August 2005

LONDON – The statistics had arrived on the Swedish prime minister’s desk that morning, his first day back at work after his summer vacation, cycling around the villages near his summer estate. It was good news. Gorän Persson, now in his ninth year of office, told me that the growth rate for this year will be near 3% and next year more than 3% – enough, he said, to maintain Sweden’s trajectory of the last decade which was “above the average for the European Union” and, in particular, “as good as the Anglo-Saxons, Britain and the U.S.” (Although he admitted that for the U.S. he was referring to per capita growth, so as to discount the effect of its fast population growth due to rapid immigration.) This begged the first question- how does this self-confessed socialist state do it? What is the secret for success when Swedish taxes are the...

LONDON – We are all, left and right, pro war and anti war, frozen in the headlights of Iraq. Even many of those who campaigned vigorously against the war are frightened to be bold and say the troops should come out. Anarchy is the state of political disarray we have long been acculturated to fear. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,” wrote Yeats. To walk away is the height of irresponsibility. But is it? An insurgency working in its home terrain enjoys advantages that are just as formidable as any precision-guided weaponry that soldiers of the coalition can deploy. The insurgents may not have ground down the American and British troops but they have certainly created enough mayhem to instil sufficient fear in every Iraqi and expatriate workman so that the economy remains almost where years of sanctions and two aerial bombardments left...

On August 6 & 9, 2005 It is 60 years ago Fight nuclearism, the ultimate terror ! PressInfo 225, July 26, 2005The Real Threat is Nuclear TerrorismThe tragedy of the terrorist bombs in London only foreshadows much worse future catastrophes if the world continues on its current course. But there are four things we can do to secure the survival of humankind without nuclear weapons. “It is much more realistic to get rid of all nuclear weapons than waiting until they are used, whether deliberately or by accident,” says Dietrich Fischer in this PressInfo that leads up to the 60th Anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. TFF PressInfo 147 from 2002Can we learn to live without the bomb?The, perhaps provocative, thesis of this analysis is that we have:a) underestimated the human, psychological, existential and cultural-cosmological aspects of the nuclear age;b) we have worked far...

LONDON – Didn’t somebody once say that it’s not over until the fat lady sings? Never was this more apposite than when applied to Northern Ireland. Despite their recent pledge to renounce the armed struggle the IRA is not going to just fade away. Neither will the protestant militias. And certainly not, despite ill health, will the rabid, protestant preacher, Ian Paisley, of whom it was recently said, “He is no more representative of Christianity than Osama bin Laden is of Islam”. He has his son in waiting, just as the IRA will still have access to fertiliser, just as soon as they feel they are not getting their due. The extremists are doing better than they have ever done at the polls, and the province, once the safest place in Europe to bring up a teenage daughter, now appears to have an unfailing ability to produce a steady supply...

* Dansk oversættelse under den engelske tekst A couple of weeks ago the leading media of the West and the Muslim world made the 10th anniversary of the massacre in Srebrenica their top story. Sweden’s television prime time news program devoted 18 minutes to it out of 30 – not one minute of research behind. CNN, BBC and all the rest made it a top story, high-level people flocked to Srebrenica. Today, on August 5, it is 10 years ago Croatia and the United States committed war crimes in Operation Storm. No one remembers, there isn’t one article on CNN, BBC or other leading media. At the time this U.S. /Clinton-assisted ethnic cleansing of about 250.000 legitimate Croatian citizens of Serb origin by the Croat Army from Croatia was the largest ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia. It has only been surpassed by that of Serbs from Kosovo (proportionately) in 1999 which was...

Lille bog fra Ny Agenda Lund, Sverige, 5. august 2005 Originalversionen, der er mere detaljeret end den version NyAgenda har udgivet, downloades her. NyAgendas trykte, kortere, version. ANMELDELSER & OMTALE Poul Smidt i Information 5. september 2005 Staffan Dahllöf i Notat 19. august 2005 Resumé af udredningens hovedkonklusioner Denne enmands-udredning indeholder en makroanalyse af områderne forsvar, sikkerhed, udenrigspolitik, konflikthåndtering og fred i EU’s politik og i forslaget til forfatning. Den går bevidst ikke i detaljer med enkelte lande eller enkeltstående problemområder, men ser på begreber, værdier og målsætninger på det overordnede plan. Den opstiller først et teori og analyseapparat. Derefter analyserer den hvad der faktisk siges og gøres i EU-regi og kritiserer det ud fra et antal eksplicitte kriterier. Den gennemgår tillige hvad der ikke står men kunne have stået i forfatningsforslaget. Udredningen arbejder på EU’s egne præmisser i den forstand at den tage tre vigtige fakta om EU alvorligt: at Unionens...

Fredsforsker efterlyser læren fra Hiroshima Eftertanken efter atombomberne over Japan for 60 år siden er udeblevet, siger fredsforskeren Jan Øberg Af ELSE MARIE NYGAARDnygaard@kristeligt-dagblad.dk I morgen vil verden mindes 60-året for atombomben over den japanske by Hiro-shima. Men ifølge fredsforskeren sociolog Jan Øberg er eftertanken efter atombomberne over Japan, der kostede over 210.000 mennesker livet, udeblevet. – Vores måde at tænke på er uændret, og atomvåben er nu nærmest blevet indpasset i moderne, amerikansk, strategisk tækning, som var de konventionelle våben. Vi har rationaliseret atomvåbnene og kommet dem ind i teorier om, at de kun var til for at afskrække fra krig. Men de skal faktisk bruges under visse omstændigheder, siger han og fortsætter: – Hvis vi havde forstået følgerne af 6. og 9. august 1945, ville vi i Vesten have nedrustet. I dag er der ingen i vores del af verden, som vil forsvare kannibalisme eller slaveri, for det...

Lille bog fra Ny Agenda Kommentarer direkte tiloberg@transnational.org Lund, Sverige, 5. august 2005 Originalversionen, der er mere detaljeret end den version NyAgenda har udgivet, downloades her. NyAgendas trykte, kortere, version. ANMELDELSER & OMTALE Poul Smidt i Information 5. september 2005 Staffan Dahllöf i Notat 19. august 2005 Resumé af udredningens hovedkonklusioner Denne enmands-udredning indeholder en makroanalyse af områderne forsvar, sikkerhed, udenrigspolitik, konflikthåndtering og fred i EU’s politik og i forslaget til forfatning. Den går bevidst ikke i detaljer med enkelte lande eller enkeltstående problemområder, men ser på begreber, værdier og målsætninger på det overordnede plan. Den opstiller først et teori og analyseapparat. Derefter analyserer den hvad der faktisk siges og gøres i EU-regi og kritiserer det ud fra et antal eksplicitte kriterier. Den gennemgår tillige hvad der ikke står men kunne have stået i forfatningsforslaget. Udredningen arbejder på EU’s egne præmisser i den forstand at den tage tre vigtige fakta om EU...

LONDON – We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stonewall. All there was to see was a shadow of a man. It had been etched into the wall at the moment of his obliteration by the blinding light of the first atomic bomb. Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, stared hard at it. An hour later he had to give a speech as head of the Independent Commission on Disarmament of which I was a member. “My fear”, he remarked, “is that mankind itself will end up as nothing more than a shadow on a wall.” Charles de Gaulle once observed, “After a nuclear war the two sides would have neither powers, nor laws, nor cities, nor cultures, nor cradles, nor tombs.” Nikita Khrushchev, who presided over the Soviet Union in the days of the Cuban missile crisis, later wrote, “When I learned all the facts about nuclear power...

 Af Drude Dahlerup, Stockholms Universitet& Tænketanken Ny Agenda Lund, Sverige – 1. august, 2005 Miniseminar 4.august 2005 i København Fremmer EU freden? I anledning af udgivelsen af Tænketanken NyAgendas rapport “Fremmer EU freden?” afholdes et miniseminar for særlig indbudte påRestauant Kap HornNyhavn, 1.salTorsdag d. 4.august kl.14-16.30. Rapportens forfatter, den dansk-svenske fredsforsker Jan Øberg, der direktør for Den Transnationale Stiftelse, TFF, i Lund præsenterer rapportens hovedkonklusioner. Om rapporten EU betegnes ofte som et fredsprojekt, men hvad menes i EU egentlig med fred? I denne rapport analyserer Jan Øberg EUs politik, herunder forfatningsforslaget, når det gælder forsvar, sikkerhed, udenrigspolitik, konflikthåndtering og fred. Rapporten viser, at forfatningsforslaget og andre centrale EU-dokumenter giver udtryk for en fredsforståelse, hvor vægten lægges ensidigt på en militært baseret og domineret sikkerhedspolitik. I den forståelse findes der således ‘god vold’, der skal balancere eller udrydde ‘ond vold’. Derimod spiller konflikthåndtering og problematisering af volden som sådan stort set ingen reel rolle. Jan...