Articles by M
We found 36604 results.
A Day in November
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
THIS TUESDAY will be the 64th anniversary of a fateful day for our lives. A day in November. A day to remember. On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted, by 33 votes against 13 (with 10 abstentions), the Palestine Partition Plan.
→ read full articlePulling Accounts from the Unaccountable
Amy Goodman – Nation of Change,
28 Nov 2011
Just after the financial crash in late 2008, activists in Oregon started looking into the creation of a state bank, modeled after the only state-owned bank in the United States, in North Dakota. The cities of Portland and Seattle are now looking into shifting their massive municipal accounts away from the Wall Street banks. According to one report, Bank of America may lose upward of $185 billion from customers closing accounts.
→ read full articlePeace Activism Can Be Spontaneous Too
Amir Telibečirović Lunjo in Sarajevo – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
Sarajevo Haggadah, a unique book in its significance, is one of the oldest Sephardic Jewish Haggadahs in the world. It originated approximately 700 years ago in Spain. Bosnian Muslim scholar, Derviš Korkut, risked his life to hide this precious Jewish manuscript from Nazis during World War II.
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Goldman Sachs and Europe’s “Inside Job”
france24english, Media Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
Goldman Sachs has infiltrated senior positions of power across Europe, says Le Monde’s London correspondent, Marc Roche. The Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy as well as the new head of the European Central Bank all have close ties to the bank.
→ read full articleOccupy Peace
David Krieger – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The Occupy movement is demonstrating its durability and perseverance. Like a Daruma doll, each time it is knocked off balance it serenely pops back up. The movement has been seeking justice for the 99 percent, and justice is an essential element of peace. World military expenditures exceed $1.5 trillion annually, and the United States spends more than half of this amount, more than the rest of the world combined. In the nuclear age, war is far too dangerous; it has the potential to end civilization and most life on the planet. Peace is an imperative.
→ read full article(Italian) Tutte le Bombe del Presidente
Manlio Dinucci – Centro Studi Sereno Regis,
28 Nov 2011
Vi ha provveduto la Boeing, che una settimana fa ha annunciato di aver cominciato a fornire alla U.S. Air Force, da settembre, una nuova superbomba da 30mila libbre, denominata Mop (Massive Ordnance Penetrator). Con il suo peso di quasi 14 tonnellate e la testata a uranio impoverito, può penetrare attraverso 60 metri di cemento armato, distruggendo il bunker sotterraneo con la detonazione di due tonnellate e mezza di alto esplosivo.
→ read full article(Italian) Sigonella, Capitale Degli Aerei Senza Pilota USA
Antonio Mazzeo – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
Aerei senza pilota a gogò per la base Usa di Sigonella. Dopo l’utilizzo come avamposto per le missioni d’intelligence e bombardamento in Libia dei famigerati droni delle forze armate degli Stati Uniti d’America, dal prossimo anno l’infrastruttura siciliana sarà una dei principali centri al mondo per il comando, il controllo e la manutenzione dei velivoli telecomandati “Global Hawk”, “Predator” e “Reaper”.
→ read full articleUnreported Horrors – Male Rape in DR Congo
Moses Seruwagi – Inter Press Service-IPS,
28 Nov 2011
They are men who have lost all pride and self-confidence and who have been left severely traumatised by their experience. At the medical centre in Uganda where they are being treated, they talked candidly about the crimes carried out against them. Male rape has been prevalent as a weapon of war in many conflict zones and also in prison cells. But since these crimes are mostly unreported, also because the focus is on female victims, the extent of the problem is unknown. What is known is that male victims face horrendous problems in recovering.
→ read full articleToward A Jurisprudence of Conscience
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The existence of double standards is part of the deep structure of world politics. It was even given constitutional status by being written into the Charter of the United Nations that permits the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, that is the winners in 1945, to exercise a veto over any decision affecting the peace and security of the world, thereby exempting the world’s most dangerous states, being the most militarily powerful and expansionist, from any obligation to uphold international law.
→ read full articleLanguage, Law, and Truth
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
It may be time to acknowledge that governmental lawlessness in foreign policy has become a bipartisan reality for the United States Government, and that the face in the White House or the political party in control, while not yet irrelevant, is a matter of secondary interest, at least to those who are drone targets or torture victims.
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Middle Kingdom (1/2)
CrossTalk, Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Are we heading into a China-centric world? Will it threaten or benefit the West? Will China bail out the eurozone, and how will Europe repay? Can China offer the world a new political and economic model?
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Middle Kingdom (2/2)
CrossTalk, Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Are we heading into a China-centric world? Will it threaten or benefit the West? Will China bail out the eurozone, and how will Europe repay? Can China offer the world a new political and economic model?
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Prof. Johan Galtung Supports the Leaderless 99%/Occupy Movement Worldwide (Video of the Week)
rconcep1 – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Prof. Johan Galtung lends his support to the leaderless 99%/Occupy Movement and gives some expert advice to worldwide participants.
→ read full article(Castellano) Miles de Estadounidenses Exigieron Cierre Definitivo de Escuela de las Américas
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Una persona detenida fue el saldo de una multitudinaria protesta pacífica este domingo [20 Nov 2011] al sureste de Estados Unidos (EE.UU.), que exigía el cierre definitivo de la cuestionada Escuela de las Américas y el adiestramiento de militares latinoamericanos en ella, denunciaron los organizadores.
→ read full articleTobacco Giant Sues Australia over Package Law
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Philip Morris, one of the world’s largest tobacco companies, has announced that it is suing the Australian government over a new law requiring all cigarettes to be sold in plain packages. “We are left with no option,” Anne Edwards, a Philip Morris Asia spokesperson, said in a statement on Monday [21 Nov 2011].
→ read full articleTime Banking: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Edgar Cahn – YES! Magazine,
21 Nov 2011
Why let the availability of money determine the range of the possible? Time banks are taking off, in ways you never expected. Twenty-five years ago, we started the first experiments with a different kind of money that provided a new way to link untapped community capacity to unmet needs. Time banking refuses to grant money a monopoly on the definition of value, instead creating a new kind of money originally called “service credits.”
→ read full articleOn (Im)Balance and Credibility in America: Israel/Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
I could not begin to count the number of times friends, and adversaries, have give me the following general line of advice: your views on Israel/Palestine would gain a much wider hearing if they showed more sympathy for Israel’s position and concerns, that is, if they were more ‘balanced.’
→ read full articleBilderberg Leader Mario Monti Takes Over Italy in “Coup”
Alex Newman – The New American,
21 Nov 2011
Italy’s new Prime Minister Mario Monti, who rose to power in what critics called a “coup d’etat,” is a prominent member of the world elite in the truest sense of the term. In fact, he is a leader in at least two of the most influential cabals in existence today: the secretive Bilderberg Group and David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission.
→ read full articleOccupy Movement: Two Texts in Solidarity
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
I wish to disseminate two texts that I have signed in support of the Occupy Movement. United for #Global Democracy deserves careful study and reflection. We got comments, suggestions, support, and wrote and rewrote it again and again. The text has been supported by Canadian-based Naomi Klein, Indian-based Vandana Shiva, the US-based Michael Hardt and Noam Chomsky, as well as Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano.
→ read full articleThrowing out the Master’s Tools and Building a Better House
Rebecca Solnit – Common Dreams,
21 Nov 2011
Thoughts on the Importance of Nonviolence in the Occupy Revolution – Violence is what the police use. It’s what the state uses. If we want a revolution, it’s because we want a better world, because we think we have a bigger imagination, a more beautiful vision. So we’re not violent; we’re not like them in crucial ways.
→ read full articleBest Job in the Neighborhood—And They Own It
Susan Arterian Chang – YES! Magazine,
21 Nov 2011
How worker co-ops are expanding despite the rust-belt economy.
→ read full articleIran and the I.A.E.A.
Seymour M. Hersh – The New Yorker,
21 Nov 2011
“I’ve been reporting on Iran and the bomb for The New Yorker for the past decade, with a focus on the repeatedly inability of the best and the brightest of the Joint Special Operations Command to find definitive evidence of a nuclear-weapons production program in Iran.”
→ read full articleSocial Remainders from Psychosocial Remaindering
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Review of Current Usage and Implications – Prepared as an aid to reflection on the world of “remaindered people” currently of concern to the Occupy movement.
→ read full articleThe Lies of Free Market Democracy
Vandana Shiva – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Freedom in our times has been sold as “free market democracy”. “Free markets” mean freedom for corporations to exploit whom and what they want, where they want, how they want. It means the end of freedom for people and nature everywhere. “Free market democracy” is in fact an oxymoron which has deluded us into believing that deregulation of corporations means freedom for us.
→ read full articleReturning the Favor
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
A man asked his neighbor, “May I read your newspaper when you are done with it?”
→ read full article(Portuguese) FMI Atribui a Ex-Funcionários Pensões Superiores a 7 Mil Euros
Esquerda.net – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
Os planos de reforma do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) prevêem que os trabalhadores aufiram pensões vitalícias a partir dos 50 anos. Ao mesmo tempo que impõe cortes salariais e diminuição das pensões em países como Irlanda, Grécia e Portugal, o FMI distribui pelos seus ex-funcionários pensões que chegam a ultrapassar os 7 mil euros mensais.
→ read full articleRemilitarisation of Africa Set to Fail
Horace Campbell - InDepth News,
21 Nov 2011
Kenya’s foray into Somalia, led from behind by U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), represents a heightened threat to peace and reconstruction in Africa, especially East Africa. This Western-supported incursion is more against the Kenyan people than against the forces of Al-Shabaab, or whatever name that will be given to the musical chairs of military entrepreneurs in Somalia.
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Deadly Monopolies: Medical Ethicist Harriet Washington on How Firms Are Taking Over Life
Amy Goodman – Democracy NOW!,
21 Nov 2011
(8-min Interview) Our guest, Harriet Washington, is a medical ethicist and has just published a book that examines the extent to which what she calls the medical-industrial complex has come to control human life. In the past 30 years, more than 40,000 patents have been granted on genes alone — many more patents are pending. Washington argues that the biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies patenting these genes are more concerned with profit than with the health or medical needs of patients.
→ read full articleWar Is a Force That Pays the 1 Percent: Occupying American Foreign Policy
J.A. Myerson - Truthout,
21 Nov 2011
If the last decades were the era of occupations that everyone called liberations, then the 99 percent movement is seeking to make this the era of liberations everyone calls occupations. It’s clear that the interests of the majority of people do not align with the military-industrial complex that put corporate profiteering based on destruction ahead of the needs of people. The 1 percent knows what good business war is, owing to America’s insatiable will to spend on military affairs.
→ read full articlePolitical Crisis in Italy and Greece: Marx on ‘Technical Government’
Prof. Marcello Musto – The Bullet,
21 Nov 2011
In recent years Karl Marx has again been featured in the world’s press because of his prescient insights into the cyclical and structural character of capitalist crises. In the last thirty years, the powers of decision-making have passed inexorably from the political to the economic sphere. The events of recent days in Greece and Italy are a striking illustration of these tendencies. Behind the facade of the term ‘technical government’ – or ‘government of all the talents,’ as it was known in Marx’s day – we can make out a suspension of politics (no referendum, no elections) that supposedly hands over the whole field to economics.
→ read full articleThe Brave New World of Occupy Wall Street
Amy Goodman – truthdig,
21 Nov 2011
We got word just after 1 a.m. Tuesday [15 Nov 2011] that New York City police were raiding the Occupy Wall Street encampment. Hundreds of riot police surrounded the area. As they ripped down the tents, city sanitation workers were throwing the protesters’ belongings into dump trucks. I spotted a single book on the ground. It was marked “OWSL,” for Occupy Wall Street Library, also known as the People’s Library. By the latest count, it had accumulated 5,000 donated books. The one I found, amidst the debris of democracy that was being hauled off to the dump, was “Brave New World Revisited,” by Aldous Huxley.
→ read full articleDark Economics Fuels Burma’s Perpetual War
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
For the past 200 years at least, Burma has been seen as a strategic venue by outside powers, be they European imperialists such as the French and the British in the 19th Century, or the 20th Century imperial and fascist powers of the US and Japan during the Second World War. These countries have always seen Burma as a commercial backdoor to China and India, a military launching pad, a half-way safe harbour, and a resource brothel.
→ read full article
Bomb, Build, Benefit: UK Joins Gold Rush to Patch up War-Torn Libya
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
NATO may have ended its operations in Libya, but the Western presence is far from over – with big companies replacing the warplanes. The countries that bombed the oil-rich country are now getting lucrative contracts to rebuild it.
→ read full articleGlobal Revolution after Tahrir Square
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
This history-making global Occupy Movement with a presence in over 900 cities would not have happened without the revolutionary awakening culminating in driving Hosni Mubarak from Egyptian state power. We need also to acknowledge that the courage exhibited by those gathered at Tahrir Square might not have been exhibited to the world if not for the earlier charismatic self-immolating martyrdom of an unlicenced street vendor of vegetables, Mohamed Bouazi, in the interior Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010.
→ read full articleGreece’s Loan-Shark Government
Socialist Worker – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2011
The handover of governmental power to former European Central Bank official Lucas Papadimos is a stark symbol of who really holds power, how decision-making has been delivered directly to the bankers–to the local and international loan sharks.
→ read full articleCapitalism vs. the Climate
Naomi Klein – The Nation,
21 Nov 2011
Responding to climate change requires that we break every rule in the free-market playbook and that we do so with great urgency. We will need to rebuild the public sphere, reverse privatizations, relocalize large parts of economies, scale back overconsumption, bring back long-term planning, heavily regulate and tax corporations, maybe even nationalize some of them, cut military spending and recognize our debts to the global South.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Mente Animal e Tolerância
Marcela Godoy – ANDA-Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais,
21 Nov 2011
Descartes [em 1630] defendia a tese de que os animais eram meros autômatos, tal como os relógios, “desprovidos da mente e alma” e “incapazes de ter sensações” (Thomas, 2010 p. 43).
→ read full articleAbdul Ghaffar Khan International Peace-Builder Award to Prof. Johan Galtung
TMS Editor,
21 Nov 2011
The American Muslim Alliance Foundation-AMA on 14 Nov 2011 honored Prof. Johan Galtung, the founder of the academic discipline of peace studies, with the Abdul Ghaffar Khan International Peace-Builder Award.
→ read full articleEurope Bans X-Ray Body Scanners Used at U.S. Airports
Michael Grabell – ProPublica,
21 Nov 2011
The European Union on Monday [14 Nov 2011] prohibited the use of X-ray body scanners in European airports, parting ways with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. The European Commission, which enforces common policies of the EU’s 27 member countries, adopted the rule “in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens’ health and safety.” X-ray body scanners use ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to damage DNA and cause cancer.”
→ read full articleBig Change Whether We Like It or Not: Only Washington Is Clueless
Andrew Bacevich – TomDispatch,
21 Nov 2011
By attributing cosmic significance to every novelty and declaring every unexpected event a revolution, self-assigned interpreters of the contemporary scene — politicians and pundits above all — exacerbate the problem of distinguishing between the trivial and the non-trivial. Arrangements that once conferred immense prerogatives upon the United States are coming undone. In Washington, the governing class pretends that none of this is happening, stubbornly insisting that it’s still 1945 with the so-called American Century destined to continue (reflecting, of course, God’s express intentions).
→ read full articleNew 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 article