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January 2016
Pakistan has around 130 nuclear warheads to deter an Indian military attack: US report
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Pakistan's nuclear warheads which are estimated to be between 110-130 are aimed at dissuading India from taking military action against it, a US Congressional report says. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is widely regarded as designed to dissuade India from taking military action against Pakistan, the report said adding: "but Islamabad’s expansion of its nuclear arsenal, development of new types of nuclear weapons, and adoption of a doctrine called “full spectrum deterrence” have led some observers to express concern about an increased risk of nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India, which also continues to expand its nuclear arsenal." Read More
Hillary Clinton's strident opposition to the International Criminal Court
Stephen Zunes: Supporters of international law have expressed consternation that the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president -- like most of her potential Republican rivals -- strongly supported the illegal U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Hillary Clinton's support for the Bush administration's request for war authorization effectively placed her in opposition to the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Principles forbidding such wars of aggression. Ironically, these important international legal standards were in large part designed by officials from administrations of the very political party she hopes to represent in the contest for the White House. Read More
Students in the line of fire again in Pakistan
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: At least 25 people including students, teachers and security guards lost their lives Wednesday, January 20, 2016, when armed militants broke into Bacha Khan University in Pakistan’s northwestern province known as Khyber-Pakhtunkhwah where Pakistan's mercenary army is conducting a brutal operation against militants. Media reports said all four terrorists, who had stormed the university, have been killed and the security forces have taken control of the University in Charsadda near Peshawar, capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwah. Read More
Charlie Hebdo does it again!
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: Charlie Hebdo is never out of ideas to stoke up the flames of racism, bigotry, intolerance and hatred. Remember Aylan Kurdi, the two-year-old, whose picture lying face down on a beach in Turkey caused an international outcry over the human cost of the migrant crisis? The magazine’s latest cartoon is about that Syrian refugee infant who drowned, as an adult committing a sex assault in Germany. The cartoon depicts Aylan's body alongside a caption suggesting he would have become a "groper in Germany". It follows the revelation that gangs of migrants carried out organized sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve. Read More
2015: The deadliest year on record for American Muslims
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The year 2015 was perhaps the deadliest year on record for the seven-million strong American Muslim community, with 63 recorded attacks on mosques till the first week of December. Tellingly, 17 of those attacks took place in November after the Paris terrorist attacks. At least six attacks and vandalism against the mosques were reported after the San Bernardino, CA terrorist attack on December 2nd when Syed Rizwan Farook killed 14 people and wounded 21 at a meeting of public health officials that doubled as a holiday party. Anti-Muslim fever goes viral after the Paris and San Bernardino attacks. To borrow Andrew O'hehir of Salon, Muslim fever has spread through our national bloodstream and replaced all thought. Many U.S. leaders have unleashed discriminatory rhetoric in the name of counterterrorism. Read More
American politics of fear: The Muslim chapter
By Arthur Scott: Unfortunately, American political culture revolves around what Richard Hofstadter called “the paranoid of fear.”What the “politics of fear” does is to identify a nationality/ethnicity, a gender/color/race, a political party/movement/group,or an economic classes: super-rich to middle-class to poor, and demonizes them with the claim that they have the power to alter or destroy the American way of life..... For many in the world, America is the promised land of freedom, and as its watchmen we need to be vigilant for the Muslim community who are presently most vulnerable to the politics of fear. Rather than closing borders by entering into another isolationist period, American should open its arms to Syrian/Middle East refugees whose lives have been so disruptive with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Let’s never experience another internment. Martin Luther King warned: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Read More
China’s expulsion of French journalist underpins its repressive Uyghur policy
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: As I have noted a few times before China is in the denial process, very much like Myanmar. Just as in Myanmar (former Burma) the Buddhist people - from top to bottom - are in the denial of their Rohingya population (an indigenous people who has lived in the northwestern part of the country bordering Bangladesh for millennia) the same goes for China where its authorities are in the denial of the Uyghur (Uighur) people that live in their ancestral homeland of East Turkestan (now called Xinjiang province) in China's western frontier. Beijing does not want the world to know of its horrendous crimes and abuses of human rights against the persecuted Uyghur people - how they have been made a third class citizen inside China and a minority in their own ancestral land of East Turkestan. Read More
Educating Pakistani women achieves economic gain and human development
By Wajid Hassan: Women’s Literacy is often a talking point among politicians, educationalists and service organizations. In 2013, UNESCO reported that there are 50 million illiterate people in Pakistan and two thirds of these are women. According to 2013 UNESCO statistics, (1) In Pakistan, 5.4 million children of primary school age are not in school; 62 percent of them are girls. (2) Almost half -- 49 percent -- of girls who begin primary school leave before completing the final grade. (3) In Pakistan, 39 percent of girls are not in school, compared with 30 percent of boys. (4) More than half of all adults in Pakistan have received no education. Only 40 percent of adult women can read and write, compared with 69 percent of men. (5) In Pakistan's poorest households, less than half -- 45 percent -- of the girls are enrolled in primary school, and only 18 percent attend lower secondary school. Read More
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