Articles by RT
We found 4182 results.
Liberal 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 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