September 2020
Erdogan calls for a Palestine State with East Jerusalem as its capital
Media Reports: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, said the conflict between Israel and Palestine could only be solved “with the establishment of an independent, sovereign, and contiguous state of Palestine based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”. Read More
Kashmir a ‘burning issue’: Turkish President Erdogan
Media Reports: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told the UN General Assembly that the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan was a “burning issue”, and called for resolving it through dialogue.’ In a speech made via video-link to the 193-member Assembly’s landmark 75th session, Erdogan said that steps taken following the abolition of the special status of Jammu-Kashmir further complicated the problem. Read More
China-India military-level marathon talks again fail to ease border standoff
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The 6th round of China and India marathon military talks ended Monday with India insisting for an early and complete disengagement of Chinese troops from friction points in eastern Ladakh while China rejected the Indian demand but “agreed to stop sending more troops to the frontline”. It may be pointed out Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh told Parliament last week that China is in illegal occupation of 38,000 square km of Indian land in Ladakh and it considers as its own another 90,000 square km territory in the eastern sector of the India-China boundary in Arunachal Pradesh. Read More
Economists on collapsing Indian economy
By Syed Rifaqat Ali: The Indian economy is in bad shape. And the crises has been aggravated by the scourge of Coronavirus pandemic which has taken away the lives of about one hundred thousand people. Unofficially, the figure could be over two hundred thousand people by conservative estimate. BJP member of Parliament, Dr.Subramanian Swamy, who was professor of economics in Harvard University, tweeted on August 31 last year: "Get ready to say good bye to Rs.5 trillion if no new economic policy is forthcoming. Read More
Sudan denies holding talks on normalization ties with Israel
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The Sudanese Minister of Information and transitional government spokesman, Faisal Muhammad Saleh, Tuesday denied media reports saying that a Sudanese delegation currently visiting the United Arab Emirates had discussed normalizing relations with Israel. Read More
Saudi Royal Family divided over relations with Israel: WSJ
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Saudi Arabia’s monarch, King Salman bin Abdulaziz, has been at odds with his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, over establishing relations with Israel, the Wall Street Journal has reported. The king is a longtime supporter of the Arab boycott of Israel and the Palestinians’ demand for an independent state. The prince wants to move past what he sees as an intractable conflict to join with Israel in business and align against Iran, according to WSJ. Read More
As Bahrain, UAE sign peace deals with Israel: Trump says 5-6 more countries ready to follow soon
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: President Donald Trump on Tuesday said five or six more countries are ready to make peace with Israel, Times of Israel reported. However, he did not name those countries. Shortly before the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, Trump said, “We’re very far down the road with about five additional countries… Frankly, I think we could have had them here today.” Read More
American Muslims 19 years after 9/11
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: 19 years after the ghastly tragedy of 9/11, civil rights remains the major problem for the seven-million-strong American Muslim Community. The Covid-19 Pandemic shut down the US economy and disturbed the social life however even in this challenging times American Muslims were victims of hate crimes, discrimination and Islamophobia. Almost two decades after 9/11, American Muslims still dealing with the fall out of this tragic event. Following Trump's 2016 election, American Muslims experienced a spike in hate crimes, according to data from the FBI. American Muslim leaders attributed the spike to anti-Muslim rhetoric espoused by Trump and some of his close associates. Read More
Does Facebook’s Zuckerberg have a ‘Muslim’ problem?
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, claims to be against the use of his popular social media portal for spreading hatred. He said that there “is no place for hate speech or content that promotes violence.” Can we trust him? How serious is he to ensuring his claims? Is he ready to walk the talk? After all, accusations have been made for a number of years that Facebook has been complicit in hate crimes against minorities in many parts of the world. Consider, e.g. the case of Buddhist Myanmar where genocidal crimes were committed since at least 2012. In August 2017, the Myanmar military launched a so-called "clearance operation" in Rakhine State (Arakan), home to Rohingya and other ethnic minorities. Over several weeks, soldiers committed atrocities in the region, killing thousands, committing mass rapes, burning villages to the ground, and forcing exodus of nearly a million Rohingya people (mostly to neighboring Bangladesh) that have been described by the international community as genocidal crimes. Read More
China-India Standoff Risks Unintentional War : Experts Warn
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Pravin Sawhney, an Indian defense analyst and China expert if any war breaks out between China and India,, Pakistan will pitch in and it will be a three-front conflict. The Associated Press Saturday quoted Sawhney as saying: “We are entering into a very difficult phase….Disengagement is a criticality to avoid war, which the two nations don’t want. But if any war breaks out, Pakistan will pitch in, and so would Kashmiris. It will be a three-front conflict.” Read More
China-India defense ministers fail to ease Ladakh standoff
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: “We must remind the Indian side that China's national strength, including its military strength, is much stronger than India's. Although China and India are both great powers, when it comes to the ultimate competition of combat capability, the Indian side will lose. If a border war starts, India will have no chance of winning”, the Global Times said Saturday. Commenting on Friday’s talks in Moscow between Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe with his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Global Times said the meeting between Wei and Singh laid an important foundation for the meeting between the two foreign ministers. Read More
Indian, Chinese defense ministers in Moscow to ease border tension in Ladakh
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: In a bid to break the continuing deadlock in the ongoing military confrontation in eastern Ladakh since early-May, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday met his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe in Moscow. The meeting was held on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting which is attended by Indian and Chinese Defense Ministers. Meanwhile, Indian Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said Pakistan could try to take advantage of any threat developing along India’s northern borders. Read More
Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia reject Kushner’s bid to establish ties with Israel
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Leaders of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain reportedly rejected special White House advisor Jared Kushner’s push for normalization with Israel, as the US tries to seize on the momentum of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) move, the Times of Israel reported Wednesday. Kushner visited Bahrain on Tuesday, a week after a visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to the Gulf state. Read More
Indian special forces soldier killed in China border skirmish
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: A soldier of Tibetan origin with India's special forces has reportedly been killed in the latest border confrontation between India and China on their contested Himalayan border, fuelling concerns of a wider military confrontation between the two nuclear powers. India has not commented on the reports of the death, but a member of the Tibetan Parliament in exile, told AFP on Tuesday that the Tibetan-origin soldier was “martyred during the clash”. She did not identify the soldier by name. She said another member of the Special Frontier Force, which includes many ethnic Tibetans, was wounded in the operation. Read More
Unless backed by military power, warnings mean little
By Pravin Swhney, Editor of Force Magazine: Indian Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat has said the military option is on the table, if talks fails between India and China over Ladakh. Pravin Swhney is a defense analyst. In a You Tube talk on August 26 he argued that General Rawat’s threat to China means little at this moment because the Indian Army is not read and it will take at least six months to fully mobilize the army for any encounter with China. He also says that India is not ready for a cyber and electronic warfare where China is much ahead than India. He argued that “we will be having a scenario like the First Gulf War of 1991 between the US-led forces, basically US forces and US technology at work against Iraqi forces which was man-power base. So the First Gulf War lasted for 43 days and ground war was precisely for 100 hours.” This is a transcript of Mr. Pravin Swhney’s You Tube talk. Only minor adjustments are made for clarity. Read More
China, India accuse each other of border violations
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: In a further escalation of tensions, India and China on Monday accused each other of violating a “consensus” reached between the two sides after recent clashes on the border in the Ladakh region, Anadolu News Agency reported. The Indian Defense Ministry statement said that its troops thwarted “provocative military movements” in border areas of the Himalayan region where the two countries have witnessed a heightened face-off since this May. However, the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) accused the Indian side of committing violations. Read More
Tough military posture no cure for India's domestic woes
By Wei Dongxu: Indian Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat said that "military options to deal with transgressions by the Chinese army in Ladakh are on" if the ongoing diplomatic and military talks with China don't yield any results, the Times of India reported on August 25. Analysts have closely observed India's recent military moves along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The Indian Army has remarkably ramped up its deployment of troops and weaponry, including tanks and artillery, into various sensitive areas. However in fact, Indian senior military officials must be clearly aware of the gap of military capability between China and India. So they will not unilaterally launch a large-scale attack. The Indian military may expect to use such rhetoric and moves as leverage in its negotiations with China. Read More
US pressuring Saudi Arabia to join Israel-UAE meeting in Abu Dhabi
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: An Israeli media report says that the Americans are mounting pressure on Saudi Arabia to join a trilateral summit of Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the US, which is due to be held in Abu Dhabi on Monday.The two-day visit will include working meetings of the joint teams ahead of the signing of cooperation deals following the U.S.-brokered agreement to normalize ties between Israel and UAE, which was announced on Aug. 13. Kushner is also trying to persuade Saudi Arabia to join the signing ceremony of the normalization agreement in October. Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said on Sunday: “Ahead of the planned event in Washington, Kushner and his aides have recently been working with [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed] bin Salman to approve the dispatching of high-ranking Saudi envoys to Abu Dhabi as early as tomorrow, in parallel with the arrival of the Israeli delegation.” 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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