Columnist article

) need to resort to violence in defense of their positions on the Sharia issue since God, whom they both claim to worship, is quite capable of upholding his own causes,” he said in a broadcast. Similarly, tribal tensions have ebbed, partly because the rapid advance in agriculture has brought rising incomes to the countryside and the small rural market towns. Oil income has started to be used better, if not well enough. Even the threat of multiple air crashes appears to have diminished as Obasanjo pushed fly-by-the-pants airlines to consolidate and retire clapped out panes. In Lagos the streets are noticeably cleaner- and no longer are there dead bodies at the roadside, waiting to be removed. Lagos itself is becoming a different place from the days when it was an out-of-control, mass of teaming humanity. As Ben Okri, the Nigerian novelist, wrote a few years ago, “The air vibrating...

Jonathan Power LONDON – Richard Haas, the former high State department official in Republican governments observes in his recent book, “The Opportunity”, that the time has never been better for an organization of great powers to bring peace and stability to the world. For the first time in several hundred years the major nations are not engaged in a struggle for dominance. “It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of this development”, he writes. This could also have been written at the end of the tenure of President G.W. Bush and the onset of the presidency of Bill Clinton. But Clinton lacked initiative and let the ball drop. George W. Bush, who had even less experience, picked the ball up but kicked it all over the field. Now fortune perhaps smiles for second time. A Barack Obama presidency could do what should have been done seventeen years ago at the...

Af Jan ØbergNagoya, Japan, November 22, 2007 Den kommende tragedie i Kosovo vil være mere forårsaget af internationale faktorer end af lokale Medierne dækker hellere vold end de underliggende konflikter. Det er derfor at du hører så lidt om den snart tilbagevendende tragedie kaldet Kososvo. Inden for få uger eller måneder vil risikoen øge for at at vi skal være vidne til endnu en runde af vold, undertrykkelse og anden menneskelig ulykke. Og så skal medierne nok være der. Siden 1991 har TFF analyseret og forudsagt udviklinger i det tidligere Jugoslavien. For 13 år siden begyndte vi at udgive ideer, modeller og planer for en fredelig løsning til Kososvo konflikterne. Hvis den ovenstående forudsigelse går i opfyldelse, vil det hverken være serbernes eller albaniernes skyld. Det vil være forårsaget af det internationale -såkaldte – samfund (IS), det samfund der intet gjorde for at forebygge vold eller forhandle fred da begge...

The soon-to-come tragedy called Kosovo – caused more by international than local factors News media cover violence rather than underlying conflicts. That’s why you hear so little about the soon-to-be-again tragedy called Kosovo. There is growing risk that, in a few weeks, we shall witness another round of violence, repression and other human misery. And then the media will be there. Since 1991 TFF has analysed and predicted developments in former Yugoslavia. Thirteen years ago we began publishing ideas, models and plans for a peaceful solution to the Kosovo+ conflicts. If the above prediction comes true, it will neither be the fault of the Serbs nor the Albanians. It will be caused by the international so-called community (IC). It did nothing to prevent violence or negotiate peace when both were possible, i.e. in the early 1990s. See TFF’s books and reports about former Yugoslavia, including “Preventing War in Kosovo” from...

the unarmed demonstrators certainly demoralised the local Soviet soldiers and the satraps in the Czech administration. They also succeeded in bringing the economy almost to a halt but they did not undermine the hard men in Moscow who simply piled on the pressure until the resistance cracked. But we should be sanguine about the chances of the saffron protestors. They don’t have an invincible force to overcome – or at least one of the muscle of the Soviet Union or China. Differences of opinion have already appeared among the military leaders. Moreover, external pressure has been piling up for years and has succeeded in isolating Myanmar in many important ways. The recent decision of Washington to go for the leaders’ private foreign bank accounts was long overdue. Not least, the Burmese protestors have the non-violent traditions of Buddhism to draw upon. This may be scorned by the generals, indeed by...

Jerusalem, June 27, 2007 On the occasion of the passing of 40 years since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and Israel’s subsequent occupation of the Palestinian Territories, the causes of the on-going conflict between Israelis and Palestinians were once again being hotly debated by political analysts. The Arab world is pointing the finger of blame mainly at the “international community” and its inability, or unwillingness, to apply appropriate pressure on the Israeli government; the western wing of the “international community”, in turn, is pointing the finger of blame largely at the Palestinian Authority as evidenced by its boycott of the Hamas government; Palestinian groups are pointing the finger of blame at each other, perhaps due partly to the long years of frustration and apparent hopelessness since 1967 and before that 1948; and within Israeli society itself there is no shortage of internal frustrations and conflicts with regards the on-going Occupation. In...

Vicky Rossi: In which ways are the causes of mental illness in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt) the same or different to the causes of mental illness in a European country like the UK, for example, or another Arab country such as Lebanon? Rajiah Abu Swai: On the whole, the causes of mental illness are the same in every country in the world. What is different here in Palestine, and what creates a potential for higher levels of mental illness, is the particularly stressful situation people find themselves in. The Palestinian Territory under the Israeli Occupation is characterized by a lack of freedom of movement, continuous shelling, isolation and a poor economic situation, which has led to feelings of insecurity and hopelessness amongst the people. Palestinians feel that they are not in control of their own lives. These are the kinds of things which can trigger mental illness in people who are...

8:e maj, 2007 Jan Öberg Inslaget i Aktuelt 10:e april 2007 om domarna över serbiska krigsförbrytare Kommentaren skickades per e-mail 10:e april 2007 med påminnelse 25:e april men har inte besvarats Hej Det är bra att ni tar upp det; domarna är unika i det forna Jugoslavien. Men bättre hade det varit om det också funnits ett perspektiv kring det hela samt ett minimum av källkritik o balans. Man kunde t ex ha undersökt och förmedlat kunskap om: • huruvida det finns andra liknande domstolar i det forna Jugoslavien (en finns i Bosnien); • vilka andra stater som dömt sine egna; • FNs World Court beslut beträffande Serbiens ansvar för folkmordet i Bosnien, som kom i februari – och åtminstone delvis friar Serbien för anklagelsen om folkmord;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6395791.stm • mer eksakta siffror på hur många som dog i Srebrenica då, hur många som dött senare, hur många som flydde till t...

Af Jan ØbergLund 1.maj 2007 Mellem oktober 2006 og april 2007 skrev jeg 12 klummer i gratisavisen dato. Desværre blev den nedlagt i april. Mine korte artikler – på omkring 300 ord – fortsætter her, nogle publicerede i den trykte presse, andre kun hér. Om Kosovo og andre aktuelle ting ved årets begyndelse Arne Hansen, Frederikshavns Lokalradio 20. januar 2008Samtale om Kosovo og andre aktuelle ting Åbent brev til TV-Avisen – Indslag om missil”skjoldet” (Læs Mette Fugls svar og min duplik herunder) 10. januar 2008 Kære TV-Avisen og Mette Fugl Indslaget i aften om missilskjoldet er såvel ukyndigt som ensidigt. Ukyndigt fordi det implicit formidler det – vildledende – indtryk at Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) er et forsvarssystem. Det er en del af den væsentligste forandring i kærnevåbendoktrinerne siden 1945 og indebærer en mulig afslutning på den periode af sammenligningsvis relativ stabilitet som har præget den såkaldte terrorbalance siden da....

Vicky Rossi: When was the Barefoot College first established and what was the main motivation of its founders? S. Srinivasan (commonly known as “Vasu”): The Barefoot College was founded in 1972 by Mr Bunker Roy and two others. It was a voluntary organisation specifically formed with the belief that in order to work with the poorest of the poor in the villages one has to base oneself in the village. Only in this way can one uncover the problems faced by the communities there, as perceived by the villagers themselves. In the initial 1-2 years, the set of objectives held by the organisation became more concretised and more specific. This led to initiatives being started with regards drinking water. Access to drinking water was a problem for the poorest of the poor in the villages and linked to that was health – access to health services was almost nil. When...

Vicky Rossi: Having just spent a wonderful 2 weeks in India with you and an enlightened group of internationals on the Gandhi Legacy Tour (1), I was wondering when you first decided to lead such a trip and what your primary motivation was. Arun Gandhi: I have been involved with people from Europe and other parts of the world for quite some time now and I have always felt that people need to know each other better. We tend to live in our own isolated worlds without knowing much about one another. This means we form all kinds of stereotypes and misunderstandings, which lead to conflicts in the world. I have always thought that if we can somehow bring people together and let them get to know each other, then we will be able to break down the barriers that exist and build bridges instead. For a long time I...

Jonathan Power LONDON – President Dmitry Medvedev is too young to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, but if he’d talk to some of the oldies around like Georgi Arbatov, he’d learn how close a call it was. If President John F. Kennedy hadn’t surrounded himself with very cool and level headed people like his Defence Secretary, Robert McNamara, there could have been nuclear war. No wonder that Arbatov, a former foreign affairs advisor to Soviet leaders from Brezhnev to Gorbachev, calls for Russia to shame the U.S. into disarmament by unilaterally cutting its own rocket force. Presidential aspirant John McCain is old enough to remember. Presumably this had something to do with his call last week for the U.S. to start talking to the Russians again about reducing their massive inventories of nuclear weapons. Yet by the light of fellow conservatives, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Paul Nitze and other prominent...