Three British Muslimahs made headlines last month when they were arrested by the Israeli authorities in Jerusalem and accused of involvement in terrorism, before being cleared...
The "essentially disputed" concept of democracy now dominates much of Muslim political discourse. IQBAL SIDDIQUI questions its utility, suggesting that it is virtually meaningless and creates more problems than it solves.
Britain’s ruling Labour Party expelled its dissident Member of Parliament George Galloway on October 23, after a special hearing of the national constitutional committee found him guilty of bringing the party into disrepute. His case is seen by some commentators as evidence of how worried British prime minister Tony Blair is by popular opposition to his pro-American foreign policy.
Three months after George Bush declared an end to "major hostilities" in Iraq, the US and Britain remain under pressure, both from resistance in Iraq and from questions at home about their reasons for going to war. In Britain the issue is now being debated in the framework of the Hutton enquiry, established to look into the apparent suicide of a weapons expert accused by the government of leaking information to the press.
Endgame: Britain, Russia and the Final Struggle for Central Asia by Jennifer Siegel. Pub: I. B. Tauris & Co., London, 2002. Pp: 284. Hbk: $29.50.
espite major developments in the politicking over Iraq during the past two weeks, there can be no doubt that the US remains as determined as ever to go to war against Saddam Hussein at the earliest possible opportunity, with the avowed intention of replacing his regime with one that will be more amenable to Western interests in the region.
War fever against Iraq has been growing in Washington and reached a peak that has not been seen since the Gulf War. The recent sabre-rattling issuing from America has led observers to speculate not about whether America will act against Iraq but when and how it will...
The USA is often described by its critics as a global empire. Those who are less critical of its role in the world sometimes prefer to describe it as the world’s sole superpower.
A key part of Western propaganda is the creation of the myth of the good life in modern Western societies. At the same time, the Western media machine regularly reports on the conditions of poor parts of the world, particularly in Asia, Africa and other places.
Two major elections took place earlier this month. On June 7 general elections took place in Britain, the supposed birthplace of Parliamentary democracy. Tony Blair’s Labour party was returned to power for a second term by a ‘landslide’.
Following the examples of the US and Britain, the Canadian government has launched its own so-called anti-terrorism bill which, according to Muslims, will target them more than anyone else.
In March 1924, when Mustafa Kemal abolished the khilafah in Turkey, it evoked three distinct responses from Muslims globally. In India under British colonial rule, with a substantial Muslim population, there was great anger...
Libya, a international pariah for nearly seven years, received a guarded welcome back into the international community this month. The rehabilitation came after the two Libyan nationals accused by the US and Britain of involvement in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988...
Days before Iran’s foreign minister Kamal Kharazi met his British counterpart Robin Cook in New York on September 24 agreeing to restore full diplomatic relations, the British media had launched a campaign linking this to the Salman Rushdie saga.
The Taliban in Afghanistan reflect the danger of Muslims playing pawns in the hands of others, especially anti-Muslim forces. The product of British and American intrigue, the Taliban have now assumed a life of their own but are still susceptible to manipulation by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, two regimes beholden to the US.
The British foreign Office announced on August 24 that an agreement between the US and Britain had been reached to allow two Libyans accused of the 1988 Lockeribe bombing, to be tried at The Hague, Netherlands.
The most surprising thing about the three-day summit in the British city of Birmingham in mid-May is that seasoned observers and aid workers professed surprise at the failure of the world’s seven richest states plus Russia to agree a deal cancelling the so-called ‘third world debts’ or to adopt measures promoting environmental issues.
Among the numerous allegations levelled against the government of Sudan, that of slavery has perhaps had the greatest negative impact. How could slavery be allowed in this day and age, is a common refrain heard in the west.
A well-known and respected French scholar, Roger Garaudy, is on trial in the land of ‘liberty’ and ‘fraternity’ for publishing a thoroughly researched and schorlarly work on the mythical foundations of Israeli policy...
Can a country which is too proud to apologize to ‘natives’ for the massacre committed by its own troops (in Amritsar, India) as long ago as 1919 bring itself to admit that the ‘mad cow disease’ and the related Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD) it hosts, and exports, have put world health at risk - when such admission is certain to lead to political and economic consequences?
