Asia

By Mohammed Nuruzzaman | (Informed Comment) | – – The Rohingya of Myanmar are probably passing through the darkest time in their history, with the international community standing almost idle. While the Myanmar military and militant Buddhist monks are terrorizing this predominantly Muslim minority group and forcing them to mainly flee to neighboring Bangladesh, there […]

China

EV Game-Changer: China dumping Gasoline Cars even Sooner

contributors

By Zoran Radosavljevic | EURACTIV.com China announced on Thursday (28 September) it would start phasing out fossil fuel cars and set a 10% minimum quota of “new energy vehicles” in 2019, in a move European industry groups called a game changer and a wake-up call for Europe. China, the world’s largest car market, has set […]

Afghanistan

Taliban target SecDef Mattis Helicopter in Kabul, hit Airport

contributors

TeleSur | – – U.S. forces responded with an airstrike but one of the missiles went off course in a “malfunction,” causing several casualties. Kabul’s airport has been attacked by militants during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to Afghanistan. The U.S. responded to the attacks with an airstrike that killed multiple civilians, […]

China

Is Trump setting US course toward War with China?

Juan Cole

By Alfred W. McCoy | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – [This piece has been adapted and expanded from Alfred W. McCoy’s new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power.] For the past 50 years, American leaders have been supremely confident that they could suffer military setbacks […]

Displaced and Refugees

Rohingya crisis: this is what genocide looks like

contributors

By Alicia de la Cour Venning | (The Conversation) | – – The world is witnessing a state-orchestrated humanitarian catastrophe on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. The latest UN figures show a staggering 370,000 Rohingya have fled into Bangladesh since August 25. An unknown number have perished. Around 26,000 non-Muslims have also been displaced. This is just […]

Buddhism

As Muslims rally for the Rohingya, what About the Rest of Us?

Juan Cole

By John Feffer | ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) | – – If only Muslims reach out to help the Rohingya, the international community will suffer another blow to its reputation. They were Muslims, and they were leaving the country in droves. Their homeland, a remote corner of a multiethnic country, had become a […]

Displaced and Refugees

How did the Persecution of Burma’s Rohingya Arise?

contributors

By Engy Abdelkader, JD, LL.M. | (The Conversation) | – – Some 420,000 Rohingya Muslims, a religious and ethnic minority community in Myanmar, have fled to neighboring Bangladesh since August this year. The United Nations has called the Rohingya the world’s most persecuted minority group and described the atrocities by Myanmar’s authorities as “ethnic cleansing,” […]

Afghanistan

Are US troops in Afghanistan causing Talibanism?

Juan Cole

By Ann Jones | ( Tomdispatch.com) | – – Here we go again! Years after most Americans forgot about the longest war this country ever fought, American soldiers are again being deployed to Afghanistan. For almost 16 years now, at the command of three presidents and a sadly forgettable succession of generals, they have gone […]

Authoritarianism

Muslim Rohingya Refugees from Burma: “The Army… burned down my house.”

Juan Cole

TeleSur | – – “The army came and burned down my house. I was inside the house at that time,” one survivor said. Rohingya refugees arriving at treatment centers in Bangladesh covered in burns have told of an increased wave of violence against Muslims by the government’s military offensive. “The army came and they burned […]