Media and conflict

Foto: Martin Meissner/AP/TT Av Erni & Ola Friholt* 27:e mars 2019 Såhär kan det gå till “bakom kulisserna” på public service mediet, Sveriges Radio. Men det vet ju inte den som lyssnade på programmet. Vi tycker det är viktigt at förmedla hur det går för sig och kommer självfallet att publicera SR:s svar. Stocken 25 mars 2019 Bästa redaktion för Konflikt! Inför lördagens program om kärnvapenhotet hade Fredsrörelsen på Orust och Maj Britt Theorin kontaktats om intervjuer. Av hänsyn till det förespeglade programinslaget lade Maj Britt om sitt avtalade anförande ”Kvinnor och konflikter. Om kamp för demokrati och jämlikhet”. Istället blev ämnet kvinnors kamp mot kärnvapen, eftersom föredraget skulle spelas in för att (åtminstone delvis) användas i radioprogrammet. Dessutom gjordes en lång intervju med Maj Britt under kvällen. Eftersom det saknades tid inför radioreporterns hemresa till Stockholm uteblev den tidigare önskade intervjun med ordförande och sekreterare i Fredsrörelsen på Orust....

Not so Germany, China and Russia Like the above diagram, it looks dark. For the US. Perhaps that’s the reason you have not seen it on the front pages of the Western mainstream press? Not only does this remarkable Gallup survey – made in the US – tell that Germany’s leadership, i.e. Chancellor Merkel, is the most highly approved by others in terms of leadership. Congratulations to the Chancellor, so well deserved! It also tells that the approval rates turn steadily upward for the two countries which the U.S. – bizarre as it is since they would both make great partners – constantly perceives as enemies: China and Russia. You can find a lot of very interesting and precise poll results for the period 2007-2018 pertaining to all the world’s regions in the report, “American First?” Rating World Leaders: 2019. Above you see the summary ratings for the world, based...

Russian Air Force Su-25 jets fly past the Russian flag on the Kremlin complex during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Friday, May 4, 2018. (AP Photo / Pavel Golovkin) US Cold Warriors escalate toward actual war with Russia. By Stephen F. Cohen March 26, 2019 The John Batchelor Show, March 20, 2019 Heedless of the consequences, or perhaps welcoming them, America’s Cold Warriors and their media platforms have recently escalated their rhetoric against Russia, especially in March. Anyone who has lived through or studied the preceding 40-year Cold War will recognize the ominous echoes of its most dangerous periods, when actual war was on the horizon or a policy option. Originally published by The Nation on March 20, 2019 here Here are only a few random but representative examples: § In a March 8 Washington Post opinion article, two American professors, neither with any apparent...

Ab At The Transnational, we believe in diversity. And in the likelihood that world events are complex and can be seen from more than one – usually US/Western – perspective. You may have wondered why the, now retired, UN representative for Venezuela, the brilliant lawyer, humanist and poet, Alfred De Zayas, has not been used extensively as an authority of both Venezuela and international law? Well hardly because, like me, you had not heard of him, had you? That’s why we should be grateful to Abby Martin and The Empire Files for having given us this conversation. It debunks – in a fact-based and comprehensive, law-respecting manner – most of what you’ve been told and all of what, as of writing, 54 countries have done in support of the regime policies of the US rather than in support of Venezuela as a sovereign state. And of the UN and its...

Photo: Shutterstock By Jim Lobe March 6, 2019 The ongoing war in Yemen, called the world’s “worst humanitarian disaster” by the United Nations and independent aid agencies since early last year, received a grand combined total of 20 minutes of coverage on the ABC, NBC, and CBS weekday evening news programs in 2018. That compared to a total of 71 minutes that the three major networks devoted to the British royal wedding and a combined total of 100 minutes dedicated to the rescue of a dozen young cave explorers from flooding in Thailand, according to the latest annual compilation by the authoritative Tyndall Report. Originally published at lobelog.com By contrast, the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in September received a total of 116 minutes of coverage by the three networks, making it one of the very few foreign-based stories to make...

By Pía Figueroa February 26, 2018 I recently returned from my first trip to China and I am still thinking about everything I saw, which undoubtedly made me realize – once again – how much distortion comes from the press, manipulated by Western interests, on a daily basis. We construct our picture of the world on the basis of information given to us by the news and we blindly believe their interpretation of the facts from their point of view.   These are narratives are at the service of the economic and geopolitical positioning of the major European and North American powers, which take for granted that the world is the way it is and built from there. Originally posted on December 22, 2018, by Pressenza International News Agency here But have we ever been told, for example, how 740 million people, according to official figures, have been able to...

Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif and the EU Foreign Policy chief Frederica Mogherini UPI writes that the European Union issues sanctions on Iran over assassination plots on January 8, 2019. And US Secretary of State, Pompeo, fully supports them. The move puts the Iranian individuals and intelligence unit on the EU terrorist list – freezing their financial assets. It’s a brilliant example of Matthew 7:3-6: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Which, it seems, is now a standard operating policy by the Western world. Or, one may say, an example of psycho-political projection of the West’s own dark sides onto this enemy today and that enemy tomorrow. Here some arguments in support of that – perhaps to some – provocative statement: 1) It should be clear from contemporary history’s records that countries...

TFF has been on Medium for years, the blogging platform started in 2012 Twitter co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone. More about it on Wikipedia here. It’s not that TFF or I have sat down and written for this platform. What we post on other social media is shot out to Medium via the social media management tool Sendible. But here is our latest – and last – post and below it, are the reasons. • For more than 12 months, actually, since we got on Medium, we have had 262 followers. Never 261, never 263. You see it in the screenshot. That means either that that figure is somehow manipulated or that there is no activity whatsoever. No such place with daily new posts can have exactly the same number of followers over such a long period of time. Interesting! Well, yes, if it wasn’t for this fact: If...

I have to admit that the most unforgiving relationship I hold is the one with the media. This may not come as a surprise as one doesn’t need to look further than a front page of any media platform to see that the media has become an increasingly hostile and contradictory arena. We seem to be living in times of linguistic austerity and compassion depravity. We are faced with more and more undeniable evidence that the media is creating an increasing social divide and psychological crisis in our society today. Sadly, this is not something new. If one learns from history and observes the present carefully, it is evident that the media has a critical role in perpetuating and exaggerating conflict. For example, the media has had a single role as a dividing factor and driving force in triggering and perpetuating the Yugoslav wars in the Balkans, by using ethnic...

”Den iranske efterretningstjeneste har haft planlagt et attentat i Danmark. Det oplyser PET.” Den sms-besked tikkede ind fra DR Nyheder i går d. 30 oktober kl. 13:09. PET havde indkaldt til en halv times pressemøde og deres foruroligende meddelelse fik naturligvis alarmklokkerne til ringe hos enhver dansker og ikke mindst de folkevalgte, som i løbet af få timer trykkede på de traditionelle panikknapper. Søren Espersen ville have den danske ambassadør i Iran hjem til Danmark, omgående! Skal ske, meddelte udenrigsminister Anders Samuelsen på et pressemøde kl. 18:30. Statsminister Lars Løkke Rasmussen skrev på Twitter få timer efter PET’s pressemøde på, at han vil sørge for at yderligere handlinger mod Iran vil blive diskuteret i EU med henvisning til yderligere sanktioner. PET meddeler altså, at Irans efterretningstjeneste har planlagt et attentat i Danmark. En person er derfor anholdt i forbindelse med, at en person fra den iranske gruppe ASMLA i Danmark...

  By Gareth Porter TFF Associate October 25, 2018 The idea promoted by the NYT’s Shane & Mazzetti that the Russian government seriously threatened to determine the 2016 election does not hold up when the larger social media context is examined more closely, reports Gareth Porter.   In their long recapitulation of the case that Russia subverted the 2016 election, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times painted a picture of highly effective Russian government exploitation of social media for that purpose. Shane and Mazzetti asserted that “anti-Clinton, pro-Trump messages shared with millions of voters by Russia could have made the difference” in the election. “What we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come,” they write elsewhere in the 10,000-word article. Originally published at consortiumnews.com But an investigation of the data they cite to show that the...

Et forkert klik på ”del” ikonet på Facebook skal fremover give en staf på op til 12 års fængsel, hvis det står til den danske regering, fremgår det i et nyt lovforslag. Det afhænger selvfølgelig af omstændighederne. Eller rettere af en bestemt omstændighed. Den hedder Rusland. Forestil dig, at du har en kritisk holdning til NATO, og du læser en nyhed på Facebook eller Twitter, som du synes er værd at dele med dit netværk. Du deler nyheden. Det viser sig, at nyheden er fabrikeret af den russiske efterretningstjeneste, der har haft til hensigt at påvirke den offentlige debat i Danmark. Nu skal du forklare retten, at du ikke bevidst ifølge lovforslaget har forsøgt at påvirke ifølge ”den almene opfattelse af NATO-samarbejdet negativt”. Lykkedes du ikke med det, kan du se frem til op til 12 års fængsel, hvis du delte nyheden det under et valg. Ovenstående er desværre ikke...