May 2015
When terrorism is not terrorism - Take Two By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Have you heard about a plot to wipe out an American Muslim suburb in New York State. Most probably not, because the mainstream corporate media hardly mentioned this news since the plotter is an ordained minister in the Christian National Church and former congressional candidate from Signal Mountain, Tennessee. He was caught on tape and on social media talking about wiping out a Muslim community in upstate New York. On April 10, Robert R. Doggart was arrested for plotting to kill Muslims and destroy a mosque in Islamberg, a Muslim area in the state of New York. He had spoken about his plans to attack targets in Islamberg during phone calls and also on his Facebook page. Two weeks after his arrest, he pleaded guilty to “interstate communication of threats,” a charge that carries a sentence of between 0 and 5 years in prison, along with a fine. He was not charged with terrorism, or even with a hate crime. Read More
Can we allow fate of those in the SS St. Louis to repeat? By Dr Habib Siddiqui: In recent weeks, Rohingyas stranded in rickety boats in the seas of Southeast Asia has caused international alarm. There are several thousand of these migrants in boats off the coasts of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia with dwindling supplies of food and water. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times calls it ‘a scene of a mass atrocity.’ If the seas will not kill them, starvation will. According to Tom Andrews, a former member of Congress who is president of United to End Genocide, “The Andaman Sea is about to become a floating mass grave, and it’s because of the failure of governments, including our own, to do what is necessary.” It is estimated that some 130,000 of them have fled by boat their ancestral home in the Rakhine state of Myanmar (also known as Burma) since mid-2012, and many – probably thousands – have succumbed to death just trying to do so. In utter desperation, the Rohingya have become the stranded boat people of our time. Aptly put, they are forced to brave death at sea to escape 'open-air concentration camps' inside Myanmar. Like the Jews on-board the SS St. Louis, fleeing Hitler’s Germany in 1939, who were denied landing in Cuba and the USA, the Rohingyas are denied landfall today. Read More
U.S., Iran, Israel, and Palestine: The Fateful Quadrangle PDF version By Dr. Abdul Jabbar: Three momentous and closely related events have just occurred in quick succession: Refusing to honor the U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared categorically that he will not allow the creation of a Palestinian state, thus killing any hope of any one-state or two-state solution in the near future. Secondly, the U.S. and five other major world powers have signed an agreement with Iran to seek a diplomatic, negotiated settlement that will allow Iran to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. And thirdly, Palestine has been accepted to membership of the International Criminal Court and can now bring charges of human rights violations against Israel. Read More
Powerful nonviolent resistance to armed conflict in Yemen STEPHEN ZUNES and NOOR AL-HAIDARY: As with the initial uprising against the Saleh regime four years ago, an unarmed civil society movement rises up to challenge the Huthi militia.While media coverage of the tragic situation unfolding in Yemen in recent months has focused on armed clashes and other violence, there has also been widespread and ongoing nonviolent civil resistance employed by a number of different actors. Read More
Hillary Clinton, phosphates, and the Western Sahara Stephen Zunes: For more than a half-century, a series of United Nations resolutions and rulings by the International Court of Justice have underscored the rights of inhabitants of countries under colonial rule or foreign military occupation. Among these is the right to "freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources," which "must be based on the principles of equality and of the right of peoples and nations to self-determination." Read More
Untangling the truth from the myth of the Armenian Genocide By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: The controversy surrounding the so-called Armenian genocide has again been stirred up by no less an important individual than the Catholic Pope Francis himself when he called it “the first genocide of the 20th century”. The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has vehemently criticized the pope’s remark. “The pope’s statement, which is far from the legal and historical reality, cannot be accepted,” he tweeted. Read More
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