PEACE JOURNALISM PERSPECTIVE
EDITORIAL
Syria (Minding the Minds II)
Johan Galtung, 11 Jan 2016 - TRANSCEND Media Service
Syria offered a poor choice between a minority dictatorship with tolerance and a majority dictatorship–democracy–without. Violence flourished, attracting old suspects for proxy wars. “Bomb Syria” was the panacea, after “bomb Libya”. What a shame. Bring it to an end.
NOBEL LAUREATES
The Nobel Peace Prize Watch 2016
Fredrik S. Heffermehl and Tomas Magnusson – TRANSCEND Media Service
Who Should Win the 2016 Nobel? Promote good nominations, of qualified candidates, for 2016, before the Feb. 1 deadline. The right to nominate is limited, to parliamentarians, certain professors, and others, all over the world. If you are not entitled to nominate, please seek out someone who is.
Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner [Aung San Suu Kyi] and Crimes against Humanity
Nicholas Kristof – International New York Times
9 Jan 2015 – Soon the world will witness a remarkable sight: a beloved Nobel Peace Prize winner presiding over 21st-century concentration camps. [Pres. Barack Obama, another NPP recipient, sets the world on fire, killing by Drones indiscriminately around the globe.]
OTHER COMMENTARIES
BY TRANSCEND MEMBERS
Suu Kyi Govt Must Not Continue State Persecution of Rohingya
Dr. Maung Zarni, DVB – TRANSCEND Media Service
As Aung San Suu Kyi prepares to take over the reins of the new government [Burma/Myanmar], the international community – of diplomats, world leaders, journalists, human rights researchers and world citizens – needs to press the Burmese leader to reflect critically on her stances on the Rohingya.
Pharming
John Scales Avery – TRANSCEND Media Service
The resistance factors produced by shovelling antibiotics into animal food produces resistance factors (plasmids) which can easily be transferred to human pathogens. A related problem is the excessive use of pesticides and artificial fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers in agriculture. Pharming is not a joke. It is a serious threat.
Free Basics: Corporate Freedom to Privatise India’s Basic Economy
Prof. Vandana Shiva – TRANSCEND Media Service
Mark Zuckerberg is in India with ₹100 crore, in pocket change, for advertising. Facebook’s Free Basics is a repackaged internet.org, or in other words, a system where Facebook decides what parts of the internet are important to users.
Starvation Imagery as Humanitarian Trump Card?
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Suffering elsewhere can be more readily framed as an unacceptable evil for which others are responsible. As with universal condemnation of apartheid, however, it is especially convenient that it be a focus for attention on another continent — displacing attention from the challenge of discrimination and suffering in the immediate environment.
ACTIVISM
Police Agent-Provocateurs Exposed at Montreal Anti-Austerity Demonstration
Carl Bronski, WSWS – TRANSCEND Media Service
Initially the police refused to admit that they had infiltrated the December 18 protest. But now they are strongly defending the actions of an undercover cop who drew his revolver and threatened protesters who had “outed” him as a police agent provocateur.
EDUCATION
Schooling for Peace and Harmony
Dr Ravi P Bhatia – TRANSCEND Media Service
The UN Charter of Human Rights passed in 1948 has recognised education as a fundamental right in Article 26 of the Charter that states, “Everyone has the right to education. It should be free at least to the elementary and foundational levels …” “Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.” — Edward Everett
The Role of Peace Education
Surya Nath Prasad, Ph. D. – TRANSCEND Media Service
For Good Governance: Saints and Sages as Ministers and Judges; Inventors and Innovators as Bureaucrats
ANGLO AMERICA
Attacks on Hoffman Report from Military Psychologists Obfuscate Detainee Abuse
Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner - CounterPunch
In the wake of the July 2015 Hoffman Report, which found that the American Psychological Association colluded with the Department of Defense to ensure that no APA policy would constrain psychologists’ participation in DOD’s “enhanced interrogation” program, the APA passed an historic ban on the involvement of psychologists in national security interrogations and at detention sites that operate outside or in violation of international law, including Guantánamo Bay Detention Center.
The American Empire: Murder Inc.
Chris Hedges - Truthdig
The Bible says they sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind. Well, usually that isn’t true. It’s not true most of the time. It’s like the other slogan: The people united will never be defeated. Not true. The people united get defeated all the time. They get crushed. They get massacred. They get thrown into mass graves. But sometimes you sow the wind and you do reap the whirlwind. And that’s what’s happening now to the West with ISIS.
EUROPE
Where Were the Post-Hebdo Free Speech Crusaders as France Spent the Last Year Crushing Free Speech?
Glenn Greenwald – The Intercept
One year ago, millions marched in Paris in defense of free speech. Why, then, is the systematic attack on free speech rights in France now ignored?
LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN
El Chapo Speaks
Sean Penn - Rolling Stone
A Secret Visit with the Most Wanted Man in the World
MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA
Saudi Arabia a Force for Stability? Dream On!
William Boardman - Reader Supported News
The Saudi mass beheadings on January 2 proved nothing new to a world that well knows Saudi Arabia is still a tribal police state with a moral code of medieval barbarity. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni-Muslim country that executes people for witchcraft, adultery, apostasy, and homosexuality (among other things).
SYRIA IN DEPTH
… And All of a Sudden, Syria!
Baher Kamal, IPS - Human Wrongs Watch
5 Jan 2015 – The “big five” – i.e., the most military powerful states on earth (US, UK, France, Russia and China) have just agreed that it would be about time to end the Syrian five-year long human tragedy.
Syria Is the Middle Eastern Stalingrad
Andre Vltchek, New Eastern Outlook – TRANSCEND Media Service
Hundreds of thousands have died, and millions have been forced to flee abroad or have been internally displaced. In many cities and villages, not one house is left intact. But Syria is, against all odds, still standing. And the Syrian people have won. For how long, I don’t know. But it has proven that an Arab country can still defeat the mightiest murderous hordes.
THE UNITED NATIONS
Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territory Resigns Due to Continued Denial of Access by Israel
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights – TRANSCEND Media Service
4 Jan 2016 –The independent expert expressed deep regret that, throughout his mandate, Israel failed to grant him access to the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “Unfortunately, my efforts to help improve the lives of Palestinian victims of violations under the Israeli occupation have been frustrated every step of the way,” said Makarim Wibisono.
Wibisono’s Resignation as UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine
Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service
I am surprised, but not shocked. Surprised because he should have known that he was faced with a dilemma between doing the job properly of reporting on Israel’s crimes and human rights abuses and gaining Israel’s cooperation. Not shocked, indeed grateful, as it illuminates the difficulty confronting anyone charged with truthful reporting on the Palestinian ordeal under occupation, and by his principled resignation Wibisono doesn’t allow Israel to get away with neutering the position of special rapporteur.
ENVIRONMENT
The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare
Nathaniel Richjan – The New York Times Magazine
The farmer said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. Tennant had tried to seek help locally, he said, but DuPont just about owned the entire town.
Drought and Heat Took a Heavy Toll on Crops, Study Finds
Nicholas St. Fleur – International New York Times
Droughts and heat waves wiped out nearly a tenth of the rice, wheat, corn and other cereal crops in countries hit by extreme weather disasters. The paper, published Wednesday [6 Jan] in Nature, examined data on the effects, over five decades, of extreme temperatures, floods and droughts on national crop harvests.
MILITARISM
Defense Industry Revenue Forecast Gushes over Global Turmoil
Lee Fang – The Intercept
9 Jan 2016 – According to a new report by the accounting firm Deloitte, “the resurgence of global security threats” promises a lucrative “rebound” in defense spending. The report alerts investors that “revenue growth” is “expected to take a positive turn” due to the terrorism and war in the Middle East and the tensions in Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
We Are Living at the Edge of a Nuclear Precipice
David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – TRANSCEND Media Service
With nuclear weapons, what could possibly go wrong? The short answer is: Everything. The ever-present dangers of nuclear proliferation, nuclear accidents and miscalculations, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war. Instead of nuclear deterrence and modernization of arsenals, we need to negotiate in good faith for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. That is, we need to break free of our acidic complacency and commit ourselves to achieving a nuclear zero world.
Nuclear Expert Siegfried Hecker Assesses North Korean Hydrogen Bomb Claims
Steve Fyffe, Stanford Center for Int’l Security and Cooperation – Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
7 Jan 2015 – One of the world’s top experts on the North Korean nuclear program, former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Siegfried Hecker has visited North Korea seven times since 2004; he is one of the few Western scientists to have set foot inside the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
CAPITALISM
Wall Street Taking Over Nonprofit Sector
Dan Wright, Shadowproof – TRANSCEND Media Service
4 Jan 2015 – While there has traditionally been a close relationship between Wall Street donors and nonprofit organizations like charities and universities, a new study from the Stanford Social Innovation Review reveals a growing Wall Street takeover of nonprofit boards of directors.
SPORTS
Blame Capitalism for Doping in Sports
Bhaskar Sunkara – Al Jazeera America
Players who take performance-enhancing drugs are only responding to the incentives of the free market. When it comes to corruption in sports, don’t hate the players—scapegoats for capitalism; hate the game.
HEALTH
Troubling Habits of Chronically Unhappy People
Dr. Travis Bradberry – TRANSCEND Media Service
“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” – Benjamin Franklin. Unhappiness is easy to identify; you know it when you see it, and you definitely know when it’s taken hold of you.
Duty to Warn – 14 Lies That Our Psychiatry Professors in Medical School Taught Us
Gary G. Kohls, MD – TRANSCEND Media Service
In my mental health care practice, I personally treated hundreds of patients who had been given a multitude of confusing and contradictory mental illness labels, many of which had been one of the new “diseases of the month” for which there was a new psych “drug of the month” that was being heavily marketed on TV.
HISTORY
This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Jeffrey W. Mason – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
January 9, 1987 – Dean Rusk (1909-1994), a former Secretary of State (1961-69) under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson who received many awards during his career including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, spoke out against nuclear weapons with a statement that, “Nuclear war not only eliminates all the answers, but eliminates all the questions.”
This Week in History
Satoshi Ashikaga – TRANSCEND Media Service
Jan 11-17 QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “It is better to light one small candle of gratitude than to curse the darkness.” – Confucius
BIOGRAPHIES
Carl Rogers (8 Jan 1902 – 4 Feb 1987): Healing the Person and the State
Rene Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
Carl Ransom Rogers was a US psychologist, educator and a leading figure of what is often called “the third wave of psychology. The first wave was Freud and Jung, and their views of psychoanalysis. The second wave was behaviorism symbolized by B.F. Skinner and the later behavior-modification specialists. The third wave, often called “humanist”, has Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Carl Rogers as its best-known figures.
Khalil Gibran (6 Jan 1883 – 10 Apr 1931): Spirits Rebellious
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
Khalil Gibran is one of the most quoted prose poets, especially his 1923 work The Prophet. The book has become bedside reading for all those who consider themselves “spiritual but not religious”.
Martin Luther King Jr. (15 Jan 1929 – 4 Apr 1968)
Biography – TRANSCEND Media Service
“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King, Jr. / “I Have A Dream” speech, August 28, 1963
POETRY FORMAT
Decide to Be a Spiritual Person
Robert Muller – TRANSCEND Media Service
Render others spiritual
Irradiate your spirituality
Treat every moment of your life
with divine respect
Sometimes! I wonder
Dr. M. Ashaq Raza – TRANSCEND Media Service
Sometimes! I wonder
There be No border
Between India and Pakistan
So that people of two nations
Live as brothers
As their fathers
IN OTHER LANGUAGES
(Français) Les massacres sont-ils plus intéressants lorsqu’ils sont commis par des “musulmans” ?
Asma Mechakra, Investig’Action – TRANSCEND Media Service
Déjà presque deux mois se sont écoulés depuis les attentats meurtriers de Paris et l’émotion est encore vive. Pendant la même période, un hôpital de médecins sans frontières (MSF) a été délibérément bombardé par l’aviation Etasunienne en Afghanistan, un double attentat suicide a été perpétré dans la banlieue sud de Beyrouth et une école Irakienne au Mossoul a été bombardée par l’aviation Française.
(Español) Como Entender la Política y Como Cambiarla
Howard Richards – TRANSCEND Media Service
Lo que distingue el político de los demás oficios y profesiones no es en fin ninguna calidad moral distinta, sino el hecho que le corresponde cumplir una tarea que en la época que nos toca vivir es imposible. La tesis que hoy la política es imposible, o –dicho de una manera menos escueta– que los objetivos que la política se propone sean inalcanzables, es hasta aquí todavía más una provocación que una hipótesis.
(Português) A Inteligência dos Porcos
Direitos Animais - ANDA Agência de Notícias de Direitos Animais
Cada vez mais vamos percebendo, através de estudos ou pela simples convivência, que os animais não humanos são mais inteligentes do que costumávamos pensar. Para exemplificar, segue uma lista de comportamentos peculiares dos porcos.
SHORT VIDEO CLIPS
What Is Genocide?
Prof. Daniel Feierstein, Rohingya Genocide Documentation - TRANSCEND Media Service
Prof. Daniel Feierstein is president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars; director of the Centre for Genocide Studies at the Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero; professor in the Faculty of Genocide at the University of Buenos Aires.
Ave Maria (Music Video of the Week)
Luciano Pavarotti – TRANSCEND Media Service
Luciano Pavarotti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian operatic tenor who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time.
IN-DEPTH VIDEOS
Money for Nothing: Inside the U.S. Federal Reserve
Posted by Antonio C. S. Rosa, editor – TRANSCEND Media Service
A Documentary about Money
JOKE OF THE WEEK
Children
Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service
All parents want their children to be independent.
“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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