Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Nobel Prize: Lawsuit against the misappropriation of funds
Dear Editor
News release – October 6, 2015
RE: Nobel Foundation – lawsuit against misappropriation of funds – violating intended antimilitarist purpose of the Nobel peace prize
The controversy over peace prizes disconnected from the specific peace vision of Alfred Nobel is now coming to a head in a lawsuit initiated by Mairead Maguire, a Nobel laureate; David Swanson, USA; Jan Oberg, Sweden; and the Nobel Peace Prize Watch.
None of the members of the Board of the Nobel Foundation had responded when the time limit set in a notice of litigation expired on Tuesday.
The plaintiffs have retained attorney Kenneth Lewis, Stockholm, to have the Stockholm City Court declare the prize to the EU an illegal use of the Foundation’s funds.
In December 2012 the members of the Board of the Nobel Foundation did not heed protests from four Nobel laureates, Mairead Maguire, Perez Esquivel, Desmond Tutu, and the International Peace Bureau, who in a letter had warned that “The “EU is clearly not ‘the champion of peace’ that Alfred Nobel had in mind when he wrote his will.”
– There can be many views on the EU as a contribution to peace, says one of the plaintiffs, Mairead Maguire, of Northern Ireland, but there can be no doubt that the Union has a military approach that is the opposite of the peace ideas Nobel wished to support. Our lawsuit is not against the EU, but for Nobel’s wonderful and visionary ideas of world peace and security through global co-operation, building trust, and abolition of armaments.
The evidence is clear that Nobel Read the rest of this entry »
Alliance blackmail: Israel’s opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement
By Richard Falk
The Vienna Agreement – formally labeled by diplospeak as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)] – reached by the P5 + 1 on July 14, 2015 has been aptly hailed as a political breakthrough, not only because it calms regional worries about Iran’s nuclear program, but more so because it has the potential to remove an ugly dimension of conflict from the regional turmoil in the Middle East.
Such a diplomatic success, after so many years of frustration, chaos, and strife, should be an occasion for hope and celebration, and in many venues it is, although not in Israel or Saudi Arabia or among the neo-con kingpins in Washington think tanks and their numerous Republican allies in the U.S. Congress.
Which side will prevail in this dysfunctional encounter is presently obscure, which itself is an indication of the dismal conditions of political life in America. Many unanswered and unanswerable questions bedevil the process: Will this agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program be approved, and then implemented, or will it be blocked or unacceptably revised before coming into operation, or later on?
Will Iran become associated more openly with Western attempts to defeat ISIS and in the desperate need to bring peace and humane governance to Syria where the people of the country have endured such severe suffering since 2011?
Will these developments allow Iran to be treated as a normal state within regional and global political settings, and if this reduced atmosphere of external tension occurs will it also have moderating impacts on the internal governing process in Iran? Or will Israel and its allies succeed in keeping Iran in ‘a terrorist cage’ reserved for pariah states, and continue to insist upon a military option to wage war against Iran? Read the rest of this entry »
Militarism up, intellectualism down = warfare
Jan Oberg’s comments on US Secretary of the Airforce, Deborah James’ advocacy for more NATO arms spending
If the West wanted a deal, it could be there today
TFF director Jan Oberg commenting two days before a deal should be concluded
US/NATO’s pre-positioning in Eastern Europe is grossly counterproductive
TFF director Jan Oberg commenting on US/NATO’s build-up in Eastern Europe, June 15, 2015
On the Military-Industrial Complex in 1961 and today
By Gareth Porter
The General’s Son
By Miko Peled
Time to give Palestinians their country back
By Miko Peled, TFF Associate
More than the threat of war on Iran, Netanyahu’s re-election is a call for war on Palestinians everywhere.
It is a call for war on human rights and international law. It is a mandate for the Israeli government to murder Palestinians. It gives Netanyahu license to continue Israel’s seven-decade policy of racism and apartheid towards the people from whom they stole the land.
It is also a call for people of conscience to impose boycotts and sanctions to divest and to isolation Israel. No more business as usual – it is time for outrage, for action, the type of action that brought down apartheid in South Africa.
It is a call to finally allow Palestinians to have their country back.
Continued reading in The Hill. Congress Blog
Will there be a deal with Iran?
Gareth Porter, investigative reporter, author of the book, Manufactured Crisis,and new TFF Associate shares his formidable knowledge about the problems and what might happen in caase the U.S. is not willing to lift the sanctions as soon as possible after a deal has been signed.