Articles by TRANSCEND Media Service

We found 29499 results.


What Does the World Bank Have to Do with Burma’s Wars, Conflicts and Atrocities?
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Nov 2012

The war in Kachin State has everything to do with the World Bank which funded and promoted the idea of “cross-border energy free market”.

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The Universe Unraveling
William Blum, Killing Hope – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

On October 7 [2012] Hugo Chávez won his fourth term in office as president of Venezuela. The feeling of frustration that must have descended upon the Venezuelan and American power elite is likely reminiscent of Chile, March 1973, when the party of another socialist and American bête noire, Salvador Allende — despite the best intentions and dollars without end of the CIA — won about 44 percent of the vote in congressional elections, compared to some 36 percent in 1970.

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Perpetual War
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Because the world spends roughly 1.7 trillion dollars each year on armaments, it follows that very many people make their living from war. This is the reason why it is correct to speak of war as a social, political and economic institution, and also one of the main reasons why war persists, although everyone realizes that it is the cause of much of the suffering of humanity.

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(Portuguese) Portugal: A Universidade-Mercado – Sete Exemplos da Mercadorização do Ensino Superior
João Mineiro, Esquerda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

As universidades foram sempre um espaço de debate, crítica e movimento. Foram sempre uma pedra no sapato do sistema, porque nelas se exprimiram com imensa intensidade a liberdade, a subversão, a rebeldia e a crítica. Nos últimos anos fomos assistindo a estratégias de transformação da universidade pelo mercado, com o objetivo de amenizar o seu potencial crítico e emancipatório. Vejamos sete exemplos.

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Chile’s Most Wanted
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Branded a ‘terrorist’ at an early age by the government of Chile, Pascual Pichun is a man on a mission. Pascual is a symbol of the indigenous Mapuche resistance movement, which is trying to protect and reclaim its ancestral lands from the government and foreign companies. The movement is accused of attacks on forestry company property, destroying bulldozers and burning down a helicopter.

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British Ex-Envoy Told the Truth (for a change)
Gilad Atzmon – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Peter Jenkins, Britain’s former representative on the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaking in a debate at Warwick University on nuclear proliferation in Iran, said that “Israelis don’t practise an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they practise ten eyes for an eye and ten teeth for a tooth.” He also added that “the idea that a just war requires the use of force to be proportionate seems to be a Christian notion and not a Jewish notion.”

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Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
UN General Assembly – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948

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(Italian) Aerei da Trasporto Alenia per le Future Guerre Africane
Antonio Mazzeo – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

“Il governo del Ciad ha mantenuto in vigore la pena di morte”, denuncia Amnesty International nel suo ultimo rapporto annuale sui diritti umani. “Nel paese sono aumentati i casi di arresti e detenzioni illegali, così come di tortura, aggressioni ai danni di difensori dei diritti umani, giornalisti e sindacalisti. Stupri e altre violenze nei confronti di donne e ragazze sono stati frequenti. Le condizioni nelle carceri sono difficili ed equiparabili a trattamento o pena crudele, disumana o degradante.

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Open Letter to the Heads of States of the World
People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

We, several millions of people from India, are seeking your support for the peaceful and nonviolent struggle that we have been waging for almost a quarter century against the Koodankulam nuclear power project. It is being built with Russian loan and technology against the will and wishes of the local people. As Indian authorities charge us with sedition and waging war on the state, imprisonment, curfew and prohibitory orders, intimidation campaigns, home searches, physical attacks on us and our properties, and other such police atrocities, we are forced to seek justice from the international community.

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Let’s Not Forget! Hurricane Sandy Ravaged the Caribbean First (PHOTOS)
Global Grind – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

We must not forget that before Hurricane Sandy touched down in New York City and New Jersey, Caribbean nations such as Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica took the brunt of the superstorm days before it hit the Tri-State area.

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9 Ways to Reduce Symptoms of Pet Allergies
Dr. Edward F. Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Pets bring a lot of joy and are usually considered a true member of the family. Petting a cat or dog has been shown to lower blood pressure and decrease feelings of loneliness and isolation. It’s not hard to understand why we have a real emotional connection to our pets. However, for people with allergies to animal dander, pets can pose a problem.

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HSBC Caught in New Drug Money Laundering Scandal
Tom Burghardt, Antifascist Calling – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

While HSBC’s Canary Wharf masters are back-peddling furiously over charges that they gave a leg up to terrorist financiers and drug traffickers as a recent U.S. Senate report charged, new evidence emerged that its business as usual for the multinational banking giant founded by Hong Kong-based British opium merchants.

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Peace Studies by Peaceful Means
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Peace studies matter; same as health studies. We are born with the inclination to reject suffering, be it from violence or disease, and to seek wellbeing, call it peace, call it health. But we are not born with the knowledge and skills, theory and practice

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How a Group of Christians Smearing Muslims Benefits the Jewish State
Maidhc Ó Cathail – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

In the course of his much-ridiculed albeit deadly serious ACME bomb speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu asserted that “the medieval forces of radical Islam” stand in the way of Israel’s desire for “a Middle East of progress and peace.” As evidence of these freedom-hating, anti-modern forces supposedly “bent on world conquest,” Netanyahu cited the Sept. 11 besieging of U.S. embassies throughout the region.

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(Portuguese) A Política e a Ética da Fome
Leonardo Boff – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Existem técnicas de produção de extraordinária eficácia. A produção de alimentos é superior ao crescimento da população mundial. Mas eles estão pessimamente distribuídos. 20% da humanidade dispõe para seu desfrute 80% dos meios de vida. Aqui reside a injustiça. Continua válida a crítica de Gandhi: ”A fome é um insulto; ela avilta, desumaniza e destrói o corpo e o espírito…senão a própria alma; é a forma de violência mais assassina que existe”.

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ANC International Solidarity Conference Supports Boycott of Israel
BDS South Africa – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

BDS South Africa welcomes the position adopted by the African National Congress (ANC) International Solidarity Conference to support the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel campaign.

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Victims of the Future
Paul Rios, Lokarri – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

October 20 [2012] marked one year of the end of ETA violence and these words have taken on a new meaning: “Alec Reid, when talking about the worst years of the conflict in Northern Ireland, said that he started to carry out the role of mediator and tried to represent the victims of the future; he wanted to represent them precisely with the objective that they would never become victims”.

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Prop 37, GMOs, Food Sovereignty, and More
Vandana Shiva and Sonali Kolhatkar, Uprising Radio – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

A new poll conducted by the University of Southern California and the LA Times has found that Proposition 37, the GMO labeling initiative, has slipped a whopping 17 points since the last poll in September [2012]. Now, one of the world’s most renowned scientists and environmental activists, Vandana Shiva, is speaking out. Long a thorn in the side of Monsanto, Dr. Shiva has taken on big bio-tech and agribusiness companies in her home country of India and works with farmers groups all over the world to protect their right to farm using their traditional methods and seeds.

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Sri Lanka: Militarizing the Land and Terrorizing the Minds
Nirmanusan Balasundaram – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Nearly four decades of asymmetric war between the Sri Lankan state and the Tamil guerrillas ended in a bloodbath that was seen by some as “unacceptably high”. Such statements arouse a cynical curiosity as to what could be an “acceptable level of bloodbath” and confirmed that the State’s victory was achieved by massacring hundreds of thousands of Tamils.

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Israeli Ministry of Tourism Map Annexes Over 60% of the West Bank
Jonathan Cook – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

The map fails to delineate any territory identifiable as the West Bank, referring to it instead as the Biblical kingdoms of Judea and Samaria. That is also the way Israeli textbooks have presented the West Bank to generations of Israeli schoolchildren: as a single territorial unit of Greater Israel, ruled over by Israel. The Green Line was erased on Hebrew maps from the moment the occupation began. But the tourism map has been drafted not for a domestic audience but for a foreign one.

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(Castellano) Unión Europea Excluirá a Cataluña en Caso de Independizarse de España
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

El organismo explica que cuando el territorio de un Estado miembro deja de ser parte de ese Estado, los Tratados regionales no se aplican a dicho territorio, ya que “un nuevo Estado, creado como resultado de un proceso de independencia, se convertiría en un tercer país”.

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World Bank Business Rankings Obscure Poverty and Corruption, Critics Argue
The Guardian – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Some of the best places in the world to start and run a business have proved hugely controversial, like former Soviet satellite state Georgia and central African nation Zambia. The new boss at the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, has pledged to review the rankings. It seems not only invidious but also farcical to say that Rwanda boasts a better infrastructure for business than Italy.

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Istanbul: A Modest Proposal
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

My most trusted Turkish friends felt that it grossly exaggerated Istanbul’s credentials as a possible future world capital, and in deference, I will tone down some of the language, and call attention to some problematic features of the Turkish political landscape that should not be ignored in proposing such a status for Istanbul.

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UN Relief Agency Estimates 1.8 Million Haitians Have Been Affected By Hurricane Sandy
UN News Centre – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

2 November 2012 – Some 1.8 million Haitians have been affected by Hurricane Sandy, the United Nations relief agency said today after its first assessment of the situation in the region, adding that food security remains an urgent concern in the Caribbean nation.

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Jeffrey Gedmin: The Democracy-Promoting, Iraq War-Supporting, Pro-Israel Neocon Who Influenced Merkel’s EU Austerity Program
Maidhc Ó Cathail, The Passionate Attachment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

In his latest New Europe column entitled “Merkel’s real agenda: mugging the poor,” David Cronin asks why the German Chancellor has cast herself as Europe’s “empress of austerity.” The answer, he believes, is to be found by looking at those who have shaped the German leader’s worldview.

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Jobless in the Crisis: Euro-Zone Unemployment Higher than Ever Before
Der Spiegel – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

The European debt crisis and related austerity measures continue to drive up unemployment across the euro zone. In September, according to statistics released on Wednesday [31 Oct 2012], fully 18.5 million people were without work in the common currency area, more than ever before.

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(Castellano) Evo Morales Nombra a Sean Penn “Embajador de Causas Nobles de Bolivia”
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

“El Presidente le ha pedido (…) que lleve nuestras reivindicaciones, nuestra propuesta de retorno al mar a los distintos escenarios, en los que podamos avanzar de manera significativa en el contexto internacional”, señaló el ministro de la Presidencia.

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Appeal to Our Leaders’ and Nation’s Collective Conscience!
The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

As the very last and desperate attempt at securing our independence and freedom, thwarting another spell of colonialism and foreign domination, safeguarding India’s natural resources, changing our energy policy and ensuring the well-being of our fellow citizens, we would like to appeal to your and our nation’s collective conscience to listen to us, the ordinary people of India, and not to repress us.

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Sandy Caribbean Death Toll Rises
Independent, Ireland – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

31 Oct 2012 – The death toll in the Caribbean from Hurricane Sandy has risen and estimates of damage and destruction it caused grew larger as more complete assessments emerged from throughout the region. Two new deaths were recorded in Haiti, bringing the total for the country to 54 and for the whole of the Caribbean to 71. In Cuba, the government raised the number of homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy from 130,000 to 200,000.

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Who and What Gains from Myanmar’s Genocide of the Rohingya and Other Muslims?
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

The site of massive violence and arson of Rohingya and other Muslim neighborhood in Kyauk Hpyu happened to be the site where China is planning a Special Econ and Technological Zone. Why bother with mass eviction and typical Myanmar land grab when you have locally produced Genocide against the Rohingya and other Muslim inhabitants as a tool of ‘developmental policy’?

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Greek Editor Acquitted Over Swiss Bank List
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

A Greek journalist who published the names of more than 2,000 Greeks with Swiss bank accounts has been acquitted of breaking data privacy laws. Costas Vaxevanis’s acquittal on Thursday [1 Nov 2012] came hours after he went on trial in a case analysts said was a test for press freedom in Greece.

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Being a Poem in the Making
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

Produced in the light of the joint meeting of the Scientific and Medical Network and the
Society for Scientific Exploration on Mapping Time, Mind and Space (Brú na Bóinne, Ireland, 2012). Engendering a Multiverse through Musing – This is a reflection on engagement with the quantity of information, the challenge of quality and selectivity, and the consequences of ignorance and confusion as time goes by.

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(Portuguese) Teste Simples Ajuda a Identificar AVC
Radioagência NP – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

29 out 2012 – No Dia Mundial do AVC, organizações de saúde intensificam o alerta para prevenir e identificar os primeiros sintomas da doença. Entre os principais fatores de risco estão a hipertensão, diabetes e o colesterol elevado. Uma pessoa morre a cada seis segundos no mundo devido ao Acidente Vascular Cerebral (AVC), popularmente conhecido como derrame.

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World War III: The Unthinkable Cost of Preserving the Petrodollar (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
CrisisHQ – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Nov 2012

If you want to understand what’s happening in the Mideast, particularly in Libya, Syria and Iran, you must first understand the main driving force behind U.S. foreign policy. The real agenda is to protect the Petrodollar system, because it is the only thing that is currently preventing the total collapse of our fiat currency.

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How to Launder Money – Swiss Style
Bruce Krasting – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

An interesting crime story has come out in France and Switzerland. It may prove to be the nail in the coffin for bank secrecy in Switzerland. The Swiss and French police arrested seventeen individuals a week ago (including an assistant Mayor in Paris). A woman (known only as “M”) is the center of attention of a drug smuggling ring. Apparently she ran a very big operation smuggling marijuana from Morocco into France.

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Myanmar Travel Reassurances to Westerners
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

President Thein Sein himself – incidentally, a very sincere, soft-spoken and harmless personality – has assured our Ministries that you will not hear gunshot fires, nor will you see boat loads of fleeing “Kulars or niggers” – much less their social media-circulated doctored images of mutilated corpses, charred belongings, and burnt houses. (Off the record: These damn human rights activists tend to sensationalize stories and exaggerate atrocities – it’s just another case of ethnic cleansing. We have other really important business in Myanmar: BUSINESS).

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‘Bailouts’ Are a Means for Total Subjugation of Nation States – Nigel Farage
Europarl – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

European Parliament, Strasbourg, 23 October 2012 – Conclusions of the European Council. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage speaks truth to the powers that be.

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(Castellano) Estudio Científico Responsabiliza a la ONU Por Epidemia de Colera en Haití
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

La investigación determinó que la cepa de cólera en Haití es una copia exacta de la cepa de cólera en Nepal. En base a ello, la fuente más probable de introducción del cólera es una persona infectada proveniente de África, asociada a la Misión de la ONU.

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(Castellano) Indigenas Brasileños Advierten Suicidio Masivo Si los Despojan de Sus Tierras
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Esta semana [24 Oct 2012], un tribunal brasileño ordenó el desalojo de su granja. Sin embargo, unos 100 adultos y 70 niños amenazan con suicidarse en masa antes de salir de un territorio que ellos llaman “tekoha”, cuyo significado es “cementerio ancestral”.

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UN Independent Expert Calls For Boycott of Businesses Profiting From Israeli Settlements
UN News Centre – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

A United Nations independent expert today [25 Oct 2012] called on the world body’s General Assembly, as well as civil society, to take action against Israeli and international businesses that are profiting from Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

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Israel‘s Formula for a Starvation Diet
Jonathan Cook – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

How 400 Trucks To Feed Gaza Became Just 67 – Six and a half years go, shortly after Hamas won the Palestinian national elections and took charge of Gaza, a senior Israeli official described Israel’s planned response. “The idea,” he said, “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”

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(Italian) Premio per la Pace: Nobel o Ignobel?
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Entrambi, naturalmente. Ben meritato per il passato e per le relazioni interne, nella tradizione dell’Occidente che premia l’Occidente. Ma i critici hanno ragione per quanto riguarda le relazioni esterne e il presente come la stretta debitoria dei cosiddetti Stati GIPSI –Grecia, Italia, Portogallo, Spagna, Irlanda- Periferia UE- verso la Germania.

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Teflon President? Noose Tightens Around Uribe as Former Death Squad Leaders Spill the Beans
Tom Burghardt, Anti-fascist Calling – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Recent arrests by Colombian authorities and revelations by the president’s former allies are beginning to draw a circle around Uribe and the U.S. secret state in some of the hemisphere’s worst human rights abuses of previous decades. As the net tightens, members of the president’s own family are sharply focused in the cross-hairs of investigators.

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Of Course Monsanto Says It’s Safe
Tim Schwab, Food and Water Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Does anyone honestly think that Monsanto is going to fund research about its products that casts them in an unfavorable light, then publish these findings in a journal over which it has financial influence for all to see? The status quo of industry influence over agricultural science means that NK603 remains a pervasive ingredient in our food system – apparently unchallengeable by scientists, unexamined by journalists and unavoidable by consumers because GE foods are unlabeled.

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(Portuguese) O Maior Escândalo Financeiro da História de Portugal!
Ironia d’Estado – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Foi a maior burla de sempre em Portugal, qualquer coisa como 9.710.539.940,09 €uros!!! Nunca antes houve um roubo desta dimensão, “tapado” por uma nacionalização que já custou 2.400 milhões de euros delapidados algures entre gestores de fortunas privadas em Gibraltar, empresas do Brasil, offshores de Porto Rico, um oportuno banco de Cabo Verde e a voracidade de uma parte da classe política portuguesa que se aproveitou desta vergonha criada por figuras importantes daquilo que foi o cavaquismo na sua fase executiva”.

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Government to Argue Speedy Trial Doesn’t Apply to Bradley, Veterans to Rally in Support
Nathan Fuller – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

As Army Private First Class Bradley Manning nears 900 days in jail without trial, his lawyer moves to dismiss all charges for lack of a speedy trial. Beginning Tuesday, October 30, the government’s witnesses will try to explain away the prosecution’s extensive delays.

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(Portuguese) Brasil: 863 Índios Se Suicidam… E Quase Ninguém Viu
Jornaldagazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Bob Fernandes reporta – Em sua carta-testamento os Kaiowá/Guarani rogam: ”Pedimos ao Governo e à Justiça Federal para não decretar a ordem de despejo/expulsão, mas decretar nossa morte coletiva e enterrar nós todos aqui. Pedimos para decretar nossa extinção/dizimação total, além de enviar vários tratores para cavar um grande buraco para jogar e enterrar nossos corpos. Este é o nosso pedido aos juízes federais”.

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Eightfold Configuration of Nested Cycles of Cognitive Transformations
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Meta-Pattern of Connectivity through a Hypersphere? – In a preceding exercise the focus was on identifying the nature and range of cognitive transformations, of which people are commonly aware, in quest of an approach to configuring them together in a meaningful pattern (In Quest of a Dynamic Pattern of Transformations: sensing the strange attractor of an emerging Rosetta Stone, 2012). The following exploration is an effort to weave together these different “threads” using the periodic table as a valuable template.

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Adverse Effects of Globalization
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Today, economic globalization aims at increased trade throughout the world. At first sight, this might seem to be a benefit. However, laws preventing the exploitation of labor are not universal. The same unspeakable conditions experienced by workers in factories and mines during the early phases of the Industrial Revolution in Europe can be found today among factory workers in Indonesia, or children weaving oriental carpets in Pakistan; and it is estimated that in India alone there are 80,000,000 child laborers.

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New York Police Department Informant Says He Was Paid to ‘Bait’ Muslims
Dashiell Bennett, The Atlantic Wire – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

He earned as much as $1,000 a month by surveilling mosques and Islamic study groups, taking pictures and collecting names of innocent people. The 19-year-old was born in Queens to Bengali parents and said he was recruited from jail after a series of minor drug arrests.

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Effective Sharing of World Responsibility
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

The real secret to the solution of all problems on a global scale lies in our ability to procure means that are beneficial to all people across every continent without exception. From the early days of human existence, people soon found out that they are fully interdependent for the better or the worse.

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Pentagon Prisons Revealed: WikiLeaks Publishes Terror Detainee Manuals
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Whistleblowing website WikiLeaks is releasing over 100 classified documents detailing US Department of Defense procedures for running Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and other infamous prisons where terror suspects are detained.

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Beyond Occupy: A Campaign to Decentralize Wealth and Its Associated Power
Elizabeth Barrett – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

September 17th [2012] was the one-year anniversary of the first Occupy Wall Street protest, which was held in Zuccotti Park in the financial district of New York City. The Occupy movement grew out of the natural rage people felt about the massive transfer of wealth from the public sector to certain people in the private sector during the bailout of the financial industry. The goal should be to decentralize wealth before it is accumulated, rather than after. Contrary to the current thought that also started with Adam Smith in 1776, human beings actually are not a commodity known as “labor” – they are living, breathing people.

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Origin of Syrian Shells into Turkey Unclear, US General Says
Daily News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

“We are not sure if these shells are from the Syrian army, from rebels who want to get Turkey involved in the issue or from the PKK [Kurdish Workers’ Party],” U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said.

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Documentary on Movement against Kudankulam [India] Nuclear Plant
NDTV (India) – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Exposing the truth about the Koodunkulam [Tamil Nadu] Nuclear Power Plant with its history and the people’s continuous protests. (In English)

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The Right to Water
Francisco Gomes de Matos – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

To Water all human beings should have the right
but why isn´t that vital right always in sight?

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Cooperatives Cushion the Blows of Hunger
Inter Press Service-IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Millions of small-scale producers, particularly in the developing world, are responding to the triple crises of climate change, food price fluctuations and market instability by organising themselves into cooperatives to join forces. The Food and Agriculture Organizaton sees cooperatives as a major way to lift small-scale farmers out of poverty and hunger, and help them to access markets to sell their products, buy inputs at better prices and obtain financial services.

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The Art of Dissuasion
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

A letter to the editors of Media Lens. As you know, journalists whose politics are broadly in line with yours, and who are hostile to big business and the corporate domination of politics and the media, have become, following your attempts to engage with them, not your allies but your sworn enemies. I think it’s time for you to take stock and ask why this has been happening.

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Japan Struggling To Store Radioactive Water
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Leading nuclear worker says space is running out for contaminated water cooling the Fukushima plant.

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Rohingya Unrest Continues – 100 killed
Mabrur Ahmed, RestlessBeings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

Burma/Myanmar – The situation in Arakan state this morning [23 Oct 2012] is dire. Renewed arson attacks took place on the villages of Minbya and Mro Haung at around 4.30pm local time. More than 100 are feared dead. Furthermore reports have come through of the rape of at least 26 young girls by security forces in the Rathadaung Township.

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Proposing a Vision of a New Earth
Rajesh Makwana, Sharing the World’s Resources – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

The earth’s ecological problems stem largely from our collective failure to share. That might seem like an overly simplistic statement, but it is now increasingly evident that only by sharing the world’s resources more equitably and sustainably will we be able to address both the ecological and social crisis we face as a global community.

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Preparing for COP III
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Oct 2012

If scam-ridden governments of third world countries, like India, continue their environmentally destructive polices in the real interests of their own ruling elites, the leaders of the West, and their corporate movers and shakers deliberately collude in the process of creating regional instability and concomitant dependency on themselves.

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Flaws in the Concept of Nuclear Deterrence
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Before discussing other defects in the concept of deterrence, it must be said very clearly that the idea of “massive nuclear retaliation” is completely unacceptable from an ethical point of view. The doctrine of retaliation, performed on a massive scale, violates not only the principles of common human decency and common sense, but also the ethical principles of every major religion.

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(Italian) Guerre Balcaniche a 100: Quattro Strade Per Un Buon Vicinato
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Discorso programmatico, Istanbul, Università di Hacettepe, 4 ottobre 2012 – Gli imperi vanno e vengono. L’Impero musulmano Ottomano fu fra i migliori mentre quello cattolico iberico e quello protestante europeo furono fra i peggiori.

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Gaza-Bound Ship ‘Attacked By Israel Forces’ (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

20 Oct 2012 – Mikael Löfgren, media coordinator spokesman for the Estelle, spoke to Al Jazeera.

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Mahatma Gandhi Speaks to the Australian Prime Minister?
People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy as well as our sympathizers all over India would like to apologize to Ms. Julia Gillard, the Honorable Prime Minister of Australia, for the dangerous fall she suffered at the Raj Ghat. Madam Prime Minister, this whole Raj Ghat episode reflects the authorities’ utter lack of safety precautions and emergency preparedness. And your government is seriously considering selling Uranium to these folks. Maybe, Madam Prime Minister, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of our Nation, is trying to say something to you and please listen to him.

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Turkey’s Conflict Trinity
Ali E. Erol – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

A recent piece written by Johan Galtung for TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS (2012) titled Turkey-Cyprus -Kurds -Armenia -SYRIA is an important representation of the close inspection Turkey is going though in this process of international recognition. My aim in this piece is to focus on Galtung’s article and talk about Turkey’s conflict trinity using some of the claims and suggestions he puts forth.

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‘Recipe for Disaster’: Group Says No Financialization of Nature!
Common Dreams – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Friends of the Earth International warns against corporate approach as UN biodiversity conference meets. The “financialization of nature” is a flawed approach to saving biodiversity, an environmental group warns as representatives from over 170 countries meet at a United Nations biodiversity conference.

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Why Is NATO Supporting This Syrian War?
Robin Edward Poulton, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

No one has been able – or willing – to explain to me why the US administration and its NATO allies are supporting the Sunni destruction of Syria. The people we decry as ‘Terrorists’ and ‘Al Qaeda’ are in fact the very same Sunni Muslim Extremists – supported by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States – whom we are apparently funding and arming in Syria. Why?

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(Italian) Turchia-Cipro-Kurdi-Armenia-SIRIA*
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Questo non vuol dire affatto che la Turchia sia scevra di problemi; nessun paese lo è. Il punto focale qui è su quattro problemi che coinvolgono altre nazioni: i greci, i kurdi, gli armeni e le molte nazioni presenti in Siria. Una politica come al solito in paesi omogenei, senza soluzioni contemplanti le nazionalità, equivale a corteggiare il disastro. Va su una minoranza, conquista nicchie economiche-culturali e le maggioranze la metteranno a tacere con mezzi politico-militari; come gli armeni in Turchia, gli ebrei in Germania, i cinesi nel SudEst asiatico; Tutsi-Hutu.

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On The Dignity of Being Forgetful
Francisco Gomes de Matos – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Rhymed Reflection

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(Italian) Guida ai musei della Resistenza e della lotta di Liberazione in Italia
Silvia Berruto, antifascista – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

La memoria di compagne e compagni che ricordano, con una perseveranza e con una pazienza speciali, a futura e imperitura memoria, di aver lottato per tutte e per tutti.

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Another Numerologist Gets the Idiot Award
Ed Burgos, The Dollar Vigilante – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

On the Nobel Prize in “economics.”

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The Lexicon of Madness
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

My purpose in writing this commentary is to call attention to the perils of language use and abuse that characterize the “mental” health professions and the public. As the introduction of the DSM V approaches, it is essential we understand the many underlying issues that exist at this time regarding the terms professionals and the public use when referring to “mental” health problems, especially with regard to their denotative and connotative meanings.

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(Italian) Intervista a Leonardo Boff
Altramente – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

La Teologia é seria quando si prende sul serio la testimonianza degli invisibili, dei disprezzati, di quelli che non contano niente. Ogni persona è unica al mondo, ha qualcosa da dire, da mostrare. Ignorante é quello che pensa che il popolo é ignorante.

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Up To 100 Norwegians Join Syrian War
The Norway Post – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Around 100 young men with Norwegian citizenship have travelled to Syria to participate in the civil war, NRK reports, quoting Muslim sources. They have estimated that more than 20 radical Norwegian Islamists are in Syria at this time, and that at least seven of them are fighting on the side of Al Qaida.

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Privatization Pushback: Civil Society Slams Water Privatization Conditions for EU Bailouts
Common Dreams – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Civil society groups Wednesday [17 Oct 2012] are slamming the European Commission’s continued insistence that privatization of municipal water systems be a condition for receiving rescue funds, a plan the groups describe as “economically, socially and democratically flawed.”

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Russia to Spend Over 100 Billion Rubles on Nuclear Weapons
Pravda – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Russia plans to spend 101.15 billion rubles on nuclear weapons in 2013-2015, the head of the Defense Committee of the State Duma Vladimir Komoyedov said.

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Is This What It Takes?
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Is this what it takes—
flaming, crumbling tombs on Wall Street,
a burning Pentagon?

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London: Parasites’ Paradise (Or the Best Criminal Sanctuary Money Can Buy)
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Whenever financial swindlers prosper at the expense of investors or a bank jiggers interest rates to bugger their competitors or tax evaders flee fiscal crises or rent gouging petrol monarchies recycle profits or oligarchs pillage economies and drive millions to drink, drugs and destitution they find a suitable secure sanctuary in London.

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Rule by the Rich
Jerry Mander, New Left Project – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

In an extract from his upcoming book The Capitalism Papers, influential activist Jerry Mander describes the sheer scale of the rich’s control of the global economy and how they are seeking new territory in which to invest their wealth.

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Defective Spiritual Guidance in America
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

In virtually every religion, people tend to look at the spiritual leaders of their community for inner guidance. Deep inside they all tend to be good to the best of their ability in spite of their human frailties. In a number of instances, a variety of viewpoints tend to create unnecessary contradictions.

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Myanmar’s Rohingyas: No Help, Please, We’re Buddhists
The Economist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

When Offending the Muslim World Seems a Small Price to Pay – The only thing that might sway Burmese opinion in favour of the [Muslim] Rohingyas, some say, would be the staunch support of Myanmar’s most famous and revered politician, the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. But she has been largely silent on their plight.

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Rate-Fixing Bankers to Face Jail Under New EU Rules
Benjamin Fox, EUobserver – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Bankers caught manipulating the Libor exchange rate could face a minimum five-year jail term under new EU legislation. The provisions included in the proposed market abuse law were adopted by 39 votes to 0 with a single abstention in a vote by the parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee on Monday (9 October 2012).

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Beyond Language: Reflections on the Arakan Tragedy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Yesterday [14 Oct 2012] I listened to the wife of the Prime Minister, Emine Erdogan, speak about her recent harrowing visit to the Rohingya people in the federal state of Arakan ( mainly known in the West as Rakhine) who are located in northwestern Myanmar (aka Burma). The Rohingya are a Muslim minority numbering over one million, long victimized locally and nationally in Burma and on several occasions over the years their people have been brutally massacred and their villages burned.

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Toward Barbarism: US Imperialism Unleashed
Ben Schreiner, Working Left – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

With signs of a global economic downturn mounting, US aggression across the Middle East and North Africa ratchets up. According to the IMF’s World Economic Outlook report released last week [October 2012], the “risks for a serious global slowdown are alarmingly high.” According to the New York Times, the Pentagon is readying military strikes in Libya in retaliation for the September attack on the US compound in Benghazi in addition to the deployment of troops along the Jordan-Syria border, CIA operatives are presently active along the Syria-Turkey border, facilitating the flow of arms to rebel forces.

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Historic Philippines Peace Agreement – Why This One Is Different
Timmon Wallis, Nonviolent Peaceforce – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

Peace Agreements are a dime a dozen these days. With an average of 25 wars going on around the world at any given time, there are peace agreements about to be signed almost every other week. No wonder the world ceases to take much interest anymore! Another Peace Agreement is signed in the Philippines yesterday – yawn.

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The Facts Are In: Nonviolent Resistance Works
John Dear S.J., National Catholic Reporter – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

“Nonviolence is fine as long as it works,” Malcolm X once said. Recently, Columbia University Press published an extraordinary scholarly book that proves how nonviolence works far better as a method for social change than violence. This breakthrough book demonstrates that Gandhi was right, that the method of nonviolent resistance as a way to social change usually leads to a more lasting peace while violence usually fails.

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It’s Time to Prioritise the Global Sharing Economy
Rajesh Makwana and Adam Parsons – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Oct 2012

As the widespread mobilisation of people power in 2011 demonstrated, only a united people’s voice is stronger than the private interests that obstruct progressive change from taking place. The responsibility for change rests with us – ordinary, engaged citizens – to forge a worldwide popular movement that upholds and strengthens the sharing economy in all its forms.

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The Peace Prize: Nobel or Ignoble?
Johan Galtung, 18 Oct 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 18 Oct 2012

Both, of course. Well deserved for EU’s past and for relations within, in the tradition of West rewarding West. But critics are right about relations without and the present; like debt bondage of GIPSI–Greece-Italy-Portugal-Spain-Ireland/EU periphery–to Germany.

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Hope, Wisdom, Law, Ethics, and Spirituality in Relation to Killing and Dying: Persisting Syrian Dilemmas
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

In appraising political developments most of us rely on trusted sources, our overall political orientation, what we have learned from past experience, and our personal hierarchy of hopes and fears. No matter how careful, and judicious, we are still reaching conclusions in settings of radical uncertainty, which incline our judgments to reflect a priori and interpretative biases.

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Nonviolence is the Response to Hate Cartoons
Dr. Abbas Aroua – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

In the last weeks we have seen a resurgence of Islamic-Western tensions around the seeming opposition between freedom of expression and respect for religious symbols. The attitudes and behaviors in the West vis-à-vis Islam which are perceived negatively in the Muslim world may be classified into seven categories:

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The Prospects of Intercultural Humanism in the 21st Century
Klaudius Cansczyk, et al. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

The values that the Jewish physicist Albert Einstein and the Christian physicist, philosopher, and peace researcher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker attribute to the Hindu politician Mahatma Gandhi, point towards an intercultural humanism which we regard as part of a worldwide array of religions and perspectives of the world which could and should survive as an orientation for the 21st century.

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I Do Not Support the Nobel Peace Prize 2012 to the European Union
Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

Whilst the EU imposes severe austerity measures upon many EU countries, it simultaneously supports the growing militarisation of Europe through support for US/NATO (guilty of war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.), continues to support American nuclear weapons deployed to six EU States, supports arms sales from European States (UK, Germany, etc.) to countries around the world. The EU, instead of upholding human rights for countries such as Palestine, has rewarded Israel with a special trading status and huge grants for its military research and weapons thus enabling it to continue its illegal policies of occupation and Apartheid in Palestine.

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One Step Backward Taken
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

On his poem, “One step Backward Taken,” Robert Frost tells us that we can often save ourselves by taking a step backwards, by looking carefully at what has been happening and by avoiding going over the edge.

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Weathergirl Goes Rogue
Deep Rogue Ram - TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

Arctic ice cover just reached its lowest point in recorded history. Pippa goes off script and drops some science.

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Lexicon of War
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

Overwhelmed by the endless violence and wars in our world, I wrote an email to a number of listservs where I listed a number of different adjectives preceding the word “war.” And I added a request to readers to make any additions they felt were appropriate. The email brought many replies that both suggested additions and that acknowledged the implications of the emerging “lexicon of wars.” Thus I share with you an updated and more comprehensive lexicon of wars, with a figure (in the end) that suggests a socialization process for wars.

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How to Avoid Genetically Modified Food
Robin Mather, Mother Earth News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

The only way to avoid GM food is to know which ingredients are likely to be genetically modified and read labels carefully, or to always choose organic foods, which are certified GM-free. Below are estimates of the percentages of GM foods found on store shelves. To learn more about this issue, see The Threats From Genetically Modified Foods.

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Is a Nuclear Deal With Iran Possible?
Pat Buchanan, Creators – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

In diplomacy, always leave your adversary an honorable avenue of retreat. Fifty years ago this October, to resolve a Cuban missile crisis that had brought us to the brink of nuclear war, John F. Kennedy did that. He conveyed to Nikita Khrushchev, secretly, that if the Soviet Union pulled its nuclear missiles out of Cuba, the United States would soon after pull its Jupiter missiles out of Italy and Turkey.

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(French) Face aux Caricatures de la Haine, la Non-Violence s’Impose
Abbas Aroua – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Oct 2012

Les dernières semaines ont connu la résurgence des tensions occidento-islamiques autour de l’opposition apparente entre la liberté d’expression et le respect des symboles religieux. On peut classer les attitudes et les comportements en Occident vis-à-vis de l’Islam qui sont perçus négativement dans le monde musulman en sept catégories:

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