Far East

NOVANEWS New Constituent Assembly fails to make progress towards constitution By Walter Smolarek  Liberation News. Since the 2006 revolution that overthrew the monarchy, Nepal's new government has been engaged in a series of political struggles over how to complete the revolution. Pictured above, a May Day protest in 2010. Dramatic election results in Nepal have set the stage for a period of political realignment as the seventh government since the 2006 “People’s Movement 2” revolution attempts to advance the process of drafting a constitution. This new chapter in the country’s transition out of feudal, monarchical rule began when voters again went to the polls to elect a second Constituent Assembly last November 19. The Constituent Assembly is tasked with writing the new constitu...

NOVANEWS by Ed Mattson The name Agent Orange will forever live in infamy. For many of today’s citizens the name is unrecognizable. For the soldiers who fought in Vietnam, Korea, and were stationed in Southeast Asia in support of the Vietnam War, the name is synonymous with pain, suffering, and death. But for a handful of USO volunteers and civilian contractors, the name is synonymous with betrayal by the country they loved. Agent Orange for those not old enough to remember, never paid much attention to it and the Veterans who filed claims for help with the VA, and to those who just don’t give a rat’s behind which include the Department of Defense, the politicians of the Sixties and Seventies who knew about the hazards of the product but ignored the warnings…”this Bud’s for you”! For those...

NOVANEWS General Vo Nguyen Giap The role of revolutionary leadership By Richard Becker May 7, 2014, marks the 60th anniversary of the historic Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The battle saw the landmark Vietnamese victory over French colonialists who made a last stand in the city of Dien Bien Phu in the last days of the First Indochina War. After nearly two months of intense struggle, Vietnamese forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap’s command surrounded and captured over 10,000 colonial French troops. The defeat proved so catastrophic for French colonialism that it led to France’s withdrawal from Indochina and ultimately paved the way for their final victory against their new imperialist enemies in Washington. Liberation News is reprinting the following article from June 1, 2005 in honor...

NOVANEWS By KYAW HSU MON  This year, Burma’s government is chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) for the first time, having previously been ruled out of the position because of the country’s military regime. As chair it will have to address 21st-century Asia’s most complicated and potentially destabilizing issue: the dispute between China and its Asean neighbors, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, about overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea. Asean’s most important meetings will be conducted at the end of the year. On May 10-11, the 24th Asean Summit will take place in Naypyidaw when Asean foreign ministers will gather. Last year’s Asean chair Brunei won plaudits for its balanced handling of meetings over the dispute, but in 2012 Cambodia...

NOVANEWS By Tony Cartalucci Global Research The Economist has recently floated a narrative that the current Thai regime could flee to the north and “separate” the region from Thailand. Far from a legitimate government seeking to “preserve democracy,” it a Western-backed proxy regime carrying out the tried by true modern imperial agenda of divide and rule. First, it should be remembered that the Economist publishes paid-for op-eds. It is not news, it is not analysis, it is simply the message told by the highest bidders – the corporate-financier interests of Wall Street and London. These interests are passed to the Economist via their impressive network of lobbying firms. The Economist itself sits among the corporate membership of large Wall Street-London policy think-tanks like the Chath...

NOVANEWS By Heather Marsh Children at an unregistered Rohingya refugee camp in southeast Bangladesh. Photo by no_direction_home Last Sunday, the internet was temporarily shaken up by a campaign designed to highlight the plight of the Rohingya people of Burma. On Twitter, the hashtag #RohingyaNOW was aworldwide trend for more than two hours, peaking at the top spot. Two in-person demonstrations were held (and live-streamed), one for several hours in front of the CNN building in LA. Plus, an article about the campaign made the front page of Reddit. Most dismissed it all as a cute trick, a one-day initiative amplified by Anonymous, Occupy collectives, and human rights activists around the world wanting to raise awareness. Instead, it was a milestone in a campaign that has been runn...

NOVANEWS By Ray Downs The logo of the 969 group. When most Westerners think of Buddhism, they think of smiling men with potbellies and inspirational quotes from Phil Jackson. “Buddhist neo-Nazi” sounds like a contradiction in terms. But in Burma, vicious anti-Muslim sentiment has been on the rise, and Buddhist extremists are responsible for attacking Muslims and burning down their houses and mosques, a state of affairs that was largely ignored until Anonymous launched a Twitter campaign to teach the world about the genocide against the Rohingya people, the officially stateless Muslims who many believe will be massacred if the world does not respond. According to Dr. Muang Zarni, a Burmese human rights activist and research fellow at the London School of Economics, much of the bl...

NOVANEWS By Assed Baig A military camp a few miles from Sittwe, Burma. Burma's Muslims are still having a pretty awful time of it. Last year, the country's Buddhist majority launched a series of attacks on the minority Rohingya Muslim population, supposedly because they're not "ethnically pure." The attacks have continued this year, and now the general Muslim population, not just the ethnic Rohingyas, are getting their homes burned down and heads smashed in by marauding gangs of vicious Buddhists. After monitoring the plight of the Rohingya and incidents of violence against them in June and October last year, I decided to fly out to Burma, anticipating another round of trouble. The problem was, I had no money, no commission, no media organization backing me, and the mainstream me...

Please make three phone calls today! 1. Call the Burmese embassy at 202-332-3344 and demand that the Government of Burma: • provides full protection to Rohingya in Kilaidong village and elsewhere.  • launches a full and transparent investigation to this tragic event in Kilaidong.  • arrests and punishes the policemen and vigilantes involved in the wanton violence. 2. Call the Secretary of State at 202-647-4000 and ask him to make a phone call to the Burmese president asking him to intervene.  3. Call your U.S. Representative to co-sponsor House Resolution 418….we’re now up to 19 co-sponsors! Let’s keep up the effort! We need 10,000 calls to be an effective pressure on the politicians. Make your call, and then get 10 others to call as well and insha’Allah you will get ajr...