{"id":78024,"date":"2016-08-22T12:01:22","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T11:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=78024"},"modified":"2019-11-20T10:03:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T10:03:35","slug":"meanwhile-around-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/08\/meanwhile-around-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, Around the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Auschwitz<\/em><\/strong>, 29 July:\u00a0 Pope Francis praying, asking God for the ‘grace to cry’ (INYT<\/em>, 30-31 July) was very, very touching.\u00a0 And very, very different from the show Obama tried to put on in Hiroshima.<\/p>\n

Turkey<\/em><\/strong>, any day, “the failed coup”–“but history shows it won’t be long before another one succeeds” (Robert Fisk, ‘Turkey’s coup may have failed \u2013 but history shows it won\u2019t be long before another one succeeds<\/a>’16 July 2016); “Turks agree on this: U.S. had hand in failed coup” (INYT<\/em>, 3 Aug 2016).\u00a0 To Washington, Islam and democracy go badly together; Muslims elect Muslims Morsi in Egypt and Erd\u00f6gan in Turkey. Al-Sisi’s coup succeeded, credits coming. But was this a failed coup? Or, could it have been some military giving Erd\u00f6gan the pretext he wanted to “cleanse” Turkey?\u00a0 They could have shot down Erd\u00f6gan’s plane but did not.\u00a0 Well, in that case we would expect generals and admirals who did the job to be pardoned.\u00a0 Time will show, and fairly soon.<\/p>\n

Haltiatunturi<\/em><\/strong>, a 1,365-meter mountain, but the border between flat Finland and mountainous Norway passes short of the peak.\u00a0 Geophysicist Bj\u00f6rn Geirr Harsson suggested that Norway gives Finland 0.01 km2 to include the peak, to “mark the country’s 100th birthday–Finland’s declaration of independence from Bolshevik Russia on Dec. 6 1917” (INYT<\/em> 30-31 July 2016).\u00a0 Enthusiasm in both countries, Norwegian Prime Minister is positive, but “has not yet made her decision”.\u00a0 A first?<\/p>\n

Russia-China<\/em><\/strong>: “Russia’s acres, bereft of local farmers, beckon Chinese farmers” (INYT<\/em> 2 Aug 2016). Huge numbers of acres, potentially huge numbers of Chinese farmers.\u00a0 The land is the “Jewish Autonomous Region” across the Amur River from China with only two Jewish families as the others left for Israel-USA.\u00a0 The land was used for collective, inefficient kolkhoz<\/em> farming, and Russians seem not to like farming. “The vast majority of China’s 300 million peasants have barely two acres”; in this land “empty of people” they may get 80 acres.\u00a0 But\u00a0\u00a0 this Putin Chinese quota policy is wildly protested in Western Russia.<\/p>\n

African Farmers Can Feed the World<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: Baher Kamal, \u00a08 Aug 2016. Africa has 2\/3 “of the world’s uncultivated arable land, 10% of renewable freshwater resources, and has registered a 160% increase in agricultural output the last 30 years.” However, the messy state structure stands in the way: only 13 \/of 55 states\/ “offer visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to all Africans”.<\/p>\n

Carlos Lopes, head of the UN Economic Commission for Africa:\u00a0 “Economics is key to African Transformation.\u00a0 China is in a position to help with the structural change that is needed, but continent’s leaders must be smart about it” (China Daily<\/em> 6-12 Mar 2016).<\/p>\n

US Elections<\/em><\/strong>: the candidates have huge problems. Hillary accused of perjury, the serious crime of lying under oath in the US Congress Hearing on her private computer account use as Secretary of State; Trump offending one group after another, shooting himself in the foot, sounding cranky.\u00a0 His lack of attention to the context and the effects of his many words smack of autism, with babble from his own bubble.\u00a0 A psychiatric case?\u00a0 In the choice between a criminal and a crank, the US delegates system may produce two new candidates.\u00a0 But the system may also decide that “no reasonable committee would launch a case”, or bury it under some formalism.\u00a0 And work ever more desperately taming Trump. It may end 60-40 for Hillary.\u00a0 Whichever way, the choice does not look good for US democracy.\u00a0 Calling for a “temporary take-over”?<\/p>\n

The Hague<\/em><\/strong>: “The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague has determined that the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was not part of a “criminal enterprise” to victimize Bosnians and Croats during the 1992-95 Bosnian war” (Andy Wilcoxson, The Exoneration of Milosevic: the ICTY\u2019s Surprise Ruling<\/a> 1 Aug 2016).\u00a0 Millosevic was demonized\u00a0 by the West like Putin is today, to justify intervention.\u00a0 So, finally ICTY may have understood that there were Titoist Partisans and royalist Chetnik Serbs.\u00a0 The conflict was trilateral, not bilateral.<\/p>\n

Washington, DC<\/em><\/strong>: The Rand Corporation has been “Thinking through the Unthinkable”–War with China–because “a mishandled crisis could trigger hostilities”. Key finding: “As Chinese anti-access and area-denial capabilities improve, the United States can no longer be–certain \/of\/–decisive victory”. Better take the war now than later? Or agree to fight counter-force–arms==, not counter-value–cities?<\/p>\n

Michael Klare “Blundering into War” (The Nation<\/em>, 21 Mar 2016) is warning about the situation in the USA-Russia-China triangle, but like Rand Corporation offers no solution for underlying conflicts. And the Democratic Platform is more progressive, and more hawkish, than ever.<\/p>\n

\u00a0United Nations<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0 Stephen Zunes testifying before the \u201cConference on Decolonization\u201d about the Moroccan occupation of the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara:\u00a0 “To accept the Moroccan autonomy plan would be endorsing the expansion of a country’s territory by military force and deny a recognized non-self-governing territory its right of self-determination–establishing a very dangerous, destabilizing precedent”.\u00a0 Morocco is supported by the veto powers of France and USA, and Zunes recommends that the civil society puts nonviolent pressure on both.<\/p>\n

United Nations<\/em><\/strong>: Kevin Rudd “My 10 principles to reform the United Nations, before it is too late” (The Guardian<\/em> 11 Aug 2016): “–a 20th century institutional structure and culture.\u00a0 And the common concern for those who care about the institution’s future is that if it fails to adapt, the UN is likely to slowly slide into the shadow lands”.<\/p>\n

Timbuktu, Mali<\/em><\/strong>:\u00a0 There is a “Timbuktu Crisis Committee”, mediating between the civilian population and the jihadists during the Islamic takeover, protecting treasures.\u00a0 Maybe better than bombing?<\/p>\n

Geneva<\/em><\/strong> (in Der Spiegel<\/em> 16\/2016<\/a>): The famous cartoonist Patrick Chapatte says that he enjoys “bad news. They are simply easier to draw than the good ones”.\u00a0 Well, why not create something new?–we need it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile this mix of the good and the bad.\u00a0 Like in the real world.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is founder of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> and rector of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He <\/em>has published 164 books on peace and related issues<\/em>, of which 41 have been translated into 35 languages, for a total of 135 book translations<\/em>, including \u2018<\/em>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/a>,\u2019 published by the <\/em>TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Auschwitz, 29 July: Pope Francis praying, asking God for the ‘grace to cry’ (INYT, 30-31 July) was very, very touching. And very, very different from the show Obama tried to put on in Hiroshima.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[393,392,248,263,89,395,70],"class_list":["post-78024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-coup","tag-elections","tag-farming","tag-matw","tag-pope","tag-turkiye","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}