Articles by UN
We found 3962 results.
Marx on Financial Bubbles: Much Keener Insights than Contemporary Economists
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh - CounterPunch,
4 Jul 2016
I will argue in this essay that, in fact, a careful reading of Karl Marx’s work on “fictitious capital” reveals keen insights into a better understanding of the instabilities of today’s financial markets.
→ read full articleRussia-China Strategic Partnership: On the Road to United Eurasia
Pepe Escobar |Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2016
Whenever President Vladimir Putin stresses Russia’s “all-embracing and strategic partnership” with China, one can hear the proverbial howls of anger emanating from the neocon/neoliberalcon axis in the Beltway.
→ read full articleTen Worst Acts of the Nuclear Age
David Krieger | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Jul 2016
The ten worst acts of the Nuclear Age described below have set the tone for our time. They have caused immense death and suffering; been tremendously expensive; have encouraged nuclear proliferation; have opened the door to nuclear terrorism, nuclear accidents and nuclear war; and are leading the world back into a second Cold War.
→ read full article(Italiano) Gli USA oggi, peggio che mai, ma-?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
Affrontate la realtà: gli USA dettero inizio alle guerre con l’Islam in Iraq, Afghanistan e in Africa. Smettetela di personalizzare e psichiatrizzare singoli combattenti musulmani, il che non farà cessare queste guerre; le guerre non sono necessarie e non si vincono. L’egemonia militare US non ritornerà. Gli USA abbisognano di una politica estera non di dominio bensì di tentativi per comporre e risolvere i conflitti. Diritti umani: unisciti al mondo, approva, trascendi i confini. Clima: segui Parigi o proponi soluzioni migliori, fa qualcosa. E le prossime elezioni? Tutto fuorché Hillary.
→ read full articleIsrael Right Now, with Shrinking Options
Johan Galtung,
27 Jun 2016
Israel’s options shrink, with decreasing legitimacy; Palestine’s options increase, with increasing legitimacy…. Israel, time has come for negotiations under UNGA auspices–for a realistic security through peace, not a realist peace through security!
→ read full articleThe Brexit Shock – Now All Is Up in the Air!
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research,
27 Jun 2016
24 Jun 2016 – The UK, Europe and the rest of the world will be affected. But there has been no planning for this anywhere. It’s now all up in the air what this Brexit vote will be the starting point of. All we can safely predict is that we are in for interesting times! ”May you live in interesting times” as the English say, considering it a curse.
→ read full article(Português) Cientistas europeus descobrem anticorpos que atacam vírus Zika
Nuno Noronha | Sapo – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
Cientistas europeus anunciaram esta quinta-feira[23 Jun] a descoberta de anticorpos que atacam o Zika, um passo que pode permitir o desenvolvimento de uma vacina contra o vírus que causa lesões cerebrais em fetos e distúrbios neurológicos em adultos.
→ read full articleTransCanada Files NAFTA Suit Demanding More Than $15 Billion for Keystone XL Rejection
Michael Brune | EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
On Jun 24 2016, foreign oil company TransCanada filed a lawsuit against the U.S. under NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that the U.S. rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline violated NAFTA’s broad rights for foreign investors by thwarting the company’s “expectations.” As compensation, TransCanada is demanding more than $15 billion from U.S. taxpayers.
→ read full articleHelen Keller (27 Jun 1880 – 1 Jun 1968)
American Foundation for the Blind – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
American educator Helen Keller overcame the adversity of being blind and deaf to become one of the 20th century’s leading humanitarians, as well as co-founder of the ACLU.
→ read full articleAmerica Trashes NATO Founding Act; Rushes Weapons to Russia’s Borders
Eric Zuesse | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
The NATO Founding Act was agreed to between the U.S. and Russia in 1997 in order to provide to Russia’s leader Boris Yeltsin some modicum of assurance that America wouldn’t invade his country. When his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev had ended the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, the representatives of U.S. President GHW Bush told him that NATO wouldn’t move “one inch to the east.”
→ read full articleHelen Keller: Socialist, Pacifist, Women’s & Workers’ Rights Advocate
Rivera Sun | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
Helen Keller is one of the most beloved figures in American history. Few people, however, remember her as a socialist, pacifist, and activist. Wikipedia reports, “A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her convictions. A member of the Socialist Party of America and the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned for women’s suffrage, labor rights, socialism, and other similar causes.”
→ read full article‘They Called Me Osama’ – A Documentary to Teach People about Sikh Religion
Ajay Ghosh – The Universal News Network,
27 Jun 2016
22 Jun 2016 – This new documentary film seeks to educate people about the Sikh religion and the experiences of Sikhs in America including bullying in schools, racism, and hate violence. It was made with funding from the University of Connecticut and aims at preventing abuses of Sikhs and informing about the centuries old Sikh religion.
→ read full articleThe European Dead End
Jean Bricmont - CounterPunch,
27 Jun 2016
European construction began as the dream of European elites and has become the nightmare of European peoples. For a number of European intellectuals and politicians, the dream was to transform Europe into a sort of Superstate, capable of rivaling the United States. For others, the idea was to get rid of the Nation-State once and for all, since it was considered chiefly to blame for the woes of the 20th century.
→ read full articleFifty-One Foreign Service Officers Can’t Be Wrong–Or Can They? More Bombs and Less Talk on Syria
Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review,
27 Jun 2016
21 Jun 2016 – It is ironic that fifty-one U.S. State Department employees, perhaps overly-generously dignified in the media with the title of “diplomats,” have come out in favor of removing a foreign head of state by force. Now consider for a moment who might have been involved in writing this memo. The authors are described by the newspapers that obtained copies of the memo as “mid-level.”
→ read full articleWhy and in What Ways Is Myanmar Military Protecting Buddhism and Buddhist ‘Race’?
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
25 Jun 2016 – Now Myanmar is officially a Fascist State, with the military claiming itself as the protector of Buddhism and Race: Aung San Suu Kyi is crippled, intellectually and strategically. Why does Myanmar Tatmadaw intend to protect “Buddhism” and “Bama race”? And in what specific ways do the military strategists “protect” Buddhism?
→ read full articleGenocide Scholars Pull Out of Israel Conference
Ali Abunimah | The Electronic Intifada – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jun 2016
25 Jun 2016 – The vice-president of the International Network of Genocide Scholars, Univ. of Cape Town Prof. Mohamed Adhikari, has pulled out of the group’s conference at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. British genocide scholar Martin Shaw also announced he is pulling out. South Africa’s Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation also withdrew citing concerns about Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights.
→ read full articleThe Racist and Sexist Nature of Brazil’s New [Rightwing] Government
Adam Bledsoe – CounterPunch,
27 Jun 2016
Over the past several weeks critics have appropriately pointed out the various ways in which the new government has threatened the country’s most marginalized sectors—closing avenues to affordable housing, removing women and people of color from government posts, and threatening to de-fund constitutionally-guaranteed services like healthcare and education.
→ read full articleBrex’It, So Be’It; And Then What?
Johan Galtung,
24 Jun 2016
Goodbye United Kingdom, UK, we may get United Ireland, UI, instead.
Goodbye Great Britain, GB, we may get Scotland in EU instead.
Welcome to Britain of England-Wales, if they care for that vocabulary.
Welcome to new-born England, 23 June being the Day of Independence.
Neoliberalism Nakedly Exposed
Robert Hunziker – CounterPunch,
20 Jun 2016
14 Jun 2016 – A recent IMF study (June 2016) exposes flaws in neoliberal policy that have afflicted progressive issues for over 40 years. The title of the study itself “Neoliberalism: Oversold?” hints at the underlying thesis that something must be wrong. Why else pose the question? “Instead of delivering growth, some neoliberal policies have increased inequality, in turn jeopardizing durable expansion.” (Neoliberalism: Oversold? IMF, Finance & Development, June 2016, Vol. 53, No. 2).
→ read full article(Italiano) Il Giappone del momento – e gli USA
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2016
Comunque, la demistificazione dei rapporti USA-Giappone è destinata ad arrivare. Ma solo dalla fonte accettabile al “Giappone che dice Sì” (sì-sì-sì-sì): dagli USA stessi. Da USA che perdono una guerra dopo l’altra da quella di Corea del 1953, USA affaticati dalla guerra, checché ne sia la ragione. A un Giappone molto preoccupato per Trump non solo per il [ventilato] ritiro delle truppe dal Giappone lasciandogli l’onere della propria auto-difesa, ma per il [loro] divenire Grande da soli, senza conferire ad altri grandezza indiretta. Rendendolo un Giappone ordinario.
→ read full articleUSA Right Now, Worse Than Ever, But-?
Johan Galtung,
20 Jun 2016
Face the fact: USA started wars with Islam in Iraq, Afghanistan and into Africa. Stop individualizing and psychiatrizing individual Muslim fighters, that will not make these wars disappear; wars as unnecessary as unwinnable. US military hegemony will not return. The USA needs a foreign policy not of domination but of trying to heal and solve conflicts.
Human rights: join the world, ratify, transcend borders.
Climate: follow Paris or come up with better ideas, do something.
And the coming election? Anything but Hillary.
Newly Released CIA Files Expose Grim Details of Agency Interrogation Program
Greg Miller, Karen DeYoung and Julie Tate – The Washington Post,
20 Jun 2016
14 Jun 2016 – The files include granular descriptions of the inner workings of the CIA’s “black site” prisons, messages sent to CIA headquarters from field officers who expressed deep misgivings with how detainees were being treated and secret memos raising objections to the roles played by doctors and psychologists in the administration of treatment later condemned as torture.
→ read full articleMessage to the Wall
David Krieger | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2016
Dear Wall,
Your polished surface deceives.
You appear serene, yet you are bursting with anguish and lost potential.
[Nobel Peace Laureate] Dalai Lama Urges Myanmar’s [Nobel Peace Laureate] Suu Kyi to Ease Rohingya Tensions
David Brunnstrom | Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2016
Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has a moral responsibility to try to ease tensions between majority Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims, her fellow Nobel laureate, the Dalai Lama, said on Monday [13 Jun]. “She already has the Nobel Peace Prize, a Nobel Laureate, so morally she should … make efforts to reduce this tension,” he told Reuters in an interview in Washington.
→ read full article(Italiano) Est-Asia: quattro formule per la pace
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2016
Una gara agli armamenti nucleari. Che può anche fungere da deterrente, ma più sovente finisce in guerra. La guerra vuol dire traumi per gli sconfitti e gloria per i vincitori. La sindrome da stress post-traumatico (PTSD) può portare alla sete di rivalsa, e la PGED (sindrome da esuberanza post-gloria) alla sete di più gloria. Guerra, guerra, guerra. Peggio che mai dai tempi della 2^ guerra mondiale. L’Est-Asia ha un gran bisogno di un approccio diverso. Come minimo, i quattro compiti della formula di pace TRANSCEND: la pace negativa consistente nella riconciliazione dei traumi e nella soluzione dei conflitti; la pace positiva che si basa sulla cooperazione a
→ read full articleFukushima: Worse Than a Disaster
Robert Hunziker - CounterPunch,
13 Jun 2016
Disasters can be cleaned up. 600 tons of hot molten core, or corium, are missing and it is not likely the fuel will ever be recovered: “Nobody really knows where the fuel is at this point, and this fuel is still very radioactive and will be for a long time.” Nobody has experience with a Fukushima-type 100% meltdown, possibly burrowed into the ground, but nobody really knows for sure.
→ read full articleMorocco Continues Occupation of Western Sahara, in Defiance of UN
Stephen Zunes | National Catholic Reporter – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2016
6 Jun 2016 – As Morocco continues to defy the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and much of the international community in its continued occupation of Western Sahara, the United States continues supporting that autocratic government. Morocco has illegally occupied the former Spanish colony for more than 40 years.
→ read full articleDorothy Day Refuses to Duck-And-Cover
Rivera Sun | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Jun 2016
On June 15th, 1955, Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day joined a group of pacifists in refusing to participate in the civilian defense drills scheduled on that day. In this particular case, Operation Alert was a nationwide, mandated, legally enforced drill.
→ read full articleApartheid, Human Rights and BDS
Robert Fantina - CounterPunch,
13 Jun 2016
The tide of justice has long since turned in Palestine’s direction. The U.S., which supported the apartheid government of South Africa right up to the bitter end, will once again be standing alone when Palestine rids itself of the shackles of Israeli oppression. That day is coming, and the pompous pronouncements of U.S. politicians, and even their executive orders, will not prevent it.
→ read full articleJapan Right Now–And the USA
Johan Galtung,
13 Jun 2016
Demystification of USA-Japan relations is bound to come. But only from the source acceptable to “The Japan that Says Yes” (yes-yes-yes-yes–): from the USA itself. From a USA losing one war after the other since Korea 1953, a USA of war fatigue. To a Japan deeply worried about Trump not only for pulling troops out leaving Self-defense to Japan itSelf, but for becoming Great alone, not bestowing indirect greatness on others. Making Japan ordinary.
→ read full article(Italiano) Il conflitto nella penisola coreana: una via d’uscita
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2016
Costruire sugli obiettivi nord-coreani, prenderli in parola. Il loro regime cambierà, come tutti i regimi; anche gli USA stanno avanzando adesso verso cambiamenti sostanziali. Si progetti un trattato di pace, come con la Sud-Corea, si normalizzino i rapporti diplomatici Nord-Sud e Nord-USA; e si configuri un regime per una penisola coreana denuclearizzata, distruggendo o togliendo di mezzo le armi risultanti a uno scrupoloso monitoraggio ONU.
→ read full articleThis Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2016
June 23, 1942 – The first nuclear weapons-related accident occurred on this date in the city of Leipzig, Germany involving Nazi atomic scientists Werner Heisenberg and Robert Doepel. While demonstrating Germany’s first neutron propagation experiment, workers checked the atomic pile for a heavy water leak. During the inspection, air leaked in igniting the uranium powder inside.
→ read full articleEast Asia: Four Formulas for Peace
Johan Galtung,
6 Jun 2016
Arms races may deter, but often end with wars. Wars mean trauma for losers and glory for winners. PTSD-post trauma stress disorder-may lead to thirst for revenge, and PGED-post glory exuberance disorder-to thirst for more glory. War, war, war. Worse than ever since WWII. East Asia badly needs another approach. As a minimum, the four tasks in the TRANSCEND peace formula: the negative peace of conciling traumas and solving conflicts; the positive peace of cooperation for mutual and equal benefit-equity-and harmony based on empathy.
→ read full articlePan-African Parliament Calls on African Union to Support the Creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly
Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2016
13 May 2016 – Yesterday, the Pan-African Parliament called on the African Union and Africa’s governments to support the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, in short UNPA.
→ read full articlePeace Jobs – A Student’s Guide to Starting a Career Working for Peace
David J. Smith | George Mason University – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2016
This book is a guide for college students exploring career options who are interested in working to promote peacebuilding and the resolution of conflict. High school students, particularly those starting to consider college and careers, can also benefited from this book. A major feature of the book is 30 stories from young professionals, most recently graduated from college, who are working in the field.
→ read full articleTrade Pacts and Deregulation: Latest Leaks Reveal Core Problem with TISA
Deborah James - CounterPunch,
6 Jun 2016
30 May 2016 – The 18th round of negotiations on a secret deal to limit public oversight over the services economy starts this week at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, and negotiators will have a new item on their agenda: how to deal with the onslaught of leaks of proposals that were supposed to remain locked away in secret until five years after the deal was concluded or abandoned.
→ read full articleWall Street’s New Man in Brazil: The Forces Behind Dilma Rousseff’s Impeachment
José L. Flores – CounterPunch,
30 May 2016
Acting President Michel Temer is simultaneously being investigated for bribery and corruption. When one studies his political apparatus, it has become apparent that a return to neoliberal economic policies is the actual goal. These impeachment proceedings seem to be secretly guided by the U.S. State Department, Defense Department and U.S. business interests. According to recent internal documents, provided by WikiLeaks, on several occasions Michel Temer was an embassy informant for U.S. intelligence.
→ read full article(Italiano) Marinaleda: un’utopia concreta
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2016
Il concetto base è ben noto: le autorità hanno espropriato terre lasciate incolte nel bel mezzo di un bracciantato disoccupato e alla fame, trasformamdole in una cooperativa comunale con abitazioni molto economiche, asilo d’infanzia, scuole, cliniche. Dietro c’è stata per oltre 30 anni la visione, la sapienza, l’abilità, la volontà del sindaco, Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo. Con la mente, una realtà, e la volontà di cambiarla, quella realtà.
→ read full articleTroika Heat-Seeking Missile Destroys Greece
Robert Hunziker – Dissident Voice,
30 May 2016
23 May 2016 – It is scorched-earth economic warfare, ordinarily referred to as neoliberalism. The newest twist/manipulation in negotiations with Troika for Greece survival (demise) in order to provide the country with €86 billion of which 90% pays off debt, 10% to the state, demands Greece cut pensions (again), raise taxes (again), privatize state assets (for a song), and deregulate (squelch) labor. Inspirational?
→ read full articleThe Korean Peninsula Conflict: A Way Out
Johan Galtung,
30 May 2016
Build on the North Korean goals, hold NK to their words. Their regime will, like all regimes, change; even the USA is now heading for basic change. Design a peace treaty, like with South Korea, normalize diplomatic relations North-South and North-USA; and design a regime for a nuclear free peninsula, destroying or removing weapons monitored by solid UN inspection.
→ read full articleClose Calls: We Were Closer to Nuclear Destruction Than We Knew
Gunnar Westberg – The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nobel Peace Laureates,
30 May 2016
“The proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used — accidentally or by decision — defies credibility.” This unanimous statement was published by the Canberra Commission in 1996. Among the commission members were internationally known former ministers of defense and of foreign affairs and generals.
→ read full articleEconomic Costs of US Wars
Brown University Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 May 2016
The USA has spent or obligated 4.4 trillion dollars on the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq paid almost entirely by borrowing, which has raised the US budget deficit, increased the national debt, and had other macroeconomic effects, such as raising consumer interest rates. We estimate that interest payments over war borrowings could total over $7 trillion by 2053.
→ read full article(Italiano) La geopolitica di seta della Cina
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 May 2016
La Cina sta cambiando la geografia mondiale, o almeno ci sta provando. Non nel senso di acqua e terra come per i Paesi Bassi, ma tessendo nuove infrastrutture di comunicazione per terra, acqua, aria, e nel cyberspazio/web. Le Vie della Seta. Non sorprende che un paese con un certo orientamento marxista focalizzi la propria politica sulle infrastrutture – ma qui come mezzo di trasporto-comunicazione, non di produzione.
→ read full articleWhen Nuclear Plants Expire: Stick the Taxpayers with the Bill (and the Waste)
Linda Pentz Gunter – CounterPunch,
23 May 2016
The inevitable result is that reactor owners will successfully avoid spending money now on decommissioning as they seek to delay beginning the actual cleanup work for the next half century and maybe longer. Later, when it comes time to finish the job, the owners – and the money – could well be long gone.
→ read full articleNorth Korea: Love Thy Leader
Israel Shamir – The Unz Review,
23 May 2016
12 May 2016 | Author’s Note: I returned just now from North Korea. Here is my report from this unusual land.
→ read full articleMarinaleda: A Concrete Utopia
Johan Galtung,
23 May 2016
The basic concept is well known: authorities expropriated land lying fallow in the midst of unemployed starving land labor, and it was transformed into a communal cooperative with very inexpensive housing, kindergarten, schools, clinics. Behind that was the vision, knowledge, skill, will of the mayor for over 30 years, Juan Grillo. With the mind, a reality, and the will to transform that reality.
→ read full articleFukushima Flunks Decontamination
Robert Hunziker - CounterPunch,
23 May 2016
Fukushima’s growing radiation problem.
→ read full articleMonsanto and the Poisoning of Europe
Colin Todhunter – CounterPunch,
23 May 2016
Monsanto’s Assault on Europe – There are around 500 million people in the EU. They want EU officials to uphold the public interest and to be independent from commercial influence. They do not want them to serve and profit from commercial interests at cost to the public’s health and safety.
→ read full articleWhat Race Were the Greeks and Romans? The Evidence Is Clear — but Often Ignored
John Harrison Sims | American Renaissance – Unz Review,
23 May 2016
The Encyclopædia Britannica published in 1911, “Survival of fair hair and complexion and light eyes among the upper classes in Thebes and some other localities shows that the blond type of mankind which is characteristic of north-western Europe had already penetrated into Greek lands before classical times.” It added that the early Greeks, or Hellenes, were Nordic, one of “the fair-haired tribes of upper Europe known to the ancients as Keltoi.” Sixty years ago even Bertrand Russell, the British philosopher and socialist, believed that the Hellenes “were fair-haired invaders from the North, who brought the Greek language with them.”
→ read full article(Italiano) Migrazione di Massa, UE, Nazionalismi Europei
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2016
Oggi la UE è come una piramide dello sfruttamento: la Germania in cima; 8 Paesi Germanici del Nord; 5 Paesi Latini del Sud con la Francia, e poi l’Irlanda; 12 Paesi dell’Est; la Grecia al fondo. Considerando l’ingiustizia e le quote, nulla di strano che crescano i nazionalismi, disunendo la UE. Rimuovete la cause: Inghilterra-Francia, accettate di ricevere il conto; UE, appiattisci la piramide.
→ read full articleWhy 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.
May: 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 articleMass 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 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 article