Archive 1986 – 2017

By Gunnar Westberg TFF Board member An easy Q & A session: Question: What does Kim Jong-un and the leaders of DPRK, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea want? Answer: Security for themselves, power and privileges. Q. Are their privileges and their leadership threatened? A: Yes. From outside and from inside. Q: What outside danger? A: An attack from the USA. Q: Is there a real threat from the USA? A: It seems so, from the perspective of Pyongyang. There are US exercises by air and navy, showing off the superiority of the US forces. And verbal threats. Q: Why have DPRK developed nuclear weapons? A: The leaders believe, just like in other nuclear power states, that nuclear weapons are effective deterrents. Q: What is the danger from the inside? A: A revolt from the repressed and destitute masses. Q: How can the leaders prevent a revolt and keep their...

Here I am in Moscow – three days ago – standing in front of a statue of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhael Gorbachev to celebrate the unveiling of a statue crafted by the master sculptor, Alexander Bourganov. I’m the only journalist invited to speak – and after I go with the others to drink Russian champagne. I talk to a group of students and a younger member of the Russian media contingent. I’ve also invited along a journalism student I met late at night on an almost empty street when I stopped to ask the way. She insisted on walking me to my hotel. To my surprise she accepted my offer of a drink and we spent an hour talking about her course and the Russian press. At the airport in the Aeroflot lounge I talked to one of the hostesses. It turned out she was a journalism graduate. On...

By Jonathan Power The United Nations is often scapegoated for the falling short of its peacekeeping troops and deployments. Why are they not in Syria or Yemen, Libya or along the Palestinian/Israeli border? Why did the US and the UK make it impossible for the few UN troops present at the onset of the genocide in Rwanda to have their numbers significantly augmented? As a result those few on the ground had no choice but to withdraw when some of their members were killed and their genitals stuffed in their mouths. All good questions if not easy to answer. In Syria, for example, where exactly would they be deployed? But a better question is why didn’t they go in at the beginning of the civil war when things weren’t so complicated and Al Qaeda and ISIS were not around? Then there is the bad behaviour of UN troops. In Mali,...

You’re probably an avid consumer of news and reports in one or more daily media – local, national or global. You want to be well-informed and say interesting things when you meet friends and colleagues. And you certainly don’t want to find out that you’ve been taken for a ride by fake news, half-truths, bias or omissions by media that you trusted because you thought you could. Now ask yourself whether you remember to have seen one or more of these essentially important initiatives and reports recently, all pertaining to nuclear weapons, the risk of nuclear war and advocacy of nuclear abolition: 1) That a large majority of UN members have drafted a treaty that shall declare nuclear weapons illegal, once and for all? If not, go here and enlighten yourself on one of the most constructive and visionary initiatives in today’s otherwise gloomy world situation. 2) That a conference...

By Richard Falk* and David Krieger** TFF PressInfo # 420 Prefatory NoteThis jointly authored essay was initially published in The Hill on May 30, 2017 under the title, “Averting the Ticking Time Bomb of Nukes in North Korea.” We did not choose such a title that is doubly misleading: our contention is not that North Korea is the core of the problem, but rather the retention of nuclear weapons by all of the states pose both crises in the context of counter-proliferation geopolitics and with respect to the possession, deployment, and development of the weaponry itself; a second objection is with the title given the piece by editors at The Hill. While acknowledging the practice of media outlets to decide on titles without seeking prior approval from authors, this title is particularly objectionable. The term ‘nukes’ gives an almost friendly shorthand to these most horrific of weapons, and strikes a...

On Monday 26th June, the White House released a statement saying that the United States had “identified potential preparations for another chemical attack by the Assad regime…” It went on to say: “If, however, Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.” Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, followed that statement by tweeting, “Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Assad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people.” On Tuesday morning, speaking on BBC 4 Today programme, the British Defence Minister Sir Michael Fallon was asked how Britain would respond to another American attack on Syria, and he responded “we will support” future US action in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. With these unsubstantiated statements on Syria, the Trump Administration...

Frederick the Great of Prussia was a friend of Voltaire and enjoyed ribald evenings with the philosopher discussing the intricacies of life’s dos and don’ts. Before becoming king he was persuaded by Voltaire to become a pacifist. Copyright: Jonathan Power.

“The best lack all conviction”, wrote the Irish poet, William Yeats, “while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” Is this not true of America today? Some of the “best” are working to bring down President Donald Trump yet are they ready to cut to the chase? He has cards up his sleeve. He came to power partly because he won the support of working class and lower middle class whites who were prepared to vote against their economic interest for the sake of the nationalism that Trump espoused. Neither Keir Hardie nor Franklin Roosevelt nor Bernie Sanders were their leader. It was Trump. I don’t find it difficult to imagine how Trump could play the nationalist card that would rally his electorate. The “best” would be against this, but how many would be convinced enough to go out on the street, French style, and demand Congress impeach him? I...

Fifteen months ago TFF predicted, grosso modo, what has now become clear in the Middle East namely a rather new power constellation. It centers around Saudi Arabia – the world’s third largest military power and main supporter of global terrorism – and its allies of Gulf States, Israel and various terrorist organisations including ISIS. See “A Sunni-Salafist-Zionist Coalition Changing Middle East?” The main characteristics that holds this coalition or alliance together is hatred of Syria’s and Iran’s governments. The alliance is – albeit with nuances – supported by the US, England, France and Turkey and others, e.g. Denmark. Flashback We’ve described the liberation of Aleppo as a fundamental turning point after exactly 4 years of anti-intellectual, immoral and illegal Western policies. It started on December 12, 2012 in Marrakech with the so-called “Friends of Syria” declaring that the elected president of Syria (with over 80% in internationally monitored elections) was no longer the country’s leader. Secondly, that...

There should be a lower level to the statements by a US Secretary of Defence. There should be a debunking of the unethical behaviour that repeatedly state that there is only a political solution to Syria and continue to use only violence. There should be a discussion about international law here. There should be a discussion of what is morally defensible in this case, even assuming for the sake of argument that President al-Assad is the worst guy on earth. Why isn’t there – after so many years and so much human suffering and destruction. We need a very different discourse about Syria – ASAP.

It is amazing. The United Nations have decades, years, weeks and days, dedicated to more values, goals and concerns than most of us are aware of. Compare it to nation-states usually with only one day, their day, their national day, celebrating nobody but themselves. Maybe the UN overdoes it, that one decade flows into the next without leaving more than some verbal traces? But that is not the UN’s fault. The accusing finger points at all of us; what did you do when the world’s conscience called on you? Let us start with the Decades: 1960s: First UN Development Decade 1970s: Second UN Development Decade International Decade of Ocean Exploration Disarmament Decade Into the 1980s: Decade to Combat Racism and Discrimination United Nations Decade for Women Transport and Communication Decade in Africa 1980s: Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade Second Disarmament Decade Third UN Development Decade Into the 1990s: UN...