Articles by RT
We found 4100 results.
Wanted Dead or Alive
Robert Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
President Obama’s attempts this past week to call forth a heightened sense of national unity around Osama bin Laden’s assassination is a devil’s bargain because the need for more violence will never end. However, this need — for the next war, the next political assassination — always seems so reasonable. And as part of the bargain, “The meaning you’re making around violence is your own goodness.”
→ read full articleA Moment of Silence, Before I Start This Poem
Emmanuel Ortiz – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
Before I start this poem,
I’d like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
Press Release-UN High Commission for Human Rights: Palestinian Nakba
Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian Territories – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 May 2011
On May 15 2011 the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mr. Richard Falk, marks the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophic beginning of the Palestinian tragedy of dispossession and occupation, with the following statement.
→ read full articleIgnorance Is Strength: Americans Are Living In 1984
Paul Craig Roberts - LewRockwell,
16 May 2011
For those who haven’t read Orwell’s classic prediction of our time, Big Brother, the government, could tell the ‘citizens’ any lie and it was accepted unquestioningly. We Americans, with our ‘free press,’ are at this point today: ‘What is really alarming is the increasingly arrogant sloppiness of these lies, as though the government has become so profoundly confident of its ability to deceive people that they make virtually no effort to even appear credible.’ A people as gullible as Americans have no future.
→ read full articleThe Other BRIC in Latin America: India
Jorge Heine and R. Viswanathan – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
India emerges as a major partner for Latin America. Welcome to the new kid on the block.
→ read full articleWas He Betrayed? Of Course. Pakistan Knew bin Laden’s Hiding Place All Along
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
9 May 2011
I met the man [bin Laden] three times and have only one question left unasked: what did he think as he watched those revolutions unfold this year – under the flags of nations rather than Islam, Christians and Muslims together, the kind of people his own al-Qa’ida men were happy to butcher? While the Arab dictators ruled uncontested with our support, they largely avoided condemning American policy; only bin Laden said these things. Arabs never wanted to fly planes into tall buildings, but they did admire a man who said what they wanted to say. But now, increasingly, they can say these things. They don’t need bin Laden. He had become a nonentity.
→ read full articleOsama bin Laden: Everyone’s Missing the Point
Barry Lando - Reader Supported News,
9 May 2011
Indeed, from the point of view of America and many of its allies, the most menacing symbol in the Arab World today is not Osama bin Laden but another Arab who recently met a violent death – Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26-year-old Tunisian fruit vendor who chose to set himself on fire. His act, of course, ignited the storm that has spread across the Arab World and proven a much more serious threat to America’s allies in the region than al Qaeda ever was. Ironically, his sacrifice probably also dealt a far more devastating blow to al Qaeda’s fortunes than the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
→ read full articleChina in Latin America
Americas Quarterly – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2011
Interview – Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Li Jinzhang on his country’s plans as it increases economic and political ties to Latin America.
→ read full articleA Guide to ALBA
Joel D. Hirst – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
The Bolivarian Alternative – What does ALBA actually do? A guide to President Chávez and Fidel Castro’s regional project.
→ read full articleReflections on Brazil’s Global Rise
Celso Amorim – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
The man who led Brazil into its new global era discusses his diplomatic vision and Brazil-U.S. relations.
→ read full articleHaiti’s New President: Welcome to the Toughest Job in the Americas
Robert Maguire – Americas Quarterly,
9 May 2011
Haiti’s next president must put the country on a path to real development.
→ read full articleOsama bin Laden’s Useful Death
Paul Craig Roberts - LewRockwell,
9 May 2011
As the Guardian and European newspapers have revealed, the photo of the dead bin Laden is a fake. As the alleged body has been dumped into the ocean, nothing remains but the word of the US government, which lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections, about yellowcake, about Iranian nukes, and, according to thousands of experts, about 9/11. Suddenly the government is telling us the truth about bin Laden’s death? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll let you have for a good price.
→ read full articleSupport the Palestinian Unity Government
Jimmy Carter – The Washington Post,
9 May 2011
This is a decisive moment. Under the auspices of the Egyptian government, Palestine’s two major political movements — Fatah and Hamas — are signing a reconciliation agreement on Wednesday [4 May 2011] that will permit both to contest elections for the presidency and legislature within a year. If the United States and the international community support this effort, they can help Palestinian democracy and establish the basis for a unified Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that can make a secure peace with Israel.
→ read full articleA Human Right to Resist
Maciej Bartkowski and Annyssa Bellal – Open Democracy,
9 May 2011
Civil resistance – popular nonviolent struggle waged by ordinary people against dictatorship, foreign intervention, colonial occupation, corruption, or injustice with the use of diverse methods of nonviolent action – is by no means a new phenomenon. It has been practiced in a strategic manner for at least two centuries…
→ read full articleAll the WikiLeaks Fit to Print
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
2 May 2011
Why indeed is Manning the one behind bars and not the government officials who kept hidden unpleasant truths about this nation’s policies that the public has a right to know? And why do leaders of our constitutionally protected free press now seek to distance themselves from news sources that have performed a great public service? A service documented by the fact, as tallied by The Atlantic magazine, that more than half of the issues of The New York Times this year have carried stories that relied on WikiLeaks’ disclosures.
→ read full article‘US to Recoup Libya Oil from China’
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Press TV,
25 Apr 2011
Press TV has interviewed Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former assistant secretary of US Treasury from Panama City, who gives his insight on the revolution in Libya and why US President Barack Obama needs to overthrow Qaddafi when no other US president did.
→ read full articleTriumph of Right-Wing Populists: How Dangerous Is Finland to the Euro?
Sven Böll and Maria Marquart – Der Spiegel,
25 Apr 2011
Will the election of right-wing populists in Finland derail the euro rescue package? A Helsinki veto would indeed be expensive for the rest of the euro zone, particularly for Germany. Experts are also warning that other European countries may follow suit if Finland decides to pull out of the euro bailout.
→ read full article(French) Le Socialisme Cubain, Cinquante Ans Après
Renaud Lambert – Le Monde Diplomatique,
25 Apr 2011
« Cuba, c’est comme une telenovela de cinquante mille épisodes dont chacun pense que le prochain sera le dernier », résume Fernando Ravsberg, journaliste à la British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Avant d’ajouter, dans un sourire : « Mais elle continue toujours. » Cinquante-deux ans après le « triomphe de la révolution », le volet qui s’ouvre en 2011 débute par un événement et un double anniversaire.
→ read full articleLiberal Imperialism: The History of ‘Humanitarian Intervention’
Adam Curtis - BBC,
11 Apr 2011
Even if one’s instincts are to help those fighting Gadaffi, it is no longer enough just to see it as a struggle of goodies against baddies. For it is precisely that simplification that has led to unreal fantasies about who we are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
→ read full articleObama Raises American Hypocrisy To A Higher Level
Paul Craig Roberts – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2011
“Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” This from the Great Moral Leader who every day murders civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen and Somalia and now Libya and who turns a blind eye when “the great democracy in the Middle East,” Israel, murders more Palestinians.
→ read full articleReducing Armed Violence the Asian Way
Fred Lubang and Robert Muggah – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2011
Whilst armed violence affects every country, some societies are more affected than others. In South and Southeast Asia, countries such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand are affected by on-going armed conflicts within and across their borders. Others such as Cambodia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are emerging from war. Meanwhile, Bangladesh and Indonesia, along with virtually every other state across both regions, are confronting simmering urban violence due to growing organized crime and gang activity.
→ read full articleThe New Colonialism: Washington’s Pursuit of World Hegemony
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
4 Apr 2011
What we are observing in Libya is the rebirth of colonialism. Only this time it is not individual European governments competing for empires and resources. The new colonialism operates under the cover of “the world community,” which means NATO and those countries that cooperate with it. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was once a defense alliance against a possible Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Today NATO provides European troops in behalf of American hegemony.
→ read full articleBe Consistent—Invade Saudi Arabia
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
28 Mar 2011
In the glaring light of the democratic currents sweeping through the Mideast, the contradictions in supporting one set of dictators while toppling others may prove impossible for the U.S. and its allies to effectively manage. The recognition, widely demanded throughout the region, that even ordinary Middle Easterners have inalienable rights is a sobering notion not easily co-opted. Why don’t those rights to self-determination extend to Shiites in the richest oil province in Saudi Arabia or for that matter to Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza?
→ read full articleA System Designed to Crash
David Korten – Yes! Magazine,
28 Mar 2011
Why a Money System Dependent on Constant Growth Can’t Last – The problem appears to be a lack of money, even though the total money in circulation is far more than enough to cover real-wealth exchanges in a rational real-wealth economy. The money, however, is locked up in the Wall Street casino economy rather than circulating in the real Main Street economy. Pouring public bailout money into Wall Street serves only to reflate the bubble. It does nothing to revive the real economy.
→ read full articleHow Will the Arab Spring Reshape the Middle East?
Patrick Martin – The Globe and Mail,
21 Mar 2011
The Islam-is-down, secularism-is-up theme is one of three common notions about what the aftermath of the upheavals will bring. The second assumption is that greater democracy will emerge. The third is that, as far as the two non-Arab states that compete for influence in the region are concerned, the Iranian regime’s fortunes are looking brighter, and Israel’s much darker. It’s too soon to tell what exactly will emerge from this remarkable revolutionary period, but it’s not too soon to question some of these popular notions.
→ read full articleIran ‘Using Child Soldiers’ to Suppress Tehran Protests
Robert Tait – The Observer,
21 Mar 2011
Armed children as young as 14 are said to have been deployed alongside riot police.
→ read full articleOn the Brink of Meltdown: The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
Robert Alvarez – Institute for Policy Studies,
14 Mar 2011
In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in recorded history, 5,800 residents living within five miles of six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to evacuate and people living within 15 miles of the plant are advised to remain indoors. Plant operators haven’t been able to cool down the core of one reactor containing enormous amounts of radioactivity because of failed back-up diesel generators required for the emergency cooling.
→ read full article‘You Are No Longer My Son’: French ‘Refuge’ Helps Muslim Gays
Annika Sartor – Der Spiegel,
14 Mar 2011
For many gay and lesbian young people in France, Le Refuge is a lifesaver — literally. Since 2003, the organization has helped hundreds of desperate youths, most of them from Muslim families, who have been rejected by their families and forced onto the streets. But the charity is overwhelmed by the number of people seeking assistance.
→ read full articleLivni’s Guidance on Arab Democracy
Robert Grenier – Al Jazeera,
14 Mar 2011
Tzipi Livni’s disingeuous calls for a “code” on all democracies.
→ read full articleDecline of Honey Bees Now a Global Phenomenon, Says United Nations
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor – The Independent,
14 Mar 2011
The mysterious collapse of honey-bee colonies is becoming a global phenomenon, scientists working for the United Nations have revealed.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Secret Plan to Arm Libya’s Rebels
Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent – The Independent,
7 Mar 2011
Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi.
→ read full articleNED Arrives in Egypt
Philip Giraldi – Campaign for Liberty,
7 Mar 2011
Those who are aware of the insidious activities of the National Endowment for Democracy or NED, an ostensibly private foundation that spreads “democracy,” and is largely funded by the government, will not be surprised to learn that it is already active in North Africa. NED, which has a Democratic Party half in its National Democratic Institute, and a Republican Party half in its International Republican Institute, was the driving force behind the series of pastel revolutions that created turmoil in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism.
→ read full articleLibya: The Rest of the Story
Tony Cartalucci - Pravda,
7 Mar 2011
Libyan opposition literally running protests from Washington.
→ read full articleRestorative Justice after Mass Violence: Opportunities and Risks for Children and Youth
Laura Stovel and Marta Valiñas – UNICEF,
28 Feb 2011
There is growing interest in the role that restorative justice can play in addressing mass atrocities. This UNICEF paper describes the associated principles and practices within juvenile justice systems and in societies emerging from mass violence. It also examines the meaning, opportunities and limitations of restorative justice in transitional societies, particularly in relation to the needs of young victims and offenders.
→ read full article(Castellano) Democracia y Exclusión Social: No se Trata de Administrar la Desigualdad, Sino de Eliminarla
Osvaldo Martínez – CubaDebate,
21 Feb 2011
El tema de la democracia no suele ser abordado por economistas. Sociólogos, politólogos e historiadores son los que frecuentan este tema, aunque es evidente que en el modelo económico tiene el debate sobre la democracia un componente sustantivo.
→ read full articleMohamed Heikal: ‘I was sure my country would explode. But the young are wiser than us’
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
21 Feb 2011
The old man’s voice is scathing, his mind like a razor, that of a veteran fighter, writer, sage, perhaps the most important living witness and historian of modern Egypt, turning on the sins of the regime that tried to shut him up forever. “Mubarak betrayed the republican spirit – and then he wanted to continue through his son Gamal,” he says, finger pointed to heaven. “It was a project, not an idea; it was a plan. The last 10 years of the life of this country were wasted because of this question, because of the search for inheritance – as if Egypt was Syria, or Papa Doc and Baby Doc in Haiti.”
→ read full articleThe Shame of Being an American…
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
21 Feb 2011
The United States government has overestimated the amount of shame that it and American citizens can live down. On February 15 “the indispensable people” had to suffer the hypocrisy of the U.S. Secretary of State delivering a speech about America’s commitment to Internet freedom while the U.S. Department of Justice (sic) brought unconstitutional action against Twitter to reveal any connection between WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, the American hero who, in keeping with the U.S. Military Code, exposed U.S. government war crimes and who is being held in punishing conditions not permitted by the U.S. Constitution.
→ read full articleWhen Democracy Weakens
Bob Herbert – The New York Times,
14 Feb 2011
As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.
→ read full articleAn Urgent Call: Return Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti
Jean-Bertrand Aristide – Hayti.net,
7 Feb 2011
In support of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (currently in exile in South Africa), hundreds of signatories to a petition have demanded that the United States, the United Nations and the Haitian government stop blocking the leader from returning to the land of his birth. A letter from Aristide himself precedes this call.
→ read full articlePesticide Linked to Bee Deaths Should Be Suspended, MPs Told
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor and Josephine Forster – The Independent,
31 Jan 2011
A new generation of pesticides is implicated in the widespread deaths of bees and other pollinators and should be suspended in Britain while the Government reviews new scientific evidence about their effects, MPs were told yesterday [26 Jan 2011]. Neonicotinoid pesticides are linked by “a growing weight of science” to insect losses, and the assessment regimes for them are inadequate, the Labour MP Martin Caton told the House of Commons.
→ read full articleFreedom Is Not Compatible with Government’s Initiation of Force against Innocent People
Robert Higgs – The Independent Institute,
31 Jan 2011
In yesterday’s [25 Jan 2011] New York Times appears an op-ed article by Edward L. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard. Glaeser’s article is remarkable because arguments in favor of freedom, insisting that economic analysis implicitly rests on a moral presumption that individual freedom has fundamental value, do not appear every day—or every month—in “the newspaper of record.” So, I am glad to give two cheers to Glaeser, one for his theme and another for his courage in placing the argument in such a hostile outlet.
I cannot give Glaeser a third cheer, however, because toward the end of the article he inserts a concession that I find wholly inconsistent with the rest of the argument.
A New Truth Dawns on the Arab World
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
31 Jan 2011
The Palestine Papers are as damning as the Balfour Declaration. The Palestinian “Authority” – one has to put this word in quotation marks – was prepared, and is prepared to give up the “right of return” of perhaps seven million refugees to what is now Israel for a “state” that may be only 10 per cent (at most) of British mandate Palestine.
→ read full articleNew Jerusalem Settlement Hits Peace Process
Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem – The Independent,
24 Jan 2011
Israel is moving ahead with a project to build 1,400 new homes in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, a development that critics claim will deliver a death knell to the already faltering peace process.
→ read full articleThe Brutal Truth about Tunisia
Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent – The Independent,
24 Jan 2011
Bloodshed, tears, but no democracy. Bloody turmoil won’t necessarily presage the dawn of democracy. The end of the age of dictators in the Arab world? Certainly they are shaking in their boots across the Middle East, the well-heeled sheiks and emirs, and the kings, including one very old one in Saudi Arabia and a young one in Jordan, and presidents – another very old one in Egypt and a young one in Syria – because Tunisia wasn’t meant to happen. Food price riots in Algeria, too, and demonstrations against price increases in Amman. Not to mention scores more dead in Tunisia, whose own despot sought refuge in Riyadh – exactly the same city to which a man called Idi Amin once fled.
→ read full articleTribute to Patrice Lumumba on the 50th Anniversary of His Assassination [17 Jan 1961]
Carlos Martinez – Pambazuka News,
24 Jan 2011
Why was Lumumba killed? Because he was a relentless, dedicated, intelligent, passionate anti-colonialist, Pan-Africanist and Congolese nationalist; because he had the unstinting support of the Congolese masses; because he stood in the way of Belgium’s plan to transform Congo from a colony into a neo-colony.
→ read full articleWhy Socialism?
Albert Einstein, Monthly Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jan 2011
Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Boaventura de Sousa Santos: “Os mercados cometem crimes contra a humanidade”
Filipa Martins, ionline – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Jan 2011
Para o sociólogo, Portugal está a ser vitima de um ataque especulativo não justificado dos mercados internacionais.
→ read full articleIke Was Right All Along: The Danger of the Military-Industrial Complex
Rupert Cornwell – The Independent,
24 Jan 2011
Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower warned of the danger of the ‘military-industrial complex’. The huge budget and reach of America’s modern defence industry has proved him correct.
→ read full articleFox News: The No. 1 Name in Murder Fantasies
Steve Rendall - Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting,
17 Jan 2011
This report is not new; it was published by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting two months ago. We thought it was important to republish it, as it shows a pattern of recklessness at Fox News. Recklessness that contributed to Saturday’s [8 Jan 2011] tragedy in Arizona.
→ read full articleIs Lockheed Martin Shadowing You?
William D. Hartung – TomDispatch,
17 Jan 2011
How a Giant Weapons Maker Became the New Big Brother: After all, it received $36 billion in government contracts in 2008 alone, more than any company in history. It now does work for more than two dozen government agencies from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s involved in surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Pentagon, the Census Bureau, and the Postal Service.
→ read full articleWhat’s Happening On The Korean Peninsula?
Prof. Martin Hart-Landsberg – Global Research,
10 Jan 2011
What’s happening on the Korean peninsula? If you read the press or listen to the talking heads, your best guess would be that an insane North Korean regime is willing to risk war to manage its own internal political tensions. This conclusion would be hard to avoid because the media rarely provide any historical context or alternative explanations for North Korean actions.
→ read full articleThe US Media Hit on Helen Thomas
Danny Schechter – ConsortiumNews,
3 Jan 2011
Editor’s Note: Last June when the mainstream Washington press corps rode the 89-year-old journalistic icon Helen Thomas out of the news business on a rail, a key count in the professional “indictment” against her was that she lacked “objectivity” with her impertinent questions to U.S. presidents and in her criticism of Israel. However, for years among big-time U.S. journalists, “objectivity” has been a principle most noticeable in its absence, especially on the sensitive issue of Israel, the topic that touched off the furor that ended Thomas’s career, as Danny Schechter notes in this guest essay.
→ read full article2011
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Information Clearing House,
3 Jan 2011
”Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.” — Lewis H. Lapham. The lawlessness of the U.S. government, which has been creeping up on us for decades, broke into a full gallop in the years of the Bush/Cheney/Obama regimes. Today the government operates above the law, yet maintains that it is a democracy bringing the same to Muslims by force of arms, only briefly being sidetracked by sponsoring a military coup against democracy in Honduras and attempting to overthrow the democratic government in Venezuela. As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship. The situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from the WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths.
→ read full articleWikiLeaks Exposed US and Hillary’s Hopelessness
Robert Fisk – Belfast Telegraph,
3 Jan 2011
That Clinton should want her State Department slaves to play secret agents on the poor old UN shows what an utterly worthless institution the US State Department has become.
→ 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 articleThe Roof Is Now the Field
Eva Bartlett – Inter Press Service-IPS,
6 Dec 2010
“We grow on our roof because we are farmers but have no land now,” says Moatassan Hamad, 21, from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip.
→ 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 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 articleEXCLUSIVE: Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to “Pharmacologic Waterboarding”
Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye - Truthout | Investigative Report,
6 Dec 2010
The Defense Department forced all “war on terror” detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called “pharmacologic waterboarding.” The government has exposed detainees “to unacceptably high risks of potentially severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including seizures, intense vertigo, hallucinations, paranoid delusions, aggression, panic, anxiety, severe insomnia, and thoughts of suicide,” said Nevin, who was not speaking in an official capacity, but offering opinions as a board-certified, preventive medicine physician. “These side effects could be as severe as those intended through the application of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.'”
→ read full articleNow We Know. America Really Doesn’t Care About Injustice in the Middle East
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
6 Dec 2010
It’s not that US diplomats don’t understand the Middle East; it’s just that they’ve lost all sight of injustice. Vast amounts of diplomatic literature prove that the mainstay of Washington’s Middle East policy is alignment with Israel, that its principal aim is to encourage the Arabs to join the American-Israeli alliance against Iran, that the compass point of US policy over years and years is the need to tame/bully/crush/oppress/ ultimately destroy the power of Iran.
→ 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 articleU.S. Military Suicides Kill More Than the Battles
Alberto Tundo, PeaceReporter - Pravda,
29 Nov 2010
The number of soldiers committing suicide is higher than that of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001. The list continues to grow inexorably. It contains the names of those who returned home from the trenches of the war against terrorism, but lost control of themselves, a war that has left more dead than the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
→ 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 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 articleThe Stench of American Hypocrisy
Paul Craig Roberts - ICH,
22 Nov 2010
Unlike in Burma, where Aung San Suu Kyi fights for human rights, the sheeple in Amerika submit to the total invasion of their privacy and to the total destruction of their civil liberties for no other reason than they are brain dead and believe without any evidence that they are at the mercy of “terrorists” in far distant lands who have no armies, navies, or air forces and are armed only with AK-47s and improvised explosive devices. The ignorant population of the “Great American Superpower,” buried in fear propagated by a Ministry of Truth, has acquiesced in the total destruction of the US Constitution and their civil liberties.
→ read full articleMight Is Right
Paul Craig Roberts - ICH,
8 Nov 2010
Khadr’s prosecutor, Jeffrey Groharing, declared that Khadr’s sentence “will send a message to Al-Qaeda and others whose aims and goals are to kill and cause chaos around the world.” The irony in this assertion escaped the tamed NPR. The deaths that can be attributed to Al Qaeda are tiny in number compared to the deaths inflicted by gratuitous US and Israeli naked aggression against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Pakistan, Yeman, and Somalia…. What message did 15-year-old Khadr’s sentence send? To insouciant Americans only that finally a terrorist got his comeuppance despite the liberal media. To the rest of the world the message is: the US is a morally bankrupt, self-righteous country that believes that might is right.
→ read full articleThe Shaming of America
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
1 Nov 2010
Robert Fisk delivers a searing dispatch after the WikiLeaks revelations that expose in detail the brutality of the war in Iraq – and the astonishing, disgraceful deceit of the US.
→ read full articleThe War On Terror
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
25 Oct 2010
The “war on terror” is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?
→ read full article(Italian) Stati, Stati Nazione e Legittimità
Giuliano Martignetti – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Oct 2010
Della ricca relazione tenuta dal prof. Galtung a Torino in occasione della giornata dedicata a festeggiare il suo ottantesimo genetliaco, mi sono annotato due osservazioni particolarmente interessanti. La prima è che oggi nel campo delle relazioni internazionali il diritto di veto deve considerarsi superato. La seconda che in tutti gli stati del mondo (192) ben 176 contengono delle minoranze nazionali più o meno ampie. C’è un nesso tra le due affermazioni? Vediamo.
→ read full article(Castellano) Nosotros, los Gitanos
Agustín Vega Cortés – InSurGente,
18 Oct 2010
El aumento de esta gitanofobia, es el fruto de la criminalización que sufrimos por parte de la mayoría de los medios de comunicación que, voluntaria o involuntariamente, han conseguido que se identifique al conjunto de los gitanos con los grupos más marginales y conflictivos que, a pesar de ser una minoría, son visto por la opinión pública como el paradigma de la identidad gitana.
→ read full articleEconomics: Doing Business As If People Mattered
Robert Jensen – Common Dreams,
11 Oct 2010
When politicians talk economics these days, they argue a lot about the budget deficit. That’s crucial to our economic future, but in the contemporary workplace there’s an equally threatening problem — the democracy deficit.
→ read full articleThe Collapse of Western Morality
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
27 Sep 2010
In hopes that I will be permitted to make a point, permit me to acknowledge that the US dropped nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities, fire-bombed Tokyo, that Great Britain and the US fire-bombed Dresden and a number of other German cities, expending more destructive force, according to some historians, against the civilian German population than against the German armies, that President Grant and his Civil War war criminals, Generals Sherman and Sheridan, committed genocide against the Plains Indians, that the US today enables Israel’s genocidal policies against the Palestinians, policies that one Israeli official has compared to 19th century US genocidal policies against the American Indians, that the US in the new 21st century invaded Iraq and Afghanistan on contrived pretenses, murdering countless numbers of civilians, and that British prime minister Tony Blair lent the British army to his American masters, as did other NATO countries, all of whom find themselves committing war crimes under the Nuremberg standard in lands in which they have no national interests, but for which they receive an American pay check.
→ read full articleCountdown to Sudan’s Referendum
Lazaro Sumbeiywo and John Danforth – Al Jazeera,
20 Sep 2010
With four months to go until a referendum on self-determination, Africa’s largest country is at an historic crossroads.
→ read full article‘Largest Flotilla Yet’ En-Route to Gaza
Ynet reporters – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Sep 2010
Ships from Britain, Morocco, Qatar to rendezvous in Syria, sail toward el-Arish Port in northern Sinai Peninsula; activists plan to enter Gaza through Rafah Crossing, deliver humanitarian aid.
→ read full articleFreedom, Democracy and Human Rights in Syria
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
20 Sep 2010
Ribal al-Assad gives a rare insight into the dynasty that has shaped modern Syria.
→ read full articleHaiti’s Disaster Capitalists Swoop In
Siddhartha Mahanta – Mother Jones,
20 Sep 2010
Refugee evictions, private land grabs, disaster capitalism—you can’t tell the story of Haiti without all this. Eight months after the earthquake, many of the 1.7 million Haitians living under tattered tarps in squalid squatter camps around Port-au-Prince are being forced to abandon the tent cities they’ve set up on privately owned land. Meanwhile, businesses—eager to slurp up the spoils of disaster—are swooping in to score major paydays by moving the refugees to new camps, some set to operate as industrial work zones. And there’s no one stopping it.
→ read full articleU.S. Holding 324 Metric Tons of Bomb-Grade Uranium, Report Says
Ralph Vartabedian – Los Angeles Times,
20 Sep 2010
The Obama administration, which is urging other nations to reduce their stores of the material, should declare part of the U.S. inventory surplus, a watchdog group says.
→ read full articleHAWAII: Garden Isle Missile Site Will Expand
William Cole – Honolulu Star-Advertiser,
13 Sep 2010
Testing for a Land-Based Defense System Would Bring a New Complex to the Island
→ read full articleArmy Downplays Depleted Uranium Risk on Hawaiian Island
William Cole – Honolulu Star-Advertiser,
6 Sep 2010
Radiation levels safe at Pohakuloa, Army says. Jim Albertini with the Malu Aina Center for Nonviolent Education & Action said yesterday [4 Sep 2010] that the Army was “stonewalling community involvement in seeking the truth about DU radiation contamination at Pohakuloa.” Albertini said the Army has made unreliable safety claims based on questionable assumptions and scientific methodology and no peer-reviewed studies.
→ read full article8 Reasons You Should Stay the Hell Away From Eggs
Martha Rosenberg - AlterNet,
30 Aug 2010
It was enough to make the nation put down their Egg McMuffins. Almost a billion “government-inspected” eggs were recalled because they might harbor salmonella, a bacterium that causes bloody and mucoid diarrhea, fever and vomiting. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg warned people that if they ate their eggs runny and over-easy, something else could become runny and over-easy — not to mention sunny-side-up.
→ read full articleThe Two-Tier Internet: Fighting for Control of the Web’s Future
Frank Dohmen, Martin U. Müller and Hilmar Schmundt - Spiegel,
30 Aug 2010
As data volumes continue to grow, it’s clear that the Internet’s infrastructure needs upgrading. What’s not clear is who is going to pay for it. Web activists fear the development of a two-tier Internet, where corporations have priority and dissenting voices get pushed to the margins.
→ read full articleIceland Set to Become a Press Freedom Haven
RTÉ/Ireland – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Aug 2010
After Iceland’s near-economic collapse laid bare deep-seated corruption, the country aims to become a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers from around the globe by creating the world’s most far-reaching freedom of information legislation. The project is being developed with the help of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
→ read full articleIraq: Torture. Corruption. Civil war. America Has Certainly Left Its Mark
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
23 Aug 2010
When you invade someone else’s country, there has to be a first soldier – just as there has to be a last.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Biggest Jobs Program — the U.S. Military
Robert Reich - ICH,
23 Aug 2010
America’s biggest — and only major — jobs program is the U.S. military. Over 1,400,000 Americans are now on active duty; another 833,000 are in the reserves, many full time. Another 1,600,000 Americans work in companies that supply the military with everything from weapons to utensils. (I’m not even including all the foreign contractors employing non-US citizens.)
→ read full articleCatholic Activists Arrested at Kansas City Nuclear Weapons Facility
Joshua J. McElwee – National Catholic Reporter,
23 Aug 2010
Singing choruses of “we shall not be moved” while scattering sunflower seeds, 14 activists were arrested here Aug. 16 after blocking an earth moving vehicle on the site of a proposed nuclear weapons manufacturing facility. The acts of civil disobedience came at the end of a three-day conference which drew peace activists here from around the nation. The efforts were aimed at building awareness of and resistance to the construction of the weapons plant, which will replace an existing plant here.
→ read full articleOmar Khadr, Bradley Manning and Our National Psyche
Lawrence Davidson - Reader Supported News,
16 Aug 2010
At present there are two men sitting in prison who have never met but are nonetheless intimately connected. One is 23-year-old Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who was with a group of Afghan resistance fighters attacked by US troops in 2002 (when he was 15). The second is PFC Bradley Manning, the man who blew the whistle on the barbaric tactics used by the US in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is their different forms of resistance to a war sold to the US public as “necessary” and defensive that binds their fate.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Transgénicos: Nome de Código, “Monsanto”
Bloco de Esquerda, Portugal – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Aug 2010
(Leitura obrigatória para esclarecer-se e educar-se acerca dos males da Monsanto. –Nota do Editor da TMS). Em causa estão a saúde pública no mundo, a preservação ambiental e a biodiversidade. Trabalhos científicos sobre estes assuntos permitiram estabelecer um decálogo de malfeitorias dos OGM e do controlo de Monsanto sobre a sua produção e comercialização: riscos para a saúde pública; contaminação genética sem controlo; aumento da contaminação química devido ao maior uso de biocidas; perda permanente da biodiversidade agropecuária e florestal; aumento da insegurança e perda da soberania alimentar; grande concentração de poder em poucas empresas; degradação da democracia através das pressões sobre a classe política e a actuação dos lobbies; aumento da desigualdade Norte-Sul; prejuízos para a agricultura ecológica devido à contaminação.
→ read full articleMalu ‘Aina – Volunteers of All Skills, and No Particular Skills, Needed!
Jim Albertini, Center for Nonviolent Education and Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Aug 2010
If you are interested in organic farming and helping a non-profit peace farm to grow food to share with people in need, supporting its work for justice and peace, please email me or give me a call. (Note from TMS Editor Antonio C. S. Rosa: I have lived at Malu Aina when I was doing my Ph.D. work at the University of Hawaii in the 90s. I highly recommend the experience to activists, students, nature lovers, hard workers for peace/social justice/anti-militarism, and all those interested in improving the lot of our planet – and their own lives as human beings. You work in the farm, do research, engage in nonviolent direct actions, connect, learn, make a difference. Simple living, high thinking. No pain, no gain. Making the best of our short lives here).
→ read full articleExclusive: Caught in America’s Legal Black Hole
Robert Verkaik – The Independent,
9 Aug 2010
Guantanamo still holds 176 detainees, and one of them is about to stand trial – in a test of Barack Obama’s resolve to embrace the rule of law.
→ read full articleThank God for the Whistle-Blowers
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
9 Aug 2010
Our government recruited terrorists from the Arab world to go to Afghanistan and fight in that holy war against godless communism with even greater enthusiasm during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, who proclaimed the Muslim fanatics “freedom fighters.” As the 9/11 Commission report stated, those freedom fighters included Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks…. They never learn. It was Holbrooke who helped design the Vietnam-era assassination programs exposed in the Pentagon Papers and now replicated in the Afghanistan document. Thanks to Daniel Ellsberg, who risked much to make the record of the Vietnam War public, we learned about the madness that Holbrooke and others were creating. We should be grateful to the whistle-blowers who gave us the Afghanistan war documents for once again letting us in on the sick joke that passes for U.S foreign policy.
→ read full articleIsrael Has Crept Into the EU Without Anyone Noticing
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
9 Aug 2010
I’m not comparing Israel and Hamas. Israel is the country that justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19 months ago – more than 300 of them children – while the vicious, blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).
→ read full articleSmashed Hopes: Six Months On, Haiti Remains Covered in Rubble
Sandra Schulz in Port-au-Prince - Spiegel,
9 Aug 2010
A half a year after a devastating earthquake claimed at least 222,570 lives, the work of rebuilding Haiti is still in the early stages. Helpers have traveled to the country from around the world, but reconstruction has barely progressed. In many parts of the country, people have simply moved on with their lives amidst the rubble.
→ read full articleMarried to the Clinton Mob
Robert Scheer – Truthdig,
9 Aug 2010
Out of respect for privacy, even concerning famous people, I wasn’t going to write about the marriage of Chelsea Clinton to a Goldman Sachs alum and budding hedge-fund hustler with the resources to buy a $4 million loft so soon after graduating from Stanford. Hopefully Marc Mezvinsky won’t follow in the footsteps of his financier father, “Fast-Talkin’ Eddie,” as they called him back in Iowa, a former Democratic House member who just completed a five-year federal sentence for dozens of fraud felonies.
→ read full articleThe Suffering of Fallujah
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 Aug 2010
And so it turns out that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, though not until we arrived and started using them. This is the power of language. Call it “war” and along come glory, duty, courage, sacrifice: the best of humanity writ large. The word is impenetrable; it sets the heart in motion; God makes an appearance, blesses the troops, blesses the weapons. Operation Iraqi Freedom: They’ll greet us with open arms. At what point do we learn our lesson, that “war” is a moral cesspool of horrific consequences, especially, and most troublingly, unintended ones?
→ read full articleBrazil: Democracy vs. Poverty
Arthur Ituassu – Open Democracy,
2 Aug 2010
In half a generation, a period that straddles two presidencies, politics has lifted millions of Brazilians from misery. Arthur Ituassu explains how it was done.
→ read full article
The Listening Post – South of the Border
Richard Gizbert – Al Jazeera,
2 Aug 2010
This week, we bring you a special edition of the Listening Post. Richard Gizbert sits down with Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone to talk about his new film ‘South of the Border’ and the surprising role that media, both Latin American and North American play in shaping and reflecting the narrative of South America’s political history.
→ read full articleCameron Uses Turkish Visit to Launch Ferocious Attack on Israel
Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem – The Independent,
2 Aug 2010
David Cameron signalled a toughening stance on Israel yesterday [27 Jul 2010] by comparing the besieged Gaza Strip to “a prison camp” and urging Israel to end its three-year blockade. Mr Cameron’s comments will carry additional diplomatic weight because they were made in Turkey, which has threatened to sever ties with Israel after its deadly assault on a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
→ read full articleLobbyists Push Use of Deadly Asbestos in Developing Nations
Jim Morris - International Consortium of Investigative Journalists,
26 Jul 2010
A global network of lobby groups has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the international market for asbestos, a known carcinogen that’s taken millions of lives and is banned or restricted in 52 countries, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found in a nine-month investigation. Backed by public and private money and aided by scientists and friendly governments, the groups helped facilitate the sale of 2.2 million tons of asbestos last year, mostly in developing nations. Anchored by the Montreal-based Chrysotile Institute, the network stretches from New Delhi to Mexico City to the city of Asbest in Russia’s Ural Mountains. Its message is that asbestos can be used safely under “controlled” conditions.
→ read full articleExposed: The Truth about Israel’s Land Grab in the West Bank
Catrina Stewart in Jerusalem and David Usborne – The Independent,
19 Jul 2010
As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet, a report reveals 42 per cent of territory is controlled by settlers.
→ read full articleRevenge of the Weeds
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Jul 2010
We can’t keep playing conquering fool, arrogantly ordering the world to our liking by killing everything that doesn’t fit into it. We can’t keep throwing more of the same at our problems. We can’t keep fighting nature, or one another, and expect somehow to win in the end. We can’t keep buying time at an increasingly horrific price. Time is running out. And petroleum isn’t the only thing we’re addicted to.
→ read full article