Solutions-Oriented Peace Journalism
Week 18 // 30 Apr - 06 May 2018
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
Nuclear Arms Issues: Progress but Still a Rocky Road Ahead
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
NGOs active in conflict resolution and tension reduction efforts must build upon this new momentum to help deepening the positive atmosphere. A new “window of opportunity” has opened, and we must see how to move forward creatively. There are times when there are links among otherwise separate events and concerns. We need to take advantage of this convergence and work so that our voices are heard ever more clearly.
TRANSCEND VIDEOS
Jake Lynch on Peace Journalism
Leeds Beckett University – TRANSCEND Media Service
Dr Jake Lynch, former BBC newsreader, Political Correspondent for Sky News and Sydney Correspondent for the Independent. Jake is now the Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and is one of the most published authors in the field of Peace Journalism.
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
A Plea for Peace Journalism — Peace by Peaceful Means
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service
TRANSCEND Media Service is having a fund drive to keep its valuable service tailored to those of us who want in-depth critical analyses not sensationalist corporate media reportage. I’d rather throw TRANSCEND a lifeline than watch BBC, for example, and pay the license fee. Who in their right mind would pay to be brainwashed by yet another military-industrial complex?
NEWS
Robert Fisk Puts to Test the Free-Press Myth in Douma
Jonathan Cook – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – The content of what he reported was incendiary. Just a few days after France, UK and US had bombed Syria, in violation of all principles of international law, on the grounds that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in Douma, Fisk interviewed a doctor at the clinic where the victims were treated. The doctor said no chemical attack occurred. The video footage from last week was genuine, the doctor added, but it showed civilians who had inhaled dust after a Syrian bombing attack, not gas.
OPCW Investigators Found “No Evidence” of Chemical Weapons at Syrian Facilities Bombed by F-UK-US
Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge – TRANSCEND Media Service
25 Apr 2018 – According to new reports, investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have spoken with Russian military officials after visiting the site of the Barzeh research center in Damascus. If France, UK and the US really did bomb a building filled with chemical weapons, there would have been thousands of bodies to show for it.
SPOTLIGHT
Declaration on the Right to Peace
UN Human Rights Council – TRANSCEND Media Service
Resolution 32/28 adopted by the UN Human Rights Council on 1 July 2016
CONFLICT RESOLUTION - MEDIATION
ETA Statement to the Basque Country: Declaration on Harm Caused
Euskadi Ta Askatasuna – TRANSCEND Media Service
8 Apr 2018 – We are aware that we have caused great pain throughout this long period of armed struggle. We know much of this harm cannot be mended. We wish to express our respect to all the victims of ETA’s actions, in that they were harmed as a consequence of the conflict, whether they were killed, injured or harmed in any other way. We are truly sorry.
Full Declaration North-South Korea Summit, 27 Apr 2018
TRANSCEND Media Service
Official Translation Provided by the Inter-Korean Summit
BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS
May the Korean Peace Deal Trigger Anti-Militarist, Anti-Fascist Movements in Asia–and Globally
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service
Today–27 April 2018–will likely be chronicled in history as the day that gave little people like us, grassroots activists, to feel that PEACE is possible and that PEACE is the way. I hope Western mass media will stop its demonization of N. Korea which has, with good historical reasons, lived with the fear of being genocided by the United States.
A Piece of World Peace History In-The-Making
Jan Oberg – The Transnational
27 Apr 2017 – Please watch the video below carefully. What is most amazing in this clip is that Kim first steps over the border line into the South. Then – seemingly surprising Moon – invites Moon to step into the North, hand in hand. Hear the people nearby applauding. This is historic peace-making in-the-making.
Uri Avnery | Gush Shalom – TRANSCEND Media Service
28 Apr 2018 – On the fifth day of the six-day war in 1967, I published an open letter to the Prime Minister, Levy Eshkol. The Israeli army had just conquered the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and I proposed that Eshkol immediately offer the Palestinian people to establish the State of Palestine there, in return for peace with Israel.
Germany’s Refusal to Join the Latest US-Led Missile Strikes on Syria
Ann Garrison | Black Agenda Report – TRANSCEND Media Service
25 Apr 2018 – Germany’s leader wanted to join the U.S., France and Britain in the bombing of Syria, but backed off because of domestic opposition. The major left party concluded that the US-led missile strikes violated international law.
Dr. Naresh Jotwani – TRANSCEND Media Service
With help from court poets and scribes, a “rising power” has traditionally been made to appear “heroic” and “majestic”. But a “disoriented and declining power” is pathetic – although poets and scribes would continue their assigned work, as long as the treasury continues to pay their salaries. Is a declining power more of a threat to humanity than a rising power?
Richard Falk | Global Justice in the 21st Century – TRANSCEND Media Service
Impressions from a Third Visit to Indonesia
Fox in the Hen House: Why Interest Rates Are Rising
Ellen Brown | Web of Debt – TRANSCEND Media Service
22 Apr 2018 – The Federal Reserve calls itself “independent,” but it is independent only of government. It marches to the drums of the banks that are its private owners. Congress needs to nationalize the Fed and turn it into a public utility, one that is responsive to the needs of the public and the economy, not of the banks.
Lebanon’s Politicians Insist Syrian Refugees Return Home Now! But to What?
Franklin Lamb – TRANSCEND Media Service
26 Apr 2018 – “Uridu an aouda ela bayti fi Sourya!” (“I want to return home to Syria!”). These are the words perhaps most regularly heard by Meals for Syrian Refugee Children in Lebanon (MSRCL) volunteers and other NGO’s who work with Syrian refugee children in Lebanon.
Speaking the Unspeakable: The Assassination and Martyrdom of Thomas Merton
Edward Curtin – TRANSCEND Media Service
“Killing a man who says ‘No!’ is a risky business,” the priest replied, “because even a corpse can go on whispering ‘No! No! No! with a persistence and obstinacy that only certain corpses are capable of. And how can you silence a corpse?”
— Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine
Economic Theory and Community Development
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service
22 Apr 2018 – One of several key theses of this book is the ethical principle: we should share the surplus. It is an ancient principle that in modern times the principal founder of economic theory, Adam Smith, took great pains to deny. It is present in one form or another in most of the cultures homo sapiens has constructed. It survives today in most religions. It is, implicitly at least, a centrepiece of socialism and of responsible capitalism. We do not think of ourselves as proposing a new idea, but as reviving an old one whose time is now returning.
Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
28 Apr 2018 – In a time and era when people of contrasting cultural diversity are coming into contact on a daily basis, it is incumbent dominant, historical, and conventional Western therapists and counselors learn the nature, procedures, and wisdom of traditional non-Western therapies, and in the process, re-consider the cultural context of their own practices.
On Busy Streets – Unusual Events and Chance Encounters
Dr Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service
“I believe that I am guided by chance encounters. I believe in the miracle of chance encounters.”
ANGLO AMERICA
They Spewed Hate – Then They Punctuated It with the President’s Name
Will Carless | Reveal - The Center for Investigative Reporting
19 Apr 2018 – We set out to understand the president’s role in hundreds of hate incidents across the country and found a striking pattern across races, religions and sexual orientation. Hate crimes and bias incidents are a national problem, but there’s no reliable data on their nature or prevalence. We’re collecting and verifying reports, building a database of tips for use by journalists, researchers and civil-rights organizations.
ASIA & THE PACIFIC
Panmunjom Declaration: A Glimmer of Hope
Askiah Adam – TRANSCEND Media Service
28 Apr 2018 – Taken pleasantly by surprise, not least because of the speed at which the joint Panmunjom Declaration has materialised, the world cannot but rejoice. Both leaders of North and South Korea have planted a tree of peace, shook hands and walked together, at one point hand in hand. Indeed, there is cause for optimism this time around and that both Washington and Beijing may yet endorse the Declaration.
Why Violent Buddhist Extremists Are Targeting Muslims in Sri Lanka
Andreas Johansson – The Conversation
26 Apr 2018 – Fed by colonialism, civil war and online hate speech, Buddhist extremism in Sri Lanka has been on the march for decades. Sri Lanka and Myanmar aren’t the only countries where this is happening; Thailand is also often mentioned as a hotbed of increasingly belligerent Buddhist extremism.
UPDATES ON MYANMAR ROHINGYA GENOCIDE
The Nowhere People: Rohingyas in India
Neeta Lal – Inter Press Service-IPS
25 Apr 2018 – Persecuted in their country of origin, Rohingyas — the largest stateless population in the world at three million — have found shelter across vast swathes of Asia including in India. “Rather than resent their presence, India should accept the Rohingyas as it has other migrants. As a big regional player, the refugee crisis presents India with a unique opportunity to set an example and work out a long-term resolution to this humanitarian crisis which will usher in peace and stability in the region.”
‘Committed International Leadership Needed for Rohingya Issue’
Selin Calik Muhasilovic | Anadolu Agency – TRANSCEND Media Service
24 Apr 2018 – Myanmarese scholar and democracy advocate Dr. Maung Zarni spoke on the ongoing humanitarian crisis involving Rohingya Muslims fleeing violence and persecution in the Rakhine state and Turkey’s important role specifically to help them return to the ‘Protected Homeland’.
EUROPE
Johann Hari – YES! Magazine
Eighteen years ago, the Portuguese had one of the worst drug problems in Europe. So they decriminalized drugs, took money out of prisons, put it into holistic rehabilitation, and found that human connection is the antidote to addiction.
An Alternative Explanation to the Skripal Mystery
Gareth Porter - Consortium News
An alternative explanation to the mystery surrounding the poisoning of Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter may involve a possibility that neither the British nor Russian governments want to talk about.
LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN
Latin America in the Time of Trump
Prof. James Petras – TRANSCEND Media Service
22 Apr 2018 – President Trump cancelled his attendance at the Summit of the Americas meeting of all the 35 presidents of the region and delegated VP Pence in his place. Pence, a known nonentity with zero experience and even less knowledge of Latin America–US relations, indicates the Trump regime’s disdain and low opinion of the eighth meeting of the tri-annual Summit.
The Empire Turns Its Sights on Nicaragua – Again!
Dan Kovalik - CounterPunch
25 Apr 2018 – It was only a matter of time before the US government and its compliant media would once again put Nicaragua in their sights. As Noam Chomsky has opined, the US shall never forgive the Nicaraguan people for overthrowing the US-backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979, for militarily defeating the Contras and for then voting back in the Sandinistas in 2007. We must stand with Nicaragua now in opposing continued US hostilities in the form of the NICA Act.
Democratic Space in Adverse Times: Milestone at Haiti’s University of the Aristide Foundation
Leslie Mullin | Resumen – TRANSCEND Media Service
“Haiti vitally needs a safe space where young people can come together, think country and construct a future under difficult circumstances… an institution that will address national issues and seek viable solutions to national problems. Dreams of working, prospering and changing Haiti – not chasing after a foreign visa or a job with a foreign NGO. This is UniFA’s commitment.”
— Mildred Aristide
MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA
Saudi Aggression War against Yemen
Yemen News Agency Saba – TRANSCEND Media Service
23 Apr 2018 – At least 88 victims of the wedding massacre of the US-backed Saudi-led aggression warplane were killed and injured, which targeted a wedding in al-raqah area at Bani Qais in Hajjah province, a medical official told Saba today.
PALESTINE - ISRAEL
Israel Again Opens Fire on Gaza Protesters, Killing Three and Wounding Hundreds
Will Morrow | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service
28 Apr 2018 – For the fifth consecutive week, the Israeli military rained live ammunition on thousands of unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza yesterday, killing three and wounding 900. Friday’s bloodletting brings the total number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army over the past five weeks to 45, including four children, with more than 6,000 wounded. Zero Israeli wounded or killed.
The Insanity at the Gaza Fence
Roger Cohen – The New York Times
20 Apr 2018 – When snipers shoot to kill civilians approaching a wall, there are disturbing echoes for anyone who has lived in Berlin. I lived in Berlin. I have passed several times through the fence separating the first world of Israel from the open-air prison of Gaza. Israel, through overreach, has placed itself in a morally indefensible noose.
The Slaughter in Gaza and the Crisis of Israel on Its 70th Anniversary
Bill Van Auken | WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service
24 Apr 2018 – As of today, the number of nonviolent, unarmed demonstrators murdered by Israeli army snipers firing into Gaza has risen to at least 40, with another 5,000 wounded, 1,600 by live ammunition.
Media Cover-Up: Shielding Israel Is a Matter of Policy
Ramzy Baroud | Politics for the People – TRANSCEND Media Service
18 Apr 2018 – The term ‘media bias’ does not do justice to the western corporate media’s relationship with Israel and Palestine. The current disgraceful coverage of Gaza’s popular protests indicates that the media’s position aims at suppressing the truth on Palestine, at any cost, and by any means.
ENVIRONMENT
Empty Half the Earth of Its Humans. It’s the Only Way to Save the Planet [What?]
Kim Stanley Robinson – The Guardian
There are now twice as many people as 50 years ago. But, as EO Wilson has argued, they can all survive – in cities.
MILITARISM
US/UK-Backed Saudi-Led Airstrike at Yemen Wedding Killed at least 20
AP – TRANSCEND Media Service
24 Apr 2018 — An airstrike by the US/UK-Backed Saudi-led coalition hit a wedding party in northern Yemen, killing at least 20 people including the bride, health officials said Monday [23 Apr], as harrowing images emerged on social media of the deadly bombing, the third to hit Yemeni civilians since the weekend.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
UN News – TRANSCEND Media Service
25 Apr 2018 – The world’s nuclear proliferation watchdog has welcomed the announcement by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to suspend its nuclear and missile tests and shut down its Punggye-ri atomic test site.
Unnecessary Suffering: The Legacy of Depleted Uranium
Carol Dudek | Women’s March on the Pentagon – TRANSCEND Media Service
A UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights has condemned depleted uranium munitions as weapons of indiscriminate destruction. Its effects continue after war ends and beyond military objectives; particles travel to noncombatant countries, polluting soil, water and food. In 1996 the UN passed a resolution to ban the use of DUs. The US voted no, and all abstentions were from Europe.
Minuteman III Missile Test Launched from California in Cloud of Secrecy
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service
25 Apr 2018 – Poor Timing and Lack of Transparency Send Wrong Message – The United States launched a Minuteman III Ballistic Missile this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base. This is the same class of missiles for which the U.S. has been highly critical of the North Koreans for developing and testing. It is particularly disappointing because it was conducted just over a day in advance of the planned summit of the leaders of North and South Korea.
SOCIALISM - MARXISM
Marx and Modern Microeconomics
Samuel Bowles | Vox – TRANSCEND Media Service
21 Apr 2018 – This column argues that Marx’s representation of the power relationship between capital and labour in the firm is an essential insight for understanding and improving modern capitalism.
JUSTICE
Canadian Prisoner in Search of Justice: The Case of M. Momin Khawaja
Samih U. Malik – TRANSCEND Media Service
What did M. Momin Khawaja do to be called a “terrorist?” On March 29, 2004, he was arrested on accusation of being co-conspirator for the UK London Bomb plan. But the Canadian Trial Judge acquitted him of this focal allegation of the case. There was no evidence to support this scenario. Subsequently, the Government made up five other criminal charges to try him in a public court of law in Canada.
ANIMAL RIGHTS - VEGETARIANISM
How to Overcome Fierce Debates about Banning All Trade in Ivory
Duan Biggs, Carly Cook, Kent Redford and Matthew H. Holden – The Conversation
25 Apr 2018 – Should trade in ivory be banned or not? There may be a solution.
Can We Talk (about Animal Rights)?
Roger S. Gottlieb | Harvard Divinity School – TRANSCEND Media Service
Animals suffer for lots of reasons: The sea birds covered in oil, the fox caught in a fur hunter’s trap gnawing off its leg, the long, long lines of cows waiting to be bludgeoned and then to have their throats slit, the millions of mice to be used for God knows what, including the ones who have been scientifically, genetically engineered to get cancer (“onco-mice,” they are called). Not to mention whole species, thousands of them, dying off because humans have taken or contaminated their habitat, or brought in exotic species against which they have not evolved defenses, or just eaten too many.
BIOGRAPHIES
Karl Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 Mar 1883)
The European Graduate School – TRANSCEND Media Service
Karl Heinrich Marx was born in Trier, Germany. His father was a lawyer who came from a long line of Rabbis, but had changed his faith to Protestantism in order to keep his job. By 1857 Marx had written an 800-page manuscript which was to become Das Kapital (Capital). This is his major work on political economy, capital, landed property, the state, wage labor, foreign trade and the world market.
Teilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 Apr 1955): Evolution toward World Unity
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
For Teilhard, love was not an emotion or a sentiment but the basic primal and universal psychic energy. This is a concept drawn from Chinese culture. Teilhard lived in China from 1923 to 1946. The Chinese word jen, a term translated as love, benevolence or affection, is not only an emotional-moral term, but it is also a cosmic force − a compassionate quality that is the very structure of the earth.
INSPIRATIONAL
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service
A group of frogs were walking through a forest. Suddenly, two of them fell into a hole. All the other frogs gathered around the hole and looked down over the edge.
POETRY FORMAT
Raymond Nat Turner – Black Agenda Report
Collateral damage, civilian casualty….. how long?
Christophe Barbey – TRANSCEND Media Service
I live an island called “respect”.
Living there allows me to see
Humanity in you;
Living there allows me to see,
IN ORIGINAL LANGUAGES
(Français) Le complexe militaro-industriel est la principale cause de la crise globale
John Scales Avery | Investig’Acion – TRANSCEND Media Service
25 Avr 2018 – Je voudrais vous annoncer la publication d’un nouveau livre intitulé The Devil’s Dynamo [La dynamo du diable]. Il s’agit d’une collection d’articles et de textes sur la façon dont les complexes militaro-industriels du monde entier conduisent et perpétuent la guerre.
Silvia Berruto – TRANSCEND Media Service
IL SOGNO CONCRETO – Il testo dell’orazione è stato scritto a più mani ed è stato letto, oggi, a due voci.
(Français) Le Manifeste communiste, 170 ans plus tard
Samir Amin | Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service
24 Avr 2018 – Aucun texte écrit au milieu du XIX è siècle n’a tenu la route jusqu’aujourd’hui aussi bien que le Manifeste Communiste de 1848. (…) Marx et Engels étaient-ils des prophètes inspirés ? Des magiciens capables de lire dans une boule de cristal ? Des êtres exceptionnels pour leur intuition ? Non. Ils avaient seulement mieux compris que quiconque, en leur temps et pour notre temps encore, l’essentiel de ce qui définit et caractérise le capitalisme.
(Português) Podemos falar sobre os direitos dos animais?
David Arioch | Jornalismo Cultural – TRANSCEND Media Service
24 abr 2018 – Em 2014, o filósofo Roger S. Gottlieb, professor de filosofia e autor de 18 livros, publicou pelo Harvard Divinity Bulletin um artigo intitulado “Can We Talk (about Animal Rights)?”. “Podemos começar reconhecendo que o fracasso moral do moderno consumo de carne não é o fim da história”.
IN-DEPTH VIDEOS
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un meets South Korean President Moon Jae-in at DMZ
VOA News – TRANSCEND Media Service
Peace in the Making: Historic Third Summit between North and South Korea – Streamed Live 27 Apr 2018
SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
ISKCON Desire Tree – TRANSCEND Media Service
Is it only humans who have souls? Have you ever wondered whether animals have souls, or what happens after a pet dies? Do animals go to heaven, which is the word people commonly use to refer to the afterlife? Is an animal soul the same as a human one? What happens to animals in the afterlife? These are interesting questions.
Body and Soul (Music Video of the Week)
Tony Bennett & Amy Winehouse – TRANSCEND Media Service
International Jazz Day, 30 Apr – Official Music Video
EDITORIAL CARTOON / SATIRE
Latuff – MintPress News
Outlaws above International Law…
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service
A Swiss farmer’s son was for the first time at a ball.
“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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