October 2009

LONDON – Sweden, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has launched a drive to speed up liberalization of the EU’s trade with the Third World. And there are increasing indications that the Obama Administration in Washington is likely soon to join with Europe and Japan and indicate its willingness to attempt to complete the Doha trade round, meant to lower tariffs across the board. The trade ship, which seemed to have hit the rocks just over a year and a half ago, has been prized free and is once again sailing on the high seas with the wind behind it. And so it should. Eighteen months on it appears even more nonsensical than it did at the time that the seasoned diplomats and politicians gathered together for earnest negotiations on freer trade should have allowed their plans to be scuttled. Moreover, the journalistic reporting was shoddy in...

LONDON – The serious newspapers I read used to take me an hour to get through. These days it is fifteen minutes. Nothing much is happening, at least in foreign affairs. Iraq has all but disappeared from the front page. Afghanistan and Pakistan remain there (but even so investors are still steadily upping their investments in Pakistan, presumably judging that the conflict is being over hyped). The argument with Iran over whether it is building nuclear weapons drags on, despite the forgotten report of the CIA two years ago that found that Iran was probably not, not to mention that the West and Russia look a bit silly when they turn a blind eye to Brazil for doing exactly the same as Iran. More recently is Iran’s suggestion that it might ship some of its used uranium to Russia to be converted into fuel to provide medical isotopes, or else...

October 23, 2009 Gunnar Westberg France has a reputation of being the country where the question of nuclear disarmament is taboo. Any aspect of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy is the prerogative of the President who does not condescend to discuss these exalted questions with the parliament or – God forbid! – journalists or common citizens. French diplomats taking part in international negotiations insist that as long as there is a bow and an arrow left in the world, France needs its nuclear weapons. The reason for the French intransigence may be that the raison d’etre of the French nuclear force is so weak. To keep Germany down and the USA in When the French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France in 1954 decided that France should develop nuclear weapons, his decision was based on his wartime experience: he feared German rearmament. As NATO grew stronger it became clear that the organization...

Good news: All Africa a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone! With the ratification of the Pelindapa treaty on July 15, 2009 by Burundi that treaty on an African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone, NWFZ, has entered into force. In a NWFZ nuclear weapons may not be used, developed, deployed or transported. The status of a NWFZ shall be recognized by the United Nations and the Nuclear Weapon States shall ratify certain conditions in any NWFZ treaty. France, China and Great Britain have done so for the Pelindaba treaty. Russia has not ratified because the island of Diego Garcia, controlled by Britain and used by the USA as a military base, has a disputed status in the treaty. USA has not ratified. The Pelindaba Treaty covers all of Africa. There are now a NWFZ zone that covers Latin America and the Caribbean – the Tlatelolco Treaty. In the South Pacific, we have the Rarotonga treaty. In South-East...

In the will on which the Nobel Peace Prize is based, Alfred Nobel clearly states the criteria that must be fulfilled. The winner shall have done the best or the most work: • for the fraternity between nations, • for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, or • for holding or promoting peace congresses, and • he or she (or the organization) must be a “champion” of peace. To put it crudely, the Prize shall be awarded to a person or organization that has succeeded in reducing the militarism/war/violence in the world. Noteworthy, it shall reward past achievements; the Committee’s self-aggrandizing idea that its Prize will help someone intending or trying to change the world is nowhere to be found in Nobel’s will. Does Barack Obama meet any of these criteria? And could he, given that he took office 11 days before the nomination deadline? • Has he worked for the...

October 7, 2009 Jonathan Power LONDON – High moments aside do we know what happiness is? Is the world becoming a happier place? Are we happier than our parent’s or grandparent’s generation? What could give us a little more happiness? I recall twenty-five years ago an article on the subject published by Geraldine Norman, the art saleroom correspondent of the London Times. I haven’t seen it bettered. She had just been to Africa for her honeymoon and being a rather bookish sort of a girl took with her the Penguin introduction to psychology and books on statistical game theory, anthropology, economics and comparative religion. After all this heavy reading, no doubt interspersed with long walks up the paths that stretch aside the Victoria Falls and, I suppose, some canoodling with her new husband, she came up with six principal factors that appeared to be universal requirements for a happy life:...

October 1, 2009 Jonathan Power LONDON – The last century found, willy-nilly, it had goals aplenty. There was always the social goal of ending unemployment, a purpose that fired people as varied as John Maynard Keynes and Adolf Hitler. There was the goal of spreading capitalism or building socialism, depending on which side of the fence you were on. Later there was the goal of defeating fascism and later still communism. Then there was the goal of ending war and the creation of a United Nations. Not least there was the goal of spreading democracy and, hard on its heels, ending colonialism. Finally, and most recently, there was the goal of spreading human rights. It was appropriate that just before the century ended on July 17th 1998, 120 nations voted (but not the U.S., China, India and Israel) to adopt a statute creating an International Criminal Court to try war...