October 2018

”Den iranske efterretningstjeneste har haft planlagt et attentat i Danmark. Det oplyser PET.” Den sms-besked tikkede ind fra DR Nyheder i går d. 30 oktober kl. 13:09. PET havde indkaldt til en halv times pressemøde og deres foruroligende meddelelse fik naturligvis alarmklokkerne til ringe hos enhver dansker og ikke mindst de folkevalgte, som i løbet af få timer trykkede på de traditionelle panikknapper. Søren Espersen ville have den danske ambassadør i Iran hjem til Danmark, omgående! Skal ske, meddelte udenrigsminister Anders Samuelsen på et pressemøde kl. 18:30. Statsminister Lars Løkke Rasmussen skrev på Twitter få timer efter PET’s pressemøde på, at han vil sørge for at yderligere handlinger mod Iran vil blive diskuteret i EU med henvisning til yderligere sanktioner. PET meddeler altså, at Irans efterretningstjeneste har planlagt et attentat i Danmark. En person er derfor anholdt i forbindelse med, at en person fra den iranske gruppe ASMLA i Danmark...

  By Gareth Porter TFF Associate October 25, 2018 The idea promoted by the NYT’s Shane & Mazzetti that the Russian government seriously threatened to determine the 2016 election does not hold up when the larger social media context is examined more closely, reports Gareth Porter.   In their long recapitulation of the case that Russia subverted the 2016 election, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times painted a picture of highly effective Russian government exploitation of social media for that purpose. Shane and Mazzetti asserted that “anti-Clinton, pro-Trump messages shared with millions of voters by Russia could have made the difference” in the election. “What we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come,” they write elsewhere in the 10,000-word article. Originally published at consortiumnews.com But an investigation of the data they cite to show that the...

  At last a book that attacks the “Blob” and holes it below the water line. Whether it can sink it is another matter. I’m talking about a book published last week by the Harvard professor of international affairs, Stephen Walt, “The Hell of Good Intentions”. The “Blob” is a wonderful word conjured up by President Barack Obama’s deputy National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes. It means the group of congressmen, generals, industrialists, academics and journalists who specialize in foreign policy and have an influence promoting what Walt calls “Liberal Hegemony”. This, he defines, as the default setting for US foreign policy by the ingrown foreign policy establishment. “Open-ended efforts to remake the world in America’s image gives them plenty to do, appeals to its members’ self-regard and maximizes their status and power”. It’s a full employment policy (by those who were thrown out of work at the end of the...

Et forkert klik på ”del” ikonet på Facebook skal fremover give en staf på op til 12 års fængsel, hvis det står til den danske regering, fremgår det i et nyt lovforslag. Det afhænger selvfølgelig af omstændighederne. Eller rettere af en bestemt omstændighed. Den hedder Rusland. Forestil dig, at du har en kritisk holdning til NATO, og du læser en nyhed på Facebook eller Twitter, som du synes er værd at dele med dit netværk. Du deler nyheden. Det viser sig, at nyheden er fabrikeret af den russiske efterretningstjeneste, der har haft til hensigt at påvirke den offentlige debat i Danmark. Nu skal du forklare retten, at du ikke bevidst ifølge lovforslaget har forsøgt at påvirke ifølge ”den almene opfattelse af NATO-samarbejdet negativt”. Lykkedes du ikke med det, kan du se frem til op til 12 års fængsel, hvis du delte nyheden det under et valg. Ovenstående er desværre ikke...

Photo from Shanghai by Jan Oberg 2018   By Cecily Liu in London from China Daily October 22, 2018 Esteemed author says nation’s development model can be a blueprint for emerging economies China’s rapid growth since the reform and opening-up process began in 1978 has not only been an economic miracle for the nation, but it has also offered a new development model for other emerging economies, said Martin Jacques, author of the global bestseller When China Rules the World. In doing so, China has proved the inaccuracy of the previous consensus that the Western model of development was the only path to success. Effectively, Jacques said, China has inspired other emerging countries to explore development paths that are suitable for their own situations. Originally published by chinadaily.com “The achievements of China’s reform and opening-up are very simple: one, the transformation of China; two, the transformation of the world,” said...

  “Suppose aliens existed, and that some had been watching our planet for its entire forty-five million centuries, what would they have seen? Over most of that vast time-span, Earth’s appearance altered very gradually. Continents drifted; ice-cover waxed and waned; successive species emerged, evolved and became extinct. But just in a tiny sliver of Earth’s history – the last hundred centuries – the patterns of vegetation altered much faster than before. This signaled the start of agriculture – and then urbanization.” We are at the very end of that “sliver”. So begins a new book by Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, “On the Future: Prospects for Humanity”. There is much in this short, very readable, book – the disturbing, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, future of biotech, artificial intelligence, global warming, medicine, ageing, communications, nuclear energy, weapons development, sustainability, agricultural research, poverty and employment, but its centerpiece is astronomy. Over the...

  What do we have to truly fear about President Donald Trump? Last week he pulled off the successful re-negotiation of the North America Free Trade area. Pundits thought, with Canada refusing to bend, it couldn’t happen. Maybe the deal now leans more in America’s direction but Trump has also given something away: the right of Mexico and Canada to sell their trucks and cars more easily in the US. He said he’s a great “deal-maker,” and so this time he is. His trade tussle with China, which looks to be a standoff at the moment, has not yet led to a break down in good relations. Trump has been more than careful to keep the direct channels open to President Xi Jinping, even if last week he became more openly critical and personal. He has treated Xi much better than he treated Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. Nevertheless,...

  From the time of its beginning as a nation state “Brazil has been a paradise for some, an endless hell for others, and for the rest, a kind of purgatory on earth.” So write two Brazilian historians, Lilla Schwarcz and Heloisa Starling, in their massive, newly published, volume on Brazil. They continue: “Brazil’s development was born of ambivalence and contrast. On the one hand it is a country with a high degree of social inequality and low rates of literacy, whereas on the other its electoral system is one of the most sophisticated and reliable in the world. Brazil has the second number of Facebook users in the globe. At the same time vast geographical regions lie abandoned, particularly in the north, where the chief means of transport is by rudimentary sailboats. Brazil has an advanced constitution which forbids any kind of discrimination, yet, in reality, silent and perverse...