Articles by M

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Non Aligned Movement Backs Venezuela against U.S. Sanctions
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

The group of 120 nations issued a statement Saturday [7 Feb 2015] denouncing the sanctions as an intervention into Venezuelan affairs.

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The Island of Knowledge: How to Live with Mystery in a Culture Obsessed with Certainty and Definitive Answers
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

We strive toward knowledge, always more knowledge, but must understand that we are, and will remain, surrounded by mystery. “To think of science as separate from spirituality to me is a big mistake… It’s exactly because I feel very spiritually connected with nature that I am a scientist.” –astrophysicist/philosopher Marcelo Gleiser

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Nouvelles Affaires Africaines
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Pierre Péan has written a lively book on palace intrigue in Gabon. Péan is considered an “investigative journalist” and has published some 34 books on African and French politics. «Pierre Péan, Nouvelles Affaires Africaines (Paris: Fayard, 2014, 254 pp.)»

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War and Perpetual Adolescence
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

The urgency I feel isn’t any longer to stop a particular war but to interrupt endless war: to interrupt the narrowly focused geopolitical conversation, conveyed to us over and over by media stenographers.

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Fighting for Palestine
Hatem Bazian – Al Jazeera, 9 Feb 2015

Al-Arian’s deportation brings an end to a painful and torturous episode in the life of one of the most active Palestinian civil rights advocates. Al-Arian maintained that all along that the government case was political and directly connected to silencing Palestinian and Muslim voices critical of Israel and successive US administrations’ unconditional support for an occupying power.

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(Italiano) “Ricordare vuol dire non morire”
Silvia Berruto – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Portato e interpretato in italiano da Roberto Contardo, figlio di Ida Desandré, deportata politica nei campi di Ravensbrück, Salgitter e Bergen-Belsen.

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The Afghanistan War Is Still Raging—but This Time It’s Being Waged by Contractors
Tim Shorrock - The Nation, 9 Feb 2015

4 Feb 2015 – The killing of three US Pentagon contractors at the hands of a uniformed Afghan Army soldier in Kabul last week casts considerable doubt on President Obama’s recent proclamation that America’s “combat mission in Afghanistan is over.”

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My Tribute to Serena Williams
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

By returning to Indian Wells Serena Williams has made the double point of at once acknowledging the pain of her past victimization and the healing power of forgiveness.

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No Piers Morgan. This Is How to Destroy the Islamic State
Nafeez Ahmed – Middle East Eye, 9 Feb 2015

So, yes, not in my name. If we want to destroy IS, we must transform the system that incubated it. Fellow citizens of Planet Earth: Let’s get started.

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Net Neutrality, Back by Popular Demand
Amy Goodman – Truthdig, 9 Feb 2015

More than 4 million people commented on the rules, making this the largest response to any federal request for public comment in history. The large Internet providers will be prevented from discriminating against people on the Internet regardless of race, color, beliefs and, perhaps most importantly, how rich they are.

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An Irish Ghost Story
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

This story happened a while ago in Dublin, and even though it sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock tale, it’s true.

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Claims against Saudis Cast New Light on Secret Pages of 9/11 Report
Arl Hulse – The New York Times, 9 Feb 2015

Feb. 4, 2015 – A still-classified section of the investigation by congressional intelligence committees into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has taken on an almost mythic quality over the past 13 years — 28 pages that examine crucial support given the hijackers and that by all accounts implicate prominent Saudis in financing terrorism.

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(Italiano) Le radici della nonviolenza
Lorenzo Guadagnucci, Altreconomia – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Il 30 gennaio cade l’anniversario dell’uccisione di Mohandas Gandhi. L’azione del leader indiano s’ispirò al giainismo, una religione nata nello Stato del Gujarat, di cui è stato governatore l’attuale premier indiano Narendra Modi.

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If Russia Is Ukraine’s Enemy, Why Are 1,2 Million Ukrainian Men Seeking Refuge in Russia?
RedPillTimes – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Ukrainian men of conscription age seeking refuge in Russia increased by 20,000 in one week, the Russian Federal Migration Service said on Monday [2 Feb 2015]. 1,193 million Ukrainian men, conscription age, now staying in Russia. 2,5 million Ukrainian refugees currently being taken care of (fed, clothed, etc…) in Russia.

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Peacemaker
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Most people thought by now that I’d at least
have stopped the fighting in the Middle East.

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(Português) Syriza: A Segunda Libertação
Boaventura de Sousa Santos – Carta Maior, 9 Feb 2015

A ortodoxia sabe que o problema da Grécia é o problema da Europa e que a sua solução só poderá ser europeia. A recente vitória do Partido Syriza na Grécia teve o sabor de uma segunda libertação da Europa. A primeira ocorreu há setenta anos, quando os aliados libertaram a Europa do jugo alemão nazi e puseram fim ao horror do holocausto.

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(Italiano) Di fronte alla tragedia di Charlie Hebdo
Jean-Marie Muller – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Un’ultima riflessione che sembrerà forse non corretta. La tragedia di Charlie Hebdo non ha fatto 17, ma 20 vittime. I tre assassini, giovani francesi nati in Francia ma la cui vita era dimenticata, sono anch’essi vittime del terrorismo. Indipendentemente dall’orrore criminale dei loro atti, sono anche loro degli uomini. Al di là della morte, tocca a noi restituire loro la loro umanità. Ci sarà allora possibile piangere anche questi tre uomini nel rispetto della loro persona.

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Genocide in Kashmir: India’s Shame
Andre Vltchek – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Welcome to a nation overrun by the 700,000-strong security forces of the occupying power – India. Welcome to the continuous presence of barbed wire, of military columns, and ‘security checks’. Welcome to a brutality unimaginable almost anywhere else on earth!

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President Raúl Castro Speaks to Third CELAC Summit in Costa Rica
Raúl Castro Ruz – Granma, 9 Feb 2015

The reestablishment of diplomatic relations is the beginning of a process which can progress toward normalization of bilateral relations [with U.S.], but this will not be possible as long as the blockade exists, or as long as the territory illegally occupied by the Guantánamo Naval Base is not returned, or radio and television broadcasts which violate international norms continue, or just compensation is not provided our people for the human and economic damage they have suffered.

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The Fiery Cage and the Lynching Tree, Brutality’s Never Far Away
Bill Moyers – Common Dreams, 9 Feb 2015

Sure enough, there it was: the charred corpse of a young black man, tied to a blistered tree in the heart of the Texas Bible Belt. Next to the burned body, young white men can be seen smiling and grinning, seemingly jubilant at their front-row seats in a carnival of death.

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Greece’s New Finance Minister Looks like a Normal Person – How Refreshing
Simon Jenkins – The Guardian, 9 Feb 2015

With his casual shirt and jeans, Yanis Varoufakis is throwing down the gauntlet to the established European banking order. Greece, and now all of Europe, are suffering because Europe is still being run by and for bankers who simply want their money back. This cannot continue.

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Sami Al-Arian, Professor Who Defeated Controversial Terrorism Charges, Is Deported from U.S.
Murtaza Hussain and Glenn Greenwald – The Intercept, 9 Feb 2015

5 Feb 2015 – In 2003, Sami Al-Arian was a professor at the University of South Florida, a legal resident of the U.S. since 1975, and one of the most prominent Palestinian civil rights activists in the U.S. The government ultimately failed to produce any evidence of Al-Arian’s involvement in terrorist activities and his ordeal finally ended last night, 12 years after it began, as Al-Arian was deported to Turkey. “I came to the United States for freedom, but four decades later, I am leaving to gain my freedom.”

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(Português) Freio na boca de cavalo serve para quê? Explicações de Alexander Nevzorov: Tortura
Sônia T. Felipe - ANDA Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais, 9 Feb 2015

Alexander Nevzorov, em seu livro ‘The Horse Crucified and Risen’, ao alertar para a baba grossa escorrendo da boca de um cavalo com ferro plantado na cavidade bucal, pressionando a língua, refere-se a ele como “um aparato especial para infligir muita dor” ao animal, um “pesadelo” para o cavalo, pois a “causa dessa baba grossa é trágica”.

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Britain Launches ‘Big Brother’ System, Uploads One Third of Population to Facial Recognition Database
21st Century Wire – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

To describe what has happened to British society, one can no longer call it a “slippery slope”, as it’s abundantly clear from this latest news that Britain has already fallen off the edge, and is presently tumbling into an Orwellian canyon.

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Al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia and Israel
Robert Parry – Consortium News, 9 Feb 2015

4 Feb 2015 – Saudi Arabia is under a new cloud after a jailed al-Qaeda operative implicated senior Saudi officials as collaborators with the terror group – and the shadow could even darken the political future of Israeli Prime Netanyahu because of his odd-couple alliance with Riyadh.

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University of California Approves Boycotting Israel
PressTV – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

4 Feb 2015 – Pro-Palestinian students at the University of California, Davis, have celebrated after a student government vote to boycott Israel was passed overwhelmingly at the US school.

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This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

February 9–15 – Quote of the Week: “Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world’s problems?” — Bill Watterson

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Israel’s Insolence to Obama Is Likely to Rebound on It
Jonathan Cook – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

As with any mafia boss, Mr Obama is in trouble if he can no longer inspire fear, let alone respect. But the problem is of his own making. For six years, Mr Netanyahu “spat in our face”, as one White House official memorably observed while referring to his latest attempt to humiliate Mr Obama, but paid no discernible price.

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The Debate around Nuclear Energy in Australia Just Got a Whole Lot More Serious
Thom Mitchell – New Matilda, 9 Feb 2015

Nuclear energy will now be on everyone’s lips and maybe one day in everyone’s homes, with the announcement of a Royal Commission.

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Monsanto Crops Pushing Monarch Butterfly to ‘Verge of Extinction’
Deirdre Fulton – Common Dreams, 9 Feb 2015

Herbicide-resistant genetically modified crops have brought the iconic monarch butterfly to the brink of extinction, according to a new report presented by the Center for Food Safety to Congress on Thursday [5 Feb 2015].

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Vatican Bank May Be Too Corrupt for Pope Francis to Save
Nicole Goodkind, Yahoo – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

The Vatican Bank is one of the most mysterious institutions in the world. This is a bank that doesn’t give out any loans and doesn’t have to turn a profit by its own charter. It is an “offshore bank in the middle of Rome.” Wealthy Italians would only have to find one priest willing to deposit their money in the bank and Italian authorities wouldn’t know about it.

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February: This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 9 Feb 2015

February 17, 1953 – Years after serving as the civilian director of the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer gave one of many speeches opposing the growing nuclear arms race, this one at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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(Castellano) Unidos, Jamas Seremos Vencidos: La Victoria de Guatemala En Contra de Monsanto
Cultural Survival – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

A pesar de cientos de años de opresión y marginación, el pueblo de Guatemala se levanto en contra de sus líderes opresivos y exigieron justicia. La victoria sobre Monsanto es una idea de la potencia de este país.

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A Pathan Soldier
Stephen Gill – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

This story is set in 1971 when the tragic events unfolded in the region known as East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The barbarous rape seemed unbelievable but it is a fact. Within a few months three million Bengalees were killed and ten million escaped to the neighboring country of India. Out of the atrocities there emerged a new country, called Bangladesh.

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(Italiano) L’Iberia mille anni fa
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Può essere utile una macchina del tempo disposta su un lungo periodo nel passato per capire il presente in tale luce. Per esempio la penisola iberica, oggi con due stati, Spagna e Portogallo.

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If Japan Hated Sea Shepherd Before, Wait Until They See What’s Steaming Towards Them in 2016
Chris Graham – New Matilda, 9 Feb 2015

Anti-whaling activism out of Australia just got a whole lot smarter, faster and flashier. Not to mention scarier.

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UNRWA: The Situation in Gaza Is Worse Than Ever Before
Falastin News Palestine – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Robert Turner, Director of Operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in Gaza-UNRWA said in a press conference on Wednesday [4 Feb 2015] that the current situation in Gaza Strip is worse than before Israel’s summer offensive.

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What Colonialism Was About: The Case of Malaya
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Statement by Cecil Rhodes: “I was in East End London yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed… My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e. in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and the mines. THE EMPIRE–IS A BREAD AND BUTTER QUESTION. IF YOU WANT TO AVOID A CIVIL WAR, YOU JUST BECOME IMPERIALISTS.

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Why Geoengineering is “Untested and Untestable”
Naomi Klein – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Right now there are all kinds of geoengineering experiments going on in labs and with computer modeling but “outdoor tests” are still frowned upon. Geoengineering in one part of the world will impact the climate on the other side of the planet. Those questions can only be answered through planetary scale deployment.

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Is the India Nuclear Agreement Really the ‘Breakthrough’ Obama Promised?
Annie Gowen and Steven Mufson – The Washington Post, 9 Feb 2015

The key issue will be whether the conflict between international and Indian law can be waved away by a memorandum from India’s attorney general. The memorandum would have to say that the 2010 liability law “doesn’t mean what it says.”

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Spanish Romance [Romanza] (Music Video of the Week)
Miloš Karadaglić – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

Author Unknown – Guitarist Extraordinaire. The style of the piece is that of the Parlour music of the late 19th century in Spain or South America. A classic.

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Greece Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis Speaks Truth to Hostile Interviewer
BBC – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Jan 30, 2015 – Greece’s new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis interview on BBC’s Newsnight.

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Don’t Trade Away Our Health: Trans-Pacific Partnership and International Drug Price Fixing
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 2 Feb 2015

30 Jan 2015 – A secretive group met behind closed doors in New York this week. The efforts to raise drug prices in the T.P.P. take us in the wrong direction. The whole world may come to pay a price in the form of worse health and unnecessary deaths.

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Brazilian Indians Secure Nationwide Land Victory
Survival International – TRANSCEND Media Serviced, 2 Feb 2015

Tribes across Brazil have secured a historic victory, preventing Congress from seizing control of the future of their lands. Brazilian Indians continue to fight against the invasion of their lands by loggers, miners, ranchers and others, and against a series of Amazon mega-dams which threaten to destroy their livelihoods and wipe out some uncontacted tribes.

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War Is the New Normal: Seven Deadly Reasons That America’s Wars Persist
William J. Astore - TomDispatch, 2 Feb 2015

What’s truly “exceptional” in twenty-first-century America is any articulated vision of what a land at peace with itself and other nations might be like. Instead, war, backed by a diet of fear, is the backdrop against which the young have grown to adulthood. It’s the background noise of their world, so much a part of their lives that they hardly recognize it for what it is. And that’s the most insidious danger of them all.

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School Day of Nonviolence and Peace – 30 January
Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Its basic and permanent message is: “Universal Love, Nonviolence and Peace – Universal love is better than egoism, nonviolence is better than violence, and peace is better than war.”

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Five Years After: Long Live Howard Zinn
Bill Bigelow – Common Dreams, 2 Feb 2015

Today—Jan. 27, 2015—marks five years since the death of the great historian and activist Howard Zinn, best known, of course, for his beloved ‘A People’s History of the United States,’ arguably the most influential U.S. history textbook in print. Immediately following Zinn’s death, the writer and activist Naomi Klein said, “We just lost our favorite teacher.”

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Teach Your Children (Music Video of the Week)
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

From the 1970 Album “Déjà Vu” – A classic for teachers & parents.

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Is It Time to Make Iran Our Friend and Saudi Arabia Our Enemy?
Michael Axworthy – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

Far from being a guarantee of stability in the Middle East, the western alliance with the kingdom is an impediment to peace.

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The High Cost of Capitalism: The Destructive Component in Capitalism’s ‘Creative Destruction’ Is Very High
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

External or social costs are associated with production that are not incurred by the producer but are inflicted on outside third parties, most often the environment, such as land, air, and water resources on which humanity is dependent.

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(Italiano) L’anno 2015: che cosa dobbiamo aspettarci?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Stanno dispiegandosi tre, forse quattro drammatici processi globali. E poi questo: il Treno-Merci della Ferrovia della Seta Yiwu dalla Cina costiera a Madrid, 8.111 miglia [13.053 km], che connette tutti i mercati in Eurasia da un’estremità all’altra – e da Madrid all’America Latina, ovviamente.

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Ayotzinapa Parents Reject Government’s Decision to Close Case
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Parents of the 43 Mexican students forcibly disappeared on Sep 26 offered a press conference Tuesday [27 Jan 2015] categorically rejecting the Attorney General’s conclusion that the students were kidnapped, killed, burned and thrown into a river.

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Africa’s Quiet Solar Revolution
Lorena Galliot – Christian Science Monitor, 2 Feb 2015

The continent skipped land lines for mobile phones. Now a new generation of start-ups is trying to bring sun power to rural Africa – and leapfrog the fossil fuel era. A new solar energy movement is bringing kilowatts to previously unlit areas of Africa – and changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

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Source Code Similarities: Experts Unmask ‘Regin’ Trojan as NSA Tool
Marcel Rosenbach, Hilmar Schmundt and Christian Stöcker – Der Spiegel, 2 Feb 2015

Just weeks ago, SPIEGEL published the source code of an NSA malware program known internally as QWERTY. Now, experts have found that it is none other than the notorious trojan Regin, used in dozens of cyber attacks around the world.

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Torture If You Must, But Do Not Under Any Circumstances Call the New York Times
Dan Froomkin – The Intercept, 2 Feb 2015

Monday’s [26 Jan 2015] guilty verdict in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on espionage charges — for talking to a newspaper reporter — is the latest milepost on the dark and dismal path Barack Obama has traveled since his inaugural promises to usher in a “new era of openness.”

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Greece to the Troika: ‘You Don’t Own Us!’
Lynn Stuart Parramore – Al Jazeera America, 2 Feb 2015

Alarmists have warned that Syriza’s victory will ignite instability and economic disaster, but that threat sounds hollow to a country already laid to waste by flawed policies. While it is true that Greece is a small country of 10 million people that represents a mere 2.5 percent of Europe’s economy, the elections could have big consequences well beyond the country’s borders.

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The NFL’s Anarchist Success Story
Matt Peppe, Just the Facts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

The Green Bay Packers prove that there is no reason for private ownership of sports teams. They are essentially an anarchist organization. Everybody involved has a stake. No one’s voice is dominant. The Packers model closely resembles anarcho-syndicalism, an anarchist theory concerned with workers’ freedom from exploitative labor conditions.

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Why Do We Fear Love?
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Why do human beings fear love? That is, why do we fear loving ourselves and others, and why do we fear being fully loved ourselves? Where does obedience fit into all of this? It doesn’t. Those who require obedience are frightened. And fear is the opposite of love. If you want someone to do what you want, you are frightened, not loving.

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Secret ‘BADASS’ Intelligence Program Spied on Smartphones
Micah Lee – The Intercept, 2 Feb 2015

26 Jan 2015 – British and Canadian spy agencies accumulated sensitive data on smartphone users, including location, app preferences, and unique device identifiers, by piggybacking on ubiquitous software from advertising and analytics companies, according to a document obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

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Good News! US Corporations Won’t Have to Pay for Nuclear Disasters in India
Jim Naureckas – Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting-FAIR, 2 Feb 2015

The “breakthrough” between Obama and Modi seems to be an agreement that the law will be “tweaked” to let US corporations off the hook in case of a devastating accident. For example, suppliers of nuclear equipment could be redefined as “contractors” and therefore not be liable under Indian law.

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The Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Chapter Six of: Economic Theory and Community Development.

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Hybrid Political Orders: In the case of Somaliland
Nubar Piriyeva – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

The Concept of Hybrid Political Orders vs. the Concept of Failing or Fragile States – First of all, we should analyze and understand an ideal type of statehood based on Weberian concept and a real type of statehood.

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(русский-Russian) Россия может проиграть новую холодную войну — сначала внутри России
Владимир Дегоев, Regnum Information Agency – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Жизнь имеет обыкновение сама подводить черту под логически более или менее завершенными эпохами. И делает это так наглядно, что самые компетентные аналитические выкладки кажутся скучными копиями «веселой» заоконной реальности. Через два года исполнится четверть века с момента развала СССР.

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Winston Churchill: The Imperial Monster
Michael Dickinson – CounterPunch, 2 Feb 2015

28 Jan 2015: This week Britain is commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion, breed like rabbits and will outstrip any available food supply.” — Churchill

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God Promised Antisemitism to the Zionists
Gilad Atzmon – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

The following is an interesting article by Aaron Dover, a British Jewish peace activist. It offers a critical point of view on Holocaust politics and the primacy of Jewish suffering.

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Some Contributions of Islamic Culture
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

At a time when the corporate-controlled media of Europe and the United States are doing everything that they can to fill us with poisonous Islamophobia, it is perhaps a useful antidote to remember the great role that Islamic civilization played in preserving, enlarging and transmitting to us the knowledge and culture of the ancient world.

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Viewing American Sniper
Richard Falk, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

To question this American domination project is to antagonize the entrenched bureaucratic, media, and neoliberal forces that benefit from endless war making and its associated expenditures of trillions. In the end it is this grand project of late capitalism that American Sniper indirectly vindicates, thereby burdening the nation and the world, perhaps fatally.

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(Deutsch) Warum der Beschluss zur Lieferung deutscher Kriegswaffen in den Irak fundamental falsch ist und was stattdessen getan werden muss
Jürgen Grässlin, Wissenschaft und Frieden – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Keine Kriegswaffen in den Irak liefern – sofort humanitär helfen, politisch umsteuern

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How to Leak to The Intercept
Micah Lee – The Intercept, 2 Feb 2015

People often tell reporters things their employers, or their government, want to keep suppressed. But leaking can serve the public interest, fueling revelatory and important journalism. This publication was created in part as a platform for journalism arising from unauthorized disclosures by NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

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The Davos Oligarchs Are Right to Fear the World They’ve Made
Seumas Milne – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

The billionaires and corporate oligarchs who met in Davos last week are getting worried about inequality. It might be hard to stomach that the overlords of a system that has delivered the widest global economic gulf in human history should be handwringing about the consequences of their own actions. Escalating inequality is the work of a global elite that will resist every challenge to its vested interests.

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(Português) Plano económico do Syriza é mais realista que o da troika, diz Krugman
Esquerda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Economista Prémio Nobel de 2008 afirma que se há algum defeito no plano do Syriza, é o de não ser suficientemente radical. E defende que “o resto da Europa devia dar-lhe a oportunidade de pôr fim ao pesadelo no seu país”.

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Zionists All
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Many times people ask me: “Are you a Zionist?” My stock answer is: “Depends on what you mean by Zionism.” This is quite sincere. The term Zionism can mean many different things. Like the term socialism, for example. Francois Hollande is a socialist. So was Joe Stalin. Any resemblance?

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The Three Roles of the Arab Peace Initiative
Walid Salem – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

The main significance of the API is in its presentation as an initiative that represents the consensus of all the 22 Arab countries (and subsequently all 57 Islamic countries) making it a plan of all Arab countries and not only so-called ‘moderate Arab countries’. Therefore the Israeli acceptance of the API will lead to a comprehensive peace with all the Arab (and Islamic) countries regardless of their ideological differences.

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Ending Greece’s Nightmare
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times, 2 Feb 2015

So now that Mr. Tsipras (Syriza) has won, and won big, European officials would be well advised to skip the lectures calling on him to act responsibly and to go along with their program. The fact is that the Troika have no credibility; the program they imposed on Greece never made sense. It had no chance of working. What actually transpired was an economic and human nightmare.

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(Français) Face à la tragédie de Charlie Hebdo
Jean-Marie Muller – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Une dernière réflexion qui apparaîtra peut-être encore incorrecte ; la tragédie de Charlie Hebdo n’a pas fait 17 mais 20 victimes. Les trois tueurs, jeunes Français nés en France mais dont la vie était en déshérence, sont aussi des victimes du terrorisme. Quelle que soit l’horreur criminelle de leurs actes, ils sont aussi des hommes. Au-delà de la mort, il nous appartient de leur restituer leur humanité. Il nous sera alors possible de prendre le deuil de ces trois hommes dans le respect de leur personne.

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Mexican Government Rushes to Close Case of Disappeared Students
Bill Van Auken, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Peña Nieto told Mexicans to get over the fate of the 43 students so he can move ahead with a “reform” agenda backed by Washington.

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1.5M Lifted Out of Poverty in Ecuador under Correa
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

The South American country has made enormous social investments over the last eight years of the Correa government.

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Kashmir is Bleeding and Half of Humanity Now Forms the ‘Resistance’
Andre Vltchek – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Kashmir is bleeding, from torture and rape, from extra-judicial killings. There, India is conducting joint exercises with both the US and Israel. It is learning how to massacre, control and torture, and it is often outdoing its gurus. I told them, to my friends: “Kashmir is not alone. We will stand by you, we will struggle with you, and if needed, we will risk our lives for you!”

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(Português) Alternativas à experimentação animal no Brasil
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey - Pravda, 2 Feb 2015

29 jan 2015 ‒ Congresso Nacional se prepara para aprovar R$ 16,7 milhões para alternativas à experimentação animal na próxima semana. A Humane Society International felicita os parlamentares pela alteração do orçamento a favor dos animais, da ciência e dos consumidores.

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A Theory of China
Johan Galtung, 2 Feb 2015 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

A theory serves comprehension, prediction and identification of conditions for change. Seven such historical-cultural pointers will be indicated for China; using the West in general, and the USA in particular, for comparisons. The presentation draws on countless dialogues in China over 40 years, since 1973.

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WikiLeaks Demands Answers after Google Hands Staff Emails to US Government
Ed Pilkington and Dominic Rushe – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

• Search giant gave FBI emails and digital data belonging to three staffers
• WikiLeaks told last month of warrants which were served in March 2012

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US AFRICOM Commander Calls for “Huge” Military Campaign in West Africa
Thomas Gaist, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

2 Feb2015 – US Africa Command’s head General David Rodriguez called for a large-scale US-led “counterinsurgency” campaign against groups in West Africa last week.

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Capitalism Killing the Earth and Its People
Finian Cunningham – Press TV, 2 Feb 2015

31 Jan 2015 – The above classic rock song could be the foreboding soundtrack for what is rumbling in America’s Midwest today. Earthquakes have now become a daily occurrence in Oklahoma and other Midwest states. In the past, a baseline incidence of quakes was two or so a year. Now, the region is experiencing over 500 a year.

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The Forum [Davos]
Christos Christidis – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Forum in Davos!
The rich elite
Will repeat
Who is the boss!

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This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

February 2–8
Quote of the Week: “The mind is everything. Every thought you create manifests itself in the world; if you didn’t achieve something you strive for, you simply didn’t believe in it enough.” – Mario Novak

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Sea Shepherd Receives € 8.3 Million from the Dutch Postcode Lottery for the Protection of the Southern Ocean
Sea Shepherd – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Sea Shepherd will use the donation to build a new ‘dream’ ship, which will enable the organization to be more effective than ever in the fight against poaching, whaling on the high seas.

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Not Again!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

A wife and husband lived in a third floor apartment. One day, the husband died.

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Can Torture Ever Be Moral?
Gary Gutting and Jeff McMahan – The New York Times, 2 Feb 2015

My interviewee is Jeff McMahan, White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is the author of “The Ethics of Killing.” — Gary Gutting

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United, We Will Never Be Defeated: Guatemala’s Victory Over Monsanto
Cultural Survival – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

A new law would require all farmers to purchase their corn seeds from Monsanto. Anyone caught cultivating corn from their own seeds would be fined and could even face jail time… The victory over Monsanto is a glimpse of the power of this country. Community radios from all over the country broadcast the event, which will go down in history as the victory over Monsanto.

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Rejecting the Obama-Cheney Alliance against Torture Prosecutions
Roy Eidelson, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Following the release of the Senate report on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program,” we are drawn to another deceptive distinction: the difference between “torture tolerance” and what might be called “torture tolerance-lite. Torture, regardless of whether it relies on physical pain or psychological torment, is cruel, immoral, misguided, and illegal.

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Barrett Brown: Locked Up – My Post Cyberpunk Indentured Servitude
Barrett Brown, The Daily Beast – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

31 Jan 20215 – Not long ago I was a mild-mannered freelance journalist, activist, and satirist, contributing to outlets like the Guardian and Vanity Fair. But last Thursday I was sentenced to 63 months [5+ years] in federal prison. As inconvenient as this is for me, the upside is that for the first time in the two and a half years since I was arrested, I am at last able to speak freely about what has been happening to me.

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(Português) Tsipras: “O veredicto do povo grego significa o fim da troika”
Esquerda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

25 Jan 2015 – No seu discurso de vitória, Alexis Tsipras, líder do Syriza, vencedor das legislativas gregas, afirmou este domingo que “o povo grego escreveu História” e “deixou a austeridade para trás”.

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(Português) Brasil: Os Zoológicos Também São Vitrine
Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian - ANDA Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais, 26 Jan 2015

25 Jan 2015 – Uma extensa divulgação tem sido dada a uma Resolução do Conselho Federal de Medicina Veterinária, que questiona a exposição de animais domésticos para venda em “PET Shops” com vitrines e similares.

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The Golden Age of U.S. Black Ops
Nick Turse – TomDispatch, 26 Jan 2015

U.S. Special Ops Missions Already in 105 Countries in 2015

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How Netanyahu’s Policies Are Fueling Anti-Semitism
Alon Ben-Meir – The Huffington Post, 26 Jan 2015

Netanyahu must accept the fact that the occupation is one of the main causes (but not the source) behind the recent rise of anti-Semitism. Instead of focusing on ending it, he is calling on French Jews to immigrate to Israel only to “become oppressors” of the Palestinians.

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Quit Bamming Us, Obama!
Dr. Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

On India’s Republic Day, Jan 26 2015, Barack Obama will be in Delhi. What is his agenda? As America’s salesman-in-chief he needs to get rid of inventories of defence material, nuclear technology, and other build-ups hurting profit. He will return from India half satisfied with what he achieves, but he has never aimed, nor has been permitted to aim, for much more.

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Noam Chomsky: Obama’s Drone Program ‘The Most Extreme Terrorist Campaign of Modern Times’
Andrea Germanos – Common Dreams, 26 Jan 2015

19 Jan 29015 – World-renowned linguist and scholar Noam Chomsky has criticized what he sees as Western hypocrisy following the recent terror attacks in Paris and the idea that there are two kinds of terrorism: “theirs versus ours.”

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Saudi Arabia’s Tyrant King Misremembered as Man of Peace
Murtaza Hussain – The Intercept, 26 Jan 2015

It’s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publicly flogs dissidents and beheads people for sorcery wins such glowing praise from American officials and the Western press.

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The Assassination of Gandhi, 30 Jan 1948
Eyewitness to History – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

“Just an old man in a loincloth in distant India: Yet when he died, humanity wept.” Gandhi’s violent death came just months after the realization of his long sought-after goal – the independence of India from Great Britain.

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Selma: A Gandhian Critique
Timothy Braatz – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jan 2015

On August 28, 1963, an estimated 250,000 people, from across the country, converged on Washington, DC, to demonstrate their support for the Civil Rights Movement.

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