Dubai’s Dramatic Drop

As the Muslim world settled into ever-deeper decline over the past decade, mired in political extremism, religious sickness, economic irrelevance, WMD, anarchy, dictatorship, and civil wars, Dubai stood out as a happy anomaly.

Under the leadership of HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai (one of seven polities within the United Arab Emirates) invited peoples from around the world to come make money and they did; about 83 percent of its population of 1.4 million is foreign. The emirate intelligently exploited the energy boom surrounding it and had the ambition not just to globalize but to become a leader at globalization. Dubai became renowned for the world’s only tropical desert ski slope, the world’s only 7-star hotel, and the world’s very highest building, all done with a new-agey twist. (Publicity for the skyscraper, for example, presents it as “an unprecedented example of international cooperation” and “a beacon of progress for the entire world.”)

But if Dubai seemed to be an exception to the general Muslim trajectory, it was only temporary.

In three distinct arenas – economics, culture, and sports – very recent developments show how much the statelet has in common with the impoverishing and separating Muslim world. Read more

Genocide in the Making — and the World is Silent

For over thirty years, Islamist radicals have been engaging in a systematic program of ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh. When they began, Hindus accounted for somewhat less than one in five Bangladeshis; today they are fewer that one in ten. Professor Sachi Dastidar of SUNY has estimated that the number of “lost” Hindus (that is, those murdered and those never born as a result of the ethnic cleansing) could total as many as 35 million!

Nor is it only the radicals who are culpable. The first partner in crime is the succession of governments in Bangladesh. It did not matter if they were right of center, left of center, a dictatorship, civilian or military. Every one of them maintained a blatantly racist act that has been a cornerstone in the Islamist plan: The Vested Property Act (VPA). Read more

Lies about Bangladesh Army, conspiracy and responsibility of the Nation

Since the mutiny renegade Bangladesh Riffles [BDR] troops, a number of private television channels, mostly owned by questioned people started broadcasting various news, commentaries and interviews, aimed at maligning the image of the armed forces of Bangladesh. Most interestingly, only a few reporters of television channels were receiving phone calls from the renegade troops from inside the Pilkhana BDR headquarters. Here is the first question and doubt! How the renegade troops got the mobile phone numbers of those reporters belonging to questioned television channels? Read more

Bangladesh: Tears of anger

More than 50 decomposing bodies of murdered officers of Bangladesh Riffles [who were sent on deputation from Bangladesh Army] are recovered so far from a number of mass-graves inside the Bangladesh Riffles Head Quarters at Pilkhana in Dhaka as well as from the sewage line flowing from the BDR Headquarters to Buriganga river.

Meanwhile, according information, most of the killings and rape took place after Prime Minister announced General Amnesty to the mutineer BD troops on Wednesday afternoon. It is further learnt the delegation of mutineer on their return from the Prime Minister’s residence, told their fellow rebel comrades to ‘clear-up’ the remaining number of held officers as well give ‘good lesson’ to the female members of the officers. The mutineers also buried dead bodies of the army officers as they got more than 30-hours in the name of negotiations with the government. Read more

India and Israel; India is Israel

In a few days, I will leave the United States for a month in India. While the immediate purpose of my visit is to stop the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus—which already has reduced the Hindu population there from one in five to less than one in ten—it is impossible to see that outside of the larger context of our war with radical Islam. The fact that the victims are Hindu is no coincidence. In fact, they are victims because they are Hindu, and their eradication is part of the larger jihad being waged by radical Islam.

India and Israel did not establish full diplomatic relations until 1992, largely due to a nexus of issues related to the ideology that led India’s Jawaharlal Nehru to become one of the architects of the non-aligned movement in 1955. Anti-US and anti-Israel, it is no coincidence that two of its founding fathers were Gamal Nasser of Egypt (the era’s leader against Israel) and Josip Broz Tito (an anti-US communist). But in 1991, the dynamics of geo-politics changed drastically with the fall of the Soviet Union and nations scrambled to re-arrange their alliances. Read more

New conspiracy against Bangladesh

Right after the mutiny by Bangladesh Riffles [BDR] troops, which is partially resolved by now only at its Head Quarters in Dhaka, some vested interest groups are becoming increasingly active in putting bad names on Bangladesh Army by saying, “they are corrupts, violators of rules and abusers of human rights”. Such campaign is aimed at stopping the participation of Bangladesh Army in the United Nations Peace Keeping Force.

Some so-called intellectuals in Bangladesh are also joining their voice against Army and are trying to give justification to the heinous crime committed by the mutineer BDR troops.

Bangladeshi Economist Anu Muhammad saw the rebellion of BDR soldiers as a “class revolt though the cruelty in it was extreme”.

“Discrimination was going on in the regimented forces for long and people had accepted it for sometime. But the situation began altering with the changes in society, as the soldiers in the forces were part of the society’s subaltern section,” he said. Read more

Bangladesh Rifles: Mutiny, general amnesty and what next?

Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has declared general amnesty to the revolting troops of Bangladesh Rifles [BDR], who virtually captivated the entire Head Quarters of the paramilitary troops of the country, assigned mainly to guard the bordering areas and combat cross-border terrorism.

According to press reports, State Minister for LGRD and Cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak, who attended the meeting between the Prime Minister and BDR representatives that the mutineers were granted amnesty Wednesday evening. The prime minister also urged the BDR members to surrender their arms and return to barrack.

A 14-soldier BDR team went to the prime minister’s official residence Jamuna for talks.

Mutinous BDR members earlier said they would call a ceasefire after holding talks with the prime minister and Home Minister Sahara Khatun. Read more

Declaration to fight anti-Semitism signed in London

A declaration pledging to challenge anti-Semitism was signed on behalf of all participating nations on Tuesday, the final day of the London Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism.

Noting the dramatic increase in anti-Semitism being disseminated in the media and attacks targeting Jewish persons and property, the London Declaration was signed by 125 parliamentarians from 40 countries.

It called on national governments, parliaments, international institutions, political and civic leaders and civil society to “affirm democratic and human values, build societies based on respect and citizenship and combat any manifestations of anti-Semitism and discrimination.”

It made the promise that the parliamentarians affirm their commitment to a comprehensive program of action to meet this challenge.

Signatories also pledged to expose, challenge and isolate those who engage in hate against Jews and target the State of Israel as a Jewish collective.

It also called upon governments to challenge any form of Holocaust denial. Again in reference to Iran it stated “any foreign leader, politician or public figure who denies, denigrates or trivializes the Holocaust” must be challenged.
“There is a new sophisticated, globalizing, virulent and even lethal anti-Semitism, reminiscent of the atmospherics of the ’30s and without parallel or precedent since the end of the Second World War,” former Canadian attorney-general and founding co-chair of the conference, Irwin Cotler, said.

“Silence is not an option. This time has come not only to sound the alarm but to act. For as history has taught us only too well: while it may begin with Jews, it does not end with Jews. Anti-Semitism is the canary in the mineshaft of evil, and it threatens us all,” he added.

“The Internet, the globalization of the media, a resurgence of the extreme right and an anti-Zionist hard left have combined to create a febrile environment, in which the spread of old and new anti-Semitic theories and attitudes have been able to gain traction with alarming ease,” said John Mann MP, chair of the Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism. “The Durban conference was amongst the manifestations of this trend.

“Anti-Semitism is a touchstone for other ills within wider society and unless we move to address its spread now, and as a matter of the utmost urgency, we will all pay a heavy price,” he added.

Read More…

Hamas refuses to free Israeli soldier in return for lifting Gaza blockade

Hamas has flatly rejected Israel’s demand that it free a captive soldier in return for lifting the blockade of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian movement called instead for international pressure on Israel to force the borders open to relieve the humanitarian crisis after last month’s war.

Mousa Abu Marzook, the deputy leader of Hamas, accused Israel of backtracking over a truce agreement and warned that Corporal Gilad Shalit would only be released in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. “We will not change our position,” he told the Guardian in Damascus yesterday.

On Wednesday Israel’s security cabinet agreed to maintain the blockade and to hold back from any truce until the release of Shalit, who was captured in June 2006 near the Gaza boundary fence. Until then it seemed a new truce was imminent.

Hamas and Egypt, which is mediating between the Palestinians and Israelis, had been treating the two issues as separate. But Ehud Olmert, Israel’s outgoing prime minister, has been pressing to put Shalit at the heart of any deal. Olmert has just weeks left in office following this month’s elections and is keen to secure the soldier’s freedom before his term is up.

“Israel and Egypt and Hamas have known for two years that the Shalit file is completely separate from other issues,” protested Abu Marzook, just back in the Syrian capital from the truce talks in Cairo. “We are ready to start negotiating about Shalit, but the issue is not linked to any other as far as we are concerned. This is not acceptable to us.”

The soldier is believed to be alive but his whereabouts are unknown and he has not been seen by the International Red Cross. “It’s good that they [the Israelis] don’t know where he is, otherwise they would have killed him,” he claimed.

Abu Marzook signalled however that fresh information about Shalit might be provided if Israel moved Palestinian prisoners being held in solitary confinement to normal cells, released unwell female prisoners and published information on the Hamas fighters Imad and Adel Abdullah, said to have been abducted by Israeli forces.

He said contacts between Hamas and European and US representatives had multiplied since the war, despite Hamas being formally designated as “terrorist” by the US and EU over its refusal to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by interim peace agreements. “There’s been a big change since the war. But a lot of the people we’ve met have asked us to keep the talks confidential.”

Hamas has sent a letter to President Barack Obama via US senator John Kerry who yesterday visited Gaza, the BBC reported. There was no information about the letter’s contents.

Abu Marzook welcomed Obama’s appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy for Middle East peace, describing the former senator as a “non-Zionist American representative” who had criticised Israeli settlements and helped to broker peace between Britain and the IRA. But despite hints of a potential shift in Washington, there was no sign that Mitchell would meet Hamas; he failed even to visit Syria on his first regional tour this month.

Abu Marzook said Hamas favoured reconciliation talks with Fatah, led by the western-backed Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank. Ending internal divisions is seen as key to lifting the Gaza blockade, enforced since the Islamist movement won elections in 2006, and tightened the following summer.

The 22-day war, which Israel launched with the aim of halting Palestinian rocket fire, killed at least 1,300 Palestinians, many of them civilians, destroyed about 5,000 homes and ruined much of Gaza’s already rickety infrastructure. But it was a Palestinian victory because Israel failed to achieve its goals, argued Abu Marzook.

“Now there is global support for Hamas and not just in the Arab and Muslim worlds,” he said. “This is a moral judgment against Israel. Israel has had moral support and legitimacy since the second world war and its propaganda has described Hamas as a terrorist group. There’s been a real change on those two points – but this mass support has not managed to break the blockade of Gaza.”

Read More…

New Bangladeshis’ True Colors: Anti-Radical Muslim Attacked

Dhaka, Bangladesh , internationally-acclaimed journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, was attacked as he was working in the office of his newspaper, Weekly Blitz, by “a gang of thugs” from Bangladesh’s ruling Awami League. I spoke by telephone with Choudhury as he awaited medical treatment for eye, neck, and other injuries suffered in the attack. The renewed violence marks the first against him since he was abducted by Bangladesh’s dreaded Rapid Action Battalion a year ago. After Choudhury was released unharmed, the military was able to assure that he was not attacked–until today under the auspices of the self-styled “moderate” politicians in charge.

A large group stormed Blitz premises and attacked newspaper staff until they found Choudhury. At that point, he said, “they dragged me [and two staff] into the street” where they beat them “in broad daylight…looted my office and stole my laptop” with “all my sensitive information.” According to another reliable source, the attackers held Choudhury at gunpoint. As of this writing, they continue to occupy the Blitz office. Read more

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