Articles by M
We found 36604 results.
The Policeman and the Drunkard
TMS Editor,
12 Mar 2012
One night, a police officer was stalking out a particularly rowdy bar for possible violations of the driving under the influence laws.
→ read full articleBig 6 Oil Companies Complete a Trillion-Dollar Decade
David Wallechinsky, AllGov – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
Times are good for the six largest oil companies, with profits easily surpassing the figures from before the 2008 financial meltdown. In 2011 ExxonMobil led the way with profits of $41.1 billion. Shell was in second place at $28.6 billion, followed by Chevron at $26.8 billion and BP at $23.9 billion. Total was back at $15.9 billion and ConocoPhillips trailed at $12.4 billion.
→ read full articleCancer of the Spirit
Robert Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
Can we squeeze the glory out of the word “war”? Can we talk about savage irrationality and lifelong inner hell instead? Can we talk about the wreckage of two countries? Can we talk about spiritual cancer? In the extraordinary documentary On the Bridge — an unstinting look at the reality of war and the terror of PTSD.
→ read full articleUN Official Slams WikiLeaks Suspect Manning’s Treatment
Agence France Press-AFP – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
US authorities’ treatment of WikiLeaks suspect Private Bradley Manning was “cruel and degrading,” the UN special rapporteur on torture Juan Ernesto Mendez said Monday [5 Mar 2012]. “I believe Bradley Manning was subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in the excessive and prolonged isolation he was put in during the eight months he was in Quantico,” he told AFP, referring to the US military prison near Washington.
→ read full articleChina: Rise, Fall and Re-Emergence as a Global Power – Some Lessons from the Past
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
The study of world power has been blighted by Eurocentric historians who have distorted and ignored the dominant role China played in the world economy between 1100 and 1800.
→ read full articleTroubled Waters: How Mine Waste Dumping is Poisoning Our Ocean, Rivers, and Lakes
Earthworks & MiningWatch Canada – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Mar 2012
A new investigative report from Earthworks and MiningWatch Canada documents how mining companies are using the world’s waterways as dumping grounds for their toxic mine wastes. These mine wastes, or tailings, can contain up to three dozen dangerous chemicals, including arsenic, lead, mercury, and cyanide. Each year, mining companies dump over 180 million tonnes of these hazardous mine wastes into rivers, oceans, and lakes – that’s more than 1.5 times the amount of waste that US cities send to landfills each year.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Islamic Blind Spots
Naomi Wolf – Project Syndicate,
5 Mar 2012
Burning a conquered people’s sacred texts sends an unmistakable message: you can do anything to these people. As Heinrich Heine put it, referring to the Spanish Inquisition’s burning of the Koran, “Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings.” Jews understand that very well: from the Inquisition to Cossack massacres to Kristallnacht, the aggressors destroyed Torahs as a logical and well-understood precursor to destroying Jews.
→ read full articleIceland’s Ex-PM on Trial over Banks Crisis
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
The former prime minister of Iceland has gone on trial in a special court in Reykjavik on charges of negligence over his handling of the country’s 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of the country’s banking system.
→ read full articleFrom Empire to Global Fascism
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
A disconnect between speech and action is Obama’s trade mark. A key to his global fascism: instead of acknowledging wrongs of US foreign policy, he hides his extra-judicial killings with drones and JSOC’s (Joint Special Operations Command) in, maybe, 120 countries. Covert, CIA, less overt, Pentagon; with little Congress control. JSOC has been operating an extra-legal “kill-capture” campaign that a former counterinsurgency adviser calls “an almost industrial scale counterterrorism killing machine”.
→ read full articleGandhi and the Dalit Controversy: The Limits of the Moral Force of an Individual
Miki Kashtan – Waging Nonviolence,
5 Mar 2012
When I first heard that Gandhi was viewed as “the enemy” by many Dalits in India (formerly called “untouchables”), I was dumbfounded. How and why could Gandhi be seen as having betrayed the Dalits when he opposed untouchability even in the face of active discomfort on the part of close associates?
→ read full articleA Look at the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Armies
Luke McKenna and Robert Johnson – Business Insider-Military & Defense,
5 Mar 2012
Business is booming for a growing army of private military contractors, who take their military training and offer it to the highest bidder. Modern-day mercenaries are stationed throughout the world fighting conflicts for governments that are reluctant to use their own troops. Security giant G4S is the second-largest private employer on earth.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks: Leaked Emails Expose Inner Workings of Private Intelligence Firm Stratfor, a “Shadow CIA” (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Amy Goodman – Democracy NOW!,
5 Mar 2012
The whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has begun publishing what it says are 5.5 million emails obtained from the servers of Stratfor, a private U.S.-based intelligence-gathering firm known to some as a “shadow CIA” for corporations and government agencies.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks vs. Stratfor: Pursue the Truth, Not Its Messenger
Amy Goodman - Truthdig,
5 Mar 2012
The White House is holding a gala dinner this week, honoring Iraq War veterans. Bradley Manning is an Iraq War vet who won’t be there. He is being court-martialed, facing life in prison or possibly death, for allegedly releasing thousands of military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks revealing the casualties of war. President Barack Obama would better serve the country by also honoring Assange and Manning. We should pursue the truth, not its messengers.
→ read full articleBe polite… and laugh
TMS Editor,
5 Mar 2012
Q. What did the fish say when he swam into the wall?
→ read full article
Inside MONSANTO
Denkmal Film - TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Scientists Speak the Truth
→ read full articleLibya ‘Close to Disintegration’ – PM
The Voice of Russia – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Speaking on the first anniversary of the anti-Gaddafi revolution in Misurata Monday, interim Libyan Prime Minister Mustafa Abdeljalil warned of complete national disintegration if the rival tribes and clans that had laid hands on Gaddafi’s arsenals continued to refuse to submit to the authority of the central government.
→ read full article8 March: International Day of Women – Women as Peacemakers
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
8 March is the International Day of Women first proposed by Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) at the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen in 1911. Zetkin, who had lived some years in Paris and active in women’s movements there, was building on the 1889 International Congress for Feminine Works and Institutions held in Paris under the leadership of Ana de Walska.
→ read full articleFukushima – Worse Than Chernobyl
Janette Sherman and Joseph J. Mangano – San Francisco Bay View,
5 Mar 2012
The epidemic increase in childhood and adult cancer has occurred since World War II, when both chemical and radiological pollution spread over the world. Half a century later, there is no longer any doubt that radioisotopes in concert with industrial chemicals have caused this epidemic. Unless the earth stops turning and the laws of chemistry, biology and physics are rescinded, the radioisotopes being released from Fukushima will cause worldwide harm to life. It is in our hands to prevent another Chernobyl or Fukushima.
→ read full articleNobel Peace Laureate Calls For Ceasefire and Nonviolent Solution to the Conflict in Syria
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
“The only people who can solve Syrian problems are the Syrians themselves. The international community must insist that all international and human rights laws be upheld by the Syrian government and that they enter a dialogue with all opposition groups whose voices have a right to be heard and not ‘silenced’ by persecution, torture and/or killings.”
→ read full articlePsychologists and Torture, Then and Now
Laura Melendez-Pallitto and Robert Pallitto – Foreign Policy in Focus,
5 Mar 2012
Psychologists’ involvement in torture has done damage to the reputation of the profession, and the boards’ unwillingness to act undermines the integrity of ethics rules. It is both unconscionable and absurd that a psychologist can lose his or her license for Medicaid fraud but not for involvement in torture.
→ read full articleUS Must Seize Opportunity to Support Palestinian Nonviolence
Yousef Munayyer – Al Jazeera,
5 Mar 2012
More than ever, polling data shows, Palestinians are supporting nonviolent resistance. A series of polls of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza which included a question on nonviolence reveals an undeniable trend in the past 18 months. In June of 2010, 51 per cent of Palestinians polled responded that nonviolent resistance was a preferred alternative to stalled negotiations. In a poll at the end of 2011 that number jumped to over 61 per cent.
→ read full articleSri Lanka: Government Promises, Ground Realities
International Crisis Group – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Nearly three years since declaring victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the government has weakened democratic institutions, deepened ethnic polarisation and aggravated the country’s long-standing impunity for human rights violations. The former warzones in the north and east are heavily militarised and controlled from Colombo, while disappearances, killings, torture, gender-based violence and other abuses continue with impunity throughout the island. Sri Lankans who speak out about the situation risk reprisal.
→ read full articleBahrain Delays UN Investigator Visit
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Government requests torture investigator to delay visit, while strengthening restrictions on visits by rights groups. The UN human rights office in Geneva said on Thursday [1 Mar 2012] that Bahrain had formally requested that the visit of the special rapporteur on torture be delayed until July. Bahrain, an ally of the United States and home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is ruled by the Sunni Muslim al-Khalifa family, and has been under pressure to institute political and rights reforms since its violent crackdown on the uprising.
→ read full articleMonsanto Pays 93 Million to Victims in Settlement
Cassandra Anderson, Natural Society – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
February 27, 2012 – Monsanto tentatively agreed to a $93 million settlement with some residents of Nitro, West Virginia. Nitro is a small town that got its name from manufacturing explosives during WWI. It was also the site of a Monsanto chemical plant that manufactured 2,4,5-T herbicide that was half of the Agent Orange recipe. Monsanto has now set a precedent for settling claims, and hopefully some good attorneys will seize the opportunity in order to hold Monsanto accountable.
→ read full articleI Was a Warehouse Wage Slave
Mac McClelland – Mother Jones,
5 Mar 2012
My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine.
→ read full articleColombia’s Quest for Peace and Justice
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Between April 21 -23 [2012], the National Patriotic Council will convoke thousands of activists from most of the major urban and rural social movements and trade unions, human rights groups and indigenous afro-colombian movements, who will meet to unify forces and launch what promises to be the most significant new political movement in recent history. The democratization of Colombia requires the growth of independent social movements, judicial investigation and prosecution of ex narco-President Álvaro Uribe and his closest collaborators, and needs to extend to the present Santos regime.
→ read full articleKeiser Report: D.I.C.s and Hackers
Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert – Russia Today,
5 Mar 2012
The Stratfor bimbo and the bank that is in bed with it. WikiLeaks as the modern day Gutenberg press.
→ read full articleThe WikiLeaks GiFiles: Stratfor Predicts Huge Oil Profits from Attack on Iran
Anissa Haddadi – International Business Times,
5 Mar 2012
WikiLeaks has started publishing more than five million emails hacked by Anonymous from the servers of Stratfor, a US intelligence gathering company. An email sent by Chris Farnham, senior officer for Stratfor, to an internal unnamed source inside the company titled “Israel/Iran Barak Hails Munitions Blast in Iran” provides details about who would benefit from an Israeli attack on Iran, and say such a plan would be motivated by economic factors.
→ read full articleCheerleading Is No Revolution: “Democracy in Burma”
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Cheerleading is no revolution. That society is not going anywhere humanistic. The current discourse of revolutionary changes is nothing but a self-interested spin from vultures and vampires of all stripes and colours, native and foreign.
→ read full articleHow to Acquire an Underclass While Doing Good
Vithal Rajan – TRANSCEND Media Serivce,
5 Mar 2012
Winston Churchill once famously declared that the British Empire was acquired in a fit of absence of mind. Most probably he was right.
→ read full articlePrivacy Betrayed: Twitter Sells Multi-Billion Tweet Archive
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Mar 2012
Twitter has sold billions of archived tweets believed to have vanished forever. A privacy row has erupted as hundreds of companies queue up to purchase users’ personal information from the new database. Every time you use social networks you become mere product – it’s an idea we will all have to get used to. So, should we give up worldly goods and hide in a Tibetan monastery till the end of our days, or start putting up a fight to protect our privacy?
→ read full articleTribalism, Racism and Projection (Part 1)
Gilad Atzmon – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
In this paper and the one to follow, I expose the misleading aspect that is, unfortunately, inherent to some ‘anti’ racist ideologies. I will elaborate on the role of anti racism in maintaing both Zionism and the Left discourse.
“We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” ― Anaïs Nin
Tribalism, Racism and Projection (Part 2)
Gilad Atzmon – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
In this part I explore the misleading role of Jewish politics (both Zionist and anti Zionist) within the ‘anti racist’ campaign.
→ read full articleCooperatives over Corporations
Jim Hightower - Truthout,
27 Feb 2012
We’re being told by today’s High Priests of Conventional Wisdom that everyone and everything in our economic cosmos necessarily revolves around one dazzling star: the corporation. This heavenly institution, the HPCW explain, has such financial and political mass that it is the optimal force for organizing and directing our society’s economic affairs, including the terms of employment and production. While other forces are in play (workers, consumers, the environment, communities and so forth), they are subordinate to the superior gravitational pull of the corporate order.
→ read full articleOur Duty to Sri Lanka, And Human Rights
Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson – The Guardian,
27 Feb 2012
This week the UN Human Rights Council has an opportunity and a duty to help Sri Lanka advance its own efforts on accountability and reconciliation. Both are essential if a lasting peace is to be achieved. In doing so, the council will not only be serving Sri Lanka, but those worldwide who believe there are universal rights and international legal obligations we all share.
→ read full articleDon’t Northwoods Iran
Jacob G. Hornberger – The Future of Freedom Foundation,
27 Feb 2012
Another option for avoiding the appearance of being the aggressor power is the Operation Northwoods option. During the Kennedy administration, the Pentagon and the CIA wanted to invade Cuba to effect regime change there. But they didn’t want to appear as the aggressor power. So, the Joint Chiefs of Staff came up with a proposal that it unanimously approved and presented to JFK. To Kennedy’s ever-lasting credit, he rejected Operation Northwoods.
→ read full articleUN Peacekeepers Not About to Leave Haiti
Benedict Moran – Al Jazeera,
27 Feb 2012
A bas Kolera, a bas Minista,– Creole for “down with cholera, down with MINUSTAH,” the United Nation peacekeeping force in Haiti – can be seen spray-painted across Port-au-Prince. After years of scandal, including allegations of sexual abuse and accusations of introducing cholera into the country, many Haitians want the UN’s third-largest peacekeeping force to leave. But despite calls to leave, the UN Security Council, which recently made a visit to the country to assess its mission, foresees a UN military presence in the country for years to come.
→ read full articleFrance to EU: Stop Monsanto’s Corn
Common Dreams staff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
France has asked the European regulators to suspend the authorization to plant Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) MON810 corn. France’s ecology minister says the decision is based on studies showing GM crops “pose significant risks for the environment.”
→ read full articleBreakfast Order
TMS Editor,
27 Feb 2012
A resident in a posh hotel breakfast room called over the head waiter one morning and read from the menu.
→ read full articleMetaphorical Insights from the Patterns of Academic Disciplines
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
This document explores use of a particular metaphor from physics as a means of articulating understandings of openness and closedness in support of individual or collective identity. It follows from consideration of pattern language in a more general argument (Way Round Cognitive Ground Zero and Pointlessness: embodying the geometry of fundamental cognitive dynamics, 2012) of which it is is Annex D.
→ read full articleLimits to Growth and Fractional Reserve Banking
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
Economists (with a few notable exceptions) have long behaved as though growth were synonymous with economic health. If the gross national product increases steadily most economists express approval and say that the economy is healthy. If the growth rate should fall, economic illness would be diagnosed. However, it is obvious that on a finite Earth, neither population growth nor economic growth can continue indefinitely.
→ read full articleThe Best Information Is Quantum Information
Joseph Emerson – Al Jazeera,
27 Feb 2012
Quantum computing could revolutionise the field of cryptography, with major implications for privacy and security.
→ read full articleJapan’s Spiritual Crisis
Johan Galtung, 27 Feb 2012 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
This author published with Ikuro Anzai, ‘Nippon wa Kikikan’, Is Japan in a Crisis? And the answer was yes, a spiritual crisis. Japan sold its soul to Washington, and is left in a spiritual vacuum; neither US nor Japan. Walking through the marvelous bullet train, Shinkansen, only sad, grey, tired faces; no laughter, no enhancing conversation seen or heard.
→ read full article
ACTA Blueprint for a Global Takeover of the Internet (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
occupyvancouvermedia – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
ACTA – The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is yet another treaty being developed by the global elite in an attempt to censor the internet and block the free flow of information.
→ read full articleBan Ki-moon Hails Latin American Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone on 45th Anniversary
UN News Centre- TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
14 February 2012 – On the 45th anniversary of the treaty that created a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today hailed the pact as an example of how regional initiatives can advance global norms on nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of atomic energy.
→ read full articleIcelandic Anger Brings Debt Forgiveness in Best Recovery Story
Omar R. Valdimarsson - Bloomberg,
27 Feb 2012
Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association. “You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis. Any economist would agree with that.”
→ read full articleSaving Khader Adnan’s Life and Legacy
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
It is a great relief to those millions around the world who were moved to prayer and action by Khader Adnan’s extraordinary hunger strike of 66 days that has ended due to Israel’s agreement to release him on April 17 [2012].
→ read full articleThe European Union and the Rhetoric of Immaturity
Michael Marder – Al Jazeera,
27 Feb 2012
The tendency to infantalise select member states is in line with their animalisation, evident in the insulting abbreviation of Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain in the word PIGS, neither as human nor as rational as the rest of the EU countries. Throughout Western philosophy, both children and animals, with their capricious wills, have been considered deficient from the standpoint of fully developed rational adults and, hence, in need of training, education, and disciplining.
→ read full articlePain Without Gain
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics laureate – The New York Times,
27 Feb 2012
Last week the European Commission confirmed what everyone suspected: the economies it surveys are shrinking, not growing. It’s not an official recession yet, but the only real question is how deep the downturn will be. Look, I understand why influential people are reluctant to admit that policy ideas they thought reflected deep wisdom actually amounted to utter, destructive folly. But it’s time to put delusional beliefs about the virtues of austerity in a depressed economy behind us.
→ read full articleBP Goes to Court
Dahr Jamail – Al Jazeera,
27 Feb 2012
The largest environmental trial in US history begins February 27 [2012], as BP is sued for its 2010 oil spill disaster.
→ read full articleGreece: The Epicenter of Global Pillage
Stephen Lendman – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
Predatory bankers make serial killers look good by comparison. Their business model creates crises to facilitate grand theft, financial terrorism, and debt entrapment. They steal all material wealth and then some, and systematically rob investors and strip mine economies for self-enrichment. They demand they get paid first and hold nations hostage to assure it, turn crises into catastrophes and leave mass impoverishment, high unemployment, neo-serfdom, and human wreckage in their wake.
→ read full articleForgetting the Past, One Military Movie at a Time
David Sirota – In These Times,
27 Feb 2012
When the entertainment industry gets in bed with the Pentagon, censorship is inevitable.
→ read full articleTop Social Media Websites Caught Censoring Controversial Content
Washington’s Blog – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2012
Facebook pays low-wage foreign workers to delete certain content based upon a censorship list. For example, it deletes accounts created by Palestinian resistance groups. Digg was caught censoring stories which were controversial or too critical of the government. See this and this. Now, even social media site Reddit – which helped launch the anti-Sopa Internet blackout and publicize GoDaddy’s slimy Sopa support – is doing the same thing.
→ read full articleBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement: The Power of the People at Work
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
27 Feb 2012
The issue is not about hummus, chocolate bars or Dead Sea vacations. It is about civil society taking full responsibility for its own actions (or lack of). The issue is not exactly about Israeli products either, but rather about how even a seemingly innocent decision like buying Israeli dates may enable the continued subjugation of the Palestinian people.
→ read full articleHappy Savages
Robert Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
“John is a savage, but a happy, amenable savage.” Thus intones the voice on a ’50s-era newsreel clip in the documentary, showing footage of seven male Marshall Islanders who have been brought to the United States for radiation testing. “John is mayor of Rongelap Atoll. John reads, knows about God and is a pretty good mayor.” The film does a stunning job juxtaposing examples of our smug ignorance of South Sea culture with the reality of what we did to it. John the happy savage is actually John Anjain, who is one of many former residents of Rongelap Atoll interviewed in the film. He talks about his thyroid cancer, the thyroid cancer of three of his children and one grandson, and about the death of another son from leukemia.
→ read full article“Losing” the World: American Decline in Perspective (Part 1)
Noam Chomsky - TomDispatch,
20 Feb 2012
Significant anniversaries are solemnly commemorated — Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, for example. Others are ignored. At the moment, we are failing to commemorate the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s decision to launch the most destructive and murderous act of aggression of the post-World War II period: the invasion of South Vietnam. The threat of socialist democracy in Chile was ended on another forgotten date, what Latin Americans call “the first 9/11,” which in violence and bitter effects far exceeded the 9/11 commemorated in the West.
→ read full articleThe Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective (Part 2)
Noam Chomsky – TomDispatch,
20 Feb 2012
In the past decade, for the first time in 500 years, South America has taken successful steps to free itself from western domination. The region has moved towards integration, and has begun to address some of the terrible internal problems of societies ruled by mostly Europeanized elites. They have also rid themselves of all U.S. military bases and of IMF controls. A newly formed organization, CELAC, includes all countries of the hemisphere apart from the U.S. and Canada. If it actually functions, that would be another step in American decline, in this case in what has always been regarded as “the backyard.”
→ read full article(Portuguese) O ACTA Ameaça a Net
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Quem nunca ouviu um CD emprestado, viu um DVD de um amigo, recorreu a uma biblioteca? A partilha de bens culturais sempre existiu. Na era digital, tem especificidades próprias, mas é falso que a cópia de um ficheiro não autorizado seja um ‘roubo’. Os Estados Unidos assinaram o ACTA em outubro [2011], assim como a Austrália, o Canadá, a Coreia do Sul e o Japão. A 26 de Janeiro [2012], 22 países europeus e a Comissão Europeia assinaram-no igualmente. Entraria em vigor depois de seis Estados signatários o terem ratificado. Nenhum o fez até à data. E, se depender das populações, tudo indica que nenhum o fará.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Banned From UN Conference on WikiLeaks
Common Dreams staff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
WikiLeaks has lodged a strong protest with the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) for “banning’’ it from an international conference it is hosting at its headquarters in Paris on the impact of the whistle-blower website’s activities. It said the U.S. organizers of the two-day conference, which opened on Thursday [16 Feb 2012], had “stacked’’ it with WikiLeaks’ opponents and “blocked all speakers from WikiLeaks, stating that the decision to censor WikiLeaks representation was an exercise in ‘freedom of expression… our right to give voice to speakers of our choice’’.”
→ read full articleWhen Is An ‘NGO’ Not An NGO? Twists and Turns Beneath the Cairo Skies
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
A confusing controversy between the United States and Egypt is unfolding. It has already raised tensions in the relationship between the two countries to a level that has not existed for decades. It results from moves by the military government in Cairo to go forward with the criminal prosecution of 43 foreigners, including 19 Americans, for unlawfully carrying on the work of unlicensed public interest organizations that improperly, according to Egyptian law, depend for their budget on foreign funding.
→ read full articleIceland’s Viking Victory
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – The Telegraph,
20 Feb 2012
Congratulations to Iceland. Fitch has upgraded the country to investment grade BBB – with stable outlook, expecting government debt to peak at 100pc of GDP. The OECD’s latest forecast said growth will be 2.4pc this year, after 2.9pc in 2011. Unemployment will fall from 7pc last year to 6.1pc this year and then 5.3pc in 2013.
→ read full articleThe Big Green Question
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Is environmentalism compatible with social justice? Journalists writing for the corporate press, with views somewhere to the right of Vlad the Impaler and no prior record of concern for the poor, suddenly become their doughty champions when the interests of the proprietorial class are threatened. If tar sands cannot be extracted in Canada, they maintain, subsistence farmers in Africa will starve. If Tesco’s profits are threatened, children will die of malaria. When it is done cleverly, promoting the interests of corporations and the ultra-rich under the guise of concern for the poor is an effective public relations strategy.
→ read full articlePreventing a Nuclear Iran, Peacefully
Shibley Telhami and Steven Kull – International Herald Tribune,
20 Feb 2012
Despite all the talk of an “existential threat,” less than half of Israelis support a strike on Iran. According to our November poll, carried out in cooperation with the Dahaf Institute in Israel, only 43 percent of Israeli Jews support a military strike on Iran. Most important, when asked whether it would be better for both Israel and Iran to have the bomb, or for neither to have it, 65 percent of Israeli Jews said neither. And a remarkable 64 percent favored the idea of a nuclear-free zone, even when it was explained that this would mean Israel giving up its nuclear weapons.
→ read full articleWho is Threatening Whom? 45 US Bases Surround Iran
Information Clearing House – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Each star on the map is a US base. But just to be clear, Iran is the one that is threatening the US.
→ read full articleChevron Rig Burns Off Nigeria as Damage Hits Shore
Sapa-AP – Times Live, South Africa,
20 Feb 2012
The burning inferno of what used to be a Chevron Corp. natural gas rig still stains the night’s sky orange more than two weeks after the rig caught fire, and no one can say when it will end as swarms of dead fish surface.
→ read full articleHow Did Rwanda Cut Poverty So Much?
Emily Alpert – Los Angeles Times,
20 Feb 2012
The small African nation of Rwanda recently announced that it had cut poverty by 12% in six years, from 57% of its population to 45%. That equals roughly a million Rwandans emerging from poverty — one of the most stunning drops in the world.
→ read full articlePrivate Prison Company to Demand 90% Occupancy
Noel Brinkerhoff & David Wallechinsky, AllGov – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) has reached out to 48 states as part of a $250 million plan to own existing prisons and manage their operations. But in return CCA wants a 20-year contract and assurances that the state will keep the prisons at least 90% full.
→ read full articleSaving Khader Adnan’s Life Saves Our Own Soul
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
The world watches as tragedy unfolds beneath its gaze as Khader Asnan enters his 63rd day as a hunger striker in an Israeli prison being held under an administrative detention order without trial, without charges, and without any indication of the evidence against him.
→ read full articleWorld Day of Social Justice: The People’s Revolution is On the March
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
The United Nations General Assembly, on the initiative of Nurbch Jeenbrev, the Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to the U.N. in New York, has proclaimed 20 February as the “World Day of Social Justice”.
→ read full articleMali’s Plan to Probe Child Labour in Gold Mines
Africa News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
‘Our research found that children in Mali start working as young as six years old. Many child laborers are denied an education or drop out of school. Some children come to the mines without their parents and suffer economic or sexual exploitation,’ Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Minister of Mines, Amadou Cisse.
→ read full articleLatin America Seeks to Spread Nuclear-Free Zones
Emilio Godoy – Inter Press Service-IPS,
20 Feb 2012
Latin America and the Caribbean are discussing ways to step up supervision of the use of nuclear materials in the region and contribute to the creation of more nuclear weapons-free zones around the world, on the 45th anniversary of the treaty that banned nuclear arms in the region.
→ read full articleDespite Safety Worries, Work on Deadly Flu to Be Released
Denise Grady – The New York Times,
20 Feb 2012
The full details of recent experiments that made a deadly flu virus more contagious will be published, probably within a few months, despite recommendations by the United States that some information be kept secret for fear that terrorists could use it to start epidemics. The announcement, made on Friday [17 Feb 2012] by the World Health Organization, follows two months of heated debate about the flu research.
→ read full articleA Story and a Book
Matt Meyer – New Clear Vision,
20 Feb 2012
On the Nature of Violence and Nonviolence – Nonviolence (a term some have called ‘a word seeking to describe something by saying what it is not’) is used in as wide a variety of ways as there are flavors of ice cream. Violence, as we sadly know too well, goes well beyond war to include domestic violence, random street crime, repression, and even poverty — responsible for more death than most other forms combined.
→ read full articleHonduras: Our Continuing Catastrophe
Mark Engler – Dissent Magazine,
20 Feb 2012
Honduras has become a human rights disaster. The country now has the world’s highest murder rate. And impunity for political violence is the norm. For all this, the United States deserves a good deal of the blame. I was pleased to see the New York Times recently publish a hard-hitting op-ed by Dana Frank that makes this case.
→ read full articleAnti-Drug Vaccines Hold Promise – But Little Profit
Emilio Godoy – Inter Press Service-IPS,
20 Feb 2012
Vaccines against drug addiction appear to be a better strategy than the repressive worldwide “war on drugs”, but first they must overcome resistance from pharmaceutical laboratories and secure financial backing, scientists say.
→ read full articleFalse Flag? Bombing Puts India’s Trade Ties with Iran to the Test
Mayank Bhardwaj, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
“There are U.N. sanctions which India honours, those don’t cover the export of a vast range of products which India can export to Iran,” Trade Secretary Rahul Khullar said. “If the EU and the U.S. both want to stop exports to that country, please tell me why I should follow suit? Why shouldn’t I take up that business opportunity?” Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center said that India will find it increasingly difficult to placate both Iran, on the one hand, and the United States and Israel on the other.
→ read full articleDelhi Bomb Blast and India’s Options
Debidatta Aurobinda Mahapatra – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
The bomb blast in New Delhi on 13 February 2012 has certainly raised India’s stakes in highly contested debate on international terrorism. The combination of its domestic policy matrix, its approach to extremism and radicalism, and its external policies and posturing will put India in a tough place in crafting decisions which may be difficult but necessary.
→ read full articleWashington’s Insouciance Has No Rival
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Washington is now in the second decade of murdering Muslim men, women, and children in six countries. Washington is so concerned with human rights that it drops bombs on schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals, all in order to uphold the human rights of Muslim people. You see, bombing liberates Muslim women from having to wear the burka and from male domination.
→ read full article(Italian) La (Dis)Informazione a Senso Unico
Marinella Correggia, Il Manifesto – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Si Ripete la Stessa Operazione Mediatica: Come Per la «Guerra Umanitaria» in Libia
→ read full articleRothschilds Want Iran’s Banks
Pete Papaherakles – American Free Press,
20 Feb 2012
The Rothschilds exert powerful influence over the world’s major news agencies. By repetition, the masses are duped into believing horror stories about evil villains. The Rothschilds control the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements. Also they own most of the gold in the world as well as the London Gold Exchange, which sets the price of gold every day. It is said the family owns over half the wealth of the planet—estimated by Credit Suisse to be $231 trillion—and is controlled by Evelyn Rothschild, the current head of the family.
→ read full articleThou Shalt Not Kill (Thyself)
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
I believe that the people of Israel – the Israeli nation – have the will to survive. But in order to survive, they must wake up from their apathetic stupor and change course – turning towards peace based on the two-state solution, separating the state from religion and building a new social order.
→ read full articleEuropean Parliament Resolution on Parliament’s Position on the 19th Session of the UN Human Rights Council
Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
14 Feb 2012 – The European Parliament,
→ read full articleThe Invincible Military-Industrial Complex
Veronique de Rugy - Reason Magazine,
20 Feb 2012
Today we are living Ike’s nightmare. Defense spending is not just one of the most sacrosanct parts of the budget but also one of the largest and most inscrutable. Adjusting for inflation, military spending has grown for an unprecedented 13 consecutive years and is now higher than at any time since World War II. Even excluding war costs, the military baseline budget has grown by about 50 percent during the last decade.
→ read full articleSS = Scout Snipers: US Marines Adopt Nazi Goons Emblem
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
This picture showing a US Marine scout sniper team posing in front of what appears as a flag of the notorious Nazi organization SS, has surfaced online. The Marine Corps confirmed that the embarrassing photo taken in Afghanistan is real.
→ read full article
Arts, Culture and Peacebuilding (Video of the Week)
Dominik ‘Nik’ Lehnert | XCHANGEperspectives – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
In this video Basti, Frank and Nik reflect on Xchange Perspectives’ work in South Sudan since 2005. Dominik ‘Nik’ Lehnert is TRANSCEND Media Service’s Video Production Assistant.
→ read full articleNir Rosen on Syria’s Protest Movement
Al Jazeera staff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Journalist Nir Rosen recently spent two months in Syria. As well as meeting members of various communities across the country – supporters of the country’s rulers and of the opposition alike – he spent time with armed resistance groups in Homs, Idlib, Deraa, and Damascus suburbs. He also travelled extensively around the country last year, documenting his experiences for Al Jazeera.
→ read full article450 Bases and It’s Not Over Yet: The Pentagon’s Afghan Basing Plans for Prisons, Drones, and Black Ops
Nick Turse - TomDispatch,
20 Feb 2012
Despite all the talk of drawdowns and withdrawals, there has been a years-long building boom in Afghanistan that shows little sign of abating. In early 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had nearly 400 bases in Afghanistan. Today the number tops 450. The hush-hush, high-tech, super-secure facility at the massive air base in Kandahar is just one of many building projects the U.S. military currently has planned or underway in Afghanistan.
→ read full articleTurkey’s Civilian-Military Complex
Pinar Kemerli – Al Jazeera,
20 Feb 2012
The plight of conscientious objectors in the country shows that the country has not eclipsed its military past.
→ read full article
Exposed: Scientology’s Secret Child Labour Camp
7 News, Australia – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
The true Australian headquarters of the Church of Scientology are located in the Sydney suburb of Dundas. The RPF base – which stands for Rehabilitation Project Force – is where Scientologists are sent for punishment and training, for crimes that most of us would regard as trivial.
→ read full article‘Global Square’: WikiLeaks-Backed Activist Platform Launching in March
Common Dreams staff – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
WikiLeaks Central announced a “Call to Coders” Tuesday [14 Feb 2012] as they prepare for the March launch of the “first massive decentralized social network in the history of the Internet.” The goal of the Global Square is to perpetuate and spread the creative and cooperative spirit of the occupations and transform this into lasting forms of social organization, at the global as well as the local level.
→ read full articleGM Food Is a Commercial Flop in Europe
The Green Times – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
Greenpeace announced in Brussels recently that annual industry figures to be released early next week are expected to confirm the commercial failure of genetically modified (GM) food in Europe.
→ read full articleMonsanto Guilty of Chemical Poisoning in France
Marion Douet, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2012
A French court on Monday [13 Feb 2012] declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto(MON.N) guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.
→ read full articleInstalling a Carpet
TMS Editor,
20 Feb 2012
A carpet layer had just finished installing carpet for a lady. He stepped out for a smoke, only to realize he’d lost his cigarettes.
→ read full articleFrom Syria to Haiti: Another Showcase of Western Hypocrisy
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
Haitian justice decided not to prosecute Haitian dictator ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier for human rights crimes during his grueling regime. The so called free west is not going to do anything about Baby Doc Duvalier, just as it will not act against the medieval monarchies of Bahrain or Saudi Arabia. If human rights were the issue, Baby Doc would be front page news, the top story in the news. He isn’t. He’s our guy. Not like that scoundrel Assad who is not our guy. The first is OK, the latter has to go. Now you know why.
→ read full articleFor a Latin America Free from Colonialism – The Malvinas Islands Are Argentinean
Socorro Gomes, World Peace Council – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
The decision made in several multilateral forums – such as Mercosur, Unasur and Alba – with a view to support the Argentinean claim so that England returns to negotiations, therefore complying with the United Nations resolutions on the issue, constitutes a significant fact in Latin American solidarity. In defense of a peaceful continent, free from colonialism and foreign military bases.
→ read full articleContesting Ivory Tower Housing Solutions for Haiti
Deepa Panchang – Toward Freedom,
13 Feb 2012
Deutsche Bank and the Clinton Foundation brought on board a joint team from Harvard University and MIT to help design housing strategy for the ‘exemplar’ project. John McAslan & Partners, a British architecture firm, was engaged to help design a “comprehensive community development strategy.” Yet there was no community; the Harvard-MIT design team was designing according to its own ideas, in a vacuum, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. As of October 2011, the team had spent exactly one afternoon meeting with existing residents in Zoranje.
→ read full articleGermany Refuses to Sign Copyright Treaty
Monsters and Critics – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
Germany will not sign an international copyright treaty, despite having already agreed to it in principle, government sources in Berlin said Friday [10 Feb 2012], after protests over its implications for internet users. Tens of thousands were expected to take part in protests in 60 German cities on Saturday [11 Feb 2012], while the international coordinator of the campaign group Stopp ACTA told dpa that it expected 150,000 to 200,000 protests to take place worldwide.
→ read full articleCrimes against Humanity: The Torture of Palestinian Children
Stephen Lendman – Global Research,
13 Feb 2012
On December 28 [2011], it submitted a complaint [PDF] to several UN authorities titled, “The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention.” It’s specifically for five children held at Al Jalame and Petah Tikva interrogation centers in Israel. Their cases follow 29 others since February 2008. At both facilities, “solitary confinement is routinely used.”
→ read full articleWith Arabs Taking Control of Their Fate, Is the UN Still Relevant?
Sarah Mousa – Al Jazeera,
13 Feb 2012
The UN Security Council stands as a relic of a past age; rather than voicing global concerns, it is a platform for permanent members to confirm the hierarchy of the world order. The five permanent members each individually have the authority to veto any resolution. The veto is often used by these great powers not out of concern for keeping peace, as the council was supposedly created to do, but to secure perceived interests – however contradictory they may be to basic principles of humanity.
→ read full articleLiberal Constipation
George Monbiot – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2012
Conservatism is linked to low intelligence; but the real idiots are the progressives letting it win. Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today’s progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation.
→ read full article