Habib Siddiqui

(YANGON, August 31, 2020)—The Government of Myanmar should take immediate steps to ensure that ethnic-Rohingya can run for seats in Parliament in the November 8 elections, said Fortify Rights today. The Union Election Commission announced the final list of candidates over the weekend, excluding the majority of Rohingya applicants. "This election is increasingly on track to being unfree, but there is still time to change course,” said Ismail Wolff, Fortify Rights Regional Director. “For an inclusive, free, and fair election, the government must ensure everyone’s right to meaningfully participate, regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity. That hasn’t happened yet." Between August 11 and 24, the commission twice rejected the  candidacies of at least six Rohingya , refusing their registrations and appeals. The six rejected Rohingya candidates include one woman—Khin Khin Lwin, 43—and Kyaw Min, 76, Aung Hla, 58, Saw Myint, 66, Abdul Rasheed, 58, and Abu Tahay, 56.  ...

Eresh Omar Jamal By using shell companies and moving money from one account to another, Prashanta Kumar Halder laundered at least Tk 3,500 crore out of the country and is now enjoying his life in Canada. In his tracks, PK Halder left four non-banking financial institutions (NBFI) in ruin, and in case you were wondering why he chose four NBFIs instead of banks, the answer could be because many of our banks’ vaults may very well be empty already. After all, as this newspaper reported on August 16, financial regulators and government organisations are still struggling to recover Tk 18,253 crore that were embezzled in five of the more spectacular financial scams involving the country’s banks. Even that aside, the financial sector is reeling from huge defaulted loans. As the report also mentioned, the prime suspects in some of those cases were not even the main accused in the lawsuits due to them being connected with influential quarters. So can you really blame PK Halder? If all th...

1/4 :Indian policemen detain a Kashmiri Shiite Muslims as he and others attempt to take out a religious procession in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on Aug. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan) 2/4 : A Kashmiri Shiite Muslim man is detained by Indian police as devotees defy restrictions for a Muharram procession in Srinagar on August 28, 2020. (AFP / Tauseef Mustafa) 3/4 A Kashmiri Shiite Muslim is detained by Indian police for defying restrictions for a Muharram procession in Srinagar on August 28, 2020. (AFP / Tauseef Mustafa) 4/4   Indian policemen detain Kashmiri Shiite Muslims as they attempt to take out a religious procession in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, on Aug. 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan) Updated 29 August 2020 AFP SRINAGAR, India: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is changing Indian Kashmir’s residency laws for the first time since 1947, in a bid to snuff out any challenge to the disputed territory belonging to India. Drawing comparisons with Israel’s “settl...

Buildings at the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center, believed to be a Chinese re-education camp. GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images It turns out the Chinese Communist Party is bent on permanently locking up much of the Uighur Muslim population of the far-west region of Xinjiang: Satellite images show that Beijing has secretly built 260 high-security concentration camps to hold them. Many, perhaps all, include a factory in the camp so the prisoners can be forced to labor for the state, as well. The world has known for years that China is detaining roughly 1 million ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic minorities. But now BuzzFeed News has used satellite analysis to uncover the full apparatus of eternal repression. Beijing insists most of the detainees are already free, but this reporting shows they’ve simply been moved from initial holding facilities in schools and other public buildings to the new prisons — where the torture, forced birth control and br...

  On Thursday night (August 27, 2020) President Donald Trump of the United States delivered his acceptance speech as the presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention (RNC) that was held in the White House. It was the first of its kind when the White House was used as a podium for campaign by a seating president. As noted by presidential historians, the decision to use the White House as a backdrop is a perfect metaphor for how Trump has handled the presidency: With total audacity -- and no regard for how his actions will change the lines of acceptable conduct for whoever follows him in the office. He treated the White House as his personal property. More than 1,500 people were in the audience, packed cheek to jaw with very few putting a mask, on the South Lawn of the White House to hear Trump's speech. Unlike the Democratic convention a week earlier that was held virtually, Trump wanted a big crowd whether or not coronavirus was still rampant in the country, ...