Far East

NOVANEWS By Jackie Mautner On Dec. 15, the Philippine government charged U.S. Marine Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton with the murder of Jennifer Laude, a Filipina transgender woman. Pemberton was there with 3,500 other American soldiers and sailors for military exercises as part of the Visiting Forces Agreement signed earlier this year. Pemberton was out bar-hopping with his colleagues on Oct. 11 in Olongapo, a city northwest of Manila, just before he went with Laude and her friend to a hotel. Laude’s friend had left before Pemberton strangled and drowned Laude in a toilet bowl. The killing of Jennifer Laude is enraging for several reasons. First, reading through all the news reports it becomes clear that the media’s representation was and continues to be disrespectful, often using her ...

NOVANEWS Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who leaked the Pentagon Papers exposing the Vietnam War lies, is alarmed at the many parallels between Vietnam and President Obama’s new military campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. by: Daniel Ellsberg, Barbara Koeppel UH-1D helicopters airlift members of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment from the Filhol Rubber Plantation area to a new staging area, during Operation πWahiawa™ a search and destroy mission conducted by the 25th Infantry Division, northeast of Cu Chi, Vietnam on 16 May,1966. ( Photo: AFP/NATIONAL ARCHIVES) At a recent talk at the National Press Club in Washington DC, Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, says he believes there’s not one person in the ...

NOVANEWS By Ming Chun Tang Global Research As protesters flood the streets of Hong Kong demanding free elections in 2017, the international media puts on its usual spin, characterizing the struggle as one between an authoritarian state and citizens who want to be free. The left, meanwhile, has remained notably silent on the issue. It’s not immediately clear if that goes down to an inability to understand the situation, to an unwillingness to stand for supposedly liberal values, or to a reluctance to criticize China. As stories on Occupy Central flood the front pages of the mainstream news media, both the BBC and CNN have published handy “explainers” that confuse more than they explain, making no real effort to dig into the economic roots of discontent. The “Beeb” went as far as ...

NOVANEWS By Tony Cartalucci Global Research The “Occupy Central” protests in Hong Kong continue on – destabilizing the small southern Chinese island famous as an international hub for corporate-financier interests, and before that, the colonial ambitions of the British Empire. Those interests have been conspiring for years to peel the island away from Beijing after it was begrudgingly returned to China in the late 1990′s, and use it as a springboard to further destabilize mainland China. Behind the so-called “Occupy Central” protests, which masquerade as a “pro-democracy” movement seeking “universal suffrage” and “full democracy,” is a deep and insidious network of foreign financial, political, and media support. Prominent among them is the US State Department and its National Endow...

NOVANEWS Here's why governments around the world are unfriending the Tibetan leader. Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Look at that face. You're suddenly a bit more serene, a bit more contented than you were a minute ago, aren't you? Maybe you're remembering the year — was it 2002? 2003? — when you gave every single one of your friends and family a copy of "The Art of Happiness" for Christmas. On the other hand, if you're the president, prime minister, or foreign secretary of any country in the world, then this face is giving you serious angina right now. We learned on Sept. 4 that South Africa had denied a visa request by the Dalai Lama, the head of Tibetan Buddhism and symbol of Tibetan freedom, who'd been planning to attend the 14th world summit of Nobel peace laureats in Ca...

NOVANEWS By Sufyan bin Uzayr Global Research Myanmar is undergoing a state of upheaval and transformation. As of now, the country is experiencing changes on the political, economic and social frontiers. Amidst such transitions, Myanmar is also witnessing increased cases of religious intolerance. In spite of its rich cultural heritage and legacy of socio-religious harmony, present-day Myanmar is surely not the best place for its religious minorities. Recently, the government of Myanmar proposed a law that seeks to impose a virtual ban on religious conversions (any case of religious conversion will need prior approval of the state). This proposed law is just one of the many recent ones that are being put into effect to target the country’s religious minorities: there are plans to...