South Asia Citizens Web

In Durban, South Africa, five heads of state meet in late March, to assure the rest of Africa that their countries’ corporations are better investors in infrastructure, mining, oil and agriculture than the traditional European and US multinationals. The Brazil-Russia-India-China-SA (BRICS) summit has invited 25 heads of state from Africa, many of whom are notorious tyrants. Given how much is at stake, critical civil society must scrutinise the claims, the processes and the outcomes of the BRICS summit and its aftermath.

Joint Action Committee - JAC for people’s rights condemns unchecked attacks on Christian homes in Badami Bagh Lahore. We condemn this brutal act with deep sense of grief and anger. It is regrettable that Punjab administration has not learnt any lessons from previous similar incidents such as those in Shantinagar and Gojra and failed in providing security and protection to a minority community under siege.

One sees mostly simplistic commentaries in the Indian and the international media. The huge gatherings at Shahbag Square are not about demanding death for a few Jamaat leaders. It is a lot more than that. It is going to decide which way Bangladesh will turn—towards its secular base founded on syncretism, or towards religious extremism, an alien concept imported by the Jamaat.

Terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi consider not only the Shias but also Pakistani Sunnis, who venerate shrines of Sufi mystics, as infidels deserving death.

On February 28th, 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) published its "Health risk assessment from the nuclear accident after the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami". This report concluded that “for the general population inside and outside of Japan, the predicted risks are low and no observable increases in cancer rates above baseline rates are anticipated.”1 The assessment is based on preliminary dose estimations, published by the WHO in May 20122, which were severely criticized by the German Section of IPPNW, independent researchers and Japanese civil organizations.3 This analysis discusses the eight main objections to the current WHO report and shows why it should not be considered a neutral scientific assessment of the actual health risks of the affected population, nor a valid basis for future decisions and recommendations.