Brig Gen Shahedul Anam Khan ndc, psc (Retd)

The Pope has returned after two significant visits to the region. The countries he graced his visit with are the ones that are in international limelight and for the same reason—Rohingyas.

The two days of talks between Bangladesh and Myanmar commenced yesterday, whose outcome was not known till going to press. However, while the current talks revolve only around repatriation of Rohingyas, the wider aspect of the issue is being overlooked.

It is good to see the BNP in the political arena after a period of hibernation. So far it has been a one-sided affair with the AL hogging the political show or whatever of politics we have in the country.

For everyth-ing that goes wrong, or for everything that seems to be out of order, we unhesitatingly blame the state

And yet the approach of the government has demonstrated exactly that. The home ministry's statement to the media stated that the purpose of the minister's recent visit to Burma was to attend a meeting on cooperation between Bangladesh and Myanmar on border and security matters.

It is undeniable that the Rohingya problem imposes a huge security burden on Bangladesh. The international community is unable to realise the fact that we are sheltering a population of the size of three electoral constituencies, and that in real-estate terms means two or three upazilas.

The Foreign Ministry's statement, following the mixed messages coming out of Naypyidaw after the visit of Myanmar's Union Minister U Kyaw Tint Swe to Bangladesh, that it betrayed the doubtful intention of Myanmar, has said it all.

The reactions of some of our "very close" friends since the outbreak of the most recent Rohingya crisis have compelled me to ask myself as to where all our good friends have gone.

The effect of the havoc that was wrought on this September day sixteen years ago still reverberates in most parts of the globe. The new world order that George Bush wanted to create, following the attack on a symbol of US might—a state of international politics where only the US writ would run, and no opposition to its power would be tolerated—had created disorder only.

What we have today in the Rakhine State of Myanmar is a regime of ethnic cleansing. This latest round of pogrom of the Rohingyas is the result of the international community's abject lack of action.

The very fact that Myanmar has termed the recent militant attack on its security forces as being the work of “extremist Bengali insurgents” underlines the very crux of the problem.

It has taken President Donald Trump exactly eight months into his presidency to accept that running a corporate house and running a country are two different ball games, something that he must surely have realised the very first day after he was sworn in as president.

On the very day that the world was observing the International Human Rights Day in 2012, a poor man was denied the basic right guaranteed to all human beings under God—right to life. Biswajit was a victim of depraved politics, killed brutally by some members of the student wing of the ruling party.

Even after long seventy years of the most catastrophic event of the last century, the jury is still out on whether the bombings of the two Japanese cities were justified, morally or strategically.

The finance minister would have us believe that corruption has so pervaded the entire society that it has rendered all of us more or less corrupt. Our finance minister is known for his broadsides and interesting utterances at various times during his long tenure in the job, which sometimes have been a cause of embarrassment for him and his party. This may be one such comment.

Democracy means much more than quinquennial elections to the parliament. For a country whose raison d'être has been democracy, the decay of democratic culture is alarming.

It is the considered opinion of scholars and observers of terrorism and extremism that the ISIL capture of Mosul was the most significant...

Holey Artisan attack was a watershed event for us – both the society and the state.

The Finsbury Park Mosque attack was another manifestation of Islamophobia that has gripped Britain and many other western countries including the US in recent times. Reportedly, there has been a fivefold increase in hate crimes against Muslims in London after the London Bridge attack. There has been a similar spike in incidence of hate crimes against Muslims in the US, particularly after January 20, 2017.

One cannot but marvel at the sense of proportion, or the lack of it, of the finance minister.