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Peace & nonviolence
• Greenpeace activists protest the Star Wars testGreenpeace activists yesterday broke into a US air force base in California and sent a vessel into an off-limits military zone in the Pacific in an attempt to thwart a key test of a new missile defence system scheduled for early this morning. The environmental pressure group said the proposed $60bn national missile defence (NMD) scheme would undermine existing disarmament treaties and “provide additional justification to Russia and China to retain their existing nuclear arsenals…
• Five and a half utopia – a challenging piece on desired worlds. Steven Weinber who received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1979 writes about the technological utopia, the civilised egalitarian capitalist utopia, the free-market utopia, the best-and-the-brighest utopia, the religious utopia, the green utopia.
• A people’s initiative for peace between India and Pakistan “The peace-makers believe that when Indians and Pakistanis unite to insist that their governments talk, find a way out of the Kashmir imbroglio, and allow their people to visit the other country without restrictions,” writes Beena Sarwar, “the governments can no longer pretend that their people want war. Even now, many people clearly don’t, as any Indian or Pakistani who has crossed the border will testify.
• Plugged into Protest? E-activists rally on the Web, but can they build a movement? “The movement exploding now is an amalgamation of many, many smaller groups and campaigns that are close to people’s hearts that are building bridges to other groups,” she explains. “The movement is strongest when people feel rooted in a community that is comfortable to them. And it is from that strong base that you can do the most effective alliance- and coalition-building.”
Armament and the new Cold War
• China will counter US NBD ‘Son of Star Wars’ project“China cannot sit idly by and watch its means for self-defence being weakened and even deprived of in any form,” Beijing’s top arms control official, Sha Zukang, told the Guardian, in a reference to America’s national missile defence (NMD) project, which was being tested early today. The official People’s Daily newspaper weighed in yesterday, denouncing the “hegemonic arrogance of the US”.
• Circles in the US want the missile test to fail – and it did Senior officials in the state department, the Pentagon and the White House itself are opposed to a planned $60bn missile defence system and are privately hoping that a crucial test planned for late tonight will end in failure.
• Missile flop boosts protests The failure has provided useful ammunition for opponents of the scheme who see it as an unnecessary escalation of nuclear capabilities promoted for bogus reasons by the military-industrial complex. It has also been hinted that President Bill Clinton is far from displeased with the flop because it allows him room to defer support for a missile defence system about which he has always been lukewarm.
• Why China sees the US as a military rival Defense experts say that the US and China are likely to become rivals than allies in the coming years. The US sees itself as “the indispensable nation” as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright put it recently, guardian of stability in the Asia-Pacific region. But as Beijing begins transforming its remarkable economic growth into military might, the potential rises for clashes between the two on issues ranging from US alliances in Asia to global weapons sales. Chinese officials, for example, were indignant yesterday when Israel, prompted by the US, scrapped a $250 million radar sale to China.
• Clinton’s ballistic defence is falseClinton’s Missile Defense System Is Against A False Threat, Technologically Unfeasible, An Unwarranted Investment, And Could Spark A Nuclear Arms Race. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Sunday that President Clinton will consider four criteria — “the threat, the technology, the cost and what it does to the overall American security” — in deciding whether to move forward with development of a national missile defense system. If that were true, the president would have scrapped the plan long before now.
Globalization – imperialism
• The Jubilee 2000 Coalition A debt-free start for billions. The international campaign: 7 Million children die each year as a result of the debt crisis. 3702616 children have died since the start of the year 2000. Find out how you can break the deadly chains of debt.
The Balkans and Kosovo/a –
• Who is going to clean up Serbia and the Danube? A year later, the Serbian portion of the Danube, between Bulgaria and Hungary, remains impassable. Debris from a half-dozen shattered bridges continues to clog the waterway, crippling commerce in countries both up and downstream. More troubling–and potentially longer-lasting–are the toxic residues from NATO’s high-altitude assault on Serbia’s industrial infrastructure. Hidden in the Danube riverbed and lingering in its wetlands, these pollutants have the potential to affect the health and well-being of 85 million Europeans and their descendants in the Danube Basin for decades to come. By its nature war is destructive, but when the war is over the destruction should end.
• Increased tension in Yugoslavia, where is Milosevic heading? Despite the downward spiral in Milosevic’s popularity since the NATO bombardment, the opposition appears to stand little chance of victory in a direct election against the president. Polls indicate Milosevic’s rating is currently only 14 per cent. Serbian Renewal Movement leader Vuk Draskovic, however, scores only 6 per cent and Zoran Djindjic, leader of the Democratic Party, 3 per cent. The official believes Milosevic’s triumph in direct presidential elections would persuade the United States’ government to renew official contacts with Belgrade. He said the Milosevic government has information indicating opinion in Washington increasingly favours discreet, but direct links to the Yugoslav president.
• Yugoslavia is dead, says Montenegro’s president Montenegro’s pro-western president, Milo Djukanovic, took another step towards independence for his fledgling nation yesterday by claiming that Yugoslavia no longer exists because the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, has opted for its destruction to preserve power and avoid war crimes charges filed against him.
• Voters’ registration for Kosovo elections – absurd? “If the international community succeeds in organizing the return of the Serbs, guaranteeing their safety, we will change our minds,” Milovic added. “For now, we have absolutely no security in Kosovo, nor are we able to move around. Under those conditions, any election would be absurd.”
• A refreshing look at Montenegro and Serbia’s conflict – and the international “community”‘s role It looks like NATO will soon be renewing its war against Serbia. Montenegro will provide the justification. NATO is playing the same game in Montenegro that it played in Kosovo. For at least two years now, the United States &endash; and to a lesser extent the European Union &endash; has been urging Montenegro’s President Milo Djukanovic to secede from Yugoslavia. Money has poured in, along with promises of speedy integration into the institutions of the West. Montenegro got the D-Mark as its currency, while the Italians promised to look the other way at the smuggling that was going on.
• Perhaps NATO lost more during the bombing than we have been told? In a story headlined “NATO Covering Up Own Losses,” the Russian Agency of Political News (APN) reported on Apr. 29 that NATO had lost over 400 troops, and over 60 aircraft during its 79-day war with Serbia. The estimates reportedly based on Russian government figures, have been hushed up in the West by the New World Order lapdog media. These are the highest figures so far of NATO’s human casualties to emerge from the post-war post-mortems. We may believe them or treat them as propaganda.
Kosovo/a – the forgotten background
• Articles written about Kosovo when it was not famous A compilation of articles from Financial Times, Associated Press, BBC, New York Times, from 1981 onwards. Facts you didn’t hear about when NATO started bombing…
• CNN and Psychological Warfare Operations… Military personnel from the Fourth Psychological Operations Group based at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, have until recently been working in CNN’s hq in Atlanta. CNN is up in arms about our report in the last issue of CounterPunch concerning the findings of the Dutch journalist, Abe de Vries about the presence of US Army personnel at CNN, owned by Time-Warner. De Vries reported that a handful of military personnel from the Third Psychological Operations Battalion, part of the airmobile Fourth Psychological Operations Group based at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, had worked in CNN’s hq in Atlanta.
Russia and the US as a world order problem
• Putin’s recipe for a strong RussiaWhen Vladimir Putin arrives at the annual summit of the Group of Eight leading industrial country in Okinawa next week, his silent agenda will be a plea for confidence in his sweeping vision of Russia’s future, spelled out in a comprehensive State of the Nation address last Saturday. But it may not prove so easy to embrace Mr. Putin’s blueprint. On one hand, it is the most decisively liberal economic plan to appear in Russia since the collapse of the USSR. On the other, it may be a thinly veiled recipe for authoritarian revival in a country that has known little else for a millennium.
• Another massacre in Columbia as its army prepares to receive US miliary aid package “How many times do killings committed by the security forces or their paramilitary allies have to be denounced before the Colombian government brings the perpetrators to justice?” asked Amnesty International as six men were killed and 63 families of La Unión have began to flee their homes. See also the New York Times reportof July 14.
• 30 countries have illegal spy stations – more on the Echelon system France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Denmark have built eavesdropping networks, as have Russia and China. From Spain to northern Denmark, Europe is dotted with illegal satellite monitoring stations. France, where they launched their own legal inquiry into Echelon with great fanfare, possesses a global network of spy satellites and listening stations, dubbed “Frenchelon”. Denmark’s intelligence service has turned Aflandshage, a former Cold War spy base on beaches near Copenhagen, into a modern satellite spy station. A second base planned at a northern site would be larger than many in the British-American network. Sweden and Norway are talking about following suit.
• US expands its nuclear targettting worldwide Even as it talks to Moscow about arms treaties new and old, Washington is accused of aiming warheads at 20% more foreign sites. Senior American military officers insist that current nuclear policy prevents them shrinking the US nuclear arsenal to fewer than 2,000 to 2,500 strategic weapons – and that going lower would threaten national security. Their calculations are buried in the nation’s strategic war plan and ultimately linked to presidential guidance.
• The secrets of more American nuclear madness The world is supposed to be safer than it was. No big enemy, only one super-power, the capitalist conversion of Russia, the absorption of China into world trade, an overarching nuclear détente. Bestriding the globe unchallenged, the United States can surely be trusted with its peace. It should be so. Many people perhaps think it is so. But two glimpses of reality show us it isn’t so. These exposures seem important to register.
Humanism, human rights and “humanitarian” intervention
• Aids now kills two million a year in Africa alone In Africa as a whole, Aids now kills 2m people a year – 10 times more than war. But 4m were newly infected with HIV last year alone and, without treatment, are expected to die within 10 to 15 years. Aids experts fear that what is happening in Africa may be only a rehearsal for what could follow in Asia. China and India between them account for 36% of the world’s population. and large numbers of people there are already infected.
• Aids: Welcome to the land of the dying With rampant Aids and without western drugs, Africa has lost all hope: South Africa hosted a summit last weekend. Malita Maxwell has Aids. But so does just about everybody else in the women’s ward of Chiradzulu hospital, with its busted air conditioner, smell of old, sweet urine and greasy mattresses covered in bright green plastic.
• An insider’s view of the Hague Tribunal Witnesses are attacked on ideological grounds. Anyone who calls into question the policies of the leading NATO states (even, or especially, when they colluded with Milosevic’s regime in the early 1990s) is denounced and hectored at as “extremist.” Western academics appearing as expert witnesses have been subject to personal abuse as well as intrusive inquiries into their personal lives by the Prosecution’s allies in the NATO intelligence services. The intention seems to be to intimidate anyone not sharing the Prosecution’s purpose and to warn off others from giving evidence. The refusal to contemplate the idea that even individual NATO servicemen may have committed acts liable under the Tribunal’s charter vitiates its impartial character.
World future, sustainability and strategy
• Economic globalism has failed The time has come to write the obituary of globalism as an economic doctrine that purports to bring progress and development to international society.It has failed. The special UN General Assembly session in Geneva last week concluded that poverty, inequality and insecurity have increased in the world since globalism was launched. The number of people living in absolute poverty has increased from a billion five years ago to 1.2 billion today. Word of this rise in poverty is not a claim put forward by globalism’s critics. It is the conclusion of a collaborative report prepared by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations itself.
• Cold facts about global warming Those inclined to tout the potential benefits of global warming would do well to take a look at the news items about the frightening weather in southern Europe last week. It is possible — not easy, but possible — to mount an international effort to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases to an extent that would ward off a global catastrophe. It’s possible. But there is not a lot of time left.
• The World Disaster Report 2000 The death toll from infectious diseases (such as AIDS, malaria, respiratory diseases and diarrhoea) is 160 times greater than the number killed in last year’s natural disasters including the massive earthquakes in Turkey, floods in Venezuela and cyclones in India. And the situation is getting worse.
PhD, Peace & future researcher + Art Photographer, Professor Emeritus and media commentator
LONDON – So far so good, at least on the wider level. While internally Iraq seems on the edge of chaos, the much heralded clash of civilizations between the Muslim and Judaeo-Christian worlds has yet to become apparent. We have anger and despair aplenty in the Arab and Muslim worlds. But very little rushing to the standard and there was no great pilgrimage of warriors to join the fight, as happened when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan twenty years ago, and then, having driven the Red Army out, were left to ferment in that mountainous redoubt. With the armaments supplied by the CIA the mujahidin were transformed into Al Qaeda that became, for a relatively brief moment as these things go, ‘the greatest threat to the homeland that America has ever known.’ Nevertheless a ‘Cold War’ between much of the Muslim world and the West is certainly in full swing. Winston...
The Challenge of Nuclear Weaponsin the Twenty-first CenturyA Path Forward The peoples and governments of the world face an urgent challenge relating to weaponry of mass destruction and particularly to nuclear weaponry. At the crossroads of technology, terrorism, geopolitical ambition, and policies of preemption are new and potent dangers for humanity. Despite ending the nuclear standoff of the Cold War era, nuclear weaponry is again menacing the peoples of the world with catastrophic possibilities. We recognize the need for any government to pursue its security interests in accordance with international law; and further, we recognize that distinctive threats to these interests now exist as a result of an active international terrorist network having declared war on the United States and its allies. Nonetheless, we reject the assessment of the current US administration that upgrading a reliance on nuclear weapons is in any sense justified as a response. We find it...
By Karin Wegestal MP, the Social Democratic Partyon behalf of the Swedish Committee for Solidarity with the Yugoslav People During the last decade, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has received more than 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, and another 300,000 internally displaced persons, mainly from the province Kosovo and Metohia. For a country with about ten million inhabitants, such an influx of homeless people is obviously a very heavy burden – even under peaceful conditions. But in addition to that, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been the subject to sanctions from the western powers for close to ten years and its infrastructure was badly hurt through Nato’s intense bombardment during 78 days in 1999. The result of all this is that Yugoslavia, once the most developed industrial country in Eastern Europe, is today the poorest country in Europe. In Serbia excluding Kosovo, with about ten million inhabitants and...
Photo above: Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s Non-Violence outside UN Headquarters in New York. Kirill Levin, CC BY-NC-SA 2. Jan Oberg November 3, 2026 I am happy to be published in Horizons which is produced by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, CIRSD, in Belgrade. My contribution brings out a radical re-thinking of what concepts such as defence, security, deterrence – and peace – may mean if we want to create a more peaceful world. It also summarises a few things I have been working with the last few decades. Please read it here Og her er den på dansk, takket være Johnny Baltzersens lynhurtige oversættelse
UNITE-tillid, DREAM-velstand og andre konstruktive komponenter Normally we publish articles in English here. But this is a translation of a very important TFF document that should reach as many as possible in Denmark since this country’s government has been one of the most hardline in Europe and, up till now at least, has refused to use diplomacy and, instead, spent tremendous sums on arming Ukraine with the express goal of defeating Russia. Thus this – unique – article is in Danish. Vi er Johnny Baltzersen og hans Fælles Sikkerhed – Fælles Fremtid på Substack overmåde taknemmelige for at have oversat og publiceret TFF’s 2025-portfølje for fredsidéer med henblik på Ukraines fremtid. Vi håber den nu kan nå mange flere danskere – som også vil sprede den og skabe debat – nu den danske regerings og folketingspartiernes politik på dette område siden 2022 står nu – forudsigeligt – ved vejs ende....
Jan Oberg TFF director October 28, 2026 Exactly one month has now passed since I published my criticism of the introduction to the special issue on Johan Galtung published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, JoGSS, and of Tor Egil Førland’s chapter about Galtung which serves as a preview to his forthcoming biography of Galtung to be published by PRIO. See the original on The Transnational here and the same article on TFF Substack with many general and critical comments and, in particular, the people who decided to withdraw from the biography project in protest. The special issue itself was extraordinary. It was devoted to the intellectual legacy of one of the founders of peace research and contained a number of strong assessments of his personality, scholarship, intellectual trajectory, and public role. Such assessments are, of course, entirely legitimate. No scholar is beyond criticism, and neither was Johan Galtung....
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Photo above: Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s Non-Violence outside UN Headquarters in New York. Kirill Levin, CC BY-NC-SA 2. Jan Oberg November 3, 2026 I am happy to be published in Horizons which is produced by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, CIRSD, in Belgrade. My contribution brings out a radical re-thinking of what concepts such as defence, security, deterrence – and peace – may mean if we want to create a more peaceful world. It also summarises a few things I have been working with the last few decades. Please read it here Og her er den på dansk, takket være Johnny Baltzersens lynhurtige oversættelse
UNITE-tillid, DREAM-velstand og andre konstruktive komponenter Normally we publish articles in English here. But this is a translation of a very important TFF document that should reach as many as possible in Denmark since this country’s government has been one of the most hardline in Europe and, up till now at least, has refused to use diplomacy and, instead, spent tremendous sums on arming Ukraine with the express goal of defeating Russia. Thus this – unique – article is in Danish. Vi er Johnny Baltzersen og hans Fælles Sikkerhed – Fælles Fremtid på Substack overmåde taknemmelige for at have oversat og publiceret TFF’s 2025-portfølje for fredsidéer med henblik på Ukraines fremtid. Vi håber den nu kan nå mange flere danskere – som også vil sprede den og skabe debat – nu den danske regerings og folketingspartiernes politik på dette område siden 2022 står nu – forudsigeligt – ved vejs ende....
Jan Oberg TFF director October 28, 2026 Exactly one month has now passed since I published my criticism of the introduction to the special issue on Johan Galtung published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, JoGSS, and of Tor Egil Førland’s chapter about Galtung which serves as a preview to his forthcoming biography of Galtung to be published by PRIO. See the original on The Transnational here and the same article on TFF Substack with many general and critical comments and, in particular, the people who decided to withdraw from the biography project in protest. The special issue itself was extraordinary. It was devoted to the intellectual legacy of one of the founders of peace research and contained a number of strong assessments of his personality, scholarship, intellectual trajectory, and public role. Such assessments are, of course, entirely legitimate. No scholar is beyond criticism, and neither was Johan Galtung....
Photo above: Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s Non-Violence outside UN Headquarters in New York. Kirill Levin, CC BY-NC-SA 2. Jan Oberg November 3, 2026 I am happy to be published in Horizons which is produced by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, CIRSD, in Belgrade. My contribution brings out a radical re-thinking of what concepts such as defence, security, deterrence – and peace – may mean if we want to create a more peaceful world. It also summarises a few things I have been working with the last few decades. Please read it here Og her er den på dansk, takket være Johnny Baltzersens lynhurtige oversættelse
UNITE-tillid, DREAM-velstand og andre konstruktive komponenter Normally we publish articles in English here. But this is a translation of a very important TFF document that should reach as many as possible in Denmark since this country’s government has been one of the most hardline in Europe and, up till now at least, has refused to use diplomacy and, instead, spent tremendous sums on arming Ukraine with the express goal of defeating Russia. Thus this – unique – article is in Danish. Vi er Johnny Baltzersen og hans Fælles Sikkerhed – Fælles Fremtid på Substack overmåde taknemmelige for at have oversat og publiceret TFF’s 2025-portfølje for fredsidéer med henblik på Ukraines fremtid. Vi håber den nu kan nå mange flere danskere – som også vil sprede den og skabe debat – nu den danske regerings og folketingspartiernes politik på dette område siden 2022 står nu – forudsigeligt – ved vejs ende....
Jan Oberg TFF director October 28, 2026 Exactly one month has now passed since I published my criticism of the introduction to the special issue on Johan Galtung published by the Journal of Global Security Studies, JoGSS, and of Tor Egil Førland’s chapter about Galtung which serves as a preview to his forthcoming biography of Galtung to be published by PRIO. See the original on The Transnational here and the same article on TFF Substack with many general and critical comments and, in particular, the people who decided to withdraw from the biography project in protest. The special issue itself was extraordinary. It was devoted to the intellectual legacy of one of the founders of peace research and contained a number of strong assessments of his personality, scholarship, intellectual trajectory, and public role. Such assessments are, of course, entirely legitimate. No scholar is beyond criticism, and neither was Johan Galtung....
An aspect of Iran’s culture and civilisation you’ve probably never heard about. Don’t be surprised if the US and Israel also try to bomb them. Jan ObergTFF director October 26, 2026 Today – under the “USraeli” threat of new “annihilating” bombings – opens the 7th International Conference on Peace and Conflict Resolution at Tehran’s University. As far as I can tell, this is the only permanent, advanced peace research institution in West Asia/the Middle East. Perhaps more countries in that region could be inspired? I mean, how many military “security” institutes and military academies do they have? Many peace research institutes and university departments have been established since the 1950s in the West. They are now all under attack; some have closed down, some have gone mainstream, yet others kept the name but do nothing to research peace and disseminate results or advice; instead, they cooperate with militarism’s platforms such...
Let’s discuss using AI to create peace – in contrast to boring geopolitics devoid of creative healing and visions. Jan Oberg TFF director October 15, 2026 I asked VEED to create a short video exemplifying how peace is preferable to war, then chose the lady as a template. Simple as that. In less than a minute, it produced this video, which any peace-loving person would appreciate. The only problem is that human intelligence (HI), at least the one that exists among Western decision-makers, isn’t half as moral or smart as AI. I have used AI to dialogue about peace and peace plans, creative conflict resolution and visions of a better future for humankind. It so happens that I am having more stimulating, intelligent, creative and moral discussions with AI than I could possibly have with any EU or NATO leader today. Yes, AI has very problematic and dangerous aspects; used...
Below are TFF-related media mentions, comments, videos and social media posts published elsewhere but not on this homepage. We happen to catch and list only a fraction. Regarding video comments and debates, we recommend that you go to the TFF Video Channel on Substack where many of them are reproduced. Jan Oberg is a contributor to China Daily – 52 million daily clicks – and Global Times, CGTN and CCTV (the national television), China Investment, Xinhua News Agency and several others. Articles and videos on these media very often multiply into countless Chinese (and Western media) that re-post them from these main media. Thanks to The China Academy, his analyses, interviews and comments are frequently posted on YouTube channels such as Thinkers Forum and Wave Media. These videos are often re-posted on Bilibili (China’s YouTube), the China Content Center on TikTok, and on the Chinese edition of TikTok, Douyin.com. This means reaching hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide over a year. While there are too many to catch on all these...
