Author: Admin

Nearly a decade has passed but no one in Kashmir has forgotten his name. By Azad Essa More than a decade a go, a young Kashmiri fighter named Burhan Wani captured the imagination of Kashmiris. A social media phenomenon, young, he represented and symbolised a new era of armed resistance against Indian rule. His killing in July 2016 at the hands of Indian troops sparked an uprising across the region. Almost 10 years after his death, his memory still hovers over Kashmir. Our guest correspondent with this dispatch. In the summer of 2016, 22-year-old Burhan Muzaffar Wani and his band…

Press briefing by Francesca Albanese, Special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territories at UN Headquarters on 27 October 2022. (Lev Radin/Alamy) by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor Geneva – The US State Department’s decision to sanction UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, is deeply alarming. It reflects the official US stance against any independent effort to expose the genocide and systematic violations committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip. This decision marks a dangerous shift away from the core principles of international law and human rights. It…

by Ziyad Motala European ‘imams’ praise for Israeli President Herzog dismays Muslim around the world There is something nauseating, indeed obscene, about watching Arab dignitaries such as Hassen Chalhoumi, the state sponsored Imam in France and others in tailored thobes and expensive drapes extend obsequious courtesies to the very figurehead of a regime that has unleashed genocidal fury on Gaza. To witness the Israeli President, whose government has presided over the calculated immolation of a civilian population, being serenaded by platitudes about “shared humanity” by men who claim to speak for the Arab and Muslim world, is to see political servility…

BY MELVIN GOODMAN Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by an excessive preoccupation with oneself, a sense of entitlement, and a need for admiration.  It involves an inflated sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, and a tendency to exploit others to meet their own needs.  While everyone experiences some degree of self-involvement, narcissism becomes a problem when it significantly impairs social or occupational functions and causes distress. Two of the world’s leading pathological narcissists—Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu—met at the White House on Monday.  There was little substantive agreement…

United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese attends rally against Israel’s attacks over Gaza, in Madrid, Spain on June 23, 2025. [Burak Akbulut – Anadolu Agency] by Dr Ramzy Baroud  RamzyBaroud Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in occupied Palestine, stands as a testament to the notion of speaking truth to power. This “power” is not solely embodied by Israel or even the United States, but by an international community whose collective relevance has tragically failed to stem the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Her latest report, ‘From Economy…

Residents of eastern Gaza begin evacuating their neighborhoods after receiving large-scale evacuation warnings from the Israeli military in Gaza City, Gaza on June 29, 2025. [Ahmed Jihad Ibrahim Al-arini – Anadolu Agency] A leading member of Israel’s legal team in the genocide case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has publicly condemned the Israeli military’s latest operation in Gaza as a “manifest war crime”. Professor Eyal Benvenisti, a prominent international law expert and director of the Lauterpacht Centre at Cambridge University, co-authored a scathing legal opinion warning that Israel’s policy of forcibly “concentrating and moving” Gaza’s population amounts to…

06 July 2025 Cape Town Honourable Speaker We write to you with grave concern regarding the integrity and independence of the South African Parliament, following the exposure of a deeply troubling question in the application process for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Parliamentary Research Programme, a German-funded initiative run in partnership with Parliament. As documented in the attached application screenshot, applicants are required to respond to the question: “Israel has a right to exist.” This is posed alongside basic queries about South African governance in what is purportedly a research placement for Parliament. Young South Africans and human rights advocates…

By Hassen Lorgat Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe is the Minister responsible for mines  and with some changes here and there,  in the portfolio Mantashe has been at the helm since 2018. But this has been his regular argument from way back (2021) and here.  A week ago he said:mining can’t be killed for the sake of “fresh air”,  this he did when he once again gave his support for the revival of shale gas exploration in the Karoo. Poems for Gwede 1. When GWEDE walked the trenches with us  Shoulder to shoulders with the…

By Iqbal Jassat While the world’s attention is fixed on the outrageous daily rituals by bloodthirsty Israelis committing hideous massacres in Gaza, concurrently the Zionist regime has also intensified its unlawful and violent ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. Since the beginning of this year, Israeli occupation forces and settler militias carried out close to 12,000 assaults against Palestinian citizens and their properties. According to stats recorded by Palestinian sources, Israel grabbed more than 800 dunums (197 acres) of Palestinian land under various pretexts, issuing 36 orders for land seizure for military purposes and one order for…

A woman mourns over the shrouded body of a Palestinian killed during a reported Israeli strike on a humanitarian aid distribution warehouse in the Sabra neighbourhood in Gaza City, in the central Gaza Strip on June 30, 2025. The global silence on Gaza is not accidental. It is rooted in decades of settler colonial ideology, dehumanisation, and the strategic rebranding of oppression as self-defence, says the writer. Image: AFP By Phakamile Hlubi-Majola In June 2025, the Israeli military executed a strike so surgically devastating it borrowed its name from the popular television series, Game of Thrones. It was named the “Red Wedding”…