TFF global posts 2019

The Trump administration imposed sanction on Iran’s foreign minister, Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif last night – as if the present intensified sanctions – primary on Iran and secondary on, in principle, everybody else, were not enough already. Here is AlJazeera’s story which also includes Iranian President Rouhani’s and Zarif’s own – witty – response to the move. The Trump administration thereby continues its one-sided provocative tension escalation making it more and more difficult to envision a peaceful solution to what is, in a larger perspective, an ongoing harassment of major regional power and a 7000–year-old civilisation since the CIA-led coup d’etat against the first democratically elected Iran Prime Minister Dr. Mossadegh in 1953. Dr. Zarif – whom I happen to have had the honour of saying hello to at a conference in Tehran and whose work I have followed over several years – is not only one of the world’s...

In 2010 the signatory states of the International Criminal Court, established to prosecute war crimes, convened a conference to add aggression to the list of crimes the court could try. (See the Rome Statute here, the relevant provisions and definitions of the concept of “aggression” are described in Article 8, page 7). The US, Russia, Iran, China and India have refused to sign up as ICC members and have not welcomed the addition of “aggression”. But fifteen NATO states have. Moreover, Russia wrote its own law into its Criminal Code. It prohibits “Planning, Preparing or Waging an Aggressive War”. It goes further: it prohibits “Public Appeals to Unleash an Aggressive War”. This opens the door to Russian leaders and politicians being prosecuted in domestic courts. In the US under President Barack Obama, there was serious discussion about whether to prosecute those who had committed torture. It would have been popular...

Illustration by Craig Stephens, South China Morning Post By Christopher Black July 26th 2019 On June 4th the Chinese government issued a travel alert for Chinese tourists thinking of visiting the United States, a day after it issued a similar advisory to Chinese students thinking of studying in the US over concerns for their safety and security. Chinese in the US are reporting harassment and interrogations by US immigration authorities and many now have the impression they are not welcome in the US. Originally posted on Global Research on June 10, 2019 here The Global Times, speaking on behalf of the government stated, “The Chinese people find it difficult to accept the fact that they are being taken as thieves. The US boasts too much superiority and has been indulged by the world. Due to its short history, it lacks understanding of and respect for the rules of countries and laws...

By Gordon M. Hahn July 25, 2019 NATO expansion has contributed to the causal matrix of two wars: the 2008 Georgian-South Ossetiyan/Russian Five-Day War and the ongoing Donbass civil war. The West’s April 2008 promise that both Georgia and Ukraine will become NATO members encouraged Georgian nationalism and Saakashvili’s war in South Ossetiya and consequently led to Georgia’s de facto loss of its South Ossetiyan as well as Abkhaziyan territories. Originally published on Gordon M. Hahn homepage – while Poroshenko was still president. Similarly, NATO expansion encouraged the rise of ultranationalism in Ukraine, especially western Ukraine, and the ultra-nationalist-led February 2014 Maidan revolt, leading to Ukraine’s loss of Crimea and civil war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. NATO expansion now is poised to help re-start the Donbass civil war or spark a larger Ukrainian civil war (and/or similar conflicts involving Moldova and its breakaway republic of...

I make no claim to approach this book with an open mind. Making a fuller disclosure, I acknowledge with some pride that I have endorsed Justice for Some even before it was published, and my blurb appears on its back cover. Beyond this, two months ago I took part in a book launch at George Mason University where Noura Erakat is on the faculty. My effort in this review is not to make a calm appraisal of the book’s strengths and weaknesses, but rather to celebrate it as a major scholarly contribution to the critical literature devoted to resolving the Israel/Palestine struggle in line with the dictates of justice rather than by a continuing reliance on muscular weight of subjugation as augmented by geopolitics. And, accordingly, to seize this opportunity to urge a careful reading of Justice for Some by all those interested in the Palestinian struggle as well as those...

There’s never been a full-scale war between two nuclear-armed states. If Iran one day did cross the nuclear threshold the same deterrence will apply. No one rational would want to provoke their own incineration. Columbia University professor, Kenneth Waltz, the distinguished theorist on the conduct of war, wrote in Foreign Affairs that with Israel possessing over 200 nuclear weapons (which the US refuses to publically admit) Iran having a bomb would bring stability. I would never go as far as Waltz on that last point. The launch of nuclear weapons can always be done by accident or by the rogue action of one or two of the members of the launch team in the silo. It has nearly happened in the US a number of times, and probably in the Soviet Union too. Moreover, if Iran got really close to building a bomb, Saudi Arabia would follow in short order,...

On July 9, 2004 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague issued an Advisory Opinion by a vote of 14-1, with the American judge the lone dissenter, as if there would have been any doubt about such identity even if not disclosed. The decision rendered in response to a question put to it by a General Assembly resolution declared the separation wall unlawful, and that compliance with international law would require it to be dismantled and Palestinian communities and individuals compensated for harm incurred. As with the identity of the dissenting judge, the failure of Israel to comply with the decision was as predictable as the time of tomorrow’s sunrise. Originally published at richardfalk.wordpress.com Only slightly less anticipated was the American government response, which adopted its customary hegemonic tone, to instruct the parties that such issues should be resolved by politicalnegotiation, which even if heeded would end up...

A sword of Damocles hangs over the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The sword of Netanyahu hangs over Palestine- and Israel. Which will fall first? A court case approaches. A new election in September approaches. Netanyahu is being accused of a serious crime of corruption. He is fighting not just for his political beliefs but also for his own self-interest. If he wins the election he could seek immunity from prosecution. Over the last decade Israeli politics has moved steadily rightwards. A compromise with the Palestinians has become increasingly remote. The liberal idea of a “two state solution” is all but abandoned by Israelis. The political left has been eviscerated. The electorate is told by the wise old men of Israeli politics that Netanyahu’s leadership will lead to an unstable apartheid state where a minority will rule over a majority as far as one can see into the future. “The...

The attack on “the liberal idea” by Vladimir Putin in his long interview in the Financial Times at the end of June is still vibrating in my mind. First, I’d like to know if the Russian people share his views on immigration. In Britain and the US, despite the anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions of Prime Minister Theresa May and President Donald Trump, most people, according to polls, are more pro-immigration than they are against. Is this so in Russia? What do the electorate make of his support for Trump in trying to limit migration from Mexico? Do they agree with his statement that, “The liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done, that migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be directed”. This is pure Trump. They share the same outrageous prejudices. Putin leads off from the example of immigration to...

It focuses on the U.S. call for an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, concerning Iran’s nuclear policy.

March 26, 2010, and July 3, 2019 Why Johan Galtung (born 1930) decided to devote his life to waging peace through research and action. Galtung who is one of the world’s most prolific and innovative social scientists – for instance, the author of more than 160 books and a global lecturer, mediator and professor – has been a TFF Associate since 1986 and has been published hundreds of times at TFF’s old and present site. He is also one of my two mentors in peace research – the other being Håkan Wiberg – says TFF director and co-founder, Jan Oberg.

Here’s a joke, borrowed from a Russian website. The Russians always have had a dry humour. “Trump, Merkel, May and Macon – Putin is heartily sick of them all. They keep calling and calling, so he switches his phone to voicemail. His message says; “Hello, you have called Russian President Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately I cannot take your call at the moment. If you want to surrender, press 1. If you want to threaten sanctions, please press 2. If you want to discuss the situation in Ukraine, press 3. All buttons other than 1 activate our Topol-M intercontinental missiles. Have a nice day!” After you’ve laughed remember it does not reflect current Russian attitudes. Most people in Russia are not seized with the vigorous animosity towards the West as they were in Soviet times. And most people in Russia support Putin. He may have lost a sizeable slice of his supporters...