Category: AA ARTICLES BY ASSOCIATES

Democracy and economy buzzing in Nigeria

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By Jonathan Power

Lagos – March 6th 2012

Politically Nigeria has been extraordinarily lucky in its political leadership the last thirteen years. Under dictator Sani Abacha opposition was routed and its leaders imprisoned, tortured and murdered, the press was neutered and the treasury looted for personal gain. It only ended when Abacha suffered a heart attack in bed in the company of three prostitutes.

Then one of his most vociferous opponents, Olusegun Obasanjo, who had spent three years in a primitive prison, won the first post-Abacha election. Read More »

The U.S. – from Empire to Global Fascism?

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By Johan Galtung

In The Fall of the US Empire-And Then What?[i] a subtitle is US Fascism or US Blossoming? Of blossoming there seems to be none, with the Dow Jones crossing the 13,000 border, the real economy still mostly in bad shape, the Republican candidates embracing the economic system that produced the crisis, and Obama running the progressive rhetoric trick that brought him into power in 2008. By midterm 2010 the bluff was called, with a landslide. The OWS, Occupy Wall Street, is in the first three stages, consciousness-formation, mobilization and some confrontation; but not yet in the real struggle with massive nonviolent practice of alternatives.

Fascism? There is a domestic and a global variety and the latter is Obama’s foreign policy, with domestic elements. Read More »

Tonight I lost my last bit of sympathy for President Obama

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By Jan Oberg

A man shall be judged more by his deeds than by his words, says President Obama. That is what I do to him here. On the basis of what he has done and says he will do.

This is President Obama’s most nasty, bellicose, one-sided and perversely power-arrogant speech ever. The Nobel Committee ought to revoke its Prize to him, but of course it won’t.

This cynical man speaks about the goodness of even more “crippling” sanctions on a country of 75 million people of which 25 % are children under 14.

At every single aspect he touches upon, he takes the wrong path: towards making war irreversible. There is no excuse that it was for AIPAC. In contrast to George W. Bush, he is neither ignorant, under-educated, or un-intelligent. That’s what makes it so serious, so tragic.

Among several remarkable things is that the President here also gives a carte blanche to Israel deciding alone what it will do in the future vis-a-vis Iran.

Under no circumstance can the U.S. under this man serve in a peaceful role, and it’s laughable to argue that it can be a mediator in the Middle East.
Pray that I am wrong but this speech, combined with everything else that goes on these months, makes me predict war on Iran within 4-6 months.

Addendum:
Of course this speech figures only on 2-3 front pages of the Western mainstream press the day after; they are more interested for a 2nd day in the likely, but so far undocumented, election fraud in Russia. Most editors probably don’t know what AIPAC is, or why Obama’s words in that forum are so important.

Nigeria – I have seen the future and know it works

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By Jonathan Power

Did you know that Nigeria, the most populated country in black Africa, is now one of the top five fastest growing big economies in the world? (The others are China, India, Turkey and Argentina.)

The image of Nigeria is of poverty, crime, corruption, election fiddling and maladministration. Africa, I find from my family and friends, is still a continent where death stalks – war, starving children and impoverished refugees.

But the tale of progress is unsung. This wretchedness is the only news that penetrates. Only one western newspaper, the Financial Times, has a full time correspondent in Nigeria where one third of all the black people in the world live. The rest get their news from the fickle eye of television and the rest of the newspaper pack.Read More »

Japan’s spiritual crisis

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By Johan Galtung

From Kyoto, Japan: A grey, cold Sunday morning, fitting the sad theme.

The Japan Times, an excellent middle wing newspaper, came in the middle of the night, with four typical stories, for a starter.

We approach the 3/11 anniversary. The earthquake struck on 11 March 2011, followed by the tsunami and the near meltdown of Fukushima No. 1 nuke plant. On 11 March 2004, terrorism struck the Atocha train station in Madrid. A bad date; may inspire somebody.

We read: “Worker at No. 1 nuke plant died from ‘overwork’. He was dispatched by a subcontractor, a construction firm based in Shizuoka, and started working at Fukushima No. 1 on May 13. On his first day he engaged in piping and other work in a waste disposal facility at the complex, but complained of not feeling well the following morning. He was immediately taken to a hospital and died shortly afterwards–radiation still high around Fukushima No. 1–640 km off the coast of Fukushima.” A private construction firm.Read More »

New media report confirms violence to be much more important than peace

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A new report by Media Tenor and the Institute for Economics and Peace shows that violence still outrules peace in the international TV media. Yet, certain aspects of the study are questionable – how to measure peace quantitatively?

By Jan Oberg and Ida Zidore

We all have a feeling of what peace is. Yet, defining it more precisely is not so easy. It belongs to the category that philosophers have called ‘essentially contested concepts’ – also used about freedom, justice and, say, democracy. Being somehow elusive, perhaps the best we can hope to achieve is intelligent discussions about how to approach peace, rather than defining it precisely.

There are those who jump the philosophy, conceptuality and definitions and go directly to quantifying peace. By means of some “indicators” readily available in data bases they put together a composite measure that enables them to rank-order countries. Developing such hit lists – for happiness, development, corruption, etc.- has become a kind of industry in recent years. Read More »

When is an ‘NGO’ not an NGO?

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Twists and turns beneath the Cairo skies

By Richard Falk, writing from Cairo

A confusing controversy between the United States and Egypt is unfolding. It has already raised tensions in the relationship between the two countries to a level that has not existed for decades.

It results from moves by the military government in Cairo to go forward with the criminal prosecution of 43 foreigners, including 19 Americans, for unlawfully carrying on the work of unlicensed public interest organizations that improperly, according to Egyptian law, depend for their budget on foreign funding. Much has been made in American press coverage that one of the Americans charged happens to be Sam LaHood, son of the present American Secretary of Transportation, adopting a tone that seems to imply that at least one connected by blood to an important government official deserves immunity from prosecution.Read More »

The dangers of Nigeria’s extremist Islamic movement

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By Jonathan Power

The governor of the north-eastern Nigerian state of Yobe, Ibrahim Geidam, where the extremist and murderous Boko Haram movement had its origins, told me that the situation is now “under control”. He pointed to the recent arrest of its spokesman and the way he was cooperating with his interrogators.

He also told me of the splits that had developed in the movement. President Goodluck Jonathan in a rare one hour interview told me much the same. But he added a caveat. Boko Haram still has plenty of destructive power. “Who is to know if they have infiltrated major institutions, even here in the presidential compound. It might be a cook, a cleaner or a driver, waiting for their moment to explode a bomb.”Read More »

Ten questions for coming Chinese and US leaders

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By Johan Galtung, writing from Kyoto, Japan

Japanese media make it look as if China attacked Japan in the 1930s-1940s, massacred a major city, with a concentration camp beating Auschwitz in cruelty. And, Japan fears a repetition. Well, Japan fears something, probably what Western aggressors fear too: Of course, we never did anything wrong, but one day they may come and treat us the way we treated them.

In 2012 the power will/may change in both superpowers, and we have a right to know how the power-wielders look at some basic issues. Read More »

Interview with Richard Falk

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A longer video with fundamentally important issues. About 16 minutes into it, listen to Richard Falk’s extremely relevant pointing out the difference in attention to an Israeli and a Palestinian human rights case.
Listen also to his telling criticism of the UN Secretary-General’s way of handling the politicization of the world organization and the difficulties he has with reaching the UN S-G.
Professor Falk is the envoy of the S-G to the occupied territories and TFF Associate since 1986.