PEACE JOURNALISM PERSPECTIVE
EDITORIAL
Two Indias: Gandhi and Modern India
Nº 454 | Johan Galtung, 7 Nov 2016 - TRANSCEND Media ServiceGandhi was for need, modernity for greed; Gandhi for local self-reliance, modernity for unlimited trade; Gandhi for building on own identity, modernity for americanization as neo-nirvana; Gandhi for nonviolent conflict resolution, modernity for police, military, war.
NOBEL LAUREATES
[Nobel Peace Laureate] Suu Kyi Says ‘Delicate’ Myanmar Conflict Handled by Rule of Law
Minami Funakoshi | Reuters – TRANSCEND Media ServiceThe Myanmar government is responding to conflict in the troubled north of Rakhine state based on rule of law, Nobel Peace Prize leader Aung San Suu Kyi was quoted as saying on Thursday [3 Nov]. She faced mounting criticism abroad for her government’s handling of a crisis in the Muslim-majority region, where soldiers have blocked access for aid workers and are accused of raping and killing civilians.
OTHER COMMENTARIES
CONFLICT RESOLUTION / MEDIATION
Heroes and Victims: Social Perceptions and Peacebuilding
Andrea Pabst and Markus Bayer | Insight on Conflict – TRANSCEND Media ServiceFeeling like a hero or victim can lead to feelings of entitlement and drive social processes in post-conflict societies. How this has affected Namibia.
NONVIOLENCE
The Kapp Putsch and Modern Memory
Michael N. Nagler | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media ServiceNonviolence in Today’s USA – Nonviolence cannot simply mean you wait for the putsch to happen, then rush to the street and non-cooperate. It has to mean a complete overhaul of the cultural factors that led to our putting more citizens in prison than any other democracy, having more guns than people and a higher rate of murder or suicide, a larger military budget than most of the world’s countries put together, and a foreign policy incapable of any but endless war.
NEWS
Massive North Dakota Oil Leak Proves Native American Protesters Right for Fighting Illegal DAPL Pipeline
Jeremiah Jones – Counter Current NewsAre you still wondering why So many people support the #NoDAPL protectors? This spill is part of the reason. A North Dakota oil well owned by Oasis Petroleum Inc blew out over the [30 Oct] weekend and has yet to be capped, leaking more than 67,000 gallons of crude so far and endangering a tributary of the Missouri River. The well is about 15 miles south of White Earth, North Dakota, in Mountrail County.
ACTIVISM
When You’re a Protester, the Color of Your Skin Is All That Matters
Charles P. Pierce - Esquire28 Oct 2016 – Yes, there is a cruel, stupid irony about living in a country when, on the same day, a bunch of gun-toting rubes who have less understanding of the Constitution than a wombat does of nuclear fusion get acquitted after an armed takeover of federal property in Oregon while, half a country away, peaceful protesters doing nothing but praying on land to which they have a right guaranteed by treaty get rousted, roughed up, and hauled away by a militarized police force acting largely at the behest of a private company.
Why Campaigns, Not Protests, Get the Goods
George Lakey | Waging Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media ServiceCampaigns can and do generate movements with enormous power. The web-based Global Nonviolent Action Database contains over 1,100 campaigns, waged by people of many cultures, backgrounds and goals. It’s time to retire one-off protests, and step up to wins that can lay the foundation of a living revolution.
Obama Breaks Silence, Suggests Dakota Pipeline Be Rerouted
teleSUR – TRANSCEND Media ServiceThe president, however, refused to condemn police violence used against land and water protectors.
BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS
Just How Grey Are the White Helmets and Their Backers?
Jan Oberg | Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research - TRANSCEND Media ServiceWhile thousands of humanitarian organisations around the world are struggling fiercely with diminishing support from governments and the public, one has achieved a surprising amount of support from Western governments in a surprisingly short period of time and gained a surprising attention from mainstream media and ditto political elites: The Syrian Civil Defence or White Helmets. Their name of course makes you think of the UN’s Blue Helmet and white is the colour of those who should be protected in harm’s way – and the colour of innocence.
UNESCO Censures Israel’s Administration of Jerusalem
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media ServiceIn response to UNESCO resolutions adopted in October that were highly critical of Israel’s protection of sacred and cultural Islamic heritage sites in Jerusalem, there is again a fiery confrontation between Israel and this UN organ whose actions have so often touched the raw nerves of Western political sensibilities.
South Sudan: Limits of UN Peacekeeping
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media ServiceThe UN Mission in South Sudan is in crisis. In fact, it has been a miss from the start as foreign military are not the ideal agents for “State building”. As a new U.N. Secretary-General takes his post on 1 Jan 2017, the UNMISS report may open a door to a serious consideration of the role and limits of U.N. troops and of the need for other categories of conflict-resolution workers.
IN FOCUS
Wall Street and the Pentagon: Pre-mature Political and Military Ejaculations
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service2 Nov 2016 – Wall Street and the Pentagon greeted the onset of 2016 as a ‘banner year’, a glorious turning point in the quest for malleable regimes willing to sell-off the most lucrative economic resources, to sign off on onerous new debt to Wall Street and to grant use of their strategic military bases to the Pentagon.
Mansions and Slums: The Inequality of Living Space
Tamara Pearson - CounterPunchInvestigating the inequality of living space.
ANGLO AMERICA
Obama Is Pathetic on Human Rights in North Dakota
William Boardman - Reader Supported NewsFor someone supposedly monitoring this closely, the President might be expected to know that people have already been hurt and most if not all of those hurt were nonviolent, peaceful protestors set upon by dogs and assaulted by rubber bullets, sound cannons, and chemical weapons. What fundamental, callous irrationality prompts this president to bring in Black Lives Matter? That is strange beyond comprehension.
Private Prisons’ New Plan to Cover Losses Involves More Immigrants in Detention Centers
Casey Tolan | Fusion – TRANSCEND Media ServiceExecutives from the two biggest private prisons in the USA told investors Thursday [3 Nov] they saw a major growth opportunity in detaining those immigrants. The GEO Group and CoreCivic both reported higher-than-expected profits due to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detaining more people. “There has been an overreaction in the market to the long-term viability of our business,” CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger said.
The Fatal Expense of American Imperialism
Jeffrey D. Sachs – The Boston GlobeThe far smarter approach will be to maintain America’s defensive capabilities but end its imperial pretensions. This, in practice, means cutting back on the far-flung network of military bases, ending wars of regime change, avoiding a new arms race (especially in next-generation nuclear weapons), and engaging China, India, Russia, and other regional powers in stepped-up diplomacy through the United Nations, especially through shared actions on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, including climate change, disease control, and global education.
ASIA & THE PACIFIC
Burmese Soldiers Accused of Raping and Killing Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar
Esther Htusan, Martha Mendoza – The Independent31 Oct 2016 – Just five months after her party took power, Burma’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is facing international pressure over recent reports that soldiers have been killing, raping and burning homes of the country’s long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims. ‘The big picture is that the government does not seem to have any influence over the military’.
BRICS
India Is Losing the Battle against Female Foeticide
Asian Centre for Human Rights – TRANSCEND Media Service3 Nov 2016 – The 290-page report, “The State of the PC&PNDT Act: India’s losing battle against female foeticide”, is the first ever comprehensive study on the status of implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques.
MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA
[Member of UN Human Rights Council] Saudi Arabia Sentences Man to 10 Years in Prison and 2,000 Lashes for Being an Atheist
Felix Allen - The SunThe Hardline Islamic State Has a Law Defining Atheist Beliefs as ‘Terrorism’
Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Vows to Keep Hitting Yemen, “No Matter What”
Zaid Jilani and Alex Emmons – The Intercept1 Nov 2016 – At last week’s Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference — bankrolled by oil companies — the Saudi ambassador was the keynote speaker.
PALESTINE / ISRAEL
Jerusalem and Its Walls: UNESCO Refuses to Bow to Israeli Pressure
Ramzy Baroud | Politics for the People – TRANSCEND Media Service1 Nov 2016 – Despite all the threats and political grandstanding, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has approved, on October 26, a new resolution that reaffirms the status of occupied Jerusalem’s Old City on the list of endangered world heritage sites.
Balfour’s Perfidy: A Story of Betrayal
Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice – TRANSCEND Media Service31 Oct 2016 – November 2 marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which began the still-ongoing colonisation of Palestine and sowed the seeds of an endless nightmare for the Palestinian people, both those who were forced to flee at gunpoint and those who have managed to remain in the shredded remains of their homeland under Israel’s brutal military occupation.
The Balfour Declaration 99 Years Ago Marked the Beginning of a Settler Colonial Project of Tragic Proportions
Ilan Pappe – Al Jazeera2 Nov 2016 – November is a painful month dotted with commemorative days that have one theme in common: the partitioning of Palestine. Today is the 99th anniversary of the Balfour declaration. Although it did not offer partition, it sowed the seeds for it, which eventually allowed the Zionist movement to take over Palestine.
Palestinian Villages ‘Get Two Hours of Water a Week’
Eloise Bollack – Al Jazeera NewsIsraeli control over water supplies in the occupied West Bank has left Palestinians desperate.
ENVIRONMENT
World to Cut Gas Emissions by 25 Percent More than Paris Agreement
Baher Kamal – Inter Press Service-IPS4 Nov 2016 – On the eve of the entry into force of the Paris Agreement today, the United Nations sounded new climate alarm, urging the world to ‘dramatically’ step up its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by some 25 per cent more.
North Dakota Had 292 Oil Spills in 2 Years–Officials Disclosed 1 to the Public
Nathan Wellman | US Uncut – TRANSCEND Media Service27 Oct 2016 – From Jan 2012–Sep 2013, these pipeline spills were just a part of approximately 750 “oil field incidents” that took place in the state without the public’s knowledge, according to a report by AP. In a tense standoff with heavily armed police forces, dozens of protesters – referring to themselves as peaceful water protectors – were arrested today for demonstrating against the construction of the pipeline on what police say is private property.
MEDIA
Fukushima Cover Up
Robert Hunziker | Dissident Voice – TRANSCEND Media Service31 Oct 2016 – It is literally impossible for the world community to get a clear understanding of, and truth about, the Fukushima nuclear disaster. This statement is based upon the Feature article in Columbia Journalism Review (“CJR”) dated October 25, 2016 entitled: “Sinking a Bold Foray into Watchdog Journalism in Japan” by Martin Fackler.
Yemen Vote – The Responsibility to Protect Profits
Media Lens – TRANSCEND Media ServiceState-corporate propaganda is full of ‘shoulds’, all rooted in ‘our’ alleged ‘responsibility to protect’. Why ‘us’? Why not Sweden or Iceland? Because ‘we’ care. ‘We’ just care more. A key task of the corporate media is to pretend this is something more than a charade.
Dilma Rousseff: Brazil’s Media Trying to Destroy Lula
teleSUR – TRANSCEND Media ServiceRousseff said despite this campaign the leader of the Workers Party remains the candidate with most popularity for the 2018 presidential elections.
Bugger the Journalism: The Slow Death of Critical Thinking in Australia
Jake Lynch – New MatildaThe Australian Research Council’s latest funding round is rich on gadgets, but a wasteland to social justice projects and big ideas. My designated Field of Research is Journalism Studies. And yet, of 630 funded projects, the number in Journalism Studies is… zero. Yes, that’s right: the square root of naff all.
SURVEILLANCE / SPYING / WHISTLEBLOWING / BIG BROTHER
Three New Scandals Show How Pervasive and Dangerous Mass Surveillance Is in the West, Vindicating Snowden
Glenn Greenwald – The InterceptEach new investigation and judicial inquiry proves Snowden’s core warnings were correct.
MILITARISM
The Zeus Complex: A Manifesto against Aerial Bombardment of Civilians
Peter Nias – TRANSCEND Media ServiceThe aerial bombardment of children, women and men, whether deliberate or as ‘collateral damage’, continues to be one of many stains on the world’s ambiguous and uncertain paths towards civilisation. This article, based on a book published in November 2016, endeavours to give inspiration to readers, both popular and academic who, when hearing of civilian aerial bombardment and its grim consequences, sigh wearily and think ‘what can anyone do about it?’
Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors
Dennis Kucinich – The NationWar is first and foremost a profitable racket. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Threats and “Strategic Patience” Haven’t Worked with North Korea, Let’s Try Serious Diplomacy
Kevin Martin | PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media ServiceResolving tensions over North Korea’s nukes, likely by the next president at this point, will require the same commitment to diplomacy the Obama administration showed in securing the Iran nuclear agreement and opening to Cuba, but we would have much more credibility were we not preaching atomic temperance from a barstool brimming with nuclear weapons.
CAPITALISM
Privatization Cure Often Worse Than Malady
Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury – Inter Press Service-IPSPrivatization of SOEs has been a cornerstone of the neo-liberal counterrevolution that swept the world from the 1980s following the economic crisis. Developing countries, seeking aid from the IMF and the World Bank, often had to commit to privatization as a condition for credit support.
The Universal Right to Capital Income
Yanis Varoufakis | Project Syndicate – TRANSCEND Media Service31 Oct 2016 – The right to laziness has traditionally been only for the propertied rich, whereas the poor have had to struggle for decent wages and working conditions, unemployment and disability insurance, universal health care, and other accoutrements of a dignified life. If a universal basic income is to be legitimate, it cannot be financed by taxing Jill to pay Jack. That is why it should be funded not from taxation, but from returns on capital.
‘There’s No Will to Prosecute Crony Capitalism or Corruption like Case of Barroso & Goldman Sachs’
Max Keiser – Russia Today5 Nov 2016 – Former European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, who was complicit in helping Goldman Sachs defraud the Greek economy, is now taking a job with the company. Financial analyst Max Keiser says this is crony capitalism and corruption at the highest level.
PARADIGM CHANGES
The Next Health System
Jamie Harvie | The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media ServiceWestern medicine uses the term inflammation to describe symptoms of heat, swelling, pain and loss of function. These are warning signs of an alarmed immune system, red flashing lights that our condition needs attention. One need not be a nurse or doctor to perceive from the daily news headlines or our daily interactions that modern life is grossly out of balance and discordant with how we are designed to exist. The health and well-being of individuals is inseparable from nature and inseparable from the health of community.
BIOGRAPHIES
Leon Trotsky (7 Nov 1879 – 21 Aug 1940)
Robert V. Daniels - Encyclopædia BritannicaIn 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.
HISTORY
This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media ServiceNov 7-13 ~ QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain’t desperate at some point, you ain’t interesting.” – Jim Carry
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Invitation to Webinar: Experiential Approaches to Peacebuilding – 15 Nov 2016
Tatsushi Arai – TRANSCEND Media Service12:30-1:30pm, EST (GMT -5) – Free and Open to the Public
SCIENCE / SPIRITUALITY
Intelligent Life
Dr. Emanuel E. Garcia – TRANSCEND Media ServiceA new study of data from the Hubble Space Telescope has shown that the number of galaxies is ten times what astronomers had previously thought: nearly 2 trillion. Think of that for a moment. Two trillion galaxies, each containing approximately 400 billion stars.
POETRY FORMAT
The Song of the Hoop
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media ServiceTo the Original Peoples of North America, the hoop was a sacred symbol. They believed that order and civilization were within the great hoop of the world, and all chaos was without. Their tribal councils were held in circles; their tipis were round; their mandalas, winding images of dreams. This poem tells the story of Tashtunka Witco, whom the Americans called “Crazy Horse,” and how the West was lost in the last decades of the 19th Century….
Remedies to Heal the World
Dr. M. Ashaq Raza – TRANSCEND Media ServiceWhen we fail to change the things
By force, hate, enmity and revenge
And comes nothing to our mind
Except killing fellow humankind
IN OTHER LANGUAGES
(Português) As 7 Marcas de Chocolate que Utilizam Trabalho Escravo Infantil
The Uni Planet – TRANSCEND Media ServiceEm setembro de 2015, foi apresentada uma ação judicial contra a Mars, a Nestlé e a Hershey alegando que estas estavam a enganar os consumidores que “sem querer” estavam a financiar o negócio do trabalho escravo infantil do chocolate na África Ocidental.
(Português) A relação de uma galinha com seus ovos
Alisa Rutherford-Fortunati - ANDA Agência de Notícias de Direitos AnimaisGalinhas, como todos os animais, têm uma linguagem única para a sua espécie. Cada sequência de sons que emitem tem um significado social, emocional ou pessoal. E se você passar tempo suficiente em torno dessas amigas emplumadas, você começará, como eu, a ouvir as histórias que estão contando.
IN-DEPTH VIDEOS
Secret World of US Election: Julian Assange Talks to John Pilger
Russia Today – TRANSCEND Media ServiceNov 5, 2016 – Whistleblower Julian Assange has given one of his most incendiary interviews ever in a John Pilger Special, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, in which he summarizes what can be gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks this year.
SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
Tango – Por Una Cabeza (Music Video of the Week)
Nicola Benedetti – TRANSCEND Media ServiceSimply Delightful:
Nicola Benedetti, Violin. Dancers: Ksenija Sidorova, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk.
SATIRE
Sewage System
Posted by Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor – TRANSCEND Media ServiceRings a lot of bells…
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Musicians
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media ServiceA little boy rang the neighbor’s bell. “Does it disturb you that I practice the piano every day?”
“Capitalism and State sovereignty are goners. Bankism rules the world in all respects now.” “Militaries are the ultimate manifestation of direct, structural and cultural violence—a cancer that must be extirpated from humanity.” — Antonio C. S. Rosa, M.A.
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