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HQ activities and all the rest What follows is an account of what is done mainly at the TFF HQ in Lund with board members, advisors and some of the Associates. It does not tell you what all TFF Associates - about 100 around the world - do on their own or as Associates of the foundation. If you added it all up, TFF's network represents a uniquely broad and productive community for peacemaking.
December TNN, the TFF News Navigator, is updated and expanded. Project preparations for 2007, Burundi in particular. Various updates and adjustments to the new homepage. Many new articles by TFF Associates posted, as we were a bit behind due to the work on the new homepage. General fund-raising activities as is usual at this time of the year. Jan Oberg was among 250 individuals worldwide nominated for the World Medal of Freedom by the American Biographical Institute, as a follow-up to being included in ABI's The International Directory of Distinguished Leadership 2006. Oberg was also granted the 21st Century Award for Achievement by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England.
November Board member Bo Rybeck wants to leave the TFF Board due to work pressure. He becomes TFF Associate instead, by December 1, 2006. The work on this new homepage - 300-400 hours - continues. On November 25 it was launched. Galtung's, Wiberg's and Oberg's work on the book on Yugoslavia continues. Various fund-raising and project proposals are in progress. Fund-raising efforts continue for Burundi and the Amahoro Open Centre. The TFF Amahoro Coalition begins a series of meetings and lectures to solidify its members' co-operation efforts. Project co-ordinator Chantal Mutamuriza resigns as she moved to Gambia to work with the African Commission. Associate Vicky Rossi spends her second month in Israel and Palestine. See her page at TFF as well as her new blog.
October Oberg receives the "Wooden Shoe" Prize awarded by the Danish Peoples' Movement Against the EU for his booklet on whether or not the EU promotes peace. Oberg is on mission in Burundi between October 20-27, working with the TFF Amahoro Coalition, meeting to secure fund-raising with a series of countries/ambassies and meeting also with officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UN mission, ONUB. Galtung, Wiberg and Oberg meet in Spain October 12-15 to continue work on their common book on the dissolution of ex-Yugoslavia and what the international community could have done to be more supportive of peace. We are building a completely new TFF website ourselves. Given its size, it takes several hundred hours. Have patience with us: in this period we may not post that much that frequently on the present site.
September On the 27th TFF Associate Jan Hjärpe and Jan Oberg speak at a seminar in Gothenberg, Sweden, about Islam, oil and Western dependence on the Middle East. Late September a three-day meeting in Italy with people from Greenland about possible future co-operation about conflict-resolution and reconciliation there. Work on a manual on self-educative materials in these field begins. Oberg's booklet on Does the EU Promote Peace. Analysis, Criticism and Alternatives appears from the Danish think tank, New Agenda. We continue to post articles related to the Lebanon War and other Middle East issues. Likewise a series is posted on the the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the 100th anniversary of the borth of Satyagraha, Gandhi's methods of non-violent action that took place in South Africa. Continued work on re-organizing the activities of the foundation in Theme and Action Groups, TAGs. Development of a media and information strategy as well as the early phase of constructing a completely new website.
August TFF Associates Wiberg, Galtung and Oberg lecture at a one-week course in Jondal, Norway August 20-25. The new Board of the foundation formulates an Open Letter to the (soon outgoing) President of the UN General Assembly, Swedish Foreign Minister Jan Eliasson. It calls upon the President of the UN General Assembly to initiate preparations for a Uniting-for-Peace-resolution in order to urgently begin the long road towards human security, conflict-resolution, justice and reconciliation throughout the region. It also contains a series of proposals for peace in the Middle East. It is signed by about 100 leading NGOs and individuals around the world Board meeting # 64 with the new board of the foundation takes place Aug 7-9 in Lund.
July Planning of forthcoming meeting with new board and implementation of the new TFF organization. Oberg gives a guest lecture at Coimbra University, invited by the Peace Studies Group of the Centre for Social Studies. This group is a member of EPSPI, European Peace and Security Policy Initiative that TFF is also a member of. A co-ordination and planning meeting took place too. Practical maintenance, catch-up and planning activities continue most of this month. Oberg speaks at the Askov College in Denmark on July 4.
June Ellen Frank becomes TFF Associate, our first artist. She does truly remarkable, comprehensive works in support of world peace. Weeks of maintenance - of the administration, the founders' house in which TFF is located, of the homepage; in short, catching up well into July. TFF receives a second one-year grant from the Folke Bernadotte Academy that enables it to work in Burundi in various ways. Various activities related to TFF's project in Burundi, including fund-raising efforts for Amahoro Open Centre. Vicky Rossi visits the foundation HQ June 5-13 to work on a PhD proposal and future interviews on world order and global ethics. Jan Oberg is on mission in Burundi till June 2, this time travelling with project coordinator Chantal Mutamuriza in the provinces. New photos from the capital Bujumbura and provinces are being posted.
May TFF Board meeting 62 and Annual Meeting takes place in Haverdal, Sweden, May 19-20. It's the beginning of a larger re-organization of the foundation and its work. Work on a new one-year project proposal to the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden to enable our foundation to continue working in Burundi. Three new TFF Associates, Jan Hjärpe, islamologist in Sweden and Farhang Jahanpour, Oxford University, specialist in language, Oriental studies, politics and religion and former BBC editor and the artist Ellen Frank. Begins with another academic task, the writing of "Burundi's Peace Process and the Media" for the online journal Conflict and Communication Online. It is part of TFF's participation in a Toda Institute project on peace journalism (9.000 words). Several lectures in Denmark and Sweden on Iraq, the Muhammad caricatures, reconciliation, Iraq, etc.
April Jan Oberg writes on a chapter for the academic Handbook of Peace and Conflict Studies to be edited by Johan Galtung and Charles Webel and published by Routledge. The chapter is a comparative analysis of the conflict management policies of the international community in the Balkans and Iraq. (10.000 words). The foundation is also inolved in another academically prestigeous project, the updated second edition of the Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict. (Sales information here) While Lester Kurtz serves as the main Editor, Oberg is one of several co-editors. More project applications are submitted to various UN organizations and the donor community in Burundi. TFF and its 13 partners hope to obtain enough funding to start building the Amahoro (Peace) Open House this year.
March Numerous new materials, including four TFF PressInfos, are posted on the website this month with themes such as nuclear abolition and how to avoid the clash of civilisation. Finalization of various documents pertaining to fund-raising for the Amahoro Open Centre in Bujumbura. TFF and its 13 partners begin to hand in funding proposals to the international donor community. Ina Curic, Romania, and Stellan Vinthagen Sweden, join the foundation. Spoof article by Jan Oberg upon the death of Slobodan Milosevic. PressInfo on Western peace prevention continues in former Yugoslavia. March 6-10, Jan gives an introductory course on peace and conflict research at EPU, Schlaining, Austria. March 2-4 Wiberg, Galtung and Oberg meet at TFF to work on common book on Yugoslavia and other matters. March 1, the Danish Television interviews Oberg for 8 programs on alternative conflict-resolution with a focus on the Middle East. Several TFF PressInfos are published around the issue of the Mohammad caricatures.
February Jan Oberg is on mission again in Burundi, from February 13-27. TFF Associate Chantal Mutamuriza and he works with the TFF Amahoro Coalition to prepare the Amahoro Open Centre for Peace in Bujumbura. He gives an intensive one-week introductory course in peace studies at the Lumiere University and a lecture for the UNDP staff. Chantal and he meets with a series of embassies and government officials plus the leadership of the UN mission, all to create goodwill for this community learningn and peace education centre. We engage in the debate about the Mohammad caricatures, articles by Jonathan Power and Jan Oberg. Catch up, lots of new articles posted on the website, including Hans von Sponeck's appeal for humane treatment of Tarek Azziz in Iraq and Jørgen Johansen's analyses of why Hamas won the elections. Preparations for the next Burundi mission. On February 3, TFF Associate Annette Schiffmann and Jan Oberg speak at the opening of the Copenhagen Social Forum on the exhibition of Nina Berman's photographs of wounded American Vietnam veterans and the situation in Iraq.
January On December 31, Oberg lectures at University College London, UCL, School of Slavonic and East European Studies - a comparative analysis of the Balkans and Iraq, the conflict formation and how the international so-called community intervened in these two cases. He also met with Peace Direct to discuss future co-operation. Planning of mission to Burundi January 17-29, including a three-days intensive training course with members of the TFF Amahoro Coalition and other activities aiming to establish the Amahoro Open Center in the capital. The re-organisation of the foundation's library is finalised. Early January we upload the 1986-2006 Highlights page, marking the 20th TFF Anniversary.
Fund-raising 2006 In 2006 we received US$ 25.383 or Euro € 19.432 in individual donations from our Nordic friends and friends in the rest of the world. In 2005, we received US$ 25.866 or € 19.800. Thanks to every single one of you! Jan Oberg & Christina
Spännar
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