"Care For Our Common Home" Mother Earth By Pope Francis
Dear Friend,
If you think the content of this news letter is critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm. You can also follow us on twitter, http://twitter.com/countercurrents and on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/countercurrents
In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org
"Care For Our Common Home" Mother Earth
By Pope Francis
http://www.countercurrents.org/popefrancis180615.htm
An extract from Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. "The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon. Humanity is called to recognise the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it"
Could The Global Problems Of The 21st-Century Have Been Predicted
By The Neo-Confucian Officials Of China's Past?
By C Ikehara
http://www.countercurrents.org/ikehara180615.htm
"Moderate prosperity" is just what the leader of China promised in a recent speech which I feel reflects the thinking of the Neo-Confucian ruling elite from the Ming Dynasty onward as to their belief that more important than growth was control. They realized the wisdom of the words of reformer Wang An-Shih of the earlier Song dynasty who said, "The state should take the entire management of commerce, industry and agriculture into its own hands, with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing them from being ground into the dust by the rich."
U.S. House Debates And Votes Down Withdrawal From Iraq/Syria
By David Swanson
http://www.countercurrents.org/swanson180615.htm
Wednesday afternoon, by a vote of 288-139 with one voting "present" and five not voting (roll call of who voted which way is here) the U.S. House of Representatives voted down a resolution (H.Con.Res.55) that would have required the President to . . .
By Definition, An Aggressor Cannot Act In Defense
By Robert Barsocchini
http://www.countercurrents.org/barsocchini180615.htm
The statement that Israel has the right to defend itself against Palestine is similar to the statement that if, say, the US annexed, occupied, and started building illegal settlements in Cuba (the parts the US isn't already illegally occupying and using as a torture camp, Guantanamo), then the US would have the right to "defend" itself against Cubans acting in retaliation to US aggression.Everyone aside from blind fundamentalists and/or the hopelessly corrupt would laugh at the notion that in such a situation, US action against resistant Cubans would be "defense". Likewise, the world laughs at the idea that Israel can "defend" itself against the vastly more outgunned Palestinians resisting Israeli aggression
Israel's Battles In Sports, Law, And Science
By Justin Podur
http://www.countercurrents.org/podur180615.htm
When people stop making Israel an exception to their consciences, to their sense of fairness and of justice; when people start thinking of Palestinians as human beings deserving of rights and of Palestinian children deserving of safety even while they do things like play soccer; when that happens Israel's advantages in billions and weapons won't be enough. When that happens, a just resolution of the conflict with equal rights for everyone will be possible
Time To Erase Israel's Green Line
By Neve Gordon
http://www.countercurrents.org/gordon180615.htm
About fifty students sat on the concrete floor of a makeshift shack, absorbing the desert heat as they listened to Salim talk about the imminent destruction of Umm al Hiran and Atir, two unrecognized Bedouin villages located twenty minutes from my apartment in Beer-Sheva. On May 6, the Supreme Court ruled that the villages could be destroyed, paving the way for the government to proceed with its plan to build a Jewish settlement called Hiran in place of Umm al Hiran as well as to replace the adjacent village Atir with a Jewish National Fund forest. If these plans are actualized, approximately 900 Palestinian Bedouin citizens will be forcefully relocated from their homes
Morsi: Sentencing Justice To Death In Egypt
By Chandra Muzaffar
http://www.countercurrents.org/muzaffar180615.htm
It is utterly disgraceful that the first democratically elected president of Egypt has become the first Egyptian president in history to be sentenced to death by the highest judicial and religious authorities in his country
365 Days: Democracy & Secularism Under The Modi Regime
Press Release
http://www.countercurrents.org/pr180615.htm
Damage to India's ethos may be irreversible, Civil Society report of One Year of Narendra Modi government. Violence, and Sangh Parivar threats, against religious minorities mounts; Government targets Education, Social sector, Dissent, Media, Science & Culture
If you think the content of this news letter is critical for the dignified living and survival of humanity and other species on earth, please forward it to your friends and spread the word. It's time for humanity to come together as one family! You can subscribe to our news letter here http://www.countercurrents.org/subscribe.htm. You can also follow us on twitter, http://twitter.com/countercurrents and on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/countercurrents
In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org
"Care For Our Common Home" Mother Earth
By Pope Francis
http://www.countercurrents.org/popefrancis180615.htm
An extract from Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. "The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of the essential conditions for human life. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. In recent decades this warming has been accompanied by a constant rise in the sea level and, it would appear, by an increase of extreme weather events, even if a scientifically determinable cause cannot be assigned to each particular phenomenon. Humanity is called to recognise the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it"
Could The Global Problems Of The 21st-Century Have Been Predicted
By The Neo-Confucian Officials Of China's Past?
By C Ikehara
http://www.countercurrents.org/ikehara180615.htm
"Moderate prosperity" is just what the leader of China promised in a recent speech which I feel reflects the thinking of the Neo-Confucian ruling elite from the Ming Dynasty onward as to their belief that more important than growth was control. They realized the wisdom of the words of reformer Wang An-Shih of the earlier Song dynasty who said, "The state should take the entire management of commerce, industry and agriculture into its own hands, with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing them from being ground into the dust by the rich."
U.S. House Debates And Votes Down Withdrawal From Iraq/Syria
By David Swanson
http://www.countercurrents.org/swanson180615.htm
Wednesday afternoon, by a vote of 288-139 with one voting "present" and five not voting (roll call of who voted which way is here) the U.S. House of Representatives voted down a resolution (H.Con.Res.55) that would have required the President to . . .
By Definition, An Aggressor Cannot Act In Defense
By Robert Barsocchini
http://www.countercurrents.org/barsocchini180615.htm
The statement that Israel has the right to defend itself against Palestine is similar to the statement that if, say, the US annexed, occupied, and started building illegal settlements in Cuba (the parts the US isn't already illegally occupying and using as a torture camp, Guantanamo), then the US would have the right to "defend" itself against Cubans acting in retaliation to US aggression.Everyone aside from blind fundamentalists and/or the hopelessly corrupt would laugh at the notion that in such a situation, US action against resistant Cubans would be "defense". Likewise, the world laughs at the idea that Israel can "defend" itself against the vastly more outgunned Palestinians resisting Israeli aggression
Israel's Battles In Sports, Law, And Science
By Justin Podur
http://www.countercurrents.org/podur180615.htm
When people stop making Israel an exception to their consciences, to their sense of fairness and of justice; when people start thinking of Palestinians as human beings deserving of rights and of Palestinian children deserving of safety even while they do things like play soccer; when that happens Israel's advantages in billions and weapons won't be enough. When that happens, a just resolution of the conflict with equal rights for everyone will be possible
Time To Erase Israel's Green Line
By Neve Gordon
http://www.countercurrents.org/gordon180615.htm
About fifty students sat on the concrete floor of a makeshift shack, absorbing the desert heat as they listened to Salim talk about the imminent destruction of Umm al Hiran and Atir, two unrecognized Bedouin villages located twenty minutes from my apartment in Beer-Sheva. On May 6, the Supreme Court ruled that the villages could be destroyed, paving the way for the government to proceed with its plan to build a Jewish settlement called Hiran in place of Umm al Hiran as well as to replace the adjacent village Atir with a Jewish National Fund forest. If these plans are actualized, approximately 900 Palestinian Bedouin citizens will be forcefully relocated from their homes
Morsi: Sentencing Justice To Death In Egypt
By Chandra Muzaffar
http://www.countercurrents.org/muzaffar180615.htm
It is utterly disgraceful that the first democratically elected president of Egypt has become the first Egyptian president in history to be sentenced to death by the highest judicial and religious authorities in his country
365 Days: Democracy & Secularism Under The Modi Regime
Press Release
http://www.countercurrents.org/pr180615.htm
Damage to India's ethos may be irreversible, Civil Society report of One Year of Narendra Modi government. Violence, and Sangh Parivar threats, against religious minorities mounts; Government targets Education, Social sector, Dissent, Media, Science & Culture