Articles by RT

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How Gazan Natural Gas Became the Epicenter of an International Power Struggle
Michael Schwartz – CounterPunch, 2 Mar 2015

The Great Game in the Holy Land – After 25 years and five failed Israeli military efforts, Gaza’s natural gas is still underwater and, after four years, the same can be said for almost all of the Levantine gas.

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(Català-Catalán) Víctimes i Victimaris
David Álvarez – Carta de la Pau dirigida a l’ONU, 2 Mar 2015

Dialogar no és una cosa genètica, és una competència que s’ensenya i es socialitza en el procés vital de tota persona. Des de la llar fins a l’Estat, els processos de diàleg han de ser els mecanismes que hi hagi les relacions entre tots els éssers humans. Un diàleg en què ens reconeixem iguals i amb dret a expressar les nostres idees i propostes, alhora que som capaços d’escoltar i entendre les idees i propostes dels altres.

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Community Response: A Danish Answer to Radical Jihad
Manfred Ertel and Ralf Hoppe – Der Spiegel, 2 Mar 2015

The murders in Copenhagen have refocused attention on a thorny question for Europe: How can radical jihadists returning from Syria be reintegrated? The Danish city of Aarhus may have found an answer.

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Gaza in Ruins after Receiving Only 5% of Pledged Reconstruction Funds
Ken Klippenstein - Reader Supported News, 2 Mar 2015

23 Feb 15 – Chris Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), discusses the causes and consequences of the fact that only about 5% of pledged donations have reached Gaza.

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(Italiano) Perché è inevitabile l’estinzione del genere umano a breve termine
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

L’espressione “estinzione umana a breve termine” è relativamente recente nella letteratura scientifica, ma a differenza di altre realtà che le ‘élite’ nazionali e i canali d’informazione dominanti sono riusciti a soffocare, questa continuerà a filtrare finché non inizierete a sentirla regolarmente. Perché?

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Push Back the Doomsday Clock!
James Albertini – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

We Are All Down Winders! March 1st is known as “Nuclear-Free & Independent Pacific Day.” It commemorates the tragic 15 megaton U.S. nuclear bomb test, code named Bravo, at Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands of Micronesia, on March 1, 1954. Many people died in the Marshall Islands from radiation contamination and fallout downwind of the Bravo blast and the 66 additional U.S. nuclear weapon tests there.

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German Newspaper BILD Gets inside US-NATO-Nuland Planning Session
Fort Russ – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

Feb 19, 2015 – The Bild headline: “Cold Feet” “Bullshit,” “Angst” – What US Politicians REALLY think about the Germans in the Ukraine Crisis. Nuland set the tone at the prelude to the evening: “We can fight against the Europeans, we can fight with rhetoric against them.”

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Why Do We Fear Challenging Authority?
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

I want to ask you three questions: Are you scared to make your own judgment (irrespective of the number of others, including experts, who make a similar judgment)? Are you scared to be labelled a ‘conspiracy theorist’ if you believe something contrary to the official (that is, the elite) narrative? And why?

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Establish a UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy
Article 19 – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Mar 2015

5 Feb 2015 – The undersigned organisations, a coalition of international non-governmental organisations working to protect human rights, write to encourage your government to support the creation of a new Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy at the Human Rights Council (HRC) 28th ordinary session in March [2015].

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Alive and Bleeding
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

“We’re killing a lot of them, and we’re going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians, so are the Jordanians — they’re in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that lead people to join these groups, whether it’s a lack of opportunity for jobs, whether…”

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The Atlantic Ignores Muslim Intellectuals, Defines “True Islam” As ISIS
Murtaza Hussain – The Intercept, 23 Feb 2015

In the piece, author Graeme Wood makes the case that the militant group represents a highly authentic version of Islam. Far from being an aberrant or deviant offshoot of traditional Islamic beliefs, it is described as being a faithful expression of them — representing “a coherent and even learned expression of Islam.”

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Shah Suleyman: The Truly Byzantine Origins of Turkey’s Operation to Rescue a Long-Dead Body from the ‘Islamic Caliphate’
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 23 Feb 2015

To begin this wondrous tale at the start. Shah Suleyman was the king who drowned in the Euphrates River in 1236. He was the father of Ertugrul, who lived by the Sea of Marmara and whose own son, Osman, founded the Ottoman empire, which lasted for 700 years and ended after Ottoman Turkey made the fatal mistake of supporting Germany in the First World War.

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Crimea: Was It Seized by Russia, or Did Russia Block Its Seizure by the U.S.?
Eric Zuesse, Fort Russ – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

Both before and after Crimea left Ukraine and joined Russia in a public referendum on 16 March 2014, the Gallup Organization polled Crimeans on behalf of the U.S. Government, and found them to be extremely pro-Russian and anti-American, and also anti-Ukrainian. (Neither poll was subsequently publicized, because the results of each were the opposite of what the sponsor had wished.)

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World Press Freedom Index 2015: Decline on All Fronts
Reporters Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

The Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index ranks the performance of 180 countries according to a range of criteria that include media pluralism and independence, respect for the safety and freedom of journalists, and the legislative, institutional and infrastructural environment in which the media operate.

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700th Consecutive Weekly Hilo [Hawai’i] Peace Vigil
James Albertini – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

Friday, Feb. 20, 2015 marks the 700th consecutive weekly Hilo, Hawaii Peace Vigil held from 3:30-5PM at the downtown Post office/federal building sponsored by Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action based in Kurtistown, Big Island, Hawai’i.

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Guantanamo Whistleblower: Guards Rehearsed for Reporter Visits Weeks in Advance
Ken Klippenstein - Reader Supported News, 23 Feb 2015

RSN interviewed Joseph Hickman, a former Guantanamo staff sergeant and author of the recently published book, “Murder at Camp Delta: A Staff Sergeant’s Pursuit of the Truth About Guantanamo Bay.” In the book, Hickman alleges that three Guantanamo detainees were murdered at a CIA black site, and that this was later covered up, the deaths portrayed as suicides.

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(Português) O Bem Comum Foi Enviado ao Limbo
Leonardo Boff – Carta Maior, 23 Feb 2015

O neoliberalismo demoliu a noção de bem comum. Em seu lugar, entraram as noções de rentabilidade, de flexibilização, de adaptação e de competitividade.

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(Português) Por que o ocidente não admite as verdadeiras raízes do terrorismo?
Mediapart – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

A violência política se alimenta da violência de Estado e da violência social. O radicalismo se alimenta das presepadas geopolíticas ocidentais.

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Marx, Syriza and the Future of Greece – The Not So Erratic Philosophy of Yanis Varoufakis
Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer - CounterPunch, 23 Feb 2015

He has just written a smashing op-ed for The New York Times that forcefully outlines his government’s approach to the negotiations. It deserves a standing ovation. Varoufakis has described himself as an “erratic Marxist.” He is far more of a Marxist than a Kantian. It’s the only moral thing to be.

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US “Easing Into” War with Syria Using ISIS Boogeyman
Tony Cartalucci, New Eastern Outlook – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Feb 2015

As early as June of last year, it was reported that ISIS would be used as a means to incrementally draw in US forces in preparation for a direct military intervention aimed at Damascus itself.

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The Putin-Did-It Conspiracy Theory
Robert Parry – Consortium News, 23 Feb 2015

The New York Times – much as it did when it was falsely reporting breathlessly about ‘aluminum tubes’ for Iraq’s non-existent nuclear weapons program – continues to promote U.S. government propaganda about Ukraine as fact and dismisses any rational assessment of the situation as crazy.

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The Beautiful Truth about Minsk II
Joaquin Flores - Fort Russ, 23 Feb 2015

“These are the relevant factors which produce the strong sense that these Normandy 4 meetings involve some very serious things and some complex levels that are beyond the scope of what is reported. Russia conducts itself in these meetings from a position of strength.”

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Terrorism: Ultimate Weapon of the Global Elite
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

The usual definition of a ‘terrorist’ is simple: a person who uses violence in the pursuit of a political objective. By this definition, the two major categories of terrorist are those political leaders who perpetrate state terror by attacking other countries (ranging from launching a war, perhaps following a false flag operation, to conducting a drone strike).

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Radio Morobo: “A Welcome [South Sudan] Community Asset”
Dominik Lehnert, Xchange Perspectives – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

Feb 12, 2015 – As community based radio station, it is run by volunteer community reporters from all parts of the county and all walks of life.

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Is Your Child a Terrorist? U.S. Government Questionnaire Rates Families at Risk for Extremism
Murtaza Hussain, Cora Currier, and Jana Winter – The Intercept, 16 Feb 2015

Are you, your family or your community at risk of turning to violent extremism? That’s the premise behind a rating system devised by the National Counterterrorism Center, according to a document marked For Official Use Only and obtained by The Intercept.

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Wretched US Journalism on Ukraine
Robert Parry – Consortium News, 16 Feb 2015

The U.S. news media has failed the American people often in recent years by not challenging U.S. government falsehoods, as with Iraq’s WMD. But the most dangerous violation of journalistic principles has occurred in the Ukraine crisis, which has the potential of a nuclear war.

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Earth Charter+15 Kickoff Webinar with Federico Mayor and Alexander Likhotal
Earth Charter International – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

Please, join us on the 25th of February to hear these great speakers and participate in a question and answer with them afterwards. We look forward to seeing you there!

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Banking Giant HSBC Sheltered Murky Cash Linked to Dictators, Traffickers, Criminals, Arms Dealers
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

Swiss Leaks is a collaborative investigation that exposes how the Swiss branch of one of the world’s biggest banks, HSBC, profited from doing business with tax dodgers and criminals around the world. Team of journalists from 45 countries unearths secret bank accounts maintained for criminals, traffickers, tax dodgers, politicians and celebrities.

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Whatever Happened to Social Defence?
Brian Martin, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 16 Feb 2015

Abstract: A potential alternative to military defence is nonviolent action by civilians, using methods such as protests, strikes, boycotts and winning over opponent troops. In the 1980s there were groups in several countries advocating and promoting this option, but subsequently it faded from view even within the peace movement.

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War and Perpetual Adolescence
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Feb 2015

The urgency I feel isn’t any longer to stop a particular war but to interrupt endless war: to interrupt the narrowly focused geopolitical conversation, conveyed to us over and over by media stenographers.

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(Português) Syriza: A Segunda Libertação
Boaventura de Sousa Santos – Carta Maior, 9 Feb 2015

A ortodoxia sabe que o problema da Grécia é o problema da Europa e que a sua solução só poderá ser europeia. A recente vitória do Partido Syriza na Grécia teve o sabor de uma segunda libertação da Europa. A primeira ocorreu há setenta anos, quando os aliados libertaram a Europa do jugo alemão nazi e puseram fim ao horror do holocausto.

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Sami Al-Arian, Professor Who Defeated Controversial Terrorism Charges, Is Deported from U.S.
Murtaza Hussain and Glenn Greenwald – The Intercept, 9 Feb 2015

5 Feb 2015 – In 2003, Sami Al-Arian was a professor at the University of South Florida, a legal resident of the U.S. since 1975, and one of the most prominent Palestinian civil rights activists in the U.S. The government ultimately failed to produce any evidence of Al-Arian’s involvement in terrorist activities and his ordeal finally ended last night, 12 years after it began, as Al-Arian was deported to Turkey. “I came to the United States for freedom, but four decades later, I am leaving to gain my freedom.”

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Al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia and Israel
Robert Parry – Consortium News, 9 Feb 2015

4 Feb 2015 – Saudi Arabia is under a new cloud after a jailed al-Qaeda operative implicated senior Saudi officials as collaborators with the terror group – and the shadow could even darken the political future of Israeli Prime Netanyahu because of his odd-couple alliance with Riyadh.

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Is It Time to Make Iran Our Friend and Saudi Arabia Our Enemy?
Michael Axworthy – The Guardian, 2 Feb 2015

Far from being a guarantee of stability in the Middle East, the western alliance with the kingdom is an impediment to peace.

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The High Cost of Capitalism: The Destructive Component in Capitalism’s ‘Creative Destruction’ Is Very High
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

External or social costs are associated with production that are not incurred by the producer but are inflicted on outside third parties, most often the environment, such as land, air, and water resources on which humanity is dependent.

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The American Sniper You Didn’t Hear About
Carl Gibson - Reader Supported News, 2 Feb 2015

Another American sniper became so disgusted by what he had done that he started the first-ever antiwar blog, and is actively encouraging his fellow soldiers to use their First Amendment rights to speak out against what he calls an ‘illegal occupation’ in Iraq.

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Greece to the Troika: ‘You Don’t Own Us!’
Lynn Stuart Parramore – Al Jazeera America, 2 Feb 2015

Alarmists have warned that Syriza’s victory will ignite instability and economic disaster, but that threat sounds hollow to a country already laid to waste by flawed policies. While it is true that Greece is a small country of 10 million people that represents a mere 2.5 percent of Europe’s economy, the elections could have big consequences well beyond the country’s borders.

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Why Do We Fear Love?
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Feb 2015

Why do human beings fear love? That is, why do we fear loving ourselves and others, and why do we fear being fully loved ourselves? Where does obedience fit into all of this? It doesn’t. Those who require obedience are frightened. And fear is the opposite of love. If you want someone to do what you want, you are frightened, not loving.

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Good News! US Corporations Won’t Have to Pay for Nuclear Disasters in India
Jim Naureckas – Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting-FAIR, 2 Feb 2015

The “breakthrough” between Obama and Modi seems to be an agreement that the law will be “tweaked” to let US corporations off the hook in case of a devastating accident. For example, suppliers of nuclear equipment could be redefined as “contractors” and therefore not be liable under Indian law.

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Saudi Arabia’s Tyrant King Misremembered as Man of Peace
Murtaza Hussain – The Intercept, 26 Jan 2015

It’s not often that the unelected leader of a country which publicly flogs dissidents and beheads people for sorcery wins such glowing praise from American officials and the Western press.

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An Old Hand Is at Work in Yemen’s Bloody Civil War
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 26 Jan 2015

Yemen is not Syria. But America’s skewed comprehension of the Middle East has now produced a remarkably similar scenario.

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European Powers Implement Police State Measures in Wake of Charlie Hebdo Attack
Ulrich Rippert, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

Governments throughout Europe have responded to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in France by moving quickly to push through a raft of anti-democratic measures that have long been prepared, but that have so far encountered resistance.

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The Importance of Being Angry
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Jan 2015

If we want obedient and hardworking students, reliable and pliant employees/soldiers and submissive law-abiding citizens, then we must terrorize people out of being angry. Social control is not easy with people who are powerful and you need your anger to be powerful.

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(Português) Charlie Hebdo: Uma reflexão difícil
Boaventura de Sousa Santos – Carta Maior, 19 Jan 2015

Esta análise é urgente, sob pena de continuarmos a atear um fogo que amanhã pode atingir as escolas dos nossos filhos, as nossas casas e as nossas instituições.

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Saudi Arabia’s History of Hypocrisy We Choose to Ignore
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 19 Jan 2015

The Saudis are special, aren’t they? Fifteen of the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were Saudis. Osama bin Laden was himself a Saudi. The Taliban were financed and armed by the Saudis; the Taliban’s Organisation for the “Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice” was identical to the Saudi-Wahabi religious police in Riyadh and Jeddah.

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Riyadh’s Oil Play: Why the Kingdom is Keeping Prices Low
Bilal Y. Saab and Robert A. Manning – Foreign Affairs, 12 Jan 2015

Although some analysts are puzzled by the Saudi strategy shift, pure economic logic may well be driving Saudi behavior. Yet in the end, the motivations behind the Kingdom’s new oil strategy matter less than its likely outcomes, some of which could be quite negative.

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Remembering Victims of Terror–And Forgetting Some Others
Jim Naureckas - Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, 12 Jan 2015

Describing the attack on the French satirical paper, CBS News’ Morell said: “The motive here is absolutely clear. Trying to shut down a media organization that lampooned the prophet Mohammed. So no doubt in my mind this is terrorism.” Breivik’s motive was certainly not shutting anyone down for lampooning Mohammed. So perhaps, in Morrell’s mind, it doesn’t count as terrorism?

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Tribute to Patrice Lumumba on the 54th Anniversary of His Assassination [17 Jan 1961]
Carlos Martinez – TRANSCEND Media Service, 12 Jan 2015

Malcolm X, speaking at a rally of the Organisation of Afro-American Unity in 1964, described Patrice Emery Lumumba as ’the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent. He didn’t fear anybody. He had those people [the colonialists] so scared they had to kill him. They couldn’t buy him, they couldn’t frighten him, they couldn’t reach him.’

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Stopping the Biggest Corporate Power Grab Ever, the TPP
Arthur Stamoulis – Foreign Policy In Focus, 12 Jan 2015

How fighting back against one arcane, Nixon-era trade negotiating procedure could put a stop to a global corporate coup. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a corporate power grab clearly worthy of Seattle-caliber mobilization. But the fight against this reprehensible deal requires different types of tactics.

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(Português) Je ne suis pas Charlie, eu não sou Charlie
Leonardo Boff – Carta Maior, 12 Jan 2015

Alguns chamam os cartunistas mortos de “heróis” ou de os “gigantes do humor politicamente incorreto”, ou de “mártires da liberdade de expressão”. As charges polêmicas do Charlie Hebdo são de péssimo gosto, mas isso não está em questão. O fato é que elas são perigosas, criminosas até, por dois motivos.

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Charlie Hebdo: Paris Attack Brothers’ Campaign of Terror Can Be Traced Back to Algeria 1954
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 12 Jan 2015

The six-year Algerian war for independence, in which perhaps a million and a half Arab Muslims and many thousands of French men and women died, remains an unending and unresolved agony for both peoples. Just over half a century ago, it almost started a French civil war.

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When Will Palestinians Learn? Turning to International Law Isn’t the Answer — Just Ask America and Israel
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 5 Jan 2015

If Palestine’s request is ‘entirely counterproductive’, what does that make Israel’s slaughtering of civilians last summer?

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Plagiarism Is the New Pornography
Curtis Brown – Al Jazeera, 5 Jan 2015

“I feel delighted that he has borrowed heavily from my work,” says the scholar Fawaz Gerges, from whom Zakaria lifted three paragraphs virtually verbatim and without attribution. If anything, the wind is in Zakaria’s sails, for God helps those who help themselves, and this fellow helps himself to a lot. And even if the going gets rough and God begins to balk, CNN will hold fast.

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We Have So Much to Learn From Cuba
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

“It seems stupid to pursue a U.S. foreign policy by repeating a strategy that has proved a monumental failure for six decades. The definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over, and expecting different results. In this sense, the [Cuba] embargo is insane.”

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Torture Reports: Brazil and the United States Release Reports Documenting Systematic Human Rights Abuses
Kara Rochelle Martinez, Upside Down World – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

2 Jan 2015 – One day after the U.S. Senate released its Executive Summary of the CIA’s policy of torture, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff unveiled her country’s investigatory National Truth Commission Report, identifying human rights atrocities committed in Brazil during the military dictatorship, 1964-1988. [She was tortured too.]

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For the Occupied and Oppressed Palestinians UN Means Useless Nations
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

What President Truman feared could happen did happen. On dealing with the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel the Security Council was put out of business by Zionism.

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Afghanistan: Skulking Away from a Failed War
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Jan 2015

The ceremony, commemorating the war’s shutdown, was secret because authorities feared the possibility of a Taliban attack. The USA and NATO, as everyone knows, are the losers, despite the bloated enormity of their military superiority. What a mockery the reality of war makes of the rhetoric that blesses it.

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The Trans-Pacific Trade (TPP) Agreement Must Be Defeated
US Sen. Bernie Sanders - Reader Supported News, 5 Jan 2015

The TPP is a disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy. It will also negatively impact some of the poorest people in the world.

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Shame Is Good. Shame Is Right. Shame Works
Lynn Stuart Parramore – Al Jazeera America, 29 Dec 2014

Shaming may not bring America’s corporate Scrooges immediately around to a Dickensian redemption, but it can play a key role in creating a societal consensus that certain behaviors are indeed disgraceful — and that’s a start. No shame, no blame, you might say.

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NSA Releases Christmas Eve Surprise
Murtaza Hussain – The Intercept, 29 Dec 2014

26 Dec 20145 – The NSA on Christmas Eve day released twelve years of internal oversight reports documenting abusive and improper practices by agency employees. Releasing bad news right before a holiday weekend is a common tactic for trying to minimize press coverage.

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Selling ‘Peace Groups’ on US-Led Wars
Margaret Sarfehjooy and Coleen Rowley – Consortium News, 29 Dec 2014

More and more “peace and social justice” groups are being twisted into “democracy promotion,” U.S. militarism style. But rarely do we see as clearly into how this Orwellian transformation occurs as with the “Committee in Solidarity with the People of Syria,” a spin-off of “Friends for a Nonviolent World.”

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Merry Christmas: UN Declares Arms Trade Treaty to Go Into Effect Dec. 24 [2014]
Joe Wolverton, II, J.D. – The New American, 29 Dec 2014

On its official website, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (yes, that’s really a thing and yes, it is housed right here in the United States) announced that the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) “will enter into force on 24 December 2014.” Merry Christmas!

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The 2014 P.U.-litzers
FAIR-Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2014

Some of the Stinkiest Reporting from the Past Year – It’s that time of year again, when FAIR looks back at the year and recalls some of the stinkiest media moments. There were, of course, many contenders– but only a select few can make the list.

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Policing Is a Dirty Job, but Nobody’s Gotta Do It: 6 Ideas for a Cop-Free World
José Martín – Rolling Stone, 22 Dec 2014

It’s time to start imagining a society that isn’t dominated by police. While law enforcers have existed in one form or another for centuries, the modern police have their roots in the relatively recent rise of modern property relations 200 years ago, and the “disorderly conduct” of the urban poor.

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Europe Has Lost Its Compass
Roberto Savio, IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

With the fall of the Swedish government orchestrated by the far-right and centre-right opposition, a symbol of civic-mindedness and democracy in Europe has fallen, and the grip of an irrational fear of immigrants tightens as Europe’s politicians seek a scapegoat.

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Financial Market Manipulation Is The New Trend: Can It Continue?
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

It is too risky for the US to take on Russia militarily. Instead, Washington is using its unique symbiotic relationship with Western financial institutions to attack an incautious Russia that foolishly opened herself to Western financial predation.

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Architects of Atrocity Remain at Large, and Unrepentant
William Boardman - Reader Supported News, 22 Dec 2014

We know who the torturer-in-chief was, and we know his vice-torturer has said George Bush was as fully informed as he, Dick Cheney, was. Along with everything else we know about these men who still defend their criminality, why isn’t that enough for probable cause and a criminal indictment? There’s much more to be said about this defining moment in our history.

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Obama and Raúl Castro Thank Pope for Breakthrough in US-Cuba Relations
Dan Roberts and Rory Carroll – The Guardian, 22 Dec 2014

Barack Obama and Raúl Castro thanked Pope Francis for helping broker a deal to normalising relations between US and Cuba after 18 months of secret talks over prisoner releases brought a sudden end to decades of cold war hostility.

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It’s Not Cuba That Has Just Decided to Rejoin the Modern World – It’s the US
Martin Kettle – The Guardian, 22 Dec 2014

From its very earliest days, the US has seen Cuba as an American offshore interest. It is more than 200 years since the US, under Thomas Jefferson, first tried to buy Cuba from Spain. At the end of the 19th century America instead seized Cuba from Spain at gunpoint. Later on it leased Cuba back to US-approved Cubans on US terms, which included the retention of the Guantánamo Bay base.

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Why is Near Term Human Extinction Inevitable?
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

The expression ‘near term human extinction’ is relatively new in the scientific literature but, unlike other truths that have been successfully suppressed by national elites and their corporate media, this one will keep filtering out until you start to hear the expression routinely. Why?

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What Is in the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA Torture (Part I)
Tom Carter, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Dec 2014

16 Dec 2014 – This is the first of three articles summarizing the contents of the unclassified executive summary of the US Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,700-page report on the CIA torture program, released last week.

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CIA ‘Torture Report’: Once Again Language Is Distorted in Order to Hide US State Wrongdoing
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 22 Dec 2014

The whole process of “enhanced interrogation techniques” is now called “EIT”. Like WMD – another whopper in our political vocabulary – the whole filthy business is wrapped up in a three-letter abbreviation.

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(Português) Brasil: Conheça e Acesse o Relatório Final da Comissão Nacional da Verdade
Carta Maior – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Dec 2014

10 dez 2014 – O relatório aponta as prisões sem base legal, as torturas e as mortes delas decorrentes, as violências sexuais, as execuções e ocultações de cadáveres. O relatório final da Comissão Nacional da Verdade foi entregue hoje em cerimônia oficial no Palácio do Planalto à presidenta Dilma Rousseff.

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Four Years since the Arrest of Julian Assange
Robert Stevens, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Dec 2014

December 7 [2014] marked four years since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London and detained without charge. December 5 marked 900 days that he has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London after being forced to claim political asylum.

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New Leak Reveals Luxembourg Tax Deals for Disney, Koch Brothers Empire
Alison Fitzgerald and Marina Walker Guevara – International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 15 Dec 2014

A new leak of confidential documents expands the list of big companies seeking secret tax deals in Luxembourg, exposing tax-saving maneuvers by American entertainment icon The Walt Disney Co., politically controversial Koch Industries Inc. and 33 other companies.

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Obama in Ferguson—If…
Latuff Cartoons – TRANSCEND Media Service, 15 Dec 2014

Satirical Strip – Cartoon

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The 2001 Anthrax Deception: The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy
Edward Curtin - TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

Review of [TRANSCEND Member] Graeme MacQueen’s Book – The anthrax letters were instrumental in getting tyrannical legislation passed by Congress. The US tried to blame Muslim terrorists but the anthrax was a version that only existed in US military labs.

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Beyond M.A.D.: Reviving Nuclear War
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service, 8 Dec 2014

“Some of the key technocrats and scientists of the Cold War say the nation has become overly confident about its nuclear deterrence. The nuclear enterprise, they say, ‘is rusting its way to disarmament.’” Let’s meditate on this irony — that disarmament, finally, means no more than growing old and weak and pathetic.

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(Português) Onde está o nó da questão ecológica (I)?
Leonardo Boff – Carta Maior, 8 Dec 2014

Estamos cansados de meio-ambiente. Queremos o ambiente inteiro, vale dizer, uma visão sistêmica do sitema-Terra, do sistema-vida e da civilização humana.

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(Português) Eduardo Galeano: Ayotzinapa, México
Eduardo Galeano – Carta Maior, 8 Dec 2014

Os governantes perderam o controle sobre o medo, a fúria que desencadearam está se voltando contra eles. A raiva digna fará o México despertar e questionar.

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Ukraine’s Made-in-USA Finance Minister
Robert Parry – Consortium News, 8 Dec 2014

A top problem of Ukraine has been corruption and cronyism, so it may raise eyebrows that new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an ex-U.S. diplomat and newly minted Ukrainian citizen, was involved in insider dealings while managing a $150 million U.S. AID-backed investment fund.

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Iran Is Shifting from Pariah to Possible Future Policeman of the Gulf
Robert Fisk – The Independent, 1 Dec 2014

Iran’s crisis – our crisis with Iran, if you like – is about that great and historic nation’s future geo-strategic role in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

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The Steady Decline of Social Europe
Roberto Savio - Human Wrongs Watch, 1 Dec 2014

After the Italian sea search-and-rescue operation Mare Nostrum has rescued nearly 100,000 migrants – although perhaps up to 3,000 have died – from the Mediterranean since October 2013, Europe is now presenting its new face in the Mediterranean.

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“Judeo-Nazism” and the Prospects for a Comprehensive Agreement with Iran
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

If a non-Jew had coined the phrase “Judeo-Nazism” he or she would have been verbally crucified by Zionism’s attack dogs and the mainstream Western media. The actual inventor of it was Yeshavahu Leibowitz, one of the most outspoken and controversial Jewish intellectuals of modern times.

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How Ebola Could End the Cuban Embargo
Arturo Lopez-Levy – The Nation, 1 Dec 2014

Instead of encouraging Cuban doctors to defect, the United States should be working with them to stop the spread of Ebola.

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(Português) Socialismo e comunismo, modo de uso: manual didático
Rita Almeida – Carta Maior, 1 Dec 2014

O capitalismo deu muito certo, pelo menos para as 85 pessoas mais ricas do mundo ou cerca de 1% da população. Ainda me surpreendo com gente que afirma repudiar os ideais comunistas ou socialistas porque eles “não deram certo”. Em resposta, o que me vem em mente é uma pergunta: Então o capitalismo deu certo?

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

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

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Germany’s Deutsche Welle Reports ISIS Supply Lines Originate in NATO’s Turkey
Tony Cartalucci – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

Nov 28, 2014 – Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published a video report of immense implications – possibly the first national broadcaster in the West to admit that the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) is supplied not by “black market oil” or “hostage ransoms” but billions of dollars worth of supplies carried into Syria across NATO member Turkey’s borders via hundreds of trucks a day.

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U.S. Companies Supply Eavesdropping Gear to Central Asian Autocrats
Julia Harte – The Center for Public Integrity, 1 Dec 2014

American companies are supplying technology that the governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are using to spy on their citizens’ communications and clamp down on dissent, according to a new report from the U.K.-based advocacy group Privacy International.

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Another Case of Coercive Diplomacy: The Failure of the Iran Nuclear Negotiations
Gareth Porter – Middle East Eye, 1 Dec 2014

The US posture in talks with Iran has reflected the perspective of a dominant power accustomed to employing coercive power.

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Nonviolent Action: Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

I would like to identify ways in which the risk of police or military personnel using illegal and violent tactics can be minimized and, in many cases, thwarted, wherever in the world the nonviolent action takes place. If we are going to take the necessary risks to save our world, we might as well do it strategically.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s Concern for the Poor Got Him Destroyed
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Dec 2014

That Strauss-Kahn was so easily done in with the complicity of the American left-wing demonstrates that it is impossible for anti-elite leadership to rise in the West. Any time anti-establishment leadership shows its head, it is cut off.

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8 Lessons Learned from the Million Mask March That Can Benefit All Activists
Justin King – Anonymous Headquarters, 1 Dec 2014

24 Nov 2014 – The Million Mask March in Washington, DC provided many teachable moments for activists.

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Financial Sector Invests Over US$ 402 Billion in Nuclear Weapons Producers
Wilbert van der Zeijden, Don’t Bank on the Bomb – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

The report Don’t Bank on the Bomb, published today [7 Nov 2014] by Dutch peace organization PAX, identifies 411 banks, insurance companies and pension funds with investments in 28 companies involved in the production, maintenance or stockpiling of nuclear weapons.

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In Israel, Only Jewish Blood Shocks Anyone
Gideon Levy, Haaretz – Reader Supported News, 24 Nov 2014

Terror is always Palestinian, even when hundreds of Palestinian civilians are killed. The name and face of Daniel Tragerman, the Israeli boy killed by mortar fire during Operation Protective Edge, were known throughout the world; even U.S. President Barack Obama knew his name. Can anyone name one child from Gaza among the hundreds killed?

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Burma/Myanmar’s Missing Millions [of People]
Guy Horton, DVB – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Nov 2014

The elephant in the room is government policy. Widespread, systematic human rights violations, i.e. crimes against humanity, have been identified and condemned by successive UN Special Rapporteurs and General Assembly Resolutions since 1992. Genocide, we should remind ourselves, involves the physical “Destruction of ethnic, racial, religious or national groups in whole or,” significantly, “In part.”

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US, Canada, and Ukraine Reject Russia’s UN Anti-Nazi Proposal
Josh Paniagua – Mass Report, 24 Nov 2014

22 Nov 2014 – A Russian proposal condemning all glorification of Nazi ideology and denial of Nazi war crimes was passed by the UN General Assembly. Of the 173 countries voting, 115 said yes and 55 abstained. The only three countries to vote against: United States, Canada, and Ukraine.

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What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones?
Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain – The Intercept, 18 Nov 2014

Just three years after NATO’s military intervention in Libya ended and was widely heralded by its proponents as a resounding success, that country is in complete collapse.

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

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

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The Psychology of Victimhood: Obama, Cameron, Netanyahu, Clinton, Kissinger
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Nov 2014

All children are victims of chronic violence and while a rare individual survives this violence, most acquire a victim status that leaves them psychologically crippled for life, doing a lifetime of soul-destroying work that is far removed from any pursuit that might be described as ‘Self-realizing’.

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