Articles by UN

We found 3962 results.


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.

→ read full article

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

→ 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

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.

→ read full article

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.

→ read full article

Iberia 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 article

Open 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 article

Why 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 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 article

France 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 article

Interview with “Iran Review” – And a Word about Intellectual Freedom
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 26 Jan 2015

TFF has been engaged with an in Iran the last three years. We believe that the general image in Western media – covering almost only Iran’s nuclear program, human rights violations and Iran as a threat to the world – is neither objective nor fair.

→ read full article

#Freespeech, but We Won’t Cover Your Skin or Honor Your God
Maung Zarni, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

A poem in solidarity and honor of persecuted and targeted Muslims, the latest victims of the “Civilization.”

→ read full article

Gas Theft and Auschwitz Snub… Russia’s Every Right to End the Insults
Finian Cunningham – Strategic Culture Foundation, 19 Jan 2015

In January 1945, it was the Russian Red Army that liberated thousands of Poles, Jews and other European nationals from Auschwitz. Russia saved Europe’s neck from fascism and continues to save Europe’s neck from freezing every winter with its natural gas supplies. And yet for all this, Russia has to endure insults and provocations from a thankless European elite.

→ read full article

(Italiano) Parigi – e poi?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

C’è un altro valore, un’altra norma nel campo dell’ espressione: la considerazione. La decenza. Il rispetto per la vita. Abbiamo leggi sui libelli che chiedono non solo “è vero?” ma “è rilevante?”, per smorzare la malignità per esempio nel “dibattito” politico. Escludiamo discorsi di odio, propaganda per la tortura, il genocidio, la guerra, la pornografia che coinvolga bambini. Molti, incapaci di capire o argomentare con i convertiti all’Islam in Francia, oltrepassano invece le norme della decenza; la facile soluzione.

→ read full article

The Year 2015-What Are We In For?
Johan Galtung, 19 Jan 2015 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

Three, maybe four dramatic, global processes are unfolding. And then this: the Silk Railway Freight Train Yiwu from coastal China to Madrid, 8,111 miles, connecting all markets in Eurasia from one end to the other–and from Madrid on to Latin-America, of course.

→ read full article

“We Are All Charlie” – But Is That Story so Simple?
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 19 Jan 2015

U.S., NATO and EU’s agenda at the moment is – “we kill people who kill people because it is wrong to kill people” and thus we bomb IS, fight terrorist groups we have nurtured to quite an extent ourselves and move from one crisis (mis)management to the next.

→ read full article

From Syria to Paris – A Widening Sea of Violence
Patrick Cockburn – CounterPunch, 12 Jan 2015

There is a feeling of inevitability about the attack in Paris. It was culpably naïve to imagine that sparks from the Iraq-Syrian civil war, now in its fourth year, would not spread explosive violence to Western Europe.

→ read full article

January: This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 12 Jan 2015

January 2015 – Nuclear Threat in History

→ read full article

Charlie Hebdo Massacre: a Tragic, Universal Failure
Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

Imagine if Charlie Hebdo drew a big-nosed Moses sitting amid buckets of cash. Does no one understand why if one is wrong the other is as well? In fact, a Hebdo cartoonist derided Nicholas Sarkozy’s son for “doing well” by converting to Judaism to marry a wealthy Jewish heiress. The cartoonist was fired. But cartoonists ridiculing the Prophet are now folk heroes.

→ read full article

(Italiano) Pace positiva: che cos’è?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

Sì, che cos’è? – cominciamo quest’anno nuovo con una nota positiva. Tenendo a mente che la pace è una parola d’onore, come la salute una salvezza per molti: un centro focale di sogni e desideri, un sommo bene che dev’essere sia molto preciso sia riconducibile a un lavoro di pace professionale e mantenuto aperto, riempito di nuovi sogni ed aspirazioni.

→ read full article

Paris–And Then?
Johan Galtung, 12 Jan 2015 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

There is another value, norm, in the land of expression: consideration. Decency. Respect for life. We have libel laws asking not only “is it true?” but “is it relevant?” to cut down nastiness in for instance political “debate”. We rule out hate speech, propaganda for torture, genocide, war, child pornography. Many, unable to understand or argue with converts to Islam in France, overstep norms of decency instead. The easy way out.

→ read full article

Challenges Ahead: Sri Lanka’s Mass Atrocities and International Justice
Nirmanusan Balasundaram – Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, 12 Jan 2015

After execution of mass atrocities and their failure to stop it, international actors have accepted their failure. Sri Lanka’s forthcoming presidential election will be the litmus test. Will international actors bring perpetrators of mass atrocity crimes in Sri Lanka to international justice and prove “Never Again” to be more than just a slogan?

→ read full article

Positive Peace – What Is That?
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

Yes, what is it?–let us start this New Year on a positive note. Keeping in mind that peace is an honor word, like health, salvation for many: a focus of dreams and wishes, a summum bonum that should be both very precise and amenable to professional peace work and kept open, filled with new dreams and aspirations.

→ read full article

(Italiano) 2014 nulla di buono. 2015 meglio?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

La tragedia del 2014 è stata la mancanza di autentici amici degli USA che gli dicessero: guarda, questo non funzionerà – meglio cambiare; prendetevi miglior cura della vostra meravigliosa società e dei vostri vicini, ritrattate. La speranza per il 2015 è che molti alleati lo facciano.

→ read full article

It Is a Long Fight: Lenin in 2015
Alexander Reid Ross - CounterPunch, 5 Jan 2015

The fight against the police state, which opened up even the most hardened rhetoric of Lenin, himself, produces the most revolutionary of circumstances. We must take our lessons from the outcome of 1905, and not waver in defense of egalitarian principles in the struggle for a better world.

→ read full article

Solve the Ukraine Crisis Now
Jonathan Power - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 5 Jan 2015

Moscow no longer trusts verbal understandings that can be broken, as when the Reagan Administration gave President Mikhail Gorbachev the distinct impression that the US would not take advantage of the Soviet Union now that the Cold War was over. But it did. President Bill Clinton provocatively began the expansion of NATO which has now reached right up to Russia’s borders.

→ read full article

In the Right Place at the Right Time: The Lifting of the Cuban Embargo
Nuno Ramalho – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Dec 2014

I am overwhelmed with emotion as I rush my way through Montreal’s Pierre Eliot Trudeau International Airport, headed to La Habana…. Less than 48 hours after my arrival I was surprised by the Raul Castro/Obama simultaneous announcements that the diplomatic relations between Cuba and the US are to be reestablished.

→ read full article

Christianity, Imperialism, Capitalism: Christian Dogma Should Be Questioned
Andre Vltchek – CounterPunch, 29 Dec 2014

This year as in every other year, Christianity and fundamentalist capitalism, two great allies, are joining their forces to extract billions of dollars, all over the world, mainly from the poor. The Empire itself is constructed on Christian dogmas, symbolism and practices. All of its leaders are Christians, almost all – Protestant.

→ read full article

2014 No Good. 2015 Any Better?
Johan Galtung, 29 Dec 2014 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Dec 2014

The tragedy of 2014 was the lack of true friends telling USA: look, this is not going to work–better change; take better care of your own wonderful society, and your neighbors, retract. The hope for 2015 is that many allies will do that.

→ read full article

(Italiano) Cuba – e poi?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Dec 2014

La reazione immediata all’ordine esecutivo di Obama del 17 dicembre 2014 di ristabilire rapporti diplomatici, agevolare i viaggi, scambiarsi prigionieri, è stata un senso di sollievo: finalmente correttivo di una stupidità vecchia d’oltre 50 anni. Ma perché adesso? Lo vediamo dopo; prima torniamo al giugno 1960.

→ read full article

Misleading the World on Iran’s “Bomb”
Jonathan Power - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 23 Dec 2014

Over many years the US with European connivance most – not always – of the time manufactured and manipulated the whole crisis. To overcome the suspicions aroused by that, now past, tactic is not easy. That is not just my opinion after following this subject for 30 years.

→ read full article

Cuba – And Then What?
Johan Galtung, 23 Dec 2014

The immediate reaction to Obama’s Executive Order of 17 December 2014–re-establishing diplomatic relations, easing travel, swapping prisoners–was a sense of relief: finally correcting a more than 50-year old stupidity. But why now? Later. First, back to June 1960.

→ read full article

The Oil Coup – US-Saudi Subterfuge Send Stocks and Credit Reeling
Mike Whitney - CounterPunch, 22 Dec 2014

Washington has persuaded the Saudis to flood the market with oil to push down prices, decimate Russia’s economy, and reduce Moscow’s resistance to further NATO encirclement and the spreading of US military bases across Central Asia. The US-Saudi scheme has slashed oil prices by nearly a half since they hit their peak in June.

→ read full article

Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
UN General Assembly – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Dec 2014

10 December 1984 – The General Assembly adopts the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; Calls upon all Governments to consider signing and ratifying the Convention as a matter of priority.

→ read full article

(Italiano) Un rapido sguardo a Indonesia-Malaysia
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Dec 2014

Muhammadiyah University – Yogyakarta, Indonesia

→ read full article

The Octagon World: Conflict or Cooperation?
Johan Galtung, 15 Dec 2014 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Dec 2014

They can choose to focus on the worst in others, criticizing, building on paranoia and worst case analysis, “security”. Or choose to focus on the best, with cooperation as dominant mode, conflict as recessive. They can cooperate for mutual and equal benefit like in good trade, exploring each others’ comparative political-cultural advantages. They can do it.

→ read full article

Right Livelihood Award Acceptance Speech by Edward Snowden
Right Livelihood Award Foundation – Pressenza Int’l Press Agency, 15 Dec 2014

I am far below qualified for this kind of honor. It is an extraordinary privilege to be counted among so many around the world who have fought for human rights even at great personal cost, even when it was hard, even when no one was watching, when they were not seeking recognition and when they never received it.

→ read full article

On Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal
David Krieger - Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 8 Dec 2014

Modernization of the US nuclear arsenal is not the only choice we have. A far better and saner choice is to end the nuclear weapons era, and that can only be done by diplomacy and negotiations for a nuclear weapons-free world.

→ read full article

Nuclear Weapons and the International Security Context
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

This statement, signed by over 100 civil society organizations, was delivered at the United Nations General Assembly’s First Committee on October 28, 2014.

→ read full article

A Coherent System – Socialism
Janet Surman - CounterCurrents, 8 Dec 2014

If we are seeking an end to the current structure of relations which puts economic matters at the forefront of each and every issue then it follows that we are determined to pursue a system organised for the benefit of the vast majority – one where social matters trump the economic and political.

→ read full article

Boycott Coca-Cola
US Palestinian Community Network – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

4 Dec 2014 – BDS is now a worldwide movement against Israeli Apartheid, and USPCN wants to work with you to target Coca-Cola, as our contribution to the campaign. Close Coca-Cola Factories in Occupied Palestine NOW!

→ read full article

(Italiano) Scontri di civiltà Occidente-Oriente?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

Il conflitto? Diritti storici buddhisti vs diritti umani musulmani. Nessuna conversione religiosa all’altro campo, niente né una cosa né l’altra secolare, nessun compromesso mezzo buddhista / mezzo musulmano, nessun amalgama sia-sia: il buddhism con potere di stato è anch’esso esclusivo. Che prospettive di soluzioni politiche?

→ read full article

(Italiano) L’apocalisse del neoliberismo
Alex Zanotelli, Comune-info – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

“Vidi una bestia salire dal mare …”. È con queste parole che il profeta dell’Apocalisse descrive l’Impero Romano alla fine del primo secolo. Le stesse parole le userei per le nuove bestie che appaiono all’orizzonte: il Partenariato Transatlantico per il Commercio e gli Investimenti, nell’acronimo inglese T-tip.

→ read full article

8,000 Channels with One Corporate Message – The Death of Media, the Fourth Estate
Billy O'connor – CounterPunch, 8 Dec 2014

In the ‘50s Walter Cronkite said that opinion journalism was as different from objective journalism as the Bible was from Playboy Magazine. Yet today, “broadcast journalists” such as Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others routinely assault their listeners with a more insidious outrage — affirmation journalism.

→ read full article

“Power to the People” – The Lost John Lennon Interview
Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn - CounterPunch, 8 Dec 2014

It was twenty-five years ago today that John Lennon was murdered. We doubt many have read the following 1971 interview with Lennon done by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn. The interview ran in The Red Mole, a Trotskyist sheet put out by the British arm of the Fourth International.

→ read full article

Putin Gobsmacks Obama and Euro-Leaders with Surprise Gas Deal – Talking Turkey
Mike Whitney - CounterPunch, 8 Dec 2014

Putin has once again outmaneuvered the US on both the energy and geopolitical fronts adding to his long list of policy triumphs. Here’s a brief summary.

→ read full article

A Quick Glance at Indonesia-Malaysia
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

Muhammadiyah University – Yogyakarta, Indonesia

→ read full article

Israel’s Demolition of Palestinian Homes ‘Contrary to International Law,’ UN Experts Warn
UN News Centre – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

25 Nov 2014 – The Israeli Government’s use of house demolition as a punitive measure must end immediately, UN experts urged today. The practice – which targets Palestinian homes in both Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory – is a violation of human rights law.

→ read full article

(Castellano) Periodismo en Tiempos Macabros – El Horror como Mercancía Noticiosa
Fernando Buen Abad, Rebelión/Universidad de la Filosofía – TeleSur, 1 Dec 2014

Una de las peores consecuencias de esa “industria de la noticia” basada en mentir, consiste en fabricar “escuelas”, en esparcir sus gérmenes ideológicos entre un séquito de “periodistas” acríticos, mansos y serviles, que reptan por todo el planeta haciendo metástasis de su estulticia y de su servilismo periodístico.

→ read full article

Israel’s Worst Fear: A Political Settlement
Matt Peppe - CounterPunch, 1 Dec 2014

If Israel cared about stopping violence and protecting its population, it would end the occupation and accept a political settlement. Instead it is exploiting the violence to tighten its control of the West Bank and Gaza and crush Palestinian aspirations for an end to the 66-year dispossession and conquest.

→ read full article

Myanmar and Its Manufacturing Genocidal Racism towards Rohingya
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

There was inter-ethnic solidarity for the Rohingya/Muslims of Arakan dating back to 17 May 1978. Now in 2014, even the Kachin Independence Organization’s spokesperson ex-Colonel James L. based in BKK denied any knowledge of Rohingya and denied showing any sympathy for the Rohingya.

→ read full article

“Eternal, Undivided Jewish Capital”? – A Brief History of Jerusalem
Gary Leupp - CounterPunch, 1 Dec 2014

26 Nov 2014 – The most recent Zionist reiterations of the claim to “eternal” Jewish ownership of East Jerusalem—as part of an “undivided, eternal capital of Israel” as specified by a “Basic Law” passed by the Israeli Knesset in 1980—make me want to review the Bible tales about Israel and specifically the city of Jerusalem.

→ read full article

Thanksgiving: Celebrating the Genocide of Native Americans
Gilbert Mercier - ConterPunch, 1 Dec 2014

The sad reality about the United States of America is that in a matter of a few hundred years it managed to rewrite its own history into a mythological fantasy. The concepts of liberty, freedom and free enterprise in the “land of the free, home of the brave” are a mere spin.

→ read full article

Burma’s Struggle for Democracy: A Critical Appraisal (DRAFT)
Maung Zarni with Trisha Taneja – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

Reclaiming Activism – Drawn upon the author’s direct political engagement in Burma’s pro-change opposition, and on his own research, to reflect critically on the struggle of the last twenty-five years between the ruling military and the opposition movements.

→ read full article

Just Torture?
Shunzo Majima, Journal of Military Ethics – Centre for Digital Philosophy, 1 Dec 2014

The purpose of this paper is to develop and analyse a possible theory of “just torture”, by reference to the framework of just war theory, which proposes moral criticism of war, in order that we can critically consider the morality or otherwise of torture, including that undertaken for interrogation purposes.

→ read full article

Civilization Clashes Occident-Orient?
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

The conflict? Buddhist historical rights vs Muslim human rights. No religious conversion to the other, no secular neither-nor, no half-Buddhist/half Muslim compromise, no both-and amalgam: Buddhism with State power is also exclusive . How about political solutions?

→ read full article

(Italiano) Il Futuro della Mediazione
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

Per il miglioramento di sé competere con se stessi, non con altri, per una società di vincitori e sconfitti. Se s’impara il baricentro positivo, auto-miglioramento, buoni rapporti con equità e armonia, capacità di riconciliazione dei traumi e soluzione dei conflitti, si sarà ampiamente ricompensati con felicità e benessere.

→ read full article

Does the Name “Strauss-Kahn” Ring a Bell? – Trotsky at the IMF
Mike Whitney – CounterPunch, 1 Dec 2014

Let’s face it; Strauss-Kahn was headed in a direction that wasn’t compatible with the interests of the cutthroats who run the IMF. That much is clear. Now whether these same guys concocted the goofy “honey trap” at the Sofitel Hotel, we may never know.

→ read full article

(Italiano) Territori malesi: sicurezza e sovranità
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

La Malaysia ha recentemente esperito la massima insicurezza per due territori sovrani extra-territoriali: i voli Malaysian Airlines MH370 per Pechino e MH17 da Amsterdam. Se la Malaysia è stata vittima di un’aggressione, la risposta è la criminalizzazione. Per altri problemi la risposta è la rimozione delle cause di guerra, la soluzione dei conflitti sottostanti, e la costruzione della pace.

→ read full article

Animal Welfare: Seeing the Forest for the Denizens
Brian Czech – Counter Currents, 24 Nov 2014

Yet if we are serious about animal welfare, we have to get beyond the mere adoration of hedgehogs and hippos. We have to face up to the big-picture, systematic erosion of wild animal welfare. It’s all around us and getting worse by the day, and our public policies precipitate it. The most prevalent source of animal suffering is habitat destruction. Habitat includes food, water, cover, and space.

→ read full article

Malaysian Territories: Security and Sovereignty
Johan Galtung, 24 Nov 2014

Malaysia has recently experienced maximum insecurity for two extra-territorial sovereign territories: Malaysian Airlines flights MH370 to Beijing and MH17 from Amsterdam. If Malaysia has been the victim of aggression, the answer is criminalization. For other problems the answer is removing war causes, solving underlying conflicts, and building peace.

→ read full article

Invitation for Nominations to the International Bremen Peace Award 2015 – Crossing Boundaries/Breaking Vicious Circles
Schwelle Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

With this award we want to honour people and organizations that set an example through their work contributing to reconciliation, human rights, overcoming of racism, sustainable handling of nature and environment as well as to intercultural and inter-religious understanding.

→ read full article

UN Presses Myanmar over Rohingya Rights
ReliefWeb – UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 24 Nov 2014

The United Nations adopted a resolution Friday [21 Nov 2014] urging Myanmar to grant citizenship to its Rohingya Muslim minority, ramping up pressure on Yangon to scrap a controversial identity plan.

→ read full article

It’s No Accident: Afghan Opium Production Hits All-Time High
Mike Whitney - CounterPunch, 24 Nov 2014

The proliferation of drugs helps to keep the “little people” in line so the adults can get on with the business of looting.

→ read full article

US Joins Somalia and South Sudan in Failing to Support Child Rights
Arjun Sethi – Al Jazeera America, 24 Nov 2014

25 years later, as the world celebrates Universal Children’s Day, only three countries bear the shame of not having ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Somalia, South Sudan and the United States.

→ read full article

From the Bottom Up: Democracy Works in Haiti
Daniel Raventos and Julie Wark - CounterPunch, 24 Nov 2014

Democracy, the kind the mainstream media ignores, belittles or calls “utopian”, works from the bottom up. If justice is to be achieved in Haiti social change must come from the bottom. The elites aren’t going to build legal systems to favour the poor (and limit their own power).

→ read full article

Brisbane – A Show of Western Weakness
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 24 Nov 2014

No matter what you may think of Putin and Russia this is simply not the way international politics should be conducted, particularly not at the personal level. If it wasn’t an offence to children, one would aptly characterise it as childish behaviour.

→ read full article

US and Europe Conceal Their Bankruptcy with Hostility to Russia
Finian Cunningham – Strategic Culture Foundation, 24 Nov 2014

18 Nov 2014 – US President Obama was joined by European leaders last weekend in trying to turn the G20 summit in Australia into a forum for baiting Russia, rather than dealing with the more onerous problem of a failing world economy.

→ read full article

(Italiano) La cristianità fra l’attività bancaria ebraica e quella islamica
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Nov 2014

Il capitalismo ha due contraddizioni fondamentali: la classe, capitale vs lavoro, con una diseguaglianza crescente; la finanza vs l’economia reale, con crescente dominanza dell’economia finanziaria. Le alternative? Cooperative che condividano benefici e rischi, non aziende per azioni con compratori di manodopera e venditori di manodopera che (si) procurino “posti di lavoro”. E criminalizzazione dei rapporti puramente monetari, guidata dal sistema bancario islamico.

→ read full article

The Future of Mediation
Johan Galtung, 18 Nov 2014

For self-improvement compete with yourself, not with others, for a society of winners and losers. If you learn the positive focus, self-improvement, good relations with equity and harmony, capacity for trauma-conciliation and conflict-solution, you will be amply rewarded with happiness and well-being.

→ read full article

(Português) Os 5 Muros Que Ainda Dividem Populações no Mundo
Felipe Amorim, Opera Mundi – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

Israel, EUA, Coreia, Grécia e Ceuta: 25 anos após queda do Muro de Berlim, episódio que simbolizou diminuição de fronteiras, barreiras físicas ainda existem em diversos continentes. Conheça cinco muros que ainda estão de pé.

→ read full article

We Shouldn’t Be Surprised: Turkey Is Supporting ISIS
Ben Norton - CounterPunch, 17 Nov 2014

In one of the most contemptible of recent political developments, we now know that the great secular, democratic nation of Turkey is directly aiding ISIS to crush the Kurdish resistance. This proud member of NATO sat on its hands for weeks, watching across the Syrian border as Daesh fascists tried to take over the town of Kobane.

→ read full article

Burma: What Obama Should Tell Thein Sein
Maung Zarni – Asia Times, 17 Nov 2014

The country’s various oppressed constituencies are intensely resentful of both meek, mild and ineffectual UN officials and China’s narrow interests and slanted policies in favor of their common oppressor in Naypyidaw. They still hold out hope that the US’s involvement and pressure on the country’s current military leaders will eventually bring genuine democratic reforms and an end to decades of internal conflict.

→ read full article

The Bee’s Vanishing Act: Man Made Disaster
Dady Chery - CounterPunch, 17 Nov 2014

“Colony collapse disorder” entails the disappearance of a hive’s 5,000 to 100,000 or so individuals in a few days without leaving even a trace of their bodies. If the honeybee decline continues at its current rate, by 2035 honeybees will disappear permanently from our world, along with much of its color and fragrance.

→ read full article

Eight Dangerous Warning Signs of Genocide in Burma-Myanmar [Infographic]
Rachel Monteagudo, United to End Genocide – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

Hundreds have been killed, tens of thousands have fled under the most hazardous conditions, and 140,000 have been forced into horrible, overcrowded camps where they face severe restrictions and are denied basic necessities, including medical care. Many experts are warning of genocide. Here’s why:

→ read full article

Class Interests as Economic Theory
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh – CounterPunch, 17 Nov 2014

Mainstream/neoclassical economists failed miserably to either predict the 2008 financial implosion, or provide a reasonable explanation when it actually arrived. Neoclassical economics has created more confusion than clarification, more obfuscation than elucidation. Economic “science” has, indeed, become “an ideological construct which serves to camouflage and justify the New World Order”

→ read full article

Christianity between Jewish and Islamic Banking
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

Capitalism has two major contradictions: class, capital vs labor, with increasing inequality; finance vs real economy, with increasing finance economy dominance. The alternatives? Cooperatives sharing benefits and risks, not companies with labor-buyers and labor-sellers getting “jobs”. And criminalization of purely monetary relations, guided by Islamic banking.

→ read full article

The Corporate Assault on Latin American Democracy
Justin Doolittle – CounterPunch, 10 Nov 2014

The corporate war on Latin America has entered a new phase in which battles are being decided on the World Bank by an obscure and powerful institution known as the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. It has the authority to make binding decisions that affect entire populations.

→ read full article

Breaking the Cycle of Violent Conflict: Johan Galtung
University of California Television (UCTV) – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

A noted pioneer in the field of Peace Studies, Johan Galtung makes the case for incorporating human rights as key to successful peace building around the world. University of San Diego.

→ read full article

A Brief History of US-Israel Relations
Amb. Andrew I. Killgore - CounterPunch, 10 Nov 2014

How Zionists Outmaneuvered and Replaced State Department Experts

→ read full article

Why Russia Is Growing Tough • Berlin Wall Down 25 Years
Jonathan Power - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 10 Nov 2014

Is it his early economic success? Or is it because of a new stability? Or the nation’s growing self-respect after the ignominious years that followed the demise of the Soviet Union? Or is it a sense of besieged defensiveness because of the advantage the West undoubtedly took of Russia after that demise. The answer is a bit of all these. Now Russia, not just Putin, is in a very assertive mood.

→ read full article

Peace Leadership
David Krieger – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 10 Nov 2014

We live in a time of war and in a world that sacrifices its children at the altar of violence. There are children growing up today who have never known peace. Can you imagine what this must be like?

→ read full article

(Italiano) Cristianesimo vs Islam: controciclicità?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Nov 2014

PROGNOSI I: conversione massiccia all’islam; meno dogma, più azione.
PROGNOSI II: il sistema bancario islamico ispirerà l’economia occidentale.
PROGNOSI III: il cristianesimo si volge all’amore di Gesù-Maria, l’islam segue.

→ read full article

Christianity vs Islam: Countercyclicity?
Johan Galtung, 3 Nov 2014 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

PROGNOSIS I: massive conversion to Islam; less dogma, more action.
PROGNOSIS II: Islamic Banking will inspire Western economy.
PROGNOSIS III: Christianity turns to Jesus-Mary love, Islam follows.

→ read full article

No Country for Refugees
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

No British rescue missions for drowning Afro-refugees.
Really, it’s in their Karma, in their DNAs to suffer.
Give them Burmese “Buddhism” or cheap opium from Afghanistan.
Have they no wit to know Foreign Policies ain’t about human welfare?
Governments ain’t no churches. We ain’t your Messiah.

→ read full article

(Italiano) Il conflitto sunniti-sciiti: soluzioni?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

Attingere alle ricche esperienze di tutti gli islam, focalizzarsi sul meglio, estirpare le erbacce violente che rendono alcuni musulmani non-islamici nel loro ricorso alla violenza; molto diretti l’uno contro l’altro. Il tempo è un fattore per lavorare con entrambe le parti, sui fondamenti e sulla teologia, per andare oltre.

→ read full article

(Italiano) Epistemologia: sull’uso delle dicotomie
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 3 Nov 2014

Talvolta viene criticato l’uso delle dicotomie, tagli netti come maschio-femmina, democrazia-dittatura, pace negativa-positiva: il mondo è più complicato. Che il mondo della vita organica, individuale e collettiva, sia complesso, non v’è dubbio. Che una divisione semplicistica noi-loro del mondo in due blocchi o poli, una polarizzazione, appunto, sia un passo verso la violenza e la guerra, è chiaro.

→ read full article

Camps Bring Further Danger to Rohingya Muslims Fleeing Potential Genocide in Burma
Nic Dunlop - Newsweek, 3 Nov 2014

For now, the situation is on edge. A tense normality has returned to Sittwe, but there are no Muslims to be seen. They are either in the ghettos sealed by police, or in the camps outside. Nazir quarter where they once lived is now an empty lot, reclaimed by tropical vegetation.

→ read full article

Under Israeli Apartheid, Palestinians Cannot Ride Israeli Buses
Ben Norton – CounterPunch, 3 Nov 2014

28 Oct 2014 – Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has officially banned Palestinians from traveling on Israeli-run public transportation in the West Bank, according to a new report by Haaretz, Israel’s most prominent newspaper.

→ read full article

Financial Terrorism: The Wonga Payday Lending Experiment
Binoy Kampmark - CounterPunch, 27 Oct 2014

Keeping people poor in a world of seedy abandonment. Borrowing at phenomenal rates. Loan sharks running wild, dressed by the language of assistance and salvation.

→ read full article

Sri Lanka Revisited: The Whitewashing of a War Crime by Corporate Lobbyists
Andrew Buncombe – The Independent, 27 Oct 2014

The Sri Lankan government is hurriedly trying to boost the country’s image by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire corporate lobbyists as it awaits a UN report into alleged war crimes.

→ read full article

What Submarine in Sweden?
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 27 Oct 2014

You have heard that Sweden is hunting a”submarine” and that it is”presumed to be Russian”. Not the slightest evidence.

→ read full article

The Sunni-Shia Conflict: Any Solution?
Johan Galtung, 27 Oct 2014 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 27 Oct 2014

Drawing on the rich experiences of all Islams, focusing on the best, weeding violent weeds making some Muslims non-Islamic in their recourse to violence; much directed against each other. Time is there to work from both sides, on the basis and the theology, to go beyond.

→ read full article

Under Cover of Reconstruction, UN and PA Become Enforcers of Israel’s Gaza Siege
Ali Abunimah – The Electronic Intifada, 20 Oct 2014

17 Oct 2014 – The UN has agreed to become the chief enforcer of Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza. Under the guise of reconstruction, the UN will be monitoring and gathering private information about Palestinian households to be passed onto Israel, which will have a veto over which families get aid to rebuild their homes. Truly revolting.

→ read full article

(Italiano) ISIS: Negoziato, non bombardamento
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Oct 2014

Altri bombardamenti insensati di musulmani, altre sconfitte per USA-Occidente, altri movimenti di tipo ISIS, altra polarizzazione Occidente-Islam. Qualche via d’uscita?

→ read full article

Libya: From Africa’s Richest State under Gaddafi, to Failed State after NATO Intervention
Garikai Chengu – CounterCurrents, 20 Oct 2014

19 October, 2014 – This week marks the three-year anniversary of the Western-backed assassination of Libya’s former president, Muammar Gaddafi, and the fall of one of Africa’s greatest nations.

→ read full article

Epistemology: On the Use of Dichotomies
Johan Galtung, 20 Oct 2014 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Oct 2014

Sometimes the use of dichotomies, simple cuts, male-female, democracy-dictatorship, negative-positive peace is criticized: the world is more complicated. That the organic world with life, individual and collective, is complex, there is no doubt. That a simplistic us-them division of the world in two blocs or poles, polarization, is a step on the way to violence and war, is clear.

→ read full article

Baby Doc Is Dead but His Shadow Lingers over Haiti – Duvalier vs. Aristide
Ben Terrall - CounterPunch, 20 Oct 2014

The October 4 [2014] death of former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier in Port-au-Prince has justly garnered worldwide attention. But too much about current Haitian politics has been left out of this round of media coverage.

→ read full article

(Castellano) Torero arrepentido defensor de los derechos del animal
Álvaro Múnera, ex-torero – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Oct 2014

Álvaro Múnera, ex-torero, actual defensor de los derechos del animal y contrario a las corridas de toros:

→ read full article

Nobel’s Peace Prize Is Not a Human Rights Prize
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, 13 Oct 2014

The Nobel Committee Again Ignores Nobel’s Will – This prize is not a human rights or do-good prize. Change from an amateur to a professional committee.

→ read full article