Articles by TRANSCEND Media Service

We found 28008 results.


Pope Francis’ Encyclical Urges Swift Action on Climate Change Ahead of Paris Climate Talks
Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jun 2015

18 Jun 2015 – Today in Rome, Pope Francis released his long-anticipated encyclical on climate change, fueling precisely the international conversation the Pope hoped to drive. The widespread media coverage of the 180-plus page document, Laudato Si, or Praised Be to You, has undoubtedly increased public awareness of environmental issues dramatically.

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Ukraine and the Apocalyptic Risk of Propagandized Ignorance
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jun 2015

‘Ukraine: Zbig’s Grand Chessboard and How the West Was Checkmated’ – This book may very well be the best written one I’ve read this year. It puts all the relevant facts — those I knew and many I didn’t — together concisely and with perfect organization. It does it with an informed worldview. It leaves me nothing to complain about at all, which is almost unheard of in my book reviews.

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Papal Concern for Climate Change and Refugee Care
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jun 2015

A Means of Concealing Criminal Systemic Negligence? Produced on World Refugee Day — on the occasion of publication of reports on the world refugee crisis and an Environment Encyclical by Pope Francis.

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The Fallen of World War II
Neil Halloran – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Jaw-Dropping Visualization Will Give You New Respect for the Sheer Number Who Died in WWII – An animated data-driven documentary about war and peace, “The Fallen of World War II” looks at the human cost of the Second World War and sizes up the numbers to other wars in history, including trends in recent conflicts.

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On Balance and the Necessary Excesses of Life
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

On Being Too Much for Ourselves – “There are situations in which it is more dangerous to keep your balance than to lose it.”

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An Immodest Wish
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

A wealthy maharajah was so delighted with the game of chess that he offered the inventor of the game anything in his realm that he might wish.

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Duality
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

There are 10 kinds of people in this world:

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Coca-Cola Slowly Deprives 30,000 People of Water in El Salvador
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

The main and only source of water for thousands of Salvadorans is in peril.

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Keeping Quiet
Pablo Neruda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

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Pregnancy at Slaughter: What Happens to the Calves?
Stephanie Ernst, All Creatures – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

What happens when a cow is pregnant at the time of slaughter? I almost wish I didn’t know. From the calves experiencing their mother’s death from inside her, while they too suffer or die their own terrible death, to live calves being cut from their dead mother’s womb, so that their blood can be drained for science while they’re still alive–it’s all horrific, and none of it is ever talked about, even though it’s a part of the dairy and beef industries and a part of how people get their “finest” leather.

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(Italiano) “Farla franca con l’omicidio”
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

È il titolo della (come al solito) brillante analisi di Susan George sulla situazione bancaria dopo il collasso bancario USA dell’ 11 settembre 2001 e il crollo del 2008.

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The US Government’s Not-So-Secret Support for Al Qaeda and ISIS
Dan Sanchez, Antiwar – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

The Biggest State Sponsor of Terrorism of Them All – The general US policy of allying with the Gulf states (especially the Saudis) and Turkey in supporting radical Sunni insurgents to counter the “Shia expansion” was reported by Seymour Hersh back in 2007.

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Issuance of Vatican Passports to Trans-Mediterranean Immigrants
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

A Modest Proposal Worthy of the 21st Century?- Produced on the occasion of announcement of the forthcoming Papal Encyclical ‘Laudato Sii’ (Explosive intervention by Pope Francis set to transform climate change debate, The Observer, 13 June 2015).

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Save Our Stones – Jihad and Vandalism
The Economist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

As well as killing people, Islamic State is smashing up ancient works of art. Only a little can be done to prevent its acts of barbarism. The scale is unprecedented. Four of Syria’s six world heritage sites lie in ruins.

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(Français) Les Nouvelles Générations Militantes Africaines – Espoirs et Vigilances
Saïd Bouamama, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

12 juin 2015 – La jeunesse africaine est de nouveau confrontée à la découverte de sa « mission », pour reprendre l’expression de Frantz Fanon. De manière significative en Egypte, en Tunisie ou au Burkina Faso, les vastes mobilisations de la jeunesse ont été accompagnées d’une redécouverte des grandes figures des indépendances (Nasser, Sankara, N’Krumah, etc.).

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Is the Middle East America’s to Lose?
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

I was appalled by the embedded colonialism of a recent issue of The Economist [June 6-12, 2015], “Losing the Middle East.” Any doubt about the intent of the magazine is removed by displaying a bedraggled American flag on the cover accompanied by the sub-title “Why American must not abandon the region.”

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Why Are Threats to Civil Society Growing around the World?
Mandeep S.Tiwana, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

“It is increasingly evident that the dangers to civic freedoms come not just from state apparatuses but also from powerful non-state actors including influential business entities and extremist groups subscribing to fundamentalist ideologies”

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The Losing War against Ungoverned Spaces
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross & Nathaniel Barr, Pragati – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

From whatever angle one analyses the war against ungoverned spaces, Western countries and their allies are losing. The truly remarkable thing is how quickly the situation in the Middle East and North Africa was transformed from optimism —at the start of the Arab Spring—to one where the spread of ungoverned space, and indeed jihadism writ large, appears inexorable.

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Net Neutrality Rules Go into Effect
Mario Trujillo and David McCabe, The Hill – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

The new federal rules for net neutrality were allowed to take effect on Friday [12 Jun 2015] after the U.S. Court of Appeals denied a motion to stay the regulation. The ruling is not on the final merits of the challenge, but it hands an early victory to net neutrality advocates.

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Evolution to Peace through the Penance of Speech: Gandhi in Speech and Silence
P.K. Willey, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Communications have become global in a sense that was unimaginable 30 years ago. Along with this, the ethical use of speech appears to have become buried in the snowstorm of social licenses, given to us by an increasing socialized acceptance of the abuse of speech. What is the ethical use of speech?

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Logistics 101: Where Do ISIS Get Their Guns?
Tony Cartalucci, New Eastern Outlook – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

ISIS’ supply lines run precisely where Syrian and Iraqi air power cannot go. To the north and into NATO-member Turkey, and to the southwest into US allies Jordan and Saudi Arabia. If an army marches on its stomach, and ISIS’ stomachs are full of NATO and Persian Gulf State supplies, ISIS will continue to march long and hard.

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Why Are We Being Fed by [Monsanto] a Poison Expert?
The Undercurrent – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Jun 5, 2015 – Is the ‘old’ Monsanto, the one responsible for producing Agent Orange, PCB’s and DDT and a terrible record at covering up and denying the tragedies that have resulted from their use, the same as the ‘new’ Monsanto, the one at the forefront of research in plant gene technology?

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Greece – A Sad Story of the [Germany-led] European Establishment
Roberto Savio, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

The latest development in the tug of war which has been going on between Greece and a German-dominated Europe is the desire to punish an anti-establishment figure like Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and show that the radical left cannot run a country.

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BDS, the New Enemy
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

13 Jun 2015 – Binyamin Netanyahu was racking his brain. His whole career is based on fear mongering. Since Jews have lived in fear for millennia, it is easy to invoke it. They are addicts.

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The Rohingyas: The Most Persecuted People on Earth?
The Economist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Myanmar’s Muslim minority have been attacked with impunity, stripped of the vote and driven from their homes. It could get worse.

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Exponential Growth
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Looking at the long-term future, we can calculate that any quantity increasing at the modest rate of 3% per year will grow by a factor of 20.1 in a century. This implies that in four centuries, whatever is growing at 3% will have increased by a factor of 163,000. These facts make it completely clear that long-continued economic growth on a finite planet is a logical absurdity.

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Animals Get Legal Recognition as ‘Sentient’ Beings in New Zealand
Positive News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

8 Jun 2015- New legislation in New Zealand dictates that animals can feel both positive and negative emotions, and takes steps to improve animal welfare in research.

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(Português) “Me custa entender como um padre pode ser antissocialista”, diz Frei Betto
Vinícius Mendes, Brasileiros – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Religioso e escritor com mais de 60 livros escritos revela como Cuba planeja tratar sua reaproximação com os EUA e revela traços de seu amigo Fidel Castro.

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Fishing and Farming in Gaza Is a Deadly Business
Mel Frykberg, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

“Gaza fishermen have come under fire and been shot, injured and killed or had their boats destroyed or confiscated … Gazan farmers trying to access their agricultural fields … are also regularly shot and injured, and sometimes killed”

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Elon Musk: ‘We’ve Dramatically Increased the Power Capability’ of the Tesla Powerwall
Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

12 Jun 2015 – Its only been a month since Elon Musk unveiled a suite of batteries to help wean the world off fossil fuels. And now, the Tesla CEO is already upping the ante with the Powerwall, a home battery that charges using electricity generated from solar power.

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Tobacco Companies Ordered to Pay C$15.6 Billion to Quebec Smokers
Richard Smallteacher, CorpWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

4 Jun 2015 – Over one million people in the Canadian province of Quebec will receive a total of C$15.6 billion ($12.5 billion) in damages for smoking related diseases from three of the biggest tobacco companies in the country. The settlement is the result of a 17-year long court battle.

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Exposing Lies, Telling the Truth
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

I have just read Andre Vltchek’s new book ‘Exposing Lies of the Empire’. I have one word to describe this book: Great. Superb. Excellent. Brilliant. [However,] Vltchek pays virtually no attention to the effectiveness of nonviolent strategy in resisting empire.

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Local Engagement with Armed Groups in the Midst of Violence
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

As the Syrian conflict enters its fifth year, it is important not to lose sight of the significant roles played by unarmed, non-state actors to develop structures for promoting local security and peace and to adapt to the constantly changing demands of the conflict.

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Hawaii Enacts USA’s First 100% Renewable Energy Standard
Cole Mellino, EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

11 Jun 2015 – Hawaii enacted a law this week, which mandates that all of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources no later than 2045. This renewable energy standard is being hailed as “the most aggressive clean energy goal in the country.”

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German Companies Stop Sales of “Roundup”
Eric Zuesse, Washington’s Blog – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

12 Jun 2015 – According to Swiss supermarkets, German companies have announced halting sales of Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide. In 1971, Monsanto patented glyphosate. Today its glyphosate (“Roundup”) constitutes two billion US dollars in annual sales.

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China Syndrome
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

We should stop recycling the old “Yellow Peril” myth. The people most hostile to action on climate change are American and British, not Chinese. China is the world’s excuse for cruelty and barbarism. If we don’t behave atrociously, politicians and columnists assure us, China will, so we had better do it first, before we are outcompeted.

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Meanwhile, with Great Narratives Unfolding
Johan Galtung, 15 Jun 2015 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

The decline and fall of the US Empire’s grip on the world; of the West; of the state-system–with the rise of the TNC-IGO-NGO system, regions, nations, local authorities; the rise of the East and the South; of China–many details cross an editor’s desk; inspiring some rethinking.

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Hackers Point Out U.S. Arming, Funding ISIS
Kit Daniels, Infowars – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

8 Jun 2015 – The Syrian Electronic Army has claimed responsibility for hacking the U.S. Army’s website to show that both the Pentagon and the CIA are supporting ISIS to topple Assad.

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Fast-tracking TiSA: Stealth Block to Monetary Reform
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

Money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it. So wrote David Graeber referring to a paper called “Money Creation in the Modern Economy.” The paper stated outright that most common assumptions of how banking works are simply wrong. The result was to throw the entire theoretical basis for austerity out of the window.

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Turkish Elections: It’s Not Just Erdoğan!
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

9 Jun 2015 – The Turkish general election on June 7th ended more or less as the polls predicted. Turkey has been put back on the shelf and yet relieved that the AKP was again supported by a significant plurality of Turkish citizens in an impressively free and fair electoral process.

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This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

June 15-21 – QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso

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(Português) A Era das Grandes Transformações
Leonardo Boff - TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Jun 2015

A reflexão ecológica se complexificou. Não se pode reduzi-la apenas à preservação do meio ambiente. A totalidade do sistema mundo está em jogo. Vivemos na era das Grandes Transformações. Entre tantas, destaco apenas duas: a primeira no campo da economia e a segunda no campo da consciência.

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8 June: World Oceans Day
The United Nations – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

The ocean is the heart of our planet. Like your heart pumping blood to every part of your body, the ocean connects people across the Earth, no matter where we live. It regulates the climate, feeds millions of people, produces oxygen, is the home to an incredible array of wildlife, provides us with important medicines, and so much more!

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US Imperialism and the FIFA Corruption Investigation
Chris Marsden, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

On Wednesday [3 Jun], the FBI stated that its investigation now encompasses allegations of corruption, bribery, and vote-rigging related to FIFA awarding the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. This is a political move against the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is conceived of as a vital propaganda adjunct of the ongoing US-led NATO encirclement of Russia.

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(Italiano) Un avvertimento contro l’argomentazione di Kaplan per cui “È tempo di riportare l’imperialismo in Medio Oriente”
Johan Galtung e Naakow Hayford – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

Piuttosto li si aiuti a creare un califfato con le migliori qualità del suo predecessore ottomano: la tolleranza, i millet per le minoranze, addirittura la saldatura potenziale dello squarcio fra sunniti e sciiti. Si usi il peacekeeping militare per proteggere, difensivamente, le minoranze esposte e minacciate. Si negozi uno spazio per Israele. Ma non ci si perda in sterili rivalità di potere militari; già perse dagli USA.

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The Human Rights Issue a Nobel Laureate Doesn’t Want to Touch
Michael Sullivan, NPR – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

2 Jun 2015 – It’s not often that the Dalai Lama calls out a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate. But that’s what happened last week when he was asked about Aung San Suu Kyi, who has declined to speak out on the worsening plight of the Rohingya minority in her homeland of Myanmar.

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Film: Costa Rica Abolished Its Military, Never Regretted It
David Swanson – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

In 1948 Costa Rica abolished its military, something widely deemed impossible in the United States. This film documents how that was done and what the results have been. I don’t want to give away the ending but let me just say this: there has not been a hostile Muslim takeover of Costa Rica, the Costa Rican economy has not collapsed, and Costa Rican women still seem to find a certain attraction in Costa Rican men.

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FIFA Scandals Are Worse Than Bribes
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

The Palestinian Soccer Association was persuaded by Blatter to drop its charges, with a renewal of previously empty pledges to ameliorate conditions confronting Palestinians coupled with a surely ironic plea to keep ‘politics’ from intruding on ‘the beautiful game.’ As if the humiliations and constraints imposed on the Palestinian teams were not political!

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Exclusive: Two Years after Snowden Revelations, Glenn Greenwald Talks about Impacts on Surveillance State
Dana Sayre, Occupy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

2 Jun 2015 – In a recent interview with Occupy.com, journalist Glenn Greenwald said a lot has changed in the two years since he exposed secret NSA surveillance programs through whistleblower Edward Snowden, foremost the sense that “Internet companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft are really petrified that if they don’t demonstrate a commitment to their users’ privacy and eliminate this perception that they’ve been collaborating with the NSA, it’s going to destroy their future business prospects.”

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The Difficult but Necessary Road to Negotiations in Yemen
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

The continued aggression of Saudi Arabia against civilians in Yemen, and the use of cluster munitions (in violation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions), highlight the crucial links between human rights, arms control, and the resolution of conflicts through good faith negotiations.

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June: This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation - TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

June 3, 1980 – President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was awakened by his military assistant, General William Odom, around 2:30 a.m. and informed that NORAD’s computers had detected a launch of 2,200 Soviet ICBMs heading for U.S. targets. The incident was one of many so-called “false warnings.”

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Israel Signals It’s Ready to Destroy Hezbollah – Include Iran as a Twofer?
Franklin Lamb – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

Yet, with all of Israel’s swelling international legitimacy problems, the Zionist regime still occupying another country, Palestine, can sound its bugle, which having no valves or other political pitch-altering complications, blast-summons its agents in Washington and elsewhere to get busy and circle the wagons.

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The Era of the Great Transformations
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

We live in the Era of the Great Transformations. There are many, but I will mention just two: the first relating to the economy and the second to the realm conscience.

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The Rohingyas: UN and Bangladesh Making Them Easy Prey to Traffickers and Terrorists?
Asian Centre for Human Rights – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

That the UN and the Government of Bangladesh have been making the Rohingyas easy prey to the traffickers and terrorist groups and further that the fleeing Rohingyas have turned into perpetrators of human rights violations on the indigenous Jumma peoples of Bangladesh have been consistently ignored and/or overlooked.

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This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

June 8-14 – QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “My strength didn’t come from lifting weights. My strength came from lifting myself up every time I was knocked down.” – Unknown

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Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Report and the Crimes against the Native People
Carl Bronski, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

The century-and-a-half policy of forcibly removing aboriginal children from their families and communities and herding them into faraway schools run mainly by the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches, amounted, said the report, to nothing less than a “cultural genocide.” At the height of the program in 1931 there were 80 residential schools across the country with 15,000 captive native children.

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Wind Energy vs. Fossil Fuels: Hurdles and Hopes for a Renewable Future
Michael Walsh, Yahoo! News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

5 Jun 2015 – The colossal oil spill in Southern California last month spurred many to wonder why we have not abandoned fossil fuels for wind and other sources of renewable energy. The fossil fuel industry receives billions in taxpayer subsidies as the wind industry fights to take flight.

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Post-Earthquake to Relief Fund: Roles of Aid Agency, Nation in Nepal
Professor Bishnu Pathak - TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

About six-dozen nations-states assisted on humanitarian aids and supplies in post-quake survivors. Among them, military with sniffer dogs from 18 countries arrived soon in Nepal. Nepalese Government failed to assure and maintain disaster aid diplomacy. Aid agency’s lost hope shall only be regained if a new national Government is formed soon.

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Status of Palestine in 2015
Compiled by Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

– It has been 67 years since the occupation of 78% of Palestine in 1948.
– It has been 48 years since the occupation of the other 22% of Palestine (WB and Gaza) that started 1967.

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Fighting to Save Nature and Culture
Bruce K. Gagnon – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

The fact that the US ignores the voices of 80% of the Okinawan people and plunges ahead with devastating base expansion indicates the obvious colonial status of the island people.

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Thrust into Freedom
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

A husband and wife in the city of Medellin, Colombia, had a cow on a small plot of grass land in front of their house, and they barely subsisted by feeding some of her milk to their children and selling the rest.

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Albert Einstein, Scientist and Pacifist
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

“The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything except our ways of thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophes.”
“I don’t know what will be used in the next world war, but the 4th will be fought with stones.”
— Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

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Imperium?
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

Our nation’s efforts, cruel and chronic,
to reign supreme and hegemonic

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The Rohingya – Adrift on a Sea of Sorrows
Eric Margolis – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

When is genocide not really genocide? When the victims are small, impoverished brown people no one wants or cares about – Burma’s Rohingya.

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The Real Naqba
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

6 Jun 2015 – Three weeks ago was Naqba Day – the day on which Palestinians inside and outside Israel commemorate their “catastrophe” – the exodus of more than half of the Palestinian people from the territories occupied by Israel in the 1948 war. Each side has its own version of this momentous event. Both these versions are utter nonsense – a mixture of propaganda, legend and hidden guilt feelings.

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Global Psychosocial Implication in the Pentagramma Mirificum
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

Clues from Spherical Geometry to “Getting Around” and Circumnavigating Imaginatively – The question here is whether there are clues to be found from the insights which have enabled spherical navigation over recent centuries. To what extent do those insights reflect understandings of relevance to getting “around” a global information-based society?

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Nuclear Weapons: Grand Bargain Is Not So Grand
David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

The five nuclear-armed countries that are parties to the NPT (US, Russia, UK, France and China) appear more comfortable working together to maintain and modernize their nuclear arsenals than they do to fulfilling their disarmament obligations under the treaty. Their common strategy appears to be “nuclear weapons forever.” The US plans to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades.

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Friends Will Be Friends (MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Freddie Mercury & Queen – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

Released on 9 June 1986 and performed by the immortal Freddie Mercury.

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Cognitive Dissonance and the Psychopharmaceutical Industry
Gary G. Kohls, MD – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

George Orwell understood the whistleblower’s dilemma when he said: “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” And that is where the concept of cognitive dissonance comes in. Being willfully blind, willfully uninformed or in denial is the easy path to take when confronted by new unwelcome truths that may lead to becoming ostracized by fellow humans.

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The Twisted Legacy of Colombia’s Aerial Cocaine Crop Spraying Program
Steven Cohen, VICE - TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

After 30 years of dubious results and loud protests, the flagship of the supply-side drug war in North America has finally been brought to ground.

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Independent Report Finds Sri Lankan Government Systematically Violating Human Rights of Tamils, Other Minorities
Oakland Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

28 May 2015 – Investigation Exposes Military Occupation and Colonization of Tamil Land in Sri Lanka

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India: Call to End Imposition of Death Penalty
Asian Centre for Human Rights – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

2 June 2015 – Report released today called for an end to imposition of death penalty by majority view of the judges of the High Courts and the Supreme Court of India. “The ratio of differences of opinion among the judges whether somebody convicted for offences punishable with death should die or live in most cases in India is 2:1. When this difference of opinion is also between acquittal and death sentence, imposition of death penalty by majority opinion becomes legally untenable and morally unconscionable.”

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How a Corporate Cult Captures and Destroys Our Best Graduates
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

Universities should defend students against lovebombing by banks and consultancy firms – before it ruins their lives. Undergraduates must rely on their own wavering resolve to resist peer pressure, the herd instinct, the allure of money, flattery, prestige and security. Students, rebel against these soul-suckers! Follow your dreams, however hard it may be, however uncertain success might seem.

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Sick
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

A little boy did not want to go to school.

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Dude, Where’s My Humvee? Iraq Losing Equipment to Islamic State at Staggering Rate
Peter Van Buren, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

4 Jun 2015 – Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles when Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014. In addition , Iraqi forces previously abandoned significant types and numbers of heavy weapons to IS. The United States is effectively supplying IS with tools of war the militant group cannot otherwise hope to acquire from its patrons.

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Washington Politicizes Football
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Jun 2015

Whether or not FIFA decisions are tainted by bribery, the purpose of the “investigation” is to cast doubt on the decision to hold the World Cup in Russia. The World Cup is a global spectacle and conveys prestige on the host country. Washington intends to deny this prestige to Russia. That is what the “investigation” is about.

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Fowl Deeds – Faeces, Bacteria, Toxins: Welcome to the Chicken Farm
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

The astonishing, multiple crises caused by chicken farming. Whether it’s welfare standards, environmental impact or the emerging threat to human health, we’ve got to change our insatiable greed for this meat. Nor does free range solve the feed problem: the birds are usually fed on soya, for which rainforests are wrecked.

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The Full Text of the Oslo Communique on Myanmar (Burma)
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

Today (28 May, 2015) the Oslo Conference to End Myanmar’s Persecution of the Rohingya ended. It was held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and Voksenaasen. The call made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to end Myanmar’s genocide is supported by six additional Nobel Peace Laureates: Mairead Maguire, Jody Williams, Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ebadi, Leymah Gbowee, and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

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Decipherment of Indus Valley Seals: Vedic Human Genetics & Cytology
Prof. Chandra P Trivedi – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

The quest of creation is quest of human mind from dawn of the Civilization on the earth. The discovery of the double helical structure of the DNA by the Watson and crick 1953 has brought the revolution in the field of Biotechnology. The same echo is coming from the well developed Indus Valley Civilization. The pictographic symbols on the seals are cytological models for teaching; they explore the cellular genetic evolution on the earth with genetic recombination.

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Nuclear Realism
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

27 May 2015 – There’s a category of political intellectuals who proudly proclaim themselves “realists,” then proceed to defend and advance a deeply faith-based agenda that centers on the ongoing necessity to prepare for war, including nuclear war. These intellectuals, as they defend the military-industrial status quo (which often supports them financially), have made themselves the spokespersons for a deep human cancer: a soul cancer.

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House Arrest & Disobedience – A Review
Theresa Wolfwood – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

Although Grover is rooted in his own Indian culture there is a painful universality about the revelations in his poems. In every poem Grover writes he is holding up a mirror and asking us, the readers and his community, to dig inside our souls. That is the true role of poetry; Grover’s poems are true to the art.
Book Launch: 13 June 2015, Poetry Café, Covent Garden London.

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Laissez Faire Water Laws Threaten Family Farming in Chile
Marianela Jarroud, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

May 27 2015 – Family farmers in Chile are pushing for the reinstatement of water as a public good, to at least partially solve the shortages caused by the privatisation of water rights by the military dictatorship in 1981.

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The Escalation of Global Financial Parasitism
Nick Beams, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

The rise in stock markets expresses not the health, but rather the deepening sickness, of the global economic order. The imposition of financial dictatorship is not a hypothetical issue—it has already been implemented in Greece, impoverishing millions of people.

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The Olive Jar
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

A merchant in 8th century Baghdad went on a long trip to the orient.

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Yes to Development, No to Environmental Degradation
Dr Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

The emphasis of India today is on economic growth and development. Mahatma Gandhi often said, “Nature produces enough for peoples’ needs but not for their greed; characteristic aspect of modern civilization is an indefinite multiplicity of wants”, etc. Thus, let us have development and create jobs but not at the expense of our environment and biodiversity.

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US Kneejerk Support for Israeli Nukes Torpedoes UN Disarmament Talks
Juan Cole – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

24 May 2015 – After four weeks of negotiations, a revised UN treaty on nuclear disarmament has been torpedoed by the US. In running interference for Israel’s estimated 400 warheads, the US has made the world a more dangerous place. Guess which country has requested further meetings at the UN in hopes of reviving the revised NPT? Iran.

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Leaked Internal Documents Show U.N. Ignored CAR Child Abuse
Roger Hamilton-Martin, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

May 29 2015 – Leaked United Nations documents show high-level staff knew of abuses by soldiers in the Central African Republic and failed to act, all while planning the removal of U.N. whistleblower Anders Kompass.

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The Map on the Wall
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

History shows us that there are (at least) two kinds of peace agreements. One kind, the stupid one, is based on power. The other, the intelligent, is based on common interest. The most notorious of the first kind is the Treaty of Versailles that followed World War I.

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Women Peace Activists Cross North-South Korea Border
Al Jazeera English – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

May 23, 2015 – Group of 30 women cross heavily militarised DMZ by bus after being denied by authorities to walk across the border.

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Non-Proliferation Treaty: Nuclear Weapons and Tension Areas
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

A major difficulty of moving to good-faith negotiations on a Middle East Nuclear-weapon Free Zone is the absence of a regional organization involving all States in the wider region. I believe that there is an urgent need to take steps toward creating a broad security and cooperation zone which has conflict resolution, arms control, human rights, and economic cooperation dimensions.

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INSURGE’s Pentagon-Gulf States-Turkey-ISIS Axis Report Makes National Headlines in Germany
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

28 May 20125 – Last week, my crowdfunded investigative journalism project, INSURGEintelligence, was able to break into the mainstream a story about startling assertions contained in a just released declassified Pentagon intelligence report, confirming that the West, the Gulf states and Turkey had, essentially, created ISIS through their support for Islamist militant rebels in Syria.

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What It Was Like to Glimpse John Nash’s Beautiful Mind
Maurice Ewing – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

Nash taught me that even geniuses need other people to correct their thinking and vet their ideas (as he had done in interacting with Von Neumann). Most importantly, however, Nash taught me that anyone’s mind can be beautiful if it focuses on producing beautiful ideas.

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Rotten Science: How We Got Duped by Fake Chocolate Science
Daniela Hernandez, Fusion – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

On Retraction Watch, a site dedicated to tracking scientific papers that are retracted, newly debunked studies are piling up. The reason we keep getting duped is that science isn’t just science anymore. It’s Big Business. And it’s time we start thinking about it that way because, as in any big industry, there are some disturbing things going on that most people outside of scientific circles don’t know about — but should. After all, these missteps affect our lives.

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Correlating a Requisite Diversity of Metaphorical Patterns
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

Entuning the Dynamic of Cognitive Eases and Diseases – This is an exploration of a methodological possibility of dynamically interweaving disparate threads which might thereby offer integrative insight.

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Solutions Movement: How Worker-Owned Co-ops Can Change the Way We Work
Derek Royden, Occupy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

21 May 2015 – As many of us watch or participate in the movement to improve the lives of service workers through raising the minimum wage, another, more radical story is being told on the margins: the story of worker-owned cooperatives, which have the potential to change the way we work.

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Unsettling Settlements: More Wrongdoing at Banks, More Swingeing Fines, No Prosecutions
The Economist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

23 May 2015 – The scene was familiar: regulators meting out vast penalties to banks, scathing statements about gross misconduct, yet no individuals charged with any crimes and some confusion as to what exactly the banks were admitting to and what effect that would have.

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Myanmar Officially Rejects the Oslo Conference to End Systematic Persecution of the Rohingya Since 1978
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

Read press release from 31 May 2015.

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Integrated Peacebuilding: Innovative Approaches to Transforming Conflict – A Review
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

Craig Zelizer of the Conflict Resolution Program of Georgetown University, Washington DC, and his colleagues have written a very useful book with extensive bibliographies and website addresses of organizations dealing with conflict resolution.

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America at Its Best Is Strange
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

America even at its best is a strange place, alive with contradictions, a Teflon political culture that has an unshakable faith in its innocent and virtuous national character and its overall impact on the world, impervious to the ghosts of slavery and of ethnic cleansing of native Americans that should be tormenting our sleep and darkening our dreams, comfortable with its robust gun culture, and with its promiscuous reliance on rogue drones engineered to kill on command and on the brutal happenings that take place in black sites immorally situated in countries whose leaders agree to avert their gaze from the dirty work taking place.

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Peace Education for Nonviolence and Solution of Terrorism
Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2015

We find the history of terrorism and violence since the beginning of human civilizations. In every violent act, there is terror, fear and threat as experienced by its victim, similarly in every terror attack there is violence, fear, threat and terror.

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