TFF global posts 2020

Can we be happier? All of us probably experience grave unhappiness at some point in our lives- a bereavement of someone close, a job loss, a bad illness, a vindictive boss, a drop in income or status, a loss of love for or from one’s partner, even a divorce, a standard of living when ends can hardly be met. Every reader can add their own woes to this list. Yet the world as a whole does appear to be getting happier, except in a few countries where war or fighting has taken over- Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burundi and Sudan, for example. Indeed the lessening of war is one reason for rising happiness around the world. Another is the rapid decline in infant and maternal mortality- don’t ever think that a big Indian or African family today or a 19th century European family doesn’t or didn’t feel immense pain if a...

in May and June. This is “the largest deployment of U.S. troops to Europe in more than 25 years,” NATO’s Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg tells us. I assume, proudly. But wait … What on Earth is NATO and its Secretary-General saying and doing? Do they live in the same world as the rest of us? How low should the intellectual level sink before it becomes a security risk for the world? And just how do they get away with deceiving the world with their militarised mantra about stability, security and peace – no matter it is always about more weapons and offensive military strength – virtually without any important (if they are) mainstream media reporting it, not to mention ask questions about it? The last one is simple to answer: 1) Censorship; 2) Self-censorship; 3) Framing and 4) The Military-Industrial-MEDIA-Academic Complex (MIMAC) – that is, the very close relations between media,...

By David Loy Buddhism encourages us to be wary of antithetical concepts, not only good and evil, but success and failure, rich and poor, even the duality between enlightenment and delusion. Originally posted in Tricycle’s Magazine in spring 2002, here If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? Alexander Solzhenitsyn Because it emphasizes mindfulness of our thought processes, Buddhism encourages us to be wary of antithetical concepts, not only good and evil but success and failure, rich and poor, even the duality between enlightenment and delusion. We distinguish between the opposing terms because we want one rather than the other, yet the meaning of each depends...

Let’s cut to the chase – there is no question, no doubt, that the government of Myanmar and the army which controls it have committed the most vile atrocities against the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority that lives in the West of the Buddhist-dominated country. The International Court of Justice (the World Court) which ruled last week against the Myanmar government, may not have concluded it was genocide as some say but it did unreservedly condemn the government for its atrocious sowing of violent mayhem against the Rohingya. The Court has ordered Myanmar to take steps to prevent acts of genocide against the 700,000 or so Rohingya that remain in exile, mainly in overcrowded, unsanitary refugee camps and the 500,000 who still reside in Myanmar, and to prevent the destruction of any evidence of genocide. The Court will continue to gather evidence of attempted genocide. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres,...

VideoAnother video from the event where the author gave this talk Like perhaps most people who visit Los Angeles, I consider it my duty to offer a brilliant new idea for a film script. My idea is in the genre of science-fiction mafia, a genre that I think has not been sufficiently exploited. In this film, the protagonist wakes up to the fact that without knowing it, he has somehow joined the mafia. I expect people to be able to relate to the story because I believe that this entire country either has become aware or needs to become aware that it has joined the mafia. How do major U.S. newspapers and television news programs refer to the murder of an Iranian general? Never with the word murder. Often with words like “deal with” or “take out.” Trump had to deal with him. You could read an article like that,...

By Richard Falk, TFF Associate Januar 22, 2020 Prefatory Note: The post below is a somewhat amplified version of an interview with C. J. Polychroniou, journalist and professor of political economy at West Chester University, which was published on January 7, 2020, in the online journal, Global Policy. As the interview was conducted in December 2019, it fails to address the various disruptive consequences of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, including the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, Baghdad being the site of the drone attack, as well as the risks of war arising from an escalating tit-for-tat cycle of actions and reactions. Given growing tensions between the interconnectedness of the world and the state-centric character of international law, including contradictions between totalizing and disregarding territorial sovereignty, state-centric world order is being increasingly marginalized by geopolitical behaviour that both generates and suppresses transnational political violence. A normative crisis with structural implications exists,...

If you appreciated this conversation with a leading TFF expert Farhang Jahanpour is a retired professor from the University of Isfahan and former part-time tutor at the University of Oxford, former TFF Board member and now TFF Associate. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that takes center stage in this conversation can be read here.

By Dr. Lawrence Wittner January 17, 2020 Although today’s public protests against nuclear weapons can’t compare to the major antinuclear upheavals of past decades, there are clear indications that most Americans reject the Trump administration’s nuclear weapons policies. Originally posted on History News Network on December 22, 2019 here Since entering office in 2017, the Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the nuclear agreement with Iran, scrapped the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, and apparently abandoned plans to renew the New START Treaty with Russia. After an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations agreed on a landmark UN Treaty on the Prohibitions of Nuclear Weapons in July 2017, the Trump administration quickly announced that it would never sign the treaty.  The only nuclear arms control measure that the Trump administration has pursued―an agreement by North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program―appears to have collapsed, at least in part because the Trump administration badly mishandled the negotiations. Moreover, the Trump...

The struggle for the Donbass region in the eastern and southern Ukraine goes on, seemingly never ending. It’s now six years since dissident militias threw off the yoke of the central government in Kiev and declared their de-facto independence. They were supported by Russian troops which at first president Vladimir Putin denied and then later admitted. It was the Russians who supplied the missile launcher that accidentally shot down a Malaysian Airlines passenger jet. Altogether 17,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in this conflict. Negotiations, brokered by Germany and France, have been held on and off for six years. In December the latest effort was held in Paris. The parameters of a settlement are easily put: in return for Donbass being granted a large amount of autonomy (it could be approximately the same as Scotland has today), Russian troops would withdraw and the militias disbanded. Nevertheless, the gap between the...

European allies of the U-S have turned down a request by the American President to leave the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (JCPOA). France says it remains committed to the Iran deal, and will continue to work with other parties. Britain has pledged to remain committed too. Prime Minister Boris Johnson reaffirmed London’s support, in a phone call with Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani. US president Donald Trump called on France, Germany, Britain and other signatories to leave the Iran deal and negotiate a new accord. Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in May 2018 and reinstated even harder sanctions on the innocent people of Iran. Editor’s noteUnfortunately, a couple of days after this video was posted and accessible, Google which owns YouTube decided to close down PressTV’s account. Today, January 21, we tried again at no avail. It’s blatant censorship, allegedly explained by Google as a way to adhere...

What’s the use of intellectual arguments? Reference to concepts and theories – and the need for being just a bit clear about their definition? What’s the use of pointing out the degree to which populist parlance, fake and omission has undermined public discussions and media reporting about international affairs? What’s the use of arguing for peace and nonviolence in these “interesting times” when we are closer to world annihilation than perhaps ever since 1945 – thanks to the dangerous combination of anti-intellectualism and militarism (“I am the biggest and strongest and therefore I don’t have to know, think or argue…”)? What’s the point in commenting on global affairs in a moment of Western multi-crisis where democracy is post-literate and threatens to slide into the darkness of kakistocracy? I think about that every single day these years. I didn’t before, since I began participating as a peace researcher in public debates...

It lasts for about the first 20 minutes of this IndusNews program anchored by Waqar Rizvi in his usual insightful way. We recommend it highly. And so too the succeeding discussion about the War Powers Act and the impeachment that President Trump is facing. All is fundamentally related to how he and the US administration as a whole has handled this scary escalation and how they will do it in the future.