Asiatica Association

On April 28 — just two days before the US blitz on Osama’s compound in Abbottabad— I interviewed Ahmed Rashid, the famous Pakistani journalist and bestselling author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000) and Descent into Chaos (2008).

In this interview Rashid talks about the so called “Arab spring”, and particularly Libya, about the role of Europe in managing immigrants who are not political refugees from Africa, about the importance of solving the Israel-Palestine dispute for the Middle East and the Muslim world at large, and about the current situation in Pakistan and the possibility of a modern and moderate Islam.

Mr Rashid also talks about new initiatives by the US government that should bring Pakistan to a special understanding on the future of Afghanistan, and about a collaboration between the two countries on Afghanistan. All this two days before the US forces killed Osama bin Laden in a blitz near Abbottabad, in Pakistan, officially without the Pakistan government knowledge. Read the Interview.

Today the Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi is turning 65. She is still under house arrest and has spent almost 15 of the last 20 years in this condition in Myanmar. In 1990, when she was elected Prime Minister as the leader of the National League for Democracy party, she could not take office since she had already been detained under house arrest before the elections.

Last Friday British Foreign Office Ministers Friday called for her immediate and unconditional release and this week the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention pronounced her detention as a flagrant violation of international law.

On March 10, 2009 Buddhists and Tibetans all over the world will celebrate the Tibetan uprising, when an anti-Chinese and anti-Communist revolt erupted in Lhasa. To commemorate the event we want to point out out the beautiful site British Photographers in Tibet: British Photography in Central Tibet 1920 - 1950. You will enjoy pitctures of a country, which is now partly China, partly dead.

The collections are preserved in the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford) and the British Museum (London). The exceptional photographers are Charles Bell (1870-1945), Frederick Spencer Chapman (1907-1971), Arthur Hopkinson (1894-1953), Rabden Lepcha, Evan Nepean (1909-2002), Hugh Richardson (1905-2000), Harry Staunton (1908-1945). You will also enjoy photographies taken in the expeditions, included in books, and Spencer Chapman’s film rolls.

On February 16, 2009 the Italian Parliament has unanimously approved the Motion Boniver on the initiatives of the government for the protection of human rights and the statement of democratic freedom in Burma. This is the full motion.