TFF Blog

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...

Gambia – or properly The Gambia – a small country in West Africa with about 2 million inhabitants, was peaceful since its internal independent rule was established in 1963. There were good relations with its only neighbour, Senegal. For a long time there was no military force in the country. One could then expect that there would be no militant coups, as in so many other African countries. However, in 1981 a “Revolutionary Council” took power. The revolutionaries were soon ousted by troops from Senegal who reinstated the president.  Now obviously Gambia needed an army “to establish stability” and an army was established. The outcome was that in 1994 a group of soldiers, led by lieutenant Yahya Jammeh, took power. He became the leader of the country, and was elected and re-elected president in 1996, 2001, 2006 and 2011. At least in the early years of his reign, he was...

President Donald Trump has been exonerated of collusion with Russia. As I wrote a while back I expected this conclusion from the investigation carried out by Robert Mueller. The big clue lay in Trump’s anti-Russian posture. Trump has continued the expansion of NATO which Russia, more than understandably, sees as a provocative, unfriendly and dangerous move. Then there is the unwillingness to step forward to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian situation. The US, under the presidency of Barack Obama, refused to countenance President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion that UN peace-keeping troops be deployed in southern and eastern Ukraine, and Trump has continued that policy. Then there’s the seeming refusal to extend the treaty (New START ) that dramatically lowers the number of intercontinental nuclear missiles on each side. Trump has also thrown money at the Defence Department while cutting social budgets, vowing to beef up America’s nuclear forces. Recently he...

By 1914 Europeans ruled 84% of the globe. How did they do it? Eleven hundred years ago Europe was a backwater. There were no grand cities, apart from Muslim Cordoba in Spain, and the remnants of Rome and Athens. The Middle East, India and China were further ahead. It was the Arabs who kept alive the teachings of the Ancient Greeks’ knowledge of science, medicine, architecture and philosophy. We now have two schools of thought. Two years ago came Professor Philip Hoffman of Caltech University with his book “Why Did Europe Conquer The World?” He argued that Europe’s pace of innovation was driven by a peculiar form of military competition which he called a “tournament” – the sort of competition that under the right conditions can drive contestants to exert enormous efforts in the hope of earning a prize. Europe, unlike the Ottoman Empire and China, was a very un-unified...

The long war is almost over in Syria. Tyranny has won. Violence has won. Most have suffered, many unspeakably. For too long all sides were stalemated by each others’ brutality. Now the government of Bashar Al-Assad has come out on top, aided by Russia and Iran. What to do next? EU member states held their third annual Conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region. It’s time for some radical re-thinking. Well-wishing for good things like the persecution of war crimes is whistling in the wind, at least for now. We are facing a fait accompli and renewed realization that the outside world does not have much leverage, apart from Russia and Iran, and even their influence is circumscribed. Yet, understandably, EU countries insist that in return for helping to re-build Syria the government must commit itself to a human rights agenda – the freeing of political prisoners,...

SIPRI latest analysis of the global arms trade is just out. When one reads the summary, one may ask: If not now, when is the time to criminalize the international arms trade? Weapons imported into warzones have – without exception – four major effects: a) those who buy or receive the weapons get emboldened to continue war rather than seek a negotiated solution; b) the wars last longer than they otherwise would had there been a moratorium by all external factors on these sales to conflicting paeties; c) human suffering and social costs increase because of a) and b); d) the arms trade economy and world is an integral part of global law-violating behaviour, mafiosi, terrorism, dirty money, corruption, death, drugs, trafficking – you name it. A murky community, indeed. In addition, arms trade is the most immoral of all: private and government dealers sell arms mainly to earn money....

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...

In 1883 P. J. Reuter, head of the news agency carrying his name, wrote the following memorandum: To: Agents and CorrespondentsFrom: P. J. ReuterDate: 1883 Re: Please cover the following: “…fires, explosions, floods, inundations, railway accidents, destructive storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks attended with loss of life, accidents to war vessels and to mail steamers, street riots of a grave character, disturbances arising from strikes, duels between and suicides of persons of note, social or political, and murders of a sensational or atrocious character.” (*) Sounds familiar?  Yes, it is called “news”. It is all about action, nothing about structures generating them. It is about persons high up, “of note, social or political”. (People low down generate street riots and strike disturbances.) It is all negative. There is not a single positive thing to “cover”. (To the contrary: a simple murder is not enough, it has to be preferably “sensational or atrocious” to merit cover.) Of...

French president Emmanuel Macron has published an extremely long Open Letter to 27 leading newspapers in all EU member states. (The fact that it has been all over the place and way longer than the usual about 800 words for a feature article speaks volumes about the close connection state-media and the lack of quality control, one might add. The kindest thing one could say – or at least I could say – is that he is at least trying to think a bit about the future where virtually all other Western leaders are doing daily crisis management and unprincipled, pragmatic decision-making. It’s sad that Macron’s visionary attempt and appeals are so unattractive – bordering on boring – at least in the light of having been sold to the public as an intellectual. Sputnik News asked me to comment and here is what I had to say. Although that formulation...

After the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 the Jews were thrust into the outer world – many into Arab countries, later to become Muslim, where they were extended protection, and later into the Roman and then Christian world where they were accepted for many centuries. There were no pogroms until the Middle Ages and then they were centuries apart. Over two millennia many big tribal groups have been dispersed – the Slavs, the Moguls, the Bantu, the Tamils, the Celts – the list is a long one – but only the Jews have had an idée fixe about where they want to go back to. During the last thousand years, while the Jews were in the diaspora, the Arabs reinforced their settlements on the same land that some Jews yearned for, just as pre-Arab tribes had settled it in the time before Moses- and just as...

Peace can never be achieved this way a) The issue is about peace, not only nuclear weapons. The US has not been willing to sign a peace agreement after all these years. After some kind of peace process and treaty has been achieved, you can turn to the specific issue of nuclear weapons. b) Making peace takes time, thorough preparations, lots of different expertise, long consultations and only face-to-face meetings when all are sure that, when the parties finally meet at top level, some kind of deal will be signed. c) This would have been an issue for the UN if it were respected and used fairly by member states around the world. Naive and egotist people believe they can do miracles without the institutions of the international system. Probably Trump and Kim are in the same category believing that they are all capable and great guys of history (worthy...

Kim Jong-un, paramount leader of the North Korean dictatorship, is in Vietnam ready to meet President Donald Trump. Last June the two leaders met, applauded themselves and each other and made some sort of a deal even if it wasn’t the one Trump boasted about – the total elimination of the North’s nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the North has stopped nuclear testing. The US only stopped in 1992 and France in 1996, so this is a very important step forward. It should not be minimized as the American “Blob” is doing. (The “Blob”, a creation of the White House of President Barack Obama, is the highly influential industrial/military/legislative/media complex, a majority of whom are hard line on foreign affairs.) The North also has begun dismantling a missile-engine test site. Set against that, the US intelligence community and independent observers say it is continuing to build intercontinental missiles and is preparing to...