio-diversity.
→ read full article[Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi: Still a Noble Democracy Champion?
Oliver Ward – ASEAN Today,
28 Aug 2017
22 Aug 2017 – The Aung San Suu Kyi who won a Nobel Prize and made speeches standing on tables about the importance of democracy and human rights is almost unrecognisable to the woman in government today. Rather than representing the solution, she has become part of the problem, standing idle while Myanmar descends into genocide. If the Aung San Suu Kyi of 1988 could have a conversation with the woman of today would she still see herself as the noble peace prize winner and democracy champion that John Bercow described in 2015?
→ read full article(Português) A Solidariedade: Um Paradigma Olvidado
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2017
É urgente resgatarmos o significado antropológico fundamental da solidariedade. Ela é anti-sistêmica, pois o sistema imperante capitalista é individualista e se rege pela concorrência e não pela solidariedade e pela cooperação. Isso vai contra o sentido da natureza. É urgente resgatarmos o paradigma básico de nossa humanidade, tão olvidado. Fora dela desvirtuaremos nossa humanidade e a dos outros.
→ read full articleCharlottesville through a Glass Darkly
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2017
Anti-Semitism, and its links to Nazism and Fascism, and now to Trumpism, are genuinely menacing, and should encourage rational minds to reconsider any willingness to being manipulated for polemic purposes by ultra Zionists. We can also only wonder about the moral, legal, and political compass of ardent Zionists who so irresponsibly label Israel’s critics and activist opponents as anti-Semites, and thus confuse and bewilder the public as to the true nature of anti-Semitism as racial hatred directed at Jews.
→ read full articleMigrating Birds Use a Magnetic Map to Travel Long Distances
Richard Holland – The Conversation,
21 Aug 2017
17 Aug 2017 – Birds have an impressive ability to navigate. They can fly long distances, to places that they may never have visited before, sometimes returning home after months away. Though there has been a lot of research in this area, scientists are still trying to understand exactly how they manage to find their intended destinations.
→ read full articleExporting Chaos to Venezuela
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
21 Aug 2017
President Trump’s recklessness is felt around the world.
→ read full articleBurma Covers Up Its Systematic Abuse of the Rohingya Minority Group
Editorial Board - The Washington Post,
21 Aug 2017
It is becoming increasingly clear that Burma’s partially democratic government bears many similarities to its autocratic predecessor: It is overly sensitive to criticism, repressive toward minorities and willing to go to great lengths to protect the military.
→ read full articleEnd of Nuclearism or the End of the World: Utopian Dreams, Dystopian Nightmares
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
9 Aug 2017 – We are living amid contradictions whether we like it or not, driving expectations about the future toward opposite extremes. Increasingly plausible are fears that the ‘sixth extinction’ will encompass the human species, or at least, throw human society back to a technology of sticks and stones, with a habitat limited to caves and forests.
→ read full article(Português) A Terra entrou no cheque especial: O ser humano, Satã da Terra
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
13 ago 2017 – No dia 2 de agosto de 2017 ocorreu um fato preocupante para a humanidade e para cada um individualmente. Foi o dia da chamada “Sobrecarga da Terra” (Overshoot Day). Quer dizer: foi o dia em que gastamos todos os bens e serviços naturais, básicos para sustentar a vida. Estávamos no verde e agora entramos no vermelho ou no cheque especial.
→ read full article(Português) Para Entender a Venezuela: Dois Testemunhos do Outro Lado
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
9 ago 2017 – Todas as coisas possuem sempre dois lados. Em direito se diz: “audiator et altera pars”: que se escute também a outra parte. Isso vale em todas as questões que envolvem destinos pessoais e de todo um povo. A questão da Venezuela é complexa e polêmica. Dificilmente poder-se-á emitir um juizo equilibrado tantos são os fatores a serem considerados.
→ read full articleThe Crop Circle Mystery: A Closer Look
Benjamin Radford | Live Science – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
Crop circles — strange patterns that appear mysteriously overnight in farmers’ fields—provoke puzzlement, delight and intrigue among the press and public alike. The mystery has inspired countless books, blogs, fan groups, researchers (dubbed “cereologists”) and even Hollywood films. Despite having been studied for decades, the question remains: Who — or what — is making them?
→ read full article(Português) Os Portões do Desmatamento
Eduardo Pegurier | O Eco – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
19 julho 2017 – Os satélites são cronistas mecânicos do processo de desmatamento da floresta Amazônica. Dois terços da área desmatada virou pasto. Apenas 128 instalações de frigoríficos ativos, pertencentes a 99 empresas, são responsáveis por 93% do abate anual, algo como 12 milhões de cabeças de gado.
→ read full articleThe Health Benefits of Water Fasting
Edward Group, MD | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
3 Jul 2017 – While fasting has been part of human culture for thousands of years, only recently have we begun to investigate the therapeutic benefits of the practice. Interestingly, modern science has found a variety of verifiable positive effects fasting that has on human health.
→ read full articleStudy Links Most Amazon Deforestation to 128 Slaughterhouses
Eduardo Pegurier | O Eco – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
28 Jul 2017 – Satellites are mechanical reporters of the Amazon deforestation process. By documenting the degradation and gaps created by the clear-cutting process over the years, they deliver the verdict: Two-thirds of the Amazon’s deforested area has been turned into pastures. 128 active slaughterhouses belonging to 99 companies are responsible for 93 percent of the annual slaughter—close to 12 million heads.
→ read full articleBerlin Calls for “Countermeasures” to US Sanctions against Russia, Hints at Trade War
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
Germany economy minister Brigitte Zypries said that “we consider this as being against international law, plain and simple.” She added that “of course we don’t want a trade war. But it is important the European Commission now looks into countermeasures.” She also said that “the Americans cannot punish German companies because they operate economically in another country.”
→ read full articleLiving in Dystopian Times
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
3 Aug 2017 – Twenty-five years ago there were three widely held beliefs about future trends on a global level: the assured preeminence of the United States; the continuing globalization of the world economy; and the expanding democratization of national governance arrangements. It was also assumed that these trends were more or less descriptive of regional realities, including the Middle East. Each of these trends that seemed so descriptive 25 years ago now seems to be completely out of touch with what is happening around us.
→ read full articleGeopolitical Dirty Dreams: Israel’s ‘Victory Caucus’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Jul 2017
29 Jul 2017 – The main Trump assignment within the United States will likely be to lend full support to the Congressional and state-by-state pushback against the BDS campaign, slandering this nonviolent civil society movement of militant solidarity and human rights by castigating it as ‘the anti-Semitism of our time.’
→ read full articleBiological Warfare: US & Saudis Use Cholera to Kill Yemenis
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
31 Jul 2017
29 Jul 2017 – Since March 2015, the US has supported Saudi Arabia and its allies in their criminal war of aggression against Yemen, committing daily war crimes, especially against civilians, who are now suffering a cholera epidemic with more than 400,000 victims. Cholera is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholera and has been weaponized by the US, Japan (in World War II), South Africa (under apartheid), Iraq (under Saddam), and other states.
→ read full articleThese Five Countries Are Conduits for the World’s Biggest Tax Havens
Javier Garcia-Bernardo, Eelke Heemskerk, Frank Takes and Jan Fichtner – The Conversation,
31 Jul 2017
Tax sheltering is not just the domain of exotic Caribbean isles. Major world powers, including the United Kingdom, play a critical and previously undisclosed role in global tax avoidance. A new study has now uncovered all the world’s corporate tax havens and, for the first time, revealed the intermediary countries that companies use to funnel their money into these places.
→ read full articleDon’t Feed the Nuclear Club
Khalil Bendib – Other Words,
24 Jul 2017
Nuclear-armed countries completely sat out a new treaty to ban the devastating weapons.
→ read full articleOpen Letter of California Scholar for Academic Freedom (Palestine/Israel)
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jul 2017
22 Jul 2017 – Open Letter prepared under the direction of Vida Samiian of State University of California at Fresno on behalf of California scholars defending against any effort to abridge academic freedom anywhere in the world. Here the focus is on the role of the right-wing media in creating a climate of opinion that supports frantic Zionist efforts to intimidate and punish vocal critics of Israel, creating a crisis of confidence with regard to the exercise of academic freedom.
→ read full articleThe “Deep State” Then and Now
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jul 2017
So much of the ongoing propaganda travels under the banner of “the war on terror,” which is, of course, an outgrowth of the attacks of September 11, 2001, appropriately named and constantly reinforced as 9/11 in a wonderful example of linguistic mind-control: a constant emergency to engender anxiety, depression, panic, and confusion, four of the symptoms that lead the DSM “experts” and their followers to diagnose and drug individuals.
→ read full articleChallenging Nuclearism: The Nuclear Ban Treaty Assessed
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
As of now the NBT is a treaty text that courteously mandates the end of nuclearism, but to convert this text into an effective regime of control will require the kind of deep commitments, sacrifices, movements, and struggles that eventually achieved the impossible, ending such entrenched evils as slavery, apartheid, and colonialism.
→ read full articleEarth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Event Under Way, Scientists Warn
Damian Carrington – The Guardian,
17 Jul 2017
Researchers talk of ‘biological annihilation’ as study reveals billions of populations of animals have been lost in recent decades.
→ read full articleTo Be or Not to Be?
Captain Paul Watson | Sea Shepherd – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
We will be the victims of our own ignorance and our own arrogance. Homo sapiens have devolved into Homo arrogantus ignoramus. We have become trapped within a matrix of our own creation, living in a world of anthropocentric fantasies and ignoring ecological realities.
→ read full articleBiological Annihilation via the Ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction Signaled by Vertebrate Population Losses and Declines
Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich and Rodolfo Dirzo | National Academy of Sciences – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
Using a sample of 27,600 terrestrial vertebrate species, and a more detailed analysis of 177 mammal species, we show the extremely high degree of population decay in vertebrates, even in common “species of low concern.” Dwindling population sizes and range shrinkages amount to a massive anthropogenic erosion of biodiversity and of the ecosystem services essential to civilization. This “biological annihilation” underlines the seriousness for humanity of Earth’s ongoing sixth mass extinction event.
→ read full article(Português) O Encontro Bem-Aventurado da Pachamama com Gaia
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
15 julho 2017 – Quero apresentar as idéias, com as quais comungo, de um livro que sairá brevemente traduzido: A Pachamama e o Ser Humano, de Eugenio Raúl Zaffaroni, um reconhecido magistrado argentino, ministro da Suprema Corte e professor emérito da Universidade de Buenos Aires. O livro, a meu ver, se inscreve entre as melhores contribuições de ordem ecológica e filosófica que se tem escrito ultimamente.
→ read full articleHow Economics Became a Religion
John Rapley – The Guardian,
17 Jul 2017
Its moral code promises salvation, its high priests uphold their orthodoxy. But perhaps too many of its doctrines are taken on faith.
→ read full articleBetwixt and Between: The Shadowy Politics of Political (In)Correctness
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
3 Jul 2017 – Assessing the exploits of Trump, and Cosby, at least raise these difficult issues of individual and collective responsibility that need to be resolved before the country can hope to recover its moral compass, and learn to respect the dignity of all of its citizens in spite of their diversities of experience and background.
→ read full articleNaomi Klein: How Power Profits from Disaster
Naomi Klein – The Guardian,
10 Jul 2017
Take a group of people who directly profit from ongoing war and then put those same people at the heart of government. Who’s going to make the case for peace? After a crisis, private contractors move in and suck up funding for work done badly, if at all – then those billions get cut from government budgets.
→ read full article(Italiano) Il perche’ della violenza nell’essere umano e nella societa’
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
Stiamo vivendo, a livello nazionale e mondiale, situazioni di violenza che sfidano la nostra capacità di comprensione. Non solo di esseri umani contro altri esseri umani, specialmente nel nord Africa, in Sudan, in Medio oriente e tra noi, ma anche contro la natura e la Madre Terra.
→ read full articleWhat Is Quantum Computing? A Super-Easy Explanation for Anyone
Bernard Marr - Forbes,
10 Jul 2017
4 Jul 2017 – It’s fascinating to think about the power in our pocket—today’s smartphones have the computing power of a military computer from 50 years ago that was the size of an entire room. However, even with the phenomenal strides we made in technology and classical computers since the onset of the computer revolution, there remain problems that classical computers just can’t solve. Many believe quantum computers are the answer.
→ read full articleWho’s Getting Killed Today?
Clive Stafford Smith – The Times Literary Supplement,
10 Jul 2017
28 Jun 2017 – Few people are aware that every week the White House observes “Terror Tuesday”, where the US President personally approves people for death without any legal process at all… Eventually, perhaps, we will haul the world back to the legal rule announced by Emer de Vattel a mere 259 years ago, when assassination was deemed to be simply barbaric.
→ read full articleTwo Students Just Broke a Quantum Computing World Record
Tom Ward | Futurism – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
5 Jul 2017 – Researchers from Sweden have successfully simulated a 45-qubit quantum circuit, breaking the record for the greatest number of qubits to be simulated. This important milestone puts humanity one step closer to “quantum supremacy,” the point at which quantum computers could outperform any traditional computer.
→ read full articleWhat Is Fasting? A Guide to the Different Types of Fasts
Dr. Edward Group | Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Jul 2017
A fast is a voluntary practice in which people go for extended or structured periods without eating and drinking for spiritual, medical, or weight loss reasons. Others fast to protest or raise awareness for causes. Fasting is not starvation. For those who fast for health reasons, fasting is just a more structured way of eating. Some people may find fasting challenging, but there are many types of fasting regimens and protocols from which to choose.
→ read full articleUN Under Siege: Geopolitics in the Time of Trump
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
1 Jul 2017 – Why the Peoples of the World Need the UN: Multilateralism, International Law, Human Rights, and Ecological Sustainability – This post is a modified and enlarged version of a talk I gave in Geneva a week ago. The audience was a blend of students of all ages from around the world, with almost none from Europe and North America, and several NGO representatives with lots of UN experience.
→ read full article‘The Hotel Tacloban:’ A Poetic Masterpiece of War and Redemption
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
Part ventriloquistic non-fiction memoir, part history, part murder mystery, part war story, part confessional – wholly beyond categorization, really – The Hotel Tacloban is a mesmerizing read that will leave you stunned and shaken, but also awe-struck by the courage and depravity to which humans can rise and fall. So gripping is the story that I find it shocking that it hasn’t yet been made into a movie. Don’t miss it.
→ read full article(Castellano) El porqué de la violencia en el ser humano y en la sociedad
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
20 Jun 2017 – Vivimos a nivel nacional y mundial situaciones de violencia que desafían nuestro entendimiento. No solo de seres humanos contra otros seres humanos, especialmente en el Norte de África, en Sudán y en Oriente Medio, sino también contra la naturaleza y la Madre Tierra.
→ read full articleAmerica at War since 9/11: Reality or Reality TV?
Rebecca Gordon - TomDispatch,
3 Jul 2017
I now face students who have lived their entire conscious lives in a country we are told is “at war” since 2001 when George W. Bush declared a War on Terror. Theirs is the strangest of “wars,” one without sacrifice. It lacks the ration books, the blackouts, the shortages experienced during World War II. It lacks the fear that an enemy army will land on our coasts or descend from our skies. None of us fears that war will take away our food, electricity, water, or most precious of all, our Wi-Fi. For us, that is only an endless make-believe war, one that might as well be taking place on another planet in another universe.
→ read full articleJewish Ethnicity, Palestinian Solidarity, Human Identity
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
23 Jun 2017 – The following interview with Abdo Emara, an Arab journalist, was published in Arabic. There are no substantive changes from my earlier responses. I think it worthwhile to share this text because the questions asked by Abdo Emara are often directed at me in the discussion period after talks I have given recently.
→ read full article(Português) O porquê da violência no ser humano e na sociedade
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
A existência da violência, não raro sob forma de aterradora crueldade, representa um desafio para o entendimento. Teólogos, filósofos, cientistas e sábios não encontraram até hoje uma resposta convincente.
→ read full articleGrowing Awareness of Colonial Past Fuels Radicalisation, Says Czech Minister
Patrick Wintour – The Guardian,
26 Jun 2017
An awakening in the Muslim world about the atrocities committed in the West’s colonial past is feeding contemporary radicalisation of communities, said the Czech foreign minister on Wednesday [14 Jun]. Lubomír Zaorálek, likely Social Democrat candidate for prime minister, says in dark speech that the West has 20 years to reach a settlement with Muslim world.
→ read full article
Soldier Boy
Keely Hutton and Anywar Ricky Richard – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jun 2017
Greetings from Friends of Orphans in Uganda. I am delighted SOLDIER BOY has been released on June 13, 2017. I am happy that I have lived to tell the world my story, and what is happening to war victims especially the children who did not get the opportunities to tell their stories. It is my honor to represent the voice of the voiceless and I hope that many people will get to know and learn about the plight of children being used in armed forces around the world.
→ read full articleOperation Condor: US, Latin American Slaughter, Torture Program
Edward Rhymes – teleSUR,
26 Jun 2017
The United States was a major backer of the military dictatorships during the 1970s that overthrew some Latin American democracies. [From TMS Editor: I was tortured after Brazil’s 1964 CIA military coup with electric shocks to my limbs, genitals as Operation Condor ravaged Latin America in my 20’s. For the record.]
→ read full articleWhy International Justice Still Faces Roadblocks
Richard Dicker – The Washington Post,
26 Jun 2017
22 Jun 2017 – The prospects for justice for crimes against humanity and war crimes are more daunting today than at any time in the past two decades. The Rome Statute’s upcoming 20th anniversary – July 17, 2018 — may provide just such a rallying point. The ICC’s founding document, while imperfect, represents a major historical achievement when impunity, and not accountability, has for too long been the norm.
→ read full article(Português) François Houtart e Miguel d’Escoto: Servos dos Oprimidos – Frei Betto
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
13 junho 2017 – Associo-me ao Frei Betto na homenagem de dois grandes amigos comuns que tínhamos e que concluiram, na semana passada, a sua peregrinação por este mundo: o teólogo e sociólogo belga vivendo no Equador, François Hourtart e o ex-chanceler da Nicaragua e ex-presidente da ONU 2008-2009, o padre Miguel d’Escoto. Foram os servos dos oprimidos duante toda a vida. Dele aprendemos a política unida à espiritualidade e a reconhecer a diplomacia como caminho para a paz entre os povos.
→ read full articleOvercoming Nuclear Crises: North Korea and Beyond
Richard Falk and David Krieger | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
This jointly authored essay was initially published in The Hill on May 30, 2017 under the title, Averting the Ticking Time Bomb of Nukes in North Korea. We did not choose such a title that is doubly misleading: our contention is not that North Korea is the core of the problem, but rather the retention of nuclear weapons by all of the states pose both crises in the context of counter-proliferation geopolitics and with respect to the possession, deployment, and development of the weaponry itself; a second objection is with the title given the piece by editors at The Hill. While acknowledging the practice of media outlets to decide on titles without seeking prior approval from authors, this title is particularly objectionable to me. The term ‘nukes’ gives an almost friendly shorthand to these most horrific of weapons, and strikes a tone that trivializes what should be regarded at all times with solemnity.
→ read full articleRemembering a Priest, a Diplomat, and a Voice for Palestine: Miguel D’Escoto
Richard Falk and Phyllis Bennis – The Nation,
19 Jun 2017
14 Jun 2017 – Father Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, who died a few days ago, was a Catholic priest and former president of the UN General Assembly. The Nicaraguan diplomat was also a leading voice of conscience on Middle East peace — as well as a cherished friend, loved and admired by both of us, who became an inspirational figure to many around the world.
→ read full articleOldest Homo Sapiens Bones Ever Found Shake Foundations of the Human Story
Ian Sample – The Guardian,
19 Jun 2017
Idea that modern humans evolved in East Africa 200,000 years ago challenged by extraordinary discovery of 300,000-year-old remains in Moroccan mine.
→ read full articleThe Galtung-Institut’s 2017 Summer Academy
Naakow Grant-Hayford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2017
At the heart of the Galtung-Institut’s Summer Academy is a resolve to equip enrolled participants with the capacity to solve complex societal conflicts by using means that are nonviolent, empathetic and constructive. A resolve that has led us to become active in the field of training peace professionals.
→ read full articleA General Solution to Economic Problems
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
I refer to the unsolved ones, not to those that are pretty satisfactorily solved already. I focus on our two acronyms SF1 and SF2, where SF can be read as Staggering Fact or as Structural Fact.
→ read full articleThe Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy: Questions, Hints and Allegations
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
Robert Kennedy, like his brother John, was a great danger to those virulent forces of war and oppression within his own government, and he died opposing them as a true patriot. We should honor him on this day – June 6th – that he died; honor him by pursuing the truth of why he died and why it still matters. Because it does.
→ read full articleThe Declaration of Peace
Kent Drummond Shifferd | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
These are self-evident truths:
That all humans are a single family living on a fragile and endangered planet whose life support systems must remain intact if we are to survive; …
Interrogating the Qatar Rift
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
7 Jun 2017 – The abrupt announcement that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, UAE, Yemen, the Maldive Islands, and the eastern government in divided Libya have broken all economic and political ties with Qatar has given rise to a tsunami of conjecture, wild speculation, and most of all, to wishful thinking and doomsday worries… We can gain some glimmers of understanding of what is motivating these Arab governments to act against Qatar, but little sympathy.
→ read full articleDangers and Adventures in United Nations Peace Making
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
For TRANSCEND members to read and to encourage them to share their own experience of risk management.
→ read full articleOscar Winning Industry Heavy Weights Team with Sea Shepherd on Student Film Contest
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Jun 2017
8 Jun 2017 – Sea Shepherd Conservation Society partnered with a group of Hollywood industry heavyweights and a middle school from the Los Angeles Unified School District on a student filmmaking contest.
→ read full articleAverting the Ticking Time Bomb of Nukes in North Korea
Richard Falk and David Krieger | The Hill – TRANSCEND Media Service~,
5 Jun 2017
30 May 2017 – Alarmingly, tensions between the United States and North Korea have again reached crisis proportions. Until this structure of nuclearism is itself overcome, crises will almost certainly continue to occur. It is foolhardy to suppose that nuclear catastrophes can be indefinitely averted without addressing these deeper challenges that have existed ever since the original atomic attack on Hiroshima.
→ read full articleThe Galtung-Institut’s 2017 Summer Academy
Naakow Grant-Hayford – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jun 2017
From August 7 to 13, Paul Scott (USA), Kees van Der Veer (NL), Johan Galtung (NO) & Naakow Grant-Hayford (GH), all members of the TRANSCEND International Network, will be offering an intense 7 day Summer Academy dedicated to teaching actionable skills for solution-indicative conflict analysis and conflict transformation.
→ read full articleOn Zbigniew Brzezinski: Geopolitical Mastermind, Realist Practitioner
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jun 2017
When it comes to Brzezinski’s legacy, I believe it to be mixed. He was a brilliant practitioner, always able to present his views lucidly, forcefully, and with a catchy quality of coherence. In my view, his Cold War outlook was driven toward unacceptable extremes by his anti-Soviet preoccupations. After the Cold War he seemed more prudent and sensible, especially in the last twenty years, when his perceptions of world order were far more illuminating than those of Kissinger, his geopolitical other.
→ read full articleAlternate Worldviews: Davutoğlu, Kissinger, Xi Jinping
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 May 2017
This post is a much modified version of a shorter opinion piece published by the global-e online publication on May 18, 2017. It is a response to and commentary upon an essay of Ahmet Davutoğlu, former foreign minister and prime minister of Turkey.
→ read full articleTwo Sides of the Palestinian Coin: Hunger Strike/Gaza
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 May 2017
28 May 2017 – The Palestinian hunger strike protesting Israeli prison conditions was suspended on May 27th after 40 days, at a time when many of the 1000 or so strikers were experiencing serious deteriorations of health, most were by then hospitalized, and the holy period of Ramadan about to commence creating continuity between the daytime fasting of the faithful and the prior desperate protest of the strikers.
→ read full article(Português) A fome como desafio ético e espiritual
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
A pobreza é sistêmica, pois é fruto de um tipo de sociedade que tem por objetivo acumular mais e mais bens materiais sem qualquer consideração humanitária (justiça social) e ambiental (justiça ecológica). Ela pressupõe pessoas cruéis, cínicas e sem qualquer sentido de solidariedade, portanto, num contexto de alta desumaniação e até de barbárie
→ read full articleThe Palestinian Hunger Strike: “Our chains will be broken before we are…”
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
Even if this commitment is not carried through to a grim finality, it will not tarnish the significance of what has been undertaken, and the great reluctance of the world to focus its attention on such a display of nonviolent martyrdom. It appears to be the most consequential due to the participation of Marwan Barghouti along with so many other Palestinian prisoners as well as producing many displays of solidarity beyond the prison walls.
→ read full articleTrumped Up Diplomacy in the Middle East
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
20 May 2017 – As Trump dominates the news by his visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel we should not be tricked into thinking that his ‘achievements’ are hopeful developments. The only true beacons of hope for the peoples of the Middle East are the contrarian affirmations of the Palestinian hunger strike, the Rouhani electoral victory, and the BDS Campaign.
→ read full articleChelsea Manning Released from Military Prison
Ed Pilkington – The Guardian,
22 May 2017
17 May 2017 – Chelsea Manning, the army private who released a vast trove of US state secrets and was punished by the US military for months in penal conditions denounced by the UN as torture, has been released from a military prison in Kansas after serving seven years of a 35-year sentence.
→ read full articleEscaping the Iron Cage of Hopelessness
Prof. Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
In a previous article I argued that those who think science can solve our major social problems – in particular, world destruction with nuclear weapons and the poisoning of the earth’s ecology and atmosphere – were delusional and in the grip of the myth of science and technology. These problems were created by science when it became untethered from any sense of limits in its embrace of instrumental rationality.
→ read full articleOn the Intransitive Objects of the Social (or Human) Sciences
Prof. Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
Jan 2017 – When Roy Bhaskar first introduced his concept of intransitive objects of knowledge in A Realist Theory of Science, his first examples of such objects were the specific gravity of mercury, the process of electrolysis, the mechanism of light propagation, sound and heavy bodies falling to earth. Such objects would continue to exist in a world where there was no science to know them. In such a world, which has existed in the past and which might come again, the causal laws that science has now discovered would prevail in the absence of knowledge of them.
→ read full articleMyanmar Army Allegedly Left Rohingya Refugees with Bullet Wounds and Burns
Emanuel Stoakes – The Guardian,
15 May 2017
Shocking photographic evidence showing children among the injured adds weight to claims that military committed atrocities against Rohingya people.
→ read full articleConflict-sensitive Repatriation
Tatsushi Arai | ACCORD – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 May 2017
Lessons from Displaced Communities in Northeastern Nigeria
→ read full articleAt the Crazier Than Thou Contest
Khalil Bendib - OtherWords,
15 May 2017
Anything your leader can do, mine can do worse.
→ read full articleThe Industry of Inequality: Why the World Is Obsessed with Private Security
Claire Provost – The Guardian,
15 May 2017
New Guardian research shows private security workers outnumber public police officers for the majority of the world – in a business that now dwarfs what is spent trying to end global poverty.
→ read full articleIsrael’s New Cultural War of Aggression
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
A Small Battleground in a Large Culture War – The real institutional scandal is not that the UN is obsessed with Israel but rather that it is blocked from taking action that might exert sufficient pressure on Israel to induce the dismantling of apartheid structures relied upon to subjugate, displace, and dispossess the Palestinian people over the course of more than 70 years with no end in sight.
→ read full articleLet’s Call Western Media Coverage of Syria by Its Real Name: Propaganda
Michael Howard – Paste Magazine,
8 May 2017
26 Apr 2017 – In his essential study of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, University of Kent Professor Richard Sakwa writes that, somewhere down the road, Western media’s reductive, ideological coverage of the conflict “will undoubtedly become the subject of many an intriguing academic study.” That’s if the human race isn’t wiped out by environmental catastrophe or nuclear holocaust first.
→ read full article(Français) Le Portugal, l’Union Européenne et l’Euro – interview avec João Ferreira
Ricardo Vaz | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
3 Mai 2017 – Au Portugal, un changement de gouvernement après les élections législatives de 2015 a mis fin à l’austérité imposée par la troïka ce qui a permis un revirement de certaines politiques. Mais des problèmes structurels persistent en raison de la nature de l’UE et de ses mécanismes, en particulier la monnaie unique. Pour discuter de la situation politique au Portugal, nous avons interviewé João Ferreira du Parti Communiste Portugais; il est membre du Comité Central du PCP, conseiller municipal à Lisbonne et deux fois élu au Parlement européen.
→ read full articleScientists and Sea Shepherd Team on Humpback Whale Research and Microplastics in Ocean
Sea Shepherd News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
26 Apr 20917 – Sea Shepherd joined forces with a group of scientists last month to conduct research on two separate projects off the coast of Mexico: humpback whales and ocean plastics.
→ read full articleThe CIA Has a Long History of Killing or Trying to Kill Leaders around the World
Ewen MacAskill – The Guardian,
8 May 2017
US intelligence agency has since 1945 succeeded in deposing or killing a string of leaders, but was forced to cut back after a Senate investigation in the 1970s. The US never totally abandoned the strategy, simply changing the terminology from assassination to targeted killings, from aerial bombing of presidents to drone attacks on alleged terrorist leaders.
→ read full articleMarching in Circles: Faustian Thinking and the Myth of Science
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 May 2017
Nature and all living creatures, including ourselves, have become our enemies and are rejected as ends in themselves. Everything and everyone is a means. We must bomb, bulldoze, manipulate, drug, control, poison, etc. – all in the service of a diabolical willfulness that brooks no resistance.
→ read full articleWhen NGOs Save Children Who Don’t Want to Be Saved
Neil Howard – Al Jazeera,
1 May 2017
Western media misrepresent voluntary child labour as slavery.
→ read full articleTrump versus International Liberalism: Should We Care?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 May 2017
Only civil society militancy on an unprecedented scale can create a mandate for the kind of global transformation in ideas and structures are necessary to enable a sustainable future resting on the values of eco-humanism. If this analysis is correct, Trumpism and liberalism are nothing but sideshows.
→ read full articleStuck in the Middle, South Korea Has Few Options for Securing Peace with Its Northern Neighbour
Bernard Loo Fook Weng – The Conversation,
1 May 2017
South Korea must seek to strike a balance in its respective strategic and economic relationships.
→ read full articleWho Is Behind the State Department’s Coup Plot in Venezuela?
Misión Verdad – teleSUR,
1 May 2017
Creating a distorted image of the humanitarian crisis is the starting point. Painting a picture of a country on the verge of collapse is the alibi.
→ read full articleMarch for Science Puts Earth Day Focus on Global Opposition to Trump
Oliver Milman – The Guardian,
24 Apr 2017
More than 600 marches held around the world, with organizers saying science ‘under attack’ from a White House that dismisses the threat of climate change. • Why March for Science? Because when it is attacked, only elites benefit
→ read full articlePutting a Value on Injuries to Natural Assets: The BP Oil Spill
Richard C. Bishop, et al* | American Association for the Advancement of Science – Science Magazine,
24 Apr 2017
21 Apr 2017 – BP Oil Spill Damage to Natural Resources Valued at $17.2 Billion, Scientists Find: When large-scale accidents cause catastrophic damage to natural or cultural resources, government and industry are faced with the challenge of assessing the extent of damages and the magnitude of restoration that is warranted.
→ read full articleThe Zookeeper’s Wife: Reflections on Past and Present
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
I do honor the memory of the Holocaust as a prime experience of unrestrained evil, forever a source of mourning and foreboding, and acknowledge that I have a certain degree of ‘survivor guilt’ having been so arbitrarily spared despite my ethnic eligibility for the gas chamber. At the same time, I refuse to defer to that past by disregarding present evil, no matter the perpetrator. The Palestinian experience of victimization is severe, prolonged, ongoing, without an end in sight.
→ read full articleCelebrating the Fifth of May
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
If you have successfully freed your twenty-first century mind from enslavement to the jurisprudence of the eighteenth century, you will have no trouble accepting the cancellation of debts. If you are a realist about the evolution of the human species on the planet earth, you will see necessary or desirable debt cancellation as just another adjustment of culture to its physical functions.
→ read full article(Português) Bugios: eles não precisam de mais uma ameaça!
Leonardo Merçon | Conexão Planeta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
Quando parei para fotografar a cena, um destes macacos, que estava com o grupo, que dormia todo encolhido e junto para se proteger do frio, levantou a cabeça me direcionou um olhar bem profundo. Aquele olhar me comoveu. Na hora, senti que aquela foto um dia serviria para uma causa maior. Fui para casa, editei a imaem e guardei para utilizá-la no momento certo.
→ read full article‘A National Disgrace’: Catalogue of Animal Suffering at Scottish Abattoirs Revealed
Andrew Wasley and Rob Edwards - The Bureau of Investigative Journalism,
24 Apr 2017
19 Apr 2017 – Cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens have been found injured, emaciated, diseased or dead on arrival at abattoirs. Numerous animals were slaughtered while heavily pregnant or had to be repeatedly stunned before they were killed. “It shows without a shadow of a doubt that the business of slaughtering animals is brutal and all too often is conducted without a thought for either the law or the appalling suffering of the animals involved.”
→ read full articleIrish Recollections: After the Cork Conference on ‘International Law and the State of Israel’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Apr 2017
14 Apr 2017 – Palestinian wounds will not heal until a credible reconciliation process is established that includes Israeli official acknowledgements of historic wrongdoing centered on the nakba, conceived of as a process of dispossession, displacement, and domination.
→ read full articleHow the Refugee Crisis Is Dealing another Blow to Europe’s Roma
Julija Sardelic and Aidan McGarry - teleSUR,
17 Apr 2017
Romani minorities like Manouche, Kale and Sinti have lived in Europe since the 14th century when they arrived from India, and have been in Europe often for as long as majority populations. You will find Roma in every European country. There are some 10-12 million Romani people on the continent and they often suffer from socio-economic marginalization. They are singled out as unwanted foreigners and deemed perpetual migrants and outsiders.
→ read full articleLeonardo da Vinci (15 Apr 1452 – 2 May 1519)
leonardodavinci – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
In 1466, at the age of fourteen, Leonardo was apprenticed to one of the most successful artists of his day, Andrea di Cione, known as Verrocchio. Verrocchio’s workshop was at the centre of the intellectual currents of Florence, assuring the young Leonardo of an education in the humanities.
→ read full articleThe U.S. Attack on al-Shayrat Airfield
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
There are two clusters of serious questions raised. Is this a new turn toward belligerent internationalism by the Trump presidency that will shape the near future of American foreign policy in the Middle East, and possibly elsewhere? Does the reversion to unilateralism with respect to international uses of force heighten the risks of geopolitical escalation and large-scale warfare, including possibly the threat or use of nuclear weapons?
→ read full articleThe Silent Cries of Hiding Children: Fifty Years after MLK’s Riverside Church Speech
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
“A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war. This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social up lift is approaching spiritual death.” — MLK
→ read full articleThe Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Is Over – What’s Needed Now Is a Boycott
Mike Merryman-Lotze | OtherWords, Institute for Policy Studies – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Apr 2017
With the U.S. now firmly in the pro-settler camp, nonviolent campaigns to impose a cost on Israel’s occupation matter more than ever. The White House is creating new problems in Israel-Palestine, but ordinary people can start setting things right.
→ read full article(Français) Richard Falk : de nombreux dirigeants israéliens ont eux-mêmes annoncé depuis longtemps qu’Israël deviendrait un État d’apartheid…
Richard Falk | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
Une enquête sur l’apartheid dans le contexte israélien n’est pas quelque chose de scandaleux, ni même de particulièrement nouveau.
→ read full articleIsraeli Guidelines Point to Largely Unconstrained Settlement Expansion
Peter Beaumont – The Guardian,
3 Apr 2017
31 Mar 2017 – Israel has indicated it will pursue a unilateral policy of largely unconstrained settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories, as it announced the first new settlement in two decades. Plan outlined by Benjamin Netanyahu would allow building within boundaries of existing blocks, adjacent to them, or close to the blocs.
→ read full articleHow the United Nations Should Respond in the Age of Global Dissent
Richard Falk, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck – New Statesman,
3 Apr 2017
Three Former UN Insiders on the Future of the World’s Most Ambitious Organisation
→ read full article(Castellano) A la cultura de la violencia oponemos la cultura de la paz
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
Al abordar el tema de la paz en su encíclica, el obispo de Roma, Francisco, repite lo que Gandhi y otros maestros han dicho antes: «la paz no es ausencia de guerra. La paz interior de las personas tiene mucho que ver con el cuidado, con la ecología y con el bien común, porque cuando es auténticamente vivida, se refleja en un equilibrado estilo de vida, aliado con la capacidad de admiración que lleva a la profundidad de la vida; la naturaleza está llena de palabras de amor».
→ read full article