Promising international education group

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday (Apr 14) it's "time to end" America's longest war with the unconditional withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, where they have spent two decades in a bloody, increasingly futile battle against the Taliban. Dubbed the "forever war", the US military onslaught in Afghanistan began in response to the Sep 11, 2001 attacks against the United States. Now, 20 years later - after almost 2,400 US military and tens of thousands of Afghan deaths - Biden named Sep 11 as the deadline by which the last US soldiers will have finally departed. The pullout will begin on May 1. In a nationally televised address, Biden said the United States had accomplished its limited original mission of crushing the international jihadist groups behind the 9/11 attacks and that with every passing year the rationale for staying was "increasingly unclear". Biden insisted there would be no "hasty exit", but he was adamant about his decision. "A horrific … [Read more...] about ‘It’s time to end the forever war’: US withdrawal from Afghanistan to begin on May 1

Long before Andrew Lohse became a pariah at Dartmouth College , he was just another scarily accomplished teenager with lofty ambitions. Five feet 10 with large blue eyes and the kind of sweet-faced demeanor that always earned him a pass, he grew up in the not-quite-rural, not-quite-suburban, decidedly middle-class town of Branchburg, New Jersey, and attended a public school where he made mostly A’s, scored 2190 on his SATs and compiled an exhaustive list of extracurricular activities that included varsity lacrosse, model U.N. (he was president), National Honor Society, band, orchestra, Spanish club, debate and – on weekends – a special pre-college program at the Manhattan School of Music, where he received a degree in jazz bass. He also wrote songs; gigged semiprofessionally at restaurants throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut; played drums for a rock band; chased, and conquered, numerous girls; and by his high school graduation, in 2008, had reached the pinnacle of … [Read more...] about Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Inside Dartmouth’s Hazing Abuses

Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are observing the start of the Ramadan fasting month this week while in danger of further abuses by the military, according to analysts and activists, while their counterparts living in refugee camps in neighbouring Bangladesh live in fear of fires and are facing an uncertain future. Nasir Zakaria, executive director of the Chicago-based Rohingya Culture Center, warned that the community in Myanmar was “in great danger”. “They have no way to protect themselves. The military is too powerful. The Rohingya people can be arrested, killed, kidnapped, and raped,” he said. Ronan Lee, a visiting scholar with the International State Crime Initiative – a community working to expose, document and resist state crime – said around 140,000 Rohingyas had been confined to concentration camps within the country’s western Rakhine state, where they have been forced to live since 2012. “The circumstances for Rohingya living in Myanmar continue to be grim,” said Lee, who … [Read more...] about Bleak Ramadan for Myanmar’s Rohingya muslims, in danger of further abuses by the military, analysts warn