CounterCurrents: US Deploying Additional Armored Brigades To Russian Border, Syria: Kurdish Initiatives On The Rise

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In Solidarity
Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org

A Tale of Two Research Scholars

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US Deploying Additional Armored Brigades To Russian Border 
By Thomas Gaist 

http://www.countercurrents.org/gaist020416.htm

The United States Army in Europe plans to significantly bolster its military presence in Eastern Europe, US European Command officials said on Wednesday. By February 2017, the US military plans to maintain a “permanent footprint” of three combat brigades stationed on the continent. The deployments will include 250 combat vehicles, including tanks, armored personnel carriers, Bradley and Paladin Fighting Vehicles, howitzers and thousands of troops


More Than 500 Film Makers, Writers, Artists And Activists Demand Release Of Deba Ranjan Sarangi
By Concerned Citizens

http://www.countercurrents.org/cc020416.htm

We the undersigned film makers, writers, professionals in the area of art & culture, academics, activists and social organisations are deeply shocked to hear about the arrest of independent documentary film maker, writer and human rights activist Deba Ranjan Sarangi. We strongly condemn the arrest view it as part of an overall strategy of the Indian State to curb freedom of speech, freedom of expression of artists, writers, film makers and cultural personalities. We also condemn it in the context of the overall suppression of dissent and suppression of human rights defenders in the era of strong facilitation of the forces of communalism and globalisation by the Indian State and in particular, by the Odisha government


What Does Hiroshima Have To Do With Donald Trump? 
By Mickey Z.

http://www.countercurrents.org/mickeyz020416.htm

ISIS, says Donald J. Trump, “is probably why I’m No. 1 in the polls.” His formula is frighteningly simple and frighteningly… well, frightening. “They're chopping off our heads in the Middle East,” Trump ominously reminds us. “They want to kill us. They want to kill our country. They want to knock out our cities.” So, when faced with such an enemy, would the Republican frontrunner consider the nuclear option? “I don't rule out anything,” he promised. Meanwhile, a March 24-26, 2016, poll found that 50 percent of respondents (registered voters of both parties) supported Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States


Pakistan Abandons Plans To Reform Controversial Blasphemy Law 
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

http://www.countercurrents.org/ghazali020416.htm

Pakistan government has abandoned plans to amend the country's blasphemy law following protests in its capital Islamabad that left the city paralyzed for almost four days. The Sunni Tehreek group descended on the capital on Sunday, March 27, to denounce the hanging of police officer Mumtaz Qadri for the 2011 murder of Governor Salman Taseer. Hundreds of protesters rallied for days in Islamabad before ending their sit-in on Wednesday after gathering assurances from the government


Syria: Kurdish Initiatives On The Rise 
By Rene Wadlow

http://www.countercurrents.org/wadlow020416.htm

On March 17, 2016, the “federal democratic system of Rojava” (a Kurdish term for northern Syria) was proclaimed officially. Some 150 representatives of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian (largely Christian) groups met in the city of Rmellane in north-east Syria and voted in favor of the union of three 'cantons' largely populated by Kurds − the cantons of Afrin, Kobani, and Jezireh


Why Is Lebanon Holding Hannibal Gaddafi Hostage? 
By Franklin Lamb

http://www.countercurrents.org/lamb020416.htm

As of this week, following his arrest on December 15, 2015, Hannibal Gaddafi, one of seven children of Moammar Gaddafi and his Widow Safia Farkash, has spent, without a scintilla of evidence that he violated any Lebanese law, nearly 16 weeks wrongly incarcerated in a Beirut jail


Darul Uloom Falls For The Polarizing Agenda Of Hindutva Brigade
By Shamsul Islam

http://www.countercurrents.org/si020416.htm

Those Hindutva organizations which have recently found 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' as a slogan to prove one's loyalty to India, never-never chanted it during the British rule. In fact, the slogan of freedom fighters was JAI HIND. When we have National Anthem, National Flag, Democratic-Secular Constitution and Jai Hind dear to Indians 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' is only a diversionary tactic so that the Hindutva rulers can divert attention from serious issues like poverty, hunger, price-rise, unemployment, rising violence against women & Dalits, loot of public bank money by money-bags. It is sad that Darul Uloom by such decrees is only facilitating the polarizing agenda of Hindutva brigade


Love The Country 
By Gurazada Appa Rao

http://www.countercurrents.org/gurajada020416.htm

This is to remember and celebrate Gurazada in his 110th year and his all-time great poem DESA BHAKTI, written 1910, which is highly relevant today in the context of debate on nationalism, patriotism and sedition