Articles by M
We found 37535 results.
UNMIN’s Withdrawal Formally Winds up Maoist Army Cantonment and Barracking of the Nepal Army
Bishnu Pathak, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Dec 2010
The Sanskrit adage Buvukshitah kim na karoti papam? (What vice is unthinkable to an empty stomach?) occurred in mind when we (including Freelance Journalist Jibanath Khanal) were deliberating upon the “U-turn” of Nepal’s peace process, wondering whether the successor of UNMIN could take over the monitoring and supervision of the arms and armies. While a full-stomach seeks freedom first, an empty stomach looks for food above all temptations.
→ read full articleThe Oceans’ SOS
Tony Haymet and Andrew Dickson – Los Angeles Times,
20 Dec 2010
Our stubborn addiction to burning coal, oil and natural gas is changing not only the composition of the atmosphere but the composition of the ocean as well. The carbon dioxide those fuels pour into the air inexorably dissolves into the oceans, causing a process known as ocean acidification. The oceans have absorbed 30% of the carbon dioxide that humans have ever produced, and they continue to absorb more each year. This force-feeding has changed ocean chemistry.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks’ Lesson on Haiti
Mark Weisbrot – The Guardian,
20 Dec 2010
What the US embassy cables reveal about Washington’s malign influence should make Latin American nations quit the UN force…. This logic is why they got rid of Aristide – who was much to the left of Preval – and won’t let him back in the country. This is why Washington funded the recent “elections” that excluded Haiti’s largest political party, the equivalent of shutting out the Democrats and Republicans in the United States. And this is why Minustah is still occupying the country, more than six years after the coup, without any apparent mission other than replacing the hated Haitian army – which Aristide had abolished – as a repressive force.
→ read full article(Castellano) Crecen los Huertos en las Azoteas de Gaza
Eva Bartlett – Periodismo Humano,
20 Dec 2010
El gris del cemento de los campos de refugiados de Gaza contrasta con el color de los huertos de verduras de las azoteas. ”En los campamentos no hay espacio, ni árboles, ni parques públicos”. La “zona de exclusión” impuesta por Israel en las fronteras ocupa un tercio de las tierras agrícolas de la franja.
→ read full article(Castellano) Malvinas: La Cuestión Pendiente de un Exitoso Proceso Descolonizador
Embajador Jorge Argüello – TELAM-Agencia de Noticias de la Republica Argentina,
20 Dec 2010
El formidable proceso de descolonización que el mundo comenzó en 1960 con la Resolución 1514 de la Asamblea de las Naciones Unidas cumple este 14 de diciembre medio siglo, pero el compromiso que tuvo Argentina en ese proceso histórico sigue hasta ahora sin la mejor recompensa para nuestro propio país, por el resabio colonialista que significa la “Cuestión Malvinas”.
→ read full articleHo’oponopono
Puanani Burgess – Yes! Magazine,
20 Dec 2010
How Hawaiian Tradition Sorts Out Family Disputes. Ho‘oponopono is a traditional Hawaiian way to make peace in families when there’s the kind of conflict that starts with something small and just gets bigger and bigger.
→ read full articleLegitimate Civil Disobedience: WikiLeaks and the Layers of Backlash
Deanna Zandt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Dec 2010
Anonymous launched a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack against the websites of the companies that took away people’s rights to support a political organization [PayPal, Master Charge, Amazon.] Many, myself included, consider DDoS in this context to be much like a sit-in in the offline world. The point of a sit-in is to render a building/room/service unusable for a temporary period of time. Sit-ins aren’t “legal”– you get arrested, and most activists who participate in them know this ahead of time and prepare for it…. Most of the time, it’s a misdemeanor charge, and you’re issued an ACD.
→ read full article
Inside the Dark Legacy of the US ‘School of Assassins’
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Dec 2010
For 62 years, the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, has trained some of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere. From Pinochet’s soldiers in Chile, D’Aubuisson’s death squads in El Salvador, Banzer’s minions in Bolivia, Galtieri’s operatives in Argentina and Rios Montt’s soldiers in Guatemala to the present-day generals responsible for the coup in Honduras and the drug war killings in Colombia, the School of the America has a dark legacy. Renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, the school has graduated 65,000 soldiers from 18 countries.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Backlash: The First Global Cyber War Has Begun, Claim Hackers
Mark Townsend, Paul Harris in New York, Alex Duval Smith in Johannesburg, Dan Sabbagh, Josh Halliday – The Guardian,
13 Dec 2010
As Julian Assange is held in solitary confinement at Wandsworth prison, the anonymous community of hacktivists takes to the cyber battlefields.
→ read full articlePeacekeeping: A Civilian Perspective?
Stean Auguste Nkumb Tshiband – Journal of Conflictology,
13 Dec 2010
How effective are peacekeeping operations in preventing and stopping violence? Is there an alternative to UN and regional peacekeeping operations? Would civilian unarmed peace operations be the best alternative? These and similar questions are fed into the ongoing debate on peace operations and the possibility of civilian alternatives to current peace operations. This article presents an analysis of the development of civilian peacekeeping, its relevance in the field of conflict resolution and its autonomy from multidimensional peacekeeping, championed by the UN and regional organizations. Written by a scholar of Peace and Conflict Research with practical experience in both UN Peacekeeping Operations and “civilian peacekeeping” missions, it gives practical and theoretical insights into traditional, multidimensional and civilian peacekeeping.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks and the First Global Condom War
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
This is an exploration of the curious mirroring between the role of Julian Assange, as the founder of WikiLeaks, and that of the US as the world’s currently acclaimed sole superpower. As is now typical of any global crisis, many are now focused on who to blame and whether they can be neutralized or eliminated — getting the justice they deserve — whilst others complicit in the process escape with impunity, honours and rewards as the exemplification of the universal values of humanity.
→ read full articleRabbis Say ‘No Housing for Arabs’
Mya Guarnieri – Al Jazeera,
13 Dec 2010
Hundreds of Israeli rabbis have signed a religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling homes to Arabs.
→ read full article(Castellano) Belicismo en el Premio Nobel por la paz
Manuel E. Yepe – Argenpress,
13 Dec 2010
Noruega tiene un per cápita de tropas en la OTAN mayor que cualquiera otro de los 28 Estados miembros. En una conferencia de parlamentarios europeos que tuvo lugar el pasado año, el actual presidente del Comité del Premio Nobel por la Paz expuso con crudeza: “Cuando no somos capaces de detener a una tiranía, la guerra comienza. Es por ello que la OTAN es indispensable.
→ read full articleHaitian Diary: SOPUDEP and Local Organisation
Sokari Ekine – Pambazuka News,
13 Dec 2010
As she visits Haiti, Sokari Ekine writes of the history behind the community-run SOPUDEP school, the efforts of local organisations to organise in response to the devastation of the country’s earthquake, a micro-credit scheme and people’s broad lack of faith in the power of the current elections to promote change.
→ read full article“Miami Rice”: The Business of Disaster in Haiti
Beverly Bell and Tory Field – Common Dreams,
13 Dec 2010
What is at stake in Haiti? What interests underlie the grab for power in the country? One answer is the large amount of aid and development dollars that are circulating. Among those benefiting handsomely from the disaster aid are U.S. corporations who have accessed U.S. government contracts. Below is the tale of one U.S. corporation and its subsidiaries, who have received contracts which involve both a conflict of interest and harm to one of Haiti’s largest and most vulnerable social sectors, small farmers.
→ read full article
Professor Johan Galtung on Nuclear Weapons as Theological Statements
TalkWorks – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
TalkWorksEXTRA Films 2010: A virtual forum of leading experts and policy makers talking about the way forward for nuclear disarmament and sustainable global security
→ read full articleBolivia: Cancun Deal is Hollow and False – Its Cost Will Be Measured in Human Lives
Plurinational State of Bolivia – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
A so-called victory for multilateralism is really a victory for the rich nations who bullied and cajoled other nations into accepting a deal on their terms. The richest nations offered us nothing new in terms of emission reductions or financing, and instead sought at every stage to backtrack on existing commitments, and include every loophole possible to reduce their obligation to act. While developing nations – those that face the worst consequences of climate change – pleaded for ambition, we were instead offered the “realism” of empty gestures. Proposals by powerful countries like the US were sacrosanct, while ours were disposable.
→ read full article
Doha Debates: This House Would Prefer Money to Free Elections
Tim Sebastian - TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
The Doha Debates ask whether people prefer to make money and leave politics to the elite.
→ read full articleJeremy Scahill Testifies Before Congress on America’s Secret Wars
The Nation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
Editor’s Note: Nation national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill today [9 Dec 2010] testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the US’s shadow wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. His complete testimony is below. – While some of the Special Forces missions are centered around training of militaries in allied nations, that line is often blurred. In some cases, “training” is used as a cover for unilateral, direct action. As a former special ops guy told me: “It’s often done under the auspices of training so that they can go anywhere. It’s brilliant. It is essentially what we did in the 60s. Remember the ‘training mission’ in Vietnam? That’s how it morphs.”
→ read full articleDarwinism Dead at 150
Sripad Bhakti Madhava Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
The concept that natural selection provides the foundation for evolutionary change has long been challenged for its failure to explain how different forms arises in nature, but only how they may be favored once they do arise. Through the work of scientists like Motoo Kimura, Tomoko Ohta [Theoretical aspects of population genetics, Motoo Kimura and Tomoko Ohta (1971)] and others, it has been concluded both theoretically and empirically that natural selection has little or no effect on the vast majority of the genomes of most living organisms…. It was Darwin, himself who explained how he should be buried: “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”
→ read full articleUS Involvement in Iraq: A Lot of Blood for Little Oil
Cordula Meyer – Der Spiegel,
13 Dec 2010
Contrary to what many people believe, the Iraq war provided few advantages for the US oil industry. The diplomatic cables show that, in most cases, it was competitors to the Americans who often did better in the country. Only one US company truly profited: Halliburton.
→ read full articleSovereign State of Palestine: Asset to Middle East Peace
Charles Mercieca, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
The struggle in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians has been going on for decades. In the spiritual sphere, they both claim by all means to be the descendants of Abraham, viewing God as their Father. The question that needs to be raised here is this: To what extent do they respect and love this divine Father? The deepest sorrow that good parents may possibly experience is to see their children being hurt and deprived from good opportunities in life.
→ read full articleArgentina Joins Brazil in Recognition of Palestinian State
Haaretz Service and Natasha Mozgovaya – Haaretz,
13 Dec 2010
Argentine President sends Abbas letter stating it recognizes Palestine defined by 1967 borders; Uruguay says it will recognize Palestine in 2011; Israel calls announcement ‘regrettable’.
→ read full articleObama’s Israel Policy: Speak Softly and Carry a Very Big Carrot
Maidhc Ó Cathail – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
Even those familiar with the long and shameful history of America’s appeasement of Israel were taken aback by the Obama administration’s extraordinary offer to Netanyahu. In exchange for a paltry one-off 90 day freeze on illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), Israel will get 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets worth $3 billion and a slew of other goodies. Yet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly gave up to eight hours with Netanyahu trying to persuade him to accept “one of the most generous bribes ever bestowed by the United States on any foreign power.”
→ read full articleWhatever…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
A father told his young son, “You have gotten a little sister.”
→ read full articleHow Journalists Help to Promote War – And What Can Be Done To Stop It
Daniel Trilling interviewing John Pilger – New Statesman,
13 Dec 2010
The War You Don’t See is about the media’s role in promoting and sanitising contemporary wars. Why make this film at this particular moment?
→ read full articleWikiLeaks and the Worldwide Information War: Power, Propaganda, and the Global Political Awakening
Andrew Gavin Marshall – Global Research,
13 Dec 2010
The recent release of the 250,000 WikiLeaks documents has provoked unparalleled global interest, both positive, negative, and everywhere in between. One thing that can be said with certainty: WikiLeaks is changing things.
→ read full articleThe OSCE Looks East
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
The OSCE remains very much a governmental organization. Unlike the United Nations where the UN Secretariat members come from a wide range of backgrounds, the OSCE Secretariat is made up of national diplomats or other national civil servants such as the police. Many will return to national posts after serving at the OSCE. There is less a spirit of being world civil servants than there is at the UN.
→ read full articleThe Seven Myths of ‘Slums’
Adam Parsons – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Dec 2010
Conventional thinking on development issues is often characterised by many assumptions, clichés and rationalisations about the residents of slums. In challenging some of these core myths, we can focus on the structural causes of urban poverty that result in the rapid growth of informal settlements.
→ read full articleMr. Fish’s Cartoons
Truthdig – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Wanted
Julian Assange wanted for…
Global Domestic Policy – And WikiLeaks
Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Nor is class fading out: the world upper classes enrich themselves in the financial system, greatly aided by the International Monetary Fund–and the world lower classes use the drug system for similar purposes, as acted out in Rio de Janeiro. Two perverse systems coming out of the absurdity of world hyper capitalism, supported by a fading empire. We need and deserve something better, nothing perfect, but much better. We cannot build globalization on such absurdities.
→ read full articleThe Education of a Peacemaker
Philip Grant interviewing Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
“Nationalism is not the same as culture…. This triad of chosenness, glory and trauma produces vicious types of nationalistic ideologies that are constantly threatening world peace…. Nationalism lays claims on land and times…. Education has degenerated into schooling, schooling has mutated into a way of earning degrees, and degrees are seen simply as a ticket to earning a living.”
→ read full articleFBI Wiretapping of Internet Users: “All Your Data Belongs to Us”
Tom Burghardt – Global Research,
6 Dec 2010
A Seamless Global Surveillance Web. In a further sign that Barack Obama’s faux “progressive” regime will soon seek broad new Executive Branch power, The New York Times disclosed last week that FBI chief and cover-up specialist extraordinaire, Robert S. Mueller III, “traveled to Silicon Valley on Tuesday to meet with top executives of several technology firms about a proposal to make it easier to wiretap Internet users.”
→ read full articleMiracle Healer: Scientists Attempt to Crack Secret Code of the Axolotl
Magdalena Hamm – Der Spiegel,
6 Dec 2010
The axolotl is one of a kind in nature: It can regenerate severed limbs, organs and even grow back its spinal column after injuries. At a new research center in Hanover, Germany, researchers are trying to unlock the Mexican salamander’s secrets — and whether they can be applied to humans.
→ read full articleNATO, the World’s Gendarme, a Military Mafia
Fidel Castro Ruz – Granma International,
6 Dec 2010
On Friday, November 19, 2010 in Lisbon, Portugal, the 28 members of that bellicose institution engendered by the United States, decided to create what they cynically describe as “the new NATO.”
→ read full articleFormer WikiLeaks Activists to Launch New Whistleblowing Site
Der Spiegel – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
A group of former members of WikiLeaks is planning to launch its own whistleblowing platform in mid-December, according to a German newspaper. The activists criticize WikiLeaks for concentrating too much on the US and want to take a broader approach.
→ read full articleAfrica: Food Versus Biofuels Debate Continues
Mantoe Phakathi – Inter Press Service-IPS,
6 Dec 2010
“We’re going to Cancún no better off than we were in Copenhagen,” said Thuli Makama, the director of Friends of the Earth Swaziland, as she prepared to leave for the climate negotiations in Mexico. She feels industrialised countries are promoting the production and use of biofuels to fulfill their energy needs, but this will leave more people in the developing world without food. “We face the danger of growing food for the machines instead of our stomachs,” Makama told IPS. Swaziland faces serious shortages of food, with 170,000 of its million-strong population in need of food aid this year.
→ read full articleStudy Suggests There Are 300 Sextillion Stars in the Universe!
Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
“It’s fun because it gets you thinking about these large numbers,” Conroy said. Conroy looked up how many cells are in the average human body — 50 trillion or so — and multiplied that by the 6 billion people on Earth. And he came up with about 300 sextillion. So the number of stars in the universe “is equal to all the cells in the humans on Earth, a kind of funny coincidence,” Conroy said.
→ read full articleBrazil Recognises Palestine
Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Israel expresses disappointment over Brazil’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
→ read full articleThree more…
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
There is a saying, “no news is good news,”
→ read full articleDiscovery of “Arsenic-bug” Expands Definition of Life
NASA Science News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Dec. 2, 2010: NASA-supported researchers have discovered the first known microorganism on Earth able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic. The microorganism, which lives in California’s Mono Lake, substitutes arsenic for phosphorus in the backbone of its DNA and other cellular components.
→ read full articleIsrael Starts Building Barrier on Egypt Border
BBC News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Work is beginning in Israel on a barrier along the border with Egypt, aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into the country. The barrier, including an electric fence and surveillance technology, will run for 250km (155 miles). Work on the $372m (£232m) project is expected to take up to a year.
→ read full articleThe WikiLeaks Diplomatic Crisis
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
A powerful video roundtable discussion with Amy Goodman, Daniel Ellsberg, Greg Mitchell, Carne Ross and As’ad Abukhalil. Now we’re getting to the real perspectives on the latest WikiLeaks release.
→ read full articleFabricating Terror
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Why does the FBI orchestrate fake terror plots? The United States of America, “the city upon the hill,” “the light unto the world,” has become Nazi Germany. The Obama regime is in the process of completing Dick Cheney’s dream by legislating the legality of indefinite detention. American law has collapsed to the dungeons of the Dark Ages. This Nazi Gestapo policy is now the declared policy of the US Department of Justice (sic). Anyone who thinks the United States is a free society where people have liberty, “freedom and democracy” is uninformed.
→ read full articleThe Proper Response to WikiLeaks
Karen Kwiatkowski – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Government goons, soldiers and bureaucrats in foreign countries will not face a greater threat to their lives, most especially from these cables. What they will face is snickers, chuckles, and outright laughter. And truly, this is as it should be. When one declares that his robes are the most beautiful, made of the finest silk, so glorious that they compete with the sun – sometimes a little blond-haired boy with a most serious look about him declares that it seems to him that the Emperor has no clothes! And we see, slowly at first, then an unstoppable surge of laughter and finger-pointing by the common people who, for all their ignorance and all their flaws, know enough to put on clothes before going out in public.
→ read full article
Inspirational Friendship
TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Amazing video about a wonderful friendship across species. Please watch.
→ read full articleA Surge of Truth
Gilad Atzmon – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
It is an “attack on the international community,” said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in reference to the release of 250.000 secret cables by WikiLeaks. Clinton is correct; this is indeed a long overdue, necessary attack on an ‘international community’ of war mongers and war criminals.
→ read full articleDid a U.S. Ambassador Accuse Sri Lanka’s President of War Crimes?
Charles Homans – Foreign Policy,
6 Dec 2010
Are we surprised to learn, via WikiLeaks, that American diplomats in Colombo blame Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his top officials for the massacre of tens of thousands (by most estimates) of Tamil civilians during the final months of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war? The goods are in a Jan. 15 cable sent by U.S. Amb. Patricia A. Butenis on the eve of Sri Lanka’s presidential elections (which Rajapaksa won handily).
→ read full articleTranscending One-eyed Global Modelling Perspectives: Incorporating Under-Currents into Global Circulation of Value
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
The dissemination by WikiLeaks of classified communications of the US military and diplomatic services allows serious attention to be given to systemic phenomena which are typically dismissed as being “unconfirmed” allegations of marginal significance — at worst exceptional incidents. Whilst “everyone” has long acknowledged the extent of secrecy and corruption, this was typically minimized or denied in official communications, establishment media and education systems. More problematic is the degree to which such systemic phenomena have been denied or minimized in academic studies and modelling of the world system.
→ read full articleThe Mysterious “Laptop Documents”: Using Fake Intelligence to Justify a Pre-emptive Nuclear War on Iran
Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research,
6 Dec 2010
The laptop documents were essential to sustaining America’s position in the UN Security Council…. [They] had depicted the wrong re-entry vehicle being redesigned. … (Gareth Porter, op cit )…. Who was behind the production of fake intelligence? Gareth Porter’s suggests that Israel’s Mossad has been a source of fake intelligence regarding Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program…. We are dealing with a clear case of fake intelligence comparable to that presented by Colin Powell in February 2003 on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction…. The US has once again used fake intelligence to build a justification to wage war…. Will the US antiwar movement confront Washington’s plans to wage a pre-emptive nuclear war against Iran based on fake intelligence?
→ read full articleWhy WikiLeaks is Good for Democracy
Prof. Bill Quigley – Common Dreams,
6 Dec 2010
Information is the currency of democracy. –Thomas Jefferson. By labeling tens of millions of documents secret, the US government has created a huge vacuum of information…. Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust in the US. That is good for democracy.
→ read full articleDaniel Ellsberg Says Boycott Amazon
Daniel Ellsberg - Antiwar.com,
6 Dec 2010
Open letter to Amazon.com Customer Service: December 2, 2010 – I’m disgusted by Amazon’s cowardice and servility in abruptly terminating today its hosting of the Wikileaks website, in the face of threats from Senator Joe Lieberman and other Congressional right-wingers. I want no further association with any company that encourages legislative and executive officials to aspire to China’s control of information and deterrence of whistle-blowing.
→ read full articleCanada Enlists in America’s Permanent War for Peace
Gerald Caplan – The Globe and Mail,
6 Dec 2010
Gerald Caplan charts the bloodthirsty history of ‘the most awesome military power the world has ever known’. ‘Look forward to a future of permanent war in the pursuit of peace,’ he writes.
→ read full articleIreland’s Debt Servitude
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – The Telegraph,
6 Dec 2010
Stripped to its essentials, the €85bn package imposed on Ireland by the Eurogroup and the European Central Bank is a bail-out for improvident British, German, Dutch, and Belgian bankers and creditors. The Irish taxpayers carry the full burden, and deplete what remains of their reserve pension fund to cover a quarter of the cost. This arrangement – I am not going to grace it with the term deal – was announced in Brussels before the elected Taoiseach of Ireland had been able to tell his own people what their fate would be.
→ read full articleIs WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange a Hero? Glenn Greenwald Debates Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News
Democracy Now! – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
WikiLeaks is coming under attack from all sides. The WikiLeaks website is struggling to stay online just days after Amazon pulled the site from its servers following political pressure. The U.S. State Department has blocked all its employees from accessing the site and is warning all government employees not to read the cables, even at home. “These attacks will not stop our mission, but should be setting off alarm bells about the rule of law in the United States,” said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We host a debate between Steven Aftergood, a transparency advocate who has become a leading critic of WikiLeaks, and Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional law attorney and legal blogger for Salon.com.
→ read full articleAfrica Is Resisting the Threat of Europe’s Free Trade Agreements
Martin Khor - The China Post, Kuala Lumpur,
6 Dec 2010
The economies of Africa, the world’s poorest region, are under severe threat from free trade agreements that they are under pressure to sign with the European Union, the world’s richest region. Under these economic partnership agreements (EPAs), Europe wants Africa to open up its economies to European goods, services and companies. But the African countries are understandably worried their small industries and service operators will not be able to survive free competition from giant European companies, banks and commercial firms.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks and the End of U.S. ‘Diplomacy’
Amy Goodman – Truthdig,
6 Dec 2010
The way the U.S. conducts diplomacy is now getting more exposure than ever—as is the apparent ease with which the U.S. government lives up (or down) to the adage used by pioneering journalist I.F. Stone: “Governments lie.” I asked [Noam] Chomsky about the latest cables released by WikiLeaks. “What this reveals,” he reflected, “is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership.”
→ read full articleUK: Labour Put Limits on Iraq Inquiry to Keep the US Happy
Nigel Morris – The Independent,
6 Dec 2010
Gordon Brown’s Government secretly promised to limit the extent of the Iraq war inquiry to prevent damage to the United States, the leaked cables disclosed. The pledge – made last September as the Chilcot inquiry into the war started – threatens to damage the credibility of the investigation, which is due to report in the new year.
→ read full articleWhat of Military Aggression?
Benjamin Ferencz | Radio Netherlands Worldwide - TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
Today [20 Nov 2010] marks the 65th anniversary of the Nuremberg war crimes trials — the landmark process that brought top Nazis to justice and established precedents that now underpin international law. “We have come a long way from Nuremberg, and have miles to go before we sleep.”
→ read full articleRep. Peter King’s Dangerous Overreaction to WikiLeaks
Tom Hayden - The Peace and Justice Resource Center,
6 Dec 2010
The current controversy is less about national security than about securing the official reputations of officials conducting secret warfare. As a result of the WikiLeaks documents, the American public has learned, for example, that: () our government is deceiving the public and Congress by denying our secret bombing of Yemen; () our Special Forces are in Pakistan; () the CIA has directed a secret army in Afghanistan; () there is a secret Task Force 373 conducting assassinations in Afghanistan. These revelations do no damage to our national security. Instead, they helpfully add to public and Congressional awareness of improper and arguably illegal behavior undertaken under the cover of secrecy.
→ read full article
The Chilcot Inquiry: Britain’s 9/11 Commission
Maidhc Ó Cathail – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Dec 2010
All too often, official inquiries are conducted by the very people who should themselves be under investigation. In this respect, Britain’s Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq war bears a distressing similarity to the 9/11 Commission. In a remarkable symmetry, both inquiries involve a Jewish Zionist historian, who not only advised his country’s leader to go to war against Iraq, but actually provided the ideological justification for that unnecessary war.
→ read full articleHaiti: Reclaiming Sovereignty
Senator Jean William Jeanty – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
As Haiti gears up for its forthcoming elections, Jean William Jeanty decries the complete absence of transparency in the country around post-earthquake reconstruction and the ability of foreign companies to usurp Haitian law. With the country gripped by cholera (the ‘natural indicator of underdevelopment’), Jeanty stresses that Haiti’s leaders ‘are trying to rush the elections so that they can perpetuate things the way they are’.
→ read full article‘War Criminal’ Gets a UN Job
Brad Hamilton – New York Post,
29 Nov 2010
A suspected war criminal who allegedly played a key role in the slaughter of 40,000 civilians in Sri Lanka has landed a cushy job at the United Nations — with full diplomatic immunity.
→ read full article
America: The Silence of a Nation
Chris Hedges - TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
The author spoke at the Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting at Ethical Culture Society on January 13, 2009 condemning Israel and USA complicity in Israel’s murderous destruction and genocide of the innocent men, women and children of GAZA and the West Bank.
→ read full article(Italian) Come Costruire Società e Istituzioni Nonviolente
Marina Marrazzi – Soka Gakkai,
29 Nov 2010
Un convegno a Torino organizzato dal Centro Studi Sereno Regis per celebrare Johan Galtung, il noto e autorevole studioso di Peace Research di origine norvegese, e i suoi ottanta anni di ricerca, educazione e azione per la pace.
→ read full articleInsight: International Centre for the Study of Radicatlisation on Al Qaeda’s ‘Inspire’ Magazine
Shiraz Maher – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
The latest edition of Al Qaeda’s ‘Inspire’ reveals more details about the recent airline bomb plot which emanated in Yemen. “Dear friends, I find this quite something. And it confirms my two points: the point is in Arabia, not Afghanistan; and the point with the underwear bomb was to force the West into even more expensive and stupid “security” measures.” –Johan Galtung.
→ read full articleRole of Civil Society in Ending Nuclear Weapons and War
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Presentation at a panel discussion on Japanese TV – 11th Nobel Peace Summit, Hiroshima, Japan, Nov 12-14, 2010
→ read full articleInterview with Gay Theologian David Berger: ‘A Large Proportion of Catholic Clerics and Trainee Priests Are Homosexual’
Der Spiegel – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
David Berger, a gay theologian who has written a book about his experiences as a senior theologian in the Catholic Church, speaks to SPIEGEL about homophobia and the church’s shift to the right.
→ read full article(Italian) Stati Uniti, il Dramma Silenzioso dei Reduci
Alberto Tundo, PeaceReporter – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Il numero dei soldati che si suicidano ha superato quello dei militari morti in Afghanistan dal 2001.
→ read full articleGlobal Currency Wars and US Imperialism
Samir Amin – Pambazuka News,
29 Nov 2010
Samir Amin speaks to Pambazuka News on the misleading rhetoric over the so-called currency war. The real problem, he argues, is the disequilibrium in the global integrated monetary and financial system in which the US insists legitimately on the right to control their currency, but denies the same rights to others, such as China, who seek to do the same. The countries of the global South need to leave the US and its allies to sort out their own problems and concentrate on developing regional currencies and exercising strict control over capital flows, Amin argues.
→ read full article(Italian) Il Rifiuto Della Carne Contro la Sofferenza Degli Animali
Marinella Correggia – Il Manifesto,
29 Nov 2010
«Da un punto di vista etico, metafisico e religioso, o tutta la vita souffrante viene salvata, o tutto è privo di senso; come la pietà è indivisibile, così la salvezza a cui dà diritto la sofferenza. È questa la difficoltà più grande del pensiero teologico».
→ read full articleWhat Does Aung San Suu Kyi’s Release Mean for Burma?
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Since the release of a single dissident Aung San Suu Kyi – while holding 2,100 of her fellow dissidents behind bars who are serving up to 90 years imprisonment – the loud calls for lifting sanctions are repeated by some well-known supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi such as East Timor’s Jose Ramos-Horta, as if pouring more foreign direct investment in Burma’s gas and oil sector and increasing trade with the country’s kleptocratic, dysfunctional State would automatically translate into public welfare.
→ read full articleLet Israel Keep Its Freeze
Lamis Andoni – Al Jazeera,
29 Nov 2010
The freeze being negotiated between the US and Israel is ultimately designed to legitimise illegal Jewish settlements.
→ read full articleLiberia: Searching For Solutions to Land Disputes
IRIN (*) – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Having served as the launch-pad for the insurgency led by former President Charles Taylor in December 1989, Nimba was caught up repeatedly in the 14-year conflict that followed. Thousands fled, many into neighbouring Guinea, prompting a series of land and property transfers, forced and voluntary, legal and illegal. The reintegration of returning communities has been complicated by continuing confusion over who rightfully owns what.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Haiti: Cólera, Furacão e Lucro
Thalles Gomes – Brasil de Fato,
29 Nov 2010
60% do PIB haitiano é oriundo de verbas estrangeiras que, assim como os furacões e ciclones, apenas passam pelo território haitiano, mantendo a infra-estrutura e os altos salários dos funcionários da ONU e das milhares de ONGs, sem chegar às mãos da população e sem alterar as condições sócio-econômicas do país. “O Estado haitiano e a comunidade internacional deverão pensar o Haiti sob outra ótica que não a das permanentes tragédias que aqui ocorrem”, aponta José Luis Patrola, para concluir que: “Ou pensamos a ajuda ao Haiti desde um ponto de vista de resolver problemas estruturais ou viveremos grandes espetáculos midiáticos acompanhados de grande propaganda sobre doações para ajudas emergenciais. Dois ou três anos em seguida as catástrofes retornarão e veremos o mesmo espetáculo da tragédia se repetindo”.
→ read full article(Italian) Bori su Tolstoj: Non Resistere al Male
Enrico Peyretti – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Presentiamo qualche appunto dalla lezione di Pier Cesare Bori, e dalla discussione seguitane, il 10 novembre 2010, nel centenario della morte di Lev Tolstoj, avvenuta il 7 novembre 1910, in un incontro organizzato dal Centro Studi Sereno Regis. Bori ha esposto colloquialmente un testo che in seguito pubblicherà.
→ read full articleRethinking the Global Economy: The Case for Sharing
Rajesh Makwana & Adam Parsons – Share the World Resources,
29 Nov 2010
The basic assumptions about human nature that inform economic and political decision-making are long outdated and fundamentally flawed. By acknowledging our interdependence and common ethical values, we can build a more sustainable, cooperative and inclusive global economy.
→ read full articleOn Korea, Here We Go Again!
Robert Parry – Consortium News,
29 Nov 2010
If American journalism should have learned one thing over the years, it is to be cautious and skeptical during the first days of a foreign confrontation like the one now playing out on the Korean Peninsula. Often the initial accounts from the “U.S. side” don’t turn out to be entirely accurate.
→ read full articleWhich Way Sudan?
Horace Campbell – Pambazuka News,
29 Nov 2010
A Pan-African Reflection: Is North and South Sudan’s recent agreement to establish a ‘soft border’ between the two areas ahead of a referendum on southern independence ‘another recipe for war?’
→ read full article
The Video That Exposes the Truth about the War on Terror!
truthforall01 – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Mandatory viewing for all supporters of the war(s).
→ read full articleCorporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter
Catherine Rampell – The New York Times,
29 Nov 2010
The nation’s workers may be struggling, but American companies just had their best quarter ever. American businesses earned profits at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion in the third quarter, according to a Commerce Department report released Tuesday [23 Nov 2010]. That is the highest figure recorded since the government began keeping track over 60 years ago, at least in nominal or noninflation-adjusted terms.
→ read full articleTelling the People’s Story: A Tribute to Chalmers Johnson
Tim Shorrock – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
For Chalmers Johnson, a great man who died this weekend [21 Nov 2010].
→ read full article(Italian) SABONA – “TI VEDO”
Giorgio Barazza – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Come Affrontare I Conflitti Con L’educazione Alla Pace: METODO TRANSCEND
→ read full articleUpsurge in Repression Challenges Nonviolent Resistance in Western Sahara
Stephen Zunes – Open Democracy,
29 Nov 2010
Sahrawis have engaged in protests, strikes, cultural celebrations, and other forms of civil resistance focused on such issues as educational policy, human rights, the release of political prisoners, and the right to self-determination. They have also raised the cost of occupation for the Moroccan government and increased the visibility of the Sahrawi cause.
→ read full articleNew Myanmar Is the Hell-Hole Old Burma (Part 1)
[Nobel laureate] Amartya Sen – Democratic Voice of Burma,
29 Nov 2010
The country has steadily fallen in the economic ranking of poor countries in the world and is now one of the absolutely poorest on the globe. Its educational and health services are in tatters; medicine is difficult to get and educational institutions can hardly function. There is viciously strict censorship, combined with heavy punishment for rebellious voices. The shocking litany of different cases of arbitrary imprisonment, terrifying torture, state-directed displacement of people and organized rapes and killings. When the population faces a catastrophe like Hurricane Nargis in May 2008, the government not only does not want to help at all, its first inclination is to ban others in the world from helping the distressed and destitute people in the country.
→ read full articleAxis of Evil Redux
Teymoor Nabili – Al Jazeera,
29 Nov 2010
Another day, another top-level conference to analyse the “Iran threat”, and once again the experts’ conclusion is sharply at variance with the State Department’s preferred narrative.
→ read full articleFairness
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Taking his seat in his chambers, the judge faced the opposing lawyers. “So,” he said, “I have been presented, by both of you, with a bribe.”
→ read full articleThe Tribulations of the Tuareg
Jeremy Keenan – Al Jazeera,
29 Nov 2010
In fact, the reality of the GWOT in the Sahara-Sahel has not been about fighting ‘terrorists’, but about how the local governments, linked into the GWOT through Washington’s Pan Sahel (PSI) and Trans-Sahara Counter-terrorism initiatives of 2004 and 2005 respectively, have been provoking the Tuareg into taking up arms so that they might be categorised as ‘terrorists’ or, as one US state department analyst argued rather quaintly in the context of the assumed link between terrorism and trafficking, ‘putative terrorists’. What the Tuareg have had to endure in the so-called GWOT is both shocking and shameful.
→ read full articleIslam and the West: Some Differences
Johan Galtung, 29 Nov 2010 - TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
The three abrahamic religions judaism-christianity-islam are similar in being revealed truths 4,000, 2,000, 1,400 years ago; and different by being revealed into different contexts, and by the latter building on the former. These 16 debatable points are based on themes frequently coming up in dialogues.
→ read full article
[MUST WATCH] NATO: Going Global
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is the largest military force ever assembled, with a potential armed force of more than seven million. But as its original enemies, communism and the Soviet Union, were defeated two decades ago, what is the alliance’s new identity or new role?
→ read full articleEating the Irish
Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Laureate – The New York Times,
29 Nov 2010
But Ireland is now in its third year of austerity, and confidence just keeps draining away. And you have to wonder what it will take for serious people to realize that punishing the populace for the bankers’ sins is worse than a crime; it’s a mistake.
→ read full article(Italian) Mohamed, per tutti “Mimmo” è stato espulso. Deportato in Egitto
Silvia Berruto – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
Giovedì 18 novembre 2010, alle ore 14,30 l’aereo che riporta Mohamed al Cairo è decollato da Malpensa. Oltre ai 9 migranti deportati martedì 16 novembre, giovedì con Mimmo c’era un altro fratello. “L’aereo sta partendo … davanti a me” – dice sconsolato Leòn – “l’aereo è in movimento …”
→ read full articleSuperquestions for Supercomputers
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
This is a reflection on the press release announcing that Supercomputers ramp up to tackle global societal problems (Science and Technology Facilities Council, 17 November 2010). The press release argues that supercomputers of the future, capable of rapidly crunching vast amounts of data way beyond the existing capabilities of current technology, will spearhead the development of new drugs, new sources of energy and environmental monitoring.
→ read full articleMemo to Ireland: “Tell the EU and the IMF to ‘Shove It'”
Mike Whitney – Information Clearing House,
29 Nov 2010
The Irish people are left with no choice but to resist. Presently the Cowen government is collapsing. Bravo…. Economist Dean Baker sums it up like this in an article in The Guardian: “Even a relatively small country like Ireland has options. Specifically, they could drop out of the euro and default on their debt….Like Ireland, Argentina had also been a poster child of the neoliberal crew before it ran into difficulties…. The Irish people didn’t struggle through centuries of famine and foreign occupation so they could be debt-peons in the EU’s corporate Uberstate.
→ read full article(Italian) L’influenza di Tolstoj su Gandhi
Enrico Peyretti – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
1- Alcuni caratteri del pensiero di Tolstoj 2- Come Gandhi conosce Tolstoj 3- La Lettera a un indù, di Tolstoj, conquista Gandhi 4- Carteggio Gandhi – Tolstoj 5- Che cosa Gandhi deve a Tolstoj 6 – Gandhi dice le differenze tra lui e Tolstoj 7 – Differenze oggettive Tolstoj-Gandhi
→ read full articleCambodia’s National Day of Mourning
Emma Leslie – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Nov 2010
The Water Festival is a time of great celebration in Cambodia. It is always celebrated around November but the dates are dependent on the moon. Some say it’s a chance to honour the rivers which replenish the soil for the harvest. Others say it’s to honour the spirits which make the river miraculous change direction and flow in the other direction. Mostly it’s the time where the people from Cambodia’s countryside take over the capital! Phnom Penh is theirs. They sleep along the streets, they cheer on the boat of their district, they stay up all night and enjoy the myriad of free entertainment from fireworks to concerts and traditional dancing. It’s a grand celebration of life!
→ read full articleMusicians
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Nov 2010
Ben Zanders, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, led an audience of 1000 at a conference where he spoke, to sing “happy birthday to you” for one of the participants.
→ read full articleThe Legacy of Hiroshima
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Nov 2010
Presented at the 11th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Nov 12, 2010, Hiroshima, Japan. Criminality and Delegitimation of Nuclear Weapons
→ read full article“Put the Palestinians on a Diet”
Media Lens – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Nov 2010
Media Bury Documents Revealing Israel’s Deliberate Policy of Near Starvation for Gaza: Israel has been forced to reveal what Palestinians and other observers on the ground have known for a long time: that the blockade of Gaza is state policy intended to inflict collective punishment, not to bolster Israeli “security”…. The released documents, whose existence Israel had denied for eighteen months, reveal that the state approved “a policy of deliberate reduction” of basic goods, including food and fuel, in the Gaza Strip.
→ read full articleEducation: Build a Tower, Build a Team
Tom Wujec – TED Talks,
22 Nov 2010
Tom Wujec presents some surprisingly deep research into the “marshmallow problem” — a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average?
→ read full article