The Transnational W I R E – January 21, 2000

Links to Facts & Views

You want to find interesting analyses, reports, articles and papers on peace and conflict issues from around the world?

Now we do the job for you. This page provides links to a selection of the best critical and constructive materials – the essential stuff we benefit from ourselves and want to share.

Just click below at what catches your interest – read, download or send on to a friend.


Peace & nonviolence

• Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. – short biography
The Christian Science Monitor’s “Notebook” on Dr. King (Jan 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)Brief timeline of the civil rights movement 

• Manifesto 2000 for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence
The Manifesto 2000 for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence was written by the Nobel Prize Peace Laureats, in order to create a sense of responsibility starting on a personal level; it is not an appeal or petition addressed to a higher authority. It is the responsibilty of each and every individual to put into practice the values, attitudes and forms of behaviour which inspire the culture of peace. YOU can sign here! Other UNESCO links to culture of peace...


Civilization

• Who rules? Where America stands among world empires
America at the end of the 20th century often has been compared to Great Britain at the end of the 19th. But does that mean a nation that had long ruled much of the globe – or one that would soon lose its colonial stature?


Armament and the new Cold War

• Vladimir Putin and Russia’s further upgrading of nuclear weapons
A new national security strategy decreed by the acting president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday and to be published today marks a radical shift in Russia’s view of the world. It ushers in a policy of “expanded nuclear containment” while pledging to resist western attempts to dominate the globe.  • Star Wars shield threatens arms control treatiesThe US conducted a crucial test on Jan. 18 of an antimissile defense system that, if deployed, could jeopardize two of the world’s most significant arms-control agreements. But while a hit may answer some of the technological questions surrounding missile defense, it will do little to assuage concerns of two of the program’s loudest critics: Russia and China. And see what Geroge Bush Jr. is up to in The Guardian’s version.

• The test failed, but…
The $100m experiment was meant to show how missile interceptors could destroy warheads as they sped towards the US. Had the missile successfully blasted the incoming warhead out of the sky it would also have provided vital ammunition for defence chiefs. The Pentagon plans to ask Congress to approve an additional $2.2bn in spending on the missile defence plan, pushing the planned cost to at least $12.7bn in the years ahead. And there is the devastating analysis by Counterpunch: How Pentagon Fixed the Star War test… 


Conflict-resolution – Burundi

• Mandela slams Burundian politicians
Why do you allow yourselves to be regarded as leaders without talent, without vision?
Nelson Mandela, the former president squarely blamed Burundi’s politicians for failing to show the talent and vision needed to end the brutal civil war that has cost some 200,000 lives in the last six years. “Please join the modern world. Why do you allow yourselves to be regarded as leaders without talent, leaders without vision?” he asked.  


Globalisation

• Global agendaAfter the WTO Protest in Seattle, It’s Time to Go on the Offensive. Here’s How. By William greider, The Nation – author or the already classical study on globalization, “One World. Ready or Not.”


Militarism versus development

• Brazil’s life without the bomb 
In 1990, Brazil took the decision to quit the arms race and to help make Latin America a nuclear weapons-free zone. Since then, there has been an extraordinary turnaround. The arms race has been renewed and other nations are desperate to join the nuclear club. “We believe that it’s important for us to be a democratic country not based on nuclear weapons, says its President.”


What was the truth then? Today?

• US and South Korea accused of war atrocities
South Korean troops attacked the North a year before the Korean war broke out, researchers have claimed in the latest disturbing revelation about the conflict which almost led to global war. It took fifty years to get these atrocities documented. Imagine there are atrocities committed today by powerful nations about which the truth will only be revealed much later…


Global environment

• Doom and gloom over the global environment
From eroding soil in Kazakhstan to melting glaciers in the Peruvian Andes to depleted fisheries off New England and elsewhere, the world’s ecological health at the dawn of the millennium is deteriorating, the Worldwatch Institute concluded in its annual State of the World report, which was released on January 16, 2000.

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