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The Lonely Genius Arthur Eddington Who Confirmed Einstein’s Relativity
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
Eddington never married, never had another intimate bond. He lived out his days with his sister, Winifred, who also never married. I picture him Turing-like — in his genius, in his misapprehended awkwardness, in his loneliness and heartbreak. That invisible private side to the public genius is what Gaiman takes up in his poem, celebrating what he calls these “twin suns” of Eddington’s life, the public self and the private self, of genius and loneliness, of intellectual heroism and emotional heartbreak, that shine in varying degrees on every human life.
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Rwanda Exports 2,163 kg of Gold, UAE Imports 12,539 kg of It (!?)
Ann Garrison | Black Agenda Report – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
13 Nov 2019 – The final 2019 UN Group of Experts Report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo confirms that Congo’s eastern neighbor Rwanda remains a haven for smuggling Congolese minerals. “Earlier UN reports said that during the Second Congo War of 1998 to 2003, President Paul Kagame’s government created a ‘Congo Desk’ to organize the illegal exploitation of Congo’s natural resources.”
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UN Envoy’s Grim Warning over Assange’s Life in British Prison
Editorial | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
8 Nov 2019 – A UN expert in torture diagnosis has issued a stark warning that Australian whistleblower Julian Assange is in danger of dying from extreme prison conditions in Britain. It is testimony to the rank hypocrisy of British and American governments that lecture others around the world about democracy, human rights and international law. One can only imagine the hysterical outcry among Western governments and media if somehow Assange was being detained in a Russian, Chinese or Iranian prison.
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Former Israel Commander Says Israel’s ‘Unjust’ War in Palestine Fuels ‘Anti-Semitism around the World’
Philip Weiss | Mondoweiss – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
5 Nov 2019 – Last week a former Israeli security official urged American Jews to restrain Israel’s “unjust” war in Palestine because it fuels anti-Semitism around the world. The statement is remarkable because that view is generally seen as anathema: saying that Israel’s actions have any role in the growth of anti-Semitism.
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The Berlin Wall and General Pyrrhus
Victor Grossman | Berlin Bulletin, Monthly Review – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
9 Nov 2019 – East Germans soon learned that freedom of the press was for those who owned the presses, that freedom of speech helped most those who ruled over studios and cable connections. Most tellingly, they learned very quickly that those 100 West-marks were soon spent and new ones, for all those glistening commodities and travels, had somehow to be earned, while over 95 % of the industry they had built up was taken over by Westerners.
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Dangers and Questions of the Zuckerberg Era
Roberto Savio | Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
14 Nov 2019 — The Internet brought us from the Gutenberg Era to the Zuckerberg Era… Secret algorithms form profiles of each and every one of us…The Chinese government has already given every citizen a digital number, where all their ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behaviours converge… London town now has 627,000 surveillance cameras, one for every fourteen citizens; in Beijing it’s one for every seven…
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Becoming 89
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
— Istanbul, 13 Nov 2019 [From TMS editor: Richard was born on 13 Nov 1930]
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Change of Players, Change of Game: How States Got Left Behind on Climate Change
Charlotte Hulme | E-IR – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
5 Nov 2019 – Climate change may be a unique transnational risk, but how non-national actors are responding to it offers general lessons for our understanding of global politics.
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The Coup That Ousted Morales
Chandra Muzaffar | JUST – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
In this regard, just before he was ousted, Morales, it is reported, decided to partner with Chinese firms to develop Bolivia’s lithium deposits since Western mining companies were not prepared to comply with the terms that the Bolivian government laid out. For Morales, the exploitation of lithium had to benefit the Bolivian people before anyone else. Western companies and the US elite saw the Bolivian president as a hurdle. They were convinced that Morales had to go.
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Hollow Promises of a Better Life: Modern-Day Slavery
Kyodo News | Democratic World Federalists – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
15 Nov 2019 – Despite the fact that slavery has long been abolished it continues to blight our world, destroying the lives of tens of millions of people. The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates there to be 40.3 million slaves in the world. Like many of the issues facing humanity, it demands a coordinated consistent approach, cooperation and commitment, not just among governments, but between nongovernmental organizations and multinational corporations.
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Top Bolivian Coup Plotters Trained by US Military’s School of the Americas, Served as Attachés in FBI Police Programs
Jeb Sprague | The Grayzone – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
13 Nov 2019 – The United States played a key role in the military coup in Bolivia, and in a direct way that has scarcely been acknowledged in accounts of the events that forced the country’s elected president, Evo Morales, to resign on November 10.
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Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational Firm’s Lithium Deal
Eoin Higgins | Common Dreams – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
11 Nov 2019 – “Bolivia’s lithium belongs to the Bolivian people. Not to multinational corporate cabals.”
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The War in Syria
Prof. Richard Falk | TRT – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
24 Oct 2019 – Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, UC Santa Barbara, author of 40 books, and a speaker and activist. In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Falk to a six-year term as a UN Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” His most recent book is Achieving Human Rights (2009).
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What You Need to Know about the Bombings in Gaza
Mike Merryman-Lotze | American Friends Service Committee – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
On Nov. 12, 2019 the Israeli military assassinated Baha Abu al-Ata, a leading member of Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and his wife—sparking more violence in Gaza. Shortly after the killing, Islamic Jihad fired rockets into Israel. In response, Israel has launched extensive bombing attacks on Gaza, killing at least 34 Palestinians and injuring many others. One Israeli has been injured as a result of Palestinian rockets fire.
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Israel Killed 222 Gaza Protestors Since 2018. Only One Soldier Has Been Indicted
Eyal Sagiv | +972 Magazine – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Nov 2019
6 Nov 2019 – As Othman Hiles began climbing the Gaza fence, an Israeli soldier opened fire and killed the unarmed 14-year-old. The soldier’s sentence? Community service.
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Are the UN and the International Community Both Brain Dead?
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
11 Nov 2019 – The world has been confronted by the assertion by President Macron that NATO is “brain dead”. Rather than explore the case made with regard to NATO alone, the institutional problem recognized is far more fundamental and general. Given its coincidental timing, the assessment could then be readily dismissed as a riposte to the recent formal withdrawal of the US from the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
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Warning of ‘Untold Human Suffering,’ Over 11,000 Scientists from Around the World Declare Climate Emergency
Julia Conley | Common Dreams – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
5 Nov 2019 – More than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries today officially declared a climate emergency and warned of “untold human suffering” if immediate bold action is not taken to stop the warming of the globe. “Scientists have a culture of reticence when it comes to making statements like this, but the emergency is rapidly accelerating, and the scientists are very clear: this is an existential emergency.”
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Did the West Win the Cold War?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
6 Nov 2019 – It was assumed and almost never challenged that the outcome of the Cold War was a victory for liberal values, human rights, political democracy, economic growth, and certainly world peace. And since democracies supposedly do not go to war against each other, and if Communism was discredited, then democracy would spread naturally and quickly, and the world would become more peaceful and its people better off.
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We Need Biodiversity-Based Agriculture to Solve the Climate Crisis
Prof. Vandana Shiva | Navdanya International – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
The Earth is living, and also creates life. Over 4 billion years the Earth has evolved a rich biodiversity–an abundance of different living organisms and ecosystems–that can meet all our needs and sustain life. We can repair the Earth’s ruptured carbon cycle by recarbonizing it with the living carbon of biodiversity.
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Is the Run on the Dollar Due to Panic or Greed?
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
7 Nov 2019 – Why are banks no longer lending to each other? Are they afraid that collapse is imminent somewhere in the system, as with the Lehman collapse in 2008? Perhaps, and if so the likely suspect is Deutsche Bank. But it looks to be just another case of Wall Street fattening itself at the public trough.
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NATO Is Suffering ‘Brain Death’, Argues French President Macron
AFP | France 24 – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
7 Nov 2019 – French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed NATO was undergoing “brain death”, lamenting a lack of coordination between Europe and the United States and unilateral action in Syria by key member Turkey, in an interview published today.
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Brazil: Lula Is Free!
Ana Paula Vargas and Vijay Prashad | Brasil de Fato – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
9 Nov 2019 – Just before 6 p.m. on 8 Nov, Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked out of prison. Lula was imprisoned in April 2018 on a 12-year sentence. 580 days of prison are now over, as the Federal Supreme Court ruled that inmates who have not yet exhausted their appeals should not be held behind bars. –The Verdict Was Not Directed at Lula, but at the Undemocratic Nature of the Judicial System in Brazil
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A Tight Grip on Our Nuclear Toys
Robert C. Koehler | Common Wonders – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
6 Nov 2019 – The interests of the planet as a whole could easily disappear as anything but idealistic, ignorable abstractions. Disarmament? Give me a break. Not when regional powers are “challenging American hegemony.” Add to this the transnational, corporate interest in militarism. There’s no money in peace, a black hole, the lull between wars. Money doesn’t start to flow until the bullets and the bombs start to fly.
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US Seizure of Oil Fields Escalates Tensions in Syria
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
8 Nov 2019 – The US has deployed hundreds of troops backed by armored vehicles into oil fields located in Syria’s northeastern Deir Ezzor province, where they are reportedly building two new bases… Asked whether the US forces were going to take over all of Syria’s oil fields or only a portion of them, the naval officer suggested that this would be left to “commanders on the ground.”
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky (11 Nov 1821 – 9 Feb 1881)
Gary Saul Morson | Encyclopædia Britannica – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
Dostoyevsky is usually regarded as one of the finest novelists who ever lived. Literary modernism, existentialism, and various schools of psychology, theology, and literary criticism have been profoundly shaped by his ideas. His works are often called prophetic because he so accurately predicted how Russia’s revolutionaries would behave if they came to power. In his time, he was also renowned for his activity as a journalist.
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Rwanda: Victoire Ingabire Endures Relentless Interrogation
Ann Garrison | Black Agenda Report – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
30 Oct 2019 – Rwanda’s democratic opposition leader says “there is no space for people to speak freely and peacefully and engage in real democratic process in Rwanda.”
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WikiLeaks Reveals OPCW Falsified Reports to Blame Syrian Government Instead of Western Backed-Jihadis!
Federico Pieraccini | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
29 Oct 2019 – A whistleblower from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons delivered to WikiLeaks authentic documents to do with investigations into the Douma bombing in Syria in 2018. The revelations–studiously ignored by the mainstream media–shed a light on the tangled web weaved by the complicit media and the West’s shameless hypocrisy, involving the [Nobel Peace Laureate] OPCW, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange’s illegal detention.
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Protests in Haiti Signal Change Needed in US Foreign Policy
Jonathan Molina | The Daily Californian – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
There have already been several failed coup attempts against the Maduro government in Venezuela, and all its assets have been frozen. Crippling economic policy against Venezuela has deeply harmed the people that the US claims to protect. If it were to be true to its often-stated goal of advancing democracy and protecting the worlds’ poor, Haiti’s government would be the focus of human rights intervention to defend unarmed civilians against repressive government violence.
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Wall Street at Record Highs as Global Growth Slows
Nick Beams | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
7 Nov 2019 – As Wall Street reaches new highs all three major indexes (the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nadaq) hit records in the past week. While impoverished workers and youth from US, India, Lebanon, Iraq, Chile, Ecuador are told “there is no money” for jobs, wages, schools or health care, trillions are made available to the speculators and big investors to increase their stock portfolios and enlarge their personal fortunes.
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U.S. Global Pirate!
James Albertini | Malu 'Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
What is OUR OIL doing under THEIR sand? “We’re keeping the (Syrian) Oil,” says Trump. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney plundered Iraq’s oil. Barack Obama looted the Libyan oil fields.
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Ah … The Best People: Ignoring the Need for Environmental Deliverance for Over 50 Years
Marc A. Cirigliano| The Eastern Woodlands Fusion – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
The Limits to Growth – Journalism seems to have finally caught up with what the scientists have been telling us for well over five decades about the environment. You come across articles about overpopulation, pollution, resource use and climate change, including human excesses, noticeable changes that affect the day-to-day well-functioning of a society, or the long-term viability of human life as we now know it.
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US and Israel Were Lone Votes against UN Resolutions Opposing Space Arms Race and Nuclear Middle East
Ben Norton | The Grayzone – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
8 Nov 2019 – The only two countries that voted consistently against UNGA draft resolutions calling for a nuclear weapons-free Middle East and to stop an arms race in outer space.
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Babri Masjid Verdict: My House Demolished, I Go to Court, It Awards the Land to the Demolisher. Is This Justice?
Binu Mathew | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
9 Nov 2019 – Babri Masjid mosque: In a unanimous verdict, the Supreme Court held that the disputed land of Ayodhya must be handed over for the construction of Ram temple. The verdict is not end of the controversial Ayodhya – Ram Janmabhumi dispute. This opens only a new chapter in the Hindu/Muslim relations in India. One can only hope that harmony will prevail.
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E.F. Schumacher’s “A Guide for the Perplexed”: Mapping the Meaning of Life and the Four Levels of Being
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
How to harness the uniquely human power of “consciousness recoiling upon itself.”
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Chile: Bachelet Upholds Pinochet’s Call for Oblivion
Ramona Wadi | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
6 Nov 2019 – What Bachelet describes as a “current crisis” has roots that go deeper into a history which Chilean governments prefer to dissociate from the demonstrations. Neoliberalism in Chile is a brutal ongoing experiment and Bachelet does indeed know better than other diplomats at the UN that the protests must achieve their aim before any so-called dialogue with politicians, whether right-wing or centre-left. However, her role at the UNHRC makes it easy for her to rely on prepared statements.
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(Português) Rainha Elizabeth II Abandona Uso de Casacos de Pele
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
6 nov 2019 – De acordo com o jornal britânico The Mirror, a Rainha Elizabeth II decidiu substituir o uso de peles por peles falsas. A publicação diz que a monarca tem sido criticada há anos por organizações que atuam defesa dos animais por usar casacos com peles reais, justificando que “ela deveria dar o exemplo”.
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How to Crush a Bankers’ Dictatorship: A Lesson from 1933
Matthew Ehret | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
8 Nov 2019 – While everyone knows that the 1929 market crash unleashed four years of hell in America which quickly spread across Europe under the great depression, not many people have realized that this was a controlled blowout. While I’m not arguing that a systemic change is not vital to protect people from the effects of a general meltdown of the $1.2 trillion derivatives bubble sometimes called “the western banking system”, what central bankers are proposing is a poison more deadly than the disease they promise to cure.
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UN Rapporteur Nils Melzer Warns: Julian Assange May Die in British Prison
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Nov 2019
4 Nov 2019 – United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer has issued a chilling warning: If WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange is not urgently released from prison and provided the medical care he requires, he may die behind bars in Britain. In accompanying comments to the Associated Free Press, Melzer said that his statement was based on “new medically relevant information.”
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Casting Doubt: Trusting Whistleblowers More Than International Institutions–Syrian Alleged Chemical Weapons Attack on Douma
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
Courage Foundation Panel Challenges International Finding of Syrian Responsibility for the 2018 Attack on Douma
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A Conspiracy of Decency
David Krieger | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
We will conspire to keep this blue dot floating and alive,
to keep the soldiers from gunning down the children,
Education and Knowledge Can Stop the Fake “Science” of Multinationals That Is Leading the Planet and Society to Collapse
Vandana Shiva | Navdanya International – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
Now that the dominant model is showing its inadequacies and failures, we must necessarily recognize the plurality of knowledge systems and the potential of their integration, which is essential to increase our capacity for survival as a species. Adaptation in times of turbulence requires maintaining high levels of freedom and choice. This requires diversity in all its forms.
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The Venice Future Dialogues
Jan Oberg | Oberg Photo Graphics – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
26 Oct 2019 – How the Silk Peace Art Road installation stimulates dialogues about the world and what a couple of thousand people from all over that world shared with me… This article is a report of what visitors to my installation in Venice have shared with me about the world, what they fear and hope.
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By Protecting Syria’s Idlib, the US Created a Safe Haven for Baghdadi and ISIS
Dan Cohen | The Grayzone – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
29 Oct 2019 – With the [alleged] killing of self-proclaimed ISIS “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the shoddy narrative pushed by US government officials and regime change propagandists about Idlib was blown to pieces as well. October has been a tough month for the motley crew of self-styled Syria experts and regime-change diehards who spent years cheering on the so-called “moderate rebels.”
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(Français) Haïti: entre complicité et ingérence
Frédéric Thomas | CETRI – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
22 oct. 2019 – Alors qu’Haïti a de nouveau connu plusieurs journées insurrectionnelles, le président Jovenel Moïse s’accroche au pouvoir, semblant bénéficier du soutien des pays occidentaux. De la sorte, ces derniers hypothèquent toute chance de résolution de la crise en cours.
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‘This Charge Is 100% False’: Grayzone Editor Max Blumenthal Arrested Months after Reporting on Venezuelan Opposition Violence
Ben Norton | The Grayzone – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
28 Oct 2019 – The Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal has been arrested on false charges after reporting on Venezuelan opposition violence outside the DC embassy. He describes the manufactured case as part of a wider campaign of political persecution.
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(Italiano) La «Madre terra» trasformata in colonia delle multinazionali
Manlio Masucci | Navdanya International – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
24 ottobre 2019 – Viviamo in un’epoca di grande concentrazione economica, dove il capitale, accumulato da un numero ristretto di individui, ha la capacità di ridurre i governi a propri agenti con il fine di alimentare la macchina dello sfruttamento delle persone e del pianeta. Questo sistema, che spesso indossa la maschera bonaria del filantropismo e ama rifarsi il trucco attraverso operazioni di greenwashing, genera crisi economiche, sanitarie, ambientali, politiche.
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Regarding American Decadence: A Revealing President in a New Geopolitical Context
Juan Eugenio Corradi | Opinion Sur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
30 Oct 2019 – American protectionism under President Donald Trump’s administration is just an exaggerated expression of a process of global power loss and its replacement by a new constellation of blocks organized around specific interests and the power of the strongest within each.
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The Writing of “Silent Spring”: Rachel Carson and the Culture-Shifting Courage to Speak Inconvenient Truth to Power
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
A woman scientist without a Ph.D. or an academic affiliation became the most powerful voice of resistance against ruinous public policy mitigated by the self-interest of government and industry. “It is, in the deepest sense, a privilege as well as a duty to have the opportunity to speak out — to many thousands of people — on something so important.”
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Why Do So Many People Hate the U.S.?
James Albertini | Malu 'Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
1 Nov 2019 – The US illegal invasion of Iraq based on phony claims of weapons of mass destruction by Bush & co. led to the creation of ISIS. It has been endless regime-change wars, torture, rendition, and covert Special Ops in numerous countries. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed; millions wounded and displaced. No wonder so many people around the world hate the U.S. and see America as the greatest threat to peace on earth.
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Britain Obstructs Spanish Investigation into CIA Spying on Julian Assange
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
El País reported on Wednesday [23 Oct] that a request by Spanish judge José de la Mata to interview Assange via videolink had been rejected by the UK. He is investigating a complaint by Assange’s lawyers alleging that UC Global, the private company hired to provide security to Ecuador’s London embassy, illegally surveilled him on behalf of US authorities while he was protected with political asylum inside the building.
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(Français) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Fabriqué et Tué par la CIA
Marc Vandepitte | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
31 Oct 2019 – Maintenant qu’Abou Bakr al-Baghdadi, le dirigeant de l’EI, a été éliminé, beaucoup manifestent leur joie et leur soulagement aux États-Unis et en Occident. Ce qu’ils ne disent pas, c’est que ce groupe terroriste barbare est un produit de leur propre politique étrangère dans la région.
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CIA Death Squads Responsible for Spike in Afghan Civilian Casualties
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
2 Nov 2019 – Civilian casualties have reached a record high in the 18-year-old US war in Afghanistan as the Trump administration has broken off talks with the Islamist insurgents of the Taliban and ordered a sharp escalation in US airstrikes and night raids by CIA-backed death squads. In Afghanistan, as in Syria, Trump’s promise to end Washington’s “forever wars” has amounted to empty demagogy.
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Leon Trotsky (7 Nov 1879 – 21 Aug 1940)
Robert V. Daniels | Encyclopædia Britannica - TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
In the struggle for power following Vladimir Ilich Lenin’s death, Joseph Stalin emerged as victor, while Trotsky was removed from all positions of power and later exiled (1929). He remained the leader of an anti-Stalinist opposition abroad until his assassination by a Stalinist agent.
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The Future of Human Rights: Regressive Trends and Restorative Prospects
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
31 Oct 2019 – The main objective of this essay is to sketch the profound challenges to human rights that arise from a series of interrelated and overlapping developments, and to give some sense that to restore and enhance human rights is a difficult undertaking that now seems almost impossible given the ultra-nationalist outlook of the governments of most leading states. Yet the future is uncertain, and will be influenced by what peoples variously situated choose to do or refrain from doing.
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(Português) Paul McCartney protagoniza nova campanha contra testes em animais
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Nov 2019
Em campanha lançada hoje [23 Out] pela PETA, Paul McCartney é o protagonista do vídeo “Looking For Changes”, inspirado na música lançada pelo ex-Beatle em 1993.
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The Olive Tree–Not Just an Ordinary Tree
Mazin Qumsiyeh | DesertPeace – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
21 Oct 2019 – It is hard to describe to non-Palestinians what the olive tree means to us. My thoughts wonder to the Palestinians who lost their olive groves to the colonial settlement activity (over 1 million trees have been uprooted). The olive harvest is after all a ritual that borders on an act of worship (and maybe it is). Palestinians over the past 5000 years have cultivated olive trees and derived great benefit from these wonderful hardy trees.
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(Deutsch) Wie die Deutschen den Regenwald mit aufessen
Anette Dowideit | WELT – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
20.10.2019 – Deutsche Firmen kauften in den vergangenen fünf Jahren gut 40.000 Tonnen Rindfleisch bei Fleischkonzernen, die an der Abholzung des brasilianischen Regenwaldes beteiligt sind. Pro Jahr wurden dafür rund 2,5 Quadratkilometer geschützte Naturgebiete in Weideland umgewandelt.
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Assange “Struggles to Say His Own Name” as He Appears in Court
Jack Peat | The London Economic – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
21 Oct 2019 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared to struggle to say his own name as he appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today to fight extradition to the US. Assange told the judge he is up against a “superpower” with “unlimited resources” and appeared to be fighting back tears as he added: “I can’t think properly.”
→ read full articleInterpreting Turkey’s Military Operation in Syria
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
18 Oct 2019 – Ever since things started to go badly wrong in Syria after the uprising prompted by the 2011 Arab Spring, the situation has converted the customary fog of war into an impenetrable black box. None of the intervening political actors including Turkey, United States, Iran, Russia, Israel, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia calculated correctly, nor did the various non-state extremist groups associated with al Qaeda and later ISIS, as well as a variety of anti-Damascus Syrian insurgencies.
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Anti-Nuke Activists, Kings-Bay-Plowshares-7 Found Guilty on All Counts
Bill Ofenloch | Kings Bay Plowshares 7 – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
24 Oct 2019 – Nonviolent Direct Action against Trident Nuclear Missile Submarine Base – More than 18 months after they snuck onto the site of one of the largest known collections of nuclear weaponry in the world, a jury found the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 guilty of all four of the charges brought against them.
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(Français) Nestlé et la privatisation de l’eau : le cas Suisse
Franklin Frederick | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
22 Oct 2019 – En février dernier, le Gouvernement de la Suisse annonçait la création d’une fondation à Genève, nommée « Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator » . Le but de cette nouvelle fondation est de réguler les nouvelles technologies, depuis les drones jusqu’aux voitures automatiques en passant par l’ingénierie génétique. Les nouvelles technologies se développent très rapidement et cette fondation doit « anticiper » les conséquences de ces avancées sur les plans politique et sociétal. La GSDA se veut également un pont entre les communautés scientifiques et diplomatiques.
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UK Judge Rejects Delay in Assange Extradition Case
Laura Tiernan | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
22 Oct 2019 – Pilger told demonstrators: “The whole thing is a grotesque absurdity. There is an extradition law between this country and the United States. It states specifically that someone cannot be extradited if the offences are political… It is not a bit of agitprop, it is not an opinion, they ARE political. All but one charge is based on the 1917 Espionage Act, which was used to jail conscientious objectors during the First World War in the United States.”Pilger concluded: “The source of this is a rogue state—a state that ignores its own laws and international laws and the laws of this country.”
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Don’t Railroad Julian Assange to Virginia
Consortium News | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
22 Oct 2019 – The WikiLeaks legal team has a strong case to throw out Assange’s extradition request after the government that wants him extradited got hold of surveillance video of his privileged attorney-client conversations.
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Coca-Cola, Nestlé and PepsiCo Named Top Plastic Polluters for the Second Year in a Row
Matt Franklin | Brand Audit – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
23 Oct 2019 – Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and PepsiCo top the list according to a new report “BRANDED Volume II: Identifying the World’s Top Corporate Plastic Polluters.” The rest of the top 10 plastic polluters are Mondelēz International, Unilever, Mars, P&G, Colgate-Palmolive, Phillip Morris, and Perfetti Van Melle.
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Comcast Is Lobbying against Encryption That Could Prevent it from Learning Your Browsing History
Joseph Cox | Vice – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
23 Oct 2019 – Internet giant Comcast is lobbying U.S. lawmakers against plans to encrypt web traffic that would make it harder for internet service providers (ISPs) to determine your browsing history, according to a lobbying presentation obtained.
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The Pathocracy of the Deep State: Tyranny at the Hands of a Psychopathic Government
John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
There is no difference between psychopaths and politicians. Nor is there much of a difference between the havoc wreaked on innocent lives by uncaring, unfeeling, selfish, irresponsible, parasitic criminals and elected officials who lie to their constituents, trade political favors for campaign contributions, turn a blind eye to the wishes of the electorate, cheat taxpayers out of hard-earned dollars, favor the corporate elite, entrench the military industrial complex, and spare little thought for the impact their thoughtless actions and hastily passed legislation might have on defenseless citizens.
→ read full articleRestoring the Korean Economic Miracle
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
This paper was written for the Economics of Happiness Conference co-sponsored by Local Futures, held in Jeonju, Korea, on October 16-17, where I was the keynote speaker — a wonderful city and great experience!
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What Logically Vaccine-hesitant People Need to Know about Flu Shot Propaganda
Gary G. Kohls, MD | Duty to Warn – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
22 Oct 2019 – How Big Pharma, the CDC and Big Medicine Have Deceived Us by the Cunning Use of Statistics
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(Português) O Veganismo na Vida de River Phoenix
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
“Algumas pessoas mal informadas afirmam que os ativistas dos direitos animais são terroristas, mas essas pessoas simplesmente ignoram quem são os verdadeiros terroristas – as empresas e indústrias que torturam literalmente bilhões de animais a cada ano” – River Phoenix. Segundo River, é preciso que exista um movimento extremo quando o que acontece com os animais no cotidiano é tão extremo.
→ read full articleInvestment Key Variable, though Not Any Type of Investment
Roberto Sansón Mizrahi | Opinion Sur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
It is claimed that investment is a key variable in every development process, but, beware, not any type of investment. There are investments that contribute to the pursued development and others that hurt it or do not impact on the chosen path. Therefore, it is not right to talk about plain investment without delving into such heterogeneous universe and discerning which investment to make and who does it. Those are two intimately related critical issues.
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Why Are the American People so Passive and Accepting of War?
Dave Alpert | Intrepid Report – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
23 Oct 2019 – We have not experienced war on our soil since the Civil War. The closest we came was the destruction and deaths caused by the 9/11 attack, a homegrown incident to gather support for US military action in the Middle East as it “does battle against terrorism”. The reality we refuse to recognize is that it is the US that is the biggest and most dangerous terrorist on the planet.
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Paul Robeson (9 Apr 1898 – 23 Jan 1976): Lessons from a Remarkable Life
Tayo Aluko | Counterfire – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
Black Lawyer, Singer and Football Player, Paul Robeson’s Extraordinary Life Holds Many Lessons for the Present Day
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2019 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award Acceptance Speech
David Krieger | Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
24 Oct 2019 – Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.” I would add, as I’m sure he would, that we must work diligently to attain this reality.
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Correcting the (Im)Balance of Power (Before It’s Too Late)
Joseph Kandra and Kathie MM | Engaging Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
Nothing New under the Sun… (?)
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UN Official’s Briefing on Torture of Assange Boycotted by Media
Oscar Grenfell | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
18 Oct 2019 – As it was, footage aired by the Russian-funded RT outlet showed a grand total of four people in the audience, surrounded by rows of empty chairs. To date, the RT article, and an accompanying video, appears to be the only report on the briefing by any media outlet in the world.
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What If the Government Abolished the Military?
Jørgen Johansen and Brian Martin | Journal of Resistance Studies – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
25 Oct 2019 – Imagine that government leaders make an announcement: “We’re going to abdicate responsibility for defense. Over the next few years, our military forces will be phased out. They are too dangerous and counterproductive. It will be up to everyone to figure out how to defend us all without violence.” As entrenched as the military is in our society and minds, civilians can defend a society without using violence.
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D.H. Lawrence on the Antidote to the Malady of Materialism
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
“Owners and owned, they are like the two sides of a ghastly disease. One feels a sort of madness come over one, as if the world had become hell. But it is only superimposed: it is only a temporary disease. It can be cleaned away.”
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Yi Jing – I Ching 易經 — The Book of Changes
Igor Micunovic | Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
24 Oct 2019 — Ancient culture of China has made great contributions to world culture. Book of Changes is one of the most precious contributions of Chinese culture, which has exerted a great influence on Chinese philosophy, literature, historical study, as well as natural and social sciences.
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In Memoriam: Dietrich ‘Dieter’ Fischer (22 Sep 1941 – 18 Oct 2015)
Prof. Johan Galtung | Founder – TRANSCEND Network of Peace Practitioners,
28 Oct 2019
My dear friend, co-founder of TRANSCEND, let us celebrate your life while deploring that you are no longer among us, in deep gratitude for all you did to inspire and help–and for peace in general.
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African Leadership Breaking the Deadly Silence on Future Migration
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
21 Oct 2019 – Courageous insight on a vital issue that European politicians and the UN fear to evoke. Given the remarkable interview with the President of Niger last week, I have produced this short piece summarizing its essential message within a wider context.
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Prof. Johan Galtung (Born 24 Oct 1930)
Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
Galtung was jailed in Norway for six months at age 24 as a Conscientious Objector to serving in the military, after having done 12 months of civilian service, the same time as those doing military service. He agreed to serve an extra 6 months if he could work for peace, but that was refused. In jail he wrote his first book, Gandhi’s Political Ethics, together with his mentor, Arne Næss. This event would trigger a world-changing lifetime work for peace: 170 books, plus.
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In Praise of Kamila Shamsie’s ‘Home Fire’
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
13 Oct 2019 – It took the withdrawal of the Nelly Sachs Prize to make me familiar with the fine literary achievements and compassionate politics of Kamila Shamsie. Selfishly, I cannot thank the Dortmund City Council enough for its outrageous behavior, evidently canceling the award because a right-wing newspaper outed Shamsie as a supporter of the BDS Campaign. I can imagine Shamsie’ feeling of hurt as well as disappointment as this incident unfolded.
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(Italiano) È ora di finire la guerra contro la Terra
Vandana Shiva | Centro Studi Sereno Regis - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
14 Ottobre 2019 – Quando pensiamo alle guerre ai nostri tempi, volgiamo la mente all’Iraq e all’Afghanistan. Ma la guerra più grossa è quella contro il pianeta. È una guerra con le radici in un’economia che manca di rispettare i limiti ecologici ed etici – limiti all’ineguaglianza, all’ingiustizia, all’avidità e alla concentrazione economica.
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The Age of Radical Evil
Chris Hedges | Truthdig – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
14 Oct 2019 – All life, including our own, has become expendable, sacrificed on the altar of profit in a culture of death. “Radical evil, worse than merely treating others as objects, renders vast numbers of people superfluous. They possess no value at all and when no longer of utility to the powerful, discarded as human refuse.” — Hannah Arendt
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UN’s 75th Anniversary Shadowed by Right-Wing Nationalism, Widespread Authoritarianism and Budgetary Cuts
Thalif Deen | IPS - Human Wrongs Watch,
21 Oct 2019
17 Oct 2019 – Perhaps the most politically-significant event in 2020 will be the 75th anniversary of the United Nations amidst continued threats against multilateral institutions, rising right-wing nationalism, growing authoritarianism and widespread disinformation–in the shadow of one of UN’s worst financial crises. SG Guterres warned: “The situation remains dire; without immediate action, I can no longer guarantee the smooth functioning of the Organization.”
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Tulsi Nails It on National TV… US Regime-Change Wars
Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
18 Oct 2019 – Peace will come to the Middle East when Washington finally ends its criminal regime-change wars and its support for terrorist proxies. Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the only politician with the intelligence and integrity to tell Americans the truth.
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Switching to Plant-Based Diet from Animal-Based Food
Robert Smith | Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
Hunger in the world continues to grow, as do the number people are overweight. Suboptimal diets were responsible for more deaths than any other single cause, including smoking tobacco. In addition, switching to a primarily plant-based diet from a diet that includes unhealthy animal-based food (red meat and processed meat) is good for your health and for the environment.
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Kashmir–The Curious Case of Indian Collective Conscience
Dr Mudasir Firdosi | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
19 Oct 201 9 – Kashmir has been cut off from the rest of the world for more than two months now. The perpetual worry about that ‘phone call’ has traumatized so many. One fears that people are developing traumatic stress even when not physically present in the valley. Even when people do manage a phone call after begging or borrowing, the harrowing silence on the other side says it all.
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Rohingya Refugees Agree Move to Bangladesh Island: Official
Yahoo! News | AFP – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
20 Oct 2019 – Thousands of Rohingya living in Bangladesh refugee camps have agreed to move to an island in the Bay of Bengal, officials said today, despite fears the site is prone to flooding. Dhaka has long wanted to move 100,000 refugees to the muddy silt islet, saying it would take pressure off the overcrowded border camps where almost a million Rohingya live.
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(Français) Dilma Rousseff: «Néolibéralisme et néofascisme sont des jumeaux siamois»
Marc Vandepitte | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
14 Oct 2019 – Parce que toutes les tentatives d’un retour au néolibéralisme par les voies démocratiques ont échoué, l’élite a fomenté un coup d’État constitutionnel. Compte rendu d’une conférence tenue le 21 septembre par Dilma Rousseff, ancienne présidente du Brésil.
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Johan Galtung Sings “Le Déserteur” (Music Video of the Week)
Posted by Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor - TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
Prof. Johan Vincent Galtung performing the famous anti-militaristic ode, Le Déserteur, composed by Boris Vian in 1954. The exquisite artwork is by Xiaonan. Galtung was jailed for six months at age 24 for refusing military service as a conscientious objector, unlawful at the time in Norway. This event would set in motion a lifetime of groundbreaking peace work (over 170 books in his 89 years, +++).
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How Many Horrible Leaders!
Opinion Sur | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
How did we get to choose so many mediocre leaders, disoriented, coopted by power, horrible in terms of ethics and their motivations, able in forcing perks for themselves and their own, very far from state-persons orientated towards general wellbeing, environment protection, pacific solutions! Perhaps democracies were born captured by those who kept control over the instruments used for colonizing minds and formatting subjectivities.
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(Português) Nova Investigação Expõe Crueldade dos Testes em Animais (Video)
David Arioch | Vegazeta – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
15 de out 2019 – Os resultados de uma investigação divulgada no último dia 11 pela organização Cruelty Free International em parceria com a SOKO Tierschutz expõem o sofrimento e tortura dos animais utilizados em exames toxicológicos em um laboratório alemão que presta serviços para empresas farmacêuticas, industriais e agroquímicas de diversas partes do mundo.
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What Is ‘the UN We Need’ and Who Gets to Choose?
Ben Donaldson and Florencia Gor | UN2020 – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
12 Oct 2019 – Why are civil society organisations excited about strengthening the UN when momentum seems distinctly in the opposite direction? When divisions are rife and the international system is in damage limitation mode, as the US cuts funding and repeatedly pulls out of UN bodies? The opportunity is the UN’s 75th anniversary next year and there are modest reasons for hope.
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World Population Growth
Posted by Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
Eye-opening
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The Balkanization of the World
Juan Eugenio Corradi | Opinion Sur – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
23 Sep 2019 – Far from having reached the end of history, there is profuse production of an out-of-control history—we produce more history than what we can consume. To curb this race we need to generate proposals.
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Buddhist Economics: How to Start Prioritizing People over Products and Creativity over Consumption
Maria Popova | Brain Pickings – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Oct 2019
What does it really mean to create wealth for people — for humanity — as opposed to money for governments and corporations? That’s precisely what the influential German-born British economist, statistician E. F. Schumacher explores in his seminal 1973 book Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered.
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Framing Cognitive Space for Higher Order Coherence
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
14 Oct 2019 – Toroidal Interweaving from I Ching to Supercomputers and Back? – There is no lack of references in the history of mathematics and computing to the role of the encoding of the I Ching in providing inspiration to Gottfied Leibniz in 1701 with regard to the development of binary logic, as variously noted.
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Iran’s Gulf Peace Proposal: HOPE
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
7 Oct 2019 – As I understand President Hassan Rouhani’s plan it concentrates upon regionalizing the protection of navigation and safeguarding of energy flows in the Persian Gulf with a particular emphasis on providing security for oil tanker traffic. The proposal comes against a background of months of warmongering threats, harsh sanctions, and dangerous incidents that pose unacceptable risks of provoking violent incidents, and even war.
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33rd Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies
Evelin Lindner | HDUS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Oct 2019
Our 33rd Annual Human DHS Dignity Conference in Brasil was unlike any other we had before! The conference took place at the time when the Amazon had just been set on fire (starting for full on 10th August 2019) and everyone was in a state of anxiety, alarm, and emergency. — A ‘Caravan’ conference titled ‘Cultivating Good Living Amazon: Nurturing Solidarity with Mother Earth’
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