The BAN Treaty – it’s significance and why some have isolated themselves from civilisation
A debate on PressTV between Jan Oberg and Jim Walsh, MIT Here is a link to a partial transcript
Konfliktanalyse og fred i Syrien
Frederikhavns Lokalradio ved den utrættelige, humanistiske Arne Hansen: Hør den erfarne fredsforsker Jan Øbergs råd til alle interesseret i at skabe fred og afspænding. Stormagterne har kompromitteret sig mht. Syrien historisk og aktuelt. Også derfor må vi i stedet styrke FN til at indsætte hundrede til halvanden hundrede tusind mand til neutralt at afvæbne alle der har våben og så […]
Svenska försvarsmaktens desinformation
Försvarsminister Peter Hultqvist och ÖB Micael Bydén skriver på DN Debatt om “Risk för desinformation om militärövningen Aurora” Och det är då just vad de själva sysslar med. Inte ett ord om att det krävs två till att konflikta med varandra. Inte ett ord om NATO:s expansion stick i stäv med givna löften till Gorbachev. Inte ett ord om den […]
Safe zones in Syria – very problematic
Commenting on PressTV after President Erdogan’s and Putin’s meeting on May 3, 2017
Syria – two perspectives illustrated
“The Debate” of April 16, 2017 on Iran’s PressTV between Richard Millett and myself is important to me. I think it will be for you too in the sense of clarifying two approaches and positions on Syria. Its focus is on the difference in media coverage of the terrible events in Khan Seykhoun and al-Rashideen but there is much more […]
The US/NATO confrontation with Russia is dangerous
TFF Live April 12, 2017 The secretaries of state, Tillerson and Lavrov meet today. We seem to enter a stage of what must appropriately be perceived as a frosty new Cold War. In the worst of cases this can lead to a new Cuban Missile Crisis. God forbid!
“Vittnesrapport från Aleppo, en annorlunda konfliktanalys och vägar till fred i Syrien”
Videoinspelning av Jan Öbergs föredrag i Stockholm februari 2017 Inspelningen är uppdelad i två delar: Del 1: Vittnesrapport från Aleppo 60 min. Del 2: Debatt och vägar till fred i Syrien 45 min. Bakgrund 10-14:e december 2016 vistades Jan Öberg i Aleppo. Med sin unika erfarenhet från staden ifrågasätter han den gängse massmediarapporteringen, argumenterar för ett nytt sätt att se […]
Keep focus on Aleppo and global dimensions of Syria
TFF PressInfo # 405 Lund, Sweden – February 24, 2017 Failed conflict analysis To analyse a conflict is as necessary as the diagnosis for the doctor: You either get to a solution/treatment or you don’t. If the diagnosis is deficient, you don’t. You instead risk killing the patient. And it’s deficient of you stare only at “evil” cells and […]
Discussing NATO with a former U.S. Ass. Sec. of Defence
A 30 min debate about NATO, Ukraine, Crimea, Yugoslavia, Syria the eternal enemy images and the – obsolete – philosophy on which NATO builds. Time for something new, I argue in the debate with former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defence under Reagon, Mr. Lawrence J. Korb who at the time was in command of 70% of Pentagon’s budget. Here in TFF PressInfo # 403 is a little longer text about this debate and there is also a little about my experience and policy vis-a-vis the media.
On the Syria ceasefire talks in Astana
There are strong reasons to be sceptical; there has been no interest in peaceful solutions to Syria’s problems since the violence broke out in 2011. Hard to see what a trilateral monitoring can do without a UN or similar presence on the ground. What if you monitor a ceasefire violation and can do nothing about it? That said, this is a new constellation with Russia, Iran and Turkey as guarantors and the RIOTs – Rebels-Insurgency-Opposition-Terrorist – have lost Eastern Aleppo.
Good: EU will honour the deal with Iran
Happy to speak positively about the EU foreign policy chief’s commitment to stand by the nuclear deal with Iran – a clear signal also to Trump. That’s good – the alternative could very well be war.
As we move into the new year – 2017
The old years went – in as little a time as it takes to turn around and see who is tapping you on your shoulder. And it is the new, the next year. I hope it will pass too – in as little time as it takes for me to turn my head and look forward again – because the face […]
Humans in liberated Aleppo
Have just published the second of a series of photo stories from Syria – “Humans in liberated Aleppo”. You can subscribe to this page for photo stories which ensures that you’ll get an email as soon as they are posted on my Exposure page. I’d be most grateful if you’d share this link too. And here is a little background […]
Imagine a Middle East with no weapons!
Here a few comments on Erdogan’s recent attack on the West for supplying arms to the Kurds. Funny that Turkey’s president should accuse someone else for weaponizing a conflict. At the same time as Turkey does it and is also involved in two wars outside itself – Iraq and Syria – and one inside against the Kurds. In this short interview I seek to raise the imagination: Since the weaponization of conflicts is a cancer on the world, imagine that a God-like magnetic force that could suck up each and every weapon in the Middle East, what would happen? They would be forces to sit down and talk! And one more point I did not get around to say: The world’s cancerous arms industry and criminal arms traders – governmental as well as private – would go out of business and many end up behind bars. In short, a much better world.
Obama is urged to make closer ties with Iran
In an open letter – hardly mentioned by the Western mainstream press, a group of high-level and rather “Realpolitik” US diplomats, scholars, military and politicians urge President Obama to take concrete steps to intensify the co-operation with Iran. There are obviously concerned that the U.S. shall be perceived as an obstacles for the implementation of the JCPOA, or the Iran Nuclear Deal […]
NATO’s confrontational policy
On June 15, 2016 I participated in a discussion with Mike O’Hanlon from the Brookings Institution on CCTV America – China’s international TV station in the U.S. with up to 75 million viewers. The discussion was lead by Anand Naidoo. You can watch it here.
Comments on US implementation of Iran nuclear deal
If the EU becomes a criminal Union some don’t want you to know
For instance EU and other Western mainstream media. But we are getting out! The European Union is about to sign an agreement with non-EU Turkey to get rid of a large part of its refugees – by paying around € 6 bn to Turkey. Amnesty International and many others have pointed out – in strong words – that this agreement violates basic provisions of international law and human rights norms. This is the text I wrote on March 16 in TFF PressInfo # 367. As far as I’ve been able to check, no mainstream Western media has made any use of this text, let alone contacted me for comments. Instead it has been circulated widely by social media, spread to the rest of the world by the excellent Human Wrongs Watch, by the largest alternative news agency, International Press Service (also in Spanish) and I had a chance to refer to it on Russia Today (see another post here on my site) with between 600 and 700 million viewers. The leading alternative Counterpunch in the U.S. featured it too. And if you google – “Will the EU become a criminal Union tomorrow – you’ll see it featured also in Equador, in Canada by Global Research, etc. The worldwide PressEnza Hongkong took it. So did the Other News. Information that markets eliminate. The WN – World News Network. There are many others, of course. And more to come, surely. Who is not using such […]
Iran nuclear achievement “victory for civilization”
My comments to Iran’s PressTV in the morning of July 14, before the nuclear deal with Iran was announced. This is a taped interview with a summary text: “This is a triumph for talks, for diplomacy, for dialogue instead of warfare and it is an important movement for the world not only for Iran or for the Middle East, or for Europe, it is for the whole world, because a war with Iran would be a terrible thing for the people, for the Middle East, for the world,” Jan Oberg, director at Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, told Press TV on Tuesday. “This is a victory for civilization, for civilized manners,” he added.
