Author: Senin Mamat

It was bitter cold, but I don’t remember freezing or being cold. Hemingway wrote that the air was so cold when you took a breath it was like drinking water. We travelled by train, then we walked through the cold streets, no bus was running, we had to hustle to catch the last ride up the mountain, then it was up to the mountain, bundled up in two thick woolen blankets with the snow showering us. It was warm looking out of the peep hole I created, flying up the mountains sitting on the last ride of the day. The…

The Ukrainian project “I Want to Live” on Oct. 23 called on North Korean soldiers to surrender to Ukrainian forces in a new Korean-language video. Launched in September 2022 by Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, the 24-hour “I Want to Live” hotline helps Russian soldiers willingly surrender themselves or their units to the Ukrainian army. The Russian military is promised that after surrender, they will be held in compliance with the Geneva Conventions. “You must not die senselessly in a foreign land. You must not repeat the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who will never return home!” the…

The Israeli strikes, both security and military-related, must be critically examined, particularly in light of their success in various regions and against multiple targets. These strikes eventually led to the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, despite the stringent security measures in place to protect him. Since becoming a declared target for Israel, Nasrallah’s security detail has implemented extraordinary precautions. Individuals in his immediate surroundings were prohibited from using mobile phones or the Internet. Moreover, Nasrallah adopted a highly secretive lifestyle, frequently relocating between different apartments and never staying in one location for an extended period. In addition, tiny…

Moscow (11 September/ 33.33). Russia waged a 2-year war of aggression against its neighbor, the Ukraine. Two years on, hundred thousand of deaths, families destroyed, Russia is no where near its 3-day goals of occupation. The Russian army slugs on, mile for mile, killed for killed. Vladimir Putin and his Siloviki continues a red army model. Heavy artillery, wave of men urging forward. The result, mass casualties. Total loss of life, and equipment. What does Russians do if in trouble. Reversing to its all bag of tricks. Spies and sabotage. Recent Russian sabotage operations across Europe were “reckless”, Moore said,…

VAHDAT, Tajikistan — Shahboz Sharifbek has never had a political agenda or supported any political, religious, or social group. He doesn’t stand out from the crowd for any reason. Too poor to attend college, Sharifbek’s life revolved around finding odd jobs in his home village on the outskirts of the capital, Dushanbe, to provide for his impoverished family that includes his younger brother and their 82-year-old grandmother, who raised Shahboz and his brother when they were orphaned as kids. But the 23-year-old was recently sentenced to five years in prison for allegedly making a “public call via social media for…

Rustam Emomali is increasingly the face of his country on the international stage On January 29, China signed off on an agreement to hand Tajikistan the gift of $2 million to fund the construction of a conference room in a government building. As grants go, it is not a lot, but the real significance of the development lies elsewhere. As an official press release asserts, that the money was disbursed at all was the result of a visit paid to Beijing by the 36-year-old chair of the Senate, Rustam Emomali, better known to the public for being the son of President Emomali Rahmon. Common…

Berlin (06/12 – 67.67) Asliddin Sherzamonov, an activist from Tajikistan, strongly believes that the United Nations (UN) should assess the actions of the Central Asian country’s security forces during the events of 2021 and 2022 in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO). Speaking at the UN session on minorities held in Geneva on December 1, Asliddin said that an independent international commission should be established to evaluate the activities of Tajikistan’s security forces. In the operations carried out by security forces in 2021 in Roshtkala and Khorog, three people died. In another operations in the spring of 2022 by the security…

More cases of dangerous haze pollution have been observed in the last few weeks, particularly in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. Today, civil society organisations in the region are calling on member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to protect and uphold citizens’ rights to clean air from the recurring haze by enacting a Transboundary Haze Pollution Act (THPA) as a concrete first step. In time for the Asia-Pacific Climate Week (APCW 2023) held from 13-17 November in Johor, Malaysia, Greenpeace Southeast Asia (GPSEA) and Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) reminded governments of their commitments to…

The Philippines is the odd one out in Asean in its total, welcoming embrace of the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy, while other member states have viewed Washington with caution and concern, according to speakers at a conference in Manila on South China Sea maritime security. “The Indo-Pacific concept [by the US] is a trigger for South China Sea tensions,” Dr Supartono, director of Hang Tuah University in Surabaya, Indonesia, told the Maritime Security Conference in Metro Manila, held on November 22 by Singapore’s Asia Collective and the Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation founded by security analyst Chester Cabalza. The retired rear admiral of…

Toronto, Alaska (16/11 – 50) Our lives are being maneuvered and we are being manipulated by unelected, insidious forces, toward objectives not necessarily in the people’s interest. Now that the so-called “pandemic”, declared by the mysterious self-appointed World Health Organization, and followed obediently by governments everywhere, has been decreed “finished”, we should devote a moment to introspection, considering who is running the show and for whose benefit, as governments gaily abdicated their vested responsibility to govern. Pandemic is over? I hope they told those killer viruses who destroyed the population of Europe and North America. What? Oh, just 1% mortality?…