Articles by RT
We found 4093 results.
Israel-Palestine: THE Question
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Mar 2013
THE question arising is this: Why are most Jews unable and/or unwilling to acknowledge the wrong done to the Palestinians? My Gentile answer begins with a short, one-sentence statement that begs another question. Most Jews do not want to know about Zionism’s crimes. The question is – why don’t they want to know?
→ read full article(Português) A Rara Coragem de Bradley Manning
Marjorie Cohn, CounterCurrents – Carta Maior,
4 Mar 2013
As ações de Bradley Manning fazem lembrar o que fez Daniel Ellsberg, que divulgou os “Papéis do Pentágono”, no qual se expunham as mentiras do governo dos EUA e que apressaram o fim da Guerra do Vietname.
→ read full articleTranscend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University,
4 Mar 2013
All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th
→ read full articleAlawite History Reveals the Complexities of Syria That West Does Not Understand
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
4 Mar 2013
Never once has a Western newspaper shown a map of Bradford with Muslim and non-Muslim areas marked off, or a map of Washington divided into black and white people. No, that would suggest that our Western civilisation could be divvied up between tribes or races. Only the Arab world merits our ethnic distinctions. The problem, of course, is that Syria – as secular and assimilated as any Arab nation before its current tragedy – doesn’t lend itself to this neat distribution of religious minorities.
→ read full articleManning Plea Statement: Americans Had a Right to Know ‘True Cost of War’
Ed Pilkington at Fort Meade, Maryland – The Guardian,
4 Mar 2013
After admitting guilt in 10 of 22 charges, soldier reveals how he came to share classified documents with WikiLeaks and talks of ‘bloodlust’ of US helicopter crew. The soldier related that in the video a man who has been hit by the US forces is seen crawling injured through the dust, at which point one of the helicopter crew is heard wishing the man would pick up a weapon so that they could kill him. “For me that was like a child torturing an ant with a magnifying glass.”
→ read full article‘Pervasive’ Fraud by Our ‘Most Reputable’ Banks
Bill Black - Reader Supported News,
4 Mar 2013
The key conclusion of the study is that control fraud was “pervasive.” Finance scholars are not known for their sense of humor, but the irony of calling the world’s largest and most harmful financial control frauds our “most reputable” banks is quite wondrous. The point the financial scholars make is one Edwin Sutherland emphasized from the beginning when he announced the concept of “white-collar” crime.
→ read full articleWar on Terror Is the West’s New Religion
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
25 Feb 2013
But All the Crusading and Invading Simply Plays into Al-Qa’ida’s Hands – Just Ask the French
→ read full articleMan-Made Chemicals Cited in Health Scourges: UN Report
Robert Evans, Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Feb 2013
Man-made chemicals in everyday products are likely to be at least the partial cause of a global surge in birth deformities, hormonal cancers and psychiatric diseases, a U.N.-sponsored research team reported on Tuesday [19 Feb 2013].
→ read full articleTranscend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University,
25 Feb 2013
All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th
→ read full article‘We Grow, They Bulldoze, We Re-Plant’
Eva Bartlett – Inter Press Service-IPS,
18 Feb 2013
“The Israeli army destroyed my house and my five dunums of land (a dunum is 1,000 square metres), as well as 20 other homes,” he says. With signs reading ‘Boycott Israeli Agricultural Products’ and ‘Support Palestinian Farmers’, Mandil and others protesting Israeli oppression of Palestinian farmers joined together Saturday [9 Feb 2013] to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce.
→ read full article(Português) Historiador Conecta Desinteresse dos EUA pela América Latina a Avanços da Região
Martín Granovsky – Carta Maior,
18 Feb 2013
O historiador Erick Langer, diretor do Centro de Estudos Latino-americanos da Universidade de Georgetown, em Washington, fala nesta entrevista sobre vários temas da história continental, como o populismo, a ascensão e as crises do neoliberalismo, as conexões das terras baixas com os Andes e a influência da China e dos EUA.
→ read full article[Tragicomic] Pentagon Urges Delay in “Devastating” $46 Billion Budget Cuts
David Alexander and Phil Stewart, Reuters – Chicago Tribune,
18 Feb 2013
The Pentagon’s civilian and military leaders warned in dire terms on Tuesday [12 Feb 2013] that $46 billion in budget cuts due to go into effect in two weeks would erode the nation’s ability to go to war and appealed to Congress to delay the reductions.
→ read full articleHypocrisy: US Arms Al Qaeda in Syria, Mass-Slaughters Civilians in Afghanistan
Tony Cartalucci – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
In other words, the very underwriters of the armed militancy that is consuming Syria are sitting along side the head of the UN commission producing reports portraying the Syrian government as guilty of “war crimes and crimes against humanity.
→ read full articleSyria – It Is Illegal to Back Rebels Fighting a Legitimate Government
Dr. Curtis Doebbler, international lawyer – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
Several countries, mostly from the Arab League (dominated by the Gulf kingdoms) and the West, have recognized the coalition of Syrian opposition militias that was born in Doha (Qatar), under the auspices of the Western and Gulf countries. We asked international lawyer Curtis Doebbler, a peace and human rights activist, whether it could be legal to provide weapons to the this armed opposition as France asks the EU. Here is his answer.
→ read full articleTranscend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University,
18 Feb 2013
All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th
→ read full article(Português) Os BRICS de Olho na África
Antonio Martins, Outras Palavras – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Feb 2013
Quinto encontro dos grandes emergentes debaterá criação de um banco de desenvolvimento comum, voltado para continente. Cooperação ou novo imperialismo?
→ read full article(Português) 54 Países, Tortura & CIA Ilimitada
Flávio Aguiar – Carta Maior,
11 Feb 2013
Relatório da Open Society Foundations traz 216 páginas em que se reúnem casos de 136 “cidadãos do mundo” sequestrados a mando da CIA, em diferentes países, levados para diferentes países, neles eventualmente torturados, alguns terminando a trajetória na infame Guantánamo. Para isso, 54 governos colaboraram com a CIA e os EUA.
→ read full articleTranscend Peace University Online Courses
Erika Degortes – TRANSCEND Peace University,
11 Feb 2013
All-online courses on peace, conflict transformation, mediation, peace education, nonviolence and more. TRANSCEND Peace University (TPU) is pleased to announce its call for applications for the academic year 2013: Certificate Online Courses – First Term of 2013: March 12th – May 30th
→ read full articleResource Nationalism: Beyond Ideology
Hal Weitzman – Americas Quarterly,
11 Feb 2013
The hemisphere revives an old policy standby. Latin America’s political Left has displayed symptoms of bipolarity for much of the past decade. One Left had “truly socialist and progressive roots” that was “following pragmatic, sensible and realistic paths.” The other stemmed from “a populist, purely nationalist past” that had “proven much less responsive to modernizing influences.”
→ read full articleHigh Frequency Active Auroral Research Program-HAARP: Weapon of Mass Destruction
Rosalie Bertell, Ph.D., GNSH – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2013
One of the ways in which HAARP is thought to work is similar to firing a cap gun in an avalanche area. The snow is built up, ready to collapse and even the slightest disturbance causes an avalanche. That’s one way that HAARP works. In key areas where seismic pressures are ready to shift, HAARP bombards the already sensitive area with an incredible amount of energy in the form of a beam that reflects off the ionosphere. The earth’s tectonic plates vibrate and an earthquake results.
→ read full articleIt Has Happened Here
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Feb 2013
Whether a person believes the official story of 9/11 which rests on unproven government assertions or believes the documented evidence provided by a large number of scientists, first responders, and structural engineers and architects, the result is the same. 9/11 was used to create an open-ended “war on terror” and a police state. It is extraordinary that so many Americans believe that “it can’t happen here” when it already has.
→ read full article2013 World Press Freedom Index: Dashed Hopes after ‘Springs’
Reporters Without Borders – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2013
The ranking of most countries is no longer attributable to dramatic political developments. This year’s index is a better reflection of the attitudes and intentions of governments towards media freedom in the medium or long term. (See full list of countries in the end)
→ read full articleCriminals Use Webcams for Spying
Rossen Reports, NBC – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2013
Authorities are saying criminals can now hack into your webcam remotely, using it to watch your most intimate moments without you ever knowing it.
→ read full articleAnti-Semitism: What It IS and Is NOT
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2013
“An anti-Semite used to be a person who disliked Jews. Now it is a person who Jews dislike.” Today much (meaning not quite all) of what supporters of Israel right or wrong claim to be anti-Semitism is actually anti-Israelism, which in my view is best described as anti-Zionism. And contrary to the assertions of Zionism’s spin doctors, anti-Zionism is not by definition anti-Semitism. Short or long, any discussion of anti-Semitism should include the fact that Zionism needs it.
→ read full articleRepression, Resistance, and Indigenous Rights in Guatemala
Anita Isaacs and Rachel Schwartz – Americas Quarterly,
4 Feb 2013
Can centuries of exploitation be reversed?
→ read full articleIt’s Good to Be a Goldman
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
4 Feb 2013
Here’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, and while we’re at it, take this obscenely huge bonus for having wrecked the economy.
→ read full articleThe Geopolitics of the Modern Resource Boom
Bernice Lee – Americas Quarterly,
4 Feb 2013
Intensified resource stress, driven in part by the booming demand from emerging economies and a decade of tight commodity markets, is reshaping the global economy. Whether the resources are actually diminishing is a matter of debate, but one thing is clear: the resources sector is increasingly characterized by supply disruptions, volatile prices and rising political tensions over access. In many places, myopic government policies have exacerbated the challenges.
→ read full articleFrom Algeria, a Lesson in How to Bypass Democracy
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
28 Jan 2013
Our Middle East Correspondent on the Bouteflika regime, Pentagon folly, the many faces of Assad, and precious lessons from an old handbook in his Beirut briefcase.
→ read full articleTorture Is Trivial
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
28 Jan 2013
The focus on torture in “Zero Dark Thirty” ignores more significant US policies of dubious legality. When I look at the decade since 9/11, torture is hardly the greatest crime of the US war machine. Since 9/11, the United States has helped destroy two countries with, at best, sketchy moral and legal justification.
→ read full articleWhy Is Guantanamo Still Open?
William Boardman - Reader Supported News,
28 Jan 2013
Official US policy pretty much still supports everything that was done and continues to be done at Guantanamo.
→ read full articleSecrecy and National Security Whistleblowing
Daniel Ellsberg - Reader Supported News,
21 Jan 2013
The mystique of secrecy in the universe of national security…is a compelling deterrent to whistleblowing and thus to effective resistance to gravely wrongful or dangerous policies.
→ read full articleDifferent Rules for Plutocrats
Carl Gibson - Reader Supported News,
21 Jan 2013
26-year-old Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz faced up to 35 years in federal prison for the ‘crime’ of downloading academic files from the JSTOR database for anyone to have, free of charge. Contrast that with recent news of JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who gambled and lost $6 billion in other people’s money in a high-risk trading scheme. Jail wasn’t even considered, despite their open complicity in bilking millions of people out of their money, and aiding criminals.
→ read full articleAlgeria, Mali, and Why This Week Has Looked Like an Obscene Remake of Earlier Western Interventions
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
21 Jan 2013
We are outraged not by the massacre of the innocents, but because the hostages killed were largely white, blue-eyed chaps rather than darker, brown-eyed chaps. Odd, isn’t it, how our “collateral damage” is different from their “collateral damage”.
→ read full articleBy Design: French Mali Invasion Spills into Algeria
Tony Cartalucci – Global Research,
21 Jan 2013
Al Qaeda is both a casus belli and mercenary force, deployed by the West against targeted nations. French operations seek to trigger armed conflict in Algeria as well as a possible Western military intervention there as well, with the Mali conflict serving as a pretense.
→ read full articleThe Master as “Guest”: The U.S. Military Swarms over Africa
Glen Ford – Black Agenda Report,
14 Jan 2013
A long-planned U.S. escalation of its military presence in Africa will soon get underway, with the permanent deployment of a 3,500-strong brigade. The heavy combat team will make itself at home in African bases in 35 countries. “This is a very different kind of invasion – more like an infiltration-in-force.”
→ read full articleOil and War
Robert Newman, Brasscheck TV – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2013
Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years – but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil centre stage as the cause of all commotion.
→ read full articleA Feel-Good Movie about Fracking?
Fran Korten – YES! Magazine,
14 Jan 2013
Chris Moore, who co-produced “Good Will Hunting,” has a new film starring Matt Damon as a corporate salesman trying to open up a small town to fracking. Moore’s take on the ideas behind the film.
→ read full articleCould Saudi Arabia Be Next?
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
7 Jan 2013
Nobody can predict which way the ‘Arab Awakening’ will turn this year. But Robert Fisk has ventured a very tentative punt or two…
→ read full articleHow The New York Times Erases Israel’s Crimes
Robert Ross, The Electronic Intifada – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2013
The New York Times keeps the American public in the dark about the true nature of Israel’s occupation. According to The New York Times, there is no siege of Gaza, no occupation of the West Bank, and never was there a Nakba (the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine). Three recent articles erase these key Israeli crimes from the historical record.
→ read full articleHow Anonymous Got Political
Quinn Norton – New Internationalist Magazine,
31 Dec 2012
A look behind the mask of the hacker network, charting its evolution into a global activist force. Anonymous’ swagger grew with outrageous hacks of companies, governments, and law enforcement. ‘Anonymous was born out of a need to exact retribution,’ said a Chanology anon. ‘Scientology tried to fuck with our internet, attempting to shut down the Cruise video. It was punished, hard, and continues to be punished nearly four years later.’
→ read full articleThe P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2012
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting-FAIR – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Dec 2012
Recalling Some of the Stinkiest Media Moments of the Year [2012]
→ read full articleChina Is Opening a Confrontation on the Sea
Roberto Savio – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Dec 2012
The victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the recent Japanese elections, with LDP leader Shinzō Abe coming back as Prime Minister after five years, will probably mean an escalation of tension with China. Both countries are embarking on a fresh burst of nationalism, but for different reasons.
→ read full articleThe Shameful Exploitation of Bradley Manning
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
17 Dec 2012
The major news outlets that were thrilled to profit from the information that Bradley Manning uncovered are deeply afraid of being associated with the brave whistle-blower himself. Keep an American soldier locked up naked in a cage and driven half mad while deprived of all basic rights, and you will be instantly condemned as a barbaric terrorist. Unless the jailer is an authorized agent of the U.S. government, in which case even treatment approaching torture will go largely unnoticed.
→ read full articleUS Admits Hundreds of Afghan Teens Detained
Peter James Spielmann - Reader Supported News,
17 Dec 2012
The U.S. military has detained more than 200 Afghan teenagers who were captured in the war for about a year at a time at a military prison next to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, the United States has told the United Nations.
→ read full articleAll We Can Do
Morton Marcus – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Dec 2012
All we can do on this earth is step into the future
with a sense of the many people behind us,
the living and the dead, as if we carried our bodies…
Facebook’s Privacy Vote: What the Email Actually Means
Rob Waugh, Yahoo! News – Reader Supported News,
10 Dec 2012
Facebook has sent all its users an email this week about a vote on its proposed changes to Data Use Policy – the site’s term for its privacy policy. The dry, quietly worded email is more significant than it sounds.
→ read full articleBradley Manning and Our Decade of Denial
Seamus McKiernan - Reader Supported News,
10 Dec 2012
Manning has been in the dark for more than 900 days — with most of that time spent in solitary confinement. The extreme conditions of Manning’s detention have been widely reported. A Navy psychiatrist who treated Manning testified that his medical recommendations were consistently ignored by commanders. A UN investigation last spring described Manning’s conditions as “cruel” and “inhuman.” But the first rule about denial is that no one talks about denial.
→ read full articleBradley Manning: A Window into the American Soul
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Dec 2012
The three branches of our government have united to destroy US civil liberties in the name of a hoax, “the war on terror.” The window into America’s political soul reveals total evil. The US government constitutes Satan’s Chosen People. Nothing else can be said for those who rule and oppress us.
→ read full articleMethods of Analysis in Social Sciences and Research for Peace – An Introduction
Alberto L’Abate – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Dec 2012
This study deals with its subject in a rather original way if compared with the usual research methodology texts. First of all, it discards the traditional standpoint of research “neutrality”, which according to the author favours the preservation of the “status quo”, since research is increasingly financed by the state, by the army or by important economic entities, which are more concerned in furthering their own power rather than promoting peace.
→ read full articleAre Israel’s Jews, Some of Them, on Their Way to Becoming Nazis?
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Dec 2012
Some and perhaps many will regard my headline question as offensive but I make no apology for asking it; and I take comfort from the fact that my decision to pose it is fully supported by one of my very dear Jewish friends – Nazi holocaust survivor Dr. Hajo Meyer. He has said in public that Zionism is seeking to dehumanize the Palestinians in the same way the Nazis sought to dehumanize him in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
→ read full article(Português) Uri Avnery: Fúria e Humor de um Pacifista Israelense
Robert Fisk, The Independent – Outras Palavras,
3 Dec 2012
Uri Avnery dispara: Netanyahu quer estado judeu do Mediterrâneo ao rio Jordão; mas isso levará a beco sem saída.
→ read full article5 Persistent Myths about Bipolar Disorder
Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S., Psych Central – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Dec 2012
Bipolar disorder is a serious and difficult illness that affects all facets of a person’s life: their education, work, relationships, health and finances, said Julie A. Fast, author of several bestselling books on bipolar disorder, including Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder and Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder, and a coach who works with partners and families.
→ read full articleThe Latest War with Hamas Over Gaza Proves Benjamin Netanyahu Is Leading Israel into Isolation
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
3 Dec 2012
Israelis are congratulating themselves on the success of their Iron Dome missile shield. But across Israel these past years has fallen a different kind of iron dome, one that isolates the country rather than protects it, which shields its people from the realities of the Middle East, from Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world.
→ read full article(Português) Equador Enfrenta a Ditadura dos Bancos
Ana Maria Passos, Diário Liberdade/Carta Maior – Outras Mídias,
3 Dec 2012
O país se mantém na vanguarda democrática da América Latina: desta vez, com lei que aumenta tributação sobre os bancos e reduz poder do sistema financeiro.
→ read full articleUri Avnery, One of Israel’s Great Leftist Warriors, Wants Peace With Hamas and Gaza – But Does the Knesset?
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
26 Nov 2012
Old [TRANSCEND member] Uri Avnery is 89 but he’s still a fighter. In fact, the famed writer is still one of the great old leftist warriors of Israel, still demanding peace with the Palestinians, peace with Hamas and a Palestinian state on the old ’67 borders – give or take a few square miles. He still believes Israel could have peace tomorrow or next week.
→ read full articleAs Israel and Hamas Open the ‘Gates of Hell’ in Gaza, All the Journalistic Clichés of War Are Here Again
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
26 Nov 2012
‘Surgical air strikes’, ‘rooting out terror’, and ‘cyber-terrorism’ cannot conceal reality. Terror, terror, terror, terror, terror. Here we go again. Israel is going to “root out Palestinian terror” – which it has been claiming to do, unsuccessfully, for 64 years – while Hamas, the latest in “Palestine’s” morbid militias, announces that Israel has “opened the gates of hell” by murdering its military leader, Ahmed al-Jabari.
→ read full articlePuppet State America
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Nov 2012
The German assault on the Warsaw Ghetto is one of the horror stories of Jewish history. Such an event is happening again, only this time Jews are perpetrators instead of victims. No hand has been raised to stay Israel from the goal of the operation declared by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai to be “to send Gaza back to the Middle Ages.”
→ read full article(Portuguese) Israel Conspira Contra Si Mesmo
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
26 Nov 2012
Robert Fisk alerta: num Oriente Médio transformado, operação militar brutal de Telaviv ameaça, a médio prazo, própria existência do país.
→ read full articleWe Are All Israeli’s Now: Its Brutality, Unlike Syria’s, Is Fought in the Name of the West’s War on Terror
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
26 Nov 2012
Who set the precedent when it comes to “collateral damage”? The West did. We Westerners set the precedents in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq – trains, bridges, TV stations, wedding parties, blocks of civilian apartments, you name it – and now the Israelis can trot along behind and produce, whenever necessary, the same tired list of excuses we invented for NATO.
→ read full articleLatin America’s Middle Class in Global Perspective
Jamele Rigolini – Americas Quarterly,
19 Nov 2012
Different patterns of economic growth in BRIC countries have brought different social changes. Comparing the middle class in Latin America to the new middle classes in the BRIC countries.
→ read full articleWhy BP Isn’t a Criminal
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
BP plead guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and agreed to pay $4 billion over the next five years. But it defies logic to make BP itself the criminal. Corporations aren’t people. They can’t know right from wrong. They’re incapable of criminal intent. They have no brains. They’re legal fictions — pieces of paper filed away in a vault in some bank.
→ read full articleBeyond Regulators’ Grasp: How Shadow Banks Rule the World
Martin Hesse and Anne Seith – Der Spiegel,
19 Nov 2012
Beyond the banking world, a parallel universe of shadow banks has grown in the form of hedge funds and money market funds. They’re outside the reach of conventional financial regulation, prompting authorities to plan introducing new rules to prevent the obscure sector from triggering a new financial crisis. But in doing so they risk drying up an important source of funding to banks and firms.
→ read full articleA ‘Grand Bargain’ or a Grand Uprising?
Carl Gibson - Reader Supported News,
19 Nov 2012
What will we look like a year from today? Will we be another Greece, under the control of greedier banks and a crueler government, or will we take our economy back from the banks like Iceland did? The choice isn’t up to our politicians- it’s up to us. Let’s get to work.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Amizade – Um Poema
Albert Einstein – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Nov 2012
Pode ser que um dia deixemos de nos falar…
Mas, enquanto houver amizade,
Faremos as pazes de novo.
Iran/USA: Who Is Threatening Who? Weapons of Mass Distraction (VIDEO OF THE WEEK)
Abby Martin – Russia Today,
19 Nov 2012
Iran-US Relations: Reality, History, Causes, Consequences
→ read full articleAre You Man Enough To Go Vegan?
Victoria Martindale – The Independent,
12 Nov 2012
As we enter World Vegan Month it’s time to reconsider the vegan stereotype. Admittedly, veganism has been given a bad name over the years, it’s very mention conjuring up images of pale hirsute hippies who zip about on their bikes to spread the love. I remember the only vegan on my course (and quite probably in the whole university) turned up at our graduation ball dressed in sackcloth and sandals.
→ read full articleCalifornia: Prop 37 Fails – Why We Can’t Rely on Policy to Change Our Food System
Kristin Wartman and Erika Lade – Huffington Post,
12 Nov 2012
On Tuesday [6 Nov 2012], Californians voted on Proposition 37, which if passed, would have required the mandatory labeling of genetically-modified foods (GMOs). According to public health lawyer Michele Simon, Big Food companies like Monsanto, Coca-Cola, ConAgra, Nestle, and Kraft, which donated funds to “No on 37” engaged in lying, scare tactics, misrepresentation, and various dirty tricks to protect their profits and keep California voters uninformed about their food choices.
→ read full articleThe Case of the Swedish Weapons in Syria
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
12 Nov 2012
How did warning flares from a small town near Gothenburg find their way into the weaponry of the anti-Assad resistance?
→ read full articleThe Buzz about Pesticides
Charlotte Stoddart, Nature – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Nov 2012
Common pesticides affect bumblebee foraging.
→ read full articleGlobal Warming Systemically Caused Hurricane Sandy
George Lakoff - Reader Supported News,
5 Nov 2012
Yes, global warming systemically caused Hurricane Sandy – and the Midwest droughts and the fires in Colorado and Texas, as well as other extreme weather disasters around the world. Let’s say it out loud, it was causation, systemic causation. Systemic causation is familiar. Smoking is a systemic cause of lung cancer. HIV is a systemic cause of AIDS. Working in coal mines is a systemic cause of black lung disease. Driving while drunk is a systemic cause of auto accidents. Sex without contraception is a systemic cause of unwanted pregnancies.
→ read full articleSan Diego’s Drone Industry Doubles in Size
Gary Robbins – North County Times,
5 Nov 2012
The industry, which is centered in North County, generated at least $1.3 billion locally in 2011 and directly and indirectly supported 7,135 jobs. The report says the true impact could be far higher due to classified programs that are not included in public records. Most of the business can be tied to two defense giants — Northrop Grumman of Rancho Bernardo, which specializes in Global Hawk UAVs, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of Poway, which is best-known for Predators.
→ read full articleRegardless of Whether Obama or Romney Wins, America’s Relations with the Arab World Will Change
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
5 Nov 2012
28 Oct 2012 – After last week’s Obama-Romney love-fest for Israel, the Arabs have been slowly deciding which of the two men would be best for the Middle East. It looks like Barack Obama is their man; but the problem – as always – is the sad, pathetic and outrageously obvious fact that it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference.
→ read full articleAustralia: One In 20 Priests an Abuser, Inquiry Told
Barney Zwartz – The Age,
29 Oct 2012
At least one in 20 Catholic priests in Melbourne is a child sex abuser, although the real figure is probably one in 15, the state inquiry into the churches’ handling of sex abuse was told yesterday [22 Oct 2012]. RMIT professor Des Cahill said his figures, based on analysing conviction rates of priests ordained from Melbourne’s Corpus Christi College, closely matched a much larger American analysis of 105,000 priests which found that 4362 were child sex offenders.
→ read full article(Portuguese) O Referendum Islandês e os Silêncios da Mídia
Mauro Santayana – Carta Maior,
29 Oct 2012
Os cidadãos da Islândia referendaram, ontem [20 Out 2012], com cerca de 70% dos votos, o texto básico de sua nova Constituição, redigido por 25 delegados, quase todos homens comuns, escolhidos pelo voto direto da população, incluindo a estatização de seus recursos naturais. Durante estes poucos anos, nos quais os islandeses resistiram contra o acosso dos grandes bancos internacionais, os meios de comunicação internacional fizeram conveniente silêncio sobre o que vem ocorrendo em Reykjavik.
→ read full articleUK: Gay Asylum Seeker Loses Deportation Fight
Scott Roberts – Pink News,
29 Oct 2012
A gay Nigerian asylum seeker who was living in Bradford has been deported from the UK. Olamiekan Ayelokun had argued that he could not return to Nigeria because he was at risk of homophobic persecution. The maximum punishment for same-sex sexual activity in Nigeria is 14 years in jail; in regions under Sharia law this can include a sentence of death by stoning.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Orçamento Austero de Portugal Privilegia Interesse da Banca
Maurício Hashizume – Carta Maior,
22 Oct 2012
Os atuais governantes portugueses apresentaram à nação um pacote combinado de aumento expressivo e generalizado de vários impostos (com especial foco na retenção dos rendimentos do trabalho) e de redução de garantias sociais (seja por meio de cortes em pensões e na ajuda aos desempregados, pela demissão de servidores ou da ampliação da idade mínima para a aposentadoria no serviço público, que passou de 63,5 para 65 anos).
→ read full articleThe Facts Are In: Nonviolent Resistance Works
John Dear S.J., National Catholic Reporter – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Oct 2012
“Nonviolence is fine as long as it works,” Malcolm X once said. Recently, Columbia University Press published an extraordinary scholarly book that proves how nonviolence works far better as a method for social change than violence. This breakthrough book demonstrates that Gandhi was right, that the method of nonviolent resistance as a way to social change usually leads to a more lasting peace while violence usually fails.
→ read full articlePlucky Little Turkey Standing Up to Evil Syria? It’s Not as Simple as That
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
15 Oct 2012
The Long View: Turkey is funnelling weapons and armed men across the border into Syria. When it comes to international law, to moral compromise, to sheer hypocrisy, the Western powers take the biscuit. La Clinton raves on about Syrian depravity when Syrian shells slaughter a Turkish woman and her four children – which they did – but gives succour to the gunmen who torture and kill and suicide-bomb the regime’s supporters inside Syria.
→ read full articleHow to Avoid Genetically Modified Food
Robin Mather, Mother Earth News – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Oct 2012
The only way to avoid GM food is to know which ingredients are likely to be genetically modified and read labels carefully, or to always choose organic foods, which are certified GM-free. Below are estimates of the percentages of GM foods found on store shelves. To learn more about this issue, see The Threats From Genetically Modified Foods.
→ read full articleEmpire and Its Consequences
Robert Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Oct 2012
This is the morality of empire, the morality of domination. We didn’t invent it; we just carry on the tradition, which goes back through colonialism and slavery to the Inquisition (“kill them all, let God sort them out”) to Rome (“they create a wasteland and call it peace”) and beyond, to the dawn of civilization. I think the consequences have finally caught up with us.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Moral Degeneracy
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Oct 2012
Once upon a time, the Turks were a fierce people. Today they are Washington’s puppets. We have witnessed this during the past week. The Turkish government is permitting the Islamists from outside Syria, organized by the CIA and Israel, to attack Syria from Turkish territory… Muslim countries are incapable of supporting one another. Instead of supporting one another, Muslim governments accept payoffs to support instead the Christian/Zionist forces of the Western bloc.
→ read full articleSuicide Is Epidemic For American Indian Youth: What More Can Be Done?
Stephanie Woodard, 100Reporters – NBC News,
15 Oct 2012
In pockets of the United States, suicide among Native American youth is 9 to 19 times as frequent as among other youths, and rising. From Arizona to Alaska, tribes are declaring states of emergency and setting up crisis-intervention teams. “It feels like wartime,” said Diane Garreau, a child-welfare official on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, in South Dakota. “I’ll see one of our youngsters one day, then find out a couple of days later she’s gone. Our children are self-destructing.”
→ read full articleStudy: The Effects of Weaponized Radiation – Health Effects of Radioactive Materials (1945-1970)
Lisa MartinoTaylor, Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia - TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Oct 2012
Abstract: This piece analyzes a covert Manhattan Project spin-off organization referred to here as the Manhattan-Rochester Coalition, and an obscure aerosol study in St. Louis, Missouri, conducted under contract by the U.S. military from 1953–1954, and 1963–1965. The military-sponsored studies targeted a segregated, high-density urban area, where low-income persons of color predominantly resided.
→ read full articleNATO Terrorists Mass Slaughter Civilians in Aleppo, Syria
Tony Cartalucci – Land Destroyer Report,
8 Oct 2012
October 3, 2012 – NATO-backed terrorism swept the northern Syrian city of Aleppo this week, killing and maiming scores of civilians. Al Qaeda-style car bombings targeted public squares throughout the city in a coordinated attack the Western press has attempted to claim was “targeting government forces.”
→ read full articleHow the Government’s Lies Become Truth
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Oct 2012
In my last column, “A Culture of Delusion,” I wrote that “Americans live in a matrix of lies. Lies dominate every policy discussion, every political decision.” This column will use two top news stories, Iranian nukes and Julian Assange, to illustrate how lies become “truth.”
→ read full article(Portuguese) A Luta Democrática no Oriente Médio
Emir Sader – Carta Maior,
8 Oct 2012
A chamada primavera árabe propriamente dita, se limitou, até aqui, à Tunisia e ao Egito. Os outros processos estão sobredeterminados pelo contexto geopolítico internacional. Quem pode dizer que hoje a Líbia se democratiza?
→ read full articleBenjamin Netanyahu’s Warning Reveals His Moments of Memory Loss
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
1 Oct 2012
Not since the last set of cartoons flourished in the UN Donkey House has the world been so gobsmacked.
→ read full articleWhy We Won and How We Are Losing
Robert Jensen – Al Jazeera,
1 Oct 2012
“[A]part from death, the only ironclad rule of human experience has been the Law of Unintended Consequences. Our brains are extraordinary mechanisms, and they have allowed us to accomplish truly amazing things; but we are still only good at anticipating – or at least of paying attention to – highly immediate consequences. We are notably bad at assessing risk, especially long-term risk. We believe crazy things, such as that human sacrifice will propitiate the gods, or that people are kidnapped by space aliens, or that endless economic expansion is possible in a finite world, or that if we just ignore climate change we won’t have to face its consequences. Or at the very least, we act as if we do.”
→ read full article(Portuguese) Brasil: Comissão da Verdade Institui Grupo para Investigar Operação Condor
Najla Passos e Rafael Santos – Carta Maior,
1 Oct 2012
Apontada como a maior operação de terrorismo de Estado já praticada na América Latina, a Condor envolveu as ditaduras de Chile, Argentina, Paraguai, Uruguai, Bolívia e Brasil que, mesmo não tendo assinado a ata de fundação, participou da primeira reunião oficial do grupo, realizada em Santiago do Chile, em 1975.
→ read full articleMemo to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: The Door on a Two-State Solution Was Closed 45 Years Ago
Alan Hart – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Oct 2012
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly at the start of this week [27 Sep 2012] that “the door may be closing for good on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.” The truth of history, which most if not all world leaders know but dare not state, is that the door Ban Ki-moon sees closing, was actually slammed shut 45 years ago. The precise date of the closure was 22 November 1967. What happened on that day?
→ read full articleA Culture of Delusion
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Oct 2012
A writer’s greatest disappointments are readers who have knee-jerk responses. Not all readers, of course. Some readers are thoughtful and supportive. Others express thanks for opening their eyes. But the majority are happy when a writer tells them what they want to hear and are unhappy when he writes what they don’t want to hear.
→ read full articleFormer US President Carter: Venezuelan Electoral System “Best in the World”
Ewan Robertson, Venezuelanalysis – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Oct 2012
Speaking at an annual event last week [16 Sep 2012] in Atlanta for his Carter Centre foundation, the politician-turned philanthropist stated, “As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”
→ read full articleBarcelona Manifesto for Peace
Fundación Carta de la Paz – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2012
September 21, 2012 – International Day for Peace. On the occasion of the First International Congress on Building Peace in the 21st Century held in Barcelona from 23rd-25th April 2012, the organising committee recognises the contributions, presentations, papers and pre-congress preparatory work and offers the following manifesto:
→ read full article(Castellano) Manifiesto Barcelona por la Paz
Fundación Carta de la Paz – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2012
21 de septiembre 2012 – Día Internacional de la Paz. Con motivo del Ier Congreso Internacional Edificar la Paz en el siglo XXI celebrado en Barcelona los días 23, 24 y 25 de abril del 2012, el Comité Científico, recogiendo las aportaciones, las comunicaciones y las ponencias que se han presentado y los trabajos precongresuales, da a conocer el siguiente Manifiesto:
→ read full articleWest Attempts to Trigger Clash of Civilizations
Tony Cartalucci – Land Destroyer Report,
24 Sep 2012
In France where people are sent to jail for “Holocaust denial,” considered by law a religious hate crime, it seems strange then that well timed, raunchy cartoons designed solely to insult and inflame hate against and amongst Muslims worldwide would be defended vigorously by French politicians who claim, according to the Christian Science Monitor, that “freedom of the press should not be infringed.”
→ read full articleAl-Qa’ida Cashes In As the Scorpion Gets In Among the Good Guys
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
24 Sep 2012
The United States supported the opposition against Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, helped Saudi Arabia and Qatar pour cash and weapons to the militias and now America’s Libyan “friends” turned against them. The US had fed the al-Qa’ida scorpion and now it had bitten America. And so Washington now supports the opposition against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was helping Saudi Arabia and Qatar pour cash and weapons to the militias (including Salafists and al-Qa’ida) and would, inevitably, be bitten by the same “scorpion” if Assad was overthrown.
→ read full article
Origins of Israel Palestinian Conflict
CaspianReport – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Sep 2012
The Israeli Arab conflict is the result of interactions of superpowers in the early 20th century. British and French strategic interests in the Middle East were related to the Mediterranean trading route, which went from the Suez channel to Indian markets. But the presence of the Ottoman navy based in the Levant was a direct threat to British interests. So the British and the French decided to divide the Middle East into smaller entities and countries to make it impossible for the Ottoman Empire to control them all. A century later, the legacy of European colonization of the Arab world is reflected by its many ongoing conflicts.
→ read full articleThe Provocateurs Know Politics and Religion Don’t Mix
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
17 Sep 2012
So another internet clever-clogs sets the Middle East on fire: Prophet cartoons, then Koranic book-burning, now a video of robed “terrorists” and a fake desert. The Western-Christian perpetrators then go into hiding (an essential requisite for publicity) while the innocent are asphyxiated, beheaded and otherwise done to death – outrageous Muslim revenge thus “proving” the racist claims of the trash peddlers that Islam is a violent religion.
→ read full articleWhat’s So Scary About a Vegetarian Future?
Dr Victoria Martindale – The Independent,
17 Sep 2012
Scientists predict that global diets will need to change dramatically within the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic food shortages. That almighty bastion of meat culture, McDonalds, has taken heed and spearheaded plans to open vegetarian restaurants in India. OK, McDonalds’s may well be crappy junk food but there will always be people who eat it and at least now it will be crappy vegetarian junk food. And as Burger King, KFC and Pizza Hut follow its example people will soon be eating vegetarian crap everywhere. But hey, whether it’s a Maccy D’s veggie burger, artificial meat grown in a lab or local seasonal vegetables – it’s got to be good news.
→ read full articleThe Forgotten Massacre
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
17 Sep 2012
Thirty years after 1,700 Palestinians were killed at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps, Robert Fisk revisits the killing fields. The memories remain, of course.
→ read full article