Articles by M
We found 36562 results.
Iceland Convicts Bad Bankers and Says Other Nations Can Act
Alistair Scrutton and Ragnhildur Sigurdardottir, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
13 Feb 2015 – Iceland’s Supreme Court has upheld convictions of market manipulation for four former executives of the failed Kaupthing bank in a landmark case that the country’s special prosecutor said showed it was possible to crack down on fraudulent bankers.
→ read full articleEmbodying Global Hegemony through a Sustaining Pattern of Discourse
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Cognitive Challenge of Dominion over All One Surveys – This is an exploration of possible global organization of the pattern of value-based polarities by which discourse is significantly characterized: big-small, win-lose, nice-nasty, hot-cold, friend-enemy, clean-dirty, expensive-cheap, and the like.
→ read full articleArmy Agrees to Provide Chelsea Manning Transition-Related Care
Mitch Kellaway – The Advocate Magazine,
16 Feb 2015
13 Feb 2015 – Chelsea [Bradley] Manning, the former Army private and transgender whistleblower serving 35 years in military prison for exposing U.S. security secrets to website WikiLeaks, has reportedly been approved by the Defense Department to begin hormone therapy in military prison, reports USA Today.
→ read full articleThe CIA’s Secret Psychological Profiles of Dictators and World Leaders Are Amazing
Dave Gilson – Mother Jones,
16 Feb 2015
Psychoanalyzing Strongmen, from Hitler, Castro to Saddam
→ read full articleMisunderstanding Myanmar’s Military
Tim Heinemann – Asia Times,
16 Feb 2015
It is troubling to hear assertions that the panacea for what ails Myanmar is the mere “professionalization of the military.” This is profoundly off the mark in grasping what Burman-dominated armed forces both have been: a brutally armed enterprise, a profit-making military machine.
→ read full article(Italiano) Che cosa comportava il colonialismo: il caso della Malesia
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Uno sguardo a questa dichiarazione di Cecil Rhodes: La mia idea favorita è una soluzione al problema sociale, vale a dire, al fine di salvare i 40.000.000 d’abitanti del Regno Unito da una sanguinosa guerra civile, noi statisti coloniali dobbiamo acquisire nuove terre per insediarvi la popolazione di troppo che fornisca nuovi mercati per le merci prodotte nelle fabbriche e nelle miniere. L’IMPERO: È UNA QUESTIONE PANE E BURRO. SE SI VUOLE EVITARE UNA GUERRA CIVILE, BASTA DIVENTARE IMPERIALISTI.
→ read full articleTimeline: The IPCC’s Shifting Position on Nuclear Energy
Suzanne Waldman - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
16 Feb 2015
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed in 1988 as an expert panel to guide the drafting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, ratified in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The treaty’s objective is to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a safe level.
→ read full articleKamikaze
Sumeet Grover – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
they win every war, even when
they explode babies and grandmothers,
whilst their tanks play songs, inspire them,
“kill the motherf**, kill…!”
Payback Time? Greek PM Seeks Reparations over Nazi Occupation & War-Time Loan
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
10 Feb 2015 – Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, referring to Nazi Germany’s four-year occupation of Greece and a forced war-time loan during World War II that saddled the Greek economy in huge debt, wants Berlin to pay reparations.
→ read full articleLynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror
Equal Justice Initiative – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
The 27-page report published on 10 Feb 2015 is fruit of the multi-year investigation into lynching in twelve Southern states during the period between Reconstruction and World War II.
→ read full articlePortugal Cut Addiction Rates in Half by Connecting Drug Users with Communities Instead of Jailing Them
Johann Hari – YES! Magazine,
16 Feb 2015
Fifteen years ago, the Portuguese had one of the worst drug problems in Europe. So they decriminalized drugs, took money out of prisons, put it into holistic rehabilitation, and found that human connection is the antidote to addiction.
→ read full article700 British Artists Pledge to Boycott Israel
Falastin News Palestine – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
15 Feb 2015 – A group of over 700 British artists signed a pledge to culturally and professionally boycott Israel to pressure an end to its aggressive and discriminatory practices against the Palestinians.
→ read full articleFull Text of the Minsk-II Agreement on Ukraine
Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor - TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Marathon negotiations in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, resulted in a new ceasefire for eastern Ukraine.
→ read full articleIs Your Child a Terrorist? U.S. Government Questionnaire Rates Families at Risk for Extremism
Murtaza Hussain, Cora Currier, and Jana Winter – The Intercept,
16 Feb 2015
Are you, your family or your community at risk of turning to violent extremism? That’s the premise behind a rating system devised by the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a document marked For Official Use Only and obtained by The Intercept.
→ read full articleNuclear-Weapon Free Zones: Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons at a Regional Level
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
It is an unfortunate aspect of world politics that constructive, institution-building action is usually undertaken only because of a crisis. The Treaty of Tlatelolco is a fine example of the necessary team work between political advocacy and expert knowledge.
→ read full articleEducation Has Little to Do with Knowledge
Andre Vltchek – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Together, in unison, openly or anonymously, we should give a hand to the outspoken Chinese education minister, Yuan Guiren, and write about this appalling but taboo (in the West) topic: “How education became yet another weapon of war, used by the West.”
→ read full articleA Presumption against Intervention
Richard Falk, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
It is important to recall that self-determination remains the most significant anti-intervention norm in a post-colonial global setting, and is so often marginalized in debates for or against intervention.
→ read full article(Italiano) L’arte della Pace (Review-Recensione)
Antonino Drago – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
“L’arte della Pace” di Alberto L’Abate, ovvero la crescita dei movimenti di base dallo spirituale al politico. Come sostituto del sostituto (Rocco Altieri) dell’autore (Alberto L’Abate) del libro da presentare, occorre che innanzitutto mi presenti.
→ read full article
Manhã de Carnaval (MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Baden Powell – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Virtuoso Brazilian Guitarist
→ read full articleWretched US Journalism on Ukraine
Robert Parry – Consortium News,
16 Feb 2015
The U.S. news media has failed the American people often in recent years by not challenging U.S. government falsehoods, as with Iraq’s WMD. But the most dangerous violation of journalistic principles has occurred in the Ukraine crisis, which has the potential of a nuclear war.
→ read full articleA Shock to the System
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
One of the biggest jokes in conservation is the Japanese government’s claim to be engaged in “scientific whaling”. All the killing by its harpoon fleet takes place under the guise of “research”, as this is the only justification available, under international rules.
→ read full articleOn the North Carolina Killings
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
14 Feb 2014 – A short interview on how to interpret the ghastly murder of three young Muslims living in the North Carolina university town of Chapel Hill.
→ read full articleAcross 100 Miles of Ocean
Akio Tanaka, University of Massachusetts Boston – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
In 1989 the Soviet Union collapsed, and the United States saw it as a victory of Capitalism over Communism. The Democratic Party joined the Republican Party’s full embrace of the corporate agenda, and the corporations felt empowered to seek profits with absolutely no regard for the consequences to Earth and all its life forms. The US became a corporate-military empire using its military to secure oil for its oil based economy.
→ read full articleAccountability for Armed Contractors
Dr. Ian Ralby, Fletcher Security Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
The proliferation of private armed contractors was followed by a proliferation of initiatives o establish accountability for the industry… Failing to address foreseeable complications may prove detrimental to the industry, to the credibility of governments employing them, and to the overarching aims of international security.
→ read full articleCan Syria’s Cultural Heritage Be a Fulcrum for Ending Its Civil War?
Franklin Lamb – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
This country is home to some of the world’s first cities, as well as globally important sites from the Akkadian, Sumerian, Hittite, Assyrian, Persian, Greco-Roman, Ummayyad, Crusader, and Ottoman civilizations and to some of the oldest, most advanced civilizations in the world.
→ read full articleEarth Charter+15 Kickoff Webinar with Federico Mayor and Alexander Likhotal
Earth Charter International – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Please, join us on the 25th of February to hear these great speakers and participate in a question and answer with them afterwards. We look forward to seeing you there!
→ read full articleFramework or Fragmentation of Standards for Private Security Providers?
Human Analytics – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
A response to ‘Accountability for Armed Contractors,’ by Dr. Ian Ralby [ABOVE]
→ read full articleBanking Giant HSBC Sheltered Murky Cash Linked to Dictators, Traffickers, Criminals, Arms Dealers
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Swiss Leaks is a collaborative investigation that exposes how the Swiss branch of one of the world’s biggest banks, HSBC, profited from doing business with tax dodgers and criminals around the world. Team of journalists from 45 countries unearths secret bank accounts maintained for criminals, traffickers, tax dodgers, politicians and celebrities.
→ read full articleEx-UN Chief Kofi Annan: US War on Iraq Helped Create Islamic State
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Sunday [8 Feb 2015] that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq helped create the Islamic State group. Annan issued the remarks during a speech at the Munich Security Conference in southern Germany.
→ read full articleOregon’s Kate Brown to Be First Openly Bisexual Governor in U.S. History
Shelby Sebens, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown, set to become the nation’s first openly bisexual governor on Wednesday [18 Feb 2015], is an under-the-radar liberal Democrat known for her struggles to expand voting and her push for greater campaign finance transparency.
→ read full article‘Innocent People’ on UK Police Photos Database
Nick Hopkins & Jake Morris - BBC,
16 Feb 2015
3 Feb 2015 – Police forces in England and Wales have uploaded up to 18 million “mugshots” to a facial recognition database – despite a court ruling it could be unlawful. They include photos of people never charged, or others cleared of an offence, and were uploaded without Home Office approval.
→ read full articleSelma: Hollywood vs. Reality
Daniel Horgan – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Selma. An intriguing 2015 film about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his push to secure voting rights for African Americans who had been disenfranchised by a post-slavery, Jim Crow segregated society. Powerful. Yes! Moving. Yes! Convincing. Yes! Truthful. Not entirely.
→ read full article(Português) Fantasias de Cidadã
Tereza Halliday – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Este ano, os foliões brincarão como se fosse um carnaval normal. É a grande festa da manutenção das aparências: faz de conta que “as águas vão rolar”, faz de conta que somos felizes, faz de conta que as classes sociais se misturam fraternalmente, faz de conta que não existe calote nem empobrecimento de todos.
→ read full article(Italiano) Una teoria sulla Cina
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Una teoria serve alla comprensione, predizione e identificazione delle condizioni per il cambiamento. Per la Cina si riportano sette indicatori teorici storico-culturali, usando l’Occidente in generale e gli USA in particolare a mo’ di confronto. La presentazione attinge a innumerevoli dialoghi avuti in Cina per oltre 40 anni, dal 1973.
→ read full articleQuick Action Is Needed to Save the Long-Term Future
John Scales Avery, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
We must save the long-term future of our beautiful planet, not only for ourselves, and our children and grandchildren, but also for all future generations of humans, and for the dazzling diversity of plants and animals with which we share the gift of life.
→ read full articleWhatever Happened to Social Defence?
Brian Martin, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
Abstract: A potential alternative to military defence is nonviolent action by civilians, using methods such as protests, strikes, boycotts and winning over opponent troops. In the 1980s there were groups in several countries advocating and promoting this option, but subsequently it faded from view even within the peace movement.
→ read full articleLatin America’s Mass Murderers to Be Tried in Italian Court
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
8 Feb 2015 – Former military chiefs and politicians implicated in the deaths of thousands through Operation Condor will face justice. After decades of impunity, those responsible for the wave of political violence that swept Latin America under the dictatorships of 1970s and 1980s will be tried in court this week in Rome, Italy.
→ read full articleThis Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
February 16–22 – Quote of the Week: “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
→ read full articleGood News!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Feb 2015
During Cheney-Bush’s reign of terror in Iraq many many people were taken to Abu Ghraib and to rendition flights never to be seen again.
→ read full articleSaudi’s New King of Terror
Nafeez Ahmed, Ph.D. – Middle East Eye,
16 Feb 2015
In a flurry of virtually falling over themselves to praise Saudi Arabia’s new ruler, the press has overlooked his disturbing track record.
→ read full articleThe World of Our Grandchildren
Noam Chomsky – Jacobin Magazine,
16 Feb 2015
Noam Chomsky discusses ISIS, Israel, climate change, and the kind of world future generations may inherit.
→ read full articleNon 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.
→ read full articleThe 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
→ read full articleNouvelles 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.)»
→ read full articleWar 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.
→ read full articleFighting 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleThe 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.”
→ read full articleMy 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.
→ read full articleNo 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.
→ read full articleNet 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.
→ read full articleAn 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.
→ read full articleClaims 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleIf 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.
→ read full articlePeacemaker
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.
(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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleGenocide 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!
→ read full articlePresident 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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleGreece’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.
→ read full articleSami 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.”
→ read full article(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”.
→ read full articleBritain 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.
→ read full articleAl-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.
→ read full articleUniversity 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.
→ read full articleThis 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
→ read full articleIsrael’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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleMonsanto 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].
→ read full articleVatican 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.
→ read full articleFebruary: 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleA 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleIf 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.
→ read full articleUNRWA: 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.
→ read full articleWhat 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.
→ read full articleWhy 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.
→ read full articleIs 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.”
→ read full article
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.
→ read full article
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.
→ read full articleDon’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.
→ read full articleBrazilian 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.
→ read full articleWar 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.
→ read full articleSchool 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.”
→ read full articleFive 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.
→ read full articleIs 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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleAyotzinapa 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.
→ read full articleAfrica’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.
→ read full articleSource 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.
→ read full articleTorture 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.”
→ read full articleGreece 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.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleWhy 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.
→ read full articleSecret ‘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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