Author: Priya Saha

RAPOSA SERRA DO SOL INDIGENOUS TERRITORY, Brazil — The mining encampment that stretches across a mountainside in Brazil’s Amazon is dotted with plastic tarpaulin covers. Under them, dozens of men toil in rocky pits, excavating sacks of ore to be transported by truck. Gold will be extracted from the ore.Of all places this squatter settlement shouldn’t exist, it’s here: in Brazil’s northernmost Roraima state that doesn’t permit gold prospecting, inside one of the nation’s Indigenous reserves where mining activity is illegal and on the flanks of this mountain — Serra do Atola — that traditional leaders of the Macuxi people…

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said that during the recent violence in Tripura, no mosques were burnt and not a single person died while the issue was sorted out in a very short time. In October, there were alleged incidents of violence in Tripura following communal violence in Bangladesh during Durga Puja.The Chief Minister said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, North-eastern states are benefitting financially and culturally. He added that the work done by the previous governments in 50 years, have been done by the BJP government in four years. As Tripura completes its 50…

[Among the over 200 more usual Danish motorcycle clubs, MuJu & Co], was co-founded in 2019 by Dan Meyrowitsch, a 60-year-old Jewish epidemiologist at the University of Copenhagen, and 44-year-old Muslim and medical doctor Sohail Asghar. The two have been friends for many years and always shared a passion for motorcycles. “It actually started as a joke,” Meyrowitsch recounts. “I suggested to Sohail … that we should start the world’s first Jewish-Muslim motorcycle club. But he loved the idea right away…      Even growing up in a traditional Jewish family near Copenhagen with experiencing much racism personally, Meyrowitsch always felt…

Local immigrants are unsure about the fate of friends and loved ones following the volcano and tsunami. The public is invited to a community gathering to support local Tongans impacted by the volcanic eruption near their home country. A shared meal will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 22, at the Rose City Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2215 N.E. 106th Ave., Portland. The gathering is intended to support local Tongan families who are suffering because they cannot contact friends and families in the region affected by the last Sunday’s large eruption…

Bangladesh is closing schools for two weeks while health data from England and China indicates an easing in COVID-19 infections as the World Health Organisation for the first time recommended vaccine boosters be offered to people.Bangladeshi authorities on Friday closed all schools and colleges for two weeks to counter an “alarming” rise in COVID-19 infections just four months after ending a one and a half-year school closure imposed due to coronavirus.The country reported 11,434 new cases on Friday, the biggest single-day jump since August 9, pushing the positivity rate to 28.5 per cent.”We are seeing an uptick in infections in…

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday said there would be a lot of investment in Tripura in the coming days due to dozens of road and rail projects and international waterway connectivity with Bangladesh. The work of the Agartala-Akhaura rail link was progressing at a rapid pace, he noted.Mr. Shah made the remark while addressing Tripura’s 50th Statehood Day celebrations through videoconferencing.“The Tripura government has made great efforts to bring peace and stability. Today, instead of extremism, infiltration, blockades, drugs, arms trafficking, corruption and communal tension, Tripura is now moving towards development, connectivity, infrastructure, sports, investment, and promotion of…

ANI | Updated: Jan 21, 2022 18:54 IST Islamabad [Pakistan], January 21 (ANI): Despite all calls to stop forced conversions and marriages from the international community and human rights organisations, Pakistan’s government still demonstrates a marginal interest to advance the frameworks of religion, policy and dialogue to ensure the safety of minority’s girls and women.Qamar Rafiq, writing in Daily Times said that a report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Pakistani Minorities found that around 1,000 girls between the ages of 12-25 from minorities are forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan every year and married to their abductors, which…

Families of victims of enforced disappearances allegedly perpetrated by an elite Bangladesh paramilitary group Friday called on the UN to ban the security force from serving as peacekeepers.They made the call a day after 12 international rights groups including Amnesty International made similar demands to the UN Department of Peace Operations in a letter to UN Under-Secretary General Jean-Pierre Lacroix.The move is designed at adding pressure on Bangladesh authorities, especially its powerful military and police, after rights groups blamed the elite Rapid Action Battalion for gross human rights violations. They say the RAB enforced disappearances of hundreds of people, including…

(BPT) – While the past two years have been tough on everyone, they’ve been especially hard for children living with challenging family circumstances or in communities hit hardest by health and economic difficulties. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association recently declared children’s mental health a national emergency due to the serious toll COVID-19 has taken on families. According to the CDC, between March and October 2020, the percentage of emergency department visits for children with mental health emergencies grew by 24% for children ages 5-11. The pandemic also…

from the can-you-not???!!!! dept It’s no secret the Chinese government wants to control its population through pervasive surveillance. It’s also no secret the government wants very badly to eliminate a certain sector of its population with (in every sense of the words) extreme prejudice. China’s minority Uighur Muslim population presents an existential threat to a government that is tasked with controlling the hearts and minds of billions of residents. The Uighurs don’t buy into the government narrative or whatever passes for a national religion in a country where almost every religious expression has been suppressed. The Chinese government claims to…

Defying order passed by the High Court Division of Bangladesh Supreme Court, a government school in country’s Habiganj district still remains in the name of convicted war criminal Syed SM Kaiser. According to information, more than three decades ago, several controversial locals named a government school located at Chhatiyain area in Madhabpur upazilla under Habiganj district after the name of Syed SM Kaisar, a war criminal handed death penalty by the International War Crime Tribunal in Bangladesh. Kaisar had opposed to Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 and took part in murder and rape of locals, including hundreds of Hindu…

Last month, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a 3-day workshop: “Optimizing care systems for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.” During this workshop, expert panelists, including myself, expressed a shared concern regarding the lack of accreditation standards when educating healthcare professionals to care for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Low accreditation standards for professional healthcare education programs are contributing to health inequalities that negatively impact the health of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, a population that is still not officially considered to be medically underserved. When health professionals don’t understand how to care for…