Articles by M
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New Report Says Millions of LGBT Discriminated Against in Europe
Avathar St. Vincent, Fighting Discrimination Program – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
“Many people in Europe are stigmatized because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity and cannot fully enjoy their universal human rights,” writes Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights.
→ read full articleWorld’s Oceans in Peril
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
21 Nov 2011
Climate change is causing our oceans to become increasingly acidic, threatening to alter life as we know it. What to do? Despite grave concerns there is something that can be done. If ocean 1.0 is the pristine natural ocean, 2.0 is the ocean we have now under the petroleum product regime of 100 years of use, and 3.0 is the future ocean, it can either be a dead ocean, or we can come up with some very innovative solutions that right now people aren’t even talking about.
→ read full articleRussell Tribunal on Palestine Calls for Pressure on Israeli Government
TMS Editor,
21 Nov 2011
Annette Groth, spokesperson on human rights for Germany’s Left Party, relates her experience at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, 5-7 November 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa. On 7 November the jury presented its conclusions: it found that the treatment of the Palestinian population by the Israeli state meets the definition of the crime of apartheid under Article 2 of the UN Convention on Apartheid and Article 7 (2) (h) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
→ read full articleUS Africa Command a Tool to Recolonise Continent
Motsoko Pheko – Pambazuka News,
21 Nov 2011
Africa does not need an American military base on its soil. Would Americans welcome such a foreign base in their land? Motsoko Pheko urges African countries to resist this imperialist move, which is intended to facilitate plunder of their resources.
→ read full articleRedeeming Desire
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
My digital friend, the respected author and journalist, Erik Wahlberg, sent me a message recently suggesting that I abandon the use of ‘horizons of desire’ as a way of framing human aspirations. He believed, with abundant justification, that desire is tied to consumerism, and the social construction of market demand for the luxurious, the wasteful, and the superfluous.
→ read full articleA History of US-Sponsored Violence in Haiti
Nia Imara – Pambazuka News,
21 Nov 2011
The US has once again succeeded in imposing an illegal and repressive puppet government in Haiti in blatant disregard of the will of the people. But there is still hope that, with collective struggle and a vision, change can occur.
→ read full article
Arundhati Roy: “Occupy Wall Street Is So Important Because It Is In the Heart of Empire”
Amy Goodman – Democracy NOW!,
21 Nov 2011
Renowned Indian writer and global justice activist Arundhati Roy is preparing to address Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday [16 Nov 2011]. She recently joined us in the studio to talk about the Occupy movement. “What they are doing becomes so important because it is in the heart of empire, or what used to be empire,” Roy said. “And to criticize and to protest against the model that the rest of the world is aspiring to is a very important and very serious business.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Quem Governa a Alemanha São os Mercados Financeiros
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Se a sra. Merkel e o presidente do Deutschebank se reúnem para discutir, quem manda?, questiona Klaus Ernst, copresidente do Die Linke alemão. Em entrevista ao Esquerda.net, ele defendeu a separação do financiamento dos Estados dos mercados financeiros privados, através da criação de um banco público para os empréstimos públicos.
→ read full articleTime as Money: Local Currencies for Healthy Communities
Debra Efroymson – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
In Japan, for instance, young people can earn hours, then donate them to their parents in rural areas so their parents can spend it on receiving care that otherwise they would pay for in yen. Time banking can help get people to share their resources and access their needs locally. Other systems involve printing of money. The money can be designated in hours, with the value being the average wage rate in that area. What is significant with both methods of using time as currency is that everyone’s time is treated as being equal.
→ read full articleThe Bad in the Good and the Good in the Bad
Johan Galtung, 14 Nov 2011 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
(Same as last week. -TMS editor) The world is ambiguous, with forces and counter-forces, for good and for bad. Contradiction is the rule, with bad in the good and good in the bad, etc. And there are verbal contradictions; there is the opinion, and the other opinion, as Al Jazeera says, valid and invalid, whether such verbal debates reflect non-verbal contradictions or not. Thus, this column and author reap counter-arguments, and any author should be grateful to opponents. What can I learn? Factual mistakes? Logical? How to be so clear as to avoid misunderstandings? Or state assumptions, like ambiguity?
→ read full articleEurope – The Vicious Circle of Paying Debts With More Debts
Raul de Sagastizabal, PoliticaPress – Human Wrongs Watch,
14 Nov 2011
With two years of failed plans, pseudo-plans and announcements of plans, Europe has acquired a huge pile of debt and a decade of agony.
→ read full articleCan the BRICS Make a Difference At Busan? (Part 1)
Kanya D'Almeida – Inter Press Service-IPS,
14 Nov 2011
As shock waves from Greece’s economic crisis emanate across the Eurozone and the Occupy protests in the U.S. grow bolder in their critique of the dominant neoliberal system, it seems clear to many observers that the old hegemonic economic order is fading fast.
→ read full articleCan the BRICS Make a Difference at Busan? (Part 2)
Kanya D'Almeida – Inter Press Service-IPS,
14 Nov 2011
While experts are hopeful that blocs of emerging market economies like BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will play a major role in the upcoming aid effectiveness conference in Busan, South Korea, others fear that the new players do not yet have the fiscal power to make a serious intervention in fora generally dominated by rich donor states.
→ read full articleLandgrabbing in Ethiopia: Legal Lease or Stolen Soil?
Philipp Hedemann – Inter Press Service-IPS,
14 Nov 2011
By exporting food produced by child labour in Ethiopia, an Indian farm manager hopes to earn millions within three years. “It’s still total wilderness here, but we will soon start growing sugar cane and palm oil and everything will look tidy,” explains Karmjeet Singh Sekhon as he drives in a Toyota 4×4 through the burning bushland on his farm.
→ read full articleNuclear Israel Revisited
Joseph Massad – Al Jazeera,
14 Nov 2011
How many times must this story be retold? The international press has been reporting on it since the late 1960s. In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower gave Israel its first small nuclear reactor at Nahal Sorek; in 1964, the French built for Israel its much larger and major Dimona nuclear reactor in the Naqab (Negev) Desert; in 1965, Israel stole 200 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from the United States through its spies at the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation company in Pennsylvania; in 1968, Israel hijacked a Liberian ship in international waters and stole its 200-ton shipment of yellowcake.
→ read full articleBlack, Asian Teens Less Likely Than Whites to Abuse Drugs, Duke Study Concludes
Jay Price - McClatchy Newspapers,
14 Nov 2011
Black and Asian adolescents are much less likely than their white peers to abuse or become dependent on drugs and alcohol, according to a Duke University-led study based on an unusually large sample from all 50 states. “There is certainly still a myth out there that black kids are more likely to have problems with drugs than white kids, and this documents as clearly as any study we’re aware of that the rate of . . . substance-related disorders among African American youths is significantly lower,” said Dr. Dan Blazer of Duke’s Department of Psychiatry, a senior author of the study.
→ read full articleTwo Occupations
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
If we are to find ‘solutions’ we all need quickly to liberate our imaginations from the tyranny of ‘the feasible.’ The ‘realists’ presently holding the reins of power are unknowingly inhabiting realms of fantasy while the train of history approaches a station named DOOM. The young people are awakening to this grim realization, and for this the rest of us can be thankful, and even allow ourselves to enjoy the momentary privilege of hope.
→ read full articleProtest Planet
Juan Cole – TomDispatch,
14 Nov 2011
How a Neoliberal Shell Game Created an Age of Activism – From Tunis to Tel Aviv, Madrid to Oakland, a new generation of youth activists is challenging the neoliberal state that has dominated the world ever since the Cold War ended. The massive popular protests that shook the globe this year have much in common, though most of the reporting on them in the mainstream media has obscured the similarities.
→ read full articleThe Phantom Menace: Fantasies, Falsehoods, and Fear-Mongering about Iran’s Nuclear Program
Nima Shirazi – Wide Asleep in America,
14 Nov 2011
For nearly thirty years now, U.S. and Zionist politicians and analysts, along with some of their European allies, have warned that Iranian nuclear weapons capability is just around the corner and that such a possibility would not only be catastrophic for Israel with its 400 nuclear warheads and state-of-the-art killing power supplied by U.S. taxpayers, but that it would also endanger regional dictatorships, Europe, and even the United States.
→ read full articleBrazil Court Approves Building of Amazon Dam
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Contentious Belo Monte dam project in the north to proceed without additional consulation with indigenous communities. A Brazilian court has said that construction of one the world’s largest hydroelectric dams can proceed without additional consultation with indigenous communities in the region, despite a mass movement opposed to the project.
→ read full articleUN and Brazil Launch Initiative to Combat Hunger Among School Children
UN News Service – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
7 November 2011 –The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Brazilian Government today launched a new initiative to help countries run their own national school meal programmes to advance the nutrition and education of children. “As a world champion in the fight against hunger, Brazil has a wealth of experience that can be shared with governments eager to learn how they achieved that success and adapt it to their own countries,” said WFP Executive Director, Josette Sheeran, who is on an official visit to the country.
→ read full articleCriminalizing Diplomacy: Fanning the Flames of the Iran War Option
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
How many times have we heard in recent weeks either outright threats to attack Iran mainly emanating from Israel or the more muted posture adopted by the United States that leaves ‘all options’ on the table including ‘the military option’?
→ read full articleRejecting Neoliberalism, Renewing the Utopian Imagination
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 two dismal consequences followed that have been rarely acknowledged: neoliberal orthodoxy became unchallenged and unchallengeable in the formation of global economic policy; the World Economic Forum, convening annually in Davos, became the true capital of world order after the ending of the Cold War.
→ read full articleUS-Uganda: Award Honours Courageous Gay Rights Activist
Amanda Wilson – Inter Press Service-IPS,
14 Nov 2011
Frank Mugisha was just a young teenager in Uganda when he came out as gay. He faced bullying and threats, but he says the stories of lesbian, gay, and transgender friends he later met were much worse – some were kicked out of their homes by their families, subjected to sexual violence to “make them straight”, or arrested.
→ read full articleThe Globalization of Protest
Joseph E Stiglitz, Nobel Economics laureate – Project Syndicate,
14 Nov 2011
Globalization and modern technology now enables social movements to transcend borders as rapidly as ideas can. And social protest has found fertile ground everywhere: a sense that the “system” has failed, and the conviction that even in a democracy, the electoral process will not set things right.
→ read full articleWorld Bank Partners With Nestlé to ‘Transform Water Sector’
Corporate Accountability International – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
New Venture Aims to Privatize Water Country by Country – The World Bank has launched a new partnership with global corporations including Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Veolia. Housed at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), the new venture aspires to “transform the water sector” by inserting the corporate sector into what has historically been a public service. The new partnership is part of a broader trend of industry collusion to influence global water policy.
→ read full articlePreparing For Revolution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
To be human
is to be
naked
before and after
the law
Less Healthcare, But Greece Is Still Buying Guns
Roxane McMeeken - The Independent,
14 Nov 2011
The small, crisis-hit nation, buys more German weapons than any other country. Some Greeks want to know why it is that France and Germany are demanding cuts in pensions, salaries and public services, but the buying of arms is allowed to continue unabated.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Retirada dos EUA e Derrota no Iraque
Immanuel Wallerstein – Esquerda.net,
14 Nov 2011
A retirada marca o culminar da derrota americana no Iraque, apenas comparável à derrota dos Estados Unidos no Vietname. Ninguém se deve surpreender se, depois das próximas eleições no Iraque, o primeiro-ministro for Moqtada al-Sadr. Nem os Estados Unidos nem o Irão vão rejubilar.
→ read full articleMapping Paralysis and Tokenism in the Face of Potential Global Disaster
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Why Nobody Is About To Do Anything Effective and What One Might Do About It – A Special Report of a current issue of The Economist has been entitled Staring into the Abyss: Europe and its currency (12 November 2011). The introductory leader argues: When the world’s third-largest bond market begins to buckle, catastrophe looms. At stake is not just the Italian economy but Spain, Portugal, Ireland, the euro, the European Union’s single market, the global banking system, the world economy, and pretty much anything else you can think of.
→ read full articleCase Study: Haiti
Gender Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, suffers from chronic food insecurity (World Food Program, 2010). One third of the population is food insecure, the most vulnerable of whom are women and children. International Financial Institutions (IFIs), including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), have severely undermined Haiti’s ability to improve food security and reduce hunger and malnutrition among Haiti’s poor.
→ read full article
Lessons from Iceland (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Al Jazeera, Counting the Cost – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
13-min Interview with Iceland President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson – Can the Eurozone learn any lessons from Iceland’s 2008 meltdown? Iceland apparently succeeded in letting the banks, not the people, go bust. Is anyone paying attention?
→ read full article
Tar Sand Song
TMS Editor,
14 Nov 2011
Words by Diane Perlman, PhD (TRANSCEND member)*
Music by Woody Guthrie
Performed by Ya’akov-Yisrael “Jimmy” Costello
The Devil in the Tar Sands
Jody Williams and Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace laureates – Project Syndicate,
14 Nov 2011
If the nearly 1,700-mile pipeline were to be built, it would run from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, through the heartland of the US, all the way to the Texas coast on the Gulf of Mexico. Should the project go ahead, Obama will have made one of the single most disastrous decisions of his presidency concerning climate change and the very future of our planet.
→ read full articleStingy…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Why did Adam and Eve have a perfect marriage?
→ read full articleCorporate Media Stumped on How to Cover the Occupy Movement
Russ Baker, WhoWhatWhy.com – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Conventional journalism is increasingly irrelevant in a time of crisis. We find abundant proof in a recent column from the New York Times’ so-called “Public Editor,” who is supposed to somehow magically represent the public interest and rarefied ethical values to the rest of the paper. In this column, he says the media is having difficulty figuring out how to cover Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots.
→ read full articleThe Self-Attribution Fallacy
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Intelligence? Talent? No, the ultra-rich got to where they are through luck and brutality. If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy.
→ read full articleYet Another Report Lambasts Shell Nigeria
Jerome Mwanda - InDepth News,
14 Nov 2011
A new report titled ‘Counting the Cost,’ implicates Shell in cases of serious violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region from 2000 to 2010, detailing how Shell’s routine payments to armed militants exacerbated conflicts and led to the destruction of Rumuekpe town, triggering devastating oil spills, indulging in the illegal practice of gas flaring, and crassly violating human rights.
→ read full articleAlarming Rise in Mercenary Activities Calls for Attention
UN Human Rights Council – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries warned Tuesday [1 Nov 2011] of an alarming resurgence of the use of mercenaries in armed conflict –“often in new and novel ways”. Contracts and grants in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to exceed $206 billion in 2011. In 2010, the number of contractor employees hired by the US Departments of Defense and State and USAID exceeded 260,000, in contrast with the 9,200 contractors hired by the US military during the first Gulf War.
→ read full article
A Call against Arms
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
The tiny South Korean island of Jeju has been called the ‘Island of Peace’, but could a new naval base endanger that? The entire community is taking on the might of the South Korean navy. The village of Gangjeong on the island of Jeju has fewer than 2,000 inhabitants but the 480,000 m2 military facility will house up to 20 US warships. The mayor is serving a prison sentence for opposing the construction and studies have revealed a dramatic increase in psychological problems among the villagers. This once peaceful village is now clinging on for its survival.
→ read full articleHow Goldman Sacked Greece
Greg Palast for In These Times – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
Greece is a crime scene. The people are victims of a fraud, a scam, a hustle and a flim-flam. And––cover the children’s ears when I say this––a bank named Goldman Sachs is holding the smoking gun. In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up €2.3 billion in Greek government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then immediately sold it back to Greece.
→ read full articleU.S.: Frustrated with Big Banks, More Turn to Cooperatives
Elizabeth Whitman – Inter Press Service-IPS,
14 Nov 2011
The number of people flocking to cooperative banks has recently skyrocketed in the U.S., with 650,000 people joining credit unions just since late September. Their rationale: financial cooperatives offer a more secure and socially just alternative to big commercial banks – or a way for the 99 percent to fight the one percent.
→ read full articleUS Researchers And Pharmaceutical Companies Conducting Human Experimentation in Africa
Farid Zakaria, PBFC – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Nov 2011
A new policy brief faults prominent institutions and drug companies like Pfizer, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and Population Council, for their involvement in unethical and illegal human experimentation in Africa. The report is titled “Non-Consensual Research in Africa: The Outsourcing of Tuskegee” in reference to the illegal human experiment conducted in Tuskegee, Alabama, between 1932 and 1972 by the US Public Health Service.
→ read full article
Difference between a Jew and a Zionist
TMS Editor,
14 Nov 2011
Rabbi: “The Jews have no right to have a state or to rule over the Palestinians and blow up their homes. Zionism is destroying the thousands of years old Jewish religion; it was started a hundred years ago by atheists.”
→ read full articleBrazilian Winds Fuel Green Job Creation
Alice Marcondes, Tierramérica – Inter Press Service-IPS,
14 Nov 2011
The term “green jobs”, coined to describe employment that contributes in some way to preserving or restoring the environment, is increasingly entering the vocabulary of companies keen to respond to the social demand for a cleaner economy. Brazil has not been left behind by this trend.
→ read full articleAnd the Big Time Banksters Come Marching In
Robert Wenzel – Economic Policy Journal,
14 Nov 2011
Mario Drgahi (European Central Bank), Lucas Papademos (Prime Minister of Greece), Mario Monti (Prime Minister of Italy), Mark Carney (chair, Financial Stability Board): The big time banksters are getting direct hands on control. If you get the sense that the elitist banksters are going to take this financial crisis and push it in whatever direction they want, you are probably very right.
→ read full articleCorzine’s Downfall
Nick Paumgarten – The New Yorker,
14 Nov 2011
The collapse this week of the broker-dealer MF Global and the comeuppance of its chief executive Jon Corzine, who resigned Friday [4 Nov 2011], have been and will be put to many political and rhetorical purposes. It doesn’t much matter, in these Zuccotti Park days, whether you’re too sanguine or too sly. Either way, you’re considered a crook. But if the firm did indeed use hundreds of millions of dollars of its customers’ money to prop up its own liquidity, in its waning hours, someone, perhaps even the former C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs and Governor of New Jersey, could wind up in jail.
→ read full article
(Castellano) Johan Galtung: Deben Periodistas Abrir la Ventana Hacia Soluciones (Video of the Week)
realidadexpuesta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Los periodistas deben informar sobre los problemas que crean los conflictos, pero en la realidad sólo se concentran en el conflicto, criticó el noruego Johan Galtung, fundador de los estudios de paz, durante un taller que impartió en Monterrey a integrantes de organizaciones de la sociedad civil.
→ read full articleLong Overlooked, Cooperatives Get Their Due at United Nations
Elizabeth Whitman – TerraViva Europe,
7 Nov 2011
Hailed as economically viable and socially responsible, cooperatives have over one billion members worldwide and can be found in sectors ranging from agriculture to finance to health. Yet for an economic model deemed so vastly beneficial, cooperatives have received surprisingly little attention from both the media and governments, experts agree. By dubbing 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives (IYC), launched today [31 Oct 2011] in New York, the United Nations is attempting to reverse this trend and instead shine a global spotlight on cooperatives.
→ read full articleCan Revolutionary Pacifism Deliver Peace?
Noam Chomsky - Reader Supported News,
7 Nov 2011
Not to be overlooked, however, is that Europeans came to realize that the next time they indulge in their favorite pastime of slaughtering one another, the game will be over: civilisation has developed means of destruction that can only be used against those too weak to retaliate in kind, a large part of the appalling history of the post-World War II years.
→ read full articleReport: Israel Seeking To Upgrade Its Nuclear Weapons Capabilities
Haaretz – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Israel is working on improving its nuclear weapons capabilities, according to a report by the independent Trident commission in the United Kingdom that was published in the Guardian newspaper on Monday [31 Oct 2011]. According to the report in the Guardian, Israel is extending the range of its Jericho 3 land-to-land missiles so they will have the capabilities of transcontinental missiles. Transcontinental missiles are generally thought of as missiles with ranges of about 5,000 miles.
→ read full articleReport: Army to Disclose Evidence Against Bradley Manning
Jason Ditz – Antiwar.com,
7 Nov 2011
The US Army will soon hold some form of hearing which will disclose the evidence the US government has collected against Bradley Manning in the year and a half since his detention began. The hearing will be the first time any actual evidence is presented against Manning, with most public releases about him centering around his alleged “outsider” status during his time in the military. Some politicians, including former Governor Mike Huckabee, have demanded his execution.
→ read full articleOo-rah: War and the Free Will of Pool Balls
Fred Reed – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Honor? A soldier is just a nationally certified hit man, perfectly amoral. When he joins the military he agrees to kill anyone he is told to kill. Sacrifice? GIs do not make sacrifices. They are sacrificed for big egos, big contracts for the shareholders of military industries. One thinks of the excitement of a high-school basketball game, cheerleaders twirling and emitting exhortations to invincibility. “Ricky, Ricky, he’s our man! If he can’t do it, nobody can!” Oo-rah. If this is honor, I’ll pass.
→ read full articleThe UNESCO Mess
MJ Rosenberg – Political Correction,
7 Nov 2011
The Obama Administration says there will be further cutoffs if other UN agencies follow suit in recognizing Palestine. It was bound to happen sooner or later. At some point, both the president and Congress would be faced with a clear choice between US national interests and the demands made by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his powerful Washington lobby.
→ read full articleIf It Bleeds, It Distracts: Police Brutality Threatens Occupiers’ Bodies – and Message
J.A. Myerson - Truthout,
7 Nov 2011
Perhaps it is the excitement of footage that resembles urban warfare which tempts so many reporters into pursuing the “protesters vs. police officers” narrative. However, the primary effect of highlighting it is to distract from the focus of the protest, says a 22-year-old protester from Boston calling herself “Mom”: “Not only does it detract from our anti-fraudulence message; every time we have to answer questions about it, it takes away from what we came here to do, which is protest against greedy, scheming corporations.”
→ read full article(Castellano) Al Menos 500 Mil Haitianos Enfrentan Insalubridad y Violencia en Campamentos de Damnificados
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
La Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM) denunció este lunes [31 Oct 2011] la existencia de más de 500 mil haitianos que desde el terremoto de enero de 2010 viven en campamentos improvisados donde además de carecer de los servicios básicos, tienen que enfrentarse a la insalubridad, la violencia y amenazas de expulsiones.
→ read full articleCivil-Military Relations: Theories to Practices
Bishnu Pathak, PhD and Surendra Uprety – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Civil Military Relations constitute the relationship between the state and civil society on one side and the military organization(s) on the other. They correlate the civilian and military authorities in a given society. Democratic Civilian Control (DCC) is the conception of military/armed forces controlled by the elected representatives of a given state or nation.
→ read full articleIn Quest of Sustainability as Holy Grail of Global Governance
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Produced on the Occasion of the G-20 Summit (Cannes, October 2011) – The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has indicated: In these difficult times, the biggest challenge facing governments is not a deficit of resources; it is a deficit of trust. People are losing faith in leaders and public institutions to do the right thing. The forthcoming G-20 meeting in Cannes takes place against this dramatic backdrop. (The Clock Is Ticking, International Herald Tribune, 31 October 2011)
→ read full articlePalestine’s Time
Michel Rocard – Project Syndicate,
7 Nov 2011
For a long time, Israeli leaders have lobbied supporters like me, who, since the Holocaust, have defended the Jewish people’s right to security and statehood. But Israel’s tactics regarding Palestine have been unconscionable. They have strengthened Hamas, a hostile opponent of peace, pushed the US to vote against the Palestinian state whose birth it defends, and refused outright to accept any conditions that might resolve the conflict. No civilized country can permit this behavior.
→ read full articleUNESCO Membership and Palestinian Self-Determination
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
It may not ease the daily pain of occupation and blockade or the endless anguish of refugee status and exile or the continual humiliations of discrimination and second class citizenship, but the admission of Palestine to membership in UNESCO is for so many reasons a step forward in the long march of the Palestinian people toward the dignity of sunlight!
→ read full articleGoldstone’s Folly: Disappointing and Perverse
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Now on the eve of the third session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine scheduled to be held in Cape Town between November 5-7 Goldstone has again come to the defense of Israel in a highly partisan manner that abandons any pretense of judicious respect for either the legal duties of those with power or the legal rights of those in vulnerable circumstances.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Os Gatos: Mitos e Fatos
Marcela Godoy, bióloga - Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais,
7 Nov 2011
Eles gostam de dormir empoleirados – às vezes nos incomodamos com esse hábito quando eles resolvem nos incluir nessa maneira peculiar de dormir. Quando em bandos, ou mesmo em dois, os gatos dormem empoleirados. Ficam uns sobre os outros. Se ele quiser dormir na sua cabeça, nas suas pernas ou na sua barriga, é porque ele o considera um igual. Sinta-se honrado.
→ read full articleConcerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes
Andrew Pollack – The New York Times,
7 Nov 2011
Researchers on Sunday [30 Oct 2011] reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood. But the research is arousing concern about possible unintended effects on public health and the environment, because once genetically modified insects are released, they cannot be recalled.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Abaixo ESTA Cultura. Séculos de Touradas: Chega!!!
Marise Jalowitzki – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Falo das touradas, dos toureiros e dos touros. Falo dos povos que assistem a esse espetáculo que se baseia no sofrimento de um ser [dito] irracional, frente a um ser [dito] racional, onde, mais uma vez, o humano escolhe e o outro “parceiro” é escolhido, sem chance de recusa! Como pode o entretenimento estar associado à violência, à dor, à crueldade, à submissão? À morte? E, após a sua morte impiedosa, a carne é repartida entre as “autoridades” que lá estão. A fama do toureiro cresce não só por quantos touros consegue submeter e matar, mas, também, por quanto tempo consegue perpetuar o terrível espetáculo.
→ read full articleActivists on Gaza-Bound Vessels Detained
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Israeli authorities have detained pro-Palestinian activists on board two “Freedom Waves to Gaza” vessels, foiling the latest attempt to break the four-year Israeli blockade of the territory. The ships were forced to sail into the Israeli port of Ashdod, where all 27 passengers were handed over to the authorities and taken to an Israeli detention facility near Tel Aviv. Al Jazeera’s Casey Kauffman was among a group of journalists arrested late Friday [4 Nov 2011] when the Israeli navy boarded two ships sailing toward Gaza, he has since been released.
→ read full articleThe Bad in the Good and the Good in the Bad
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
The world is ambiguous, with forces and counter-forces, for good and for bad. Contradiction is the rule, with bad in the good and good in the bad, etc. And there are verbal contradictions; there is the opinion, and the other opinion, as Al Jazeera says, valid and invalid, whether such verbal debates reflect non-verbal contradictions or not. Thus, this column and author reap counter-arguments, and any author should be grateful to opponents. What can I learn? Factual mistakes? Logical? How to be so clear as to avoid misunderstandings? Or state assumptions, like ambiguity?
→ read full articleRogue US Army Unit Leader Saw Afghans as ‘Savages’
Ellis Conklin, AFP – Signs of the Times,
7 Nov 2011
The ringleader of a rogue US army unit accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport treated the locals like “savages,” a court martial heard. Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs also allegedly brandished fingers cut off dead bodies in a failed attempt to silence members of his team. The 26-year-old faces life in prison if convicted on charges including three counts of premeditated murder, in a scandal that has threatened Abu Ghraib-style embarrassment for the US military.
→ read full articleModernisation of Nukes Acquiring Priority
Ramesh Jaura - InDepth News,
7 Nov 2011
In a situation reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’, none of the nuclear weapon states is actively contemplating a future without nukes. On the contrary, the potential for using dreadful atomic arsenal is growing, says a new report.
→ read full articleUS Condemns UNESCO over Palestine Vote
Gregg Carlstrom – Al Jazeera,
7 Nov 2011
The US government has cut off tens of millions of dollars in annual funding to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) after it voted to admit Palestine as a full member. Victoria Nuland, the US state department spokeswoman, said payments to the Paris-based organisation would be stopped immediately. She said Washington would refrain from making a $60m payment it planned to deliver in November.
→ read full articleThe Commonwealth Summit and Human Rights Debate
Dr Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Safeguarding human rights is such a lofty ideal that nation-states with diverse socio-political and economic set ups proclaim that they respect this basic human value. As the term is contested, and as there are divergent interpretations as to what exactly constitute human rights, the debates about it have often pushed the nations towards contestation and conflicts of interests.
→ read full articleAbdul Ghaffar Khan International Peace-Builder Award to Professor Johan Galtung
TMS Editor,
7 Nov 2011
The American Muslim Alliance Foundation-AMA will honour Professor Johan Galtung, the founder of the academic discipline of peace studies, with the Abdul Ghaffar Khan International Peace-Builder Award. Prof. Galtung receives this award for his relentless dedication to deepening the understanding between Islam and The West. Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988), in whose name the prize is awarded, is also known as Sarhaddi Gandhi -the frontier Gandhi- and was a lifelong pacifist, a devout Muslim, and a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi.
→ read full articleIsrael Orders New Building in East Jerusalem
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
Binyamin Netanyahu has ordered the building of 2,000 new housing units for Israelis, mainly in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, an area Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state. Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land are considered illegal under international law. Israel also decided on Tuesday [1 Nov 2011] to freeze the transfer of tax revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority, as a punitive measure after Palestine was granted full membership of UNESCO.
→ read full articleOccupy Wall Street’s Elegant Message
Danny Schechter - Consortium News,
7 Nov 2011
One of the most frequently repeated, recycled and dismissive questions about Occupy Wall Street is its supposed lack of an “agenda.” The “what do you people want” question has featured in media interviews almost to the exclusion of all others. It’s as if the movement won’t be taken seriously by some, unless and until, it enunciates a list of “demands” and defines itself in a way that can allow others, especially a cynical media, to label and pigeonhole it. (So, it won’t be taken seriously then either.)
→ read full articleFormer US Chief Prosecutor Condemns ‘Law-Free Zone’ Of Guantánamo
Ed Vulliamy in New York – The Guardian,
7 Nov 2011
The former chief prosecutor for the US government at Guantánamo Bay has accused the administration he served of operating a “law-free zone” there, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the order to establish the detention camp on Cuba. Retired air force colonel Morris Davis resigned in October 2007 in protest against interrogation methods at Guantánamo, and has made his remarks in the lead-up to 13 November, the anniversary of President George W Bush’s executive order setting up military commissions to try terrorist suspects.
→ read full articleTwo More
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
An Indian went with his wife on a trip to Jerusalem.
→ read full article“Hold Me Back!”
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
ISRAEL WILL not attack Iran. Period. Since the 1956 Suez adventure, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered an ultimatum that stopped the action, Israel has never undertaken any significant military operation without obtaining American consent in advance. The US is Israel’s only dependable supporter in the world (besides, perhaps, Fiji, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.) To destroy this relationship means cutting our lifeline. To do that, you have to be more than just a little crazy. You have to be raving mad.
→ read full article
Slavery – Child slaves
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
There are at least 8.4 million child slaves in the world today, many of them held as forced labour.
→ read full articleJudaism and Zionism Are Not the Same Thing
Neturei Karta, Jews United Against Zionism – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
The truth is that the Jewish faith and Zionism are two very different philosophies. They are as opposite as day and night. The Jewish people have existed for thousands of years. The Zionist movement created the Israeli state. The latter is a persuasion less than one hundred years old. Its essential goal was and is to change the nature of the Jewish people from that of a religious entity to a political movement. From Zionism’s inception the spiritual leaders of the Jewish people stood in staunch opposition to it.
→ read full articleMay the Walls of Apartheid Come Tumbling Down
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2011
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine takes place in Cape Town, South Africa, 5-7 Nov 2011. The international jury consists of lawyers, writers, human rights activists. Archbishop Desmond Tutu opens the proceedings. During the two-day hearings, the jury receives many presentations, including ‘The Law and Practice of Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine’, and ‘The Palestinian Right to Self-determination’.
→ read full articleResistance Is Fertile: Palestine’s Eco-War
James Brownsell – Al Jazeeera,
7 Nov 2011
More than half a million olive trees have been uprooted or destroyed by Israeli civil and military forces in the past 10 years, a tree renowned for its symbolism since before the time of Noah. At 7 am on Tuesday, February 22, Abu Latifa got a phone call that Israeli troops were on his family’s farmland taking chainsaws to the trees. When he arrived at the field that his family had cultivated for the past 40 years, soldiers had cut down 150 trees and were poisoning the roots. “Olive trees are holy; what faith, what religion allows this to happen? How does any human being have the heart to kill trees like this?”
→ read full articleHelp People, Not the Eritrean Dictator
Dr. Mirjam van Reisen - InDepth News,
7 Nov 2011
The European Union had better change its policy towards Eritrea. The people would be better off if the EU were to spend its allocated funds for Eritrea on housing and education of the Eritrean refugees in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, Egypt or Yemen. Should the European Union help a merciless dictator or come to the aid of refugees? I think the answer is obvious. We are talking about Eritrea, the open-air prison in the East of Africa.
→ read full article
The Story of Citizens United vs. FEC (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Storyofstuff - TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
The Story of Citizens United vs. FEC, an exploration of the inordinate power that corporations exercise in our democracy.
→ read full articleThe Two Halves of the Eurozone Are Locked In a Broken Marriage
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – The Daily Telegraph,
31 Oct 2011
One by one, the democracies of Southern Europe are being broken on the wheel of monetary union.
→ read full articleReal Wimps Go To Tehran Via Baghdad
Pepe Escobar – Asia Times,
31 Oct 2011
The new Holy Trinity mythology peddled by Washington to an unsuspecting world is that the Libya war is over, the Iraq war will be over by New Year’s Eve, and the Afghan war will be over by 2014. Oh yes; and Lindsay Lohan is a reincarnation of the Virgin Mary.
→ read full articleConfronting the Malefactors
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
31 Oct 2011
There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear, but we may, at long last, be seeing the rise of a popular movement that, unlike the Tea Party, is angry at the right people.
→ read full articlePalestine: UNESCO Becomes a New Battleground
A.D.McKenzie – Inter Press Service-IPS,
31 Oct 2011
Palestine’s bid to become a member of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has created a tense atmosphere here, as the United States threatens to cut financing if the application is approved.
→ read full articleDon’t Diss the Drum Circles: Why Hippie Culture Is Still Important to Our Protests
Danny Goldberg - Dissent Magazine,
31 Oct 2011
It is easy to cherry pick a few idiotic phrases from stoners in the 1970 documentary Woodstock, but what made the event and its legacy meaningful to its fans—aside from the music—was the example of people in the hip community taking care of each other. As Time put it in 1967, “Hippies preach altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy and nonviolence.”
→ read full articleWhy Was Marx a Materialist?
Paul D’Amato – Socialist Worker,
31 Oct 2011
For Marx, materialism was about acknowledging the way the real world impacts on people’s lives, and acknowledging their ability to come together to change society. In the history of the philosophy, idealism and materialism have very different meanings than their popular usage. They represent the two main divergent ways of looking at the world we live in.
→ read full articleU.N. Torture Investigator Says Access to Manning Denied, Condemns Solitary Confinement
The Bradley Manning Support Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, confirmed yesterday that the Department of Defense has blocked his requests for an unmonitored meeting with PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower. He told reporters gathered at a U.N. General Assembly committee on human rights that he would be issuing a report on Bradley Manning’s case “in the next few weeks.”
→ read full articleLibya after Muammar el Qaddafi’s Execution
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
The death of the despised despot who ruled Libya for forty-two years naturally produced celebrations throughout the country. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s end was bloody and vindictive, but we should remember that his rants against his own people—and his violent repression of what was initially a peaceful uprising—invited a harsh popular response.
→ read full article(Castellano) Comparte Johan Galtung en Monterrey, Mexico, Experiencias sobre el Conflicto, la Violencia y la Cultura de Paz
Realidad Expuesta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
El 24 de octubre, el politólogo noruego Johan Galtung, conocido como el fundador de los estudios sobre la paz visitó la ciudad de Monterrey para impartir una conferencia magistral titulada Educación para la paz: desafío de nuestro tiempo.
→ read full articleThe Greatest Problem of the American People
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
The promotion of wars are viewed, especially by most US politicians, as the Holy Cow, more sacred than God Himself! President Obama has been so much under pressure from Republicans, where their ultimate goal is to oust him from the Whitehouse, that he has compromised his principles beyond comprehension. The Republicans want to continue to protect the rich as to become even richer, while they are literally dumping the poor making them poorer.
→ read full article
(German) 3sat + Kulturzeit: 911 Kommentar mit Johan Galtung
TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
Sep 2011
→ read full articleCIA Kidnapped, Tortured Wrong Guy
PressTV – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
A former CIA agent reveals that the agency kidnapped and tortured a man they wrongfully believed to be a top member of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s personal banker.
→ read full articleBehind Burma’s Cosmetic Changes
Thelma Young – Waging Nonviolence,
31 Oct 2011
There has been a lot of discussion about whether Burma is finally on the path to reform, now that Aung San Suu Kyi is free, and a parliament is in place. However, it is important to look beyond the facade and see the big picture.
→ read full articleSucking Out Our Brains through Our Eyes
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
Advertising trashes our happiness and trashes the planet. And my income depends on it. Nor is the problem confined to the commercial media. Even those who write only for their own websites rely on search engines, platforms and programmes ultimately funded by advertising. We’re hooked on a drug that is destroying society. As with all addictions, the first step is to admit to it.
→ read full articleThe Path Not Taken
Paul Krugman – The New York Times,
31 Oct 2011
“But a funny thing happened on the way to economic Armageddon: Iceland’s very desperation made conventional behavior impossible, freeing the nation to break the rules. Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. And there’s a lesson here for the rest of us: The suffering that so many of our citizens are facing is unnecessary. If this is a time of incredible pain and a much harsher society, that was a choice. It didn’t and doesn’t have to be this way.”
→ read full articleBank Transfer Day: A Guide to Closing Your Account
FearLess Revolution – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
To protest the behavior of big banks, thousands have pledged to switch to small credit unions on November 5. Follow these steps to simplify the process. Bank Transfer Day is gaining some serious steam. Although it’s not technically affiliated with Occupy, it’s being embraced by the movement and is the first specific call to action since the Occupy protests began.
→ read full articleMap of Systemic Interdependencies None Dares Name
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2011
12-Fold Challenge of Global Life and Death – Produced on the occasion of the world population having reached 7 billion and of publication of the The State of World Population 2011 by the United Nations Population Fund — coincidental with a historic summit on the European sovereign debt crisis to “save Greece”, “save Europe” and “save the world economy.”
→ read full articleBP Gets Gulf Oil Drilling Permit amid 28,000 Unmonitored Abandoned Wells
Rady Ananda – Food Freedom,
31 Oct 2011
Since BP’s catastrophic Macondo Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the Obama Administration has granted nearly 300 new drilling permits and shirked plans to plug 3,600 of more than 28,000 abandoned wells, which pose significant threats to the severely damaged sea.
→ read full article