It seems that the US’s hopes of making Indonesia its prime ally in Southeast Asia may be dashed. President Megawati Sukarnoputri is being forced to decide which to heed, Washington’s bully-tactics or her own cabinet’s opposition to their country becoming a US stooge.
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.
Within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11 last year, Muslims in America were being blamed and made the targets of retribution. WASEEM SHEHZAD examines the problems American Muslims have faced over the last year...
When Richard Armitage, US deputy secretary of state, announced in Beijing on August 26 that the US has classified the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as a terrorist organisation, the move was interpreted as a “nod to China”, in acknowledgement of its apparent agreement not to sell missile technology to “aggressive states”.
The UN anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, last year saw a walk-out by Israeli and American delegates. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) that ended on September 4 in Johannesburg generate any more support for either government.
In a move that is certain to test president Mubarak’s determination to avoid a public quarrel with the US, the US government has refused to give more aid to the Egyptian government. Syria announced that Farouq Shara, its foreign minister, would visit Egypt to express solidarity against the US and protect Arab interests.
Dr Mazen al-Najjar’s history encapsulates the plight of the Palestinians: they are accused of everything, but nobody is prepared to listen to their story. Dr Najjar, 43 years old and a former instructor at the University of Southern Florida, was finally released on August 24.
The US’s disregard for law, even its own, since September 11 is now being emulated by others. The story of Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, 20, a Canadian citizen, was told on July 30 by Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, who related how he had been arrested and “kidnapped” to the US.
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 peace deal signed on July 21 by the Sudanese government and the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), the predominantly Christian rebel group that has been fighting Khartoum for 20 years...
Having bludgeoned the Sudanese government into cooperating with the “war on terrorism”, American officials now appear to believe that they can also bully it into accepting their plan to end the 19-year war between Khartoum and southern Sudanese rebels.
The utter subservience of international institutions to the United States was confirmed on July 12, when the UN Security Council accepted American terms for its recognition of the newly-established International Criminal Court (ICC).
Twenty-three years after the Islamic Revolution, Iranians continue to debate vigorously several issues that have important implications for the future of the Islamic Republic. Heading their agenda is the question of relations with the US, which were severed by Washington in early 1980. The country’s economy and the roles of the press and judiciary are also debated with great passion.
The ongoing Palestinian intifada not only marks a watershed in the struggle of the Palestinians to reclaim their usurped lands, but is also a defining moment in the restoration of resistance to Arab political discourse and praxis.
Recent reports that US forces were preparing to leave their bases in Saudi Arabia created the initial impression that the US’s military presence in the Gulf Cooperation Council states was about to be reduced...
A month after an attempted coup by pro-American right-wingers in Venezuela failed to overthrow the popularly-elected government of Hugo Chavez in the world’s fourth largest oil-producing country, more and more details are becoming known of the US’s role it.
A series of explosions at locations in government buildings and buildings adjacent to the US embassy in Sana, the capital of Yemen, and noisy demonstrations against the regime have shown how angry the Yemeni people are becoming at president Ali Saleh’s undiminished cooperation with the American ‘war against terrorism’.
The Malaysian regime has engaged in a fresh round of arrests: another 14 people were abducted on April 18 under the Internal Security Act, accusing them of links with ‘Islamic militants’...
The US has used its financial muscle to subvert yet another international agency, this time the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. KHALIL OSMAN reports.
As the fighting on March 2 in the Arma mountains showed, the war in Afghanistan is far from over. On March 4th, the Pentagon admitted that eight American soldiers had been killed and 50 injured in the latest US offensive.
