Features

A series of guides, directories and articles with many and quite different aspects.TFF produces Feature Collections on topical issues to to help anyone inform themselves and search for more information. TFF accepts no responsibility for the content of these articles.Newest stuff added at the bottom Guides, directories and link collections Wikipedia – The Free EncyclopediaIran – lots of relevant background materials US Library of CongressCountry study Iran IranMania.comProbably the largest Iranian Internet portalGeneral information on Iran here. Iran Online – link collection Iranian.ws & Persian JournalProgressive Iranian Community PetroleumIran.comIran – an extremely comprehensive list of links to all aspects of Iran EIA, WashingtonIran – economy and its oil The EconomistIran Factsheet MSNBC – The Secret Empire – The Iran Files Better World LinksIran – numerous resources for the understanding of Iran Wikipedia – the Free EncyclopediaIran’s nuclear programDisputed by some but full of useful links The Guardian – Special on IranNumerous links over...

True, the situation in Burundi is not without its risks and problems. But it has gone so well this summer in Burundi. As you’ll see below, Reuters, IRIN (the source of most Reuters stories), the UN and a few others do a fine job – but their stories are not picked up around the world. To put it crudely: Start a genocide – and you get attention. Start peace and development – and you get virtually none. As if peace and a better life for more than 7 million people wasn’t worthy to report…TFF is one of the few organisations that follow and support the peace process in Burundi – through 11 fine civil society organisations in the country. You can read much more here, at our Burundi Forum. Here are some of the recent stories out of Burundi: July-October 2005 – Oldest stories on top, most recent at botton ReutersChronology of key...

* Dansk oversættelse under den engelske tekst A couple of weeks ago the leading media of the West and the Muslim world made the 10th anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica their top story. Sweden’s television prime time news program devoted 18 minutes to it out of 30 – not one minute of research behind. CNN, BBC and all the rest made it a top story, high-level people flocked to Srebrenica. Today, on August 5, it is 10 years ago Croatia and the United States committed war crimes in Operation Storm. No one remembers, there isn’t one article on CNN, BBC or other leading media. At the time this U.S. /Clinton-assisted ethnic cleansing of about 250.000 legitimate Croatian citizens of Serb origin by the Croat Army from Croatia was the largest ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia. It has only been surpassed by that of Serbs from Kosovo (proportionately) in 1999 which was...

By Lewis MacKenzie Retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of theUN peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo. Reproduced from The Globe and Mail, Thursday, July 14, 2005 – Comment This week marked the 10th anniversary of the United Nations’ second greatest failure since its creation in 1945 — the genocide in Rwanda being the undisputed No. 1. With much fanfare, the ceremonies focused on the massacre of “up to” 8,000 Bosnian men and boys by General Ratko Mladic’s Bosnian Serb army in Srebrenica in July of 1995. In the vast majority of recent media reports, the background and responsibilities for the disaster in Srebrenica were absent. Preferred was the simple explanation: a black and white event in which the Serbs were solely to blame. As someone who played a modest role in some of the events preceding the massacre, perhaps a little background will provide some context. In early 1993,...

You haven’t heard much about it. It’s a good story from Africa. About peace. About a very difficult peace process that is by no means secured for the future. But it offers hope for the future of the 7 million people in one of the world’s poorest countries. Should it all fall apart and a new genocide happen – then you will hear about it. Why are good stories, stories about peace, never newsworthy? We’ve collected a few news stories from the last months. Troubles, indeed – but there is hope! TFF works there – to help civil society monitor the official peace process. Read more here. Newest features at the bottom Atlapedia OnlineAbout Burundi – a little general information before you start The International Monetary Fund, IMFIMF Completes First Review Under Burundi’s PRGF Arrangement News24.comBurundi polls to test stabilityBurundi prepares for local polls ReliefWebUN head of mission, Carolyn McAskie, urges Burundians to...

Af Chalmers Johnson* March, 2005 From Japan Policy Research InstituteNo Longer the “Lone” Superpower. Coming to Terms with China by Chalmers Johnson Jeg kan huske for 40 år siden, mens jeg var ny professor og arbejdede med kinesiske og japanske internationale forhold, at Edwin O. Reischauer engang kommenterede: “Den store fordel ved vores sejr i 1945 var et permanent afvæbnet Japan”. Reischauer var født i Japan og historiker ved Harvard med Japan som speciale og arbejdede som amerikansk ambassadør i Tokyo under Kennedy og Johnson. Det føles underligt at konstatere at siden 1991 og specielt under George W Bush, har USA gjort alt, hvad der stod i deres magt for at opmuntre, ja endog accelerere japansk genoprustning. En sådan udvikling fremmer fjendtlighed mellem Kina og Japan, Østasiens to stormagter, saboterer mulige fredelige løsninger i de 2 problemområder, Taiwan og Nordkorea, der blev tilbage efter de kinesiske og koreanske borgerkrige og...

A new crisis in Kosovo is in-the-making. The main reasons are: the situation in the province, the lack of peacebuilding success, the irresponsible talk of independence by Western pro-Albanian lobby groups such as the Crisis Group and the indictment of Kosovo’s prime minister as well as the lack of a pro-active strategy in Belgrade. If Kosovo falls apart, the stability of the whole region – Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, etc. – will be at risk. Below are a series of articles and documents which offers some background but also explains why the so-called interntional “community” is about to fall into the trap it set up for itself by simplifying the conflict and bombing the region in 1999 in the – mistaken – belief that that would bring peace and stability. Analyses and reports have been published by pro-Albanian lobbyists mostly related to the Near-Governmental Organisation called Crisis Group. Crisis GroupWho is the...

Much valuable stuff is left unread or forgotten just because it was written some time ago and, thus, we may lose our sense of history and of a pattern or logics to what happens around us.Each of the articles in this TFF Collection is relevant for an understanding of the conflict, the war and the occupation.They are analyses, viewpoints and comments with lasting qualities; they should not be put in the archives before we have witnessed the end of this crisis. They offer perspectives on what to learn and what to remember when they build up the next crisis… TFF produces Feature Collections to assist public awareness and education. You may search for more facts and analyses from these links. However, TFF accepts no responsibility for the content of these articles. On the resistance to the occupation Wikipedia – The Free EncyclopediaThe Iraqi resistance M. Junaid Alam, CounterPunchDo the Iraqis...

“A country’s violence, Hannah Arendt said, can destroy its power. The United States is moving quickly down this path. Do American leaders imagine that the people of the world, having overthrown the territorial empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are ready to bend the knee to an American overlord in the twenty-frist? Do they imagine that allies are willing to become subordinates? Have they forgotten that people hate to be dominated by force? History of packed with surprises. The leaders of the totalitarian Soviet empire miraculously had the good sense to yield up their power without unleashing the tremendous violence that was at their fingertips. Could it be the destiny of the American republic, unable to resist the allure of an imperial delusion, to flare out in a blaze of pointless mass destruction?“ – Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World, p. 346-347Related Feature Collections The US Empire – what future, what...

This collection contains pointed comments on various aspects of the second term of the Bush Administration. Bookmark it and check now and then the next four years: what was right and what was wrong, what was too ‘hard’ and too ‘soft’ as predictions? On imperialism Gore Vidal, In These TimesImperial amnesia or the United States of Amnesia… Ignacio Ramet, Le Monde DiplomatiqueBush second time around Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science MonitorOn foreign policy: how bold will Bush be?There is Iraq but new challenges also loom in Iran and North Korea. Seymour Hersh, The New Yorker and Information Clearing HouseThe Coming Wars.What Pentagon can now do in secret. Tom Barry, Laura Carlsen, and John Gershman, International Relations CenterThe next four years: A political forecast Chalmers Johnson, TomDispatch.comCreating a WIA – Worthless Intelligence Agency. Scott Ritter, AljazeeraThe Salvador optionThe Pentagon is considering the organisation, training and equipping of so-called death squads, teams of Iraqi...

July, 2004 Violence has become an every day component of life, whether we are subjected to it directly or observe it from a distance. If we are to have any chance of replacing violence with a ‘culture of peace’, it is essential to find ways of extending our sense of belonging, beyond family, race and nation to include our identification as a member of the one humanity. How can we say that there is peace in the world whilst 80% of the human race is living in poverty, whilst we are polluting the planet beyond its capacity to regenerate and whilst we continue to spend disproportionate sums of money on weapons that bring pain and even total annihilation? If humankind is brought to the point where a large enough number of persons are able to sense and acknowledge an overriding identity with humanity, however, we will no longer be prepared...