by Johan Galtung, 6 Sep 2010 - TRANSCEND Media Service
Do we not have enough peace, development and environment problems if we should not in addition worry about “unidentified flying objects”, UFOs? Why not rather worry about US wars in and from space? That too, and it may be a part of the same complex.
Being an agnostic on UFOs, let me give one justification, and then one metaphor, for a serious exploration of the UFO scenario.
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OTHER COMMENTARIES
SPOTLIGHT
by Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research ·
In the Pashtun language, the word “Taliban” means “Students”, or graduates of the madrasahs (places of learning or coranic schools) set up by the Wahhabi missions from Saudi Arabia, with the support of the CIA. Education in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war war largely secular in Afghanistan. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000. The Soviet-Afghan war was part of a CIA covert agenda initiated during the Carter administration, which consisted in actively supporting and financing the Islamic brigades, later known as Al Qaeda. President Ronald Reagan met the leaders of the Islamic Jihad at the White House in 1983. Under the Reagan administration, US foreign policy evolved towards the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic “freedom fighters”. In today’s World, the “freedom fighters” are labeled “Islamic terrorists”.
by Jack A. Smith – Global Research ·
War Propaganda wins the Academy Award.
PEACE JOURNALISM PERSPECTIVES
by Mike Whitney - Pravda ·
There are 25,000 Jews in Iran, which is the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside Israel. Iranian Jews are not persecuted or abused, in fact, they are protected under the Iranian constitution. They are free to practice their religion and to vote in elections. They are not stopped and searched at checkpoints, are not brutalized by an army of occupation and are not confined in a densely populated penal colony (Gaza) where they are deprived of the basic means of subsistence. Iranian Jews live in dignity and enjoy the benefits of citizenship.
ANALYSIS
by Hilaire Avril – InterPress Service-IPS ·
Researchers and activists have coined the term biopiracy, “the theft of genetic resources”, to describe corporations’ practice of securing “profitable private monopolies by staking out patent claims on Africa’s genes, plants, and related traditional knowledge”, according to the African Centre for Biosafety (ACB), based in South Africa. In biopiracy cases remedies, long-identified and developed by traditional healers, are appropriated by North-based corporations that claim exclusive rights to their use through copyrighting ingredients or processes.
by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – TRANSCEND Media Service ·
Pakistan’s immense problems can begin to be solved only when powerful interests in Islamabad and Washington end their commitment to armed solutions.
by Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service ·
Exemplified by Cognitive Implication of Vortices and Helicoidal Flow. This follows from the case previously made for exploring “toroidal governance” to compensate for the evident inadequacies of “global governance” (From global governance to toroidal governance, 2010). Of particular interest in that respect are the vortex dynamics by which toroidal forms are sustained, as commonly illustrated by the smoke ring. Vortex rings have been acknowledged by many investigators as one of the most fundamental and fascinating phenomena in fluid dynamics (Feliks Kaplanski, Dynamics of Vortex Rings, SciTopics, 12 July 2010).
by Dr. Zarni – TRANSCEND Media Service ·
A lot seems to be happening lately in the world of senior and junior generals in Burma. The reports of the recent military reshuffle involving dozens of senior regime officials cannot be understood fully without taking into account a number of developments both at home and abroad.
by Mark LeVine – Al Jazeera ·
Ghana maybe championed for its political stability, but life for the average Ghanaian is defined by crippling poverty.
by Lee Wengraf – Socialist Worker ·
Foreign control of African land has a long history, but the current land grab involves transfer of ownership on a vast new scale.
by Manipadma Jena – InterPress Service-IPS ·
“Certainly easier to pop open a can of chemical pesticide, mix water in proportion, spray, and be done,” admits Narayana. But since the 42-year-old farmer went organic, he has cheerfully gotten rid of shortcuts like using store-bought pesticides and now spends hours mixing anti-pest brews with ingredients that can be found at home or even in the fields. That means Narayana’s land and produce will no longer have the kind of toxins they were subjected to when he was still using chemicals to grow crops. Narayana himself will also escape being exposed to toxins that are commonly found in manufactured pesticides.
by Nick Turse - TomDispatch ·
With the arrival of General David Petraeus as Afghan War commander, there has been ever more talk about the meaning of “success” in Afghanistan. At the end of July, USA Today ran an article titled, “In Afghanistan, Success Measured a Step at a Time.” Days later, Stephen Biddle, a Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, held a conference call with the media to speak about “Defining Success in Afghanistan.” A mid-August editorial in the Washington Postwas titled: “Making the Case for Success in Afghanistan.” And earlier this month, an Associated Press article appeared under the headline, “Petraeus Talks Up Success in Afghan War.”
by Lee Sustar interviewing Bushra Khaliq – Socialist Worker ·
The catastrophic floods that tore through parts of Pakistan have left an estimated 20 million people homeless. According to UN officials, the scale of the disaster–in terms of the number of people suffering–than the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami that hit India and the earthquake that hit Pakistan in 2005 combined. Bushra Khaliq is general secretary of the Women Workers Help Line, based in Lahore, and a leading member of the Labor Party Pakistan (LPP), which is working with other left groups to organize a response to the disaster that provides an alternative to the government’s inaction. She talked to Lee Sustar after returning from a visit to some of the regions hit by the flood.
by David Crossland - Spiegel ·
France’s expulsion of Roma people could be copied by other governments unless it is vigorously condemned by the European public, warn German media commentators. They argue that Brussels is right to voice its misgivings against a policy that flies in the face of the principles the French nation has stood for since the revolution.
by David Cronin – TerraViva Europe ·
Roma gypsies are routinely described as Europe’s largest ethnic minority. Numbering between 10 and 16 million, their combined population exceeds that of many European Union countries. Yet their numerical strength offers no compensation for the poverty, persecution and scapegoating that the Roma have to endure — or for how their welfare is accorded a low priority by the EU’s institutions.
by João Moreira - Pravda ·
The Amazon rainforest belongs to Brazil and nobody else. That being said, despite the fact that the rate of deforestation has slowed considerably in recent years, fifteen per cent of the area once covered by the rainforest has now disappeared, according to research undertaken by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
by Helena de Moura - CNN ·
Brazilian officials have said they will continue to crack down on farms accused of forcing workers into slave-like conditions, the country’s labor ministry said after authorities rescued nearly 150 workers.
by Gabriel Elizondo – Al Jazeera ·
Campaigners said few politicians wanted to sponsor an anti-corruption bill in congress, so the organisation took advantage of a little-known, and almost never implemented, ‘popular initiative’ clause in congress that says with signatures from one per cent of the Brazilian population a bill can be taken up in congress. Only four bills in Brazilian history have reached congress in such a manner. In September of last year, after 18 months of signature collecting, the law organisers forwarded to congress 1.7 million signatures. Soon after, another two million people registered their support for the bill online. On June 4, 2010 President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed the bill and three days later it became the law of the land.
by Ynetnews – TRANSCEND Media Service ·
Damning CNN report cites uncorroborated sexual abuse charges of Palestinian children detained by IDF; army says detention of minors undertaken in line with international law, cannot respond to abuse charges as no details provided.
by Nora Barrows-Friedman – Al Jazeera ·
Sitting in on the Rachel Corrie trial alarmingly reveals an open Israeli policy of indiscrimination towards civilians.
by René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service ·
The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the year 2010 as the International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. Thus we are pleased to present the creative efforts of individuals who have helped to create bridges of understanding among cultures.
by Bob Rigg – Open Democracy ·
The UN Secretary General has promised to investigate the Gaza flotilla incident in a manner which is “prompt, impartial, credible and transparent” and “conforming to international standards”. But it looks as if politics is triumphing over justice.
by The New York Times, Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service ·
All too often in the past, the judges pointed out, secrecy privileges have been used to avoid embarrassing the government, not to protect real secrets. In this case, the embarrassment and the shame to America’s reputation are already too well known.
by Diane Lefer – Truthout ·
“I was back in Los Angeles and I was worried, too, because I was reading the text of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, in which the Supreme Court on June 24 decided that training people in nonviolent conflict resolution and international human rights law can lead to 15 years in a federal prison for providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization…. Thanks to the Supreme Court, zones where peacemaking is most needed are now off limits. As Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrant rights and national security for the ACLU of Southern California, has pointed out, if the decision in Holder v. HLP had come down in 2004, the provision of disaster relief to tsunami-devastated civilians in the Tamil Tiger-controlled region of Sri Lanka would have been a crime.”
by Terrence McNally and Andrew Bacevich - AlterNet ·
Andrew Bacevich speaks with a fairly unique mix of experience, authority, passion and wisdom in questioning our nation’s priorities: specifically our willingness to place so much of our national identity, wealth, attention, moral practice, and finally the life and blood of many thousands of our citizens and millions of those of other countries in the hands of our military. A professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Bacevich served twenty-three years in the U.S. Army, retiring with the rank of colonel. He lost his son in Iraq. A graduate of the U. S. Military Academy, he received his Ph. D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. He is the author of several books, including The New American Militarism; The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism; and his newest, Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.
by Christopher Dickey - Newsweek ·
The threat to burn Qurans in Florida is a perfect example of the way America’s own Christian Taliban are creating, promoting, and exploiting our national paranoia.
by Jonathan Tirone – Bloomberg ·
United Nations investigators, ordered to write a report about Israel’s atomic capabilities, said they couldn’t compile enough information to assess the extent of the country’s nuclear program…. Countries including Canada, the U.K. and U.S. opposed the probe, saying that the inquiry risked turning the IAEA into a political battleground, according to the documents. Others, including China, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey, supported the investigation…. Israel has refused to open its nuclear facility in Dimona to UN inspectors. It says the site is a research facility.
by William Cole – Honolulu Star-Advertiser ·
Testing for a Land-Based Defense System Would Bring a New Complex to the Island
by Kevin G. Hall - McClatchy Newspapers ·
International bank regulators from around the globe will meet in the Swiss town of Basel on Sunday [12 Sep 2010] to finalize an important agreement that most Americans have never heard of: one to redraw rules so that banks can’t bring the world economy to the brink of collapse again.
by Matthew Scott – DailyFinance ·
The global financial crisis just might give those in the U.S. who advanced the idea of a “new world order” their wish – but not exactly in the way they wanted.
by Dietrich Fischer – TRANSCEND Media Service ·
Stalin claimed he was the greatest philosopher of all times.
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