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Jihad in Bangladesh: Islamists Erasing Hindu Heritage by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22020/bangladesh-islamists-erasing-hindu-heritage

The rise of Islamist extremism in South Asia is entering a new and troubling phase.

Their real goal, however, is far darker than banning a Hindu organization: it is to purge majority-Muslim Bangladesh of its remaining Hindu population and to reshape the country into a theocratic state.

In a disturbing development, the government’s response to a court petition demanding a ban on ISKCON described the movement as a “religious fundamentalist organization”. This rhetoric, once confined to the fringe, now finds a place in official discourse – a dangerous sign of how far Islamist influence has penetrated the state.

[I]n the eyes of Islamist ideologues, peaceful outreach represents a challenge — the assertion of a pluralistic worldview that contradicts their absolutist doctrine.

What makes this current wave of anti-Hindu agitation particularly alarming is its transnational dimension. Intelligence officials in Dhaka have identified growing coordination between Bangladeshi and Pakistani Salafist groups, some with direct ideological or logistical ties to organizations once linked to Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The persecution of ISKCON is not merely an attack on a Hindu organization — it is part of a larger strategy to dismantle Bangladesh’s secularism and to replace tolerance with totalitarian theology.

If left unchecked, this campaign could transform Bangladesh into yet another bastion of jihadist ideology in South Asia.

The rise of Islamist extremism in South Asia is entering a new and troubling phase. What began as a political movement cloaked in piety has increasingly transformed into a campaign of cultural and religious erasure. In Bangladesh, the latest target of jihadist wrath is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), a global Hindu organization. Islamists now brand it an “extremist Hindutva group”, call for banning it, commit arson against its temples, and violence against its followers. Their real goal, however, is far darker than banning a Hindu organization: it is to purge majority-Muslim Bangladesh of its remaining Hindu population and to reshape the country into a theocratic state.

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Sudan’s civil war has unleashed unspeakable horrors Hundreds of thousands killed, tens of millions displaced… so why do the West’s humanitarians stay silent? Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/10/30/sudans-civil-war-has-unleashed-unspeakable-horrors/

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid is a writer based in Pakistan.

A turning point has been reached in Sudan’s civil war. On Monday, rebel forces took control of the city of El Fasher, the capital of the state of North Darfur. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Armed Forces and de facto ruler of Sudan, said he had withdrawn his troops to ‘spare citizens and spare the city from destruction’.

Unfortunately, it appears he has condemned citizens to yet more horrific violence. The retreat of the Sudanese army leaves El Fasher in the hands of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as Hemedti). Already, there are reports that the RSF is carrying out more ethnically motivated killings of the city’s African-Sudanese population. By Wednesday evening, it was being reported that more than 2,000 civilians had been killed – mostly women, children and the elderly. The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab says El Fasher is enduring a ‘systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of… indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution’.

Such has been the ferocity of the civil war that it is easy to forget how recently the Sudanese army and the RSF were allied. They joined forces to overthrow president Omar al-Bashir in 2019, ruling the country through a joint military council until April 2023, when tensions between them broke out into the merciless hostilities the rest of the world has observed – mainly with silence – ever since.

The violence visited upon the people of Sudan, particularly its non-Arab population, is without parallel in the 21st century. Darfur has been the epicentre of this misery. In the three decades in which Sudan was ruled by al-Bashir, the Sudanese army repeatedly attempted the ethnic cleansing of the state’s non-Arab population. This was done with the help of Arab militias such as the Janjaweed, many of whose fighters now belong to the RSF. The Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups bore the brunt of al-Burhan and Hemedti’s war crimes.

With the fall of El Fasher, the tally of those displaced in Sudan is now approaching 13million. It has been described as the world’s ‘largest humanitarian crisis’ by UNICEF with 25million people – half of Sudan’s population – experiencing malnutrition or famine. As many as 400,000 people have been killed since the start of the civil war.

Massacres of the region’s non-Arab population are sadly nothing new. This violence is rooted in the Arab colonisation of east Africa, beginning with the seventh-century conquests that converted northern Africa to Islam.

The enslavement of the region’s non-Arabs also has a long history. After Arab armies were thwarted in their bid to expand southwards from Egypt by the Christian Nubian kingdom of Makuria, the Baqt treaty of AD 652 allowed Arabs to trade grains and spices in exchange for slaves. The land acquired the Arabic name Bilad as-Sudan, or ‘Land of the Black People’. By the end of the 19th century, Sudan was a critical source of slaves for Egypt and the rest of the Ottoman Empire.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Gen Vexed The education establishment is dooming a generation to illiteracy and innumeracy. By Larry Sand

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/31/gen-vexed/

The percentage of 16-to-24-year-olds reading at the lowest literacy levels has increased from 16% in 2017 to 25% in 2023, based on the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in collaboration with the Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies.

That means a quarter of young adults in the U.S. are functionally illiterate. They can understand the basic meaning of short texts but struggle to analyze longer reading materials. Yet more than half of that cohort earned high school diplomas, according to the latest data.

Students are no more proficient in math than in reading, as revealed by the most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an assessment administered to 650,000 4th and 8th-graders in 64 countries.

The 2023 results of the TIMSS test, released late last year, showed that average U.S. math scores fell sharply between 2019 and 2023, dropping by 18 points for 4th-graders and 27 points for 8th-graders. Internationally, the U.S., a supposed global leader, ranks 22nd out of 63 education systems for 4th-grade math and 20th out of 45 for 8th-grade math.

Not surprisingly, their inadequate education has made teenagers feel lost as they near high school graduation. They are curious about future careers, but their expectations are unrealistic, and they lack understanding of their career options.

Meanwhile, the public’s view of college is declining. Americans have placed less value on a college education over the past 15 years. Currently, only 35% rate it as “very important,” 30% consider it “fairly important,” and 24% say it is “not too important.”

When last asked to rate the importance of college in 2019, 53% said it was very important, but that was already lower than the 70% reported in 2013 and 75% in 2010.

Meanwhile, the percentage viewing college as “not too important” increased from 4% in 2010 to 13% in 2019 and now stands at 24%.

Furthermore, attending college isn’t cheap. Students at private, nonprofit universities pay $58,628 annually or $234,512 over four years. It’s important to note that, regardless of what a college charges, much of the cost is passed on to taxpayers. In fact, there are about 4,000 for-profit colleges in the U.S., and they receive a substantial amount of federal funding for higher education. Currently, taxpayers are responsible for about $240 billion for students’ post-secondary education. Only 23 colleges in the country decline any public funds.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Saving Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan from Hamas and the Europeans Trump’s Gaza peace plan, once doubted, swiftly freed all surviving Israeli hostages — a major win now threatened by Hamas’s resistance to disarmament and European meddling By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/10/31/saving-trumps-gaza-peace-plan-from-hamas-and-the-europeans/

Despite some setbacks, President Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan has been an unprecedented success because it quickly achieved its most important objective: the release of all live Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The U.S. and its Arab allies are working hard to pressure Hamas to agree to implement the rest of the deal to achieve a lasting Middle East peace. Trump officials will also be pressing European states to fully support the plan and not undermine it.

The quick release of the Israeli hostages was considered impossible just a few weeks ago and reflected the high priority that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu placed on quickly saving the lives of these hostages while hammering out the details of other aspects of the agreement later.

The agreement also includes a cease-fire and a humanitarian aid surge in the first stage. Both were achieved, but they are at risk due to Hamas’s attacks on Israeli forces and its failure to return all the bodies of deceased hostages.

After Israel’s recent retaliation against Hamas’s violations of the cease-fire with heavy airstrikes on October 29, Israeli officials said they were resuming the cease-fire. Hamas handed over two bodies the next day, which it claimed were the remains of deceased Israeli hostages.

Hamas is resisting critical security-related elements of Phase Two of the peace plan. Hamas leaders have not given a clear answer on whether their forces will disarm. Some are insisting that Hamas fighters must be permitted to keep their “personal weapons.” In addition, the quick action by Hamas fighters to occupy the 45% of Gaza evacuated under the plan by Israel Defense Forces and their subsequent execution of supposed collaborators in these areas does not bode well for whether Hamas will ever agree to disarm and cede control of these areas to an International Stabilization Force (ISF).

Hamas leaders are also bickering with Arab mediators over the Phase Two provisions on post-war administration of Gaza and the ISF. Under the peace plan, Hamas is to play no role in these efforts, and the Palestinian Authority will be included only after it reforms. Hamas is insisting on a post-war role in governing Gaza and wants a so-called “inclusive Palestinian national framework” that includes all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, to negotiate post-war governance and security agreements. Hamas also rejects the ISF because it claims it will be a pawn of the United States and Israel, even though this force is expected to be composed of a neutral Palestinian police and troops from Egypt, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, several other Muslim states, and possibly Turkey.  In addition, Hamas leaders have also demanded that the ISG only be deployed on Gaza’s borders with Israel.

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Academic Felon: Cornell University Systematically excluding all white applicants in favor of “diversity hires.” by Sara Dogan

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/academic-felon-cornell-university/

Editor’s note: A culture of rampant lawlessness has been steadily growing in American academia. Our nation’s universities have shamelessly put their pursuit of woke leftist ideology ahead of their loyalty and obedience to the laws of the United States of America and the principles of freedom and equality of opportunity that inform them. The Freedom Center is exposing the worst perpetrators of this illegal conduct as the Top Ten Academic Felons, and we will be highlighting one school a day as we count down from #10 to #1. Cornell University is #7 on our list.

#7: Cornell University

For decades, many premier universities have illegally prioritized race and other diversity criteria in deciding who to hire or promote for academic and administrative positions. In the 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court confirmed that such conduct stands in direct violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and struck down the use of racial preferences or “affirmative action” in admissions and hiring decisions. But Cornell University, it seems, did not get the memo.

The Ivy League institution is now embroiled in an Equal Opportunity Commission Investigation after evolutionary biologist Colin Wright, a white male, found out through whistleblower emails that when he applied for a position at Cornell in 2020, the university systematically excluded all white applicants as part of their “diversity hire” process.

Wright partnered with the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) to lodge a complaint against Cornell in June. The complaint led to the EEOC investigation which could ultimately result in a lawsuit against the Ivy League behemoth.

“The evidence includes a December 23, 2020, email message from a department chair confirming that the tenure track faculty position in question would be filled through a ‘diversity hire’ process that excluded the great majority of qualified candidates because these persons lacked the targeted identity traits,” AFPI stated in its legal complaint. “Candidates were prescreened and selected, then invited one at a time, in a secret process with no advertised position opening to avoid any sense of competition on the part of the prospective candidates. Only individuals with certain favored identity characteristics (race, ethnicity, and/or sex) were considered for employment.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Fake Heritage Lovers Attack Trump’s Ballroom While demolishing Confederate statues was okay. by Thom Nickels

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fake-heritage-lovers-attack-trumps-ballroom/

Democrats and Rino Republicans like The Wall Street Journal have suddenly become architectural critics and historic preservation advocates over the demolition of the East Wing of the White House.

In 2020, most Democrats were fiery advocates of tearing down Confederate statues and memorials all over the country. They insisted that American heritage symbols were not worthy to stand because they got in the way of race-baiting DEI policies, CRT, and the globalist world order.

The massive list of destroyed or removed statues includes a statue of Christopher Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol, a statue of J.E. B. Stuart in Richmond, Virginia, and various statues of Junipero Serra and Kit Carson, most notably in the state of California. The year 2020 saw over 100 Confederate monuments nationwide being removed or replaced.

Ironically, the same iconoclasts who celebrated the destruction of American heritage in the form of Confederate statues are expressing shock and outrage over the demolition of the East Wing.

Here’s the rub: American heritage and the Left are not compatible.

During the George Floyd riots in Philadelphia, the anarchy was so out of control that any statue of an old white man was targeted for toppling. Indeed, the large statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo which stood for years near City Hall was splattered with paint and then dressed in transgender clothing-a bra-while a noose was thrown around the statue’s neck. Although anarchists failed to topple it, then Mayor James Kenney orchestrated the removal of the statue to storage.

Symbols of American heritage come in many forms. There’s ‘heritage’ in physical objects like statues and architecture, then there’s the philosophical side to heritage that woke Democrats attacked when they waged war on the country with gender ideology, race card-DEI supremacy, and the obliteration of the (honorable) heritage of legal immigration.

Democrats at this time came to resemble the Walter Gropius school of architecture (Bauhaus), which advocated the complete elimination of design tradition in favor of blowing everything up and starting from scratch.

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Jihad Denier Brennan Busted False statements to Congress are not the only problem with Obama’s CIA boss. by Lloyd Billingsley

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/jihad-denier-brennan-busted/

The House Judiciary Committee has referred former CIA director John Brennan for criminal prosecution, charging that he “made numerous willfully and intentionally false statements of material fact” about the bogus Steele dossier and so forth. As the committee and the people should know, more serious offenses emerged in Brennan’s Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies at Home and Abroad.

Law restricts the Central Intelligence Agency to operations abroad but this CIA director first targets “enemies at home.” Brennan’s number-one enemy is the “evil, despicable and vile” Donald Trump, pronounced guilty of  “incompetence, dishonesty, and cravenness,” and so on. At the agency, this was not a private opinion.

Consider John Gentry’s Neutering the CIA: Why U.S. Intelligence Versus Trump Has Long-Term Consequences. The author, a former CIA analyst,  adds, “Some IC [Intelligence Community] agencies that triggered the attacks on Trump remain intact, available for reactivation in the event of another serious candidacy by Trump or the election of another Republican president.”  

Both books confirm the judgement of Angelo Codevilla, an authority on the CIA like no other, that “intelligence officials abuse their positions to discredit opposition to the Democratic Party, of which they are part. Complicit with the media, they leverage the public’s mistaken faith in their superior knowledge, competence, and patriotism to vilify their domestic enemies from behind secrecy’s shield.” That’s Brennan all over, but the rot runs much deeper.

As Undaunted explains, Obama did not see counterterrorism as a fight against “jihadists.” So Brennan “pointed to the Islamic teaching that jihad is a holy struggle in pursuit of a moral goal,” and “violence and jihad not necessarily synonymous.” That contradicts a 1400-year record of jihadist attacks and was doubtless the official view of the CIA. Check out Brennan’s description of events on September 11, 2001:

At the very end of the meeting, the head of CIA’s Operations Center opened the conference room and announced that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. He had no further details on whether the aircraft was large or small, and it was unclear at that moment whether it was a tragic accident or the intentional targeting of the iconic twin towers. The staff meeting ended abruptly and we all headed back to our offices with an uneasy feeling about what we had heard and what we might soon find out.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The BDS Movement Zohran Mamdani Supports Violates New York State Policy Will “Palestinian liberation” become New York City’s political future? by Joe Kaufman

Posted By on October 31st, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-bds-movement-zohran-mamdani-supports-violates-new-york-state-policy/

Zohran Kwame Mamdani wants to be the next mayor of New York City. But before voters even consider handing him the keys to City Hall, one question demands an answer: How can someone who proudly backs the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel – a movement that violates New York State policy – be trusted to lead the nation’s largest city?

New York’s BDS Ban

Nearly a decade ago, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo took a clear stand against anti-Israel boycotts. In 2016, he signed Executive Order 157, which prohibits New York State agencies from doing business with any company or organization that supports BDS.

Cuomo put it bluntly at the time: “If you boycott Israel, New York will boycott you.”

That policy has remained in place under Governor Kathy Hochul, reflecting broad bipartisan support. The message is simple – taxpayer dollars should never be used to advance hate, discrimination, or campaigns that target America’s closest ally in the Middle East.

New York’s anti-BDS stance is not just a political opinion – it is a legally binding order. That means any government leader – including the mayor of New York City – must comply with it. Yet Mamdani has built much of his adult life and political identity around promoting the implementation of BDS and, in so doing, calling for people to break NY state official policy, which unequivocally stipulates that:

“‘Boycott, divestment, or sanctions activity targeting Israel’ means to engage in any activity, or promote others to engage in any activity, that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on, or otherwise limit commercial relations with Israel or persons doing business in Israel for purposes of coercing political action by, or imposing policy positions on, the government of Israel.”

Mamdani’s Radical Record

Assemblyman Mamdani, who represents parts of Queens, has become a hero to the far left for his outspoken support of BDS. He has called for cutting economic ties with Israel and has refused to denounce the slogan “Globalize the Intifada” – a phrase that glorifies violent uprisings against Jews and Israelis. He even lobbied Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling ice cream in Israeli communities.

In college, Mamdani was involved with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) – a group whose chapters have been suspended or banned across the country for crossing the line from protest to extremism. Florida’s state university system permanently deactivated SJP chapters, after the group’s national leadership expressed solidarity with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization responsible for the October 7 massacre of innocent Israelis.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Danyela Souza Egorov New York’s Plan for Math Instruction Doesn’t Add Up The state’s new Numeracy Initiative emphasizes equal outcomes over merit and rigor.

Posted By on October 30th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-york-students-math-scores-numeracy-initiative-briefs

New York students’ math scores lag the national average and have remained stagnant for many years, despite massive increases in per-pupil funding. In May, the New York State Department of Education (NYSED) launched a Numeracy Initiative to address the issue. Unfortunately, its guidance will lead to even poorer math instruction.

The initiative has released a series of Numeracy Briefs, which aim to instruct educators in “best practices for effective mathematics instruction.” The briefs were produced by TeachingWorks, a group led by University of Michigan professor Deborah Loewenberg Ball. The group’s goal, according to its website, is to promote “teaching to create a more just society” and to develop “equitable, skillful teaching.”

The briefs quickly caused confusion and concern among educators who attended NYSED’s professional development sessions. Some noticed that the guidance from NYSED contradicted well-established math pedagogy, as well as advice from other experts in the field. They reached out to Benjamin Solomon, an associate professor in school psychology at the University of Albany, who has conducted several webinars on math instruction. He wrote a letter to NYSED commissioner Betty Rosa detailing the Numeracy Briefs’ inaccuracies and questionable practices. The letter garnered support from more than 160 teachers, parents, and researchers, all of whom signed a petition calling for the briefs to be withdrawn.

Solomon’s letter states that the briefs cite only two meta-analyses to support their recommendations and rely mostly on books and articles—all while ignoring the substantial body of research that constitutes the science of math. As Solomon noted, “the briefs are mostly [TeachingWorks’] opinion.” Asked to comment on Solomon’s letter, NYSED responded by stating, “Attempts to distort or politicize this work will not deter NYSED’s commitment to advancing high-quality, equitable mathematics instruction for every student in New York State.”

Open Book New York has no records showing how much NYSED paid TeachingWorks to produce the briefs. NYSED should disclose the amount so the public can understand how much was spent to develop guidance that leaves educators and students so confused. State legislators should also hold hearings to investigate how the briefs’ recommendations diverge from established math science.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians Still Prefer Hamas and ‘Armed Struggle’ Against Israel by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on October 30th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22027/palestinians-prefer-hamas-armed-struggle

These [Palestinian poll] findings contradict claims by some Western media outlets that a growing number of Palestinians were disillusioned with Hamas because of the death and destruction it has brought on its people as a result of its October 7 attack.

“The conclusion from these [Palestinian] numbers is that the past two years have led to greater support for Hamas rather than the opposite,” according to the poll.

Asked if Hamas had committed the atrocities seen in the videos shown by international media displaying atrocities committed by Hamas members against Israeli civilians, 86% said the terror group did not commit such atrocities. Only 10% said Hamas did commit them.

A majority of Palestinians, the poll showed, are extremely supportive of Iran, Hezbollah, Qatar and the Houthi militia in Yemen, a terror group that fired dozens of missiles and suicide drones at Israel during the war.

If elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority (PA) were held today, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal would win 63% of the votes, as opposed to 27% for incumbent PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

According to the poll, dissatisfaction with Abbas stands at 75%, while 80% want him to resign.

If parliamentary elections were held today, 44% of the Palestinians say they will vote for Hamas, 30% for Fatah, and 10% for third parties.

Also unexpected is the ongoing Palestinian support for the “armed struggle” (terrorism) against Israel.

The results of the poll also show the challenges facing the implementation of the Trump plan, especially disarming Hamas and deradicalizing Palestinian society. Most Palestinians are openly opposed to disarming Hamas – a situation that will make it effectively impossible for any Arab or foreign party to confiscate the terror group’s weapons by force.

Any Palestinian or Arab leader who sees that most Palestinians oppose the disarmament of Hamas will think twice before he undertakes such a mission: he would not want to act against the wishes of the Arab street — such a move would be regarded as treason.

As for deradicalization, it is clear from the poll that Palestinians are moving in the opposite direction.

Many Palestinians are afraid to speak out for fear of being labeled as traitors or collaborators with Israel. We have seen how Palestinians who challenged Hamas were tortured and executed in public squares in the Gaza Strip as soon as the ceasefire went into effect.

Radical change in Palestinian society will come only when Palestinians rise up against destructive leaders who, over the past few decades, have been dragging them from one disaster to another.

Those who thought that Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in the Gaza Strip have made Palestinians change their minds about the terror group are in for a rude awakening.

More than half of Palestinians continue to support the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7. Moreover, the terror group remains popular among a large number of Palestinians. Support for Hamas means support for the destruction of Israel through Jihad (holy war).