Shah Husain Imam

Three human stories hogged news headlines last Monday and Tuesday touching the deeper chords of our sensibilities. Evocative of

As the impressions of Pope Francis' back-to-back visits to Myanmar and Bangladesh sink in, some self-evident truths glare through the mists of Naypyidaw, the new Burmese capital.

We need to emphasise the importance of reworking China-India-Myanmar trilateral equations to be energetically responsive to Bangladesh's concerns over a snowballing multidimensional Rohingya crisis.

We have been picking our brains hard to find a creative solution to the task of shoring up the stagnating tourism sector in Bangladesh. In spite of its location-centred magnetism, how long would Bangladesh languish on the side-line of a relatively peacetime globe-girdling tourism industry when comes its turn?

It is a supreme irony that victimhood and villainy sometimes get weighed on the same scale with material stake getting the better of the moral imperative.

When levers and counter-levers pull away in opposite directions the object of delivering change is stuck on the pulley, as it were. This is understandable as a scientific concept. But what is so eerily unethical is the oxygen of support Myanmar not only receives from a handful of countries, but is also pumped up by.

One can draw two significant messages from Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's just-concluded visit to Bangladesh: First, she has basically reiterated India's position that an incumbent government is obligated to hold...

Munshiganj High School, Haraganga College playground, and Idrakpur Fort are where we would rendezvous in the mid-fifties—Nurul Islam Anu; my elder brother Shah Ali Imam, a freedom fighter; and myself.

As they say, in the hard world of competitive cricket, “You are as good or bad as your last performance”.

The traditions of Myanmar's hermitage, of which the Burmese military remains a purveyor, sometimes come to the fore in awkward ways.

Political ideologies ranging from populist and nationalist to far-right neo-fascist have been making inroads into the European political landscape. In fact, capitalising on a migration crisis, economic inequality, increasing disillusionment with the European Union and a sense of lost national identity, right-wing parties have made electoral gains in a growing number of European countries.

Aung San Suu Kyi's opting out of the UN General Assembly session is a reflection of the same hiding syndrome that made the Rakhine state out of bounds for UN staff, aid agencies and the media for a long while.

We think, the Indian prime minister has lost an opportunity to play an honest broker here. Given the prestige India enjoys with the Myanmar establishment—Suu Kyi saying “Myanmar looked up to India for (guidance) and support”—and Bangladesh's close ties with India, a process of engagement could be initiated by Modi.

Bangladesh has done well for itself and world cricket by winning against Australia. Well, how it is emerging as a force of good for world cricket keeps you mulling over!

How much do the words of Winston Churchill, addressed to the former Soviet Union, ring out through the mists of the time of the Cold War: “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.” The words of wisdom and statesmanship from a Second World War veteran are infinitely more relevant today in an age of nuclear proliferation, placing the button of annihilation at the hand of a desperado.

A former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement to Hitler couldn't stop the Second World War from happening. This infamous reference point is raked up by the free rein the North Korea's predictably unpredictable leader Kim Jong-un has had, according to some analysts. Whether this is a bad or good analogy only time will reveal; and we needn't wait too long to find that out.

Unaccounted for money is susceptible to be ill-spent in drug markets, small arms purchases or financing hideous agendas. All this can destabilise a society.

Chikun-gunya in Dhaka and measles in Sitakunda, Chittagong have combined to highlight public health mismanagement at its height.

Who could disagree, for example, with the conclusion that the social and economic benefits and opportunities of life from orderly and regular migration can be substantial?

On June 21, 2017, Islamic State militants destroyed Mosul's 12th-century al-Nuri mosque and its iconic minaret al-Hadba as Iraq's counter-terrorism units advanced within 164 feet of the structure.