Articles by ICH
We found 2555 results.
What Was Wrong with Obama’s Speech in Jerusalem
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Mar 2013
In retrospect, worse than speech was the visit itself. Obama should never have undertaken such the visit without an accompanying willingness to treat the Palestinian reality with at least equal dignity to that of the Israeli reality and without some indication of how to imagine a just peace based on two states for two peoples given the severe continuing Israeli encroachments on occupied Palestinian territory that give every indication of permanence.
→ read full articleWhat Isn’t Being Said: Soldier Suicides
Alyssa Rohricht - CounterPunch,
25 Mar 2013
Suicides in the U.S. military have been climbing, reaching a record high in 2012 when 349 soldiers took their own lives, about one every 25 hours. By comparison, 301 U.S. soldiers died in active combat in 2012, marking the third time in four years that the number of military suicides has surpassed the number of deaths in combat of U.S. soldiers.
→ read full articleThe Iraq War: 10 Years Later
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Mar 2013
After a decade of combat, casualties, massive displacement, persisting violence, enhanced sectarian tension and violence between Shi’ias and Sunnis, periodic suicide bombings, and autocratic governance, a negative assessment of the Iraq War as a strategic move by the United States, United Kingdom, and a few of their secondary allies, including Japan, seems near universal.
→ read full articleNorth Korea or the United States: Who is a Threat to Global Security?
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
11 Mar 2013
North Korea lost thirty percent of its population as a result of US-led bombings in the 1950s. Most people in America consider North Korea as an inherently aggressive nation and a threat to global security. Media disinformation sustains North Korea as a “rogue state”. The history of the Korean War and its devastating consequences are rarely mentioned. America is portrayed as the victim rather than the aggressor.
→ read full articleEnvisioning a World without Nuclear Weapons
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2013
Book Review – Zero: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, by David Krieger, 2013, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. I have known David Krieger for the past twenty-five years, and he has never wavered, even for a day, from his lifelong journey dedicated to ridding the world of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war.
→ read full articleInvestigate the Death of Arafat Jaradat
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2013
What follows is a news report prompted by my press release on the shocking treatment of Arafat Jaradat who died while being held in an Israel prison. 27 February 2013 – A United Nations human rights expert today called for an international investigation into the death of Palestinian prisoner Arafat Jaradat, who died in Israeli custody just a few days after his arrest.
→ read full articleLords of Disorder: Billions for Wall Street, Sacrifice for Everyone Else
Richard Eskow, Campaign for America’s Future – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2013
We’re collecting nothing from the big banks in return for our generosity. Instead we’re demanding sacrifice from the elderly, the disabled, the poor, the young, the middle class – pretty much everybody, in fact, who isn’t “too big to fail.”
→ read full article(Português) McDonald´s É Alvo de Inquérito da Polícia Federal Brasileira
Michelle Amaral – Brasil de Fato,
25 Feb 2013
15 Fev 2013 – O McDonald´s está sendo investigado pela Polícia Federal por suspeita de submissão de seus funcionários a condições análogas à escravidão. A PF instaurou o inquérito policial após denúncia de não pagamento de salários a uma funcionária durante os oito meses em que ela trabalhou em um dos restaurantes da rede de fast food.
→ read full articleReflections on Teju Cole’s OPEN CITY
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2013
Anyone interested in the world, or for that matter, an affection for the greatest of modern cities—New York—will find Teju Cole’s Open City, a feast for both mind and heart.
→ read full articleAbyss of Uncertainty: Germany’s Homemade Nuclear Waste Disaster
Michael Fröhlingsdorf, Udo Ludwig and Alfred Weinzierl – Der Spiegel,
25 Feb 2013
Some 126,000 barrels of nuclear waste have been dumped in the Asse II salt mine over the last 50 years. German politicians are pushing for a law promising their removal. But the safety, technical and financial hurdles are enormous, and experts warn that removal is more dangerous than leaving them put.
→ read full articleBeyond the Haunted Imagination
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
Ever since atomic bombs were exploded over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of World War II end of the world forebodings have been present in Western cultural consciousness. In the background of such thinking is the religious anticipation of a day of judgment when life in earth will be replaced by the consignment of everyone then living to either the hell of damnation or the heaven of salvation.
→ read full articleUrgent UN Press Statement: Release Palestinian Hunger Strikers Now
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
The following press statement was issued 13 February 2013 under the auspices of the UN Human Rights Council in my capacity as Special Rapporteur for Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967. This nonviolent resistance to unlawful and abusive detention practices by Israel is a human rights outrage that should be the occasion of media attention and a worldwide outcry. I encourage all who can to exert pressure on Israel before these individuals die in captivity. They are currently reported to be in grave condition. Please use all social networking tools to alert contacts.
→ read full articleA Key Question: How Do We Make the Economy Work for the Poor?
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
We want to make a case for the claim that “unbounded organization” is a useful concept, indeed a key concept. A key opens doors. We use the word “key” to suggest that the concept of unbounded organization can be said to “open doors.” It helps to answer questions and to resolve problems regarding not just one but several theoretical problems in the social sciences. Similarly the practical question posed in the title of this chapter, “How do we make the economy work for the poor?” can be regarded as a question whose satisfactory answer would “open” answers to other crucial practical questions such as, “How can violent conflicts be transformed into peaceful cooperation?”
→ read full articleThe Military’s Pandora’s Box: The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program-HAARP
Dr. Nick Begich and Jeane Manning – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
This article was prepared to provide a summary of the contents of a book written in 1995 which describes an entirely new class of weapons. The individuals who are demanding answers about the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program-HAARP are scattered around the planet. As well as bush dwellers in Alaska, they include: a physician in Finland; a scientist in Holland; an anti-nuclear protester in Australia; independent physicists in the United States; a grandmother in Canada, and countless others.
→ read full articleThe Hubris of the Drones
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
Our blind faith in technology combined with a false sense of infallible righteousness continues unabated. Such hubris brought us to grief in Vietnam and Iraq and may do so again with President Obama’s cold-blooded use of drones and his indifference to so-called “collateral damage,” grossly referred to by some in the military as “bug splat,” and otherwise known as innocent bystanders.
→ read full articleForget ‘Normal’ Politics
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2013
Political life is filled with policy choices that are made mainly on the basis of calculations of advantage, as well as reflecting priorities and values of those with the power of decision. In a constitutional framework of governance the rule of law sets outer limits as to permissible outcomes.
→ read full articleTargeted Killing and Drone Warfare
Michael Walzer – Dissent,
11 Feb 2013
It is always a hard question whether new technologies require the revision of old arguments. Targeted killing isn’t new, and I am going to repeat an old argument about it. But targeted killing with drones? Here the old arguments, though they still make sense, leave me uneasy. Imagine a world, which we will soon be living in, where everybody has drones.
→ read full articleAn Indispensable Book on Palestine/Israel
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2013
I realize that without knowing it, I have long waited for this book, although I could not have imagined its lyric magic in advance of reading. It is a triumph of what I would call ‘intelligent innocence,’ the great benefits of a clear mind, an open and warm heart, and a trustworthy moral compass that draws sharp lines between good and evil while remaining ever sensitive to the contradictory vagaries of lives and geographic destinies.
→ read full articleWho’s Faking It? Pentagon “Cyber-Warriors” Planting “False Information on Facebook”
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich – Global Research,
28 Jan 2013
The Los Angeles Times published an alarming piece entitled “Cyber Corps program trains spies for the digital age”. The “cyber-warriors” who are headed for organizations such as the CIA, NSC, FBI, the Pentagon and so on, are trained [among other illegalities] to stalk, sneak tracking devices on cars and plant false information on Facebook. They also are taught to write computer viruses, hack digital networks, crack passwords, plant listening devices and mine data from broken cellphones and flash drives.
→ read full articlePalestine-Israel: Enslavement of the False Self
Yago Abeledo interviewing Richard Forer – Redress Information and Analysis,
28 Jan 2013
The real conflict is the inability to integrate the hard-to-believe but inescapable awareness of Israel’s treatment of non-Jews with unquestioned loyalty to the Jewish state. …it is only when the Palestinian people are healed that the Jewish people themselves will be healed.
→ read full articleThe Second Anniversary of Tahrir Square Rising
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Jan 2013
What inspired the world was the spontaneous spirit of unity, a movement guided by exhilarating visions of democracy and freedom and hope, generating a new kind of populism that dispensed with ideology and leaders, a sense that the people of Egypt had acted creatively and bravely to recover their country from the clutches of neoliberal predators and their domestic collaborators.
→ read full articleOn Syria: What to Do in 2013
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Jan 2013
19 Jan 2013 – I took part last week in an illuminating conference on Syria sponsored by the new Center of Middle East Studies that is part of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. This Center has been recently established, and operates under the excellent leadership of Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, who previously together edited the best collection of readings on the Green Revolution in Iran published under the title THE PEOPLE RELOADED.
→ read full articleMakers of Violent Video Games Marshal Support to Fend Off Regulation
Eric Lichtblau – The New York Times,
14 Jan 2013
With the Newtown, Conn., massacre spurring concern over violent video games, makers of popular games like Call of Duty and Mortal Kombat are rallying Congressional support to try to fend off their biggest regulatory threat in two decades.
→ read full articleSeeing Light: The Blogger’s Delight
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2013
While reflecting on my prior blog lamenting the challenges of sustaining civility amid tumult and controversy, I came to appreciate my own partial captivity in realms of darkness. The negativities I tried to discuss are the shadow land of my blog experience, which is more essentially lived in the sunshine of new and renewed friendship, solidarity, mutuality, and the new emotional and spiritual resonances of our era, what I would call, in the absence of greater precision, the emergence of ‘digital love.’
→ read full articleLosing Control: A Blogger’s Nightmare
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2013
When I started this blog a couple of years ago, the thought never entered my mind that I would need to defend the terrain. Although I knew my views were controversial on some issues, I assumed that those who disagreed strongly would stay away, losing interest, or express their disagreements in a spirit of civility. To a large extent this has been true, with the glaring exception of Israel/Palestine.
→ read full articleLatvia’s Economic Disaster as a Neoliberal Success Story – A Model for Europe and the US?
Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2013
Today’s most highly celebrated anti-labor success story is Latvia, where labor did not fight back, but simply emigrated politely and quietly. Latvia has a two-part tax on wages and social benefits that are near the highest in the world, while real estate taxes are well below US and EU averages. Meanwhile, capital gains are lightly taxed, and the country has become successful as a capital flight and tax avoidance haven for Russians and other post-Soviet kleptocrats that has permitted Latvia to “afford” de-industrialization, depopulation and de-socialization.
→ read full articleAn Open Letter of Response to CRIF (Counsèil Représentif des Institutions juives de France)
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2012
I am shocked and saddened that your organization would label me as an anti-Semite and self-hating Jew. It is utterly defamatory, and such allegations are entirely based on distortions of what I believe and what I have done. To confuse my criticisms of Israel with self-hatred of myself as a Jew or with hatred of Jews is a calumny.
→ read full articleIn Further Memory of Edward Said
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2012
Always, always
That voice
remains
is gone
needed…
Neville Alexander, Unbounded Organisation, and the Future of Socialism
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2012
In the late 1980s, as apartheid neared its end, Neville Alexander called on educators to “…shape consciousness in ways that are looking forward, in ways that are preparing people for a liberated, non-racial, democratic, and socialist South Africa.” Is Neville Alexander’s life’s work a contribution to a revolution that is still happening?
→ read full articleResponding to the Unspeakable Killings at Newtown, Connecticut
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Dec 2012
The template of response has become a national liturgy in light of the dismal pattern of public response: media sensationalism of a totalizing kind, at once enveloping, sentimental, and tasteless (endless interviewing of surviving children and teachers, and even family members of victims), but dutifully avoiding deeper questions relating to guns, violence, and cultural stimulants and conditioning.
→ read full articleEgypt: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Dec 2012
10 Dec 2012 – I have had the opportunity to be in Cairo three times for brief visits in the last 20 months, the first a few weeks after the departure of Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011, the second in February of 2012 when the revolutionary process was treading water, and this third one over the course of the previous ten days. What is striking is how drastically the prevailing mood and expectations have changed from visit to visit, how fears, hopes, and perceptions have altered over time, and why they are likely to continue to do so.
→ read full articleHamas, Khaled Mashaal and Prospects for a Sustainable Israel/Palestine Peace
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Dec 2012
The most important element of context that needs to be taken into account is the seeming inconsistency between the fiery language used by Mashaal in Gaza and his far more moderate tone in the course of several interviews with Western journalists in recent weeks. In those interviews Mashaal had clearly indicated a readiness for a long-term hudna or truce, provided that Israel ended its occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and agreed to uphold Palestinian rights under international law.
→ read full articleEncyclopedia of World Problems Has a Big One of Its Own
Daniel Michaels- The Wall Street Journal,
17 Dec 2012
[TRANSCEND member] Anthony Judge’s career has been peppered with problems, from Aarskog Syndrome to Zoonotic bacterial diseases, dandruff, ignorance, kidney disorders and sabotage. He spent more than two decades editing the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, a 3,000-page tome with almost 20,000 entries. It was Mr. Judge’s brainchild when he helped run the Union of International Associations, a century-old grouping of groups that began in an effort to categorize all human knowledge.
→ read full articleVisit to Gaza: UN Press Release
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Dec 2012
The Special Rapporteur [Falk] noted that his visit to the region consisted of meetings in Cairo and the Gaza Strip, with Governmental, inter-governmental and civil society representatives, as well as victims and witnesses. He received helpful briefings from UNRWA and other United Nations agencies, which provided an in-depth picture of the magnitude of the challenges in Gaza and the difficulties of addressing such challenges in a situation of occupation and blockade.
→ read full articleObserving the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Cairo
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Dec 2012
Text of my remarks delivered in Cairo at joint UN/Arab League ceremony marking the observance of the 2012 International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 29 Nov 2012, some 10 hours prior to the historic vote in the UN General Assembly.
→ read full articleThe Gaza Ceasefire: An Early Assessment
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Nov 2012
The Gaza Ceasefire, unlike a similar ceasefire achieved after Operation Cast Lead four years ago, is an event that has a likely significance far beyond ending the violence after eight days of murderous attacks. It is just possible that it will be looked back upon as a turning point in the long struggle between Israel and Palestine.
→ read full articleModernity’s Other and the Transformation of the University – II
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
Short Answers to Simple Questions
→ read full articleWhy BP Isn’t a Criminal
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
BP plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and agreed to pay $4 billion over the next five years. But it defies logic to make BP itself the criminal. Corporations aren’t people. They can’t know right from wrong. They’re incapable of criminal intent. They have no brains. They’re legal fictions — pieces of paper filed away in a vault in some bank.
→ read full articleThe Latest Gaza Catastrophe: Will They Ever Learn?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
Obama was quoted as saying, “There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside of its borders. We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.” Much is missing from such a sentiment, most glaringly, the absence of any balancing statement along the following line: “and no country would tolerate the periodic assassination of its leaders by missiles fired by a neighboring country, especially during a lull achieved by a mutually agreed truce. It is time for both sides to end the violence, and establish an immediate ceasefire.”
→ read full articleLegacy and Re/volution: Talkin’ bout an Evolution
Caridad Svich, Theater Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
It is perhaps ironic that the last two centuries of cultural turns have focused so much on visual culture and its interpretation, and that science and technology have devoted so much of its research and energy to the development of progressively sophisticated information and entertainment devices (not to mention surveillance and military devices) geared to the visual imagination and its hyperlink-ing strategies. My questions here have less to do with technical advances in the disciplines of design and engineering, and more to do with the philosophical foundations of how we see and how we hear in culture – what we choose to see and hear and not. Ethics again. Yes. Civic responsibility. Spiritual responsibility.
→ read full articleAn Open Letter on My 82nd Birthday
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
Exactly two years ago I wrote my first blog. Throughout this period it has been a bittersweet experience consisting of work, play, challenge, and occasional consternation. Many warm and generous responses have given me an appreciation of the distinctive satisfactions of cyber connectivity.
→ read full articleRaising the Stakes in Asia
Richard Javad Heydarian – Foreign Policy in Focus,
12 Nov 2012
The U.S. pivot to Asia is motivated and shaped by both economic and military-strategic factors. Essentially, it is still an ongoing process that will depend on the cooperation of regional allies as well as the evolving patterns of Sino-American relations. The growing U.S. military presence may have boosted the morale of allies such as the Philippines, but it is also shifting the focus away from diplomacy and dialogue towards brinkmanship and competitive alliance-building.
→ read full articleFurther Reflections on Istanbul as Global Capital
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Nov 2012
My proposal that we consider the possibility of treating Istanbul as the world capital attracted a broad range of responses. I tried to make clear in my revised text that Istanbul could not hope to have this kind of recognition until Turkey had addressed some serious issues, especially the Kurdish grievances that have induced a massive hunger strike in Turkish jails (with over 600 prisoners now taking part, and more threatening to do so).
→ read full articleAmerica’s Nuclear Safety under Scrutiny after Oyster Creek’s Sandy Alert
Richard Schiffman – The Guardian,
5 Nov 2012
If superstorm Sandy, and the increasing frequency of other extreme weather events in recent years is any evidence, America’s luck may be running out. Oyster Creek nuclear power station was offline on Monday [29 Oct 2012] for maintenance, but officials said Sandy’s storm surge came within 6in of damaging its cooling system.
→ read full articleIstanbul: A Modest Proposal
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Nov 2012
My most trusted Turkish friends felt that it grossly exaggerated Istanbul’s credentials as a possible future world capital, and in deference, I will tone down some of the language, and call attention to some problematic features of the Turkish political landscape that should not be ignored in proposing such a status for Istanbul.
→ read full articleThe New “Golden Age of Oil” That Wasn’t
Michael T. Klare – TomDispatch,
22 Oct 2012
Forecasts of Abundance Collide with Planetary Realities
→ read full articleHomegrown Terrorism and Terrorism by Association
Michael S. Rozeff - LewRockwell,
22 Oct 2012
How misleading can a “news” article get? Try this headline: “Federal Reserve bombing plot foiled in NYC”. There never was a plot independent of the FBI to foil. The plot was of the FBI’s own devising and instigation. There never was an ongoing crime for the FBI to detect and stop.
→ read full articleBeyond Language: Reflections on the Arakan Tragedy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Oct 2012
Yesterday [14 Oct 2012] I listened to the wife of the Prime Minister, Emine Erdogan, speak about her recent harrowing visit to the Rohingya people in the federal state of Arakan ( mainly known in the West as Rakhine) who are located in northwestern Myanmar (aka Burma). The Rohingya are a Muslim minority numbering over one million, long victimized locally and nationally in Burma and on several occasions over the years their people have been brutally massacred and their villages burned.
→ read full articleHope, Wisdom, Law, Ethics, and Spirituality in Relation to Killing and Dying: Persisting Syrian Dilemmas
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Oct 2012
In appraising political developments most of us rely on trusted sources, our overall political orientation, what we have learned from past experience, and our personal hierarchy of hopes and fears. No matter how careful, and judicious, we are still reaching conclusions in settings of radical uncertainty, which incline our judgments to reflect a priori and interpretative biases.
→ read full article(Italian) La Nuova “Età Dell’Oro” (Che Non C’È Stata) del Petrolio
Michael T. Klare – Centro Studi Sereno Regis,
15 Oct 2012
Le previsioni di abbondanza si scontrano con le realtà del pianeta.
→ read full articleWas It Wrong to Support the Iranian Revolution in 1978 (Because It Turned Out Badly)?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Oct 2012
As with the days of the Shah, Iran urgently requires an emancipatory politics that liberates from within, and regenerates the hopes of the Iranian people. What Iran does not need is an Israeli-American military strike or destabilization moves funded and promoted from without. Intervention by way of military attack, or even in the form of strong economic sanctions (as present), stabilize the regime in Tehran and impose added hardships on the Iranian people.
→ read full articleGerman State TV Reports: Syrian Rebels Claim Responsibility for Attack on Turkey
R. Teichmann – News Beacon Ireland,
8 Oct 2012
Translation: “Rocket and mortar fire. Turkey takes revenge after an attack from the Syrian side. Yesterday afternoon Syrian rebels fired on a Turkish village close to the border. For weeks Ankara had warned against provoking Turkey. Meanwhile Syrian rebels officially claimed responsibility for the provocation.”
→ read full articleIraq: Ten Years, a Million Lives and Trillions of Dollars Later
Dennis Kucinich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Oct 2012
Ten years ago today [2 Oct 2012] the debate over the Iraq War came to Congress in the form of a resolution promoted by the Bush Administration. The war in Iraq will cost the United States as much as $5 trillion. It played a role in spurring the global financial crisis. Four thousand, four hundred, eighty eight Americans were killed. More than 33,000 were injured. As many as 1,000,000 innocent Iraqi civilians were killed. The monetary cost of the war to Iraq is incalculable. A sectarian civil war has ravaged Iraq for nearly a decade. Iraq has become home to Al Qaeda.
→ read full articleApollo’s Curse and Climate Change
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Oct 2012
The sad story of Cassandra is suggestive of the dilemma confronting the climate change scientific community. In modern civilization, interpreting scientific evidence and projecting trends, is as close to trustworthy prophesy as this civilization is likely to get. The culture is supposed to place its highest trust in the scientific community as the voice of reason, and modernity is largely understood as allowing scientific truth and instrumental reason to supersede superstition and religious revelation.
→ read full articleReviving My Blog after China
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Oct 2012
While in China the media was dominated by the intense Chinese reaction to the Japanese government decision to purchase the Daioyu Islands (called Senkaku Islands by Japan) from private Japanese owners, which was interpreted as a provocative step toward implementing Japanese disputed sovereignty claims.
→ read full articleStaunching Syria’s Wounds
Wadlen Bello and Richard Javad Heydarian – Foreign Policy in Focus,
1 Oct 2012
There is hardly an “international community” to speak of as far as Syria is concerned. There are basically three camps: The first camp is composed of anti-Assad hawks, mainly NATO countries and Sunni powers like Saudi Arabia. The second camp is composed of Eastern powers and Syrian allies such as Russia, China, and Iran. The last camp, or the “third way,” is composed of developing countries, from India to Brazil, that are deeply disturbed by the ongoing violence in Syria.
→ read full articleThree Principles for Reconstructing the Economy
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2012
First Principle: The needs of those who need to sell something to live (to sell either their labor or some other saleable item) usually exceed effective demand. There are more sellers than buyers. Therefore, in a green, responsible, plural and caring (or “solidarity”) economy there must be work (or some other source of livelihood) that does not depend on sales.
→ read full articleTerror Delisting the MEK Is a Cynical Sham
Richard Silverstein – The Guardian,
24 Sep 2012
The dissident group’s lavish lobbying has paid off: hoping to look tough on Iran, the Obama administration has enlisted the MEK in a proxy war. US officials leaked to several news outlets Friday [21 Sep 2012] an impending decision by the Obama administration that it intends to remove the Iranian dissident group Mujahadeen e-Khalq (MEK) from the treasury department’s terror list.
→ read full articleParadoxes of Turkish Pride
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Sep 2012
Turkey is now an important middle power at the United Nations. It provides a diplomatic venue for many international events that used to be held in Europe. Its courageous Somalia initiative has given Turkey a post-colonial identity in Africa that no other non-African government has been able to achieve. It is my belief that Turkey more than any other country in the 21st century has increased its relevance to the conduct of regional and global politics.
→ read full articleNetanyahu’s Secret War Plan: Leaked Document Outlines Israel’s “Shock and Awe” Plan to Attack Iran
Richard Silverstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Sep 2012
In the past few days, I received an Israeli briefing document outlining Israel’s war plans against Iran. The document was passed to me by a high-level Israeli source who received it from an IDF officer. My source, in fact, wrote to me that normally he would not leak this sort of document, but:
→ read full article(Portuguese) Por Que Defendemos o WikiLeaks e Assange
Michael Moore e Oliver Stone, Outras Palavras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Sep 2012
Se Assange for extraditado para os Estados Unidos, as consequência repercutirão por anos, em todo o mundo. Assange não é cidadão norte americano, e nenhuma de suas ações aconteceu em solo norte americano. Se Washington puder processar um jornalista nessas circunstâncias, os governos da Rússia ou da China poderão, pela mesma lógica, exigir que repórteres estrangeiros em qualquer lugar do mundo sejam extraditados por violar as suas leis. Criar esse precedente deveria preocupar profundamente a todos, admiradores do WikiLeaks ou não.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks and Free Speech
Michael Moore and Oliver Stone – International Herald Tribune-NYT,
27 Aug 2012
If Mr. Assange is extradited to the United States, the consequences will reverberate for years around the world. Mr. Assange is not an American citizen, and none of his actions have taken place on American soil. If the United States can prosecute a journalist in these circumstances, the governments of Russia or China could, by the same logic, demand that foreign reporters anywhere on earth be extradited for violating their laws. The setting of such a precedent should deeply concern everyone, admirers of WikiLeaks or not.
→ read full articleTen Years of AKP Leadership in Turkey
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Aug 2012
It needs to be appreciated that Turkey viewed from outside by most informed observers, especially in the region, remains a shining success story, both economically and politically. Nothing could bring more hope and pride to the region than for the Turkish ascent to be achieved elsewhere, of course, allowing for national variations of culture, history, and resource endowments, but sharing the commitment to build an inclusive democracy in which the military stays in the barracks and the diplomats take pride in resolving and preventing conflicts.
→ read full articleThe Invisible Majority: Married Girls in the Somali Refugee Camps
Ashley Lackovich-van Gorp – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Aug 2012
Marriage does not turn a 12-year-old girl into a woman. The 2003 World Health Organization, United Nations Population Fund and Population Council report, “Married Adolescents: An Overview,” reveals that in comparison with unmarried peers, married girls have less education, less mobility, less exposure to the media and less access to social networks and basic services (25-34).
→ read full articlePalestinian Hunger Strikes: Why Still Invisible?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2012
When it is realized that Mahatma Gandhi shook the British Empire with a series of hunger strikes, none lasting more than 21 days, it is shameful that Palestinian hunger strikers ever since last December continue to exhibit their extreme courage by refusing food for periods ranging between 40 and over 90 days, and yet these exploits are unreported by the media and generally ignored by relevant international institutions.
→ read full articleToward a New Geopolitics?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Aug 2012
The Chinese proverb is correct in its chilling reminder that ‘it is a curse to live in interesting times,’ but given the changing historical experiences with warfare, the growing sense of great ecological hazard, and the strengthening attachment to global justice agendas, maybe just this once, the fascinations of our age will turn out to be ‘a blessing.’
→ read full articleSoul Searching and Common Sense after Oak Creek
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Aug 2012
President Obama has responded to the killing of six members of the Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin this last Sunday [5 Aug 2012] with these words: “All of us recognize that these kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much regularity….” To fail to mention the grotesque absurdity of legally allowing almost everyone in the United States to buy assault weapons and large quantities of ammunition online or at neighborhood shops can only be explained by the intimidating influence of the gun lobby, and its accompanying gun culture, in this country as currently heightened by an ongoing, nasty presidential election campaign.
→ read full articleFrom Poverty to Power – How Good Governance Made Brazil a Model Nation
Erich Follath and Jens Gluesing – Der Spiegel,
13 Aug 2012
SPIEGEL explores how Brazil has become one of globalization’s success stories. A rigorous battle against corruption and poverty has ushered in new freedoms, growth and increasing equality, winning the country respect around the world. Western democracies consider themselves prime examples of “good governance.” But in recent years, the euro and debt crises, along with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have shattered faith in the reliability of Western institutions. Disconcerted Europeans are casting a worried eye at newly industrialized nations like China and Brazil. Can the West learn something from countries that for so long sought its advice?
→ read full articleSyria: Lamp in the Storm
Michael Nagler – YES! Mazazine,
13 Aug 2012
How can we create the right vision to support indigenous nonviolence and unarmed civilian peacekeeping? During the climactic “Quit India” campaign launched by Gandhi in 1942, there were outbreaks of violence. Earlier, in 1922, similar outbreaks had led him to suspend the non-cooperation movement. This time, however, he said, “let our lamp stay lit in the midst of this hurricane.” This is very much the precarious situation of nonviolence in Syria today.
→ read full articleBeyond Words: Poet’s Lament
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Aug 2012
Poetry at its finest stretches the expressiveness of language beyond its prior limits, not necessarily by its choice of words, but through the magical invocation of feelings embedded deeply within consciousness. When we do not respect the unspeakable by our silence we domesticate the criminality of the horror that human beings are capable of inflicting on one another, and give way to the eventual emergence of normalcy as has happened with nuclear weapons detached from the happenings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
→ read full articleThe Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic
Richard A. Muller – International Herald Tribune (NYT),
6 Aug 2012
CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.
→ read full articleFukushima: Precious Time Has Been Lost
Dr. Michel Fernex – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Aug 2012
Since 1959, an agreement signed between the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and then a number of additional legal texts, prohibit WHO from intervening in nuclear accidents. Researchers have been surprised to find that genetic damage, and above all perigenetic damage, which is responsible for genomic instability, to descendants, is far worse than to parents; and this risk increases from one generation to the next.
→ read full articleHorror: Shocking Photos and Testimony from Afghanistan’s Dawood US Military Hospital Scandal
Rebecca Elliott & Michael Hastings, BuzzFeed – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Aug 2012
If you look at only one story about the Afghan War this year, make it this one. An explosive Congressional investigation revealed horrific new details this week [27 Jul 2012] about a U.S. funded military hospital in Afghanistan that kept patients in “Auschwitz-like” conditions. Warning: Graphic images.
→ read full articleWhat Dani Dayan Says and Why It Is Interesting
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jul 2012
Dani Dayan’s article, “Israel’s Settlers Are Here to Stay,” was published by the NY Times on July 26, 2012. Dayan is the chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities, and has been long known as a leading spokesperson of the settler movement. An obvious response to such a settler screed might be to dismiss it out of hand as an extremist expression of Israeli views, which it certainly is, but it would seem a mistake to do this before taking some account of its content and timing.
→ read full articleToward a Gandhian Geopolitics: A Feasible Utopia?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jul 2012
There is no doubt that I would like to live in a borderless soft power world that was consistently attentive to human suffering, protective of the global commons, and subject to the discipline of global constitutional democracy. As global conditions now confirm, such a benign fantasy lacks political traction at present, and is thus an irresponsible worldview from the perspective of humane problem solving.
→ read full articleA Brief Further Comment on Syria
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jul 2012
Military intervention rarely succeeds, violates the right of self-determination, and often expands the scope and severity of violence, especially if carried out from the air. Furthermore, we know little about the opposition in Syria, to what extent its governance of the country would be based on the rule of law and human rights. There are confusing reports about rebel atrocities as well as concerning the role of Al Qaeda operatives leading some of the rebel forces, and also indications that Gulf money and weapons have been supplied to these forces ever since the beginning of the anti-Damascus uprising.
→ read full articleIt’s the Guns – But We All Know, It’s Not Really the Guns…
Michael Moore – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jul 2012
The United States is responsible for over 80% of all the gun deaths in the 23 richest countries combined. Both conservatives and liberals in America ceaselessly remind you that a gun cannot fire itself – that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Of course, they know they’re being intellectually dishonest. I would just alter that slogan slightly to speak the real truth: “Guns don’t kill people, Americans kill people.”
→ read full article36 Percent of Fukushima Children Have Abnormal Growths from Radiation Exposure
Michael Kelley – Business Insider,
23 Jul 2012
Of more than 38,000 children tested from the Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, 36 percent have abnormal growths – cysts or nodules – on their thyroids a year after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, as reported by ENENews.
→ read full articleFor What?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Jul 2012
Why am I giving the Palestinians so much more attention and psychic energy than the Kurds, Tibetans, or Kashmiris, and a host of other worthy causes? And how do I explain to myself a preoccupation with the unlawful, immoral, and imprudent foreign policy of the U.S. Government, the sovereign state of my residence upon whose governmental resources I depend upon for security and a range of rights?
→ read full article
Kucinich Explains “LIBOR”
DJKucinich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2012
Late last month, Barclay’s Bank, a multinational bank and financial institution based in the United Kingdom, admitted to regulators that it tried to manipulate something called “Libor” before and during the financial crisis in 2008. ”Libor” is an acronym for London Interbank Offered Rate. It is a rate used as a benchmark for the cost of lending throughout the financial system, and it is also used as a reference rate for a wide range of financial products like car loans, adjustable-rate mortgages, student loans and credit cards.
→ read full articlePros and Cons of Solidarity with the Palestinian Struggle
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jul 2012
The posture of solidarity with the struggle of ‘the other’ is more complex than it might appear at first glance… As Alsaafin powerfully reminds us who attempt to act in solidarity, while she is addressing a related message to the Palestinians, it is for the Palestinians to exert leadership and find inspiration, and for the rest of us to step to one side.
→ read full articleThe Wall Street Scandal of all Scandals
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jul 2012
“Yes, just when you thought the Street had hit bottom, an even deeper level of public-be-damned greed and corruption is revealed. Sit down and hold on to your chair.”
→ read full articleKenneth Waltz Is Not Crazy, But He Is Dangerous: Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jul 2012
It seems surprising that the ultra-establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, would go to the extreme of publishing a lead article by the noted political scientist, Kenneth Waltz, with the title “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb” in its current issue.
→ read full articleOn Human Identity
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Jul 2012
Early in my blog life I wrote about Jewish identity. It was partly an exercise in self-discovery, and partly a response to those who alleged that I was a self-hating Jew, or worse, an anti-Semite. These attacks on my character were hurtful even as I felt their distance from my actual beliefs and worldview.
→ read full articleYes, There Is an Alternative to Capitalism: Mondragon Shows the Way
Richard Wolff – The Guardian,
2 Jul 2012
There is no alternative (“Tina”) to capitalism? Why are we told a broken system that creates vast inequality is the only choice? Spain’s amazing co-op is living proof otherwise. “We are not some paradise, but rather a family of co-operative enterprises struggling to build a different kind of life around a different way of working.”
→ read full articleIs the Threat of a “Mafia State” Real?
Michael Busch – Foreign Policy in Focus,
25 Jun 2012
Earlier this spring, Moisés Naím provocatively warned against an emerging menace facing our world today—the advent of what he terms the “mafia state.” Analyzing the role of transnational organized crime in the age of globalization has been Naím’s bailiwick for some years now, and familiar readers will find little that catches them off-guard.
→ read full articleAssessing the Israel Palestine Conflict on U.S.S. Liberty Day
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jun 2012
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” I think that we need to do our best to avoid such deference to authority to overcome the weight of conventional thinking on these issues, to get around the distortions of government policy, and to do something to correct for the biased media filter that gives us such a selective presentation of the facts as the conflict unfolds.
→ read full articleA Stronger ‘Political Europe’ Might Save a Stumbling ‘Economic Europe’
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jun 2012
All is not yet lost, but there is a message beyond that of the obsessive bailout/default dialogue. It is that Europe to ensure its future must renovate its political architecture. This means overcoming the peculiar capitalist brand of economic materialism that seems perversely convinced that if money and banks are the problem, then money and banks must be the solution.
→ read full articleUN Alliance of Civilizations, Istanbul Partners Forum, May 31-June 1, 2012
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Jun 2012
The UN Alliance of Civilization (AOC) was initiated by Kofi Annan in 2005 while he was Secretary General of the UN with the joint sponsorship of Turkey and Spain, with its principal center of operations in Istanbul.
→ read full articleBeyond the Politics of Invisibility: Remembering Not to Forget Palestinian Hunger Strikers
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jun 2012
With a certain amount of fanfare in Israel and Palestine, although still severely underreported by the world media and relatively ignored by the leading watchdog human rights NGOs, it was observed with contradictory spins that the Palestinian hunger strikes had been brought to an end by agreement between the strikers and Israel.
→ read full articleWhat Can Be Done About Syria? Tragedy and Impotence
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jun 2012
The dilemma exposes the weakness of empathetic geopolitics in a world that continues to be dominated by territorially supreme sovereign states with insecure and antagonistic minorities. In the Syrian situation this tragic reality is revealed in all its horror, complexity, and contradictions. It is unacceptable to remain a passive spectator in a media wired world where events are reported visually almost as they are occurring, or immediately thereafter.
→ read full articleReflections on the Great Palestinian Prison Hunger Strikes of 2012
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 May 2012
Ché Guevara was once asked what was at the root of his revolutionary commitment. His response, which we should all take some moments to reflect upon, “it is about love.” Reading the words of Khader Adnan (‘Open Letter to the People of the World’) and Thaer Halahleh (‘Letter to my Daughter’), or the comments of Hana Shalabi’s mother and sister, or Bilal Diab’s father, led me to recall Guevara’s illuminating comment.
→ read full articleWhat is New in the Palestine/Israel Conflict
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 May 2012
The Israeli/Palestine conflict has changed its character in fundamental respects during the last couple of years.
→ read full articleModernity’s Other and the Transformation of the University – I
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 May 2012
Society as a whole and the university as a leading part of society need to revive some of the norms of African society prior to European contact. One could say the same about traditional norms in other parts of the world. I mention Africa because we are here.
→ read full articleTraining To Overcome Institutional Racial Bias in Policing
Michael Motto – Tampa Bay Times,
21 May 2012
Police officers in America shoot and kill African-Americans four times more often than whites, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That figure actually reflects progress from the 1970s, when the ratio was 8 to 1.
→ read full articleThe Nakba: 2012
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 May 2012
The recent parallel hunger strikes in Israeli prisons reignited the political imagination of Palestinians around the world, strengthening bonds of ‘solidarity’ and reinforcing the trend toward grassroots reliance on nonviolent resistance Israeli abuses.
→ read full articleChávez’s Economics Lesson for Europe
Richard Gott – The Guardian,
21 May 2012
Chávez and his co-religionaries in the new “Bolivarian revolution” have called for “21st-century socialism”, not a return to Soviet-style economics or the continuation of the mundane social democratic adaptation of capitalism, but, as the Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa has described it, the re-establishment of national planning by the state “for the development of the majority of the people”.
→ read full articleLearning from the Irish Hunger Strikes of 1981 and the Palestinian Challenge
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 May 2012
John Hurson in Ireland has been keenly conscious of the affinities between the historic Irish hunger strike of 1981 and the ongoing Palestinian hunger strikes. He has travelled to Gaza on several occasions on humanitarian aid convoys, and is the founder of the on line Gaza TV News service. I suggested that we collaborate on an article that might recall the Irish experience, especially the parallels and the potential implications for the future of the Palestinian struggle.
→ read full articleHistoric Hunger Strikes: Lightning in the Skies of Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 May 2012
Recourse to this desperate tactic of courageous self-sacrifice is an extreme form of nonviolence, and should whenever and wherever it occurs be given close attention. We cannot now know whether these hunger strikes will spark Palestinian resistance in new and creative ways. What we can already say with confidence is that these hunger strikers are writing a new chapter in the story line of resistance sumud, and their steadfastness is for me a Gandhian Moment in the Palestinian struggle.
→ read full articleJohan Galtung an Anti-Semite? I Don’t Think So!
Richard E. Rubenstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 May 2012
I think that Galtung’s main difficulty, in all this brouhaha, has been to speak carelessly and somewhat peremptorily about highly sensitive matters, previously taboo, that require much care and precision of speech in order to avoid arousing post-traumatic fears and giving an impression of insensitivity to people’s basic needs. “An anti-Semite used to be someone who didn’t like Jews. Now it means someone Jews don’t like.”
→ read full article