Ever since that day in April 1988 when she took part in an Israeli-Palestinian debate on ABC's Nightline show, life has never been the same for Hanan Ashrawi. That experience marked the beginning of the meteoric rise to international prominence of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) activist who was until then a relatively obscure professor of English literature and dean of the Faculty of Arts at Bir Zeit University in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Archbishop George Carey, the fundamentalist head of the Anglican Church, has called, during a recent visit to Jerusalem, for the establishment of a Palestinian State, and has attacked the Israeli government’s plans to build a new Jewish settlement at Har Homa.
Heavily armed Israeli soldiers have been firing rubber bullets and tear gas shells into crowds of angry Palestinian youths across the towns in West Bank and Ghazzah as we went to press. Hundreds of Palestinians, protesting the Zionists’ aggressive settlement policy have been injured.
Despite the recent increase in the tempo of diplomatic activity to find a solution for the decades-long conflict in the Western Sahara, a lasting and comprehensive peace settlement remains a distant hope.
The Malaysian government agreed to allow the Israeli cricket team play in an international cricket tournament in Kuala Lumpur which is participated by 22 countries. A notable exception is Pakistan which has one of the world’s best cricket teams. Pakistan is boycotting the tournament on the ground of Israeli participation.
‘What shocked you most in Bosnia?’ people keep asking me since I got back. Probably a reply bewailing the gutted houses or the glutted cemeteries or the vandalised mosques is what they expect.
With Greece, Armenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, China and others engaged, to varying degrees, in attacking Turkish interests or blocking Turkish influence in Europe and Central Asia, Turkey is not short of enemies.
A battle is coming to a head in Turkey. A battle which may release the republic from the clutches of the local and international Mafia or it may lose for Turks the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and lead to the eventual creation of a Kurdish entity- a second break-up of the Great Turkish state.
Travellers from Canada to the US have frequently encountered hostility and aggressive behaviour from US customs and immigration officials at the various land border crossing points. In recent months, this has escalated dramatically.
Like its neighbours Kazakhstan and Turkmenstan, Uzbekistan, too, hopes to kick-start its economy with the development of fuel and energy sectors.
