TFF global posts 2019

By Dr. William R. Polk June 27, 2019 Exclusive: Many Americans and Westerners are baffled by the violent rage expressed by many Muslims, but the reasons for their anger are real, deriving from a “deep history” of anti-Islamic wars and colonial exploitation of the Middle East, as ex-U.S. diplomat William R. Polk describes. Originally published by Consortium News on August 15, 2015, here The issue of terrorist attacks on America has been so politically sensitive that most commentators have simply wrapped themselves in the flag and closed their eyes and ears. Yet, even in fairy tales, ostriches were never saved by burying their heads in the sand. It is not a good defensive posture and it wouldn’t be wise for real-life Americans to behave like make-believe ostriches. If we want to be safe rather than sorry in the dangerous world we now inhabit, we need to be clear-headed, logical and informed. Those...

Xi Jinping, president of China, remains an enigma. You watched him on television this past weekend reviewing the dancing in Pyongyang in the company of Kim Jong-un and his face is near to expressionless when in repose. He doesn’t stand like an arrogant man and we recall that time when he went out to eat in a noodle cafe he joined the back of the queue. His face doesn’t look hard, as did Hitler’s or Stalin’s or Donald Trump’s and Boris Johnson’s do today. (They say that once a man gets over 50 his character is stamped on his face.) A man’s wife tells a lot too. Xi’s wife, a former singer, looks like an unpretentious woman who still enjoys the company of her husband after 25 years of marriage. This is not another Mao-Jiang Qing marriage, full of insensitivity and even intrigue. But this identikit picture takes us only...

Shortly after the media broke the news that President Trump had first endorse bombing of Iran and then called it off – see the report by the New York Times here – I had the opportunity and privilege to speak with iran’s PressTV about various aspects of this very dangerous tension build-up. The program first discusses the sensational pictures of the American drone which was shot down by Iran after which the anchor turns to me.

Lake Prespa in Macedonia Abstract The Prespa Agreement (PA) between Athens and Skopje was meant to be a final solution to the ‘name issue’. Yet the dispute has never been only about the state name, which is proved by the 20-pages long text. A plethora of other provisions is to be implemented erga omnes (internationally and domestically). Despite the insistence of the external mediators that the name dispute has never concerned the issues of ethnicity, nationality, culture, and language, these issues indeed appear to be simultaneously central as well as the Achilles heel of the deal. This paper does not deal with conceptual and theoretical aspects of ethnicity and nationality; yet its focus is on the fact that the Agreement indeed regulates identity issues, i.e. it represents a legal intervention in spheres pertaining to both ethnicity and national identity with implications for each. The basic premise is that instead of...

In 1980 in his State of the Union address President Jimmy Carter said: “Any attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” Dear President Donald Trump: We’ve been here before and it’s as ludicrous this time as it was nearly 40 years ago. Why on earth are you sending in a flotilla of ships and 2,500 troops? Why are you so convinced that the mines that exploded on two oil tankers, neither of which were American, in the Persian Gulf are the work of the Iranians? The Persian Gulf, and in particular the infamous Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway (21 miles wide, the same as the English Channel) that is its entrance, is no longer the “jugular”...

Only immediate climate action can save the future. If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon. A speech by Bill Moyers At an April 30 conference entitled “Covering Climate Now”, co-sponsored by The Nation and Colombia Journalism Review, Bill Moyers made a speech which included the following remarks: “I have been asked to bring this gathering to a close by summing up how we can do better at covering the possible ‘collapse of our civilization and extinction of much of the natural world’, to quote the noted environmentalist David Attenborough, speaking at the recent Unites Nations climate summit in Poland… “Many of us have recognized that our coverage of global warming has fallen short. There’s been some excellent reporting by independent journalists and by enterprising reporters and photographers from legacy newspapers and other news outlets....

Av Erni & Ola Friholt 18:e juni 2019 Vid upprepade tillfällen de senaste åren hör vi ledande politiker i USA och EU-länder tala om ”Våra intressen”. Märkligt nog gäller intressena inte hemma i USA eller England eller Frankrike. Nej det gäller Libyen, Venezuela, Iran, Irak, Afghanistan, Nordkorea, Syrien, Arabemiraten, Bahrein, Qatar, Kuwait m fl… Ännu tror många människor i vår världsdel att kolonialismens övergrepp mot världens folk upphörde stegvis under 1950- och 60-talen. En massiv desinformation lydigt återgiven i media lär oss att det är våra kristna och humana värderingar som kränks av ociviliserade råa regimer i de forna kolonierna. När kolonialmakterna insåg att det skulle bli kostsamt att behålla kontrollen av kolonierna med direkt militär och administrativ närvaro, gavs kolonierna ”fria” och erbjöds istället lån till sin kommande återuppbyggnad. Snabbt gav dessa lån och tillhörande miljardräntor kontroll över de nya staternas politik, som anpassades till kolonialstaternas ekonomiska behov. I...

Oh yes! It can and it is ready to. And perhaps it even will. To tell you the truth, although NATO is the strongest, it could well fall apart thanks to Russia’s – Putin’s – cunning schemes. See here is how and why – in a video from The Infographics Show – and you’ll understand it all. You fear will increase and you’ll be more to pay more to your national military. Looked at from a professional conflict analytical perspective, one may mention a few problematic aspects of this piece of propaganda: • There is no conflict analysis. Russia is treated as the independent variable (active), the US/NATO the dependent (re-active). • Almost no mention of history (except that Russia was weak before but strong now). No mention, for instance, of NATO’s expansion in spite of promises given to then president Gorbachev. • Security and peace is about military matters...

When I was in Moscow three weeks ago, I was briefing myself for an interview with the Soviet Union’s last president, Mikhail Gorbachev. As it happened he had to cancel it as he went into hospital for tests. One of the American academics I always read is Gordon Hahn, an ex fellow of the highly regarded Centre for Strategic and International  Studies. He wrote that American policy towards Russia is a runaway train without rails, driven by a troubling confluence of hubristic ideological influences and bureaucratized sectorial interests. I would add to that Republican members of the Senate who have allowed President Donald Trump small room to manoeuvre on Russian issues, even though there are some indications that he’d like to make peace with Russia.  I also re-read what President Bill Clinton’s secretary of defence, William Perry, has said on a number of occasions: “The US is as much to...

June 10, 2019 Mr. Amano, IAEA, indeed has good reasons to be worried – also today when the Germain foreign minister, Heiko Maas, visits Tehran and seems to have nothing new to convey to Iran’s foregin minister and president. Iran’s PressTV asked TFF’s director and co-founder, Jan Oberg, to comment on Amano’s statement, together with E. Michael Jones.

Some time ago, I wrote about the flood catastrophe in Iran which a) affects up to 10 million people and b) has gone virtually unmentioned in Western mainstream media: Stop the ongoing US humanitarian terrorism against Iran and help its people! Just in passing, not one of the more than 3000 media recipients of TFF PressInfo did, as far as I have been able to search, mention this issue in general, let alone refer to my analysis. The conspicuous uniformity in perspective of what hits the mainstream media headlines and the uniformity of what does not – omitted news – is today such, that it is hard to believe that it is not orchestrated and that self-censorship isn’t a normal, everyday practice among editors and reporters. So, on April 17, after having written the article, I did what I suggested at the end of it – I sent US$ 5...

Efforts to blame Iran for acts of sabotage went nowhere — but this feels way too much like 2003 all over again Last week a senior Pentagon official accused Iran of having sabotaged four oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on May 12 and of firing a rocket into Baghdad’s Green Zone on May 19. Iran executed these events, he said, either directly or through regional “proxies.”   But instead of creating sensational headlines, the briefing by Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, the director of the Joint Staff, was a flop, because it was clear to reporters covering it that he could not cite a single fact to back it up. The story got only the most cursory coverage in major news outlets, all of which buried Gilday’s accusation deep in stories about the announced deployment of 1,500 more U.S. troops to the Middle East. Relatively few readers would even...