Pro-peace proposals

Women from around the world cross the DMZ – De-Militarized Zone – border between North and South Korea in 2015. To the left TFF Associate Mairead Maguire. Reported here by the Daily Mail.   By Samuel S. Kim* Abstract The often-used description in the American mainstream media and geopolitical literature of “North Korea’s nuclear aggression” is misleading. I argue in the first section that Pyongyang’s nuclear strategy has been significantly shaped by the perceived U.S. nuclear existential threat since the early 1950s, portending a quest for a self-reliant nuclear deterrent for the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea). The shifting role and impact of U.S.-China competition in the course of the first and second U.S.-DPRK nuclear standoffs is explored as background for examining, in the second section, an intensified nuclear confrontation in the first half of 2017. The concluding section considers common-security engagement in charting an alternative pathway toward...

Shock. It’s a word that has come up a lot since November – for obvious reasons.I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about shock. Ten years ago, I published “The Shock Doctrine,” an investigation that spanned four decades from Pinochet’s U.S.-backed coup in 1970s Chile to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I noticed a brutal and recurring tactic by right wing governments. After a shocking event – a war, coup, terrorist attack, market crash or natural disaster – exploit the public’s disorientation. Suspend democracy. Push through radical “free market” policies that enrich the 1 percent at the expense of the poor and middle class. The Trump administration is creating chaos. Daily. Of course many of the scandals are the result of the president’s ignorance and blunders – not some nefarious strategy. But there is also no doubt that some savvy people around Trump are using the daily shocks as cover to...

  By Richard Falk This post is a modified version of an article published in Middle East Eye on Jan. 1, 2018. It contends that the proper priority for genuine advocates of peace between Israelis and Palestinians should be centered around apartheid rather than be devoted to reviving an Oslo style ‘peace process’ (always a sham) or proclaiming the goal of an independent and sovereign Palestine as attainable without first dismantling the apartheid structures that subjugate the Palestinian people as a whole so as to maintain the Zionist insistence on Israel as the state of the Jewish people (rather than providing a homeland within a normal and legitimate state based on ethnic and religious equality, human rights, and secular principles.   Originally published on the “Global Justice in the 21st Century” blog   Despite all appearances to the contrary, those in the West who do not want to join the premature...

Portrait of a TFF Associate • John Scales Avery is a theoretical chemist at the University of Copenhagen. He is noted for his books and research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. His 2003 book Information Theory and Evolution set forth the view that the phenomenon of life, including its origin, evolution, as well as human cultural evolution, has its background situated in the fields of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory. Since 1990 he has been the Chairman of the Danish National Group of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Between 2004 and 2015 he also served as Chairman of the Danish Peace Academy. He founded the Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes, and was for many years its Managing Editor. He also served as Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe (1988-1997). A complete list of books and many of...

• The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World was launched simultaneously on 11 November 2011 at several locations around the world. May 25, 2011 by robertjburrowes As of 20 December 2017: 2,270 individuals from 103 countries have signed the Nonviolence Charter pledge, and 112 organisations from 36 countries have endorsed the Nonviolence Charter. Individuals: Signing the Charter The Nonviolence Charter can be read and signed by individuals online: click on ‘Read Charter’ or ‘Sign Charter’ in the sidebar. Organisations: Endorsing the Charter To advise that an organisation endorses The Nonviolence Charter, please send the name and website of the organisation to Robert: flametree@riseup.net The endorsing organisation, together with its website, will be listed on this website on the ‘Organisations’ page. The aim of The Nonviolence Charter is to create a worldwide movement to end violence in all of its forms. The Charter is intended to give voice to the millions...

Via www.globalresearch.ca November 28, 2017 • Global Research has received from Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia (1981-2003) an important message, addressed to Muslims in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Yemen. This message, however, is also addressed to the U.S. and its indefectible British ally which have relentlessly supported Saudi Arabia’s war against the people of Yemen, a criminal act tantamount to  genocide under international law. The U.S. has been instrumental in supporting the naval blockade on the delivery of food and medicine to Yemen’s starving children. In turn, the corporate media has payed lip service to the inaction of  Western governments and their self-proclaimed “international community”.  Both the US and Britain have sold billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia, while also advising them on the conduct of military operations. In the words of Rep. Ron Paul “[Why does] Washington support Saudi Arabia – a tyrannical state with one...