January 2006

Mohamedkarikatyrerna (1): Förtryckfrihet   PressInfo # 232  9 februari, 2006 Av Jan Öberg, TFF direktör Engelsk version Dansk version Mohamedkarikatyrerna (1) Förtrycksfrihet Mohamedkarikatyrerna (2): Det finns ju ett sammanhang ! Mohamedkarikatyrerna (3): Vi måste lära att se vår egen kulturblindhet   Jyllands-Postens teckningar är tendentiösa karikatyrer. De förknippar Profeten med terrorism, brottslighet och kvinnoförtryck. Ingen av bilderna skulle rimligen någonstans kunna fungera i dialog eller för ömsesidig förståelse eller för att åstadkomma den bildning som det finns stort behov av i förhållandet mellan danskar och muslimer. De är illvilliga. Intensiteten i de negativa reaktionerna kan förvåna. Men om man ser karikatyrerna i ett samanhang av vår nutida globaliserade värld, är publiceringen av bilderna både tanklös och meningslös. Den avslöjar en fullständigt ofattbar brist på allmänbildning och god (journalistisk) uppfostran.   Den danska regeringen har tappat greppet Värre är att den danska regeringen varken begrep affären eller behovet att på ett...

SAO PAOLO – It was Charles de Gaulle who once said, “Brazil has a great future. But it always will have.” Yet times are changing in Brazil and it is no longer inconceivable that Brazil will emerge in the next few decades alongside India and China as one of the world’s economic superpowers. As Dilma Roussef, chief of staff to President Luis Ignácio da Silva, “Lula”, put it to me with only a touch of hyperbole, “It’s more difficult to make this economy not grow than to make it grow.” Can Brazil move itself from Third World to First World? Can Brazil, the world’s most successful country in terms of growth in the twentieth century, repeat this achievement in the twenty-first? Many, viewing the dismal inflation-consumed performance of the 1980s and early 1990s, with a currency adding zeros faster than the printing presses could turn, believed Brazil could never make...

The BBC has reported that Mr. Tarek Azziz has suffered a stroke and that his lawyer fears “he may not live more than a month” following a “cerebral embolism”. The lawyer, Badie Arif Ezzat, has said that Mr. Azziz is being held in a two square meter cell that was “only fit to keep dogs in”. Given his apparent health situation and the fact that he has not been charged after giving himself up in April 2003, this is a request for his release from Hans von Sponeck and Denis J. Halliday, former United Nations Humanitarian Coordinators in Iraq (1997-2000). In keeping with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, Mr. Azziz, former Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq is entitled to humane treatment and should not be further held without charges after three years of incarceration. At the age of 70 years,...

It’s with deep sorrow I have learned tonight that Dr. Rugova, the President of Kosova (Kosmet i Metohija/Kosovo) has died. TFF Associates Sommelius, Weston, Cullberg, Schultz and Schierup and I myself have known him for almost 15 years. Together with then President Kiro Gligorov of Macedonia, Rugova was the only political leader in former Yugoslavia who embrased non-violence, albeit pragmatically.In the early 1990s, it was with Rugova and his LDK party officials TFF’s team worked out the modalities of an independent Kosova – a Kosova with open borders, non-aligned, non-military and neutral. Dr. Rugova was our partner – together with three government leaders in Belgrade – in TFF’s conflict-mitigating endeavour to develop a comprehensive international treaty that would secure a negotiated solution with a civilian UN presence there (UNTANS, 1996).Regrettably, hardline Kosovo-Albanians, with the support of the German intelligence service, CIA and others created the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, behind his back. Predictably, a...

SAO PAOLO – For the best part of thirty years the President of Brazil, Luis Inácio da Silva, “Lula”, has been a rising star in the Brazilian firmament. From the days when he led the metalworkers of the car industry of Sao Paulo out on a strike against the military government he has been a darling of the workers, the Catholic Church, and the liberals. In those early days Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of Germany and Prime Minister Adolfo Suarez of Spain came to seek him out, partly to bolster his stature against the generals and partly to attempt to discern where mighty Brazil, then far ahead of China and India, might be heading. I found him at the time living in a small worker’s house in one of those less than awe-inspiring suburbs on the outskirts of this immense, smog-filled, city of over 11 million. He was, as I discovered...

It’s with deep sorrow I have learned tonight that Dr. Rugova, the President of Kosova (Kosmet i Metohija/Kosovo) has died. TFF Associates Sommelius, Weston, Cullberg, Schultz and Schierup and I myself have known him for almost 15 years. Together with then President Kiro Gligorov of Macedonia, Rugova was the only political leader in former Yugoslavia who embrased non-violence, albeit pragmatically. In the early 1990s, it was with Rugova and his LDK party officials TFF’s team worked out the modalities of an independent Kosova – a Kosova with open borders, non-aligned, non-military and neutral. Dr. Rugova was our partner – together with three government leaders in Belgrade – in TFF’s conflict-mitigating endeavour to develop a comprehensive international treaty that would secure a negotiated solution with a civilian UN presence there (UNTANS, 1996). Regrettably, hardline Kosovo-Albanians, with the support of the German intelligence service, CIA and others created the Kosovo Liberation Army,...

Analysis, critique and alternatives, 2006. https://transnational.sandbox-alot.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Oberg_EU_Promote_Peace-2.pdf

Till Cilla Benkö & SVT:s Aktuellts redaktion Ett bra exempel på “punkt” journalistik utan sammanhang. Internationellt finns det ganska bred enighet om att Iran inte har brutit mot någon del av folkrätten. Man anser att landets ledning är allmänt opålitlig. Iran har accepterat inspektion och undertecknat NPT – Non-Proliferation Treaty från 1968. NPT stipulerar att kärnvapenstater skall ned- och så småningom helt av – rusta sina kärnvapen och som quid pro quo ska länder som önskar att få kärnvapen avstå från detta och i stället få hjälp att utveckla civil kärnkraft. Kärnvapenmakterna har brutit mot detta viktiga fördrag allt sedan 1968 genom fortsatt kärnvapenupprustning, ständigt mera sofisitikerad teknologi och precisa, långträckande framföringsmedel. USA är historiens första aktör som i sin officiella kärnvapendoktrin anser sig ha rätt att använda kärnvapen inte bara som avskräckning (“terrorbalansen”) mot angrepp mot eget territorium utan också mot andra stater inklusive stater som inte själva har...

The idea and the future of theEarth Charter Vicky Rossi’s conversations with peace visionairies around the worldare listed at her CV page here and collected here. Peace Antenna Interview with Mr Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Earth Charter Commissioner, Chairman, Fundación Cultura de Paz, former Director-General of UNESCO. Rossi interviewed Federico Mayor at the Earth Charter +5 Conference, Amsterdam, 7-9 November 2005. Background to the creation of the Earth Charter The idea of creating a new charter to promote the fundamental principles for sustainable development was declared by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. However, despite the impetus of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the drafting of the Earth Charter remained incomplete. In response to this delay, in 1994 Maurice Strong, the secretary general of the Earth Summit and chairman of the Earth Council, joined together with Mikhail Gorbachev, founding president of Green Cross International, to launch...

January 8, 2006 Vicky Rossi  Peace Antenna Interview with Mr Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Earth Charter Commissioner, Chairman, Fundación Cultura de Paz, former Director-General of UNESCO. Rossi interviewed Federico Mayor at the Earth Charter +5 Conference, Amsterdam, 7-9 November 2005. Background to the creation of the Earth Charter The idea of creating a new charter to promote the fundamental principles for sustainable development was declared by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. However, despite the impetus of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the drafting of the Earth Charter remained incomplete. In response to this delay, in 1994 Maurice Strong, the secretary general of the Earth Summit and chairman of the Earth Council, joined together with Mikhail Gorbachev, founding president of Green Cross International, to launch a new Earth Charter initiative. In 1997 an Earth Charter Commission was created to oversee the initiative and an Earth Charter Secretariat...

We wish to invite you to join a select group of 45 students from around the world in an intensive course in peace and conflict studies at the European University Center for Peace Studies (EPU) in Stadtschlaining, Austria. All the courses are taught in English, by leading specialists in their field from around the world, including Johan Galtung, one of the founders of the academic discipline of peace research and frequent mediator in international conflicts. Studying with the founder of a new academic discipline is a rare opportunity, like studying economics with Adam Smith. EPU offers students a well-rounded program covering Peace with Security, Development, Freedom, Nature and Culture. The Program, established in 1991 by Dr. Gerald Mader, Founder and President of the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, received the 1995 UNESCO Prize for Peace Education. A LITTLE BACKGROUND: In addition to attending courses, students get to know...

LONDON – Spain’s Socialist government continues its heady run of the bulls overturning one sacred applecart after another. A few months ago it was legislation to permit gay marriages, the third country in Europe to take this step, and a cold slap on the face for Spain’s Catholic heritage. Now there is the cold turkey of stopping the smoking habits of Spain’s bar-visiting populace who smoke more than any other nation in Europe except Greece. Prime Minister José Zapatero who surprised all the pundits by winning the election nearly two years ago and who had no previous experience of government and precious little of leadership appears to have the all confidence of an experienced matador. Last week he coined a new phrase to mark his philosophy of government- “social patriotism”, which presumably means that Spaniards should hold their heads high as their country bucks the United States over Iraq, its...