Far East Archives - Page 5 of 13

27Jul

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Far East, USA

Australia, UK, US Complicit in Indonesian Massacres, International Judges Say

NOVANEWS By Samantha Hawley A non-binding international tribunal at The Hague has found Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States were complicit in facilitating the 1965 mass killings in Indonesia. Key points: 500,000 Indonesians killed in anti-communist purge at height of Cold War Report found Australia continued to back army despite knowing about the killings President Joko Widodo has refused to apologise for historic murders An estimated half a million people perished in what was one of the worst massacres of the 20th Century. The killings were triggered by a failed coup that led to the deaths of six army generals, followed by the mass targeting of communists. The International People's Tribunal at The Hague has now ruled that Indonesia committed crimes against humanity...

14Jul

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Far East

Poverty and Despair: Basics in Nepal Were Absent Before the 2015 Earthquake

NOVANEWS By Barbara Nimri Aziz Global Research If you think about Nepal today, you may be contemplating a yoga course in a hilltop nunnery; if you follow international news, you’ll recall the 2015 earthquake and those distressing images of damaged temples. Alternatively you could know someone operating an NGO in Kathmandu for trafficked women or shoeless youngsters. Perhaps you have a vague memory of a film, exotic even if it profiles an unemployed carpet weaver or a doomed mountain ascent. True, trekking companies experienced a lull following the recent earthquake. The reduced flow of tourists to Nepal due to reports of damaged roads and cracked buildings is the least of the nation’s worries however. Tourism, only 5% of the economy despite its exalted position in Nepal’s in...

7Jul

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Far East

Anti-Muslim Buddhists protest in Myanmar

NOVANEWS Myanmar’s Buddhist residents participate in an anti-Muslim demonstration in Sittwe, Rakhine State, on July 3, 2016. (AFP) Anti-Muslim Buddhists held protests in Myanmar Sunday against a government decree that orders officials to use “Muslim communities in Rakhine State” when referring to the Rohingya. The demonstrations were held in over 15 towns in the western state of Rakhine, including its capital, Sittwe, in a show of opposition to the recent edict by the government, which has been issued in an attempt to contain sectarian tension. “We reject the term 'Muslim communities in Rakhine State',” said Kyawt Sein, the protest organizer in Sittwe. Myanmar’s government refuses to recognize the Rohingya as citizens. They have been denied Myanmar citizenship since a new citize...

13Jun

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Far East

Myanmar’s Political Transition: Aung San Suu Kyi “Non-Democratic Democracy”

NOVANEWS Frees Supporters, Jails Opponents By Tony Cartalucci Asia-Pacific Research Myanmar’s political transition is being hailed by Western politicians, special interests, and its media as “historic” and a new beginning for “democracy” in the Southeast Asian nation. However, even before Myanmar political opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party rose to power, the facts contradicted the fiction Western politicians and pundits had spent decades crafting. Even before elections, global awareness around Suu Kyi’s failure to condemn violence against the nation’s Rohingya minority had been growing. Articles like the Guardian’s “Why is Aung San Suu Kyi silent on the plight of the Rohingya people?,” would point out that: [Myanmar’s] opposition leader appears to be cowed by her need t...

13Jun

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Far East

Myanmar’s “Unpeople Rohingya”: Expose the Duplicity of Aung San Suu Kyi

NOVANEWS By Mary Scully Asia-Pacific Research Aung San Suu Kyi has finally her laid her cards on the table. No more bewilderment about why the holder of the Nobel Peace Prize (a worthless honorific most often awarded war criminals), the democracy icon known as “the Mandela of Asia,” the holder of dozens of international honorifics as a champion of human rights has remained dead silent on the genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Media reports the conflict as primarily a religious one between Muslims & Buddhists but Rohingya have been subject for decades to violent state-sponsored persecution & discrimination conducted by the military, including denial of citizenship (though they have lived in the region for decades), religious persecution, forced labor, land c...

12Jun

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Far East

How the Media Supported Corruption During the Elections in the Philippines

NOVANEWS By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya Asia-Pacific Research The 2016 general election of the Republic of the Philippines resulted in the most widely followed electoral period in Philippine political history. Officially starting on February 9, 2016, a hodgepodge of candidates, political parties, coalitions, and electoral alliances campaigned for multiple levels of executive and legislative government positions across the officially unitary—but in practice semi-unitary—polity of the Philippines on Monday, May 9, 2016. Without question, the most watched electoral races were those for the offices of the president and vice-president. Aside from the presidency and vice-presidency, heated contests were waged over most of the legislative seats in the bicameral Congress of the Philippines....

25May

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Far East, USA

Obama: “Big Nations Should Not Bully Smaller Ones”

NOVANEWS By Telesur Despite Obama’s anti-bullying rhetoric, in just the past 70 years U.S. imperialism has intervened in more than 35 “smaller” nations. U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday during his visit to Vietnam—a nation still suffering from a U.S. invasion that lasted 20 years—that big nations should not bully smaller ones. Obama also spoke of the relationship between the U.S and Vietnam amid tensions with China and moves to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Obama alluded to China’s recent actions in the South China Sea,when he made his bully remark, but it is China that has criticized the increased U.S. military presence in the area which has included naval patrols and exercises within the region. Despite Obama’s anti-bully rhetoric, in just the past 70 years ...

5May

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Far East, United Kingdom

Hiding the Indonesia Massacre Files

NOVANEWS By Jonathan Marshall Now that the Indonesian government has officially opened a probe into what the CIA called “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century,” it’s time for the U.S. government to come clean about its own involvement in the orchestrated killing of hundreds of thousands of Communists, ethnic Chinese, intellectuals, union activists and other victims during the mid-1960s. President Joko Widodo this week instructed one of his senior ministers to begin investigating mass graves that could shed light on the slaughter of more than half a million innocents by soldiers, paramilitary forces and anti-Communist gangs. That orgy of violence followed the killing of six generals on Sept. 30, 1965, which the Indonesian military blamed on an attempted coup by the Indonesian...

23Apr

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Far East, USA

Vietnam: My orange pain ‘VIDEO’

NOVANEWS 50 years after the US military intervention in the Vietnam War, the weapons it used continue to harm the local population. Unexploded mines still take lives and the consequences of “Agent Orange” claim new victims. A defoliant used by the US Air Force to destroy forests where Vietcong guerrilla fighters were taking cover, “Agent Orange” is highly toxic to humans. The chemical not only severely harmed the health of those immediately exposed to it, but also led to birth defects in subsequent generations. Its impact is still being felt in Vietnam, where it is estimated that around 5 million people are suffering from its damaging effects. They call it their “orange pain.”

25Feb

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Far East

The Rape of East Timor

NOVANEWS The Greatest Crime of the 20th Century, Executed and Covered up By John Pilger Global Research Secret documents found in the Australian National Archives provide a glimpse of how one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century was executed and covered up. They also help us understand how and for whom the world is run. The documents refer to East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, and were written by diplomats in the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The date was November 1976, less than a year after the Indonesian dictator General Suharto seized the then Portuguese colony on the island of Timor. The terror that followed has few parallels; not even Pol Pot succeeded in killing, proportionally, as many Cambodians as Suharto and his fellow generals killed in East Timor. Out of a pop...