Articles by M
We found 36782 results.
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.
→ 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.
→ read full articleGood 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.
→ read full articleThe Imaginary World That Holds the Real World Captive
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Feb 2015
Chapter Six of: Economic Theory and Community Development.
→ read full articleHybrid 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleWinston 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
→ read full articleGod 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.
→ read full articleSome 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.
→ read full articleHow 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.
→ read full articleViewing 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.
→ read full article(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
→ read full article(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”.
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleZionists 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?
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleEnding 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.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleMexican 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.
→ read full articleA 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.
→ read full article1.5M 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.
→ read full articleKashmir 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!”
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks 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
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.
→ read full articleCapitalism 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.
→ read full articleThe Forum [Davos]
Christos Christidis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Feb 2015
Forum in Davos!
The rich elite
Will repeat
Who is the boss!
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
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.
→ read full articleNot Again!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Feb 2015
A wife and husband lived in a third floor apartment. One day, the husband died.
→ read full articleCan 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
→ read full articleUnited, 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.
→ read full articleRejecting 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.
→ read full articleBarrett 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.
→ read full article(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”.
→ read full article(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.
→ read full articleThe Golden Age of U.S. Black Ops
Nick Turse – TomDispatch,
26 Jan 2015
U.S. Special Ops Missions Already in 105 Countries in 2015
→ read full articleHow 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.
→ read full articleQuit 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.
→ read full articleNoam 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.”
→ read full articleThe 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.
→ read full articleSaudi 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.
→ read full articleSelma: 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.
→ read full articleAustralia’s Ambivalence toward Muslims
Greg Austin – The Diplomat,
26 Jan 2015
Where does the Muslim community fit in Australia’s self-images of war and peace? Several Australians have figured prominently as participants and even leaders in the military campaign of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
→ read full articleMessenger of the Gods
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
Our ‘Impartial’ Broadcasters Have Become Mouthpieces of the Elite – The illusion of neutrality is one of the reasons for the rotten state of journalism, as those who might have been expected to hold power to account drift thoughtlessly into its arms.
→ read full articleAre We All Lebanese Porn Stars? On Freedom of Speech and Mohammed Cartoons
Michael Brull – New Matilda,
26 Jan 2015
If depicting Mohammed in a cartoon is a noble act of freedom of expression, then why isn’t porn on prime time? And a WARNING. This article contains an image that some readers may find offensive.
→ read full articleIberia a Thousand Years Ago
Johan Galtung, 26 Jan 2015 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
A time machine set on the long haul backward may be useful to understand the present in the light of the past. For instance Iberia, the peninsula, today with two states, Spain and Portugal.
→ read full articleSlavoj Žižek: The Urgent Necessity of a Syriza Victory in Greece
Slavoj Žižek – In These Times,
26 Jan 2015
Debt is an instrument to control and regulate the debtor, and, as such, it strives for its own expanded reproduction. Only a split from the European Union by Greece can save what is worth saving in the European legacy: democracy, trust in people and egalitarian solidarity.
→ read full articleThis Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
January 26–February 1
Quote of the Week: “When you find peace within yourself, you become the kind of person who can live at peace with others.” — Peace Pilgrim
How Al Qaeda’s Biggest Enemy Took Over Yemen (and Why the U.S. Government Is Unlikely to Support Them)
Casey L. Coombs and Jeremy Scahill – The Intercept,
26 Jan 2015
22 Jan 2015 – Yemen’s president, his prime minister and entire cabinet resigned, giving unprecedented power to the Houthis, a Shiite minority from the country’s northern highlands.
→ read full articleGalant’s Gallant Act
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
There used to be a joke about a sadist and a masochist. “Hit me! Beat me! Kick me!” the masochist pleads with the sadist. The sadist smiles a cruel smile and slowly answers: “No!” That, more or less, reflects the situation on Israel’s northern border at this moment.
→ read full articleGCHQ Captured Emails of Journalists from Top International Media
James Ball – The Guardian,
26 Jan 2015
Emails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post were saved by GCHQ and shared on the agency’s intranet as part of a test exercise by the signals intelligence agency, analysis of documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.
→ read full articleDrones and the New Ethics of War
Neve Gordon – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
If Guantanamo was the icon of George W. Bush, drones have become the emblem of the Obama presidency. He has adopted a totally different doctrine: kill rather than capture, replace torture with targeted assassinations. Drones change the ethics of war. To kill exposing one’s life to danger is bad; to kill without endangering one’s own is good.
→ read full articleOpen Letter to Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum
Kamran Mofid - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research,
26 Jan 2015
I notice that you hope the 2015 WEF meeting will be a “starting point for a renaissance of global trust”. This is a noble aim, very important and timely. Trust surely comes from the experience of a relationship – an in-depth experience – which by its nature is rooted in values that are not necessarily economic or monetary.
→ read full articleThe Muslim Catch-22
Jen Sorensen – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
Not your free speech, buddy. – Satirical Comic Cartoon
→ read full articleTo Strike or Not to Strike: Israel’s Electoral Calculus
Jonathan Cook – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
An Israeli air strike in Syria on Sunday [18 Jan 2015] that killed 12 commanders from Hizballah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard follows a long and ignoble tradition in Israeli politics. Prime ministers facing poor ratings have been tempted to launch a major military offensive in the middle of an election campaign. The strike was the biggest against Hizballah since summer 2006 and Israel’s first undisguised military clash with Iran.
→ read full articleCanadian Expert: What Occurred in Paris Was Theater on a Grand Scale
Tehran Times – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
“Extremists groups are the instrument with which the West and its closest allies seek to transform the Middle East without violating international law or asking the UN Security Council to approve military incursions on sovereign countries to achieve desired political outcomes.” — Leader of Human Rights Party of Canada, Kevin Galalae.
→ read full articleWhy Myanmar Is Committing a Slow Genocide against Nearly 2 Million Rohingya Muslims
Maung Zarni, Rohingya Blogger – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
Jan 18, 2015 – Myanmar’s slow Rohingya genocide is a brilliant strategy that kills several birds with a single stone – as far as the country’s ruling military Bama regimes.
→ read full articlePentagon Agency Wants Drones to Hunt in Packs, like Wolves
Dan Lamothe – The Washington Post,
26 Jan 2015
“Just as wolves hunt in coordinated packs with minimal communication, multiple CODE-enabled unmanned aircraft would collaborate to find, track, identify and engage targets, all under the command of a single human mission supervisor.”
→ read full articleAfter Charlie Hebdo Attack, France Announces Draconian Anti-Terror Law
Alex Lantier, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
After a cabinet meeting yesterday [21 Jan 2015] morning at the Elysée presidential palace, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls unveiled a draconian new anti-terror law.
→ read full articleCharlie Hebdo Fired ‘Anti-Semitic’ Cartoonist for Ridiculing Judaism in 2009
We Are Anonymous – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
The cartoon world’s double standards on freedom of speech… 80-year-old Maurice Sinet, political cartoonist with Charlie Hebdo for 20 years, was fired in 2009 for his ‘anti-Semitic’ cartoons mocking the relationship of former French President Sarkozy’s son with a wealthy Jewish woman.
→ read full articleExactly!
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
A reporter asked an American,
→ read full article(Deutsch) Vom Langen Ende Der Friedensforschung … Und Wie Ihr Gesellschaftskritik Abhanden Kam
Werner Ruf - Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung,
26 Jan 2015
Debatten über Krieg und Frieden sind nicht allein von geopolitischen Interessenkonstellationen und Konfliktlagen beeinflusst, sondern ebenso von der gesellschaftlich organisierten Wissensproduktion zu diesen Fragen – in erster Linie an Hochschulen und außeruniversitären Forschungsinstituten.
→ read full articleSyria Strike Caps Israel’s Provocations in Middle East
Chris Marsden, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
21 Jan 2015 – Israel’s strike on leading Hezbollah figures near the occupied Golan Heights is the latest move in a campaign to escalate Middle East tensions. It has been accompanied by a series of provocative actions against the Palestinians and European powers now considered to be too “pro-Palestinian.”
→ read full articleFrance Begins Jailing People for Ironic Comments
Ali Abunimah – Electronic Intifada,
26 Jan 2015
It may sound like an ironic joke, but it isn’t. Less than a week after the massive rallies in defense of “free expression,” French authorities have jailed a youth 16 year-old for irony. His alleged crime? He posted on Facebook a cartoon representing a person holding the magazine Charlie Hebdo, being hit by bullets, and accompanied by an ‘ironic’ comment.
→ read full articleSatire and Democracy: The Problem with Charlie Hebdo
Giacomo Bianchino – New Matilda,
26 Jan 2015
It’s hard to maintain satire as ‘comedy’ when it becomes the enfranchised attacking the disenfranchised. The injury done by the violence of the CH calamity to “free speech” is enough to warrant a fundamental question: what role does satire play in democracy?
→ read full articleGenocides, Not Wars
Andre Vltchek – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
What followed WWII were not really true wars, anymore, but genocides; holocausts. All perpetrated mainly through carpet-bombing, poisonous chemicals, enlisting corrupt foreign military, US-trained and financed death-squads, and most recently by using ‘smart bombs’, stealth fighters, cruise missiles and drones, as well as ‘Muslim terrorists’ (created in NATO camps).
→ read full articleAl Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Develops Its Own Version of Reddit’s AMA and Twitter’s Blue Checkmark Verification
Jeremy Scahill – The Intercept,
26 Jan 2015
AQAP has deployed social media operatives on Twitter to spread its message and to engage with its followers and critics alike. Despite U.S. government attempts to shut down its accounts, AQAP has proven effective at maintaining its own bizarro verification methods.
→ read full articleHow Saudi Arabia’s Harsh Legal Punishments Compare to the Islamic State’s
Adam Taylor – The Washington Post,
26 Jan 2015
Documents Show Saudi Arabia and ISIS Administer Nearly Identical Punishments for Crimes
→ read full articleOdds of Escaping Poverty in India, U.S. Same: World Bank
Puja Mehra – The Hindu,
26 Jan 2015
21 Jan 2015 – A World Bank report has challenged the conventional understanding of India’s inequality. It has found that the probability of a poor person moving out of poverty in India in 2014 was as good as that in the U.S. A.
→ read full articleIt Is 3 Minutes to Midnight in the Doomsday Clock
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
23 Jan 2015: Unchecked climate change and the nuclear arms race have pushed the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock forward to three minutes closer to midnight, announced in Washington DC members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the body behind the calculations and creation of the Clock of Doom in 1947.
→ read full articleFinancial Markets Celebrate European Central Bank Launch of €1 Trillion Quantitative Easing Program
Nick Beams, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
[Quantitative Easing: euphemism for ‘printing more money for benefit of banks, financial vultures.’ – TMS Editor] The measures will have little or no impact on the real economy. Rather, they are aimed at making available further supplies of ultra-cheap cash for financial speculation.
→ read full articleUN: Israel Illegally Demolished 77 Palestinian Houses This Week
Falastin News Palestine – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
24 Jan 2015 – The UN said in a statement on Friday [23 Jan 2015] that 77 Palestinian families, half of them children, have been rendered homeless in the past three days. Some demolished structures were provided by the international community to shelter poor Palestinian families.
→ read full article$$$$$s in Their Hearts: An Exposé of Wars in All Their Complexity – Highly Recommended
Ronald Stein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
$$$$$s in Their Hearts, by Alberto Portugheis, (Opus, London, Nov 2014) – He has had many years to gather all his data and shows how various situations have developed by considerations of politics, religion, military necessities, and the ever present malignant influence of the now worldwide Military Industrial Complex.
→ read full articlePope Francis, Salman Rushdie, and Charlie Hebdo
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
The Associated Press reports that despite present tensions and the public celebration of free speech the government in Paris has “ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism, and glorifying terrorism.” But no message by the French government mentioning ‘hate cartooning’ or the surge of ‘Islamophobia’ in the country.
→ read full articleRussia and US End Collaboration on Nuclear Disarmament
Clara Weiss, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
Russia and the United States ended their collaboration in the disposal of nuclear waste in mid-December, according to a report in the Boston Globe on Monday [19 Jan 2015]. After the US, Russia is the second largest nuclear power in the world. Together Washington and Moscow own 90 percent of global nuclear weapons.
→ read full articleEliciting Insight from Covert Operations by US
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
The argument here therefore explores the dynamic within a reappropriated US, understood as Universal Synthesizer or Universal Sympathizer — aspiring to global organization and expression of identity, through the embodiment of the highest values. This cognitive dynamic is recognized as challenged by the negativity of Terrifying Hypothetical External Mentalities (THEM) seeking to undermine the coherence articulated and sustained so positively by US.
→ read full articleIndia: Fifty Shades of Terror
Suhas Chakma - Asian Centre for Human Rights,
26 Jan 2015
The massacre of the Adivasis shows once again India’s typical responses to terror. There is the usual failure to prevent terror even when there are actionable inputs. Once killings start, security forces seldom respond on time to prevent further killings.
→ read full articleMurdering Journalists … Them and Us
William Blum – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
Where has all this Islamic fundamentalism comes from? Most of it comes – trained, armed, financed, indoctrinated – from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. These four countries had been the most secular, modern, educated, welfare states in the Middle East. In the 1980s, the USA overthrew the Afghan government that was progressive, with full rights for women, believe it or not , leading to the creation of the Taliban and their taking power.
→ read full articlePrison Trauma
Udaya R. Tennakoon – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Jan 2015
In an exercise of
Psychopathology
Students are told
To find
A safe place
And to go in
A Population Perspective on the Steady State Economy
Herman Daly – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy,
26 Jan 2015
A steady state economy is defined by a constant population and a constant stock of physical capital. The population problem should be considered from the point of view of all populations–populations of both humans and their things (cars, houses, livestock, crops, cell phones, etc.)–in short, populations of all “dissipative structures” engendered, bred, or built by humans.
→ read full articleWhy Can’t the World’s Greatest Minds Solve the Mystery of Consciousness?
Oliver Burkeman – The Guardian,
26 Jan 2015
Philosophers, spirituality practitioners, and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robots.
→ read full article