August 2020

Trump’s acceptance speech at the RNC epitomized scare tactics
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: On Thursday night (August 27, 2020) President Donald Trump of the United States delivered his acceptance speech as the presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention (RNC) that was held in the White House. It was the first of its kind when the White House was used as a podium for campaign by a seating president. As noted by presidential historians, the decision to use the White House as a backdrop is a perfect metaphor for how Trump has handled the presidency: With total audacity -- and no regard for how his actions will change the lines of acceptable conduct for whoever follows him in the office. He treated the White House as his personal property. Read More

Egypt arrests top Muslim Brotherhood leader Mahmoud Ezzat
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The acting leader of of the Muslim Brotherhood was arrested on Friday after seven years of speculation on his whereabouts, the Egyptian Ministry of Interior announced. Ezzat had been at large since the summer of 2013, after the military removed Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who hailed from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood. Read More

Violent Riots Erupt in Sweden After Islamophobic Extremists Burn Quran
By Yahia Hatim: Violent riots have erupted in Malmo, Sweden, after right-wing Islamophobic extremists publicly performed anti-Islam acts, including burning a copy of the Quran—Islam’s holy book. The incident occurred on Friday, August 28, when a group of right-wing extremists organized a gathering. Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported that the group decided to perform the anti-Islamic activities in protest of authorities’ decision to ban Rasmus Paludan, the leader of far-right Danish political party Hard Line, from entering Sweden for two years. Read More

New Zealand mosques gunman sentenced to life imprisonment
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The gunman of last year's terrorist attack on two Christchurch mosques in New Zealand was sentenced to life imprisonment by  the High Court on Thursday. The sentence came after three days of the final hearing of the case. The 29-year-old Australian gunman, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, killed 51 people and injured 40 others on March 15, 2019.  Tarrant murdered 44 people at the Al Noor Mosque and killed seven more at the nearby Linwood Mosque. He also injured 40 others in the mass shooting, according to the prosecutor. Read More

India Fears losing Siachen Glacier as Ladakh standoff continues with China
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Fearing losing Siachin Glacier, India’s national security planners are pushing hard to complete an all-weather strategic route to Ladakh that will link Darcha in Himachal Pradesh to Nimu via Padum in Kargil’s Zanskar valley, the Hindustan Times reported Wednesday. Senior military commanders were quoted as saying that the third route to connect Ladakh by road is urgently needed given Pakistan and its all-weather friend, China’s interest in the Siachen Glacier and Daulat Beg Oldie. Read More

Kashmir Awaits Arab Spring
By Syed Rifaqat Ali: If the Modi continues with its rotten governance under the garb of democracy it should be prepared to face Arab Spring which saw a series of pro-democracy uprisings in 2011 that enveloped several countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and so on. The Kashmiris have become desperate since they have been brutally tortured, crushed and humiliated, and they see no hope till this government is in the saddle. They have no option but to revolt openly in a do or die situation. Read More

Pompeo fails to convince Oman to establish relations with Israel
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Thursday concluded a Middle East tour after talks in Oman with Sultan Haitham bin Tarik Al-Said which apparently failed to convince Sultan to follow the UAE's move and normalize relations with Israel. The official Oman News Agency said that "aspects of the existing bilateral cooperation between the sultanate and the United States were reviewed within the framework of the strong relations that bind them," but made no reference to relations with Israel. Read More

After Sudan, Bahrain also rejects US push to normalize relations with Israel
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Bahrain has declined a US push to normalize relations with Israel, Al Jazeera reported Wednesday. Bahrain told the visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that it was committed to the creation of a Palestinian state, implicitly rejecting his push for Arab countries to swiftly normalize ties with Israel. Pompeo was in Manama on Wednesday as part of a Middle East tour aimed at forging more links between Israel and the Arab world on the back of a US-brokered deal with the United Arab Emirates earlier this month.  Read More

Sudan rejects US request to normalize ties with Israel
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Sudan’s transitional government Tuesday rejected the US request to normalize its ties with Israel. The decision comes as the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a rare visit to Sudan Tuesday, meeting Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok and the head of the Sovereign Council, Abdul Fatah Alburahn. Information Minister Faisal Mohamed Salih explained in a press release sent to Anadolu Agency that the transitional government in Sudan has no mandate to decide on relations with Israel. Read More

'Turkey is the actual target of the Israel-UAE deal'
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: An asymmetric alliance of countries that share the common goal of limiting Turkey's influence in the region has been brewing for some time and the heralding of existing clandestine ties between these two countries (UAE and Israel) only goes to show that the alliance is now solidified, leading Turkish Daily Sabah said in an opinion piece on Saturday. Read More

Military option on table if talks fail: Indian General warns China
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: With diplomatic and military talks on resolving the military standoff between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh not making much headway, Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat Monday said India has “military options” available, but these will be used only if talks fail. This is the first time that a senior military officer has spoken publicly on the “transgressions by the Chinese” and the option of military force to deal with the border crisis in Ladakh, the Indian Express pointed out. Read More

Ladakh Standoff: PLA troops continue building infrastructure along LAC
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali: China's intension of disengaging from the troop confrontation in eastern Ladakh seems to be very meek as it appears to be further digging in its heels by continuing to build roads, bridges, helipads among other military infrastructure along the Line of Actual Control in its bid to cover for its troops along the LAC, the Times Now Digital reported on Sunday.Read More

Cyprus sold passports to criminals, corrupt politicians for $2.5 million
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: A huge leak of confidential Cypriot government documents obtained by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit called The Cyprus Papers reveals that dozens of high-level officials and their families bought so-called "golden passports" from Cyprus between late 2017 and late 2019, Al Jazeera reported Monday. Among those who bought the passports, worth a minimum investment of $2.5m each, were elected politicians of several countries, board members of state enterprises and the brother of a former Lebanese Prime Minister, according to Al Jazeera. Read More

Moral demise of the Republican Party
By Prof. Arthur Kane Scott: Over the last three and half years, the Republican Party has lost what Joe Biden describes as the soul of the nation by entering a Faustian Bargain with Trump to retain power. The Grand Old Party has abandoned democratic values for fear, prejudice, class antagonism, racism/sexism, white nationalism, police terrorism, ecological denigration as well as displaying gross incompetence in responding to a national health crisis posed by the coronavirus epidemic. Read More

Why Saudi Arabia declines relations with Israel?
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: To stem growing perception in the Arab and Muslim Worlds, after UAE recognized Israel, that the Arab states are abandoning the Palestine cause, Saudi Arabia announced Wednesday that the kingdom would not establish diplomatic ties with Israel until internationally recognized peace was achieved with the Palestinians. Read More

Another round of India-China talks to end border impasse fail
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: India and China held another round of talks on Thursday in an effort to end the more than a three-month-long Ladakh standoff.  This was the fifth diplomatic-level talk since the stand-offs started in early May when 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a fist fight. The talks were held under the aegis of Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination (WMCC) on India and China border. Joint secretary rank officers of the two countries discussed  ways to break the logjam and pave for another episode of military-level talks at a senior level in the coming days. Read More

The Ram Temple celebration in Modi-fied India
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: Modi’s Hindutvadi fascist supporters, the American Indian Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), decided to lease giant screens in Times Square in Manhattan on Wednesday, August 5, 2020, to display images of the Hindu god Ram and a temple to Ram being inaugurated that day in India by Modi. Not all the New Yorkers of the South Asian descent, even Indian origin, were, however, enchanted by India’s transformation under Modi. There were demonstrations – for and against the display in Manhattan of the ceremonial ground-breaking of the temple. While the plan to project an image of the proposed temple on the high-profile Nasdaq screen in Times Square did not materialize, one digital board showing the temple did air over the Hershey’s store for a short period. As their celebration of the temple appeared on a giant screen, the “Indian community”,  or, more correctly, the acolytes of Modi’s Hindutva, distributed sweets in Times Square. Read More

US leadership of India’s fascist movement backs Texas Democrat
By Pieter Friedrich:  Ramesh Bhutada is Vice-President of HSS (the international wing of the RSS, an Indian paramilitary that serves as the fountainhead of Hindutva). He is also the founder of the first HSS chapter in Houston. His cousin-in-law, Vijay Pallod — who claims to be the man who “discovered” Kulkarni — describes seeing a “steady stream of RSS workers” at Bhutada’s house in the 1980s. Bhutada has hosted RSS executives on tours to the States — including current RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat himself, who has stayed in Bhutada’s home. As far as the RSS in America goes, Bhutada is not a lackey, a sympathizer, an orbiter, an associate, or anything of the kind. He’s a core figure who holds a formal executive role and has been deeply involved for 40 to 50 years. Read More

Toward a Kashmir Endgame? How India and Pakistan Could Negotiate a Lasting Solution
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Kashmir has once again emerged as a major flashpoint between South Asia’s nuclear-armed rivals, India and Pakistan, says a report released by the US Institute of Peace on August 5.   As things stand today, India and Pakistan are following radically divergent strategies in Kashmir that are unlikely to bring them to the negotiating table any time soon. Whether their strategies and direction change may depend above all on internal political dynamics within Kashmir itself. Read More

70 years of constitutional rights denied to 20 millions Indian Dalit Christians
By Madhu Chandra:  “Commission for Minority Religion and Linguistic Minority” known as “Misra Commission” was setup by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government in 2005 to study and report on socio-economic condition of Christians and Muslims converted from Scheduled Caste origins. The Justice Misra Commission report was submitted on May 22, 2007. Since then UPA Government has delayed to give its consent that Supreme Court of India could give its verdict to 60 years denial of constitutional Rights to 20 million Indian Christians from Scheduled Caste origins. Read More

China quietly helped Saudi Arabia build a secret nuclear site
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali:  "Saudi Arabia has constructed with Chinese help a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore, an advance in the oil-rich kingdom's drive to master nuclear technology, according to Western officials with knowledge of the site," according to the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ investigative report on Tuesday identified the location based on intelligence sources and unnamed Western officials as in a desert area outside al-Ula in northwest Saudi Arabia. Read More

The politics of political maps in South Asia
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday unveiled a new “political map of Pakistan” that showed Jammu and Kashmir as well as Junagadh  as the territories of Pakistan.  The map was released a day before the annexation of the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Unveiling the new map on Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan told a press conference: “Today, we are introducing the new map of Pakistan before the world. This new map has been endorsed by Pakistan's cabinet, opposition and the Kashmiri leadership. This map is as per the aspirations of the entire nation as well as the people of Kashmir.” “This map also opposes the Indian government’s illegal act of August 5 last year,” Imran Khan stressed. Read More

Militants storm prison in Afghanistan killing 29 people
by Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Afghan forces say they have retaken Jalalabad prison after at least 29 people were killed in hours-long battle following a Daesh-claimed attack on the facility, Afghan Ariana TV reported Monday. Another 50 people were wounded in the attack. The assault led to a mass jailbreak from the prison believed to be holding hundreds of Daesh members, Ariana said. The prison houses about 2,000 inmates, including many from Daesh and the Taliban, Al Jazeera reported. Read More

No end to a tragic saga in Kashmir
by P Chidambaram: “Jammu & Kashmir is a big jail”, said a political leader who, like many others, is under ‘house arrest’ without written orders, following the abrogation of article 370 of the Constitution of India on August 5, 2019. Project J&K was intended to break up the state, reduce its status to Union territories, bring the territories under the direct rule of the Central government, suppress political activities, intimidate 7.5 million people of the Kashmir Valley into submission, and quell separatism and terrorism. While the means have been employed, none of the ends has been achieved and, in my view, will never be achieved under the current dispensation’s policy. Read More

Barbaric Act Against Mehbooba Mufti
By Syed Rifaquat Ali: Jammu and Kashmir former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti's detention under the Public Security Act (PSA) is not only draconian, but barbaric too. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, is leader of 1.3 billion people and he aught to act justly and with sagacity in matters which draw world anger. Mehbooba Mufti's illegal detention is world news, covered by the international media without any bias. Read More

Report Card- One Year of Direct rule in Jammu and Kashmir
by Syed Ali Mujtaba: The Forum for Human Rights, an informal group of 21 concerned Indian citizens have come up with a report of the one year direct rule in the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The informal group comprises six top level judges of India, six high level bureaucrats, three members from Indian armed forces, two members from human rights organization , one Vice Chancellor, one writer and historian and one journalist,  besides a former member, Group of Interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir. Read More

When Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990
 By Zafarul Islam Malik: Not many residents of Kuwait even considered that there might be a start of hostilities between Kuwait and Iraq for whatever cause. It was unthinkable for many reasons, the strongest among them was the fact that a Muslim state does not fight with another Muslim state – that at least was the belief. Why a majority of people living in Kuwait believed in this myth was a mystery since Iraq had been locked in a bitter war with Iran for years. That war had only recently been concluded. Read More

August 2 marks 30^th commemoration of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: On August 2, 1990, I woke up from the boom of a low-flying aircraft. I realized that there is something wrong because Last night the Kuwait TV news, where I was chief editor, had reported that talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on defusing an explosive crisis in the Persian Gulf collapsed because “Kuwait did not give in to Iraqi demands to write off . . . debts and to relinquish some of its territory.”  The Jedda talks were held amid reports that Iraq has built up a 100,000-strong army on its border with Kuwait.  On August 2, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, Iraq’s tiny, oil-rich neighbor. Within hours Kuwait City had been captured and the Iraqis had established a provincial government. By annexing Kuwait, Iraq gained control of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves and, for the first time, a substantial coastline on the Persian Gulf.  Read More

The forgotten detainees of 9/11
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: A society that is born and built on injustice, let alone promotes it, cannot expect itself to be living in peace, at least in the long run! It may be instructive to remember that what we see unraveling on an almost daily basis with the recent rallies denouncing racial injustice (and even calls for police defunding) and toppling of the statues of the past war-lords and racists (from Christopher Columbus to Robert Lee to Winston Churchill) in major cities on both sides of the Atlantic (with troubling colonial past) – is neither supreme irony nor poetic justice: It is the nature of karma reaching its natural conclusion. The life of those wrongfully detained and incarcerated matter! Justice demands that they be freed now. They have served more than their share of the time. Let compassion and not vengeance guide government actions. Read More

What Indian electronics media missed to report during Indo-China Crisis?
by Dipanajana Dasgupta: Almost after five decades India and China tension unfolded in the same Galwan area. And the tension ran on the television for more than one month. Most of the channels hiked the adrenaline for the perceptual war and almost run no other news apart from Indo-china tension. Undoubtedly it was an unprecedented issue and in five decades first time so many Indian soldiers lost their life. Here lies the big question of what actually happened in Galwan? Why so many Indian soldiers have to scarify their life on 15^th June. Read More

After Ladakh Standoff: China opens another front against India
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Opening another front against India along the Line of Actual Control, China has mobilized People’s Liberation Army soldiers near Uttarakhand’s Lipulekh Pass, Times Now News (TNN) reported Saturday. While China talks about disengagement and maintaining peace along the LAC, it is clear that Beijing is solidifying its position in the garb of peace talks which are going on at diplomatic and military level, according to TNN. Several media reports have indicated that China is bolstering its position in the depth areas along the LAC. Read More

After Ladakh Face-off, China may intrude in Himachal Pradesh says Gen Katoch
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Even as the PLA remains adamant against withdrawing its troops who intruded into Eastern Ladakh and BJP MP Tapir Gao indicates PLA intrusions in Arunachal Pradesh, China also appears to be eyeing the border of Himachal Pradesh with China Occupied Tibet (COT) with a view to create more mischief, says retired Lt. General PC Katoch. Read More

India’s nuclear strategy shifting from Pakistan to China
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists analysis suggests that the focus of Indian nuclear strategy has been shifting from Pakistan to China. India continues to modernize its nuclear arsenal, with at least three new weapon systems now under development to complement or replace existing nuclear-capable aircraft, land-based delivery systems, and sea-based systems. Several of these systems are nearing completion and will soon be combat-ready, Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda the authors  of “Indian nuclear forces, 2020” study have pointed out. 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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