Articles by UN
We found 3812 results.
Why I Am a Communist!
Andre Vltchek - CounterPunch,
16 May 2016
Am I a Leninist, a Maoist, or a Trotskyist? Do I subscribe to the Soviet or the Chinese model? Frankly, I don’t care much for those nuances. To me, a true Communist is a fighter against imperialism, racism, ‘Western exceptionism’, colonialism and neo-colonialism. He or she is a determined Internationalist, a person who believes in equality and social justice for all people on this Earth.
→ read full articleThe Political Economy of Dead Meat: Why Mad Cows are the Least of It
Jeffrey St. Clair & Alexander Cockburn – Counter Punch,
16 May 2016
Intensive meat production–these days mostly of beef, veal, pork, and chicken–is an act of violence: primarily, of course, an act of violence against the creatures involved. But it is also violence against nature and against poor people. The modern livestock industry economy and the passion for meat have radically altered the look of the planet.
→ read full articleThe Great Leap Backward: America’s Illegal Wars on the World
Luciana Bohne - CounterPunch,
16 May 2016
Since 1945, America’s Manifest Destiny, posing as the Free World’s Crusade against the Red Menace, has claimed 20 to 30 million lives worldwide and bombed one-third of the earth’s people. In the 19th century, America exterminated another kind of “red menace,” writing and shredding treaties, stealing lands, massacring, and herding Native populations into concentration camps (“Indian reservations”), in the name of civilizing the “savages.” By 1890, with the massacre of Lakota at Wounded Knee, the frontier land grab—internal imperialism– was over. American external imperialism was born.
→ read full articleSupport for Palestinians Triples among US Youth, Survey Finds
Ali Abunimah | Electronic Intifada – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2016
“Currently, 43 percent of Millennials, born after 1980, report sympathizing more with Israel, while 27 percent are more sympathetic to the Palestinians,” Pew states. “The share sympathizing with the Palestinians has risen significantly in recent years, from nine percent in 2006 to 20 percent in July 2014 to 27 percent today” – in other words it has tripled. Among Baby Boomers – those born between 1946 and 1964 – 61 percent are more pro-Israel, while just 14 percent back the Palestinians.
→ read full articleThe Ugly Truth Behind the Greek Bailout
Robert Hunziker - CounterPunch,
16 May 2016
IMF Queen Christine’s backroom stratagem, described in a WikiLeaks’ leaked confidential letter exclusive to Troika members, preceded the three-day nationwide strike in very strong protest against more and more, infinitely more, austerity measures burying the Greek people as quid pro quo for bailout money, which almost exclusively (95%) serves to service creditors. This is insanity of the highest order. How can Greeks at all accede to a measly 5%?
→ read full articleChina’s Silk Geopolitics
Johan Galtung,
16 May 2016
China is changing world geography, or at least trying to do so in the sense of weaving new infrastructures on land, on water, in the air, and on the web. The Silk Roads. It is not surprising that a country with some Marxist orientation would focus politics on infrastructure–but as means of transportation-communication, not as means of production.
→ read full articleIsrael Imposes Travel Ban on BDS Co-Founder Omar Barghouti
Ali Abunimah | The Electronic Intifada – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2016
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that “Israel’s refusal to renew Barghouti’s travel document appears to be an effort to punish him for exercising his right to engage in peaceful, political activism, using its arsenal of bureaucratic control over Palestinian lives.”
→ read full articleOxyContin’s 12-Hour Dosing Claim Attacked in Massive Investigation
Sy Mukherjee - Fortune,
9 May 2016
Purdue Pharma’s marketing of opioid was dangerously misleading, report says. Since 1999, more than 165,000 people have died from overdosing on prescription painkillers; opioids have even been implicated in the death of superstar Prince.
→ read full article(Italiano) Stato di Pace ISLANDA. Che vuol dire che cosa?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
Allora perché non capitalizzare su quell’esperienza, facendo un Centro di Mediazione di Reykjavik, politicamente e internazionalmente indipendente, e con l’ubicazione islandese fra est e ovest, USA e Russia? Guardiamo la carta geografica! A Reykjavík invitare USA e Russia, con Kiev e Donetsk. Magari anche Bruxelles, intesa come NATO e UE. Tema: il conflitto in e attorno all’Ucraina – appunto “ai confini”, fra due nazioni, l’ucraina-cattolica e la russa-ortodossa; con molto odio e violenza.
→ read full articleRemembering Nonviolent History: Freedom Rides
Rivera Sun | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
The Freedom Rides are a powerful example of the use of nonviolent direct action to enforce justice and fair laws.
→ read full articleKen Livingstone Isn’t On Trial, Zionism Is
American Herald Tribune – Mint Press News,
9 May 2016
In subjecting Ken Livingstone to trial-by-media over his comments on Zionism, his detractors have also unwittingly placed Zionism itself on trial.
→ read full articleHanford’s Leaky Nuke Tanks and Sick Workers, a Never-Ending Saga in the U.S.
Joshua Frank – CounterPunch,
9 May 2016
Hanford is the most radioactive site in North America and is thereby always toxic. But what is news is how dangerous and negligent the remediation efforts at Hanford continue to be. In 2014 more than 40 workers suffered ailments caused by chemical exposures and last March 26 workers were sent to a hospital or clinic.
→ read full articleShips to Nowhere: The Brutal Trafficking of Rohingya Refugees
Mili Mitra | Brown Political Review-Brown University – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
Thus far, the global response has been limited and misguided. While the plight of the Rohingya has come into the media spotlight recently, there has been little coordinated effort to mitigate the crisis. Unless there is greater security and support for Rohingya in Myanmar and increased rehabilitation of these refugees across Southeast Asia, the Rohingya refugee crisis will continue to be one of the greatest and most overlooked humanitarian disasters of our time.
→ read full articleWhen Compassion Is Terrorism: Animal Rights in a Post-911 World
Chad Nelson - CounterPunch,
9 May 2016
They saved the lives of thousands of confined and brutalized animals. Rather than settle for the slow-drip “humane economy” reforms that aim at improving the conditions of animal confinement and reducing the barbarity of their slaughter, Buddenberg and Kissane took the direct route — they staged prison breaks — freeing the inmates and leaving messages for the prison wardens.
→ read full articleThe Chernobyl Secret Protocols: Lies in the Aftermath of Disaster
Alla Yaroshinskaya | The Right Livelihood Award Foundation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
In my journalistic archives there are mountains of classified Chernobyl documents from the USSR Communist Party and Soviet government. The price paid for these archives is tens of thousands of dead emergency responders and other victims of the fallout, as well as nine million people who lost their health and quality of life and are still surviving in the affected areas.
→ read full articleTake Three Gifts on Your Journey
David Krieger – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,
9 May 2016
Mr. President,
The word is out.
You will visit Hiroshima in May.
In Hiroshima, nuclear weapons become real.
Mass Migration, EU, European Nationalisms
Johan Galtung,
9 May 2016
EU today is an exploitative pyramid: Germany on top; 8 Northern-Germanic countries; 5 Southern-Latin countries with France, Ireland; 12 Eastern countries; Greece at the bottom. With inequity and quotas, not strange that nationalisms flourish, tearing EU apart. Remove the causes: England-France, pick up the bill; EU, flatten the pyramid.
→ read full articleMay: This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
May 1, 1962 – A nuclear test code-named Beryl was conducted in French-occupied Algeria. However, due to improper sealing of the underground shaft, a spectacular mushroom cloud burst through the concrete cap venting highly radioactive dust and gas into the atmosphere. The plume climbed to 8,500 feet high and radiation was detected hundreds of miles away. This was just one of 210 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the French government in north Africa and the Pacific region in the period from 1960-96.
→ read full articlePeace State Iceland. Meaning What?
Johan Galtung,
2 May 2016
Why not make a Reykjavik Mediation Center, politically and internationally independent, and on Iceland’s location between West and East, USA and Russia? Look at the map. For Reykjavík to invite USA and Russia, with Kiev and Donetsk. Maybe also Brussels, in the sense of NATO and EU. Issue: the conflict in and around Ukraine–meaning “at the border”, between two nations, Catholic-Ukrainian and Orthodox-Russian; with much hatred and violence.
→ read full article(Italiano) La ricerca della Buona Città
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
Una semplice teoria: se una città ti fa sentire bene, a tuo agio – “E’ così piacevole vivere qui”, dicono in molti – allora qualcosa penetra in te e ti rende nonviolento. Se la città, il luogo in cui vivi, un contesto fondamentale nella tua vita, ti urta in malo modo, allora scende in te un atteggiamento aggressivo, può arrivare alla violenza, e spesso si accompagna a conflitti razziali o etnici.
→ read full articleCelebrating Mother Jones and Labor on May Day
Rivera Sun, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
While Mother Jones sometimes used violent rhetoric in her inflammatory speeches, the actions she organized were nonviolent actions – boycotts, strikes, marches, walk-outs, work stoppages, rallies, speeches, and picketing. When she was denounced on the floor of the US Senate as the “grandmother of all agitators,” she replied: “I hope to live long enough to be the great-grandmother of all agitators.”
→ read full articleChernobyl’s Ongoing Toll: 40,000 More Cancer Deaths?
Ian Fairlie - CounterPunch,
2 May 2016
• 40,000 fatal cancers are predicted in Europe over the next 50 years
• 6,000 thyroid cancer cases to date, 16,000 more expected
• 5 million people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia still live in highly contaminated areas (>40 kBq/sq.m)
• 400 million in less contaminated areas (>4 kBq/sq.m)
• 37% of Chernobyl’s fallout was deposited on western Europe;
• 42% of western Europe’s land area was contaminated
• increased radiogenic thyroid cancers expected in West European countries
• increased radiogenic leukemias, cardiovascular diseases, breast cancers confirmed
• new evidence of radiogenic birth defects, mental health effects and diabetes
• new evidence that children living in contaminated areas suffer radiogenic illnesses
Touring Tragedy: A Day of Disaster Porn in Chernobyl
Hilmar Schmundt and Phil Thoma - Der Spiegel,
2 May 2016
It is the site of the most devastating nuclear disaster in history, but the Chernobyl exclusion zone has also become a magnet for tourists seeking a thrill. Join us for a tour.
→ read full articleAnthropologists Marshalling History: The American Anthropological Association’s Vote on the Academic Boycott of Israeli Institutions
Roberto J. González and David Price - CounterPunch,
2 May 2016
The AAA’s full membership now has a historic opportunity to vote on whether or not to approve the boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The rank-and-file membership’s overwhelming support for the Resolution 2 was clear, but so too is the determination, resources, and willingness to use fear tactics of the minority who oppose the pro-boycott measure. Now is the time for concerned anthropologists to take action by voting to support the resolution.
→ read full articleThe Return of the Coup in Latin America
Manuel E. Yepe - CounterPunch,
2 May 2016
Venezuela and Brazil are the scenes of a new form of coup d’état that would set the continent’s political calendar back to its worst times. What has been shown so far in Argentina is no less cruel, in terms of contempt for the masses, than the coups carried out by the bloodthirsty dictatorships that sprouted in time of Operation Condor.
→ read full articleEthnic Cleansing in Palestine: Home Demolitions on the Rise
Richard Hardigan - CounterPunch,
25 Apr 2016
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that during the years 2012-2015, an average of 50 homes were demolished in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem every month. So far this year, the army has destroyed 539 structures, a rate that is more than three times higher. In all of 2015, 453 buildings were demolished, so the sharp surge in this kind of activity is an extremely recent phenomenon.
→ read full articleOn the Coming Decline and Fall of the US Empire
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
An empire is a transborder Center-Periphery system, in macro-space and in macro-time, with a culture legitimizing a structure of unequal exchange between center and periphery:
• economically, between exploiters and exploited, as inequity;
• militarily, between killers and victims, as enforcement;
• politically, between dominators and dominated, as repression;
• culturally, between alienators and alienated, as conditioning.
(Italiano) Mediazione da parte di giudici, della polizia
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2016
Polizia? I giudici hanno uno status sociale più alto ma la polizia conosce meglio la situazione locale ed eventuali trasgressori.
→ read full articleTough Questions about Haiti for Hillary Clinton
Mark Schuller - CounterPunch,
25 Apr 2016
Obviously Haitian people must hold their government accountable, and are, but one must pause to ask why Clinton intervened in this election. And why the so-called international community looked the other way while four years of elections did not occur. And why the U.S. government pre-empted Haiti’s independent electoral commission investigating massive fraud.
→ read full article
Searching for the Good Town
Johan Galtung,
25 Apr 2016
A simple theory: if a town makes you feel well, at ease–“it is so easy to live here”, many people say–then something seeps into you and makes you nonviolent. If the town, your habitat, a key context in your life, hits you badly, then aggression seeps into you, violence may follow, and often across racial or ethnic faultlines.
→ read full articleThe Corruption Revealed in the Panama Papers Opened the Door to Isis
Patrick Cockburn – CounterPunch,
18 Apr 2016
No ordinary Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians will fight and die for rulers they detest as swindlers. Crucial to the rise of Isis, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan is not their own strength and popularity, but the weakness and unpopularity of the governments to which they are opposed. The detachment of interests of elites from the countries they rule has already produced failed states or are wracked by conflict and war.
→ read full articleHillary Clinton and Haiti
Ricardo Seitenfus – CounterPunch,
18 Apr 2016
The Clintons’ high-profile interest in Haiti dates back to their wedding in 1975. Shortly after their honeymoon in Acapulco, Bill and Hillary Clinton received an invitation from David Edwards — a friend and Citibank executive — to accompany him to Haiti. Edwards’s motivation was neither cultural nor humanitarian. The reason was Citibank’s long-standing financial interests in the country, which now go back over a century.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Democratic Transition: What Does That Mean for the Persecuted Rohingya?
Prof. Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
One-Day Open Research Conference, the University of Oxford: 11 May 2016. To continue shining the spotlight of university and independent research onto Myanmar’s slow genocide of the Muslim Rohingya among international genocide and legal scholars and world’s icons such as Desmond Tutu, George Soros, Mairead Maguire, Amartya Sen, the Dalai Lama etc.
→ read full articleWhen Newspapers Die and Reporters Go Bad
Peter White – CounterPunch,
18 Apr 2016
On dead newspapers and rotten reporters. Is there no such thing as truth anymore or not a single honest reporter in town? No. And we shouldn’t expect there to be.
→ read full article(Italiano) Realpolitik vs Politica realistic
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Gli americani che si rivoltarono contro il colonialismo ed abolirono la propria schiavitù possono anche mettere in discussione la propria politica estera ed abolire il proprio imperialismo e la propria disinvoltura guerrafondaia. Dopo aver abolito due flagelli istituzionali dell’umanità, farebbero solo bene ad abolirne altri due. I vantaggi sono ovvi e di pronto incasso: vera grandezza, affetto, posizione guida, uscita dalla spirale di crescente irrilevanza.
→ read full article22 April: On Earth Day, Commit to the Great Turning
Rivera Sun, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
Hold actions to slow the destruction of human-based systems on the Earth and other beings. These activities include all the political, legislative, and legal work required to reduce the destruction, as well as direct actions–blockades, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of noncooperation and nonviolent intervention.
→ read full articleMediation by Judges, by the Police
Johan Galtung,
18 Apr 2016
Police? The judges have more social status but the police know better the local situation and possible lawbreakers.
→ read full articleThey Would Call Me an ‘Extremist’: Why I Don’t Celebrate Or Send Anyone Any New Year’s Greetings
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Apr 2016
A Hindu-Buddhist New Year Note – Though a Burmese from Mandalay , Burma’s most popular site for the Thin Gyan or water throwing new year festival, I do not celebrate the New Year–because my country that likes to call itself “Buddhist” is committing a slow genocide against the Muslim Rohingya stigmatizing them as “Bengali”.
→ read full articleKrugman Attacks: The Establishment Snarls a Warning to Sanders
Rick Sterling - CounterPunch,
18 Apr 2016
Krugman does not hold back. Bernie supporters and Bernie himself are described by Krugman as intolerant, cultish, shallow, vague, without substance, lacking character and values, dishonest, short on ethics, really bad, petulant and self-righteous. Wow. Krugman’s diatribe deserves scrutiny and lampooning.
→ read full articleVeterans: A Battle with Pain (Part I)
Mark Brunswick and Brian Peterson - Star Tribune,
11 Apr 2016
VA doctors freely handed out pain medications to veterans for years. Then they stopped. The results have sometimes turned tragic. Almost 60 percent of veterans list chronic pain as their most common medical problem. Initial solution: a powerful but potentially addictive class of drugs known as opioids.
→ read full articleVeterans: A Battle with Pain (Part II)
Mark Brunswick and Brian Peterson - Star Tribune,
11 Apr 2016
VA kicks vets off pain meds in favor of alternatives like yoga and acupuncture, but it’s not keeping up with the desperate demand. Few dispute that the VA had a painkiller problem. Prescriptions for narcotics such as oxycodone and methadone had tripled nationally in the 11 years before the VA realized it had created a crisis of drug dependency among veterans.
→ read full articleRealpolitik vs Realistic Politics
Johan Galtung,
11 Apr 2016
Americans who revolted against colonialism and abolished their own slavery may also question their own foreign policy and abolish their own imperialism and warmongering. After having abolished two institutional scourges of humanity it would be well advised to abolish two more. The gains are obvious and will be quick in coming: true greatness, love, leadership, getting out of the increasing irrelevance.
→ read full article(Italian) Come dovremmo trattarci vicendevolmente?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
Ritiro del premio di Costruttore di Comunità Gandhi-King-Ikeda – Atlanta, 31.03.2016
→ read full articleChina Is Already Living in 2020
Pepe Escobar – Strategic Culture Foundation,
11 Apr 2016
28 Mar 2016 – Consumed by myriad manifestations of its existential crisis, as usual the West neglected or underestimated the biggest show in Chinese politics: the famous «two sessions» – of the People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress, the top legislative body – which ended up approving China’s 13th Five-Year Plan. China is already thinking, and mentally living, in 2020.
→ read full articleApril: This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,
11 Apr 2016
April 10, 1963 – In the past, eight nuclear submarines, six of them Soviet/Russian and the other two American, have sunk with dozens of nuclear ballistic missiles also lost at sea. Some of the nuclear reactors and warheads in these and other military vessels or aircraft lost at sea are leaking highly radioactive toxins affecting flora, fauna, and the health and well-being of millions of people.
→ read full articleNuclear Age Peace Foundation: A Voice for Peace
David Krieger – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,
11 Apr 2016
I believe that complacency has four principal elements: apathy, conformity, ignorance and denial. Together these four elements form the acronym ACID, and they are corrosive to a decent human future or to any future at all. We must transform apathy to empathy; conformity to critical thinking; ignorance to wisdom; and denial to recognition of the threats that nuclear weapons pose to our common future.
→ read full articleGandhi’s Salt: How a Fistful of Mud and Seawater Shook the British Empire
Rivera Sun, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
On April 6th, 1930 at 6:30 a.m. after morning prayers, Mohandas K. Gandhi raised a lump of salty mud and declared, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.” Salt was an unexpected choice for the revolutionary nonviolent movement.
→ read full articleLetter from a Birmingham Jail: Poignant and Timely
Rivera Sun, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
In Letter From A Birmingham Jail, Dr. King responded to criticisms of nonviolent direct action on religious, moral, legal, historic, and political grounds. He chastised the attitudes of the white clergymen, and other white progressives.
→ read full article(Italiano) Economia mondiale: che aspettarsi?
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2016
“Il mercato speculativo dei derivati è aumentato a oltre 1 quadrilione di $ – 20 volte più dell’ economia [reale] mondiale – con gli USA che tirano l’espansione di questa grossa bolla di ricchezza – la disuguaglianza globale fra piuttosto che entro i vari paesi è diventata anche peggio che per qualunque singolo paese: 250 individui hanno più denaro che mezzo mondo”.
→ read full articleNuclear Security: Continuous Improvement or Dangerous Decline?
Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, Nickolas Roth and William Tobey - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
4 Apr 2016
The answer will shape the chances that terrorist groups, including the Islamic State, could get their hands on the materials they need to build a crude nuclear bomb. In a report (pdf file) we published late in March, we outline the shape of the threat and the steps that must be taken to keep potential nuclear bomb material out of terrorist hands.
→ read full articleA Sunni-Salafist-Zionist Coalition Changing Middle East?
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research,
4 Apr 2016
Countries that do something good for themselves and for the world – positive sum – will win even where others are playing win-lose – zero sum – games. In today’s world the paradigm of security against others is only for intellectual, political and moral losers. What was meant to secure us all has turned into the greatest threat to us all.
→ read full articleHow Ought We Treat Each Other?
Johan Galtung,
4 Apr 2016
Receiving Gandhi-King-Ikeda Community Builder Prize – Atlanta, 31 Mar 2016
→ read full articleThe Great Ponzi Scheme of the Global Economy
Michael Hudson and Chris Hedges – CounterPunch,
28 Mar 2016
We’re going to be discussing a great Ponzi scheme that defines not only the U.S. but the global economy, how we got there and where we’re going. With economist Michael Hudson, a professor of economics who worked for many years on Wall Street, where you don’t succeed if you don’t grasp Marx’s dictum that capitalism is about exploitation. And he is also, I should mention, the godson of Leon Trotsky.
→ read full articleWorld Economy, What Next?*
Johan Galtung,
28 Mar 2016
“The speculative-derivatives market has increased to-over $ 1 quadrillion-twenty times more than the world economy-US driving the expansion of this great bubble of wealth-global inequality between rather than within countries has become even worse than for any one country. Just 250 individuals have more money than half the world”.
→ read full article(Italiano) USA, e poi?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Mar 2016
Nessuno lo sa, ma nel regime presidenzialista USA i presidenti contano; non così diversi da una dittatura per un turno di governo. È lì che entra in gioco la democrazia – almeno riguardo ai delegati, a quanto pare; con un sofferto procedimento di nomina, come in nessun altro paese.
→ read full articleBlood on the Tracks: Yellowstone Buffalo Atrocities
Louisa Willcox – CounterPunch,
28 Mar 2016
The Yellowstone buffalo atrocities. Co-existence with buffalo is not rocket science. It is largely about compassion.
→ read full articleFukushima Radiation: A Killer
Robert Hunziker – Dissident Voice,
28 Mar 2016
Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so powerful it has proven impossible to get into its bowels to find and remove the extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods, weighing hundreds of tonnes. Five robots sent into the reactors have failed to return. It’s killing robots!
→ read full articleCelebrate Boycotts on St. Patrick’s Day
Rivera Sun, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2016
There is hardly a nonviolent movement around the world, out of hundreds of case studies, that has not used some form of a boycott! Think of Gandhi’s spinning wheel and concurrent boycott of British cloth imports, the American Independence movement’s boycott of tea, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the United Farm Workers’ Grape Boycott, the boycott of white-owned stores in South African townships during the anti-apartheid struggle: the examples are numerous.
→ read full articleUSA, What Next?
Johan Galtung,
21 Mar 2016
Nobody knows. But under US presidentialism presidents matter; close to a dictatorship for one administration. That is where democracy–for, by if not of the delegates, it seems–enters; with a painstaking nomination process, like nothing in the rest of the world.
→ read full article(Italiano) Sahara Occidentale: una vision
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2016
Ai due estremi del Mediterraneo si combattono due guerre molto simili contro due popoli arabo-musulmani: i palestinesi in Palestina – ex-colonia inglese – dal 1948; e i sahrawi nel Sahara Occidentale – ex-colonia spagnola e tuttora tale, dal 1975, mentre moriva Franco.
→ read full articleRussian Withdrawal from Syria: Could It Be the Beginning of the End?
Farhang Jahanpour - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research,
21 Mar 2016
One of the reasons for the negative and cynical comments about the Russian move is that in five months President Putin has achieved more in halting the advance of the terrorists in Syria than the West had achieved in five years, if indeed it had been the West’s real intention to defeat the terrorists.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s New President Might Not Be Aung San Suu Kyi, but He Does Represent Progress
Maung Zarni – The Guardian,
21 Mar 2016
For the first time in decades, the Burmese people have a civilian president. Now they must weather the clash of military and opposition proxies to come.
→ read full articleThe US Role in the Honduras Coup and Subsequent Violence
Stephen Zunes - National Catholic Reporter,
21 Mar 2016
Clinton’s role in supporting the coup in Honduras is a reminder that the Middle East is not the only part of the world in which she is willing to set aside principles of international law and human rights to advance perceived U.S. economic and strategic interests.
→ read full articleWill the EU Become a Criminal Union Tomorrow?
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research,
21 Mar 2016
We live in times where little shall surprise us anymore. The answer to the question – will EU become a criminal in international law terms? – will be answered on March 17 and 18 when the EU Council meets to decide whether or not to carry through the agreement with Turkey about how to handle refugees.
→ read full article(Italiano) Un papa, un patriarca, una rivoluzione spirituale
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Mar 2016
Il promo editoriale, “50 anni di Fidel Castro” del 3 marzo 2008, celebrava una rivoluzione politica che cambiò il mondo, e significò la fine dell’imperialismo USA-Occidentale. Questo editoriale celebra una rivoluzione spirituale che può cambiare anch’essa il mondo, significando la fine del materialismo Occidentale, e diffondersi da lì. Nuovamente, Cuba ci ha avuto un ruolo preminente, come luogo d’incontro fra due parti principali del cristianesimo, cattolici e ortodossi.
→ read full articleWestern Sahara Occidental: A Vision
Johan Galtung,
14 Mar 2016
At the two ends of the Mediterranean very similar wars are fought against two Arab-Muslim peoples: Palestinians in Palestine-a former English colony-since 1948, and Sahrawis in Western Sahara-former Spanish colony and still is, since 1975; when Franco was dying.
→ read full articleNo Bliss in This Ignorance: The Great Fukushima Nuclear Cover-Up
Linda Pentz Gunter – The Ecologist,
7 Mar 2016
Once you enter a radiation controlled area, you aren’t supposed to drink water, let alone eat anything. The idea that somebody is living in a place like that is unimaginable.
→ read full article(Italiano) Imparare dalla matematica
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
Rendere noiosa la Regina è un crimine contro l’umanità. Smettetela.
→ read full article(Italiano) Spagna: uno Stato, due, o cinque in alternativa?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
Costruire una rete di relazioni verso altre nazioni all’interno e all’esterno, in una comunità di nazioni, è nello spirito dei nostri tempi. Imporre nazioni dominanti su altre in uno stato pretendendo l’unità, non lo è. Né lo è il potere ereditario.
→ read full article10 Things to Know about Nonviolent Struggle
Rivera Sun, PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
4. There are more than 200 methods of nonviolent action, including marches, demonstrations, rallies, boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, blockades, noncooperation, civil disobedience, work stoppages and slowdowns, refusal to provide services and much more.
→ read full articleCan We Give Meaning to the Destruction of Syria?
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research,
7 Mar 2016
In 2011 when it all began, an educated conflict analyst or otherwise conflict competent person would have said about the conflict in Syria that it was a very complex thing, caused by history, environment, traumas, external factors, the economic situation, etc. And that al-Assad and his government was certainly an important reason but far from the only one.
→ read full articleMarch: This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,
7 Mar 2016
March 11, 2011 – After a large magnitude earthquake and a powerful tsunami struck northeast Japan, three of the six nuclear reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-chi facility suffered partial meltdowns resulting in the evacuation of tens of thousands of nearby residents. Five years later, the disaster which has claimed more than 15,000 lives so far is an ongoing catastrophe.
→ read full articleA Pope, a Patriarch, a Spiritual Revolution
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2016
The first editorial, “50 Years of Fidel Castro” 3 March 2008, celebrated a political revolution that changed the world, and spelt the end of US-Western imperialism. This editorial celebrates a spiritual revolution that may also change the world, spelling the end of Western materialism, and spread from there. Again, Cuba played a major role, as meeting place between two major parts of Christianity, Catholic and Orthodox.
→ read full articleMajor American Jewish Leader Changes His Mind about Israel
Rabbi Michael Lerner - Tikkun,
29 Feb 2016
The Israel of today is very far from anything I dreamed of and worked for throughout my career. I can clearly remember the day in 1948 when the State of Israel was established. I was in the fourth grade at the Yeshivah of Flatbush in Brooklyn. The entire school was summoned to the schoolyard in celebration of the momentous occasion.
→ read full articleLearning from Mathematics
Johan Galtung,
29 Feb 2016
To make the Queen boring is a crime against humanity. Stop it.
→ read full articleHollywood’s Grotesque Animal Abuse
Michael Howard - CounterPunch,
22 Feb 2016
Exposing Hollywood’s sordid history of animal cruelty.
→ read full article(Italiano) I diritti umani: una sfida permanente
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Feb 2016
La Dichiarazione Universale dei Diritti Umani del 10 dicembre 1948 fu redatta da un comitato di Uomini, Bianchi, Anziani, Borghesi, Avvocati, Francesi. Nulla sui diritti di donne e bambini. Non ci sono diritti di accesso a servizi igienici, né alla sessualità: i borghesi di buone maniere certe cose le fanno ma non ne parlano-scrivono.
→ read full articleFinancial Oligarchy vs. Feudal Aristocracy
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh and Anthony A. Gabb - CounterPunch,
22 Feb 2016
On oligarchies and aristocracies. The Marxist term wage-slaves refers to those who, lacking capital or means of production, have only their labor power to sell to make a living. This describes the vast majority of people in today’s capitalist societies whose sole means of subsistence is the sale of their capacity to work.
→ read full articleThe Mad Violence of Casino Capitalism
Henry Giroux - CounterPunch,
22 Feb 2016
American society is morally bankrupt and politically broken, and its vision of the future appears utterly dystopian. As the United States descends into the dark abyss of an updated form of totalitarianism, the unimaginable has become imaginable.
→ read full articleThe Making of a Socialist
Arnold August - CounterPunch,
22 Feb 2016
A riveting read, How I Became an American Socialist by Garry Leech will be a page-turner for people from all walks of life. Its title is very timely, given there is so much debate today in the US about “socialism” and “capitalism.” Today, more than ever, the book is a must-read for Americans, especially the younger generation.
→ read full articleSpain: One State, Two, or Five In-Betweens?
Johan Galtung,
22 Feb 2016
To spin webs of relations to other nations inside and outside, in a community of nations, is in the spirit of our times. Imposing dominant nations on others in a state pretending unity is not. Nor is hereditary power. Nor is “independence” in an ever more connecting, globalizing world. They are abstractions from the past.
→ read full articleHow Humanitarian Imperialism Led to Europe’s Refugee Crisis
Jean Bricmont and Maidhc Ó Cathail – CounterPunch,
22 Feb 2016
What I call the moral left wants to force the population to be altruistic with respect to the refugees. But the population who is never consulted on the issue of refugees and who is constantly asked to make sacrifices because “there is no money” understandably does not accept this moral discourse.
→ read full article(Italiano) Fondamentalismo-Estremismo-Violenza Religiosi
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
Si può avere fondamentalismo senza estremismo. Si può avere estremismo senza fondamentalismo. La gran parte delle persone che fanno violenza non credono in alcunché, oltre al “fare il proprio lavoro”. Ci sono due criteri per l’”estremismo religioso”: la violenza e la legittimazione religiosa. E per quanto riguarda le controparti secolari delle religioni, le ideologie, gli ismi?
→ read full articleResearch Paper: ISIS-Turkey Links
David L. Phillips – Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights,
15 Feb 2016
Is Turkey collaborating with the Islamic State (ISIS)? Allegations range from military cooperation and weapons transfers to logistical support, financial assistance, and the provision of medical services. It is also alleged that Turkey turned a blind eye to ISIS attacks against Kobani.
→ read full articleThirty States Ratify Establishment of African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
African Union – Human Wrongs Watch,
15 Feb 2016
Chad becomes 30th AU Member State to ratify the Protocol on the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
→ read full articleThe Human Rights: A Permanent Challenge
Johan Galtung,
15 Feb 2016
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December 1948 was edited by a committee of Men; Older, White, Bourgeois, Lawyers, French. Nothing about women’s and children’s rights. There are no rights to access to toilet, nor to sexuality: well- mannered bourgeois do such things but do not talk-write about it.
→ read full articleThe Lady and the Boat Rides [in Burma/Myanmar]
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
Brother, be kind, she is in a bind…
Experts say the Silence of the Lady is owing to the election maths
Her soul isn’t really dead, yet.
Religious Fundamentalism-Extremism-Violence
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
We can have extremism without fundamentalism. Most people exercising violence believe in nothing, beyond “doing their job”. There are two criteria for “religious extremism”: violence and religious legitimation. How about the secular counterparts to religions, the ideologies, the isms?
→ read full articleWhy Our World Needs Peace Literacy
Paul K. Chappell, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
Peace literacy is the next step in the development of our global civilization, because peace literacy is necessary in an interconnected world where the fate of every nation is tied to the fate of our planet. Because of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, war, and environmental destruction, being preliterate in peace puts humanity and our planet at great risk. During an era when humanity has the technological capacity to destroy itself, peace literacy means survival literacy.
→ read full articleThe Rise of ISIS and Other Extremist Groups: The Role of the West and Regional Powers
Bouthaina Shaaban - CounterPunch,
8 Feb 2016
This essay examines the attempts to break up Syria’s civilian and military institutions, the delegitimization of the Syrian government, the attempts to procure a UN mandate for a military intervention in Syria, the imposition of suffocating economic sanctions on Syria, and most importantly the support that Western and regional powers gave to a plethora of armed groups, including al-Qaeda and ISIS, to fight the Syrian government.
→ read full articleThe Russell-Einstein Manifesto [on Nuclear Weapons]
Student Pugwash University of Michigan– TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the Governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
→ read full articleNorth Korea: How Many Wake-Up Calls Will It Take?
David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
North Korea has been roundly condemned for its nuclear tests, including this one. To put this in perspective, however, the U.S. has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, continues to conduct subcritical nuclear tests, has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, is in breach of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, regularly tests nuclear-capable missiles, and plans to spend $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
→ read full articleSeeing Flight as a Nonviolent Option
Erica Chenoweth and Hakim Young – CounterPunch,
8 Feb 2016
Why we must challenge the conventional refuge narrative. Seeing flight as a nonviolent option will better equip the informed public to contest exclusionary rhetoric and policies, elevate a new discourse that empowers more moderate politicians, and widen the range of policy options available to respond to the current crisis.
→ read full articleThe Trans-Pacific Partnership Fraud
Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
8 Feb 2016
The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement privileges foreign investors while imposing substantial costs on partner countries. The TPP has, in fact already been used to try to kill the Doha ‘Development’ Round of multilateral trade talks, but may well also undermine multilateralism more broadly in the near future.
→ read full articleIndia Steps Up Pressure on Nepal
W. A. Sunil, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
5 Feb 2016 – A continued Indian-backed blockade of supplies to Nepal, a small landlocked country wedged between India and China, has escalated tensions between Kathmandu and New Delhi… The Nepal crisis is another expression of the aggressive US moves against China, and the harnessing of India as Washington’s partner. This drive is deepening geo-political tensions and increasing political instability throughout South Asia.
→ read full articlePharaoh
Author Unknown - TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
Pharaonic attraction.
→ read full articleWhy Biology Is Beyond Physical Sciences?
Bhakti Niskama Shanta, Ph.D. and Bhakti Vijnana Muni, Ph.D. - Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute, Scientific & Academic Publishing,
8 Feb 2016
In the modern era, to study an organism, scientists have mainly adopted Descartes’ ontological view of the organism as a complex machine. The continued usage of physicalist science to comprehend biological systems is the biggest hurdle in the path of understanding life. The materialistic understanding of reality depends on natural laws, mathematics, determinism, and reductionism. This materialistic science has continually failed to provide a theory for biology.
→ read full articleVW, GM and Takata: The Case for Jailing Corporate Executives
Russell Mokhiber – CounterPunch,
8 Feb 2016
2 Feb 2016 – The Center for Auto Safety’s Clarence Ditlow wants executives at VW, Takata and General Motors jailed for corporate crime. Ditlow says that the Volkswagen diesel case, for example, is one of the most egregious corporate crime cases in history.
→ read full articleWant Peace in Syria? Put Women at the Negotiating Table
Matthew Rycroft and Swanee Hunt, Defense One – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
That’s what the Balkan experience tells us, say current and former British and US ambassadors. Women are often best placed to spot signs of radicalization and to counter it, given their central role in the family and the community.
→ read full articleOrientalisation and Manufacturing of ‘Civil Society’ in Contemporary Burma (Myanmar)
Maung Zarni - TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Feb 2016
After two decades of post-Cold War hostilities between Burmese generals and their former Cold War ‘friends’ in London, Berlin, Washington and Tokyo, a danse macabre is set in motion. The backdrop this time is the West’s need to contain an increasingly powerful China in Burma’s eastern neighbourhood and the worsening economic decay in Europe and North America. In this new geopolitical drama both the generals in Naypyidaw and the liberals in Western capitals have found a new role for iconic Aung San Suu Kyi.
→ read full article