EU politics/economics

Commenting on PressTv on July 22, 2016 after yet another tragedy in the Mediterranean. But how much did the media cover that in comparison with the Nice tragedy – and Hollande’s killing of 120 innocent civilians as revenge for Nice (which at the time was not known to have any connections to ISIS or similar)?

By Jonathan Power The crime of aggression (“planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression”) was described by the Nuremberg Tribunal that tried Nazi leaders as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole”. President George W. Bush and British prime minister, Tony Blair, have been accused by many as war criminals for starting the war against Iraq and, second, for not watching carefully enough to make sure that war crimes carried out by individual soldiers were not covered up, and for the torture that Bush initiated and Blair appeared to tolerate. Did Blair lie over the reason for going to war with Iraq – the supposed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction that Iraq possessed? It depends how you define lie. If you define lie as saying this cat is black when in...

The vote turned out like the two referenda held in Norway in 1972 and 1994. And much for the same reason: Protestant break with Rome – Catholic, imperial – Henry VIII made himself head of the Anglican Church in 1534. Religion was not the only reason, there are Protestant Nordic members of EU, closer to the continent and closer to Russia. World history, a short while after Pope Francis – Patriarch Kirill also made world history, bridging the Catholic-Orthodox 395-1054 gap. The Disunited Queendom is now London with surroundings; England. The implications are enormous, for UK-GB and the British Isles in general, for EU and Europe in general, USA and the world in general. The US Trojan horse decided to leave the EU on 23 June 2016. UK-GB and the British Isles in general: Goodbye United Kingdom, UK, we may get United Ireland, UI, instead. Goodbye Great Britain, GB, we...

/06/24/eu-referendum-how-the-results-compare-to-the-uks-educated-old-an/”>here. Interestingly, the whole art world supported Remain – and now fear for the effects of Brexit on Britain’s cultural development. An EU that has failed to create a new, better way of doing politics, merely growing its original democratic deficit – so, lack of real democracy. An EU that has had a woefully inadequate, cynical response to a refugee crisis caused by leading EU member states’ warfare – so, (mis)management and lack of leadership. Significantly, the leading Muslim Association of Britain, MAB, supported Remain with the argument that ”Exit from the EU runs the risk of perpetuating rifts in British society, which would increase levels of hate crimes against British Muslims.” So, Islamophobia. A general sense (but sometimes denial) of insecurity about the future all over the Western world,

By Farhang Jahanpour Today (16 June 2016), Jo Cox, the 41-year old Labor MP, was killed after she was shot and stabbed in her constituency in Yorkshire. A 52-year old man was arrested in the area. The suspect was named locally as Tommy Mair. There is as yet very little concrete information about him or his motives, and it is too early to jump to a conclusion and link his dastardly act with the referendum, but some eyewitnesses have said that before shooting Jo Cox twice, Mair shouted “Britain first”. Clearly, he is a deranged individual, but if he uttered those words, it is possible to conclude that the assault was connected with the referendum. The fact remains that the assassination of such a strongly pro-EU MP is a big shock, a major loss and of course the source of great grief for her husband and her two small children....

Address by Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate and TFF Associate, to Rome Conference on NATO Friday 29th January, 2016. Dear Friends, I believe we, the human family, have no less a task before us, than transforming our thinking and mind-sets of violence and war, and moving to a demilitarized Europe and World. Einstein once said that everything has changed but our thinking. However, there is hope as indeed our thinking is changing and there is a growing consciousness that violence, whether it comes from State or non-state actors, is wrong, violence does not work, violence is not the way. However, around the world, we, the people, are in danger of being overpowered and dis-spirited by increasing violence, militarism and war. Many people can see that many Political Leaders can no longer imagine a just peace, and under the guise of allegedly ‘just wars’ and unbounded preparation for war, they are...

/#.Vuk88JPhAeM”>Amnesty International knows what it is all about. AI uses words such as “alarmingly shortsighted”, “inhumane”, “dehumanising”, “moral and legally flawed” and “EU and Turkish leaders have today sunk to a new low, effectively horse trading away the rights and dignity of some of the world’s most vulnerable people.” And “By no stretch of imagination can Turkey be considered a ‘safe third country’ that the EU can cosily outsource its obligations to,” says Iverna McGowan, Head of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office. When Amnesty International expresses itself this way, we should listen very very carefully. I do and I’ve signed Amnesty’s Open Letter to Swedish prime minister Löfvén protesting that Sweden too may join this inhuman and law-violating agreement with Turkey. Hurry up, it is tomorrow! Behind every refugee stands an arms trade, stands militarism.

. The British have a problem. A referendum con continuing membership of the European Union scheduled for June may lead to Brexit- Britain heading for the exit. Anybody with any knowledge of Europe’s war-like history knows this would be totally self-defeating. Writing in 1751 Voltaire described Europe as “a kind of great republic, divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed but all corresponding with one another. They all have the same religious foundation, even if divided into several confessions. They all have the same principles of public law and politics unknown in other parts of the world.” But they also had a lot of war. Fifty years ago in a way that Charlemagne, Voltaire, William Penn and William Gladstone, the early advocates of European unity, could only dream, a united Europe became a reality. War, time and time again, has interrupted the pursuit of that objective. Continued civil...

Lund, December 10, 2015 On the day of the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony at Oslo City Hall To whom it may concern, including the media We know – and Alfred Nobel knew – how devastating war and arms races are, and how little security we get for all the money we spend on military forces. The campaign to reclaim the Nobel Peace Prize is first and foremost a campaign to revive the idea that global peace requires global cooperation on disarmament and replacing the law of force with the force of law. Every day more and more of us see, from the Middle East warfare, from the refugee crisis, and many other chilling reminders, the mandatory urgency of a change in world politics. Alfred Nobel decided to give one fifth of his fortune for a prize to promote disarmament and resolution of all conflicts through negotiations and legal means,...

11459 STOCKHOLM 2. Göran K Hansson Sankt Eriksgatan 14, lgh 1304,
 112 39 STOCKHOLM 3. Lars Heikensten
 Odengatan 75
 11322 STOCKHOLM 4. Peter Englund Dragarbrunnsgatan 63 C 753 20 Uppsala 5. Tomas Nicolin Karlavägen 11, lgh 1603 114 24 Stockholm 6. Kaci Kullman Five Lille Toppenhaug 4 1353 Baerums Verk Norge 7. Staffan Normark Långängsvägen 27 182 75 Stocksund Case Board members´ liability to compensate the Nobel Foundation according to the Foundations Act (1994:1220) Forum Ch. 10 Art. 14 Rättegångsbalken (Civil Procedure Act) As the retained counsel of Mairead Maguire, Jan Öberg, David Swanson and Lay Down Your Arms (Below plaintiffs) I hereby apply for summons of Marcus Storch, Göran K Hansson, Lars Heikensten, Peter Englund, Tomas Nicolin, Kaci Kullman Five, and Staffan Normark and will present these CLAIMS

Written before the violence in Paris. Answer: Nowhere, because Europe does not exist. On the axis of five stages of positive peace, the process came to a standstill at stage 3. They made miracles out of stage 1– cooperation for mutual and equal benefit – and were good at stage 2 – empathy with each other, your problems are also mine, your solutions are also mine. And then the long march through the corridors of institutionalization, stage 3, solidifying; from French-German cooperation to the ever changing treaties for an ever deeper European Union. And then it stopped. Stage 4 – fusion of the member states into one Europe – is not there and will not come for some time. But stage 5 – transmission to others who learn region-building from EU achievements and mistakes – works. What went wrong? In daoist terms, there were strong forces for a holon, a...