South Asia

NOVANEWS Al-Jazeera ran a report this weekend called "The Hidden Genocide," about the massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Burma. The piece includes interviews with several Rohingya refugees who watched family members and friends die in the violence that took place over the summer in Rakhine state. The story also chronicles the events leading up to the violence and how the Burmese government has reacted. The Burmese government had already issued a statement decrying the Al-Jazeera report prior to its airing, saying that what's happening to the Rohingya is not genocide. However, in the broadcast, Professor William Schabas, the former president of the International Associate of Genocide Scholars, says: "When you see measures preventing births, trying to deny the identity of the people, hoping ...

NOVANEWS Human Rights watch released new satellite images of the destruction of homes and property of Rohingya Muslims in the Pauktaw, Mrauk-U and Myebon townships of Rakhine state. The images show the region in February and then again after the violent attacks in October. About 130,000 Rohingyas are in concentration camps currently according to Human Rights Watch. While their women and girls are raped as an instrument of ethnic cleansing. Human Rights Watch had previously shown how the attacks against Rohingya Muslims were carried out at times with the support of state security forces and local government officials. The violence was a state-sponsored ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas. Human Rights Watch idenitfied a total of 4,855 destroyed structures in the Rakhine state and i...

NOVANEWS By Spike Johnson Burma’s transition from a military-controlled state to a fledgling democracy has been touted by the Obama administration as one of its most impressive first-term foreign policy achievements. So much so that the president plans on visiting the country in two weeks. It will be his first foreign trip after his reelection. But cycles of revenge attacks between two religious groups in the country’s most westerly state, Rakhine, have complicated the picture of a peaceful, Buddhist democracy flourishing in southeast Asia. This summer, violence between Burmese Rakhine Buddhists and immigrant Muslim Rohingya people caused the death of around 60 people and the displacement of over 90,000 residents of that region. That ethnic conflict has once again escalated i...

NOVANEWS         By Sajjad Shaukat Renowned political thinkers, Hobbes, Machiavelli and Morgenthau opine that rulers act upon immoral activities like deceit, fraud and falsehood which become the principles of political morality. In one way or the other, they also follow these tactics in seeking revenge to fulfill their selfish aims. But such a sinister politics was replaced by new trends such as fair-dealings, forgiveness, reconciliation and economic development. In this regard, former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was recently buried in his native town with great respect and grace under the shadow of dripping tears and mourning— recalling his underlined message that constructs like reconciliation and clemency were much superior and morally sound than taking...

NOVANEWS Sajjad Shaukat Having pro-Indian tilt, since Bangladesh’s Awami League came into power, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid has started a deliberate propaganda campaign against Pakistan, its army and especially Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In this context, on the direction of India, unlike the past years, a ceremony was held in Dhaka on March 24, 2013, with full pump and show to honour ‘Foreign Friends of Bangladesh Award,’ in relation to the crisis which led to the separation of East Pakistan in 1971. For this purpose, several foreign friends who included various institutions and media anchors from various countries, particularly India were invited. Besides other renowned persons, the recipients of awards from Pakistan were mainly those personalities whose deceased fathers ...

NOVANEWS Democracy Now! broadcasts from Warsaw, Poland, where the U.N. climate summit, known as COP 19, has just entered its second week. On Saturday, thousands of protesters marched in Warsaw calling for climate justice, culminating in a rally outside the National Stadium where the climate summit is taking place. Speakers from all over the world addressed the crowd, urging world leaders to take action on global warming, including climate activists from the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, and organizers of a chartered train that brought more than 700 people from Belgium, Britain and France to join the demonstration. Polish activists also spoke, including residents of the village of Zurawlow, where resistance to fracking is growing despit...

NOVANEWS by Michelle Chen Among other things, workers still want compensation for the families of those killed in the April 24, 2013 collapse of Dhaka's Rana Plaza factory complex. (Sudipta Das/ Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons)Earlier this month, a group of workers at the Tuba Group garment factory in Bangladesh locked owner Delwar Hossain in his office and demanded that he pay the bonuses he’d promised them for the Eid al-Adha holiday, according to Reuters. Suchextreme interventions are rare in Bangladesh, where the garment export industry is a main driver of the economy, but it was crazy enough to work: After 18 hours in captivity, the boss agreed to hand over the money. Such tactics have proven effective outside the factory walls, too, as workers in the streets resort to despera...

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NOVANEWS IBTimes UK uncovers the truth about what is going on behind the facade of a liberalising Myanmar Religious violence in Burma between the Buddhist majority and other ethnic groups, such as the Rohinga Muslims, has existed for decades if not centuries. However over the last 12 months what's been classed by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as a wave of ethnic cleansing has been sweeping across various townships in the Rakhine state on the country's west coast. The United Nations estimates are that around 140,000 people have fled widespread oppression and brutal violence to makeshift refugee camps, with many dying unnecessarily. But while the international community has praised President Thein Sein for his steps towards improving democracy in Burma, they have t...

NOVANEWS Aung San Suu Kyi at today’s World Economic Forum BBC debate in Naypyidaw (Photo: Simon Roughneen) PressTV: Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has rejected criticism leveled at her over her silence about the persecution of the Rohingya Muslim community, while announcing her desire to run for president. The Muslim minority of Rohingyas in Myanmar accounts for about five percent of the country’s population of nearly 60 million. The persecuted minority has faced torture, neglect, and repression since the country achieved independence in 1948. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Myanmar’s government to address the plight of the Rohingya Muslim population and to protect the community against Buddhist extremists. “At the moment nobody seems to be...