Articles by RT
We found 4150 results.
What’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 articleHamas Lawmaker: Gaza Flotilla Did More for Gaza Than 10,000 Rockets
Robert Naiman - Truthout,
19 Jul 2010
Who now doubts that strategic nonviolent action can transform the politics of the Israel/Palestine conflict? The Wall Street Journal reports: “When we use violence, we help Israel win international support,” said Aziz Dweik, a leading Hamas lawmaker in the West Bank. “The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets.”
→ read full articleDeep-Sea Mining Adds to Fears of Marine Pollution
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor – The Independent,
5 Jul 2010
Concerns about large-scale marine pollution, fuelled by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, are set to be heightened by a new development in exploitation of the oceans: deep-sea mining. The Chinese government has just lodged the first application to mine for minerals under the seabed in international waters, in this case on a ridge in the Indian Ocean 1,700 metres (more than 5,000ft) below the surface.
→ read full articleThe Death of the Fourth Estate
Rodolfo F. Acuna - Reader Supported News,
5 Jul 2010
The press, in theory, is supposed to safeguard democratic principles. During a parliamentary debate in 1787, Edmund Burke supposedly referred to the press corps reporting the activities of the House of Commons as the Fourth Estate. Hypothetically, the press was the champion of the public…. Hence, the journalist’s foremost duty was to tell the truth. But, over the years there has been an erosion of the public trust in the Fourth Estate, as the media has been monopolized by those President Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 called “economic royalists” that control the country.
→ read full articleVictory for Anti-Whaling Campaigners
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor – The Independent,
28 Jun 2010
The controversial attempt to scrap the 24-year-old international moratorium on commercial whaling collapsed yesterday, to the delight of anti-whaling campaigners and the frustration of Japan, Norway and Iceland, the three countries which continue to hunt whales in defiance of world opinion.
→ read full articleFighting Talk: The New Propaganda
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
28 Jun 2010
Journalism has become a linguistic battleground – and when reporters use terms such ‘spike in violence’ or ‘surge’ or ‘settler’, they are playing along with a pernicious game.
→ read full articleNo Nukes/No Empire: The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons Requires the End of the U.S. Empire
Robert Jensen – Common Dreams,
21 Jun 2010
[A version of this essay was delivered to the “Think outside the Bomb” event in Austin, TX, on June 14, 2010.] If we are serious about the abolition of nuclear weapons, we have to place the abolition of the U.S. empire at the center of our politics.
→ read full article(Portuguese) ‘Vi Muito Sangue e Comecei a Passar Mal’, Diz Brasileira sobre Ataque de Israel
Babeth Bettencourt - BBC Brasil,
7 Jun 2010
Em entrevista à BBC Brasil, de Istambul, onde chegou nesta quinta-feira de madrugada junto com um grupo de cerca de 450 ativistas deportados de Israel, Iara contou que os atiradores de elite do Exército de Israel entraram no principal navio da frota, o Mavi Marmara, “atirando para matar”.
→ read full articleEnd of Moratorium on Whaling Threatens More Blood in the Seas
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor – The Independent,
7 Jun 2010
The moratorium on commercial whaling, one of the world’s major environmental achievements, is in danger of being abandoned after 24 years at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) which begins this week in Morocco.
→ read full articleA Plague upon the World: The USA is a “Failed State”
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts - ICH,
7 Jun 2010
Interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary US Treasury, Associate Editor Wall Street Journal, Professor of Political Economy Center for Strategic and International Studies Georgetown University Washington DC.
→ read full articleWestern Leaders are too Cowardly to Help Save Lives
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
7 Jun 2010
It is a fact that it is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events.
→ read full article
A Distinctive Contribution: Radio Magwi FM 92.5 – Sudan
Dominik Lehnert, XCHANGEperspectives – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 May 2010
This clip gives a brief overview on the Rural Youth’s Voices Project, a Community Based Youth Radio Station and Music Production Studio in Magwi, South Sudan. This project was implemented by Xchange Perspectives in cooperation with the German Development Service, DED. Peace is the theme and the objective.
→ read full articleNon-Proliferation Regime ‘Bankrupt’
Robert Grenier – AlJazeera,
24 May 2010
The drama over the nuclear deal signed by Brazil, Turkey and Iran demonstrates one thing above all: The bankruptcy of the current non-proliferation regime dominated by the nuclear weapons states.
→ read full articleOnline Protest Drives Nestlé to Environmentally Friendly Palm Oil
Martin Hickman – The Independent,
24 May 2010
Food giant bows to Greenpeace campaign and vows to cut its ‘deforestation footprint’.
→ read full article7 Things to Stop Doing Now on Facebook
Consumer Reports Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 May 2010
Tips for your protection on Facebook.
→ read full articleA Real Truth Commission for Honduras
Bertha Oliva – The Huffington Post,
17 May 2010
The fact is, Lobo’s proposal in no way resembles our idea of a truth commission, or indeed any other truth commission that has played a role in healing the wounds provoked by repressive regimes, such as those of El Salvador, Argentina or South Africa. If we were not dealing with such a tragic situation, the Lobo proposal could be considered laughable. To begin with, this so-called Truth Commission has been given no mandate to examine the human rights violations that have taken place since the coup. The presidential decree that establishes the commission does not even recognize that a coup took place on June 28th and makes no mention of the victims of the subsequent repression.
→ read full articleThe Rebirth of Regulation
Robert Reich – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 May 2010
What do oil giant BP, the mining company Massey Energy, and Goldman Sachs have in common? They’re all big firms involved in massive plunder. BP’s oil spill is already one of the biggest and most damaging in American history. Massey’s mine disaster, claiming the lives of 29 miners, is one of the worst in recent history. Goldman’s alleged fraud is but a part of the largest financial meltdown in 75 years.
→ read full article‘I Listen as a Lost People Tell of Their Woes in a Kind of Trance’
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
26 Apr 2010
Other men among my guests have darker tales. They fled to Malaysia, then to Thailand, were imprisoned in Bangkok, then shipped to the Philippines and imprisoned again. The problem, these nations discovered, was that the Palestinians couldn’t be deported home. They didn’t have a home, for some reason. Malaysia does not recognise Israel – Malaysian Christians can travel to Jerusalem only with government permission – and so the authorities in Kuala Lumpur could not negotiate with the men who control “Palestine”.
→ read full articleRecovering From Empathy
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Apr 2010
I remain stuck, churning in my own outrage and despair just as I have –- and so many millions of Americans have –- since the war on terror was launched amid all its lies and cowardly righteousness in 2001. For God’s sake, we’re killing people. We’re doing so in large numbers, with high-tech savagery. We aren’t even defending ourselves. We’ve invented an enemy out of whole cloth.
→ read full article(Castellano) Transformaciones: Periodismo Responsable
Roberto Sansón Mizrahi – Opinion Sur,
19 Apr 2010
En un contexto de confrontación antagónica es difícil practicar periodismo con cierto grado de objetividad. Algunos medios y periodistas actúan intencionadamente con motivaciones que no podrían confesarse abiertamente; la ausencia de objetividad es deliberada. Otros son pilares de la vida democrática; pueden ocasionalmente equivocarse pero buscan ayudar a encauzar constructivamente las energías.
→ read full article(Portuguese) Transformações: Jornalismo Responsável
Roberto Sansón Mizrahi – Opinion Sur,
19 Apr 2010
Em um contexto de confrontação antagônica, é difícil praticar o jornalismo com certo grau de objetividade. Alguns veículos e jornalistas atuam intencionalmente com motivações que não se poderia confessar abertamente; a ausência de objetividade é deliberada. Outros são pilares da vida democrática; podem ocasionalmente equivocar-se, porém buscam ajudar a canalizar construtivamente as energias.
→ read full articleTransformations: Responsible Journalism
Roberto Sansón Mizrahi – Opinion Sur,
19 Apr 2010
In a context of antagonist confrontation, it is difficult to practice journalism with a certain degree of objectivity. Some media and journalists act intentionally, driven by motivations that could not be openly confessed; the absence of objectivity is deliberate. Others are pillars of democratic life; they may occasionally be wrong, but seek to help channel energies in a constructive manner.
→ read full article“WE MUST TAKE PUBLIC CRITICISM INTO ACCOUNT. CRITICISM IS GOOD AND SHOULD HELP THE PROCESS”
Marta Harnecker and Edwin Herrera Salinas – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Apr 2010
One of the greatest problems is that we are trying to build an alternative society with an inherited individualistic and clientelistic culture. . . . Even our best cadres are influenced by this culture. So, it’s a process of cultural transformation. Human beings change themselves through practice, not by decrees.
→ read full articleRUSSELL-EINSTEIN HISTORIC DECLARATION AGAINST NUCLEAR WAR
Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein – Global Research,
12 Apr 2010
There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.
→ read full articleA PERSONAL ISSUE, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SCANDAL
John Cory - Reader Supported News,
5 Apr 2010
My views on child abuse and child molestation are harsh and unforgiving and forged by the fires of my own childhood. I give no quarter on this issue. I have no kind words or forgiving thoughts for the Catholic hierarchy or their enablers, which brings me to Bill Donohue’s article on the CNN Opinion web […]
→ read full articleARE AMERICANS AS STUPID AS THE MEDIA THINK THEY ARE? (MAYBE)
Marty Kaplan – Alternet,
5 Apr 2010
"Poll numbers that pretty convincingly correlate believing idiotic things with having less education, and not believing idiotic things with having more education." I know some scary smart people who never graduated from high school, and I know some real doofuses with graduate degrees, so I understand that the number of years of formal education that […]
→ read full articleREFLECTIONS ON AN ANNIVERSARY
Robert C. Koehler – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Apr 2010
“Everything feels obscene,” a friend said seven years ago, when we carpet-bombed Baghdad, launching the invasion. It still does, but in a dull, chronic, “used to it” way — outrage mixed, these last few years, with “hope,” smearing the war effort with a thick, national ambivalence. Is it still going on? Well, yeah, with a […]
→ read full articleENGLAND: MINISTER SIGNALS BAN ON CIRCUS WILD ANIMALS
Martin Hickman – The Independent,
26 Mar 2010
Wild animals are to be banned from circuses, ending hundreds of years of performing elephants, tigers and lions in the big top, the Government will say today. In response to a public consultation. Environment minister Jim Fitpatrick said he was ‘minded’ to bring in a ban after 94 per cent of people backed the idea. […]
→ read full articleWHALING: THE GREAT BETRAYAL
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor – The Independent,
23 Mar 2010
Outrage as Secret Deal Set to Sweep Away International MoratoriumThe moratorium on commercial whaling, one of the environmental movement’s greatest achievements, looks likely to be swept away this summer by a new international deal being negotiated behind closed doors. The new arrangement would legitimise the whaling activities of the three countries which have continued to […]
→ read full articleLATIN AMERICAN GAYS: THE POST-LEFT LEFTISTS
Prof. Javier Corrales – Americas Quarterly,
23 Mar 2010
When most straight people are forced to think about gay people, they usually think of one thing first, sex. A political scientist might focus instead on a different question: how do gays perform in politics? Judged from their political achievements this past decade, the answer is, at least for Latin American gays: they’re pretty good. […]
→ read full articleTHE “WILD MAN” OF ANIMAL PROTECTION, STEVE HINDI
Martha Rosenberg – Dissident Voice,
21 Mar 2010
Martha Rosenberg: Here in Chicago, you are known as the “Wild Man” who staged alternative whale shows with inflatable orcas outside the Shedd Aquarium in the 1990s and who went to jail for disrupting a bird shoot with a powered paraglider. Now, both issues are back in the news. Steve Hindi: At the time we […]
→ read full articleAMERICAN NAIFS BRINGING RUIN TO OTHER LANDS
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
20 Mar 2010
According to news reports, the U.S. military is shipping “bunker-buster” bombs to the U.S. Air Force base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Herald Scotland reports that experts say the bombs are being assembled for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The newspaper quotes Dan Piesch, director of the Centre for International Studies […]
→ read full articleIRAQ WAR ANNIVERSARY: SEVEN YEARS OF WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE
Robert Greenwald - Alternet,
19 Mar 2010
Today [Mar 18 2010] is the 7th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the Iraq war. There’s a temptation as we begin to end our combat presence in Iraq to search for the happy ending. Newsweek, for example, recently ran a cover photo of President Bush with the infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background, […]
→ read full article(PORTUGUESE) ESPANHA: PARTILHA DE FICHEIROS NÃO É PIRATARIA
Esquerda.net, Portugal,
18 Mar 2010
Juiz de Barcelona decide que blogger que divulga links de partilha de filmes e músicas não atenta contra os direitos de propriedade intelectual. Um juiz de Barcelona decidiu que o blogger Jesus Guerra Calderon é inocente das acusações de violação de propriedade intelectual que lhe fizera a Sociedade Geral dos Autores e Editores da Espanha. […]
→ read full articleTHE WOMAN WHO JUST MIGHT SAVE THE PLANET AND OUR POCKETBOOKS
Fran Korten and Elinor Ostrom - YES! Magazine,
15 Mar 2010
For one thing, she is the first woman to receive the prize. Her Ph.D. is in political science, not economics (though she minored in economics, collaborates with many economists, and considers herself a political economist). But what makes this award particularly special is that her work is about cooperation, while standard economics focuses on competition. […]
→ read full articleHAITI: DISASTER CAPITALISM ON STEROIDS
Robert Roth,
14 Mar 2010
An interview with Robert Roth“Two months after the devastating earthquake, the situation in Haiti is downright criminal,” says Robert Roth. According to the spokesperson of the activist network Haiti Action Committee, major western players such as the US are more interested in defending their own geopolitical interests in Haiti than truly helping the hardly hit […]
→ read full articleUS FORCES HOLD AFGHANS BACK TO ‘PROVE’ TOWN SAFE FOR GATES VISIT
Ron Brynaert – Raw Story,
13 Mar 2010
The picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict. The National Security writer for the Associated Press saw through the […]
→ read full articleGREECE PLEADS WITH US TO STOP THE SPECULATORS
Rupert Cornwell in Washington – The Independent,
10 Mar 2010
Papandreou calls for new rules in talks at Oval Office on his country’s debt crisis. George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister, used a visit to the White House yesterday to press President Barack Obama for tighter regulation of the speculative trading blamed for intensifying the country’s debt crisis. Mr Papandreou set out his case at […]
→ read full articleONCE AGAIN, A NATION WALKS THROUGH FIRE TO GIVE THE WEST ITS ‘DEMOCRACY’
Robert Fisk – The Independent,
8 Mar 2010
Democracy doesn’t seem to work when countries are occupied by Western troops.In 2005 the Iraqis walked in their tens of thousands through the thunder of suicide bombers, and voted – the Shias on the instructions of their clerics, the Sunnis sulking in a boycott – to prove Iraq was a "democracy". There followed the most […]
→ read full articleINDIGENOUS STRUGGLES IN THE AMERICAS
Roxanne Dunbar-ortiz - ZNet,
6 Mar 2010
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a writer, teacher, historian, and social activist, is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies at California State University. She spoke to NLP (http://www.newleftproject.org) about the historical and contemporary impact of imperialism in the Americas, and the nature of Indigenous peoples’ resistance to it. You have been deeply involved in Indigenous peoples’ activism […]
→ read full articleABE OSHEROFF ON THE STRUGGLE FOR A BETTER WORLD: GETTING RID OF HOPE AND FAITH
Robert Jensen - Counterpunch,
5 Mar 2010
After a recent talk about the struggle for social justice and the threats to the ecosystem, a student lingered, waiting to talk to me alone, as if he had something to confess. “I feel so overwhelmed,” he finally said, wondering aloud if political organizing could really make a difference. The young man said he often […]
→ read full article“PEACE OR APARTHEID” ARE NOT THE ONLY OPTIONS FOR ISRAEL
Alan Hart – Information Clearing House,
5 Mar 2010
The developing debate about Israel’s future offers two scenarios but there is a third which, apparently, should not be discussed in the open, in public. So let’s do just that. Among the most recent contributors to what I’ll call the two-scenario debate was no less a figure than Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister. In a […]
→ read full articleGREECE HITS BOTTOM: A CLASH OF CULTURES ON THE AEGEAN
Manfred Ertel in Athens - Spiegel,
5 Mar 2010
The Greek government is doing everything it can to prevent national bankruptcy. But the real fight will be waged between those in Greece who are prepared for sacrifice and those who want to cling to the good old days. A report from the front lines. The 2004 Olympic Games in Athens were easily the high […]
→ read full articleFURY AS EU APPROVES GM POTATO
Martin Hickman and Genevieve Roberts – The Independent,
4 Mar 2010
Critics claim plant could spread antibiotic-resistant diseases to humans.The introduction of a genetically modified potato in Europe risks the development of human diseases that fail to respond to antibiotics, it was claimed last night. German chemical giant BASF this week won approval from the European Commission for commercial growing of a starchy potato with a […]
→ read full article(PORTUGUESE) COMISSÃO EUROPEIA AUTORIZA O CULTIVO DE BATATA TRANSGÉNICA
Esquerda.net, Portugal,
4 Mar 2010
Pela primeira vez desde 1998, a Comissão Europeia autorizou o cultivo de um transgénico: a batata Amflora, produzida pelo grupo alemão BASF. Aceitou também a comercialização de milho da Monsanto. A Comissão Europeia autorizou o cultivo de um transgénico, o que não acontecia desde 1998 e aproveitou para autorizar também a comercialização, mas não o […]
→ read full articleNAIVE, BRAINWASHED HUMANITY!!
Alberto Portugheis – The Daily Censored,
1 Mar 2010
Generation after generation, whilst the rich men who own and run the world continue to make money and gain power, populations from all corners of the world continue to endure, accept even, hundreds of tragic armed conflicts, small and large, only because they have been brainwashed to accept what they are told by politicians and […]
→ read full articleTHE ROAD TO ARMAGEDDON: THE INSANE DRIVE FOR AMERICAN HEGEMONY THREATENS LIFE ON EARTH
Paul Craig Roberts – Global Research,
1 Mar 2010
The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East and favors making terrorists pay for 9/11. Therefore, I was surprised to learn on February 24 that the most popular story on the papers website for the past three days was the Inside the Beltway […]
→ read full articleIF YOU LIKED BOVINE GROWTH HORMONE, YOU’LL LOVE BETA AGONISTS
Martha Rosenberg – Dissident Voice,
26 Feb 2010
While researchers and scientists investigate the cause of our diabetes, obesity, asthma and ADHD epidemics, they should ask why the FDA approved a livestock drug banned in 160 nations and responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown and 10 percent mortality in pigs, according to angry farmers who phoned the manufacturer. The beta agonist ractopamine, a repartitioning […]
→ read full articleTHINKING FORWARD
Michael Albert - NLP,
21 Feb 2010
NLP talks to Michael Albert, co-founder of Z Magazine, ZNet and South End Press, about complementary holism, Participatory Economics and an alternative to capitalism.1. Could you outline for us what the theory of complementary holism, is?Very briefly, it is a way of organizing one’s thoughts, you might say, when considering matters of history and society. […]
→ read full articleIT’S GREEK TO GOLDMAN SACHS
Robert Scheer - Truthdig,
20 Feb 2010
“What is this Goldman Sachs and why has it caused us so much grief?” is a question they must be asking in even the most remote of Greek villages, as they are throughout much of this economically troubled world. The Greek financial scandal in which Goldman Sachs stands accused of selling dubious derivatives that concealed […]
→ read full articleA PERSONAL STAKE IN SANITY
Robert C. Koehler - Tribune Media Services,
20 Feb 2010
When we write about mass slaughter, even the good kind, which we call “war,” the waging of it should be on trial in every sentence. Anything less than that is propaganda, the chief characteristic of which is moral opacity. Sadly, this is how our news is delivered to us. Reading it makes me feel homeless. […]
→ read full article