April 2021

A Critical Analysis Of A Report By The Newlines Institute And The Raoul Wallenberg Center On March 8, 2021, the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington published a report, The Uyghur Genocide: An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal. It states that ”This report is the first independent expert application of the 1948 Genocide Convention to the ongoing treatment of the Uyghurs in China. It was undertaken by the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, in cooperation with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, in response to emerging accounts of serious and systematic atrocities in Xinjiang province, particularly directed against the Uyghurs, an ethnic minority, to ascertain whether the People’s Republic of China is in breach of the Genocide Convention under international law.” The Report – hereafter The Report – has been produced with the contributions of, and upon...

This photograph depicts the Armenian leader Papasyan seeing what’s left after the horrendous murders near Deir-ez-Zor in 1915-1916. Photograph Source: Bodil Katharine Biørn – National Archives of Norway – Public Domain Alfred de Zayas & Richard Falk The misuse of the word genocide is disdainful toward relatives of the victims of the Armenian massacres, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide – and as well a disservice to both history, law, and the prudent conduct of international relations. We already knew that we were adrift in an ocean of fake news. It is far more dangerous to discover that we are also at risk of being immersed in the turbulent waters of “fake law”. We must push back with a sense of urgency. Such a development is not tolerable. We thought that Biden’s election would spare us from menacing corruptions of language of the sort disseminated by Donald Trump, John Bolton and...

In separate incidents, Moscow and Beijing sent a strong message that they will not tolerate being told what to do or how to behave Tony Kevin April 26, 2021 The past week has marked a watershed moment in Russia’s relations with the West – and the US in particular. In two dramatic, televised moments, US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin changed the dynamics between their countries, perhaps irrevocably. Originally posted on Asia Times on March 26, 2021 Most commentators in the West have focused on Putin’s “trolling” of Biden by dryly – though, according to Putin, unironically – wishing his American counterpart “good health.” This, of course, came after Biden called Putin a “killer.” But a more careful and complete reading of Putin’s message to the US is necessary to understand how a Russian leader is, finally, ready to tell the US: Do not judge us by...

“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible because we are still each other’s only hope.” Maria Popova April 23, 2020 NOTE: This is the first installment in a multi-part series covering Mead and Baldwin’s historic conversation. Part 2 focuses on identity, race, and the immigrant experience; part 3 on changing one’s destiny; part 4 on reimagining democracy for a post-consumerist culture. On the evening of August 25, 1970, Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901–November 15, 1978) and James Baldwin (August 2, 1924–December 1, 1987) sat together on a stage in New York City for a remarkable public conversation about such enduring concerns as identity, power and privilege, race and gender, beauty, religion, justice, and the relationship between the intellect and the imagination. By that point, Baldwin, forty-six and living in Paris, was arguably the world’s most famous living poet, and an enormously influential voice in the civil rights dialogue; Mead, who was about to turn seventy, had become...

Photo credit: The United Nations The UN Security Council is now the battleground for a new Cold War between the US and China Thalif Deen April 23, 2021 UNITED NATIONS, Apr 14 2021 (IPS) – A new Cold War – this time, between the US and China —is threatening to paralyze the UN’s most powerful body, even as military conflicts and civil wars are sweeping across the world, mostly in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. The growing criticism against the Security Council is directed largely at its collective failures to resolve ongoing conflicts and political crises in several hot spots, including Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Ukraine and Libya — and its longstanding failure over Palestine. The sharp divisions between China and Russia, on one side, and the Western powers on the other, are expected to continue, triggering the question: Has the Security Council outlived its...

Photo credit: off-guardian.org Edward Curtin April 22 2021 The Incompetent, Negligent, Mishandling, Miscalculating Elite Blunderers You’ve heard of them, no doubt, the U.S. rulers who can’t rule too well and are always getting surprised by events or fed bad advice by their underlings.  Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned. They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence.  They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the elites whom allegedly they oppose while ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail.  They never see the storm coming, even as they create it.  Their incompetence is the retort to all those nut cases who conjure up conspiracy theories to explain their actions or lack thereof.  They are innocent.  Always innocent. Originally published by off-guardian.org They and their media mouthpieces offer Americans, who are most eager to accept, what Lutheran pastor and...

The world’s rising powerhouse In 1986 on returning for my first 3-week visit to China, I wrote an article, “China: Key Player in a New World Game” in The Futurist, December 1986. I had been invited by China’s State Council at the recommendation of my good friends, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, best-selling authors of Future Shock (1970), who both had, and still, have a big following in China. This surprise invitation was to speak at “The First International Conference on Creativity”, co-sponsored by the United Nations Education & Scientific Cooperation Organization (UNESCO), along with Edward de Bono of Britain and US psychologist/philosopher Jean Houston, author of The Possible Human (1982). Mystified, I called the phone number in China of Professor Xu, the convenor at Shanghai-based Jiaotong University, and asked why I had been invited to this event, all expenses paid. Professor Xu replied in perfect English, “In China, you are a great scholar and your...

A new report, published on 14 March, 2021, in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ journal Ambio, points out that humanity is hurtling towards destruction unless we have the collective wisdom to change course quickly. The Ambio article was written as part of the preparation of a meeting of Nobel Prize winners to discuss the state of the planet. The virtual meeting will be held on April 26-28, 2021. We Must Achieve a Steady-State Economic System A steady-state economic system is necessary because neither population growth nor economic growth can continue indefinitely on a finite earth. No one can maintain that exponential industrial growth is sustainable in the long run except by refusing to look more than a short  distance into the future. Of course, it is necessary to distinguish between industrial growth, and growth of culture and knowledge, which can and should continue to grow. Qualitative improvements in human society are possible and...

Photo credit: wsimag.com Ellyn Kaschak April 16, 2021 It is definitely nothing that has come before All of us alive on the planet today are part of the most significant transition in centuries, whether we know it or not, whether it has touched us lightly or heavily and whether we choose to be or not. Not since the Industrial Revolution has such a total and radical social upheaval occurred. As with most major cultural shifts, this one follows a technological innovation of which we are all aware and that is the invention of the Internet along with its ready accessibility on a handheld ubiquitous device. Originally published at World Street International This dependence on technology to spur social change has been the case perhaps since the first person to do so created the wheel. Automobiles and air travel, movies and recordings changed the lives of those who lived in those...

Image Credit: The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs April 8, 2021 The Brown Political Review is a non-partisan political publication that seeks to promote ideological diversity. All of the views reflected in BPR’s content are views held by authors and not reflective of the views held by the wider organization or the Executive Board. This conversation was published by the Brown Political Review on March 31, 2021 Sam Kolitch Ambassador Chas Freeman is a retired career diplomat who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-1994, Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989-1992 during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 1986-1989 during the Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola and the U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa, Deputy Chief of Mission and Chargé d’Affaires in the American embassies at Bangkok from 1984-1986 and at...

Edward Lozansky April 8th, 2021 Apology and humanitarian help are a better start In his recent speech outlining the new U.S. foreign policy vision Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made a really sensational statement: “We will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in the past. However well intentioned, they haven’t worked.”  Originally posted on US-Russia.org’s website on March 15th, 2021 After hearing this from someone who not only enthusiastically supported the wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, I had to reread his speech a couple of times to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating.  Some skeptics, after seeing in this speech the usual lines about “renewing America’s strength” and that only the United States can “lead” the world, shrugged off Mr. Blinken’s disavowing many decades of U.S. forceful changes of unsuitable foreign regimes.  For...