Articles by M

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Do We Want School or Education?
Robert J. Burrowes – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

The tragic reality of human life is that few people value the awesome power of the individual Self with an integrated mind (that is, a mind in which memory, thoughts, feelings, sensing, conscience and other functions work together in an integrated way) because this individual will be decisive in choosing life-enhancing behavioural options (including those at variance with social laws and norms) and will fearlessly resist all efforts to control it or coerce it with violence.

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That Most Charming of Couples: Nationalism and Hypocrisy
William Blum – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

It’s not easy being a flag-waving American nationalist. In addition to having to deal with the usual disillusion, anger, and scorn from around the world incited by Washington’s endless bombings and endless wars, the nationalist is assaulted by whistle blowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, who have disclosed a steady stream of human-rights and civil-liberties scandals, atrocities, embarrassing lies, and embarrassing truths.

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Covert Drone War: Bureau investigation finds fresh evidence of CIA drone strikes on rescuers
Chris Woods – The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 5 Aug 2013

A field investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in Pakistan confirm that the CIA last year briefly revived the controversial tactic of deliberately targeting rescuers at the scene of a previous drone strike. The tactic has previously been labelled a possible war crime by two UN investigators.

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Manning, Snowden and Assange Were the Ones Who Took Risks to Expose Crime
Amy Goodman – The Guardian, 5 Aug 2013

But those who planned the wars, those who committed war crimes, those who conduct illegal spying, for now, walk free.

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Extremely High Tritium Level Found in Water in Pit at Fukushima Plant
The Asahi Shimbun – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said on July 28 [2013] that an extremely high level of radioactive tritium has been detected in a pit in the compound of its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The level was 8.7 million becquerels per liter of water, which was 145 times that of the permissible level stipulated under the law.

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Marxism, the Taliban and Plato
Thomas Riggins – Political Affairs, 5 Aug 2013

The essay deals with Kieran Setiya’s attempt to defend ethical realism (objective moral knowledge is possible) which Simon Blackburn rejects in favor of ethical pragmatism (useful moral knowledge is possible). I think neither of these positions is tenable and the best way to approach ethics is from a Marxist perspective.

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The Discredited Prime Minister’s Unloved Visit to Tamil Nadu மதிப்பிழந்த பிரதமரின் விரும்பத்தகாத தமிழக வருகை
People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy அணுசக்திக்கு எதிரான மக்கள் இயக்கம் – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

The People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy protests against the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Tamil Nadu on August 2, 2013 to open a multi-crore power plant. The PMANE joins millions and millions of Tamil people in opposing the discredited Prime Minister’s unloved visit to our State. We observe a Black Day on August 2 here at Idinthakarai.

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Capital Insecurity in Myanmar
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

The emerging symbiosis between global capitalist forces and the security interests of Myanmar’s ruling military-crony class has not been sufficiently weighed by most Western scholars and other Myanmar watchers. Most have ignored the hard fact that ethnic and religious minorities, 40% of the country’s total population, are being further marginalized and disenfranchised, pushed from their traditional lands or otherwise decimated.

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Reviving the Israel-Palestine Negotiations: The Indyk Appointment
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Appointing Martin Indyk as Special Envoy to the upcoming peace talks was to be expected. It was signaled in advance. And yet it is revealing and distressing.

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Darfur: A Decade of Agony
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Spring 2013 marked a decade of violent conflict and agony in Darfur, Sudan. Although the conflict has faded from the headlines, it continues, producing many refugees, internally-displaced persons, unused farmland, and political unrest. It is a classic case of how violence gets out of control and goes beyond the aims for which it was first used.

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Is There Never Enough?
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Religious Doublespeak on Population and Poverty – The wording of the title is deliberately ambiguous, inviting various interpretations. Alternatives might have been: There is Never Enough, or Is There Ever Enough? The concern is with the nature of the doublespeak in which religions seemingly engage in order to disguise the life-endangering policies they promote.

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Viva La Vida (Music Video of the Week)
Aston – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Coldplay Original Composition – Simply delightful!

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Green Light for City-Owned San Francisco Bank
Ellen Brown, Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Last year, Bank of America and other major banks were caught rigging debt service auctions, for which they had to pay $673 million in restitution. The question is: do taxpayers want to have their public monies in a bank that has been proven to be defrauding them? Compounding the risk is the reason Cyprus “bail in” shocker, in which depositor funds were confiscated to recapitalize two bankrupt Cypriot banks.

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A Formula for Palestinian Survival in Damascus
Franklin Lamb – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Will it Work? For more than a year, Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, one of nine in Syria, has been a war zone between supporters of the Syrian government and those seeking its overthrow. But the number of camp residents actively engaged in fighting on either side is negligible.

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A Hundred Years of Toxic Humanitarianism
Anna Feigenbaum – Open Democracy, 5 Aug 2013

As reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights and the Omega Research Foundation pile up, perhaps it is time to realize that the problem is tear gas itself. Alongside these organisations, and international campaigns like facing tear gas, it is time to insist on new terms of debate; terms that refuse the corporate rhetoric of non-lethality.

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The Charitable-Industrial Complex
Peter Buffett – The New York Times, 5 Aug 2013

I’m not calling for an end to capitalism; I’m calling for humanism. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine. It’s an old story; we really need a new one.

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Christmas Spirit
TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

On Christmas morning, a cop on horseback was sitting at a traffic light. Next to him was a kid on his shiny new bike.

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The Communist Movement and Gay Rights
Norman Markowitz – Political Affairs, 5 Aug 2013

June was International Gay Pride month. In looking at the history of what we today call Gay Rights/Gay Liberation, the Communist and Socialist contributions to the struggle deserve to be both recognized and analyzed.

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What Google Knows About You
Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Imagine there’s a list somewhere that contains every single webpage you visited, everything you searched for, address you looked up, email you sent, chat message, YouTube video you ever watched. Each entry is time-stamped. With all that imagined, can you think of ways a hacker with access to it could use against you? Now go to google.com/dashboard, and see it all become reality.

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Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso Says Government Can Learn from Nazi’s Example
Reiji Yoshida – The Japan Times, 5 Aug 2013

Outspoken Finance Minister Taro Aso has caused another international stir by urging Japanese politicians bent on revising the Constitution to learn from the way Germany under the Nazis amended the Weimar charter.

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Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Security Are Coming Together, and Asia Must Drive the Post-2015 Global Agenda and Global Goals
Mukul Sanwal, India Environment Portal – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

As China re-shapes its urban future, with its planned urbanization involving 250 million farmers, its willingness to lead by example in reforming the United Nations, rather than the United States defending the current arrangements, will determine the outcome and the new global rules. It may well be a complete break with the past, equitable and democratic.

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Uruguay Votes to Create World’s First National Legal Marijuana Market
Associated Press in Montevideo - The Guardian, 5 Aug 2013

1 Aug 2013 – Legislators in the ruling coalition said putting the government at the centre of a legal marijuana industry is worth trying because the global war on drugs had been a costly and bloody failure, and displacing illegal dealers through licensed marijuana sales could save money and lives.

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The Bad Seed: The Health Risks of Genetically Modified Corn
Caitlin Shetterly, Elle – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

With symptoms including headaches, nausea, rashes, and fatigue, Caitlin Shetterly visited doctor after doctor searching for a cure for what ailed her. What she found, after years of misery and bafflement, was as unlikely as it was utterly common.

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North Korea Celebrates 60th Anniversary of Victory
Andre Vltchek – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

I lived in Manhattan, but this was very different grandeur. New York was growing towards the sky, while Pyongyang consisted of tremendous open spaces and massive eclectic buildings. Outside the capital I saw green fields, and farmers walking home. Clearly, there was no malnutrition among children, and despite the embargo, everyone was decently dressed.

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(Português) O Garoto Que Desafiou o Império — E Está Vencendo
Cauê Seignemartin Ameni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

“Quando se dá conta de que o mundo que
ajudou a criar será pior para as próximas gerações
e que esta arquitetura de opressão se estendem,
você entende que é preciso aceitar qualquer risco.
Sem se preocupar com as consequências.”
Edward Snowden em sua primeira entrevista ao The Guardian

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(Italiano) Sistemi di Difesa Alternativa per gli Stati
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Per un paese che basi la propria sicurezza sulla pace, non allineato, utile agli altri, invulnerabile, che si occupi di mediazione dei conflitti e dei traumi rilevanti, di grande empatia e con progetti equi, dotato solo di armi non-provocatorie, preparato a difendere i propri confini e ogni parte del proprio territorio attraverso una difesa militare e non militare e coordinato da un Ministro della Pace, un attacco è molto improbabile.

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One’s Burden Is One’s Freedom: Rejected Refugees in the Context of Sri Lanka
Udaya R. Tennakoon – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Asylum seekers are not refugees but they are refugees without rights to be refugees.

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(Português) O Mundo Orwelliano da NSA
James Bamford, New York Review of Books – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Onde internet e telefonia globais são interceptadas? Como Obama manteve espionagem ilegal de Bush? Por que esquema faz lembrar “1984″?

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General and Complete Disarmament in 50 Years on the Basis of Global Harmony
Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

A Global Harmony Association Constant Petition to the UN to Collect 1 Million Signatures by September 21, 2013 – International Peace Day. PLEASE HELP THE WORLD BY SIGNING THE PETITION http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Global_Disarmament_Now_1/.

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Why Celebrity Activism Does More Harm Than Good
Andres Jimenez – Waging Nonviolence, 5 Aug 2013

Celebrities like Bono take up debt cancelation, the increase in foreign aid and the promotion of the Millennium Development Goals. Actor George Clooney has taken interest in Darfur; Madonna and Oprah Winfrey fight for girls’ education in Africa, while Angelina Jolie is a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador. Unfortunately, many of the policies and remedies promoted by celebrity activists have been paternalistic, detached from reality and often dangerously counterproductive.

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Rise of Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq: World Health Organization Refuses to Release Data
Mozhgan Savabieasfahani – Global Research, 5 Aug 2013

The back-breaking burden of cancers and birth defects continues to weigh heavily on the Iraqi people. The joint WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was originally due to be released in November 2012. It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever.

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What Is War?
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

What is war, and whom shall we ask?
Clausewitz gave his bland definition,
“nothing but the continuation
of politics by other means,”
but he did not then bleed.

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International Conference on “Is Science Able to Explain the Scientist?”
Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

On Dec 8, 2013 an International Conference ‘Science and Scientist’ will be held at Bhubaneswar, India, organized by Bhakti Vedanta Institute of Spiritual Culture and Science, Princeton, NJ, USA and Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Institute, Siliguri, West Bengal, India in collaboration with Synergy Institute of Technology, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India.

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Edward Snowden in His Own Words
Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

On Sunday Jun 9, 2013 in Hong Kong, the whistleblower and source to the stories about the PRISM surveillance program revealed himself as 29-year-old Edward Snowden. This is his story, in his own words.

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What the Psychology of Suicide Prevention Teaches Us about Controlling Our Everyday Worries
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Aug 2013

Two surprisingly simple yet effective techniques for ameliorating anxiety.

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Courts Rule MMR & Thimerosal Containing Vaccines Caused Autism & Brain Damage
Joe Martino, Collective Evolution – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

All information containing new and unprecedented conclusions begins by being violently opposed by those who create the prior information and those who subscribe heavily to it. This is very much the case with the link between Autism Spectrum Disorder and vaccines; mainly the MMR vaccine and other thimerosal containing vaccines.

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Glenn Greenwald: Low-Level NSA Analysts Have ‘Powerful and Invasive’ Search Tool
Kari Rea, ABC News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

“These programs are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks use, where all a low-level analyst has to do is enter an email or an IP address, and it searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future.”

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CIA Is Funding Government-Led Chemtrailing Project
Steve Watson, InfoWars – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Spy Agency to Help Study “Security Impacts” of Geo-Engineering – Our skies are riddled with artificial clouds, that are patently not merely the contrails of standard air planes. These programs are already having the effect of blocking out sunlight. The emergence of the chemtrails phenomenon coincided with an average 22% drop in sunlight reaching the earth’s surface.

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Time to Decide: Are We Ready for Economic Democracy?
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Occupy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

We do know that we are in a time of transition, an era that will define the next economy. The effects of the neo-liberal economic agenda of privatization are becoming obvious. One thing is clear: it is going to take action from below to create an economy that puts people and the planet before profits.

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Happy Birthday, Thoreau: The Beloved Transcendentalist on Friendship, Sympathy, and Animal Consciousness
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

The beloved transcendentalist, born on July 12, 1817, considers the essence of friendship, what it means to be human, and how inextricably connected we are to our fellow non-human beings, who are just as worthy of our sympathy and respect as our human friends.

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War against Iran, Iraq AND Syria?
Pepe Escobar - Asia Times, 29 Jul 2013

Britain, the Netherlands and France, have just branded the organization that is fighting jihadis on the ground in Syria/Lebanon “terrorists”, while the jihadis themselves get away with it. So much for European ignorance/arrogance.

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Who Authorized Preparations for War with China?
Amitai Etzioni, Yale Journal of International Affairs – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

The United States is preparing for a war with China, a momentous decision that so far has failed to receive a thorough review from elected officials, namely the White House and Congress. This important change in the United States’ posture toward China has largely been driven by the Pentagon.

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(Italiano) Competizione, Cooperazione e Archetipi
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Ci sono vincitori e sconfitti; la diseguaglianza viene istituzionalizzata, anzi premiata. Qualunque competizione è un conflitto per un obiettivo da poco, vincere; più c’è competizione più c’è conflitto irrisolto.

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Syria: The Crucible
Hamid Dabashi – Al Jazeera, 29 Jul 2013

There are officers of various UN agencies who, when you tell them of a child with leishmaniasis (a disease spread by the bite of a sand fly), say they can’t because it is a single child, and they only deal with “childhood” as a whole. Antisthenes is believed once to have said to Plato, regarding the notion of Platonic forms, “A horse I see, but ‘horseness‘ I do not see”. If like those UN officers you cannot see the childhood in that individual Syrian child, then we all have a problem far worse than merely philosophical.

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Toxic Groundwater Reaching Sea: NRA
The Japan Times – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

“We must find the cause of the contamination . . . and put the highest priority on implementing countermeasures,” Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka said after examining recent studies carried out on groundwater samples at the plant that detected high levels of cesium, tritium and other radioactive contamination.

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Political Dreaming in the Twenty-First Century – Where Has It Gone?
Ira Chernus - TomDispatch, 29 Jul 2013

Perhaps these days dreams feel too naïve, too unrealistic, too embarrassing. So instead, you focus on the nuts and bolts of what’s wrong with the world. But show how your outrage, policies, and politics are propelled by your dreams. Share those dreams. Describe the kind of world you are working for and show how it could be linked to policies and politics. And don’t let anyone dismiss you as an “unrealistic dreamer.”

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Role Reversal: How the US Became the USSR
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Snowden harmed no one except the liars and traitors in the US government. Contrast Washington’s animosity against Snowden with the pardon that Bush gave to Dick Cheney aide, Libby, who took the fall for his boss for blowing the cover, a felony, on a covert CIA operative, the spouse of a former government official who exposed the Bush/Cheney/neocon lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

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Oscar Wilde’s Stirring Love Letters to Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas
Maria Popova, Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

“It is a marvel that those red rose-leaf lips of yours should be made no less for the madness of music and song than for the madness of kissing.”

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At the Brink of Apocalyptic Terror: Fukushima Continues to Spew Its Darkness
Harvey Wasserman - CounterPunch, 29 Jul 2013

Radiation leaks, steam releases, disease and death continue to spew from Fukushima and a disaster which is far from over. Its most profound threat to the global ecology—a spent fuel fire—is still very much with us.

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(Português) A Incrível Pirâmide da Desigualdade Global
José Eustáquio Diniz Alves, EcoDeabte – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Milionários são apenas 0,6% da população, mas abocanham doze vezes mais riqueza que 69,3% dos habitantes da Terra. Concentração e consumismo podem tornar civilização insustentável.

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BDS against Israel: Victory at TIAA-CREF
Jonathan Cunningham – Socialist Worker, 29 Jul 2013

The boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement that has been protesting the Israeli occupation of Palestine took another step forward this month when the giant retirement fund giant TIAA-CREF announced it was divesting $9 million from SodaStream, an Israeli company that makes its carbonation machines in the occupied West Bank.

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Bankers Own the World – And Are Ultimately Destroying It
Chris Martenson – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take away from them the power to create money, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money. ~ Josiah Stamp – Bank of England Chairman, 1920s

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Syria’s Exodus: A Refugee Crisis for the World
Martin Chulov and Mark Rice-Oxley – The Guardian, 29 Jul 2013

“When we look at the prospects, one that we all have to face is that this conflict is creating a large risk of sectarian cleansing. This is how Srebrenica happened, how Rwanda happened, by gradually building up this enormous wave that leads to catastrophic consequences. This is the [crisis] that makes me lose sleep.”

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Understanding Conflict with Prof. Johan Galtung
Asian Study Center for Peace & Conflict Transformation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Nepal is composed of 80% Hindus, whose characteristic is hierarchical caste system, 9% Buddhists who are less caste-oriented and people of more than 100 ethnic groups. They have different living conditions in terms of social organization, access to resources and satisfaction of basic needs. From peace studies point of view, inequalities are the target more than the framework of democracy theory, which otherwise remains empty of content.

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National Security State, Advent of Fascism: Obama’s Fanaticism over Secrecy, Surveillance and Repression
Norman Pollack – CounterPunch, 29 Jul 2013

Secrecy is the ideal camouflage for surrounding, covering, and protecting the class-state, its system of power, its elites’ hidden agenda, and the political-cultural mechanisms which engineer consent to the national purpose as defined from above, not so much to hide ordinary hanky-panky–favoritism to contractors, political contributors, etc.– but war crimes real time.

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Constitutional Amendment in Japan — Potential Lessons from Australia
Joel Rheuben, University of Tokyo – East Asia Forum, 29 Jul 2013

Like the Japanese Constitution, Australia’s Constitution can only be amended after a popular referendum approving change. However, unlike Japan, referenda proposals can be initiated by only a simple majority of both houses. Nevertheless, constitutional referenda have succeeded only 8 times out of 44 attempts in 112 years — and not once since 1977.

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Israel Blocks EU Projects in West Bank over Settlement Measures
Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Israel has blocked the European Union from aiding tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank in retaliation for Brussels’ ban on financial assistance to Israeli organizations in the occupied territories. An Israeli official said on Friday [26 Jul 1013] the move was a result of the EU decision “to sanction or boycott the settlements”.

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General and Complete Disarmament in 50 Years on the Basis of Global Harmony
Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

A Global Harmony Association Constant Petition to the UN to Collect 1 Million Signatures by September 21, 2013 – International Peace Day. PLEASE HELP THE WORLD BY SIGNING THE PETITION http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Global_Disarmament_Now_1/.

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India: Army ‘Mistook Planets for Spy Drones’
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

25 Jul 2013 – India’s army reportedly spent six months watching “Chinese spy drones” violating its air space, only to find out they were actually Jupiter and Venus.

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Halliburton Destroying Gulf Spill Evidence a ‘Misdemeanor’
EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

This charge – knowingly destroying evidence during a government investigation in an attempt to cover up the cause of 11 human deaths and one of the largest disasters in the country’s history – is considered a ‘misdemeanor’ charge. Halliburton is required to pay a $200,000 fine.”

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(Português) Assassinatos por Drones
Emir Sader – Carta Maior, 29 Jul 2013

“Eu soube que meu neto de 16 anos, Abduirhman – um cidadão norte-americano –, foi morto por um drone norte-americano. Um míssil matou-o, assim como seu primo e pelo menos outras cinco pessoas, enquanto eles estavam jantando em um restaurante ao ar livre, no sul do Iêmen”.

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Waterborne Radioactive Levels in Fukushima Plant Pit Unchanged from 2011
The Asahi Shimbun – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Water in a pit on the grounds of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has been found to contain high levels of radioactive substances, the plant operator said July 27, 2013. 2.35 billion becquerels of radioactive cesium were detected per liter of water on July 26 in the No. 2 reactor. The breakdown was 750 million becquerels of cesium-134 and 1.6 billion becquerels of cesium-137.

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Garry Davis: « And Now the People Have the Floor »
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Garry Davis, who died 24 July 2013, in Burlington, Vermont, was often called “World Citizen N°1”. The title was not strictly exact as the organized world citizen movement began in England in 1937 by Hugh J. Shonfield and his Commonwealth of World Citizens, followed in 1938 by the creation jointly in the USA and England of the World Citizen Association.

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Halliburton Admits Guilt in Gulf of Mexico Cover-Up
Richard Smallteacher - CorpWatch, 29 Jul 2013

Halliburton has admitted that it destroyed evidence after the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. The company has agreed to pay a $200,000 fine, make a donation of $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and accept three years of probation.

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After
Tom Greening – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

After the fun, after the shooting spree,
this is the part we did not want to see—
Two groups of victims on a smoking plain,
one armed with tanks, the other armed with pain.

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Global Power Project, Part 7: Banking on Influence with Citigroup
Andrew Gavin Marshall, Occupy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Over ensuing decades and mergers it eventually came to be Citibank, and in the late 1990s, Citigroup. At that time, the bank was dealing with accusations that it had aided in the laundering of roughly $100 million in payoffs by Mexican drug cartels. In 2000, the mega-bank was accused of abusing borrowers and clients through predatory lending practices.

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What the Media Isn’t Telling You about War in Syria
Ben Swann – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Full Disclosure – Ben Swann Is an Investigative Journalist

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What Hiroshima & the Iraq War Have in Common
Prof. Michio Kaku – Russia Today, 29 Jul 2013

Oksana Boyko is joined by Dr Michio Kaku, a world-renowned theoretical physicist, author, thinker and visionary. The technological revolution of the 20th century has brought the world unprecedented prosperity as well as unimaginable horrors. Will science liberate humanity or shackle it like never before?

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Protecting Whistleblowers
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

We need a new global ethic, an ethic as advanced as our technology. Of course we can continue to be loyal to our families, our localities and our countries. But this must be supplemented by a higher loyalty: a loyalty to humanity as a whole.

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Bye, Mom
TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

A couple were going out for the evening. They were ready and all dressed up as the taxi arrived.

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[Nobel Peace Laureate] Tutu Says He Cannot Worship ‘Homophobic’ God
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

South African peace icon Desmond Tutu has said he would rather go to hell than worship a homophobic God, likening the fight against gay prejudice to the anti-apartheid struggle. Tutu made the comments on Friday [26 Jul 2013] at the launch of a United Nations gay equality campaign in Cape Town.

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Bee Apocalypse Now: Scientists Discover What’s Killing the Bees and It’s Worse Than You Thought
Todd Woody, Quartz – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

In a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE [24 Jul 2013], scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying.

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Reimagining Principles Enabling an Existential Ecostery
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

There are many elaborations of fundamental principles to which people are encouraged to subscribe as a key to appropriate behaviour and understanding — notably of world order. Examples include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Ten Commandments of the Bible, or the elements of a Global Ethic. Human rights are now readily used as a decorative fig leaf to disguise agendas thereby hidden.

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Sean MacBride Peace Prize 2013 Awarded to US Whistleblower BRADLEY MANNING
International Peace Bureau, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

The International Peace Bureau is delighted to announce that this year’s Sean MacBride Peace Prize is to be awarded to Bradley Manning, the US whistleblower whose case has attracted worldwide attention, for his courageous actions in revealing information about US war crimes.

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Geopolitical Winds Blow in China’s Direction
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Among those who comment influentially from the sidelines of power, there are new trends visible in thinking about American foreign policy.

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A Government with Many Secrets Is Not a Democracy
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

President Obama has initiated an enormous Stasi-like program called “Insider Threats”, which forces millions of federal employees to spy on each other. It extends beyond the US national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration, and the Education and Agriculture Departments.”

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Indian People’s Charter on Nuclear Energy
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Nuclear energy is today widely seen as posing a threat to the life, livelihoods and the environment, not least because it can have irreversible catastrophic consequences and radiation effects spanning across generations. Chernobyl, followed by the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan has led to global rethinking on the pursuit of nuclear energy.

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America’s Real Subversives: FBI Spying Then, NSA Surveillance Now
Amy Goodman – The Guardian, 29 Jul 2013

As the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington approaches, commemorating that historic gathering where Martin Luther King Jr gave his famous “I have a dream” speech, it is important to recall the extent to which King was targeted by the government’s domestic spying apparatus.

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How We Are Impoverished, Gentrified and Silenced – And What to Do About It
John Pilger – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Jul 2013

Momentous change almost always begins with the courage of people taking back their own lives against the odds. There is no other way now. Direct action. Civil disobedience. Unerring. Read Percy Shelley – “Ye are many; they are few”. And do it.

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Systems of Alternative Defense for States
Johan Galtung, 23 Jul 2013 - TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Jul 2013

A country based on security through peace, nonaligned, useful to others, invulnerable, mediating relevant conflicts and traumas, high on empathy and equitable projects, only non-provocative arms, prepared to defend its borders and any part of its territory with military and nonmilitary defense and a Ministry of Peace; attack very unlikely.

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Kudankulam May Renew US Firms’ Focus on Nuke Sector
M. Ramesh – The Hindu, 23 Jul 2013

A few months ago, this correspondent asked an American diplomat during the course of a friendly, off-the-record conversation, if the US was covertly behind all the protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. The diplomat laughed thoroughly.

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68 Years Ago: The Nuclear Age Is Born—Amid Secrecy, Cover-up and Radiation Threat
Greg Mitchell – The Nation, 23 Jul 2013

While most people trace the dawn of the nuclear era to August 6, 1945, and the dropping of the atomic bomb over the center of Hiroshima, it really began three weeks earlier, in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, with the top-secret Trinity test. Its sixty-eighth anniversary is marked—or mourned, if you will—on July 16.

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Japan’s Constitutional Changes Could Echo through Asia
National Constitution Center – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Possible changes to Japan’s constitution may restrict some rights and expand its military, having implications regionally and even in America. They also raise a basic question: Should it be easy to change a constitution?

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India’s Children
S.P. Udayakumar – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Our Children
Born malnourished and underweight
Get hopeless education
Eat mid-day meals and even get killed

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Egypt: On Why Only an Inclusive Transition Is the Only Solution to Civil Strife and Regional Instability
Alemayehu Fentaw Weldemariam – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

It now seems that the first popular uprising associated with the now famous names of Tahrir square and the Arab Spring had little more than symbolic significance to the Egyptian populace. Not because it didn’t result in the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, the country’s long-reigning dictator, but because it led to the hijacking of the revolution by the Muslim Brotherhood.

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(Italiano) La Micro-Gestione USA del Mondo
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Cosa c’è di nuovo a proposito di PRISM-TEMPORA di marchio USA-Regno Unito? Il dito sul dominio – con lo scopo di spiare il resto del mondo – l’enorme impiego di operatori esperti della rete, e la palese prima linea: Anglo-America contro il Resto del mondo, inclusi i soci membri dell’UE. Se tutto ciò fosse stato fatto da stati più piccoli, le relazioni bilaterali con loro sarebbero state sospese, declassate, e la loro appartenenza all’UE revocata. Per quanto tempo ancora USA e Regno Unito sfuggiranno all’impunità?

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Revive Aung San’s Original Secularist Multicultural Vision for the New Myanmar
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Aung San was murdered on 19 July 1947, 66 years go. He was killed by 27 bullet wounds from the British Army-issued machine guns in the British-assisted assassination. When he and his multi-cultural and multi-faith comrades were killed it was not just the men’s lives that were taken away. Aung San’s secularist, egalitarian and multiculturalist vision too was killed and buried along with their remains.

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On Leaks and Pseudo-Reality: The US’ Futile Search for ‘World Domination’
Ramzy Baroud – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Global surveillance is merely an indication that President Barack Obama – as a representation of the US ruling class – was never sincere as he attempted to woo the world with an image of a more gentle and peaceful American government.

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Are Palestinian Students in Lebanon Being Pressured to Choose Kalashnikovs over College?
Franklin Lamb – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

The choice for many Palestinian young men in Lebanon has come down to guns or education. By force of Lebanese law and under threat of prison for violators, Palestinians are denied the elementary civil rights to work in more than 50 professions and are barred by a 2001 racist law from even owning a home.

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UN Struggles to Feed Millions of Syrians
Margaret Brennan, CBS News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

“People cannot borrow. People do not have credit cards; people do not have a purchasing facility,” said Muhannad Hadi, the Regional Emergency Coordinator for the World Food Program. “We have gotten to the stage where people receive food from the World Food Program inside Syria or they don’t eat. It is very simple. There is no other way.”

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Special Report: Thai Authorities Implicated in Rohingya Muslim Smuggling Network
Jason Szep and Stuart Grudgings, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

The beatings were accompanied by threats: If his family didn’t produce the money, Myanmar refugee Abdul Sabur would be sold into slavery on a fishing boat, his captors shouted, lashing him with bamboo sticks.

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Administration’s Syria Problem: U.S. Can’t Find Non-Al Qaida Rebels
World Tribune – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

The United States has withheld at least $50 million worth of aid to Sunni rebels in Syria. The reason: neither Congress nor the administration of President Barack Obama can find rebel militias not linked to Al Qaida.

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Trash the TPP: Why It’s Time to Revolt against the Worst “Trade Agreement” in History
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Occupy – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

The media black-out is quite impressive since this is the largest corporate trade agreement to be negotiated since the World Trade Organization got underway in 1995. Commonly called a global corporate coup, the TPP makes transnational corporations more powerful than governments. Others call it “NAFTA on steroids” because it will multiply the failures of NAFTA.

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Communal Tensions in Burma Continue
John Roberts, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

“A recurring theme from locals is that ‘outsiders’ are bussed in by trucks and nearly all of them are armed with sticks, swords and machetes. An incident soon happens between a Muslim and a Buddhist that provides the spark and then the gangs swing into action, agitating and enlisting locals to join the ensuing riot. Muslim homes and shops are demolished and along with them previous inter-communal and religious harmony.”

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Indiana’s Anti-Howard Zinn Witch-Hunt
Bill Bigelow – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, one of the country’s most widely read history books, died on January 27, 2010. Shortly after, then-Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels got on his computer and fired off an email to the state’s top education officials: “This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away.”

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(Português) Veja Mapa da Corrupção pelo Mundo
BBC – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Segundo a pesquisa feita pelo Transparency International em 95 países, uma em quatro pessoas já subornou algum orgão público no último ano.

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LGBTI Africa: Cameroon’s “Gay Scare”
Eric O. Lembembe - Indypendent, 22 Jul 2013

Editor’s note: We are saddened to report that the author of this article, Eric O. Lembembe, was violently murdered and found dead in his home in Cameroon’s capital city of Yaoundé on Monday, July 15, 2013 just one day after The Indypendent went to press. This piece is one of the last ones that Eric wrote before his death.

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(Castellano) Unesco Reconoce Obra del Che Guevara y la Incluye en la “Memoria del Mundo”
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

El registro de la Memoria del Mundo comprende casi 300 documentos y colecciones de los cinco continentes, los trabajos de Guevara figuran entre las 54 nuevas adiciones de este año.

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Bradley Manning Wins Peace Prize
David Swanson, War Is a Crime – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

19 Jul 2013 – U.S. whistleblower and international hero Bradley Manning has just been awarded the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award by the International Peace Bureau, itself a former recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, for which Manning is a nominee this year.

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From the Women of Idinthakarai-Koodankulam, India
Sisters of Idinthakarai – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Please think of us and come visit us when you can. Remember the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant is gaining momentum and not dying. It is not and will never be a losing battle. Because it has raised the real questions on justice and human welfare.

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