December 2020

The British Empire in 1886 Britain leaves the EU on December 31, 2020. We mark this historical event by looking at its global, imperial military footprint and the mind-boggling waste of scarce resources its prime minister is proud of standing behind in times that are already extremely hard for the citizens. Binoy Kampmark December 29, 2020 A few nostalgic types still believe that the Union Jack continues to flutter to sighs and reverence over outposts of the world, from the tropics to the desert. They would be right, if only to a point. Britain, it turns out, has a rather expansive global reach when it comes to bases, military installations and testing sites. While not having the obese heft and lumbering brawn of the United States, it makes a good go of it. Globally, the UK military has a presence in 145 sites in 42 countries. Originally posted by Off Guardian on...

Unlike most of my interviews, this one is not directly about current political concerns. It rather explores ‘peace’ in its manifold identity. The interview was conducted by Miguel Mendoça a couple of months ago for a book project consisting of such interviews from a variety of persons whose life and work touches on the theme of peace. Miguel has since abandoned the project in favour of producing his own poems. Whether such abstract ideas as peace can be usefully explored independent of concrete circumstances haunts this text. I accept most of the blame. The interaction made me realize how little thought I have given to peacefulness as a personal trait and peace as the core of benevolent political arrangements, whether local or planetary and how their interaction may be understood. I recall being rather bemused more than 25 years ago when a meditation practice was premised on the confidence that...

Look at and listen in to three spheres of contemporary Western society – politics, research and media: The word” peace” and related words, such as the UN Charter norm of “making peace by peaceful means”, nonviolence, negotiations – have disappeared. And with the words, the discourse and with the discourse, the interest, the education and expertise, the focus, the awareness and the strategies. Let us start with the political sphere. In Scandinavia where I happen to live, today’s status is very different from the 1980s. There are no global disarmament policies or disarmament ministers; the UN’s basically non-armed peace-keeping is hardly ever mentioned; while Sweden has integrated with NATO and has soldiers under NATO command, it no longer contributes a single UN peacekeeper. Ideas such as human security, common security and confidence-building measures with the presumed enemy are never mentioned in the political discourse. The Corona crisis has also shown...

Lund, Sverige – 22. december, 2020 Deklarationen for TFFs Globale Omstillings-kampagne Vær rar at skrive på!Sammen med millioner kan du gør en forskel. Og bed dine familie og venner om at skrive på den også (længst nede). Hvis du ikke vil læse hele deklarationen, så læs blot denne korte udgave og gå ned til “Jeg støtter forslaget…” Kort udgaveOveni de store globale problemer, vi skal have løst, er så kommet Coronaen. Deklarationen argumenterer for at verdens prioriteter er – lad os sige, perverse. For eksempel så koster alt hvad FN gør bare 3% af verdens militære udgifter.TFF – Den Transnationale Stiftelse for Freds- og Fremtidsforskning i Lund – foreslår derfor at alle lande omgående reducerer militærudgifterne med 50%. Det vil frigøre 1000 milliarder dollar – ja, du læste rigtigt. Dette ufatteligt store beløb skal bruges til at få løst de globale problemer – som klimaforandringen, fattigdommen, sulten etc – og...

By Regan Durkin The Global Press Coalition for Peace, GPCP, in Washington kindly turned to me and asked me to speak with them for a longer podcast. GPCP is a rather young but very innovative civil society organization that focuses on how the media deal with conflicts, war and peace – and how it can be done better. I warmly recommend that you visit and look around. Their focus is so very important. I was very grateful for being given this opportunity since its podcasts seem to have a rather wide audience in the United States in particular. The conversation was initiated and the podcast recorded by Regan Durkin and the whole thing was a very pleasant experience. Here is how she has introduced me on their homepage: “Join us as we discuss with Dr. Jan Oberg, Founder of The Transnational Foundation for Peace & Future Research, diving into the...

There is no security without food security. Geoff Tansey argues that meeting the real security needs of humanity necessitates the progressive redistribution of military budgets toward ending hunger and achieving sustainable development. Geoff Tansey December 13, 2020 As Covid-19 exacerbates inequalities nationally and globally, more and more people are becoming food insecure in both richer and poorer countries. According to the UN’s 2020 report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World almost 690 million people went hungry in 2019. And the number of hungry people has been rising since 2014, well before the pandemic hit. COVID-19 could push over 130 million more people into chronic hunger, it says. That means one in every nine humans going hungry most of the time. Originally posted on Rethinking Securityon November 5th, 2020 here This matters for both human security and physical security. Last month saw the 75th anniversary of the founding of...

TFF Associate in Beijing When numbers do not add up anymore, people turn to faith… I couldn’t suppress the feeling of a sense of a religious undertone when I went through the following report of more than 70 pages, released a little while ago by the US Secretary of State: The Elements of the China Challenge. It’s a 10-step blueprint for confronting the ‘China Challenge’ or maybe better phrased the 10 Commandments to counter the severe threat of China to the current world order – ‘the free world’. A senior administration official told the Washington Examiner that “over the coming weeks, the Trump administration will continue to expand the depth and breadth of the historic actions it has taken over the past four years to protect the vital interests of the United States and its allies countering Beijing’s predatory and coercive behaviors”. Also in Europe, there is an increasing stance against China...

In 2019, Ethiopia experienced the fifth-worst food crisis worldwide. Credit: FAO/IFAD/WFP/Michael Tewelde By Thalif Deen December 14, 2020 UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2020 (IPS) – The numbers are staggering— as reflected in the ongoing coronavirus pandemic which has triggered a new round of food shortages, famine and starvation. According to the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) 690 million people do not have enough to eat. while 130 million additional people risk being pushed to the brink of starvation by the end of the year. “Hunger is an outrage in a world of plenty. An empty stomach is a gaping hole in the heart of a society,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week pointing out that famine is looming in several countries. Originally published at Humans Wrong Watch Striking a personal note, Guterres said he could have never imagined that hunger would rise again during his time in office as Secretary-General....

Photo credit: Flickr/ Nick Taylor By Seyed Hossein Mousavian December 12, 2020 Over the past few months, Iran  has been working with China on a sweeping long-term political, economic, and security agreement that would facilitate hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in the Iranian economy. It is also pursuing a long-term partnership with Russia. Politicians in Tehran see the agreements as a necessary means of combating U.S. hegemony and hostility. Iran’s new policy of a “Pivot to the East” involves cultivating strong economic, political, military, and security ties with the giants of the Asian continent, namely, China and Russia. This policy has gained all the more credibility among Iranian officials after the United States’ ill-advised move to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, colloquially known as the Iran nuclear deal) and pursue a “maximum pressure” strategy. Originally published at The Diplomat The JCPOA was an international agreement between Iran and...

Photo credit: wsimag.com By Roberto Savio December 5, 2020 The recent meeting of the G20 – scheduled to take place in Riyadh but held virtually due to the Coronavirus pandemic – has been an eloquent example of how the world is drifting, in a crisis of leadership. It was, in a sense, a showcase. Everybody had to accept the view that the host of the meeting, the ailing King Salman of Saudi Arabia, was accompanied on TV screens by his apparent heir, Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who is clearly the mastermind of the brutal assassination, dismembering and disappearance of the body of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Originally published at the Wall Street International Mohamed bin Salman got away with it, also because of the support of Donald Trump who, in his video intervention said, among other pearls, that nobody in US history had done as much as he had...

Picture design by Saulo Castro at Dribble Farhang Jahanpour TFF Associate November 20, 2020 – December 1, 2020 This is a four-part series by the author, published by the International Press Service, IPS. Below is Part 1 and this is where you find the next two:Part 2 • US Presidential Election: A Campaign of Insults and Lies – November 23, 2020Part 3 • US Presidential Election: President Trump’s Legacy of Mismanagement of the Pandemic – December 1, 2020Part 4 • The Legacy of Slavery and Racism – December 9, 2020 American democracy has survived a dangerous virus, and it has even come off the ventilator, but whether it will be restored to full health or will suffer for a long time (like a long Covid) from the negative effects of the virus of personality cult, chauvinism, populism, racism, militarism and, yes let’s say it, fascism, remains to be seen. So...