Solutions-Oriented Peace Journalism
Week 17 // 23 Apr - 29 Apr 2018
This is your site. Support it. CLICK HERE TO DONATE.
Dear TMSsubscriber liu cheng, greetings.
TRANSCEND Media Servicebrings to you its own Peace Journalism Perspectiveplus a digest of the week’s relevant News, Analyses, Papers and Videos–in various languages.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to read/watch them all immediately. You can always come back to it and also to our archives/database to access a wealth of knowledge, insights and information — the extensive repository of Prof. Johan Galtung life’s work.
Editorials by Johan Galtung and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated and translated, provided a citation and link to the source, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, is included. Please forward the WD to your colleagues, friends and lists. Thank you, enjoy your reading.
PEACE JOURNALISM PERSPECTIVE
EDITORIAL
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
They are up against emirs and pashas not gladly ceding privileges to a carpet dotted with imams. IS–not ISIS, ISL, DAESH–the Islamic State, backing politically-militarily the Islamic Caliphate (IC), understands this, and relates directly to imams. The West got lost in the image of Syria as a Western colony, which it also was from 1916 (Sykes-Picot).
TRANSCEND VIDEOS
Johan Galtung Speaking at the World Tribunal on Iraq
Deep Dish TV – TRANSCEND Media Service
Istanbul, Turkey, June 2005
FEATURED RESEARCH PAPER
Structural Analysis and Chemical Models
Prof. Johan Galtung - TRANSCEND Media Service
1974 – The goal of this very simple exploration has been not to lose contact with the socially relevant. One socially relevant factor is what might be called structural imagination, where a look at a textbook of organic chemistry and a textbook of, say, sociology, gives a clear indication of where this factor is more developed. Social scientists talk about human and social variety, the specialists in organic chemistry not only talk about it, but present it and produce it. In this there is much to learn, but there is also much to learn from the way chemistry has managed to integrate empirical and constructive approaches.
OTHER COMMENTARIES
TRANSCEND News
FUNDRAISING STOPPED – TMS Will Be Forced to Do the Same!!
Antonio C. S. Rosa | Editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
Value Does Not Equate with Price – The alternative? Mainstream/Corporate/Military/Infotainment Media. When our funds exhaust completely, very soon, TMS close up shop. Simple, dramatic, but… what else? Our deep gratitude to the few who recognize our work and keep donating–always the same people (unfortunately not enough).
YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Bless you!
NONVIOLENCE
Nonviolence Charter: Progress Report 12 (April 2018)
Robert J. Burrowes, Anita McKone & Anahata Giri – TRANSCEND Media Service
This is the latest six-monthly report on progress in relation to ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’ together with a sample of news about Charter signatories and organizations. Our collective effort to build a worldwide consensus against the use of violence in all contexts continues to make progress, even against rather overwhelming odds!
SPECIAL FEATURE
A Day of Mother Earth: Living in Harmony with Nature
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
International Mother Earth Day on 22 April each year was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2009. Its aim is to promote living in harmony with Nature and to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations.
Hawaii’s Ho’oponopono for Earth Day – 22 April
Jacob Devaney | Uplift – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Power of Humility, Forgiveness, Gratitude and Love
BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS
Right to Return, Repression and Resistance: 70 Years after Naqba (the Catastrophe)
C R Abrar – The Daily Star (Bangladesh)
18 Apr 2018 – March 30 marked the beginning of a six-week passive resistance of the Palestinians to highlight their expulsion from their ancestral land by the Zionist forces 70 years ago. Over this period Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank have been joined by thousands of Palestinian diaspora refugees in holding a Great March of Return along the Israeli border.
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – These strikes raise questions of international law, domestic constitutional authorization for international uses of force, strategic logic, and moral imperatives and rationalizations. Each of these issues is capable of multiple interpretations raising further concerns about the appropriate location of the authority to decide given the nature of world order in the 21stcentury.
Dr Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service
23 Apr 2018 – In today’s fast moving world a bicycle may appear to be an anachronism. Speed is the buzz word so we have fast cars and SUVs that go up to 160 km/h on highways or German autobahns, where there is a limit on the minimum not on the maximum speed.
The Real Target of the Alleged Chemical Attacks: Jeremy Corbyn
Emanuel E. Garcia, MD | Intrepid Report – TRANSCEND Media Service
17 Apr 2018 – Very shortly thereafter, as if to make a bold connecting link between evil Russian and deadly chemicals, we have the story of Assad’s ‘regime’—it’s always a regime, isn’t it, instead of a government, and one never hears of Netanyahu’s ‘regime’ in Israel which has just killed unarmed stone-throwers, for which there is very clear-cut evidence.
The 1%’s Mind Games: Psychology Gone Bad
Roy Eidelson – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – Multi-millionaires and billionaires comfortably ride the waves and add to their enormous wealth and power. The contrast is jarring to be sure, but it persists nonetheless because self-interested representatives of the 1% have become masters at using manipulative psychological appeals — I call them “mind games” — to defuse and misdirect our outrage.
Uri Avnery | Gush Shalom – TRANSCEND Media Service
21 Apr 2018 – Two days ago, the State of Israel celebrated its 70th birthday. For days we heard about nothing else. Innumerable speeches full of platitudes. A huge festival of kitsch.
Reflections on the Cultural Construction of Reality: Assumptions, Issues, Directions
There is an inherent human impulse in the human brain and body to describe, understand, and predict the world through the processing and ordering of stimuli. Culture is a concept and construct. It is a word and terms. It joins thousands of other concepts among social, psychological, and behavioral disciplines, and is essential foundation for “culture” disciplines and professions.
Striking Syria: The Real Reasons
Chandra Muzaffar – TRANSCEND Media Service
16 Apr 2018 – Is it because the so-called evidence was obtained from dubious sources — such as the terrorist group, Jaish al- Islam which was fighting the Assad government and in control of parts of Douma on the 7th of April? Were the White Helmets, a fake civil defence outfit established by British intelligence and funded by both Britain and the US yet another supplier of ‘evidence’? Or as it has happened on numerous occasions in the past, was the ‘evidence’ generated by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence network, in pursuit of its own nefarious agenda?
Exhortation to We the Peoples from the Club of Rome
Anthony Judge | Laetus in Praesens – TRANSCEND Media Service
Review of “Come On: Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet” – Prepared on the occasion of the book launch during the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the Club of Rome (London, 26 April 2018)
Tehran’s Syria-Lebanon Colonization Project Is Collapsing Iran’s Rial as Iranians Hoard Dollars
Franklin Lamb – TRANSCEND Media Service
23 Apr 2018 – “Leave Syria, think about us!” and “No to Yemen! No to Lebanon and Hezbollah! Our lives for Iran!” are among graffiti sentiments scrawled across Tehran. The campaign is being led by students, unemployed workers, and other detractors of Iran’s Wali al Fique “Supreme Leader” rule and its much opposed foreign and monetary policies.
MEDIA
Out of 26 Major Editorials on Trump’s Syria Strikes, Zero Opposed
Adam Johnson | FAIR-Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – A survey by FAIR of the top 100 papers in the US by circulation found not a single editorial board opposed to Trump’s April 13 airstrikes on Syria. Twenty supported the strikes, while six were ambiguous as to whether or not the bombing was advisable. The remaining 74 issued no opinion about Trump’s latest escalation of the Syrian war.
Google’s Delisting and Censorship of Information
Julian Vigo - CounterPunch
20 Apr 2018 – In early January, numerous websites discovered that they were suddenly removed from the directory of Google News, a process known as “delisting.” Google has been criticized for its monopoly of free speech since it is a company extremely powerful, even more herculean than most countries on the planet.
Media Cover-up: Shielding Israel a Matter of Policy
Ramzy Baroud – teleSUR
17 Apr 2018 – Media spin will continue to provide Israel with the needed margins to carry out its violent policies against the Palestinian people, with no moral accountability.
A Tale of Two Atrocities: Douma and Gaza
Doug Noble - CounterPunch
20 Apr 2018 – Compare this intense media coverage of the alleged Syrian chemical attacks to the near silence accorded the horrific civilian massacre perpetrated by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, at the very same time. The US media’s almost total neglect of the brutal murders of innocent Palestinian men, women and children leads to the inescapable conclusion that, in contrast to Syrian victims, Palestinian victims don’t matter. How do we account for this discrepancy?
IN FOCUS
Independent Swiss Lab Says ‘BZ Toxin’ Used in Skripal Poisoning: US/UK-Produced, Not Russian
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service
15 Apr 2018 – Somebody has some explaining to do… or did the Syrian airstrikes just ‘distract’ the citizenry from the reality surrounding the Skripal poisoning? The substance used on Sergei Skripal was never produced in Russia, but was in service in the US, UK, and other NATO states.
As Lies on Syrian Gas Attack Unravel, US and UK Shift to Claims of Russian “Cyber War”
Will Morrow | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service
On Monday [16 Apr], the US and British intelligence agencies released a joint report charging Moscow with unspecified “cyber warfare” against the West. The coordinated campaign comes amid the unraveling of the official pretext for Friday [13 Apr] night’s illegal US-British-French bombing of Russia’s ally Syria—the claim that the Assad government carried out a chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta on April 7.
Affair Skripal — Cui Bono? Hysteria before Multi-Polarity
Ivaylo Grouev – TRANSCEND Media Service
23 Apr 2018 – Rushing into the Parliament without presenting any evidence — Scotland Yard officially declared that it needs months to complete its investigation — UK Prime Minister Theresa May gave a twenty-four hour ultimatum to the Kremlin to admit its guilt. However, the hard question cui bono? [who benefits] from the Skripal case remains open.
AFRICA
UN Hails Release of More Than 200 Child Soldiers in South Sudan
UN News – TRANSCEND Media Service
Two hundred and seven child soldiers have been released by armed groups in South Sudan, part of a series of planned discharges that should see nearly 1,000 children return home over the coming months.
‘They Eat Money’: How Mandela’s Political Heirs Grow Rich Off Corruption
Norimitsu Onishi and Selam Gebrekidan – The New York Times
16 Apr 2018 – Corruption that has whittled away at virtually every institution in the country. While Mr. Mandela is still revered in the West, his legacy is regarded more critically in South Africa, especially by some young black people. To them, he sold out the country’s black masses to the white business elite.
Weaning African Leaders off Addiction to Power Is an Ongoing Struggle
Kealeboga J Maphunye – The Conversation
16 Apr 2018 – Some African leaders continue to disregard their countries’ own constitutions and laws governing presidential tenure. Their refusal to step down at the appointed time flies in the face of governance blueprints adopted from liberation politics to the new post independence struggle for democracy in the early 2000s. What, then, is the solution?
ANGLO AMERICA
William Blum | The Anti-Empire Report #157 – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – One reason it’s so easy to get an American administration, the mainstream media, and the American people to jump on an anti-Russian bandwagon is of course the legacy of the Soviet Union. To all the real crimes and shortcomings of that period the US regularly added many fictitious claims to agitate the American public against Moscow. That has not come to a halt.
Trump Attacks Syria with Chemical Experts on the Way
Joe Lauria - Consortium News
13 Apr 2018 – President Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria as a team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was about to arrive to determine whether a chemical weapons attack had even occurred.
ASIA & THE PACIFIC
Where on Earth is the Just Economy That Works for All, Including Afghan Children?
Dr Hakim Young | Voices for Creative Nonviolence – TRANSCEND Media Service
14 Apr 2018 – How can Afghan youngsters living in a war zone survive violence, an unjust economy, hunger and displacement? Who can help them?
Richard Javad Heydarian – Al Jazeera
I visited North Korea with an official delegation and here’s what I saw and learned.
UPDATES ON MYANMAR ROHINGYA GENOCIDE
Facebook, Myanmar Genocide and Its Dehumanizingly Sexualized Discourses
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service
19 Apr 2018 – But whatever, whoever is shaping the public opinion in today’s Myanmar anyone monitoring genocidal discourses in the public domains in Burmese language cannot fail to notice the Nazi parallel: Myanmar public, in my assessment, is in the mental world of the Nazis. I don’t use this word lightly – and for the effect. The paradox of a genocidal system: the system creates the problem which it cannot itself resolve.
LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN
Banking on a ‘Shithole’: US-Led Racial Capitalism in Haiti Began Long Before Trump
Peter James Hudson | Black Agenda Report – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – Donald Trump’s recent description of Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa as “shithole countries [sic]” offered an ugly example of how US foreign policy is often shaped by the dictates of racial capitalism — by an economic system suffused with racial ideology and racist thinking. The comment recalls an earlier episode of racial capitalism in Haiti.
PALESTINE - ISRAEL
Israeli Army Kills Four More Nonviolent Gaza Protesters
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service
21 Apr 2018 – For the fourth Friday in a row, the Israeli military responded to unarmed Palestinian demonstrators on Gaza’s eastern border with live ammunition, killing four and wounding hundreds. Among those killed Friday was a 15-year-old boy, Mohammad Ibrahim Ayyoub. The three others murdered by Israeli snipers were identified as Ahmed Rashad, 24, Ahmed Abu Aqil, 25, and Saad Abdul Majid Abdul-Aal Abu Taha, 29.
As Israel Marks 70 Years, What Have Been the True Costs?
Jonathan Cook – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – Independence Day celebrations tomorrow should be a moment for Israelis – and the many Jews who identify with Israel – to reflect on what kind of state it has become after seven decades. Israel is an ugly ethnic supremacist state that closes its doors to Jews who decry the oppression of the native Palestinian population.
Gaza Offers Us the Choice of Life
Amos Gvirtz – TRANSCEND Media Service
23 Apr 2018 – Will Gaza’s nonviolent struggle be a turning point? Israel has always cited the murderous struggle waged by the Palestinian terror organizations as justification for its policies, but now Gaza has chosen to explore the option of nonviolence.
SYRIA IN DEPTH
Zero Hedge – MintPress News
17 Apr 2018 – Not only has the veteran British journalist found no evidence of a mass chemical attack, but he’s encountered multiple local eyewitnesses who say the gas attack never happened. Fisk is the first Western journalist to reach and report from the site of the alleged chemical weapons attack widely blamed on Assad’s forces.
How the US Occupied the 30% of Syria Containing Most of Its Oil, Water and Gas
Whitney Webb – MintPress News
While gaining control of key resources for partitioning Syria and destabilizing the government in Damascus, the U.S.’ main goal in occupying the oil and water rich northeastern Syria is aimed not at Syria but at Iran.
Why Not Emphasize Assad Had No MOTIVE to Use Gas! He Had Defeated the Terrorists Sent by USA
Jay Janson | Countercurrents – TRANSCEND Media Service
Why Not Emphasize That Assad Had No MOTIVE to Use Gas When He Already Defeated the Terrorists Sent and Armed by USA and Saudi Arabia, while Assad’s Enemies Had a Reason to Stage a Gas Attack to Give USA a Pretext to Bomb yet Again?
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Takes on Syrian White Helmets, Thought-Control
Whitney Webb – MintPress News
17 Apr 2018 – Roger Waters, former guitarist for Pink Floyd, spoke out against the Syrian White Helmets during a recent concert in Barcelona, calling the group “fake” and existing for the sole purpose of creating propaganda for a Western audience on behalf of Syrian opposition groups.
ENVIRONMENT
Scientists Accidentally Develop ‘Mutant’ Enzyme That Eats Plastic
Lorraine Chow | EcoWatch – TRANSCEND Media Service
17 Apr 2018 – Researchers in the UK and the U.S. have inadvertently engineered an enzyme that eats up plastic. It is able to digest polyethylene terephthalate—the same material used in the ubiquitous plastic bottle that’s clogging up landfills, coastlines and oceans around the world.
COOPS-COOPERATION-SHARING
When Robots Take Our Jobs, Platform Cooperatives Are a Solution
Gideon Rosenblatt – YES! Magazine
20 Apr 2018 – Imagine for a moment that Uber drivers, rather than Uber stockholders, own Uber. That is one way to understand what a platform cooperative is. Uber is a company built on a software platform that connects service providers with customers.
PARADIGM CHANGES
A Socialist Economy for the 21st Century
Richard Rosen | The Next System Project – TRANSCEND Media Service
Richard A. Rosen explores the changes necessary for a modern definition of “socialism” and describes key concepts and issues that arise when aiming to restructure the American economy to include social and environmental sustainability in the Twenty-First Century.
ECONOMICS
What Is Bitcoin? Here’s What You Need to Know
Julian Goldie | King Passive – TRANSCEND Media Service
Cryptocurrency has taken the world by storm…but just what is Bitcoin? In this guide, you’ll discover everything you need to know about it.
CAPITALISM
“War Is Good for Business”: Insider Trading, Secret Information and the US-Led Attack against Syria
Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research
21 Apr 2018 – Philip May, husband of Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May happens to be a senior executive of Capital Group which is a major holder of both Lockheed Martin and British Aerospace shares. The value of Lockheed and BAE shares soared on the World’s stock markets, on the Monday morning following the Friday April 13 bombing of Syria.
CEO Pay, Bank Profits, Corporate Cash Set New Records
Barry Grey | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service
No money for teacher pay or textbooks, but…
Space Mining Will Produce World’s First Trillionaire
RT – TRANSCEND Media Service
22 Apr 2018 – The world’s first trillionaire will make his/her fortune by mining in outer space, Goldman Sachs claims. Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says: “The first trillionaire there will ever be is the person who exploits the natural resources on asteroids.”
ANIMAL RIGHTS - VEGETARIANISM
These Whales Will Be Extinct in 25 Years, Scientists Say — Unless We Act Now to Save Them
Sarah Kaplan – The Washington Post
20 Apr 2018 — A century ago, humans had slaughtered nearly every right whale in the Atlantic. Now climate change seems to be shifting the animals’ food source. Their habitat has been polluted with sewage and made noisy by construction and seismic tests. Speeding ships and tangles of hard-to-break fishing rope pose deadly threats.
INSPIRATIONAL
Let the People, Not the Politicians or Generals, Decide
Prof. Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service
The province of Schleswig had changed hands between Denmark and Prussia several times during the 19th century and was under German control before World War I.
POETRY FORMAT
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service
I write for the men of a thousand years hence—
and the women—and their healthy children.
And…, if you are suffering, if night is day
and day is night,
I will drink the cup of despair with you,
for I have tasted of despair.
Francisco Gomes de Matos – TRANSCEND Media Service
LONGEVITY ? In a Book of LIFE more than a daily page
IN ORIGINAL LANGUAGES
(Italiano) Israele/Palestina: Se questo è giornalismo
Amedeo Cottino – Centro Studi Sereno Regis
10 aprile 2018 – Il quotidiano «La Stampa» pratica da molto tempo una sistematica politica di disinformazione sulla questione palestinese. Una disinformazione fondata su un assunto e cioè che la versione ufficiale israeliana sui fatti – quali che questi siano – è sempre quella corretta.
Maurício Galvão - ANDA Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais
16 abr 2018 – Então você perde tudo, tudo o que possuía se perde em meio a uma enchente seguida de uma destruidora avalanche. E ao encontrá-lo vivo embaixo das pedras, que em estado de choque lambe sua face e discretamente balança o rabo,você compreende que tudo aquilo que não tem preço, tem alma, coração, tem sentimento.
(Italiano) (A) Piccoli passi verso la Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana
Silvia Berruto – TRANSCEND Media Service
22 Apr 2018 -La proposta contiene tre idee-azioni: “Il dovere di non collaborare”, la lettura COLLETTIVA dei Principi fondamentali, letture animAzioni e testimonianze d’archivio.
(Português) Qual é a nossa dieta natural?
David Arioch | Jornalismo Cultural – TRANSCEND Media Service
20 abr 2018 – Em 2004, o proeminente biólogo Randall Collura, que tem doutorado em biologia molecular e biologia antropológica pela Universidade Harvard, publicou um ensaio intitulado “What is our natural diet and should we really care?” A obra integra o livro “Food for Thought: The Debate Over Eating Meat”, editado pelo conceituado filósofo moral Steve Sapontzis, especialista em direitos animais e ética ambiental com doutorado em filosofia pela Universidade Yale.
SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
Debunking White Helmets’ Footage in Douma’s Alleged Chemical Attack
Murad Gazdiev – RT
19 Apr 2018 – A correspondent from the Russia 24 TV channel found a Syrian boy seen in the White Helmets’ footage, said to show the aftermath of an alleged chemical attack: HOAX
Wake Me Up – Official Video (Music Video of the Week)
DJ Avicii – TRANSCEND Media Service
23 Apr 2018 – Tim Bergling (8 Sep 1989 – 20 Apr 2018), better known by his stage name DJ Avicii was a Swedish musician, DJ, remixer and record producer. Knowledge about the circumstances of Avicii’s death and surrounding events may change rapidly as more facts come to light. “Wake Me Up”, 2013, topped most music markets in Europe and reached number four in the US.
1,511,112,649 YouTube views as of today. Avicii was 28 years old. R.I.P.
EDITORIAL CARTOON / SATIRE
Latuff – MintPress News
Same old, same old…
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service
A father told his young son, “You have gotten a little sister.”
“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.
IMPORTANT:Please whitelist tms-weekly-digest@lists.transcend.orgby adding it to your address book so that our messages are not misinterpreted as SPAM.
DO NOT REPLY OR WRITE TO tms-weekly-digest@lists.transcend.orgas the list does not accept incoming email. Write or Reply to tms@transcend.org.
CLICK here to SUBSCRIBEor access our website: https://www.transcend.org/tms/.
Use this link to access the list of past Weekly Digests: https://www.transcend.org/tms/weekly-archive/.
Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated. Please write to tms@transcend.orgor ‘Contact us’on the website.
Bookmark or add TMSto Favorites or to your Desktop so you may return to it later, as needed.
Link TMSto your websites and/or mailing lists.You are welcome to use our materials, attribution being equally welcome.
We absolutely do not share your email address with anyone.
If you wish to UNSUBSCRIBEfrom TMS Weekly Digest, we are sorrythat you use this link: https://www.transcend.org/lists/auto_signoff/tms-weekly-digest/liucheng%40nju.edu.cn
Thanks for reading TMS.
Antonio Carlos Silva Rosa, editor
