PEACE JOURNALISM PERSPECTIVE
EDITORIAL
Meanwhile Around the World: Problems-Remedies
Johan Galtung, 1 Feb 2016 - TRANSCEND Media Service
Let us have a look, and see what can be done.
NOBEL LAUREATES
Rome Conference on NATO – January 2016
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service
I believe we, the human family, have no less a task before us, than transforming our thinking and mind-sets of violence and war, and moving to a demilitarized Europe and World. We have imagination and genius and with confidence and trust in ourselves and each other, we can move away from nationalism and war, towards Regional solutions built on demilitarized societies of peaceful co-existence.
OTHER COMMENTARIES
BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS
The Pied Piper of Zion
Uri Avnery – TRANSCEND Media Service
Binyamin Netanyahu is our pied piper. Enchanted by his melodies, the people of Israel are marching behind him towards the river. Those burghers who are aware of what is happening are looking on. They don’t know what to do. How to save the children?
World Interfaith Harmony Week: Steps toward a Harmony Renaissance
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
The United Nations General Assembly on 20 October 2010 designated the first week of February of every year as the World Interfaith Harmony Week between all religions, faiths and beliefs.
Nuclear Weapons and Nuclearism: Abolish or Be Abolished
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research
The nuclear age is an age of terror. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapons of terror. You can’t use them without killing millions of innocent people. Targetting innocent people, people who are not part of a conflict, is a central defining characteristics of terrorism.
Advice to Palestinians
Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh – TRANSCEND Media Service
“What would YOU advise Palestinian to do? I am genuinely curious as to how many of my readers have constructive advice based on what they know of geostrategic structures, capabilities etc.” I received dozens of answers including some really very insightful commentary.
A Subjective Objection: Objecting to Subjection
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Interplay of Questions Enabling Transcendence of Fundamental Dilemmas?
Myanmar Nazi Monk Wirathu, TIME Magazine’s “Face of Buddhist Terror”
Maung Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service
Myanmar’s “Nazi monk” Wirathu (and networks), plot to unleash new Islamophobic waves of violence against Myanmar’s Muslims and Rohingya.
INDIGENOUS RIGHTS
Reconciling Canada: Hard Truths, Big Opportunity
Ry Moran, Rabble – TRANSCEND Media Service
The Truth and Reconciliation final report: Six years. Seven volumes. Thousands of pages. The sobering realization that the systematic destruction of indigenous cultures, languages, family structures, lands and ceremonies amounted to cultural genocide. The cold hard truth is that Canada has failed indigenous peoples miserably.
President Creates Ministry of Indigenous People in Chile
Culture of Peace News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service
15 Jan 2016 – Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed today at La Moneda Palace the laws that create the Ministry of Indigenous People, the National Council and the Indigenous People”s Councils.
IN FOCUS
Time to Heed Warnings of Syriza’s Ex-Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis
Cynthia McKinney – Russia Today
31 Jan 2016 – The former finance minister of Greece says people must work to save democracy from capitalism, otherwise the voracious economic system will completely devour the fragile political philosophy, he warned in a recent talk.
Political Correctness 2.0
Katrin Anger – TRANSCEND Media Service
In recent times, political correctness has evolved. It lurks above us like a sword and with the smallest wrong word that may come over our lips, it threatens to defame us. In our society – and this is not only true for Germany – public speaking can sometimes feel like walking on broken glass.
Engaging the ISIS Threat
Marc Pilisuk – TRANSCEND Media Service
It is difficult to engage in direct violence against those whom you have met face-to-face, even if they have been identified as enemies. Sprinkling doubt among present ISIS followers and potential recruits may reduce killing while promoting hope. Given the alternative, this is a time to test our beliefs in the power of creative non-violence.
ANGLO AMERICA
Can the US Turn Fascist?
Şahin Alpay, Today’s Zaman – TRANSCEND Media Service
31 Jan 2016 – Johan Galtung, the Norwegian mathematician, political scientist, sociologist and the founder of the field of peace and conflict resolution studies, argued in his book The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What? (TRANSCEND University Press, 2009) that just as the Roman Empire disintegrated, the American Empire (or the US and Western hegemony over the world) would collapse not later than the year 2025.
ASIA & THE PACIFIC
Ending the Horror of Myanmar’s Abuse of Muslims
Editorial Board – International New York Times
By the hundreds of thousands, Muslims in Myanmar have been stripped of their citizenship, sent to concentration camps where they are deprived of basic medical care, jobs and even food, and held prisoners in villages they are not allowed to leave. Thousands more have fled the camps by risking their lives at the hands of criminal syndicates that traffic them to Malaysia and Bangladesh or force them into servitude on fishing boats.
Time for Justice in Sri Lanka
Editorial Board – International New York Times
The wounds of war cannot be healed until a transitional justice process demanded by the UN in a resolution last October moves forward. On that score, President Maithripala Sirisena says his government will not act “in haste.” This is unacceptable.
LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN
What Is Happening in Haiti Is a Genuine Anti-Imperialist Popular Revolt
Carlos Aznárez, Resumen Latinoamericano – TRANSCEND Media Service
23 Jan 2016 – Port-au-Prince and other Haitian cities are today the stage of the largest popular uprising in decades of the suffering Haitian nation.
Sure, Washington Has Always Supported Democracy in Haiti
Greg Grandin – The Nation
American politicians’ rhetoric on Haiti remains woefully disconnected from reality.
SYRIA IN DEPTH
The Deeper Reason Syria Negotiations Are Doomed
Jan Oberg - Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research
Governments are still so much more professional and resourceful when it comes to wars and militarism than they are when it comes to conflict-resolution and peace. The main reason everywhere is the vested elite interests in MIMAC, the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex – a cancer that kills hundreds of thousands of people, create refugees and work against both democracy and peace.
ENVIRONMENT
Climate Change: Post-Paris Challenges and Concerns
Hilal Elver and Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service
It is time to move on from the aura of good feelings of accomplishment created by the Paris Climate Change Conference and begin asking some hard questions. Above all we need to assess whether an agreement that consists of voluntary pledges is workable and sufficient, and whether its contribution to slowing global warming should be celebrated or lamented at this stage.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
Ticking Toward Doomsday
Ira Helfand, M.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
26 Jan 2016 – Recently, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced it was keeping its famous Doomsday Clock at three minutes to midnight. In making this decision, their panel of experts, including 16 Nobel Laureates, cited the growing danger of nuclear war.
Doomsday Clock Hands Remain Unchanged, Despite Iran Deal and Paris Talks
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – TRANSCEDEND Media Service
January 26, 2016 – The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board announced today that the minute hand of its closely watched Doomsday Clock will remain at three minutes to midnight, since recent progress in the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accord “constitute only small bright spots in a darker world situation full of potential for catastrophe.”
REVIEWS
Dispossessed in the Name of ‘Security’
Robert J. Burrowes, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
A new book, edited by Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes, both involved with The Transnational Institute, brings together a thoughtful collection of scholars, journalists and activists to explain the pre-eminence of the military and corporations in shaping the global response to the climate catastrophe as an ‘opportunity’.
HISTORY
This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service
Feb 1-7 QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “In every walk in nature one receives far more than he seeks.” – John Muir
BIOGRAPHIES
Gandhi’s Assassination: In the Midst of Death, Life Persists
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
As has been said before, there is no guarantee that non-violent action will succeed, no more than violence is always successful. Gandhi viewed spiritual and political efforts as united through many of the people he worked with saw them as separate. For Gandhi, the spiritual and political means were interdependent and could not be separated.
ARTS
Why Banksy’s Art Is Such a Deadly Political Weapon
Lizzie Crocker – The Daily Beast
In a 2007 interview with The New Yorker, Banksy, the subversive British graffiti artist, was asked what drew him to his work. “I used to want to save the world,” he responded dryly, “but now I’m not sure I like it enough.”
POETRY FORMAT
That Guy
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service
If I come back to earth as a movie star,
I want to be that guy nobody knows.
You know who I mean, don’t you?
On Refugee Migrants` Right to Live: A Nonkilling View
Francisco Gomes de Matos – TRANSCEND Media Service
Migrant
Refugee migrant
Migration
Refugee migration
IN OTHER LANGUAGES
(Italiano) Mediazione di polizia: un’idea ormai d’attualità
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
Il sistema statuale emerse nel 17° secolo, con istituzioni per l’uso della forza: una era adibita all’uso interno e un’altra per l’uso esterno, rispettivamente la polizia nazionale e l’apparato militare nazionale, intendendosi per nazionale quello della nazione dominante nello stato.
(Español) Bachelet crea Ministerio de Pueblos Indígenas en Chile
Culture of Peace News Network – TRANSCEND Media Service
15 Jan 2016 – La Presidenta de Chile, Michelle Bachelet, firmó hoy en el Palacio de La Moneda las leyes que crean el Ministerio de Pueblos Indígenas, el Consejo Nacional y los Consejos de Pueblos Indígenas.
SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
Samba de Janeiro (Music Video of the Week)
Bellini – TRANSCEND Media Service
Brazilian Samba — wishing you a Wonderful Carnival time.
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Dilema
David Sipress – TRANSCEND Media Service
Conflicting Desires
“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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