Bangladeshi shot dead in New York

 A Bangladeshi-origin fast-food restaurant worker was shot dead and another Bangladeshi national injured in a shooting at a restaurant in Brooklyn, New York City, late on Saturday.

The deceased was Md Youssuf Ali Raju, 44, from Sonaimuri upazila in Noakhali.

The shooting took place around 11:30pm (local time) at American Best Wings and Pizza in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn.

Abdul Karim Swapan, elder brother of the restaurant’s owner, Abdul Jalil, 35, confirmed the incident to The Daily Star yesterday.

Swapan said Raju had been working at the restaurant for the past year and was in the kitchen when a gunman entered and opened fire, targeting him.

Another employee, who was managing the cash register, was also shot when he rushed to help Raju, Swapan said.

Raju was shot in the chest, while his colleague suffered a gunshot wound to the leg. Both were taken to a local hospital, where doctors declared Raju dead. The injured is now in stable condition after receiving treatment.

Raju moved to New York three years ago. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Rohingya children bear the consequences of a life in limbo

 With increasingly unsafe and overcrowded conditions in camps, children are arriving at MSF’s Kutupalong Hospital sicker, later, and harder to save.

Click here to READ more: Rohingya children bear the consequences of a life in limbo | Doctors Without Borders - USA

UN: Rohingyas in Myanmar suffering ‘heartbreaking’ misery and cruelty

 Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were forced to flee atrocities in Myanmar nine years ago.

Today, the military and the Arakan Army continue to subject Rohingya to widespread and systematic violations and abuses. The world must not look away.

Click here to read more: https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/08/1168200 

When Displacement Becomes a Way of Life: What the Rohingya Crisis Reveals About Protracted Refugee Situations

Every evening, Osman Goni picks up his mandolin inside his shelter in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.

Born to Rohingya parents who fled Myanmar in the early 1990s, Osman has spent his entire life in displacement. Today, he is a well-known Rohingya musician whose songs preserve the history, identity and aspirations of his community. Through music, he documents not only where the Rohingya have been, but the hope they continue to hold onto for the future.

For Osman, displacement isn't a chapter of his life. It is the only life he has ever known.

Every August, the world marks the observance of the mass displacement of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar in 2017. For many, it is a moment to remember the violence that forced hundreds of thousands of families to flee across the border into Bangladesh. But nine years later, the observance is also a reminder of something less visible: for more than one million Rohingya refugees, the crisis never truly ended.

When most people think about refugee crises, they think about the moment families flee. They picture border crossings, emergency shelters and the first wave of humanitarian aid. What they don't often see is what comes next.

Osman's story reflects a reality shared by millions of refugees around the world. Some refugee crises don't last weeks or months. They last years. Sometimes generations.

Click here to read more: When Displacement Becomes a Way of Life: What the Rohingya Crisis Reveals About Protracted Refugee Situations | USA for UNHCR

Gov. Abbott’s Baseless Referral Targeting Muslim Religious Practice

 

Muslim groups call on Justice Department to focus on real civil rights threats instead of investigating airport facilities open to all travelers   The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, and its Texas chapter (CAIR-Texas) today sent a letter to Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon urging the Department of Justice to reject Texas Governor Greg Abbott's request that federal authorities investigate washing stations and prayer facilities at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH).   The letter argues that the facilities are open to all travelers regardless of faith and that Governor Abbott's comparison of the facilities to segregation-era "white-only bathrooms" is both offensive and fundamentally inaccurate. CAIR and CAIR-Texas further urged DOJ to focus federal civil rights resources on genuine threats to religious liberty, including anti-Muslim violence, attacks on houses of worship, and discriminatory actions targeting religious communities.   CLICK HERE: READ CAIR & CAIR-TX LETTER TO THE DOJ   Today's letter follows a series of responses by CAIR-Texas to Governor Abbott's attacks on airport prayer and ablution facilities. On August 18, CAIR-Texas commended Houston Mayor John Whitmire for rejecting Abbott's claims and confirming that IAH's ablution and prayer facilities are open to all travelers regardless of faith and funded by international-airline fees rather than taxpayer dollars. On August 21, CAIR-Texas condemned Abbott's comparison of those facilities to segregation-era "white-only bathrooms" as "offensive," "inaccurate," and a "grotesque distortion" of American civil rights history, noting that the facilities are open to all travelers and exclude no one. Today's letter asks the Department of Justice to reject Abbott's referral outright and focus instead on genuine civil rights threats facing religious communities.   In a statement, CAIR and CAIR-Texas said:   "Governor Abbott's referral is not a civil rights complaint. It is an attempt to transform ordinary Muslim religious practice into a law-enforcement issue. The prayer and ablution facilities at DFW and IAH are open to all travelers, exclude no one, and represent the type of reasonable religious accommodation that has long been protected by our constitutional tradition. This latest referral is part of a broader pattern in which Governor Abbott and his administration have repeatedly singled out Muslim communities, institutions, and religious practices for investigation, criticism, and adverse government action. The Department of Justice should reject this baseless request and focus instead on genuine civil rights threats, including anti-Muslim violence, attacks on houses of worship, discriminatory land-use decisions affecting mosques, and other unlawful efforts to deny Americans the free exercise of their faith."

Letter from Bethlehem: Mazin Qumsiyeh

 In honor of our friend, Palestinian artist Sliman Maaansour (1947-2026). Rest in power

Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi David Yosef declared that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” and that we “have no rights.” Yosef claimed Gaza and cities in the occupied West Bank are for Jews and called for completing the destruction of Palestinian areas and the establishment of more Jewish colonies. Meanwhile, "Israeli" attacks continue unabated on Christians and Muslims (Palestinians or internationals - even Americans- see below). The apartheid regime also attacks the United Nations, closing UNRWA offices in Jerusalem and today an UNRWA vocational school serving Palestinian refugees. Israeli parliamentarians and ministers participate themselves in directly violating human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The last three years showed record pogroms, ethnic cleansing, land confiscation, attacks on nearby countries, and a full-fledged genocide that is still ongoing. 

And half the billionnairs are Zionist while many in the other half (like Bill Gates) are in teh Epstein videos.

No wonder "Israel" is now the most hated "state" globally (the quotes are deserved as it is really a project not a state). Thus, a global popular movement grows to end this nightmare. Trump is helping by his brash violation of international law at the behest of his Epstein masters (including declaring wars both on allies like Canada and perceived enemies like Iran).  The US national debt doubled to $40 trillion which is economically unsustainable. The pathetic "buy back" of some long-term treasury bonds, did not work: interest rates are rising and purchasing power of the US dollar is declining (you should dump all assets held in US $ soonest as this empire is falling apart). The only question is how much more damage is inflicted on innocent people around the world. In a few days we will commemorate the 25th anniversary of 11 Sept 2001, an even that was clearly not what we were told by the lying US government (look it up including the dancing Israelis, Larry Silverstein and all that).   Knowledge is power and information is coming out! What can you do? A lot! see https://qumsiyeh.org/whatyoucando/

New book on the Israel lobby's stranglehold on US politics https://youtu.be/KJsFMBVzUtU

An ex-settler speaks out about how the Zionist system works https://youtu.be/0xjeYcJJ1_M

Whistleblower on Americans Being Murdered as Trump Does Nothing and the Media Cover-Up Grows https://tuckercarlson.com/live-show-august-19-2026

Stay Humane, act, and keep hope and Palestine alive

Mazin Qumsiyeh
A bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home
Professor, Founder, and (volunteer) Director
Palestine Museum of Natural History

9 Years On. The Rohingya Genocide

 

On this day, 25th August, 9 years ago, the most brutal genocide against the Rohingya people of Burma saw more than 1 million people flee by road, across rivers and through the seas to Bangladesh. Thousands were killed by the genocidal military of Burma – whole villages burned to the ground, rape used as a tactic of destruction and the world stood still, as it often does. We witnessed the creation of the largest refugee camps in the world.  Genocide doesn't happen accidentally or suddenly. It's the manifestation of a generations-long desire to eradicate a land of its people. It is deliberate, multi-pronged and in most cases legalised by the state enacting the genocide. But this wasn’t the first genocide against the Rohingya. Their citizenship rights, marriage rights, birth rights, national identity, land rights, education rights have all been systematically stripped away since the 60’s.  The Rohingya have sought help and refuge in Bangladesh most often and in the largest numbers. Others have sought safety in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and India often risking their lives just to get there. And in almost all cases they have faced pushback after pushback. In the camps in Bangladesh, a temporary refuge has turned into a permanence. Afterall, 9 years spent in incredibly dense, incredibly under resourced, heavily restricted for education, heavily restricted for food rations, heavily restricted for employment or opportunities, constantly facing a crisis of fires, flooding and landslides, is no longer temporary – it’s a permanence that is suffocating, that in itself, is destroying the fabric of the community and is prison-like in its grip over the futures of the 1 million Rohingya in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has done the best it could do, but elsewhere in the reaches of Malaysia and Indonesia and especially in India, the Rohingya are often targeted for hate campaigns. Those who have escaped Burma perhaps no longer face the threat of the various military and militias that hunted and killed their families. But a genocide is the destruction of an identity, of a people. The camps and all the hate campaigns continue to destroy the people and their identity. And in Burma, the Rohingya that remain, face violence and brutal conditions daily. Without any legal rights they struggle to defy the numerous violations and violence that they face from a country and a population that want to erase their history and their future. So today, 9 years on, please re-educate yourself on the Rohingya and their struggle. 9 years and generations into this genocide, please don’t let media narratives or the fast moving nature of the news cycle allow you to forget a community that the world wants you to forget. Please show and keep your solidarity with the Rohingya people as they call for a return to their homeland, in peace, security and with freedom. Until that day, our solidarity, love and commitment remains unshakable and unstoppable. - Restless Beings