Links to Facts & Views

You want to find interesting analyses, reports, articles and papers on peace and conflict issues from around the world?

Now we do the job for you. This page provides links to a selection of the best critical and constructive materials – the essential stuff we benefit from ourselves and want to share.

Just click below at what catches your interest – read, download or send on to a friend.

There are many great initiatives – also in the field of norm-setting – to further a truly global democracy. Here is one of them:• A Charter for Global Democracy
Our call for international accountability, justice, sustainable development and democracy. In September 2000 the United Nations will hold a special Millennium Assembly and Summit on the future of the world. This Charter will be published as an open letter on worldwide and other presented to UN Representatives. Please join us.

NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia was also an experiment in information or cyber warfare…• The Cyber Bomb in YugoslaviaFor specialists in this burgeoning field of information warfare, Yugoslavia merely stands as another demonstration that computer network attack will eventually become an integral part of the way warfare is waged, writes Bill Arkin in Washington Post.

Bit by bit, the truth about the consequences of NATO’s irresponsible bombing comes out:•Environmental effects of the bombing played down in NATO countriesThe rules of warfare which resulted in the people of Serbia and Kosovo being faced with life-threatening pollution should be reviewed. Paul Brown of the Guardian has met the man behind UNDP’s study of the environmental aftermath.

Here is a rundown of the world’s conflict trends and arms trade as well as a spot on Africa as a host of ever more resource-consuming complex, nasty conflicts. We may ask ourselves what happened around the world when – falsely – we were told that Kosovo was a holocaust-in-the-making:• Escalating civil wars, civilian bloodshed and western inactionThe deadly cost of the new warfare are the hallmarks of a 21st century conflict. Global conflict trends should lead us to discuss what the real purposes behind “humanitarian intervention” are.
Richard Norton-Taylor and Owen Bowcott report on the latest IISS Report.

U.S. policies step-by-step make the world a less safe place for us all – Canada speaks out. What about the rest of NATO?• Canada blasts U.S. nuclear policy
“By far the greatest threat to our children — indeed to all humanity — remains the spectre of nuclear annihilation and the hazards posed by other weapons of mass destruction,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy, blasting the United States for moving backward on a series of nuclear issues, writes Jeff Sallott of the Globe and Mail. 

If nothing works politically or morally, try a military “solution.” U.S. policies against Iraq take a dangerous and desperate turn:•U.S. to Aid Iraqi Opposition to Develop a Military CadreThere have been no inspections of Iraq’s reported nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs since the Government expelled United Nations inspectors 15 months ago. While the Administration says Hussein remains isolated, diplomatic efforts to set up a new inspection system have foundered. Now it tries “non-lethal” military training of Iraqis in the U.S., writes the New York Times.

Moral corruption abounds. This is what Doctors Without Borders did to be politically correct. One of its founders, by the way, is Dr. Bernhard Kouchner – head of the UN mission in Kosovo• Doctors without border expell Greek section – guess why…
Isn’t it interesting that the Nobel Peace prize winning Medicins Sans Frontiers, MSF, has expelled its Greek section from the international organization because it worked in Serbia and not only in Kosovo during the bombing.

We must not forget that the biggest conflict of all is that between humankind and Nature. Here is a small piece of news that could mean a lot for us all• Industrial nations undermine the Kyoto Protocol
159 countries, rich and poor, signed up to the Kyoto protocol by which they agreed to reduce their gas emissions by five percent. So far the protocol has only been ratified by 15 developing nations…

Remember the U.S. was not involved in overthrowing Allende in Chile? Remember CIA was not collecting data on Iraq – and remember to remember that CIA was not in Kosovo?• On the U.S. involvement in Chile in 1973
While Chileans are learning about their dark history from the U.S. documents, American citizens are learning almost nothing about their own government’s actions, writes Peter Kornbluh in Washington Post.

Some make attempts for civilizational dialogue beyond the everyday events, here is an American view on relations with Japan – or is it also indicative of some new Cold War structure?
• Challenges for the Western-Asian/Japanese future
The single most vexing problem for the region will be the lack of energy supplies on the part of China, Japan and Korea, and their consequent dependence on the nations of the Middle East. China, whether weak or strong, will remain the world’s greatest challenge in the 21st century.

WIRE Editor

Jan Oberg with TFF Associates