January 2019

The number of nuclear weapons possessed by the US and Russia is a fraction of what it was during the height of the Cold War. Successive presidents on both sides, since the time of John F.  Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, have feared their destructive power. Their supposed value, so called Mutually Assured Destruction, known by its capitals, MAD, is in fact valueless. They cannot be used, and nearly everyone accepts that. Yet they continue to exist and, as President Mikhail Gorbachev and his ally in nuclear arms control, President Ronald Reagan, both said, there  is the fear of a false alarm or two errant officers in the silo entering simultaneously their keys which allows the firing  of the rocket. Yet here we are in 2019 with a new American nuclear initiative just announced last weekend. (I doubt that president Donald Trump is in the clutches of Russia. Otherwise, why would...

Press Release at the bottom An Open Letter on the INF & START treaties, nuclear risk-reduction and disarmament measures to preserve peace and achieve sustainable securityAdopted in Basel, Switzerland on January 15, 2019. To: Donald Trump, President of the United StatesVladimir Putin, President of the Russian FederationJens Stoltenberg, Secretary-General of NATOMiroslav Lajčák, Chair of the OSCEFederica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Security and Foreign AffairsEliot Engel, Chair of the US House Foreign Affairs CommitteeAdam Smith, Chair of the House Armed Services CommitteeJames Inhofe, Chair of the US Senate Armed Services CommitteeJames Risch, Chair of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Leonid Slutsky, Chair of the Russian Duma Committee on Foreign AffairsVladimir Shamanov, Chair of the Russian Duma Committee on DefenceKonstantin Kosachev, Chair of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Viktor Bondarev, Chair of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defence and Security CC: Xi Jinping, President of ChinaTheresa May, Prime...

By Gordon M. Hahn January 29, 2019 The alienation of post-Cold War Russia has proceeded in waves. Each successive Western overreach for not just maintaining but expanding its global hegemony has produced a new wave of Russian alienation. What will probably be the last wave, one that might help spark a wave of ultra-nationalism afterward has begun. This new wave is alienating the West’s last base of support for Russian democratization and international cooperation: Russia’s liberals. The first wave: The alienation of Russia began with the West’s failure to significantly assist Russia during its very great depression and talk of NATO expansion in the early 1990s but was staunched somewhat by the then still unbroken Western promise not to expand NATO beyond reunited Germany. This alienated a large part of the elite. Originally published on Gordon M. Hahn’s excellent blog here The second wave of Russian alienation began with the...

The Algerian philosopher and revolutionary writer, Frantz Fanon, wrote, “Africa is shaped like a gun, and Congo is its trigger. If that explosive trigger bursts, the whole of Africa will explode”.  The Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s largest country, is now caught up in the aftermath of its first proper election since independence from Belgium in 1960. Towards the end of last year one could say, after years of non-stop wars and massive carnage, the country was 90% bereft of fighting. The authoritarian regime of President Joseph Kabila was still in power but at last it had been pressured to call an election by the African Union, the Western aid-givers, some of the big Western businesses that mine in the mineral-rich country and, not least, the Catholic Church. At first the election held on December 30th seemed to be peaceful and reasonably well organized, but then as the ballots were counted...

Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images The world’s 26 richest people now own as much as poorest 50%. It creates huge problems, misery and conflicts. And it is caused by the West’s version of capitalism and is neither sustainable nor morally defensible, says Jan Oberg. By Oxfam  21 January 2019 Billionaire fortunes increased by 12 percent last year – or $2.5 billion a day – while the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth decline by 11 percent, reveals a new report from Oxfam today. The report is being launched as political and business leaders gather for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ‘Public Good or Private Wealth’ shows the growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and fuelling public anger across the globe.  It reveals how governments are exacerbating inequality by underfunding public services, such as healthcare and...

Af Jan Øberg 31. december 2018 Præsident Trump har hér i de sidste uger af 2018 sendt nogle signaler om en fredeligere verden. Og han kom til det Hvide Hus med den helt fornuftige idé om at få et bedre forhold til Rusland. Han har sagt at han synes at de militære udgifter er alt alt for høje og at han vil diskutere med Rusland og Kina hvordan man kan få dem ned. Og han har sagt at USA skal forlade Syrien fordi USA har vundet krigen mod ISIS og ikke længere gider at hjælpe fjenden al-Assad med dét! Publiceret i Arbejderen den 15. januar 2019 her Fra alle politiske sider har man kastet sig over ham. Nogle mener at han derved giver Rusland, Iran og altså Syriens Assad en gave. Her mødes højre og venstre – og de sidstnævnte mener desuden at det er forkasteligt at USA forlader Syrien...

– Martin Luther King Day Since The Transnational is also a public education site, we believe a handy, comprehensive guide to materials about Martin Luther King, Jr. should be found here: For his indisputable greatness as a human being, thinker and activist and for you to see just how far today’s United States of America is from its basic ideals, ideals that he stated so clearly and convincingly. Such ideals must never be allowed to die, neither be turned into lifeless traditions over time that are only paid lip service to at memorial occasions. Martin Luther King, Jr. has a series of messages for today’s world – and inspires anyone who wants to bring about change towards peace. We are particularly fascinated by his elaborations of the concept of The Beloved Community. And we’ve published two other guides earlier: Michel Chossudovsky, TFF Associate, Global Research Guide to Martin Luther King,...

January 19, 2019 “The naive and dangerous idea that the U.S. is exceptional has made us a danger to ourselves.” Jeffrey Sachs sits down with Rob Johnson to discuss his new book, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism, Columbia University Press, 2018.

By Robert J. Burrowes January 18, 2019 ‘When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it – always.’ M.K. Gandhi As we remember Gandhi Jayanti on 2 October, the Mahatma’s 149th birthday and the International Day of Nonviolence or his death on January 30, there is plenty of room for despair. Never before has the Earth and its many inhabitants been under siege as they are now, more than 100 years after Gandhi started warning us of the predicament in which we are embroiled and presenting his strategy for addressing it before it spiraled out of control. Whether it is the threat of nuclear war, the ongoing wars in many parts of the world and particularly the...

Many know about Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat in Budapest, who led his embassy in a successful attempt to issue “protective passports” to at least 6,000 Hungarian Jews so they could escape the Nazi occupiers and travel to Sweden. He also helped forestall a planned massacre. He became the second person to be given honorary US citizenship.  Many also know about the magnificent effort by the occupied Danes to use small boats to enable around 7,000 Jews to cross the water that separates Denmark and Sweden to get them to neutral Sweden.  And about the German businessman, Oskar Schindler, who later became the star of Stephen Spielberg’s masterpiece film, Schindler’s List, that showed how he used his business in Poland as a means of sheltering a thousand Jews. But how many know about Count Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish aristocrat, who arguably did the most to save people from the concentration...

Carl Meurling 16 januari 2019 Opinion i Skånska Dagbladet 21 december 2018 Carl Meurling är investerare i Ryssland, men skriver som privatperson. På många sätt är jag en vanlig svensk familjefar. För två år sedan förändrades mitt liv.Utrikespolitiska institutet (UI) gav då ut en rapport, i vilken jag och en rad kända och okända svenskar utnämndes till agenter för Kreml. Personligen fick jag äran att pryda Aftonbladets löp med Putin. Sedan dess har jag försökt förstå varför vi blev uthängda. Min slutsats är att den svenska utrikesförvaltningen delvis har privatiserats av utländska särintressen. Det är oacceptabelt och en säkerhetsrisk för Sverige. För vissa är jag nog ändå ovanlig. Redan som barn var jag intresserad av Ryssland, och genom värnplikten lärde jag mig ryska. Jag har sedan dess arbetat med att investera egna och andras kapital i Ryssland. Det har varit en fantastisk resa. Denna artikel publicerades av Skånska Dagladet 21...