Can Americans insist Ambassador Anatoly Antonov Answers His Telephone?

The Russian ambassador to the United States has been in the news this week. He has given an interview to Newsweek, and he published an article for ‘Foreign Policy’ called, “An Existential Threat to Europe’s Security Architecture?” [...]

Chinese Commercial Interests in London

There are reports coming from London about an abandoned vehicle with dead Chinese nationals in it. It’s not clear yet exactly where the deceased had come from. It’s possible they had come from Macau or Hong Kong. The authorities [...]
Gulf crisis turns Qatar into the ‘region’s Israel’

Gulf crisis turns Qatar into the ‘region’s Israel’

  By James Dorsey.   Qatar airbrushed from map in UAE / Credit: Simon Henderson   Prominent US constitutional lawyer and scholar Alan M. Dershowitz raised eyebrows when he described Qatar as “the Israel of the Gulf states.” Known [...]
Kim Jong-Un’s New Year’s Address

Kim Jong-Un’s New Year’s Address

  By Stephen Lendman.   Trump disgracefully calls Kim a “madman,” a characterization applying to him, not North Korea’s leader, his country’s security gravely threatened by possible US aggression. In a New Year’s address, [...]

Ethiopia’s Political Turmoil Worsening: Threatening Regional Security

By Betre Y. Getahun Political turmoil, ethnic tension and conflict have continued to engulf east Africa’s most populous nation, Ethiopia. The country is now on brink of an all-out civil war which could affect the whole region. Despite increasing [...]
UN Armed Conflict Report Downplays Saudi Atrocities in Yemen

UN Armed Conflict Report Downplays Saudi Atrocities in Yemen

By Stephen Lendman. Over two-and-a-half years of US-orchestrated/Saudi aggression in Yemen created the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis. Millions of lives are threatened by war, untreated diseases including the worst cholera epidemic [...]
Putin Warns of War on the Korean Peninsula

Putin Warns of War on the Korean Peninsula

  By Stephen Lendman.   In an article ahead of the September 3 – 5 BRICS summit in Xiamen, China, titled “BRICS: Toward New Horizons of Strategic Partnership,” he stressed the importance of continuing the battle against terrorists [...]
China contributes to doubts about Pakistani crackdown on militants

China contributes to doubts about Pakistani crackdown on militants

  By James Dorsey.     China, at the behest of Pakistan, has for the second time this year prevented the United Nations from listing a prominent Pakistani militant as a globally designated terrorist. China’s protection of Masood [...]
Iran on Trump’s Target List?

Iran on Trump’s Target List?

By Stephen Lendman.   Trump directed a White House team to examine ways of withholding certification of the Iran nuclear deal when the administration’s next 90-day review is due to Congress. National Security Council officials, along [...]
Playing both sides against the middle: Saudi engages with Iraqi Shiites

Playing both sides against the middle: Saudi engages with Iraqi Shiites

By James M. Dorsey.   Saudi Arabia, with the Islamic State on the ropes in Iraq, is forging ties to Iraqi Shiite leaders and offering to help fund reconstruction of Mosul and other predominantly Sunni Muslim cities that were devastated [...]
Nepal’s War Victims Await Justice Pramod Raj Sedhain Victims of the decade-long armed insurgency (February 1996 to November 2006) in Nepal are waiting for justice. The delay in formation and the performance of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) & Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) to investigate and ensure accountability has frustrated the hopes of the victims. In the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) signed by the government and the Communist Party of Nepal Maoist in November 2006, both parties had committed to immediately set up a TRC & CIEDP to investigate the creating mechanisms aimed at ensuring accountability for the perpetrators and justice and reparations for the victims. 8 years after the signing of CPA, the Nepal government decided to form the TRC & CIEDP on 10 February 2015 which, however, completed its initial two-year tenure on February 9, 2017 without any significant achievement. It extended its mandate pledging to accomplish its tasks by another one year until February 9, 2018. Following its establishment, more than 58,052 complaints of human rights violations have been registered at the TRC. CIEDP has registered some 2,874 cases of disappearance during the insurgency period. Nepal’s TRC has been mandated to resolve all gross human rights violations during the Maoist-led insurgency era. However, the question is whether it will be able to utilize the remaining time. In the past, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), a constitutional body of Nepal, had recommended hundreds of cases, which went unheard of. Nepal, a tiny South Asian Himalayan nation situated between India to the south and China to the North, has hundreds of notorious human right violation cases during insurgency period. According to Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, some 17,886 people lost their lives, 8191 disabled, 69571 displaced, 17448 private properties lost or damaged during the decade-long insurgency. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has listed over 9,000 cases of "serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law" during the decade-long Maoist-led insurgency. OHCHR's "Nepal Conflict Report - 2012" criticized the Nepalese authorities for failing to bring the perpetrators to justice. Notorious human right violations include Maoist's 2005 June bus bombing in Madi Chitwan – 170 kilometers from capital Kathmandu, killing 35 civilians and execution of twenty-one Maoist cadres after being captured in Doramba Ramechhap – 87 kilometers from the capital on August 2003 by the Nepal Army. The National Human Right Commission data suggests more than 60 percent of cases that happened during the civil war had nothing to do with the conflict. Former lawmaker Bal Krishna Dhungel’s case is one of the notorious examples of Nepal's serious impunity. Nepal's Supreme Court has already issued an arrest warrant against Dhungel on the convicted murder of Ujjan Kumar Shrestha of Okhaldhunga in 1998. Ironically, Dhungel has been roaming freely. Despite the court’s arrest order, he has threatened physical attack against the Judges issuing the verdict against him. Nepal's previous Maoist-led government in November 2011 had recommended his presidential clemency for him which eventually was rejected by the court. Nepal government initially granted 100,000 rupees as interim compensation to missing persons' families. Majority of them received their payment, but attempts to assign legal accountability for the crimes have been proven illusive. Some families refused the compensation demanding justice first. Nanda Prasad Adhikari and his wife Ganga Maya Adhikari from Phujel in Gorkha district have been one among them. Adhikari’s family refused to receive the compensation without proper investigation of the murder of their 19-year old son Krishna Adhikari, who was allegedly kidnapped and murdered by Maoist cadres in Ratnanagar of Chitwan on June 6, 2004. After 333 days in hunger strike Nanda Prasad Adhikari breathed his last on 22 September 2014 at the age of 52. Adhikari’s body is still lying at the hospital waiting for funeral. His wife Ganga Maya Adhikari is still on hunger strike struggling to get justice. She is lying unconscious at a hospital bed. The couple’s voice seeking justice in non-violence means have been unheard of. Therefore, they started their hunger strike on October 23, 2013 demanding action against those involved in the murder of their son. In a separate case, Nepal's district court recently sentenced three former army officials to 20 years in jail for killing a 15-year-old school-girl Maina Sunwar. She was arrested from her home in Kavre - 45km south of the capital. She was tortured, electrocuted and killed on February 2004. Maina's body was exhumed in March 2007. District Court issued arrest orders of the four accused in 2008 but none has been arrested so far. Her mother Devi Sunwar is still struggling for justice with the hope that her daughter's murderers are punished. These are some of the few examples of barriers to get justice during the war era crime. Despite pressure coming from several right groups as well as court verdicts, Nepal government is yet to enforce court verdicts over such cases. Right groups are worried about general amnesty on sensitive war era atrocities. Ten years have passed. However, nothing significant has been accomplished so far. Since post-conflict phase, hundreds of victims are yet to get justice. Civilians affected by the widespread violence, death and disappearances of war-time family, are still deprived of justice.

Nepal’s War Victims Await Justice

By Pramod Raj Sedhain. Victims of the decade-long armed insurgency (February 1996 to November 2006) in Nepal are waiting for justice. The delay in formation and the performance of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) & Commission [...]
Senate Bill Limits Trump’s Power to Lift Sanctions on Russia

Senate Bill Limits Trump’s Power to Lift Sanctions on Russia

By Stephen Lendman. Republican and Democrat Senate leaders agreed to tough new sanctions on Russia – including limiting Trump’s power to lift them. More on this below. The measure will be attached to legislation imposing new sanctions [...]
Two conferences spotlight Muslim world's struggle to counter militancy

Two conferences spotlight Muslim world’s struggle to counter militancy

By James M. Dorsey. Two conferences this week spotlight the Muslim world’s struggle to come to grips with extremism and militancy. The conferences, the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh and a gathering in East Java of youth leaders of [...]
Conflict in the Middle East threatens Pakistan and lynchpin of China’s One Belt, One Road

Conflict in the Middle East threatens Pakistan and lynchpin of China’s One Belt, One Road

By James M. Dorsey. Increasingly caught up in the Middle East’s multiple conflicts, Pakistan is struggling to balance relations with rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran amid concern in Islamabad that potential US-Saudi efforts to destabilize the [...]
The Meeting Between President Trump and President Xi Jinping

The Meeting Between President Trump and President Xi Jinping

By Roie Yellinek.   Donald and Melania Trump with Xi Jinping and Peng Liyuan at Mar-a-Lago, via REX Shutterstock   EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: On April 6, 2017, the two most powerful men in the world, US president Donald Trump and Chinese [...]
Rising Iranian-Pakistani tensions render Pakistani policy unsustainable

Rising Iranian-Pakistani tensions render Pakistani policy unsustainable

  By Jame M. Dorsey.     An Iranian warning that it may attack militant bases in the troubled province of Balochistan threatens to bring Pakistan’s house of cards crashing down. Pakistan’s tenuous house is built on a torturous [...]
Pence Heading to Seoul, Possible US Aggression on Hold

Pence Heading to Seoul, Possible US Aggression on Hold

By Stephen Lendman.   On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence heads to Seoul, part of a 10-day Asia trip to include Japan, Indonesia and Australia visits. A White House statement said he’ll “arrive in Seoul…on April 16,” return [...]
Marine Le Pen in Moscow

Marine Le Pen in Moscow

By Stephen Lendman.   French presidential candidate Le Pen’s far-right agenda warrants plenty of criticism.  Le Pen’s meeting with Putin in Moscow deserves praise, not criticism, despite her political motive for coming. She hopes [...]
Pakistani military engagement: Walking a fine line between Saudi Arabia and Iran

Pakistani military engagement: Walking a fine line between Saudi Arabia and Iran

  By James Dorsey.       Pakistan is emerging as an important military player in the Gulf as its struggles to balance complex relations with regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran and diverging approaches by different branches [...]
Scotland Independence Referendum 2.0?

Scotland Independence Referendum 2.0?

By Stephen Lendman. Ahead of Scotland’s September 2014 independence referendum, most UK and independent polls showed the outcome was too close to call. In the run-up to the vote, pro-independence supporters gained strength. Some analysts [...]