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August 2016
Joe Biden visits Ankara for solving pressing Turco-US issues
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden sought to reassure Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of American support during his one-day visit to Ankara on August 24, 2016. Biden is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Turkey since the July 15 failed coup. According to Washington Post, the goal of Biden’s visit was to convince Turkey that the United States had no role in, and did not condone, a July 15 coup attempt that has sent the country into a whirlwind of conspiracy theories, mass arrests and estrangement from Washington at a crucial moment in the campaign against the Islamic State. Read More
What went wrong in Bangladesh?
By Habib Siddiqui: For too long, Bangladesh was an oasis of relative safety in South Asia, beingable to keep herself away from the toxic and deadly embrace of Daesh-type of terrorism. Not any longer. In the aftermath of the Holey Artisan café terrorist attack, there is no denying any more that many of her youths are getting indoctrinated by the deadly ideology of Daesh who are willing to die for their convoluted ideology and evil methodology. Read More
Trump and the Khan`s: Goliath/David
By Arthur Kane Scott: Donald Trump’s emotional rhetoric has been central tohis campaign of fear: that America is involved in a life/death struggle for civilization with Islam. It carried him through the primaries, and into the Republican Party Convention, where he was chosen their Presidential nominee. Trump’s hyperbole, whether directed at Blacks, Latinos, women, and disabled, never before stuck or damaged his campaign. He lived a charmed existence until the Democratic National Convention. Read More
The real reasons behind Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Brazil's Senate voted on August 10, 2016 to hold an impeachment trial for the nation's suspended president Dilma Rousseff, a process that could see her permanently removed from office. The vote in favor of trying Rousseff, who was suspended from the presidency in May, was 59 in favor, 21 against. The Senate suspended Rousseff, the South American nation's first female president, on May 12 over accusations of illegal accounting practices and fiddling the budget to mask a slumping economy. Rousseff, 68, has likened the impeachment drive to a putsch by her political enemies. The impeachment trial is set to open around August 25 - four days after the Olympics closing ceremony - and is expected to last five days, concluding with a Senate judgment vote. David Miranda of Guardian wrote in April last that Corruption is just the pretext for a wealthy elite who failed to defeat Brazil’s president at the ballot box. Read More
Will Muslim Turkey ever become Christian EU member?
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern has said that he would start a discussion among European heads of government to quit talks with Turkey about joining the European Union because of the country's democratic and economic deficits. European leaders have voiced concern over Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's crackdown on dissidents after a failed coup attempt month his idea of reintroducing the death penalty in Turkey. In an interview with Austrian broadcaster ORF, Kern said: "We are all well advised to now say we're pressing the reset button," calling membership talks a "diplomatic fiction". Nearly three decades after its official bid to join the European club, Turkey is not yet a European Union member. Talks on possible EU membership for Turkey have been taking place since 1963, when Ankara and Brussels drafted an association agreement stating the country would aim to be a member of the bloc. After formally applying in 1987, Turkey began accession talks in 2005. Read More
Republicans, Democrats alike still level threats at Iran
By Stephen Zunes: The 2015 Iran nuclear deal should have curbed the longstanding bellicose rhetoric coming from Republican and Democratic political leaders toward the Muslim country. Signed by Iran and six other nations (including the United States) and ratified by the United Nations Security Council, the comprehensive agreement contains strict provisions limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities to well below the threshold necessary to develop atomic weapons and subjects Iran to the most rigorous inspection regime in history. The result has been dramatically reduced regional tensions and the elimination of any potential threat to U.S. national security. Despite this, the Republican and Democratic platforms adopted at their respective conventions last month are both more belligerent toward Iran than they were four years ago. Read More
Pakistan’s dirty war in Balochistan
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Quetta hospital bomb blast, killing more than 90 people, is the latest grim reminder to the ceaseless violence in Pakistan’s strife-torn volatile province of Balochistan. The deafening blast that ripped through scores of mourners in a Quetta hospital on Monday (August 8) has killed at least 93 people, mainly lawyers, in this year's bloodiest terror attack in Pakistan. The massive explosion occurred when nearly 100 lawyers and some journalists reached the Civil Hospital with the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the Balochistan Bar Association who was killed earlier. Lawyers have been targeted several times in recent months in Balochistan. One lawyer, Jahanzeb Alvi, was shot dead on August 3. Bilal Kasi, who himself was shot dead on August 8, had condemned Alvi's murder and announced a two-day boycott of courts. The principal of University of Balochistan's law college, Barrister Amanullah Achakzai, was also shot dead by unknown assailants in June. Read More
Turkish President Erdogan resets relations with Russia
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: On Tuesday, August 9, 2016, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in St. Petersburg to hold talks with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was Erdogan’s first foreign visit since the July 15 abortive coup against his elected government. St. Petersburg is Putin's hometown. Addressing a joint press conference after the talk, Putin said: "I believe that we have all the necessary prerequisites and opportunities for restoring our relations between our two countries to the full extent and Russia is ready and willing to do that." On his part, Erdogan said: “As a result of the negotiation we had today, political, cultural and economic relations between Russia and Turkey can finally be restored to the appropriate level we used to enjoy before the crisis." Read More
“Most progressive Dem platform in history” hawkish on foreign policy
By Stephen Zunes: The Democratic Party platform may indeed be, as some have proclaimed, the “most progressive” in the history of the party—at least on various important domestic issues. But some of its foreign policy planks reflect a disturbingly hawkish worldview consistent with those of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Declaring that “we must defeat ISIS, al-Qaeda and their affiliates,” the platform calls for the United States and its allies to “destroy ISIS” strongholds in Iraq and Syria. There is no acknowledgement that these strongholds are in heavily populated urban areas, thereby risking large-scale civilian casualties, and no mention that the rise of these extremist organizations are a direct consequence of previous U.S. military interventions in the region. Read More
Syed Rifat Mahmood: Sad demise of a visionary community leader
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The San Francisco Bay Area community mourns the demise of Syed Rifat Mahmood who was a visionary and imaginative community leader, a warmhearted and affectionate friend, and a fearless and straightforward individual. Syed Rifat Mahmood was a public figure. He was a nominee for the U.S. Congress as a Republican candidate in 2002. He was also a Republican nominee for the California State Assembly in 2000. Syed was elected to the Central Committee of the Alameda County Republican Party for a two-year term. He was also nominated for California State Republican Party's Central Committee for two terms. He has worked for the Reagan and Bush presidential campaigns and served as one of the co-chair for Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren. Syed Rifat Mahmood passed away on August 3, 2016 after a long illness. He left behind his wife Maryam and daughter Zahra to mourn his sad death besides his brothers and sisters. He was the eldest brother of Syed Nusrat, Syed Sarwat, Syed Niaz Ahmad, Syed Kamran and Sisters, Ghazala, Kishwer, Qaisar, and Raheel. Read More
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