Articles by M
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Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal: Bush and Blair Guilty
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
This is a modified version of a text published by Al Jazeera. It is a sequel to the piece entitled “Toward a Jurisprudence of Conscience,” and will be followed by an assessment of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine session in Cape Town, South Africa investigating the allegations that Israel is guilty of imposing apartheid on the Palestinian people, considered by the Rome Treaty framework of the International Criminal Court to be a crime against humanity.
→ read full article15 Foods High in Folic Acid
Dr. Edward Group, Global Healing Center – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
Folic acid, also known as vitamin B9, is perhaps most well known for its applications in the prevention of fetal deformities, Alzheimer’s disease, as well as several types of cancer. The good news is that there are many rich sources of folic acid that are easy to incorporate into your daily diet. Physiologically, consuming enough folic acid allows the body to perform many of its essential functions, including nucleotide biosynthesis in cells, DNA synthesis and repair, red blood cell creation, and also helps to prevent anemia.
→ read full articleHaitians to U.N.: Please Leave
Rebecca Burns – In These Times,
5 Dec 2011
Amid allegations of serious abuses, a growing number of Haitians want peacekeeping forces out of their country. Haiti is the only country in the world where a peacekeeping mission operates under a U.N. Chapter VII mandate—permitting it to use force—absent an active conflict or an enforceable peace agreement.
→ read full article(Castellano) Pobreza en América Latina Cae Un Punto Según Informe de la Cepal
TeleSur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
La secretaria ejecutiva de la Cepal, Alicia Bárcena, explicó que “la pobreza y la desigualdad han seguido disminuyendo en la región, lo que es una buena noticia, especialmente en el contexto de crisis económica internacional”. La Comisión estima que el año cerrará con tres millones de pobres menos en la región, lo que consideran es el mejor indicador en 20 años, debido a un repunte del mercado laboral.
→ read full articleGetting Even
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
A very loud, unattractive, mean woman walked into a market with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.
→ read full article[TRUE OR FALSE?] How Iran Can Collapse All of the Bilderberg Banks and Governments
Video Rebel – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
All the Iranians have to do is to announce the purchase ten billion dollars in silver and ten billion dollars in gold over the next 90 days. This announcement is to be made only after they have purchased a billion dollars in silver bullion and a billion dollars in gold. The COMEX in New York and the LBMA London will collapse. The ETFs GLD and SLV will collapse. Stock markets all over the world will collapse. The New York and London banks will collapse. That is the power base of the Bilderberg and Trilateral Commission.
→ read full articleAssange Wins Walkley Journalism Award
TMS Editor,
5 Dec 2011
Nov 27 2011 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has won the Walkley Award for Most Outstanding Contribution to Journalism in his native Australia. He speaks his mind.
→ read full articleSouth-South Ties Reshape Aid Paradigm
Miriam Gathigah – Inter Press Service-IPS,
5 Dec 2011
When the G-8 countries decided that improving Internet access to developing countries should be a priority, scores of leaders from developing world opposed the move. The prevalence of harmful cultural practices such as female genital mutilation and women and girls trekking miles in search of water and firewood seemed far removed from Internet technology. Says Esther Suchia, an activist in Kenya, “This commitment to give developing countries aid to improve access to Internet was taken as an insult.”
→ read full articleClimate Justice
Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson – Project Syndicate,
5 Dec 2011
The richest countries caused the problem, but it is the world’s poorest who are already suffering from its effects. In its latest report, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that it is virtually certain that, in global terms, hot days have become hotter and occur more often; indeed, they have increased in frequency by a factor of 10 in most regions of the world. Moreover, the brutal paradox of climate change is that heavy precipitation is occurring more often as well, increasing the risk of flooding.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Islândia: Crescimento Económico Triplica em Relação à UE em 2012
Joana Azevedo Viana, iOnline – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
De acordo com estimativas do Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), a Islândia vai fechar 2011 com um crescimento do PIB de 2,5%, prevendo-se novo crescimento de 2,5% para 2012 – números que representam quase o triplo do crescimento económico de todos os Estados-membros da União Europeia – que em 2011 ficarão pelos 1,6% e que descerão para os 1,1% em 2012. A taxa de desemprego no país vai ainda descer para os 6%, contra os actuais 9,9% da zona euro.
→ read full article
Zach Wahls Speaks About Family
TMS Editor,
5 Dec 2011
Zach Wahls, a 19-year-old University of Iowa student spoke about the strength of his family during a public forum on House Joint Resolution 6 in the Iowa House of Representatives. Wahls has two mothers, and came to oppose House Joint Resolution 6, which would end civil unions in Iowa.
→ read full articleChina Not Obliged To Besiege Iran
Global Times (China), Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2011
The US Senate approved tougher economic sanctions against Iran on Thursday [1 Dec 2011], vowing to penalize any financial institutions that do business with Iran’s central bank. Consequently, other countries such as China, Japan and India are prohibited to conduct oil trade with Iran. Under such an arrogant bill, it is hard to imagine how the US would borrow money from the central banks of its creditors to make up its bleak budget in the future. China need not pay attention to it.
→ read full article
Palestinian “Freedom Riders” Challenge Segregation (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
The Real News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
On Tuesday [15 Nov 2011] six Palestinian activists boarded Israeli busses in an attempt to challenge the system of segregation in the West Bank. They were arrested at Hizmeh checkpoint, interrogated by Israel’s internal intelligence agency, the Shabak, and released. In the West Bank, segregation is both visible with the separation wall, fence, and separate cities for Israelis and Palestinians and invisible with separate legal and security systems for the two peoples.
→ read full articleThe Under-Examined Story of Fallujah
Hannah Gurman – Foreign Policy in Focus,
28 Nov 2011
Of the current problems in Fallujah, the most alarming is a mounting public health crisis. In the years since the invasion, doctors in Fallujah have reported drastic increases in the number of premature births, infant mortality, and birth defects – babies born without skulls, missing organs, or with stumps for arms and legs. But the crisis, and its possible connection to weapons deployed by the United States during the war, remains woefully under-examined.
→ read full article(Portuguese) V Cimeira União Europeia/Brasil: Austeridade Não É Solução para Crise, Diz Dilma Rousseff
Público – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
A Presidente brasileira, Dilma Rousseff, garantiu hoje (3 Out 2011], em Bruxelas, que não tomará medidas de austeridade fiscal para fazer frente aos efeitos da crise económica e destacou que medidas recessivas só levam à “estagnação e ao desemprego”. A declaração foi feita por Dilma Rousseff após um encontro bilateral com o primeiro-ministro belga, Yves Leterme, dominado pela crise económica e financeira global.
→ read full articleWeapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): Myanmar Special Weapons
Global Security – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
A five-year investigation by the Burmese dissident group Democratic Voice of Burma claimed to have uncovered evidence that Burma is embarking on a programme to develop nuclear weaponry. At the center of the investigation is Sai Thein Win, a former defense engineer and missile expert. Robert Kelley, former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, believes Burma’s intent is clear: to build a nuclear bomb. Kelley had spent months scouring photographs and documents provided by a former Burmese defense engineer who recently fled the country.
→ read full articleBeg Your Pardon
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
Saddam Hussein came to hell. The devil received him and said…
→ read full articleSales & the Winter of Discontent
James Albertini, Malu 'Aina, Hawai`i – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The store ads all say “SALE, SALE, SALE! The real meaning is BUY! BUY! BUY! The ads are a lure to create “Wants” not “Needs.” This holiday season do not buy the hype. Buy nothing or buy local. Support an economy that benefits the 99%, not the 1% of global corporate interests that suck labor and resources out of our local economies. Add to this mess, endless wars for empire disguised as “war on terror” to keep us all in a state of fear and obedience to those in power. The oil companies and the arms merchants have never seen more profitable times; they like things just as they are.
→ read full articleAre the American Psychological Association’s Detainee Interrogation Policies Ethical and Effective?
Farid Zakaria, PBFC – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
A new article by Kenneth Pope, distinguished clinical psychologist and former chair of the American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Committee, sharply criticizes the APA’s current policy on detainee interrogation. The article points out that psychologists supported illegal interrogation techniques in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay were tortured with the assistance of psychologists. The CIA consulted with outside psychologists who gave assurances that controversial procedures, including waterboarding, would not result in prolonged mental harm.”
→ read full articleNew Brand of Slavery Surfaces in America
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
In the United States, you often hear individuals expressing their love for their country. However, the word “America” means different things to different people. Unless we are aware of this, we may experience needless frustrations unnecessarily.
→ read full articleTaking It to the Streets
Jane Mayer – The New Yorker,
28 Nov 2011
James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and one of the country’s foremost climate scientists says if the Keystone XL oil pipeline were built, “Essentially, it’s game over for the planet.” But at Middlebury College, in Vermont, Bill McKibben, a scholar-in-residence, concluded that the pipeline couldn’t be stopped by conventional political means. “It’s time to stop letting corporate power make the most important decisions our planet faces. We don’t have the money to compete … but we do have our bodies.” Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
→ read full articleWho Was Fritz Schumacher?
Diana Schumacher – The Gandhi Foundation,
28 Nov 2011
Although from a distinguished intellectual background, and having himself experienced a short but meteoric academic career in Germany, England and America, Schumacher always believed that “an ounce of practice is worth a tonne of theory”. Like Gandhi in both his outer and inner life he was a searcher of truth and dedicated to peace. Unlike so many of his contemporary academics, however, he needed to see these ideals translated into practical actions.
→ read full articleBRICS Countries against External Interference into Syria’s Affairs
The Voice of Russia – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have demanded to rule out external interference into Syria’s affairs. The communiqué adopted in Moscow on Thursday [24 Nov 2011] on the results of the meeting of BRICS’ Deputy Foreign Ministers, states that immediate talks involving all parties are only variant to resolve crisis in Syria.
→ read full articleSerbia Must Stop Evicting Roma
Amnesty International – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The situation of a Roma family forcibly evicted from their Belgrade home and made homeless this week again highlights the need for the Serbian government to stop forced evictions and introduce legislation prohibiting them, Amnesty International said today. “Roma families in Belgrade are being forced out of their homes at an increasingly rapid pace.” said Nicola Duckworth Amnesty International’s Director for Europe and Central Asia.
→ read full articleWhy Gender Matters For Building Peace
Mary Elizabeth King – Waging Nonviolence,
28 Nov 2011
The awarding of a 2011 joint Nobel Peace Prize to a Liberian woman, Leymah Gbowee, embodies the links between gender, war, peace, and nonviolent struggle.
→ read full article
(Castellano) Johan Galtung: Los Tres Componentes del Conflicto
realidadexpuexta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
24 Octubre 2011 – Monterrey, Mexico – El politólogo noruego Johan Galtung, fundador de los estudios sobre la paz y conflictos sociales, visitó la ciudad de Monterrey para impartir una conferencia magistral y un taller con organizaciones de la sociedad civil que trabajan la cultura de paz.
→ read full articleJust How Dangerous Are ‘Non-Lethal’ Weapons?
Mujib Mashal – Al Jazeera,
28 Nov 2011
From Egypt, to Athens, to Oakland, police have employed “non-lethal weapons” to break down recent protests and disperse protesters. As crowds have swelled to express discontent, variations of tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, and stun grenades have been fired back at them. The US defence department describes non-lethal weapons as “primarily employed to immediately incapacitate targeted personnel or materiel, while minimising fatalities, permanent injury to personnel … in the target area or environment.
→ read full articleBottled Water Companies Target Minorities, but So Do Soda Firms
Elizabeth Whitman – Inter Press Service-IPS,
28 Nov 2011
Early in November [2011], the watchdog group Corporate Accountability International (CAI) accused the Swiss transnational Nestle of manipulative marketing. “For the past 30 years, bottled water corporations like Nestle, Pepsi and Coke have helped build a 15 billion dollar U.S. bottled water market by casting doubts on public drinking water systems.” Still, a 2008 investigation by the Environmental Working Group found bottled water to be “chemically indistinguishable from tap water”, the summary of the investigation said.
→ read full articleEurozone Debt Web: Who Owes What To Whom?
Bank of International Settlements - BBC,
28 Nov 2011
The Bank for International Settlements data, represented by the proportional arrows, shows what banks in one country are owed by debtors – both government and private – in another country. It does not include non-bank debts. Only key eurozone debtors and their top creditors are shown. Although China is known to hold European debt, no comprehensive figures are available.
→ read full articleUK Urged to Prevent Vulture Funds Preying on World’s Poorest Countries
Greg Palast, Maggie O'Kane and Chavala Madlena – The Guardian,
28 Nov 2011
Britain is being urged to help close down a legal loophole that lets financiers known as “vulture funds” use courts in Jersey to claim hundreds of millions of pounds from the world’s poorest countries. The call came from international poverty campaigners as one of the vulture funds was poised to be awarded a $100m (£62m) debt payout against the Democratic Republic of the Congo after taking action in the Jersey courts.
→ read full articleSocial Opposition in the Age of Internet: Desktop “Militants” and Public Intellectuals
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2011
The internet is the alternative to the capitalist mass media and its propaganda, a source of news and information that relays manifestos and informs activists of sites for public action. Because of the internet’s progressive role as an instrument of the social opposition it is subject to surveillance by the repressive police-state apparatus. For example, in the USA over 800,000 functionaries are employed by the “Homeland Security” police agency to spy on billions of emails, faxes, telephone calls of millions of US citizens.
→ read full articleA 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.
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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 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.
→ 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.
→ read full article
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?
→ read full article
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?
→ read full article
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.
→ 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.
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 article