Habib Siddiqui

Fighting at a United Nations compound sheltering people fleeing conflict in South Sudan has killed 18 people, including two Medicins Sans Frontieres workers, the international medical aid group said. South Sudan descended into civil war in December 2013 when a row between President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy Riek Machar ended with fighting that often occurred along ethnic fault lines. People have been taking refuge in U.N.-administered "protection of civilian" sites, or POCs, since then. Thousands have been killed and more than 2 million people displaced from their homes since late 2013. You can read the news by clicking here .

Can Israel be both  Jewish and democratic at the same time? Uri Avnery says, Israel can be Jewish state in a part of the country with Jewish population. But it cannot be both a democratic and Jewish Israel in all of the country.  But the Zionist leaders want to make Israel both a democratic and Jewish state at the same time. Netanyahu has a simple solution: he wants to pass a  law that would be a watershed in the history of Israel. The law would  enable 90 of the 120 Knesset members to evict any or all the other members from the Knesset altogether. The grounds for such a decision are nebulous: supporting "terrorism" – by speech as well as by deed, denying the Jewish character of the state, and such. Who decides? The majority, of course.  What a democracy in Israel! And how it  is being abused in Israel! Any student of democracy knows that d emocracy means that the majority respects the rights of minorities. Including the right of free speech. Avnery s...

An Imam of a Manchester mosque in the United Kingdom has died after after being found in a children's playground with a serious head injury.  He was found by passers-by with a severe head injury in the playground shortly before 9pm on Thursday after returning from evening prayers.   Many suspect that he may have been a victim of hate crime . Mohammed Shafiq, Chief Executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said: “The news that a popular local Imam from Rochdale was murdered last night returning from prayers at a local mosque is shocking and tragic.  "Whilst it is too early to speculate about the circumstances of the murder we would urge the community of Rochdale to stay united and calm."  Mr Shafiq added: "We pay tribute to him and his unique contribution to our community in Rochdale. We offer our sincere condolences and prayers to his family, friends and the wider community.  "We would urge all local Mosques in Rochdale to consider emergency security preca...

George W. Bush’s Administration sold us the war against Iraq when it had no proof that the Saddam Hossein’s regime had “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD). After invasion and occupation of the land, years of search found no WMD. Absolutely nothing! It was a gigantic lie manufactured by Bush (USA) and Blair (UK). In the meantime, nearly half a million Iraqis had to die in one of the most sadistic wars of history in which the USA and her partners showed their real ugliness with everything – their wanton killing of innocent civilians, their ill-treatment of the occupied people, let alone the prisoners, their savage bombing of places of worship, business centers, schools, hospitals, heritage sites, museums and even the drinking and sewage system. What the real civilized world (outside the impostors in the White House and the 10 Downing Street ) saw were savagery, war crimes, unfathomable carnage and destruction. As a matter of fact anything that the trigger-happy occupying forces lik...

Here is the link to an article about a Rohingya fighting for the rights of his people from Australia.

The news below is from Myanmar Times : The special rapporteur’s post will come up for review at the end of the month when the UN Human Rights Council convenes on February 29. Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the council to investigate, monitor and report back on human rights problems. In Myanmar, the post has been particularly contentious as the outgoing government has repeatedly lobbied to have the position downgraded, or even abolished. The current rapporteur for Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, has  faced criticism  from not only the government but also  nationalist groups  for her criticisms of the human rights situation in Myanmar, particularly in regard to the  Muslim Rohingya , whom the government refers to as Bengalis. Ms Lee alleged at the end of her most recent visit, in August 2015 in the run-up to the election, that her trip had been  forcibly truncated , severely restricted and heavily monitored by security forces. Shoul...

Valentine's Day has become a big thing in recent decades all around the globe. When I left Bangladesh for higher studies in North America more than three decades ago, very few people inside my native country had heard of the event. Not any more! With the Internet and global connectivity, there is such a copycat culture these days that all such events, which have no cultural ties, are seen as acceptable features. Cards are sold and distributed that says: will you be my valentine? Very few are aware of the  ignoble  origin of the Valentine Day.  From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile. The brutal fete...