September 2019
The 74th United Nations General Assembly highlights the ‘disquiet’ world we live in
By Habib Siddiqui: The 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) opened the past week amid simmering tension in the Middle East over recent attacks on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, which Saudi Arabia and the United States blame on Iran. It also came just days after millions of young activists and their supporters marched in thousands of cities worldwide to demand greater action on climate change. Amongst the notable absentees this time are Russia’s Putin, Syria’s Assad and Israel’s Netanyahu. For the first time in many years, the annual event was spared of the latter’s lying speeches. President Erdogan called for an end to the nearly nine-year-old civil war in Syria and said that many of the more than three million asylum seekers residing in Turkey are Syrian. Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad took the UN to task for failing to prevent wars and criticizing the countries of the Security Council for giving themselves "the right practically to rule the world". Probably, the most impassioned speech of this year’s UNGA session was delivered by Pakistani Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan.In his maiden speech, the Oxford-educated PM touched on four major themes: Climate change, money laundering, Islamophobia, and Kashmir. Read More
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan admonishes UN
By Syed Rifaquat Ali: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan asked the United Nations to immediately intervene in Kashmir before any catastrophe takes place between two nuclear- armed countries: India and Pakistan. Khan was most vociferous about the human rights violation in Kashmir while speaking at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York. Read More
India Again Rejects Trump's Mediation Offer on Kashmir Issue
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali: The U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed his concern over the fact that India and Pakistan are both nuclear countries and asked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran to settle the dispute over Kashmir. President Trump first met Prime Minister Modi during the Modi's address to the Indian community in Houston. The two then met on Tuesday during bilateral talks between the two. Trump also met Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan in New York on Monday. Trump also described as "very aggressive" the statement made by Prime Minister Modi during the 'Howdy, Modi' community event in Houston during which the Indian leader had made a veiled reference to Pakistan and its alleged support for terrorism. On Trump's new offer for mediation on Kashmir dispute, Indian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Raveesh Kumar told the media that India was clear on its position over mediation. The Indian spokesman claimed that the meeting between Trump and Modi was in the context of counter-terrorism. Read More
Protests continue in Egypt demanding ouster of US-client el-Siss
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Security forces in Egypt have clashed with hundreds of protesters in the port city of Suez, according to media reports, firing tear gas and live rounds to disperse crowds calling for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to quit, Al Jazeera reported Sunday (Sept 22). The unrest on Saturday came a day after thousands of people took to the streets in several Egyptian cities in a rare show of dissent against el-Sisi, who has overseen a broad crackdown on dissent including the jailing of thousands of dissidents and the effective banning of protests. A protester in Suez told the AFP news agency about 200 people headed to the city's central area for a second night in a row, where they were met by security forces and armored vehicles. Read More
Russia to help Iran in circumventing new U. S. sanctions
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The Russian Foreign Ministry has condemned the latest batch of sanctions introduced against Iranian institutions, calling them "illegitimate"."This will not affect our approaches to Iran. As we planned, we will continue to cooperate with Iran in the banking sector. This will have no effect [on Russia's position]," Russian Foreign Ministry Second Asian Department Director Zamir Kabulov was quoted by Sputnik as saying on Friday.The announcement comes as President Trump stated that the United States is introducing sanctions on Iran. Read More
Mob attacks against Christians on the rise in India under Modi
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has documented over 200 incidents of anti-Christian violence in India in just the first eight months of 2019. This averages to 27 incidents of violence per month. The report released Friday (Sept 20) the AFD India, documents 218 incidents of anti-Christian attacks. Out of those incidents, 159 were reports of intimidation and threats by vigilante mobs. Read More
Australian senators call for self-determination in Kashmir
By Syed Rifaquat Ali: A Kashmir symposium was held on September 18 at the Australian Parliament in Canberra, attended by a number of parliamentarians, representatives of Australian Forum for Kashmir (AFK) community and interfaith leaders, raising concern on the current human rights situations in Kashmir under total lockdown by the Indian military, and calling for self-determination of the indigenous people of Kashmir. The Forum was addressed by Craig Kelly, M.P. from Liberal party, Senator Deborah Oneill from Labour Party, Senator Dr. Mehreen Faruqi, Senator Richard di Natale, former Senator Lee Rhiannon and other community leaders and activists. Read More
Australian Green Party urges the govt. to help stop Indian aggression in Kashmir
CANBERRA, Australia: During her speech in the parliament, the Greens’ senator for New South Wales Dr Mehreen Faruqi has said seven million people were suffering under India curfew in Jammu and Kashmir and there was the threat of a severe humanitarian crisis in the disputed region, the News Tribe reported.She expressed these views during her speech in the Parliament. “Imagine seven million people in a landlocked valley confined to their homes, their phones dead and their internet blocked,” she said. “They’re up against the nationalist government of mighty power, its army, and its media,” Faruqi remarked. Read More
Turkey, Russia, Iran agree on steps to restore peace in Syria
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Turkey, Iran and Russia have announced the formation of a committee to draft a new Syrian constitution as first step in a political solution to 8-year war in Syria and condemned the U.S. decision to recognize Syria’s occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory. The formulation of the committee came after a meeting in Ankara of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Read More
After annexing disputed Kashmir territory: India reiterates claim over Pakistan-administered Kashmir
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Pakistan occupied (read administered) Kashmir (PoK) is a part of India and New Delhi expects to have physical jurisdiction over it one day, Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday (Sept 17). "Our position has, is and will always be very clear on PoK, that it is part of India and we expect one day we will have physical jurisdiction over it," he told reporters in New Delhi. Read More
Putin offers Russian missile defense system to protect Saudi oil installations
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: In the aftermath of Houti rebels drone attack on Saudi oil installations, President Vladimir Putin Monday offered Russian missile system to Saudi Arabia which now relies on American armaments including Patriot Missile system. "We are ready to provide respective assistance to Saudi Arabia, and it would be enough for the political leadership of Saudi Arabia to make a wise government decision - as the leaders of Iran did in their time by purchasing S-300 and as (Turkish) President (Tayyip) Erdogan did by purchasing the latest S-400 'Triumph' air defense systems from Russia," Putin said after talks in Ankara with the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Turkish president Tayyab Erdogan. Read More
With $295 billion defense budget: Saudi Arabia failed to protect attack on oil installations from ragtag Houthi rebels
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: With $295 billion 2019 defense budget, Saudi Arabia Saturday failed to stop a drone attack on its oil installations from the Yemeni rebel rag tag rebels. Drones launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and another major oil field, sparking huge fires. Read More
Chaos, confusion, conundrum on Kashmir
By Syed Rifaquat Ali: The RSS is bent upon to erase the Muslim culture in India which is a moonshine. And Modi is part of this nefarious design as he wears the mantle of RSS: an organization that never took part in India's struggle for independence and sided with the British before 1947. For how long the central government will keep Kashmir under siege? Once the restrictions are lifted, perhaps there will be anarchy in Kashmir and implacable violence and the central government will not be able to quell it. Read More
9/11 – Eighteen Years Later
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: On Wednesday the USA observed the 18th anniversary of 9/11. The attacks on the soil of the USA was committed not by a hostile state but reportedly by non-state Muslim zealots that were affiliated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda. Nearly 3000 individuals of all faiths died in the attacks. Since the militant group was based in Afghanistan, the mineral rich country wasattacked on October 7, 2001 as a retaliation by President George W. Bush. The Taliban regime of Mullah Omar was soon toppled with massive bombing campaigns from the joint Anglo-American forces. Nearly a quarter million innocent Afghan civilians who had no connection with 9/11 were pulverized in the USA-led barbarity. Read More
American Muslims 18 years after 9/11
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: 18 years after the ghastly tragedy of 9/11, the seven-million strong American Muslim community remains at the receiving end with President Trump’s demonization of Muslims to bigotry, to hate crimes, to widespread discrimination, to media coverage that links Islam with terrorism. Tellingly, attack on Muslims and their faith is coming from our top political leadership. I mean from our President. Yes, our President Donald Trump. Read More short version Read More detailed version
Is the U.S. Government the Enemy of the People? America's Lost Liberties, Post-9/11
By John Whitehead: What began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. The rights embodied in the Constitution, which have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded, are now on life support. Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government's war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11. Read More
9/11 Solidified the Destruction of Our Freedom
by Jacob G. Hornberger: The 9/11 attacks not only killed thousands of Americans, they also led to America’s forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and elsewhere, which have brought about the deaths of thousands of other Americans and millions of foreigners. But the 9/11 attacks did more than that. They also fortified the U.S. government as a national-security state, which solidified the destruction of the freedom of the American people. Read More
Hoodwinking the United Nations
Syed Rifaquat Ali: During the UN Human Rights Council debate on Kashmir imbroglio, the Indian representative Vijay Thakur Singh, secretary in the External Affairs Ministry, said on September 10 at the 42nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the abrogation of Article 370 and 35a in Kashmir was a collective decision of the BJP government. This is all lies and bullshit. Indian leaders are habitual liars and Vijay Thakur Singh is no exception. When and where was the debate in the Indian parliament to abrogate Article 370 and 35a? Read More
U.S. in talks with Houthi rebels to end bloody Yemen war
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: A high ranking US official said Thursday (Sept 5) that Washington was in talks with the Houthi rebels in a bid to end Yemen's war. “We are narrowly focused on trying to end the war in Yemen,” US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker told reporters during a visit to Al-Kharj air base near the Saudi capital Riyadh. The rebels, for their part, have exposed the limits of Saudi Arabia’s military might, menacing its cities with what Riyadh says are Iranian-supplied weapons. “The Houthis have been sending a barrage of drones and ballistic missiles towards vital Saudi installations after a recent spike in US-Iran tensions,” Fatima Abo Alasrar, a scholar at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told AFP. Read More
Kashmir remains under siege one month after Indian annexation
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Indian-administered Kashmir has completed a full month under the siege of brutal Indian forces where the unrelenting communications blackout and curfew have brought the normal life to a standstill with markets shut and public transport off the roads since August 5 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi revoked the special status of the disputed territory. Read More
Referendum in Kashmir
Syed Rifaquat Ali: With so much unabated atrocities heaped by the Indian army on the peaceful people in Kashmir, any bilateral talk between India and Pakistan on Kashmir imbroglio may not be acceptable to the people of Kashmir who want nothing short of independence. The war hysteria raised by both India and Pakistan at regular intervals is no solution to the seventy-year-old cancerous problem. Read More
Pakistan denies rumors about establishing relations with Israel
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Pakistan army’s spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor Wednesday (Sept 4) categorically denied rumors regarding the establishment of relations between Pakistan and Israel. Addressing a press conference in Islamabad General Ghafoor said rumors such as these are spread as part of 'fifth-generation warfare'. "We are the only country in the world whose passport refuses entry to Israel; we have had this stance for the past 70 years," he said, adding that any change in this policy would be a "political decision". Read More
Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu cancels visit to India
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday (Sept 3) cancelled a planned visit to India on September 9 to meet his counterpart Narendra Modi who last month annexed the disputed territory of Kashmir. Netanyahu visited India in January 2018, while Modi travelled to Tel Aviv in 2017, becoming the first Indian prime minister to tour the Jewish state. Over the past two years, Netanyahu and Modi have hailed "a new era of friendship between the nations," with mutual high-profile visits and several bilateral agreements signed in the fields of oil, gas, renewable energy and cyber cooperation. In his January 2018 visit to India, Netanyahu called Modi a "revolutionary leader," who had transformed the relationship between the two nations. According to media reports, Israel wishes to sell India several advanced weapons manufactured by the country's defense industries, such as spy planes, unmanned aircraft, anti-tank missiles, cannons and radar systems. Read More
Happy new Hijra (Islamic) year 1441
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Today, Saturday August 31, 2019 marks the first of Moharram, the beginning of the new Hijra year 1441, according to the Islamic calendar announced by the Fiqh Council of North America and endorsed by the Islamic Society of North America, a leading American Muslim civil advocacy group. Read More
Egypt’s security forces execute 17 persons in extrajudicial killing
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Egyptian President Field Marshall Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s security forces have killed 17 pro Muslim Brotherhood persons in the latest incident of extra judicial killing. The security forces claimed that the people killed were involved in a car bomb near the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that killed more than 20 people in Cairo on August 4. However, how the way the 17 persons were killed raised questions about the quick security forces operation. Read More
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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