Peace &
nonviolence
•
Baby
Steps to a Global Revolution? Barbara Ehrenreich and
Juliette Beck Discuss the New
Activism
The WTO. The World Bank and the IMF. The protests
against transnational corporate power have begun to
sink in. A year ago, a mass movement that raised such
issues as corporate accountability and Third World
debt seemed an impossibility. But since the shutdown
of the World Trade Organization meetings in November
and the protests against international lending
institutions in Washington, DC, it has become obvious
that Americans -- particularly young Americans -- are
not as apolitical as people have tended to think. A
movement of young activists is afoot. And their target
is not one politician or businessman, but an entire
system of international capital that they insist is
creating an intolerable corporate culture, strangling
democratic freedoms and further impoverishing
countries of the Third World.
•
A
conversation between Pierre Bourdieu and Günther
Grass
About the role of the public intellectual, about
writing history from below and about dogmatic
neoliberalism.
•
The
Big Issue. Coming up from the
streets
The Big Issue was set up in 1991 to give homeless
people the chance to make an income. It campaigns on
behalf of homeless people and highlights the major
social issues of the day. It allows homeless people to
voice their views and opinions...and study the
powerful Bilderberg group.
•
We
the Peoples Millennium Forum Declaration and Agenda
for Action Strengthening the United Nations for the
21st
Century
We, 1,350
representatives of over 1,000 non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and other civil society
organizations from more than 100 countries, have
gathered at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters in
New York from 22 &endash; 26 May 2000 to build upon a
common vision and the work begun at civil society
conferences and the UN world conferences of the
1990's, to draw the attention of governments to the
urgency of implementing the commitments they have
made, and to channel our collective energies by
reclaiming globalization for and by the
people.
Armament and the
new Cold War
•
Russian
missile defence plan falls flat in
Washington
A Russian charm offensive aimed at derailing
controversial US plans to develop a missile defence
system ran into trouble last night after Washington
branded Moscow's alternative proposals as "totally
inadequate". The rejection will be keenly felt by
Russia's defence minister, Igor Sergeyev, who made a
special trip to Nato headquarters in Brussels to brief
the alliance on how his country thought the threat of
an attack from so-called rogue states should be
countered. It is also highly embarrassing for
President Vladimir Putin...
•
China
threatens to boost its nuclear weapons capacity if
confronted with the US BMD
When US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright meets
today and tomorrow with the Beijing leadership, she
will not find a receptive audience for the proposed
American missile defense system. If Washington
proceeds with a $60 billion defense umbrella, analysts
say, it's likely to prompt China to begin tapping its
vast hard-currency reserves to build a larger, newer
strategic arsenal. But Chinese arms control and
nuclear weapons experts, along with some of their
American counterparts, say the US already holds the
globe's most formidable nuclear sword.Armed with a
nuclear shield, they add, the world's "hyperpower"
would have the capability to neutralize Beijing's
relatively small atomic arsenal in a nuclear first
strike.
Globalization -
imperialism
•
War
and money
War and money: this dangerous twosome are not only at
the root of much suffering, their intricate
relationship can also be a source of regeneration. The
impact of business in war zones, the arrival of the
new war economies and the emergence of a competitive
sea of humanitarian actors are just some of the
developments currently shaping the humanitarian
response to armed conflicts. Learn about the
interesting People on War project conducted by the
ICRC, a project where the victims of wars are being
heard effectively.
•
China
and globalism
The globalist establishment assumes that bringing
China into the WTO will throw a huge log in the path
of reformers seeking labor rights, environmental
protection and other social standards as new operating
rules for globalization. But those smug leaders may
have it backward. Certainly, China provides a new
obstacle to reform, but its main impact may be to
hasten the discrediting of the WTO and other
international institutions. China's irregular presence
may dramatically demonstrate the lawless
contradictions tolerated within the system. The WTO
regime cannot now enforce its commercial edicts in
disputes among the most advanced economies. Imagine
the WTO's impotence when it tries to impose its "free
trade" ideology on developing China -said William
Greider.
The Balkans and
Kosovo/a -
•
Questions
surface over NATO's revised take on the war in
Kosovo
KLA guerrillas constantly were on the phone to NATO
"to tell us there were 15 bad guys down the road,"
U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael C. Short, NATO's air
operations boss, told a conference. And NATO itself
"instigated" the KLA's biggest offensive of the war in
May 1999, German Gen. Klaus Naumann, former head of
the NATO military committee, told an interviewer. This
collaboration might not be noteworthy--except that
NATO leaders so emphatically denied it during the war.
And the revisionist accounts are but one example of
the way the official accounts have been rewritten or
contradicted by insiders since the war. While the air
war is history, the issue is not just academic: The
alliance can't afford widespread doubts about its
conduct of the war as it struggles to continue a
peacekeeping effort that is likely to drag on for
years in the province.
•
China
- Time for in-depth reflection on
Kosovo
The People's Daily reports from the UN Security
Council debate.
•
Montenegro,
Serbia - money and killings - and
CIA
Stories and perspectives from Truth in the
Media in Arizona - details you do not often hear
in the Western mainstream press.
•
US
seeks war crime amnesty for
Milosevic
China is seen as haven...It bombed his home, put a
bounty on his head and branded him a monster who could
never be forgiven, but the United States is quietly
seeking a way out for Slobodan Milosevic that would
leave his bank account intact. Despite denials, US
officials are considering ways to allow the Yugoslav
president to leave office without a war crimes trial
at the Hague. In what may turn out to be the Balkan
endgame, the US is signalling the possibility of a
secure retirement for the man blamed for setting
Yugoslavia aflame. Another interesting Guardian
analysis.
•
UNMIK's
Dr. Kouchner tells UN's Dienstbier to "shut
up"
The truths about Kosovo that Mr. Jiri Dienstbier has
told the world, are not so popular in Kosovo.
•
Election
boost for Milosevic divides Montenegro
further
Yugoslavia's president Slobodan Milosevic has won an
important political victory in Serbia's sister
republic of Montenegro after voters strongly backed
his supporters in a key local election and rebuffed
proponents of independence. Jonathan Steele's analysis
in the Guardian.
•
Independent
War Crimes Tribunal finds the U.S. and NATO
guilty
A panel of 16 judges from 11 countries at a
people's tribunal meeting in New York June 10 before
500 people found U.S. and NATO political and military
leaders guilty of war crimes against Yugoslavia in the
March 24-June 10, 1999 assault on that country. See
the full indictment text, read the speeches and
testimonies and the text of the final judgement - and
see who the judges were.
•
Kosovo
One Year Later
The Cato Institute report says that "Confronting
Kosovo's depressing prospects, the administration
consoles itself that, as President Clinton says, it
"did the right thing in the right way" when it
intervened. Even granting that doubtful premise, this
is not enough to exonerate policymakers from their
responsibility for the situation the United States
confronts today. In the real world, policymakers are
judged by the consequences of their actions, not by
their intentions. The Kosovo war has not vindicated
the administration's doctrine of "virtuous power." By
waging an avoidable war, the Clinton administration
has saddled the United States with a host of
intractable problems."
What was the truth
then? What is it today? The role of the
media
•
Self-censorship
is alive and well today
Self-censorship is commonplace in the news media
today, according to a survey of nearly 300 journalists
and news executives by the Pew Research Center and the
Columbia Journalism Review. About one-quarter of the
local and national journalists say they have purposely
avoided newsworthy stories, while nearly as many
acknowledge they have softened the tone of stories to
benefit the interests of their news organizations.
Fully four-in-ten (41%) admit they have engaged in
either or both of these practices.
•
War,
peace and the media - can media contribute to peace
too?
A series of articles from MediaChannel.
The US as a world
order problem
•
The
United States expands nuclear targets
worldwide
Senior American military officers insist that current
nuclear policy prevents them shrinking the US nuclear
arsenal to fewer than 2,000 to 2,500 strategic weapons
- and that going lower would threaten national
security. Their calculations are buried in the
nation's strategic war plan and ultimately linked to
presidential guidance.
•
The
US intensifies its fight against a declining world
terrorism
everywhere.
While U.S. government statistics indicate that
terrorism is declining, L. Paul Bremer III, Chairman
of the National Commission on Terrorism, in the June
2000 report to Congress, says the threat of terrorism
is "becoming more deadly," and recommends actions
which would further erode American's civil liberties.
- Created in the wake of the 1998 U.S. embassy
bombings in Africa, the commission's recommendations
include greater monitoring of foreign students,
sanctions against Greece and Pakistan, and adding
Afghanistan to the list of countries designated a
"state sponsor" of terrorism. The list currently
includes Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, North Korea
and Cuba.
•
Is
the US itself a rogue state?
Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria? By any
objective criteria, based upon generally accepted
norms for civil society, the rogue state par
excellence is not among this frequently cited group of
states. The rogue state par excellence has carried on
a campaign of international terrorism and genocide,
has refused to abide by international law or treaties,
has violated norms of civil society, and has defied
world opinion to a degree unmatched by the frequently
cited "rogue states." Some recent examples...
Humanism, human
rights and "humanitarian" intervention
•
The
Berlin Tribunal: NATO guilty
In The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the
"International Criminal Tribunal for former
Yugoslavia" (ICTY), created by the UN Security Council
at the initiative of the United States, announced that
she saw no grounds even to open an inquiry. NATO made
"some mistakes", she acknowledged. But Ms Del Ponte
was "very satisfied" that there had been no deliberate
targeting of civilians during NATO's bombing campaign.
In Berlin, on the same day, another Tribunal concluded
a far more serious examination of the charges against
NATO. This unofficial "European Tribunal" was
genuinely independent of all the governments involved
in the 1999 war.
•
Amnesty's
reports on NATO's bombings - and human rights abuses
in Serbia
"Collateral Damage" or Unlawful Killings? Violations
of the Laws of War by NATO during Operation Allied
Force. From 24 March to 10 June 1999 the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conducted an air
campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(FRY), codenamed Operation Allied Force. NATO aircraft
conducted over 38,000 combat sorties, including 10,484
strike sorties, against targets in the provinces of
Kosovo and Vojvodina, Serbia proper and the Republic
of Montenegro. Yugoslav media have stated that
thousands of civilians were killed in NATO air raids.
However, the civilian death tolls given in detailed
FRY government accounts range from 400 to 600. NATO
has not released official estimates of civilians or
FRY combatants killed. No NATO forces were killed in
hostile action during the air campaign. (07 May
2000)
•
Conscientious
objectors still face uncertainty if returning to
Yugoslavia
•
An
impartial tribunal, really?
Christopher Black blasts the Hague Tribunal: It is
clear that from the beginning American, British,
French and German interests were behind the creation
of the Tribunal and worked ceaselessly behind the
scenes in order to create it. They first considered
doing so in regards to Iraq and Saddam Hussein, during
the Gulf War. The idea apparently originated with the
United States Department of the Army, which alone
should tell you something about its true purpose. The
rhetoric used to justify such a body to the general
public was of course heavily seasoned with concerns
for "human rights" the "dignity of the individual",
"genocide" and "democracy".
•
NATO
deliberately targetted civilians
Amnesty's report on NATO's bombings is a blistering
attack on the Alliance. Legalistic in nature but
damning in content - the Amnesty's report reminds
readers that Amnesty repeatedly condemned Serb
atrocities against Kosovo Albanians - the report
highlights the inconsistencies and obfuscation by
NATO's official spokesmen, says Robert Fisk in the
Independent.
Sustainability
versus our conflict with Nature
•
Urgent
warning to limit resource
demands
A pioneering analysis of the world's ecosystems
reveals a widespread decline due to increasing
resource demands. The analysis was released today at
the World Exposition in Hannover, an international
exhibition of new technologies and sciences running
from June 1 to October 31, 2000. As part of the global
dialogue at the World Expo, commonly called Expo 2000,
the Washington, DC based research organization World
Resources Institute warned that if the decline in
ecosystems continues, the consequences could be
devastating for human development and the welfare of
all species.
WIRE Editor
Jan Oberg with TFF
Associates
Tell a friend about the Transnational WIRE
Send to:
From:
Message and your name