Late in the evening of May 9, a vehicle packed with explosives hit a Police checkpoint in Fateh KhelBannu, in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Armed men followed. By the time the shooting stopped, as many as 15 police officers had been killed; some of the named victims included officers Rehmat Ayaz and Sanaullah, as well as drivers Niaz Ali and Saadullah Jan. The attack was claimed by Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan. The next morning, the news cycle had continued. The graves remained. It is tempting to view the bloodshed of May 9 as an isolated horror. That would be dangerously…
Author: Frank M. Everett
A ruby weighing more than two kilograms has been discovered in Myanmar, with some estimates putting the rock at millions of dollars, underscoring United Nations experts’ warning that that country’s gem mining industry is funding the military’s civil war. Discovered near the town of Mogok, the heart of the lucrative gem mining industry in the upper Mandalay region, the ruby measured 11,000 carats, or 2.2 kilograms, according to Global New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece for the military government. The “ancient giant” was inspected by military president-appointee Min Aung Hlaing and his cronies, the media outlet reported, noting that it…
Reaction to Trump’s suggested gas tax holiday has been mixed, to say the least. House Republicans say they could introduce a bill by next week to suspend the eighteen-cent-a-gallon federal gas tax, but what Trump supports isn’t much.Trump said in a phone interview with Nancy Cordes of CBS News published on X:In a phone interview, President Trump told me he wants to suspend the 18-cent federal gas tax “for a period of time.” “I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “Yes, we will remove the gas tax for a period of time, and when the price of fuel goes…
WASHINGTON — Former Radio Free Asia (RFA) journalists Jim Snyder and Gemunu Amarasinghe have been named winners of this year’s Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) Excellence in Journalism Awards. The duo’s project, “Fighting a Dictatorship, Building a Democracy: In the Jungles of Eastern Myanmar, Insurgents Fight the Junta and Dream of a New State,” supported by RFA’s Burma Service, Investigations and Multimedia teams, documents the creation of democratic institutions in an active war zone in Myanmar. He won the Award for Excellence in International Reporting.“RFA journalists braved extraordinary conditions to bring us this insightful and powerful study of community resilience…
Trump was supposed to attend an Oval Office event on maternal health while promoting a new HHS website. Trump was there and sitting in his chair, but passed out.PoliticusUSA provides 100% independent news and opinions. Support us by becoming a subscriber.This was Trump’s reaction when the White House touted his new agenda:We’re investing a lot of money to train more people to work in rural America, and we’re also using telehealth tools, so you have large, sophisticated urban centers that are adopting smaller facilities, clinics, so they can help moms give birth no matter where they live. You don’t have…
On May 11, Beijing announced that US President Donald Trump would visit China on May 13-15 – just two days before the start of his summit with President Xi Jinping. Trump had publicly confirmed his visit dates back to March. For months, Beijing’s public response remained deliberately evasive: “China and the United States are in communication regarding the proposed visit of US President Donald Trump.” Preparatory diplomacy continued in the background, including a bipartisan visit to Congress in Beijing that raised issues likely to be on Trump’s agenda: market access for U.S. companies, Boeing plane sales, tariff relief and agricultural…
Akida Pulat not spoken to his mother in eight years. This Mother’s Day was her eighth without Rahile Dawutthe famous Uighur anthropologist and folklorist who disappeared taken into the custody of the Chinese state in 2017. Dr. Dawut has dedicated his career to documenting Uyghur shrines and preserving Uyghur cultural memory. For this work, the Chinese government sentenced sentence her to life in prison. His case is not unique, as I wrote for The Diplomat last year. Across the Uyghur diaspora in the United States, families are experiencing the same cruel separation: their loved ones, including many of the most…
Once upon a time, there was a US president with a unilateral streak who intervened in the Middle East to prevent and eliminate an allegedly terrorism-sponsored threat, thus provoking a diplomatic crisis with his European allies. This description fits perfectly with the way President Donald Trump waged war against Iran, but it also bears an uncanny resemblance to that of an American president from another era: George W. Bush. While Bush campaigned for a “humble”In foreign policy, the terrorist attacks of September 11 transformed his presidency into a hawkish presidency that would tolerate no risk. He eventually invaded Iraq to…
Two Central Asian leaders were among the small group who joined Russian President Vladimir Putin on Red Square to mark the 81st anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe on May 9. As expectedRussia’s Victory Day military parade has been significantly toned down this year. Lasting only 45 minutes, it included no heavy equipment – neither tanks nor missiles. There were, however, North Korean soldiers participant in the parade. While all five Central Asian leaders had traveled to Moscow for the parade in 2023, 2024 and 2025, this year only Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Uzbek President…
Since the establishment of relations in 1972, India-Vietnam relations are generally considered one of the most stable in the Asian geopolitical landscape. The two countries have maintained a traditional basis of friendship, moderate economic cooperation, and gradually expanded their defense commitments without creating major strategic problems for other major powers. Compared to hot topics such as the Sino-US rivalry, the Taiwan issue or the South China Sea conflict, India-Vietnam relations have rarely been the focus of international policymakers’ attention. However, this is changing rapidly. China appears to be closely following the development of India-Vietnam relations, particularly in the areas of…