Habib Siddiqui

The disastrous effects of the Russian invasion on Napoleon Bonaparte’s army are well known. Less widely known are the reasons for the defeat of Napoleon’s Grand Army. Although Russian resistance, brutal weather and the lack of food and water decimated the French army, new genetic evidence proves that Pediculus humanus, otherwise known as body lice, had a key role in the debacle. Years ago, researchers led by Dr. Didier Raoult unearthed 2 kg of material containing bone fragments, clothing remnants, and segments of body lice from soldiers buried in a mass grave in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Analysis of the material proves that almost one-third of those buried there were affected by louse-born infections such as typhus and trench fever. Raoult and his colleagues from the University of the Mediterranean, Marseille, France, studied segments of body lice as well as the dental pulp from soldiers’ teeth. The dental pulp revealed DNA from Bartonella quintana and Rickettsia prowazekii,...

“No parent should experience the trauma of losing a child,” says Sirvikramjeet Singh Hundal, father of Navreet Singh, who died on January 26, during the farmers’ tractor rally in Delhi. At their home in Uttar Pradesh’s Dibdiba village, Navreet’s portrait rests against a wall of the room where Sirvikramjeet, 45, and his wife, Paramjeet Kaur, 42, have been receiving visitors coming to offer their condolences. Their son’s death has left an irrevocable void in the parents’ lives. “He helped me in the farm. He cared for us. He was a responsible child,” says Sirvikramjeet. Navreet, 25, had gone to Ghazipur, on the Delhi-UP border, to take part in the Republic Day rally in Delhi. His grandfather, Hardeep Singh Dibdiba, 65, had been camped there since the farmers’ protests began at Delhi’s borders on November 26, 2020. Navreet was driving a tractor, which overturned at the security barricades set up by the Delhi Police on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. While the police say that Navreet died beca...

A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on March 19 during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Although tragic, the above news reads like a routine item from occupied Palestine, where shooting and killing unarmed protesters is part of the daily reality. However, this is not true. Since right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced, in September 2019, his intentions to formally and illegally annex nearly a third of the occupied Palestinian West Bank, tensions have remained high. The killing of Hanaysha is only the tip of the iceberg. In occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a massive battle is already underway. On one side, Israeli soldiers, army bulldozers and illegal armed Jewish settlers are carrying out daily missions of evicting Palestinian families, displacing farmers, burning orchards, demolishing homes and confiscating land. On the o...

Protesters in Myanmar have returned to the streets to press their demands for a return to democracy, just a day after security forces killed more than 100 people on the bloodiest day since last month’s military coup. Protests were held on Sunday in Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s two biggest cities, as well as elsewhere. Some of the demonstrations were again met with police force. At least 114 people were killed on Saturday as security forces cracked down on protests against the February 1 coup that overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, according to the online news service Myanmar Now. The reported fatalities included several children under 16 years old. Similar tallies of the death toll were issued by other Myanmar media and researchers, far exceeding the previous highest death toll on March 14. The number of killings since the coup is now more than 420, according to multiple counts. The coup reversed years of progress towards democracy after five decades of military...

Earlier this week, the former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans wrote a short article in which he claimed that the crisis in Myanmar meets the threshold for the invoking of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. Since the military’s seizure of power on February 1, the country has been engulfed in protest as hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in protest. In the ensuing crackdown, at least 261 mostly unarmed protesters have been confirmed killed by the security forces (and probably many more) while several thousand have been detained for anti-coup activities. “The present crisis in Myanmar demands unequivocally to be treated as an R2P one – as were the early periods of one-sided repression of peaceful dissent in Libya and Syria,” Evans wrote. The point has been made by others, but carries additional weight given the role that Evans played, as co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, in the establishment of R2P as an intern...

show people lying on the ground inside and outside the store, and purported gunshots are heard. The video, taken by Dean Schiller, is part of a longer live stream that he took as the shooting progressed and police arrived. In the excerpt, Schiller is heard calling out saying that people need to call 9-1-1. “We don’t know if there’s a shooter — active shooter, active shooter somewhere,” Schiller said in the video. Schiller is heard on the video asking what appears to be a store employee whether a shooter went into the store. Here's how that conversation played out: "Yeah, he went in there," the man responded. “He went in the store?” Schiller asked. “He went right down there,” the man responds. “Oh my god,” Schiller reacts. “People we got people down inside Kings Soopers.” Schiller then says, “Look there’s-,” but doesn’t finish his sentence as two gunshots stop his speaking. Some background: Boulder Police had tweeted earlier on Monday there was an, “Active Shoote...

‘You sit in your room, and you talk to the wall You’re feeling small but still have a ball And you can’t explain what’s anyway in vain And you paint your face and dress in black Wear your shades and still can’t express The way you feel about a lousy fill And you dance until the morning All by yourself And somehow you know You’re not alone And you dance until the morning All by yourself And somehow you know You’re not alone’ — ‘You’re Not Alone,’ Amon Düül II Eighteen years ago, I was perched on my bunk in a makeshift squad bay, awaiting final orders to cross the border from Kuwait to Iraq. Fellow marines wrote letters to their sweethearts, checked their gear for the thousandth time, jerked off in the bathroom, or nervously smoked cigarettes. Others joked about fucking Iraqi women and who would kill the most Iraqis. You know, all American boys, fighting the good fight, with God on our side, as Dylan once sang. After several months of boot camp and infantry training, it was time to roc...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The people of Myanmar have huge expectations from the United Nations and the international community following the Feb. 1 coup, with many calling for sanctions and some urging the U.N. to send peacekeepers to stop the killings of peaceful protesters seeking a return to democracy, the top U.N. official in the country said Friday. Acting resident and humanitarian coordinator Andrew Kirkwood said in a video briefing to U.N. reporters from Myanmar’s largest city Yangon that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and other U.N. officials have been very consistent about what’s really needed: “collective member state actions in the Security Council.” Guterres echoed that message again on Friday, saying “a firm, unified international response is urgently needed” to stop the violence by security forces and return Myanmar to the path of democracy, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “Many people will have seen people carrying placards saying, ‘how many more bodies?’"...

Israeli authorities confiscated the VIP border pass of Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki upon his return to the West Bank from a meeting at the International Criminal Court, a Palestinian official said on Sunday. Ahmed al-Deek, an official at Maliki's office, said the Israeli move was linked to Maliki's meeting with ICC lead prosecutor Fatou Bensouda at her office in The Hague on Thursday. Walla!News website cited unnamed Israeli officials who said Maliki's ICC visit was the reason for the revocation of his VIP card, an Israeli-granted pass that enables dozens of senior Palestinian officials to move freely through border crossings. Spokespeople for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment. "This is the Foreign Minister of the State of Palestine. He doesn't represent himself. He represents the State of Palestine, and we regard this as an attack against the State of Palestine," said De...

Israeli settlers stormed the Palestinian town of Beit Iksa near Jerusalem early on Friday morning, torching two cars and spray-painting graffiti, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The Palestinian Civil Defence rushed to put out the fires in the two vehicles following the attack. The settlers’ graffiti read: "Greetings from Ahuvia" - a reference to Ahuvia Sandak, a 16-year-old Israeli settler who was killed in a car crash in December after being chased by Israeli police, who pursued him when he reportedly threw stones at Palestinians. Sandak was a resident of Maoz Esther, a settler outpost which has not been authorised by the Israeli government. Approximately 475,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, which has a Palestinian population of 2.7 million. All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law. Some settlers have established "outposts" without the permission of the Israeli government, on land owned...

Shira Rubin and Steve Hendrix Tel Aviv, Israel - Itamar Ben Gvir hails from a fringe of Israeli politics so extreme it was outlawed. A lawyer known for defending Jewish settlers accused of violence against Arabs, he has roots in the overtly racist Kach party, founded by radical American rabbi Meir Kahane and banned by Israel decades ago. But now, Ben Gvir and thousands of new-generation Kahanists are on the verge of a political comeback, thanks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's need for parliamentary seats in Tuesday's national election. Backed by Netanyahu, Ben Gvir's Jewish Power party is poised to gain its first spot in Israel's Knesset and possibly even a cabinet position in the next government, providing the ultranationalist group with a foothold in its bid for legitimacy. That prospect has electrified thousands of modern-day Kahanists, who see Ben Gvir as the kind of polished leader who can make their ideology palatable to an increasingly right-wing electo...

March 19 is the 18th anniversary of the U.S. government’s political decision to invade and occupy oil-rich, Arab/Muslim Iraq, a country of 32 million people. U.S. elected officials and their advisers decided it would be in the U.S. national security interest to attack and overthrow the Iraqi government. We saw how the military attack on Iraq — which was based on the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives, homes, infrastructure and culture and unleashed a whirlwind of unintended (or sometimes intended) consequences that we are dealing with even now 18 years later. At the time I was a U.S. diplomat assigned as the deputy chief of mission (deputy ambassador) in Mongolia. I had spent most of my adult life in the U.S. government’s national security agencies. I served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves and retired as a colonel. I was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbeki...

Al Jazeera A United Nations delegation is on a three-day visit starting Wednesday to a remote Bay of Bengal island where Bangladesh has moved more than 13,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees since December despite criticism from rights groups. Bangladesh wants to eventually transfer 100,000 of the more than a million refugees living in overcrowded border camps to Bhasan Char island, which emerged from the sea only two decades ago and is considered vulnerable to floods. “This initial three-day visit will bring together experts from UN agencies engaged in the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh,” the UN refugee agency told Reuters in an email. “The visit will look at the current situation and facilities on Bhasan Char, appraise the needs of the Rohingya refugees relocated there, as well as discuss with the authorities and others currently working on Bhasan Char.” The UN earlier said it had not been allowed to conduct a technical and safety assessment of the island and was not involved in...

The arms embargo imposed on Libya since 2011 is “totally ineffective,” say UN experts in a stark report released on Tuesday which underscores “extensive, blatant” violations by actors including its own member states. The six experts charged with monitoring the embargo on the civil war-torn state pointed the finger at an array of international backers on both sides of its conflict, plus private mercenaries and non-state actors – including the Russian Wagner group as well as former Blackwater head Erik Prince. They used photos, diagrams and maps to support their accusations in the report of 550-plus pages, which covers the period from October 2019 to January 2021. “The arms embargo remains totally ineffective. For those member states directly supporting the parties to the conflict, the violations are extensive, blatant and with complete disregard for the sanctions measures,” they wrote. “Their control of the entire supply chain complicates detection, disruption or interdiction,” the r...

Leading British Muslim civil society organisations and mosques said on Wednesday they would boycott a review of the government's Prevent counter-terrorism strategy over the appointment of William Shawcross. In a statement, the coalition of more than 450 organisations and 90 prominent community figures including scholars and academics said that Shawcross had a “track record of hostility to Islam and Muslims”. “No serious, objective, critical review can be undertaken by someone with such a track record – rather we should expect him to promote a hardening of policies towards Muslims. So, if Muslim organisations engage with this Review, it strengthens its legitimacy and its power to recommend policies more harmful to the community,” the statement said. Organisations that signed the statement include the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, the Muslim Association of Britain, the Association of Muslim Lawyers and the Islamic Human Rights Commission, as well as regional organisatio...

Dave DeCamp Russia called its ambassador to the US back to Moscow on Wednesday after an interview of President Biden aired where Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer.” In the interview, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked President Biden if he believes that Putin is a “killer,” to which Biden responded, “Uh-huh. I do.” Biden said he once told Putin that he believed the Russian leader had no “soul.” Stephanopoulos and Biden also discussed an assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that claimed Putin sought to hurt Biden in the 2020 election. Biden said Putin will “pay a price” for the allegations made by the ODNI. Like most US claims of Russian meddling, no evidence has been presented to back up the latest allegations besides the intelligence assessment, and the ODNI report did not explain how the conclusion was reached. Russia dismissed the accusation as “baseless” and said the assessment was likely going to be used as a pretext for sanct...

Scores of French-owned businesses across the Senegalese capital, Dakar, are still coming to terms with the devastation of smashed windows, broken liquor bottles and burned-out premises after days of nationwide anti-government protests in the West African country. French supermarkets, petrol stations and mobile phone booths were torched and looted as largely peaceful protests against rampant inequality, government corruption and stringent coronavirus restrictions morphed into anger against the former colonial power. The latest protests were sparked after the arrest of an outspoken opposition leader who had been accused of rape. Ousmane Sonko, who is popular with the country’s youth, has since been released on bail but the rape charges remain. The French presence is an everyday reality for the Senegalese people, with French troops visibly garrisoned in the capital, which is also home to France’s largest embassy in sub-Saharan Africa. The country still uses the colonial-era CFA franc cu...

Jewish settlers opened fire at two Palestinian children near the town of Yatta in the southern West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. Rateb Jabour, the coordinator of the Wall and Colonization Resistance Commission in Hebron, told WAFA that armed settlers opened gunfire towards two children from the Hrezat family while they were grazing sheep in the area of Masafer Yatta. The two children, said to be 12 and 13 years old respectively, survived the attack and were able to leave to a safe haven. In the meantime, Israeli occupation forces raided the village of Karmel, one of the hamlets of Masafer Yatta area, and stormed and searched the homes of local Palestinian residents, wreaking havoc behind. The area of Masafer Yatta, a collection of about 19 nomadic Bedouin hamlets, has been a frequent target of almost daily assaults by the Israeli military and settlers, who wish to empty the area of its indigenous population for settlement expansion purposes. Almost every day,...

by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud Posted onMarch 13, 2021 On February 4, representatives from the Palestinian Movement, Hamas, visited Moscow to inform the Russian government of the latest development on the unity talks between the Islamic Movement and its Palestinian counterparts, especially Fatah. This was not the first time that Hamas’s officials traveled to Moscow on similar missions. In fact, Moscow continues to represent an important political breathing space for Hamas, which has been isolated by Israel’s Western benefactors. Involved in this isolation are also several Arab governments which, undoubtedly, have done very little to break the Israeli siege on Gaza. The Russia-Hamas closeness is already paying dividends. On February 17, shipments of the Russian COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, have made it to Gaza via Israel, a testament to that growing rapport. While Russia alone cannot affect a complete paradigm shift in the case of Palestine, Hamas feels that a Russian alternative t...

Reuters: Minister for public security Sarath Weerasekera told a news conference he had signed a paper on Friday for cabinet approval to ban the full face covering worn by some Muslim women on “national security” grounds. “In our early days Muslim women and girls never wore the burqa,” he said. “It is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We are definitely going to ban it.” The wearing of the burqa in the majority-Buddhist nation was temporarily banned in 2019 after the bombing of churches and hotels by Islamic militants that killed more than 250. Later that year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, best known for crushing a decades-long insurgency in the north of the country as defence secretary, was elected president after promising a crackdown on extremism. Rajapaksa is accused of widespread rights abuses during the war, charges he denies. Weerasekera said the government plans to ban more than a thousand madrassa Islamic schools that he said were flouting national education po...

By Shwe Lu Maung Prologue This article is written to mark the 2nd March 1962, the day the Myanmar Armed Forces seized power and enslaved the peoples under the military colonialism. On that very night, a meeting of the Rangoon University Students Union was held. About 300 students attended the meeting. Some 50 of them pledged to oppose and fight the junta. I was one of them. Now, after 59 years, I am the only one surviving and talking. With this humble article, I honor my comrades who sacrificed their lives in our fight for freedom from the military colonialism. You can find the brief account of the student meeting in my book (http://www.shwelumaung.org/BNI) Burma: Nationalism and Ideology, University Press Ltd., Dhaka, 1989, page 45, Note 1. Déjà vu On the 1st day of February 2021, there was a "coup" in Myanmar, again! The military takeover in Burma, aka Myanmar, is nothing new. As a matter of fact, calling it a "coup" is a misnomer because the Burmese milita...