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Qatar: End of Abusive Exit Permits for Migrant Workers
Human Rights Watch | Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jan 2020

20 Jan 2020 — Qatar announced on Jan 16 that most migrant workers previously prevented from leaving the country without their employer’s permission will no longer need an exit permit, Human Rights Watch said today. But domestic workers will have to notify employers before leaving.

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Update
Posted by Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor - TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jan 2020

Sigh!

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Will We Always Be This Way?
Robert C. Koehler | Common Wonders – TRANSCEND Media Service, 20 Jan 2020

8 Jan 2020 – “The people do not want war!” Perhaps this sanguinary legacy is why, in survey after international survey, the United States is perennially voted the world’s greatest threat to peace in most of the world’s nations. After Soleimani’s assassination, Trump boasted that ‘his bloody rampage is forever gone.’ If only the same were true of Trump. . .

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On The Brink of War?
Chandra Muzaffar | JUST – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

8 Jan 2020 – Are we on the brink of a Third World War? There are signs that demand that we ask this question. Three clusters of signs compel us to probe a question that could well determine the future of our civilisation.

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Satellite Constellation and Crown Chakra as Complementary Global Metaphors?
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

13 Jan 2020 – An earlier document focused on the imminent launch into orbit of the Starlink satellite constellation of some 12,500 communication satellites, and especially on their problematic psycho-social and symbolic implications. Experimental Representation of Crown Chakra in Virtual Reality

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(Italiano) La tecnologia 5G: verità a confronto… e le ambiguità della Scienza
Elena Camino | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

9 Gennaio 2020 – L’introduzione di questa nuova tecnologia riguarderà un numero enorme di persone: non solo quelle direttamente coinvolte nelle fasi di progettazione, implementazione e commercializzazione, e gli utenti che vorranno utilizzarla, ma milioni di cittadini e cittadine che, senza averlo scelto e spesso a loro insaputa, si troveranno immersi in una fitta rete di segnali elettromagnetici. Il pubblico sta ricevendo ormai da tempo messaggi pubblicitari che danno per scontata la diffusione del sistema a 5G.

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(Français) Comment Haïti est devenu la « république des ONG »
Frédéric Thomas | CETRI – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

9 janvier 2020 – Le désastre de la reconstruction de l’un des pays les plus pauvres au monde, après le séisme meurtrier du 12 janvier 2010, est l’histoire d’un rendez-vous manqué des acteurs de l’humanitaire avec le peuple haïtien.

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Open Letter to Members of the U.S. Congress
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

8 Jan 2020 – I listened to Trump from my own perspective and with an attempt to hear his words as if I were an Iranian living in Iran. I found the statement belligerent, and formulated in an imperialist/hegemonic language, avoiding a diplomatic sequel, and instead resuming the ‘maximum pressure’ approach involving threats and further intensified sanctions and other coercive moves that will bring additional suffering to the Iranian people.

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(Português) Joaquin Phoenix é preso durante protesto em Washington
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

12 jan 2020 – O ator vegano Joaquin Phoenix, que recentemente recebeu o prêmio de Melhor Ator no 77º Globo de Ouro por sua interpetração em “Coringa”, foi preso na última sexta-feira (10) logo após discursar em protesto em Washington DC contra as mudanças climáticas.

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For Western Press, the Only Coup in Venezuela Is against Guaidó
Lucas Koerner | FAIR-Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

10 Jan 2020 – The international corporate media have entered crisis mode following the replacement of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as head of the country’s National Assembly. In headline after headline, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “Takes Over”, “Claims Control of” or “Seizes” parliament, and “Ousts” Guaidó in the process. However, the elementary if inconvenient fact is that Guaidó failed to secure the necessary votes from his own coalition’s deputies to continue as president of the legislature.

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The Current U.S. Approach to Nuclear Weapons Can Only Lead to Armageddon
Prabir Purkayastha | Independent Media Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

8 Jan 2020 – The U.S. is returning to its post-World War II U.S. vision of a Pax Americana. This is embedded in its nuclear doctrine, its strategic vision of controlling all theaters of war, and defining its competition in regional theaters as “revisionist powers.” That the U.S. and its leaders do not understand the world would not have mattered so much in an earlier era. Today, any war, let alone a nuclear one, will inevitably have global consequences. Arms Control Provides the Only Path to Peace

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Activism, Nonviolence, Direct Action: Strategy, Tactics, Organizing
Glen Perusek | Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

8 Jan 2020 – The word “strategy” is overused and is often confused with tactics. This is a problem not just for organized labor and progressive movements; it is also endemic in business and many other realms of organized activity. This seems odd, given that the literature on strategy and tactics is thousands of years old. This article draws on some of that classical literature.

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India: A Dangerous New Low in State-Sponsored Hate
Harsh Mander | The Hindu – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

7 Jan 2020 – In Uttar Pradesh, police bias and the scale of violence against the minorities are plumbing new depths. It may not be an exaggeration to say that the Chief Minister has declared war on the minority communities of his State, inciting and encouraging his police forces to unleash upon them an unlawful and brutal reign of terror.

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Alan Turing: Gay Man Who Saved the World yet Died in Disgrace
Craig A. James | Church and State – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

Alan Turing was the inventor of the modern digital computer, laying down the mathematical foundation for all computer science. In World War II, his genius at breaking Nazi secret codes saved the world from Nazi domination– not figuratively, but in actuality. But in 1954 homosexuality was illegal in England; Turing was given a choice between imprisonment and chemical castration. He committed suicide. If Turing hadn’t been homosexual, his name might be a household word like Einstein, Newton and Galileo.

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From Resistance to Assistance: Little Pushback to Trump’s Iran Assassination
Alan MacLeod | FAIR-Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

9 Jan 2020 – The allegation is that he targeted US troops or “contractors”—i.e., mercenaries—stationed not at home, but in a region on the other side of the world that the US illegally attacked and has occupied for most of this century. “Soleimani provided effective military resistance to foreign occupying forces,” though, sounds very different from “killed hundreds of Americans.”

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Nonkilling Paradigm
Joám Evans Pim | Center for Global Nonkilling – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

21 Dec 2019 – Springer academic publishers has just released The Nonkilling Paradigm: For World Peace and Enlightenment by Dr. Katyayani Singh and Dr. Anoop Swarup. The book addresses the human civilizational ethos and explores the concept of the nonkilling paradigm concerning human dignity, human rights, affirmative nonkilling, positive peace and the advancement of human existence.

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India’s New Citizenship Act Legalizes a Hindu Nation
Anil Varughese | CETRI – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

India’s recently passed Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 is a frontal assault on the idea of India as a secular, pluralist democracy. The new law makes religious affiliation one of the grounds for citizenship, violating the basic structure of the Indian constitution.

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Nobel Peace Prize 2020–Nomination Info in English, Français, Deutsch, Русский, Castellano, Svenska–Deadline: 31 Jan
Fredrik S. Heffermehl | Nobel Peace Prize Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

Please nominate for the 2020 Nobel Prize – Information below in English, French, German, Russian, Castellano and Swedish

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TMS Promotion: We need someone to Double the Donations received in a given period–Please Come Forward!
Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

Let’s talk. Thank you! OUR HEARTFELT THANK YOU TO ALL WHO CONTRIBUTE TO OUR WORK!

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Over 1 Billion Animals Feared Dead in Australian Bushfires
Brittney Deguara | Stuff – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

8 Jan 2020 – It’s estimated over a billion animals have now died in the bushfires ravaging Australia. The original, conservative estimate of half a billion animal deaths in the state of New South Wales was recently raised by University of Sydney ecologist Chris Dickman.

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No Joke
Posted by Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor - TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

YES!

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The Fed Protects Gamblers at the Expense of the Economy
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

10 Jan 2020 – This does not serve the real economy, in which products, services and jobs are created. However, the Fed is trapped into this speculative monetary expansion to avoid a cascade of defaults of the sort it was facing with the long-term capital management crisis in 1998 and the Lehman crisis in 2008. The repo market is a fragile house of cards waiting for a strong wind to blow it down, propped up by misguided monetary policies that have forced central banks to underwrite its highly risky ventures.

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The Context That Goes Unmentioned in Coverage of the Soleimani Assassination
Rob Lipton | Mondoweiss – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

8 Jan 2020 – There are two primary issues I want to look at: how this event is playing out in the mainstream media (MSM), and the coverage (or lack thereof) of Israeli state actors, U.S. based support, and individual Trump supporters who pushed for and/or were instrumental in implementing this blatant act of war.

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(Português) Mais de Três Mil Golfinhos Sofrem em Cativeiro no Mundo
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

9 jan 2020 – Há 3.029 golfinhos mantidos em cativeiros e usados como atrações em 54 países, e confinados em espaços até 200 mil vezes menores que seu habitat.

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Myanmar’s For-Profit Genocide
Wendy Bone | The Investigative Journal – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

10 Jan 2020 – Brutal operations against the Rohingya minority and stealing their land in Rakhine are crimes under international law — violations supported by Myanmar’s military business ties, foreign companies and arms deals.

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Olympic Committee Bans Athletes from Making Political Protests during 2020 Games
Joe Jurado | The Root – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

10 Jan 2020 – Any Olympic athlete thinking of taking a knee or raising a fist in Tokyo during the 2020 Olympic Games may have to think twice. The International Olympic Committee released new guidelines on 9 Jan that specify what protests will not be accepted. Mainly, all of them.

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‘If You Are Wondering Who Benefits’: Weapons Makers See Stocks Surge as Trump Moves Closer to War with Iran
Jake Johnson | Common Dreams – TRANSCEND Media Service, 13 Jan 2020

Almost immediately after the United States assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike on 2 Jan, major American weapons manufacturers and defense contractors—from Northrop Grumman to Lockheed Martin to Raytheon—saw their stocks surge as investors sensed the growing likelihood of another war in the Middle East.

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A World without the Nation-State
David Adams | Transition to a Culture of Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

2 Jan 2020 – The state is a culture of war. In this case the state is the United States and their culture of war is shown in their role in the overthrow of President Morales of Bolivia (precisely because he was promoting a culture of peace) and their threat to punish Julian Assange (precisely because he revealed the secrets of their culture of war.) Not to mention that the states of the world are unable to seriously attack the problem of global warming, and the USA is the worst in this regard.

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Over 9,000 Palestinians Displaced in a Decade of West Bank Demolitions
Natasha Roth-Rowland | +972 Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

24 Dec 2019 – Israel’s demolition regime in the West Bank and East Jerusalem has destroyed over 6,000 Palestinian structures, displacing thousands of Palestinians over the past decade — over half of whom are children and minors.

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NIH Director on Human Gene Editing: ‘We Must Never Allow Our Technology to Eclipse Our Humanity’
Francis S. Collins | Discover – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

29 Dec 201 – The year opened with the scientific community scrambling to respond to the news that Chinese researcher He Jiankui had used CRISPR technology to edit the genomes of human embryos. The experiments resulted in the birth of twin girls, the first humans with genetically altered germline cells — which means their genetic changes are heritable and can be passed on to future generations. We consider such experiments both irresponsible and unethical.

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The Stitching-up of Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg
Keith Davis | The Australian Independent Media Network – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

27 Dec 2019 – So while we sit on our arses and fiddle with our fingers a brave son of Australia is about to be thrown to the wolves. It would pay us well to read, and reflect upon, the following transcript between the President of the United States, his National Security Adviser, and his Attorney General.

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Illegal Tin Mining Leaves Trail of Ruin in Protected Brazilian Rainforest
Ana Ionova | Mongabay – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

30 Dec 2019 – The damage became clear once the rain stopped over Altamira National Forest in northern Brazil. Instead of dense jungle, large patches of bare land now flanked the banks of the rivers in this protected stretch of the Amazon rainforest. “When we got a clean satellite image we just saw devastation,” said one source at a government environmental agency. “We never saw anything like that in Altamira.”

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Trump, Troll-In-Chief, Wags the Impeachment Dog by Going to War with Iran
Juan Cole | Informed Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

3 Jan 2020 – The madman in the White House has been sulking and raging for weeks about his impeachment proceedings, tweeting manically on some days more than 100 times. Trump has abruptly begun trafficking in the sanguinary merchandise of all-out war just at this moment when his throne is on the brink of toppling. Now, by murdering Qasem Soleimani, Trump has brought the United States to the brink of war with Iran.

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War with Iran
Chris Hedges | Truthdig – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

3 Jan 2020 – The assassination of Gen. Soleimani has opened a Pandora’s Box containing existential dangers to the American Empire.

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2020 Vision: A New Year’s Regeneration
Ronnie Cummins | Common Dreams – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

1 Jan 2020 – The solutions we need are no farther away than the nearest solar panel, wind farm, retrofitted building, bicycle path, electric vehicle, community garden, farmers market, organic farm and holistically-managed ranch. The solutions we need lie at the end of our forks and knives, under the trees that shade us, the carbon-sequestering soil below our feet, the consumer dollars in our wallets and our nearest voting booth.

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Trump’s Ordered Assassinations: Cruel and Inhumane Breach of International Law
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate | The Peace People – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

‘There are those who benefit from war, the militarists, the arms dealers, the corporate media/military industrial complex, but those who really pay for militarism and wars are the people and the tax of the poor.  The propaganda and lies of of war are being spread and this time the target is Iran, just like US/UK/NATO carried out wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.  Let us, the people, learn lessons from the past and unite and mobilize calling for no war against Iran. USA troops out of Shannon and out of Iraq! Yes to nonviolence, peace and dialogue!  Let the people unite together to stop war, remembering that there is power in truth and love is stronger than hate.’

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We Must Do More to Prevent Nuclear War
John Polanyi, Nobel Chemistry Laureate | THE – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

The existing nuclear weapons states have no special right to possess nuclear weapons. Indeed, they should have no such moral right. Although powerful, these existing nuclear powers are vulnerable, being bound together by fragile networks of nuclear obligations. It is our great good fortune – nothing more – that has spared us from nuclear war.

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(Italiano) Che cosa muove l’antisemitismo? Forme fasulle e reali
Richard Falk | Centro Studi Sereno Regis – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

30 Dicembre 2019 – Solo il tribalismo più estremo può spiegare l’etichettatura di coloro che si oppongono al trattamento abusivo di Israele nei confronti del popolo palestinese come “antisemiti”. Consideriamo l’incapacità di Aung San Suu Kyi di condannare l’abuso da parte del Myanmar dei Rohingya come il lancio delle nuvole più scure sul suo Nobel Premio per la Pace. È un insulto agli ebrei e agli altri semiti consentire ai sionisti di imprimere solidarietà alla lotta palestinese per i loro diritti fondamentali come antisemitismo.

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How a Rising Anti-Mining Movement Is Challenging Portugal’s ‘White Gold’ Rush
Marina Martinez | Waging Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

19 Dec 2019 – Throughout Portugal, people are organizing to stop a boom in lithium mining, as the government rushes to become Europe’s top supplier of the valuable mineral.

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The Big Change Coming to Just About Every Website on New Year’s Day–Thanks, California!
Aaron Mak | Slate – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

30 Dec 2019 – Starting New Year’s Day, you may notice a small but momentous change to the websites you visit: a button or link, probably at the bottom of the page, reading “Do Not Sell My Personal Information.”

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Jonas Brothers: Only Human (Music Video of the Week)
The Tonight Show | Jimmy Fallon – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

The Jonas Brothers perform “Only Human” for the Tonight Show audience.

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The UN Predicted Gaza Would Be Unlivable by 2020. They Were Right.
Tania Hary | +972 Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

31 Dec 2019 – Israel is trying to keep Gaza ‘quiet’ by applying new calculations to make life survivable — without allowing the people to truly live. While revelers around the world are making New Year’s resolutions for 2020, in the Gaza Strip, a different kind of assessment is taking place as Palestinians try to determine whether, or how, they can survive.

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A World Dividing: The International Implications of the Sino-American Rift
Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr. | Quincy Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

• The U.S.-China trade war is reshaping global politics, creating new patterns of economic integration and alignment.
• By announcing a new era of “great power competition,” the United States is committing a mistake. It should instead focus on solving planet wide problems like climate change and sustaining economic and technological progress. All such challenges require some measure of cooperation with China.

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Forgetting 2019
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

31 Dec 2019 – At this age, having exhausted prose options, I indulge myself during holidays by sharing poems that seek also your indulgence. I searched 2019 for some glimmers of good news, and felt stymied. Of course here, there, everywhere there were glorious private exceptions.

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(Português) Novo Filme sobre Testes em Animais Está Disponível Online
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

29 dez 2019 – O documentário “Test Subjects”, sobre a realidade dos testes em animais já está disponível no Vimeo para quem quiser assistir online. “Espero que esse filme ajude a desafiar essa crença e lance luz sobre o fato de que testes em animais são ineficazes quando se trata da saúde humana”.

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Imagining a World without Capitalism
Yanis Varoufakis | Project Syndicate – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

27 Dec 2019 – Anti-capitalists had a miserable year. But so did capitalism. The point is to suggest, just before the New Year, the wondrous possibilities of a truly liberal, post-capitalist, technologically advanced society. Those who refuse to imagine it are bound to fall prey to the absurdity pointed out by my friend Slavoj Žižek: a greater readiness to fathom the end of the world than to imagine life after capitalism.

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Kahlil Gibran (6 Jan 1883 – 10 Apr 1931): Ask What You Can Do for Your Country
Stan Shabaz | Zinda Magazine/Assyrian International News Agency - TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

His most famous work, The Prophet, was first published in 1923. He has been described in many ways: “melancholic romantic”, “existentialist of the right wing”, Nietzschean rebel, revolutionary, renegade, poet-philosopher, “the William Blake of the twentieth century”, the “Lebanese prophet of New York”, a “burning genius”, etc. But who was he really?

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Dostoyevsky, Just After His Death Sentence Was Repealed, on the Meaning of Life
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

“To be a human being among people and to remain one forever, no matter in what circumstances, not to grow despondent and not to lose heart — that’s what life is all about, that’s its task.”

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Afghan Children: Work of Necessity, Work of Choice
Carolyn Coe | Voices for Creative Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

2 Jan 2020 – If children like himself had a choice, Gul Mohammad thinks it better that they be able to study instead of having to work. He values an education and doesn’t want to join the estimated 1.6 million Afghan addicts. “If I don’t study, I could become like some people who stop studying and become addicts and who can’t find any job to support their families.” He started selling bread in a bakery when he was 8.

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The Fight to Expose Israel’s Arms Sales to the World’s Most Repressive Regimes
Sahar Vardi | +972 Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service, 6 Jan 2020

25 Dec 2019 – In the span of less than 10 years, activists from across the political spectrum went head to head with the Israeli government, trying to bring an end to its arms exports to tyrannical governments worldwide.

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Each New Year
David Krieger | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

another revolution
around the sun
a moment of pause
to take account

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(Italiano) Immorale il Possesso di Armi Nucleari
Editoriale | Il Foglio – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

«L’uso dell’energia atomica per fini di guerra è immorale, come allo stesso modo è immorale il possesso delle armi atomiche, come ho già detto due anni fa. Saremo giudicati per questo dalle nuove generazioni. Come possiamo parlare di pace mentre costruiamo nuove e formidabili armi di guerra? E mentre giustifichiamo determinate azioni illegittime con discorsi di discriminazione e di odio?» — Papa Francesco

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Billionaires’ Wealth Surged in 2019
Barry Grey | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

28 Dec 2019 – The wealth of the world’s 500 richest people rose 25 percent in 2019, reaching a combined net worth of $5.9 trillion. To place this figure in some perspective, these 500 individuals control more wealth than the gross domestic product of the United States at the end of the third quarter of 2019, which was $5.4 trillion.

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(Castellano) Cada Nuevo Año [Poema]
David Krieger | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

otra revolución
alrededor del sol
un momento de pausa
para considerar

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Symbolic Disconnection from the Stars and the Universe?
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

30 Dec 2019 – Surreptitious Global Implementation of Full-Spectrum Dominance and Shielding – Produced in Anticipation of the Imminent Launch of a Vast Array of Communications Satellites

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Capitalism and Robbery: The Expropriation of Land, Labor, and Corporeal Life
John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Hannah Holleman | Monthly Review - TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

1 Dec 2019 – It is impossible to understand the totality of capitalist relations apart from the conditions of both exploitation and expropriation, which together generate the ensemble of oppressions that characterize the system. It is here too that we begin to understand the various interlocking aspects of capitalist domination, which require a corevolutionary praxis in response.

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The Infinite Hotel Paradox
Jeff Dekofsky | TED – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

The Infinite Hotel is a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Easy to comprehend, right? Wrong. What if it’s completely booked, but one person wants to check in? What about 40? Or an infinitely full bus of people? Jeff Dekofsky solves these heady lodging issues using Hilbert’s paradox. Enjoy our stay!

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Afghanistan War – The Crime of the Century
Ron Paul | Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

16 Dec 2019 – “We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan. We didn’t know what we were doing.” So said Gen. Douglas Lute, who oversaw the US war on Afghanistan under Presidents Bush and Obama. Eighteen years into the longest war in US history, we are finally finding out, thanks to thousands of pages of classified interviews on the war published by the Washington Post last week, that General Lute’s cluelessness was shared by virtually everyone involved in the war.

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The People of India Are Taking It to the Streets to Challenge Modi’s Bigoted and Dishonest Government
Vijay Prashad | Independent Media Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

23 Dec 2019 – Every day and in every part of India, hundreds of thousands of people—mainly young people—gather on the streets to express their anger at the government. Their protests, like those of the protests in Chile, emerged out of one particular grievance but then have cascaded outward.

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Julian Assange “Slowly Dying” and “Often Sedated” at UK Belmarsh Prison
Mike Head | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

28 Dec 2019 -Vaughan Smith is a freelance video news journalist who gave refuge to Assange in 2010. He tweeted that Assange called his family on Christmas Eve: “He told my wife and I how he was slowly dying in Belmarsh where, though only on remand, he is kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and is often sedated.”

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Japan’s Radioactive Water Will Be Released into Ocean or Atmosphere
Dan Robitzski | Futurism – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

27 Dec 2019 – Officials overseeing the crumbled remains of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant have a growing problem: they’re running out of space to store its radioactive water. The only options on the table are dumping 1.7 million tons of contaminated water into the ocean, evaporating it so it enters the atmosphere, or a combination of both–in the not-so-distant future.

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The Key to the Environmental Crisis Is Beneath Our Feet
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

28 Dec 2019 – The problem may be that a transition to 100% renewables is the wrong target. Reversing climate change need not mean emptying our pockets and tightening our belts. It is possible to sequester carbon and restore our collapsing ecosystem using the financial resources we already have, and it can be done while at the same time improving the quality of our food, water, air and general health.

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WaPo’s Afghan Papers Propagate Colonial Narrative of Noble Intentions Gone Awry
Joshua Cho | FAIR-Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

The Afghanistan Papers should also be considered an excellent case study of contemporary colonial propaganda, and yet another example of corporate media criticizing US wars without opposing US imperialism. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s famous analysis of media coverage of the Vietnam War, in Manufacturing Consent, found that questions of the invasion’s “tactics and costs”—to the US—dominated the debate.

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Brazil Amazon Deforestation Climbs more than 100% in November over Same Month Last Year – Government Agency
Marcelo Teixeira | Reuters – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

13 Dec 2019 – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon jumped to the highest level for the month of November since record-keeping began in 2015, according to preliminary government data published today.

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New Russian Nuclear Weapon Can Travel 27 Times the Speed of Sound
Vladimir Isachenkov | AP News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

27 Dec 2019 – A new intercontinental weapon that can fly 27 times the speed of sound became operational today, Russia’s defense minister reported, bolstering the country’s nuclear strike capability. US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that he believes “it’s probably a matter of a couple of years” before the U.S. has one.

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Bolivia’s Coup Dictator Seeks to Annihilate Opposition from Exiled
Ramona Wadi | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

27 Dec 2019 – In light of what is occurring in Venezuela, the latest imperialist intervention in Bolivia must be exposed as a plan not only to oust Morales, but also as one aimed at regional destabilisation. Deposed President Evo Morales will be working with an international team that includes the Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who in 1998 issued an international arrest warrant for Pinochet.

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EU: China Must Close Its “Re-Education Camps” for Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Meps Say
News | European Parliament – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

19 Dec 2018 – MEPs express serious concern about China’s repression of the Uyghurs and call on the Chinese government to close the “re-education camps” in Xinjiang immediately.
• Torture, digital surveillance and arbitrary detentions without any charge
• Harassment of Uyghurs abroad
• Call on Council to adopt targeted sanctions and freeze assets

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On the Road to Gaza: The Freedom Flotilla Will Sail Again
Ramzy Baroud | Politics for the People – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

25 Dec 2019 – What is Gaza to us but an Israeli missile, a rudimentary rocket, a demolished home, an injured child being whisked away by his peers under a hail of bullets? On a daily basis, Gaza is conveyed to us as a bloody image or a dramatic video, none of which can truly capture the everyday reality of the Strip – its formidable steadfastness, the everyday acts of resistance, and the type of suffering that can never be really understood through a customary glance at a social media post.

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China Detaining Millions of Uyghurs? Serious Problems with Claims by US-Backed NGO and Far-Right Researcher ‘Led by God’ against Beijing
Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal | The Grayzone – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

21 Dec 2019 – Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.

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Families Fleeing from Guatemala: A Case of Corporate and State Aggression
Marc Pilisuk, Jennifer Rountree and Rebecca Ferencik | Council of Hemispheric Affairs – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

23 Dec 2019 – In its attempt to stem the number of Latin American men, women, and children traveling to the U.S. seeking asylum, the Trump administration has pushed Guatemala and other countries in the region to sign “safe third country” agreements. The U.S. is bound by law to receive asylum seekers and this new agreement is an attempt to avoid this obligation by declaring Guatemala as a safe third country. However, an agreement does not make it so.

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Shelley’s Prescient Case for Animal Rights and the Spiritual Value of Vegetarianism
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

Since the dawn of our species and its consciousness, we have reverenced other animals and incorporated them into our myths and our metaphors, into the basic fabric of our stories. But we have also eaten them — we may be the storytelling animal, but we are fundamentally animal. “By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth, to give a fair trial to the vegetable system.”

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The Most Important Free Press Stories of 2019
Leonard C. Goodman | Independent Media Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

23 Dec 2019 -Assange and Manning are being persecuted for speaking truth to power.

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(Italiano) Il nostro mondo che svanisce: fauna e flora selvatica
Robert Burrowes | Pressenza – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

Nel corso della sua storia, la Terra ha vissuto cinque estinzioni di massa. Ora sta vivendo la sesta.

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(Português) Hambúrgueres vegetais salvam 250 mil animais por ano nos EUA
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

23 dez 2019 – “São 140 mil suínos e 110 mil bovinos por ano sendo ‘salvos do sistema alimentar’’, destaca a WAP-World Animal Protection, que considerou números baseados nas vendas estimadas em restaurantes de fast food nos EUA.

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(Français) De nouveaux documents de WikiLeaks démentent les mensonges sur une attaque chimique en Syrie en 2018
Niles Niemuth | WSWS, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

19 Déc 2019 – Des documents publiés par WikiLeaks le 15 décembre confirment l’existence d’une dissidence importante au sein de l’Organisation pour l’interdiction des armes chimiques (OIAC), l’organisme mondial de surveillance des armes chimiques. Les différences concernent la rédaction d’un rapport public sur l’attaque présumée du 7 avril 2018 à Douma, en Syrie, qui aurait tué 49 personnes et blessées jusqu’à 650.

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Greenland Is Nearing a Climate Tipping Point–How Long Warming Lasts Will Decide Its Fate, Study Says
Bob Berwyn | InsideClimate News – TRANSCEND Media Service, 30 Dec 2019

23 Dec 2019 – Past meltdowns occurred with temperatures only slightly higher than today’s, suggesting the world is overestimating the ice sheet’s stability, scientists say.

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Why Climate Change Is an Irrelevance, Economic Growth Is a Myth and Sustainability Is Forty Years Too Late
Kevin Casey | Global Comment – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

20 Nov 2019 – As someone who has been exploring the world’s most isolated wilderness regions for nearly half a century, I have some insight into the state of the planet and the human race’s current environmental befuddlement. While it’s reassuring that today’s young people are increasingly aware of the seriousness of their environmental plight, they are protesting up the wrong tree. They should direct their passionate attention to the real enemy – a greedy, arrogant, two-legged species that’s in furious denial and has become far too adept at making excuses for the inexcusable.

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Climate Change–Let’s Just Pretend
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

Why do we need to do anything? Inspired by the succession of UN Climate Change Conferences (COP). Manifesto:

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Assange Gives Evidence in Spanish Case against Security Contractor
Thomas Scripps | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

21 Dec 2019 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was brought from Belmarsh Prison yesterday to appear in person at Westminster Magistrates Court and provide video-link witness testimony. The relentless nine-year persecution of Assange—including the flagrant violation of his human rights and the monitoring of his every word and movement while he was supposed to be protected by political asylum—is aimed at terrorising all would-be whistleblowers and journalists into silence.

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Four Criteria for Differentiating Faith-Based Entities
Abbas Aroua | Cordoba Peace Institute Geneva – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

Religious currents, especially Islamic schools of thought, are often considered as monolithic blocs, and sometimes opposed to each other. In fact, not only do some academic and political elites regard various currents of Islamic thought as a form of extremism, but they also do the same with regard to the practice of religion itself.

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2019 Latin America in Review: Year of the Revolt of the Dispossessed
Roger Harris | COHA – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

2019 has not been an entirely bullish year for US imperialism, notwithstanding the hard turns to the right in Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Powerful winds against neoliberalism are gusting in Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, and even in the US “Commonwealth” of Puerto Rico. Regime-change operations failed in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

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Is Growth Passé?
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Economics Laureate | Project Syndicate – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

9 Dec 2019 – Some suggest that the Paris climate agreement’s target for limiting global warming can be achieved only by stopping economic expansion. But there is ample room to change the quality of growth and significantly reduce its environmental impact without condemning billions of people to lives of deprivation.

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Latin America: The Conservative Offensive and the Return of Class War
Antoine Pelletier interviews Franck Gaudichaud | CETRI – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

15 Dec 2019 – Several countries in Latin America are currently experiencing very powerful class conflicts and extremely violent repression on the part of reactionary forces and the state. The following is an overview of the situation in various countries and the dynamics of their struggles.

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Corporate Media Silent on Journalists’ Letter Demanding Freedom for Julian Assange
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

11 Dec 2019 – In a glaring act of political censorship, media corporations in the English-speaking world have maintained a complete silence on a powerful open letter by journalists and media workers issued last weekend demanding the unconditional freedom of Julian Assange. The blackout occurs under conditions where doctors have warned that Assange’s health has deteriorated to the point that he may die in Britain’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison.

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The Hidden Military Use of 5G Technology
Manlio Dinucci | teleSUR – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

21 Dec 2019 – While the earlier technologies were perfected to create ever more advanced smartphones, 5G is designed not only to improve their performance, but mainly to link digital systems which need enormous quantities of data in order to work automatically. The most important 5G applications will not be intended for civil use, but for the military domain.

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Militarism: The Delusion Lives
Robert C. Koehler | Common Wonders – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

18 Dec 2019 – The annual defense budget, passed recently by both the House (377-48) and Senate (82-8), came in at $738 billion for 2020, up from last year a sweet $22 billion. War hits the motherlode every year.

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(Français) À Gaza, un artiste sculpte dans la terre la souffrance des Palestiniens
Tomas Statius | Konbini – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

Des statues en terre cuite grandeur nature à Gaza incarnent la douleur et la souffrance des Palestiniens dans une zone abandonnée en raison des bombardements israéliens.

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Chelsea Manning Must Not Be Forgotten!
Eric London | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

18 Dec 2019 – Yesterday, December 17, whistleblower Chelsea Manning spent her 32nd birthday alone in a prison cell in Alexandria, Virginia, where she has been locked up for nine months for refusing to testify in a grand jury proceeding against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

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Sore Sports: Russia Barred from Olympics for Thwarting Washington’s Geopolitical Game Plan?
Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

13 Dec 2019 – Clearly, the motivation here is to humiliate, provoke and punish Moscow by any means available – even on the field of dreams.

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From a Blessing to a Curse: How UN Resolution 2334 Accelerated Israel’s Colonization in the West Bank
Ramzy Baroud | Politics for the People – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

Three years ago, the UNSC passed Resolution 2334. Immediately after its adoption, Israel thumbed its nose at the whole world by announcing plans to construct thousands of new homes in illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Gone are the days of traditional American “peace-making” and its adjoining elaborate discourse centered on a two-state and other make-believe solutions. Now, Israel is single-handedly formulating its own “vision”.

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Photo Essay: 2009 UN Climate Conference through the Lens of Mediators Beyond Borders
Diane Perlman | Medium – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

15 Dec 2019 – The 25th meeting of the Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP 25, has just ended in Madrid. Ten years ago, I had the privilege of attending COP 15 in Copenhagen with Mediators Beyond Borders. 45,000 people registered. Delegates, negotiators, NGOs, press, and over 1000 youth participated in more than 2000 events over two weeks. Images below

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Should UN Peacekeepers Leave the Democratic Republic of Congo?
Ann Garrison | S. F. Bay Area – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

12 Dec 2019 – Since 1996 the history of DRC provinces has been of perpetual Rwandan and Ugandan invasion, occupation and resource plunder, and the UN Organization Stabilization Mission (MONUSCO) has failed to protect the people or the peace. I spoke to Jean-Claude Maswana about why and whether anything can be done. Maswana is a Congolese native and economics professor at Ritsumeikan University, Japan.

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The Pentagon’s Disastrous Radioactive Waste Dump in the Drowning Marshall Islands is Leaking into the Pacific Ocean
Gary G. Kohls, MD | Duty to Warn – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

19 Dec 2019 – Neither the Pentagon nor the US Government Will Take any Responsibility for the Crisis – An undesignated US SuperFund site in the middle of the Pacific that will be impossible to remediate even if the recalcitrant and bankrupt US government were inclined to do anything about it. These videos and images will help explain why the US corporate, political, military and religious elites must take responsibility.

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The Real Interest of the United States and Transnational Corporations in Latin America and the Caribbean
Enrique Moreno Gimeranez | Granma – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

13 Dec 2019 – What are the real interests of the U.S. and corporations in the region? Freedom, democracy, human rights? No. Their goal is to preserve imperialist domination of our natural resources. Our America is again suffering escalating aggression by U.S. imperialism and local oligarchies.

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We’ve Been Epsteined! The Death of the “Conspiracy Theorist” Label
James Grundvig | Vaxxter – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

The hairy canard of the CIA’s 1967 “conspiracy theorist” label died a thousand deaths when Epstein had his neck broken. With the murder of Jeffrey Epstein – only press lapdogs believe this narcissist committed suicide – the spin cycle has come to a full stop. The centrifuge is over. No more wet lies to be squeezed out of the bedsheets of pedophile rings or false flag events. I’m sure Epstein helped the hit squad turn off the hallway video cameras, too.

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13 Life-Learnings from 13 Years of Brain Pickings
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

More Fluid Reflections on Keeping a Solid Center – On October 23, 2006, Brain Pickings was born as a plain-text email to seven friends. It was then, and continues to be, a labor of love and ledger of curiosity, although the mind and heart from which it sprang have changed — have grown, I hope — tremendously.

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Hope Lies in the Streets
Chris Hedges | Truthdig – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

15 Dec 2019 – Global finance capital has seized control of the economies of most nation-states. The citizens watch, helplessly, as money and goods are transferred with little regulation across borders, as jobs in manufacturing and the professions are shipped to regions of the global south where most workers are paid a dollar or less an hour and receive no benefits, … Civil disobedience is the last tool we have to prevent corporate tyranny and save the planet.

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India’s Government Is Going to War against Its Own People
Vijay Prashad | Independent Media Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

18 Dec 2019 – On December 13, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights released a powerful statement that criticized India’s new citizenship law. The UN said that not only does this law violate India’s obligations to conventions, treaties, and compacts that it has signed at the global level, but also that it is in violation of its own Constitution.

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Sackler-Owned Opioid Maker Pushes Overdose Treatment Abroad
Claire Galofaro and Kristen Gelineau | AP – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

15 Dec 2019 – Big Pharma Empire behind OxyContin Now Selling Overdose Cure – “You’re in the business of selling medicine that causes addiction and overdoses, and now you’re in the business of selling medicine that treats addiction and overdoses?” asked Dr. Andrew Kolodny, an outspoken critic of Purdue who has testified against the company in court. “That’s pretty clever, isn’t it?”

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Keynes Was Wrong – Gen Z Will Have It Worse
Malcolm Harris | MIT Technology Review – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Dec 2019

16 Dec 2019 – The founder of macroeconomics predicted that capitalism would last for approximately 450 years. That’s the length of time between 1580, when Queen Elizabeth invested Spanish gold stolen by Francis Drake, and 2030, the year by which John Maynard Keynes assumed humanity would have solved the problem of our needs and moved on to higher concerns. Instead of never-ending progress, today’s kids face a world on the edge of collapse. What next?

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