CounterCurrents: Where To Bury The Dead Conscience Of Arab-Muslim Leaders?, Huge Earthquake Kills Hundreds In Nepal; Sparks Massive Mt. Everest Avalanche, Dear Nepal, We Are With You!

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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org


Conscience Keeper Of Pakistan Sabeen Mahmud Assassinated In Karachi
By Shamsul Islam

http://www.countercurrents.org/islam250415.htm

The killing by the assassins at Karachi of a democrat, liberal and secular activist Sabeen Mahmud, a dear friend, is a great loss to the fraternity which is fighting state terrorism, totalitarianism and religious bigotry in the Indian sub-continent. Sabeen, a prominent Pakistani social and human rights activist was shot while she was returning home with her mother after hosting an event on Balochistan’s "disappeared people"


Huge Earthquake Kills Hundreds In Nepal; Sparks Massive Mt. Everest Avalanche
By Common Dreams

http://www.countercurrents.org/cd250415.htm

A powerful 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck central Nepal and Northern Indian has devastated populated areas across the Himayalan region, causing buildings to crumble and killing hundreds of people. A spokesperson for Nepal’s Home Ministry, Laxmi Prasad Dhakal, told the New York Times that the preliminary death toll stood at 686, nearly all in the valley around Katmandu, and that thousands more had been injured


Dear Nepal, We Are With You!
By Ravi Nitesh

http://www.countercurrents.org/nitesh250415.htm

I hope that South Asian Governments will stand together in this moment and will extend their support through joining hands for assisting you in relief work. I also see that such actions need to be prompt and can be helpful in not only rebuilding a Nepal with its infrastructural support, but on the strong foundations of fraternity, cooperation and unity. Such steps will be real measures of South Asian identities. I also hope that such cooperation may extend to an extent where a joint network of disaster risk reduction and relief can be created, operated and maintained to help in Disaster risk management


Civilian Casualties Mount As Saudi- Led Airstrikes Continue In Yemen
By Niles Williamson

http://www.countercurrents.org/williamson250415.htm

Jet fighters from the Saudi-led coalition carried out at least 10 airstrikes inside Yemen on Friday, three days after a Saudi Arabian military spokesman announced the end of Operation Decisive Storm and the beginning of Operation Restore Hope


The Long Arm Of The EU: The Association Agreement And Expansionist Policies
By Jürgen Wagner

http://www.countercurrents.org/wagner250415.htm

It is often alleged that the EU’s foreign policy is cobbled together in an ad hoc fashion - more often badly than well - and, so the common critique goes, that there is a lack of any coherent strategy. In this paper I maintain, to the contrary, that the European Union is in fact pursuing a targeted geostrategic goal aimed at extending its sphere of influence. The motive for this is the deeply rooted belief that in order to achieve its goal of becoming a “world power”, it is essential for it to gain control of an imperial ‘grand area’ - as will be shown by reference to publications of the [European] Group on Grand Strategy (GoGS). The first priority is to control its immediate “neighbourhood”, the most important means for which is the conclusion of an association agreement between a neighbouring state and the EU. It was thus no accident - for precisely this reason - that the escalation of tension and violence in Ukraine came immediately after the former president
, Victor
Yanukovich, decided to postpone signature of the association agreement with the EU which was then on the table


Reading The Stigmata: Filipino Bodies Performing For The U.S Empire
By E. San Juan, Jr.

http://www.countercurrents.org/sanjuan250415.htm

In this brief discourse, I sketch an inventory of the U.S. imperial adventure in the Philippines as a background to the work of Carlos Bulosan, the first Filipino writer to gain canonical status, and the ordeal of Filipinos in the era of global capitalism. Today the Philippines ranks as second to Mexico in the number of contract or indentured laborers dispersed around the world, with over 12 million Filipinas functioning as symbolic and real capital of a U.S. neocolony. In this context, the now legendary figure of Jose Antonio Vargas, Filipino "undocumented" immigrant, serves as a palimpsest icon or hieroglyph for the universal predicament of all uprooted peoples, not just Filipinos, wandering for some kind of "belonging" in the era of a flat, borderless planet, as the corporate logo proclaims. Can we seriously practice this kind of hermeneutics of suspicion without us being suspect?


21st Century Challenges To American Democracy: Part I
By Jon Kofas

http://www.countercurrents.org/kofas250415.htm

It requires several hundred pages to address the complex subject of challenges to American democracy in the post-Cold War era of a global multi-polar economic and political power structure. In this brief essay, I identify only a few of the current challenges to American democracy that appear permanent fixtures of society in the early 21st century. The objective is to provide but a sample of some issues, regardless of how the corporate media, government, and presidential candidates wish to define challenges to democracy


Mark May 2 As A Day Of Commemoration Of Those Killed
In The Trade Union Building In Odessa
By Concerned Citizens

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc250415.htm

Appeal Of The Initiative Group For Democracy And Internationalism In Ukraine


Obama Kills Two Birds With One Stone: Hints Of The Dark Place He Is Taking Us
By John Chuckman

http://www.countercurrents.org/chuckman250415.htm

Obama has been quoted saying he "takes full responsibility" for the two hostages, one American and one Italian, killed recently in a drone attack. At the same time, Obama praised the United States for its transparency in such matters. What in God's name does he mean?

Is the U.S. A Force For Good In The World?
By Eric Zuesse

http://www.countercurrents.org/zuesse250415.htm

Obama cares more about pushing through Congress mega-corporate international trade deals, than he does about anything except, perhaps, destroying Russia. As he closes his Presidency, he is doing like did Bill Clinton (the man who started expanding NATO right up to Russia's borders) at the end of his Presidency: giving away the house and everything, to the international corporate elite


Spores Wars (Hyena Fall, 2001)
By Charles Orloski

http://www.countercurrents.org/orloski250415.htm

The fact is that white powder emergency responses, the many I did (!), were understandably based upon government & Media induced fear, gross material mis-identification, subsequent 911 calls, and expensive response crews going on “billable” panic trips all over Pennsylvania


Where To Bury The Dead Conscience Of Arab-Muslim Leaders?
By Mahboob A. Khawaja

http://www.countercurrents.org/khawaja250415.htm

Arab-Muslim authoritarianism enforced by the self-image to commit planned violence and aggression against the revolutionary masses is radiating across Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. After five years, the global community is just a symbolic spectator watching the heinous crimes of the few against many


Gujarat Uniform Row Needs An Independent Probe
By Shehzad Poonawalla

http://www.countercurrents.org/poonawalla250415.htm

National Commission for Minorities must initiate an independent probe into the matter by sending a fact finding commission to ascertain the truth and provide answers to the questions raised by me in this petition, as there is a contradiction in the stands taken by the AMC. Discover if discriminatory practices are being carried out by AMC School Board.If such practices do exist, seek reply from the Gujarat Government and make recommendations to check such segregation in all states and corporation board run schools. Direct the Human Resource Development, Government of India to maintain check on such practices.


Congress Party: Time To Pass The Baton To A New Generation
By George Abraham

http://www.countercurrents.org/abraham250415.htm

Last October, I had the opportunity to sit down with Rahul Gandhi at his residence in Delhi and to discuss the May election debacle and about the future of the Congress Party. Although I was interested to talk about the need to get the Diaspora more connected as the Party was introspecting, he took the conversation entirely to a different direction; the current dynamics that is underway in the body politic of India. He spoke at length of the pre-independence coalition of feudalists, colonialist-sympathizers, royalists, ultra-nationalists who promoted caste hierarchy, division and bigotry and opposed the Independence struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. According to him, elements from that same coalition have regrouped and are re-branding themselves with strong religious overtones to undo the progress Congress-led governments have made over six decades. He believes that unless checked, these regressive forces would take India backward and nullify the prospects
for the
poor and the downtrodden to make any progress on their own


Indian Muslims Need Secular Education
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

http://www.countercurrents.org/khan250415.htm

There’s only one reason for the overall backwardness of the Indian Muslims, and that is their backwardness in education. By education here I mean secular education. There are madrasas in every Muslim locality, but madrasas only tell you about religion, about how to pray and so on. But to understand how to live in this world, how to live in society, requires more than madrasa education. It requires secular education


'Call To Action' Launch Catalyzes Fight Against TB
By Bobby Ramakant

http://www.countercurrents.org/ramakant250415.htm

India has made impressive gains in the fight against tuberculosis (TB) but significant challenges still confront us in the path ahead to eliminate TB. The launch of 'Call To Action For A TB Free India' by Sri Jagat Prakash Nadda, Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, in Delhi on 23rd April 2015, is aimed to catalyse progress towards ending TB in India. "This TB Free India campaign aims to unite existing and new stakeholders in the fight against TB and bring together our knowledge, resources and capacity to better equip us to beat TB" said Dr KS Sachdeva, Additional Director General, Central TB Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India