The Israelis have used the partial opening of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt as a pretext to say the Palestinians’ suffering has ended and no aid need be sent any more. This has come about as hundreds of peace activists attempt to deliver boat loads of goods to alleviate, even if partially, the suffering of the long oppressed people of Gaza.
It should be clear even to the most diehard optimists that relations between Pakistan and the United States have hit an all time low. A series of recent events has led to this development although from the very beginning the relationship was based on false premises and unrealistic expectations.
The removal — real or fake — of Osama bin Laden from the equation in the US war on terror has opened up new possibilities for what could be achieved in Afghanistan. While much attention is focussed on US moves, no doubt an important consideration, Washington is quickly losing control, thanks to its military defeat in Afghanistan.
When voting ended on the night of June 12, most people in Turkey did not have to wait for official results of the general elections. Turkish and foreign experts had already anticipated that Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would win a third consecutive victory. A few hours later when early results came in, a landslide victory was confirmed for the AKP.
From February to June, 40-year-old married American student Tom MacMaster published his Gay Girl in Damascus blog with the ambition of “being celebrated as the unlikely voice of Syrian revolution.” Apart from a mild scolding for his duplicity, the media has dismissed the case as a species of oddity variously described as a freak of vanity to the typical fascination nursed by white heterosexual men for lesbianism.
Returning from the northwestern Black Sea city of Kastamonu, Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s convoy was attacked on May 4. As part of his election campaign Erdogan had visited the city to address its residents urging them to vote for his Justice and Development Party (AKP). He then flew by helicopter to a nearby city to continue his campaign, while his election convoy, including his campaign bus from which he usually delivers speeches and greets the people, was returning to the AKP headquarters in Ankara. When Erdogan’s campaign bus was 25 km from the city centre, around the Ilgaz Mountains, a sudden burst of machinegun fire targeted the police car escorting the convoy. After the initial shots, the attackers came closer to the police car and threw a grenade which set the car on fire, injuring one police officer and killing another in the vehicle. After a brief exchange of gunfire with the prime minister’s bodyguards, the attackers fled the scene without suffering any casualties.
The slogan on Facebook and Twitter for rallies accurately captured the mood in Egypt: “I have not felt the change, I am going back to Tahrir,” as protesters called for renewed protests on Friday May 27. Gradually the Egyptian youth and people are finding out that they have been cheated out of the rights they fought so hard for and that their struggle is far from over.
The Tunisian people who triggered the mass protests that have swept much of the Muslim East may be denied their basic rights after all. The interim Prime Minster Beji Caid Sebsi said in a televised address last month that elections scheduled for July 24 may be postponed. He cited “technical” reasons for the possible delay raising fears that the Tunisian establishment was beginning to back peddle on promises made to the people following the ouster of the long-ruling dictator General Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14, 2011.
Most Americans are led to believe that their country is the richest and the best in the world. It is a land of milk and honey and of limitless opportunities. There is little doubt that the US has enormous wealth; with a GDP of $17 trillion, it is by far the richest country in the world but is this wealth fairly distributed?
Preparations for the forthcoming elections have brought an early spring to Turkish politics. In April, Turkish political parties launched their campaigns for general elections scheduled for June 12. Early poll results predict a landslide victory for the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP).
Unity at last between Hamas and Fatah! Shocking says Israel. Unacceptable declares America. The American regime headed by Barack Obama retained its back-to-the-wall approach by declaring that Hamas was “a terrorist organization” and that any Palestinian government would have to “renounce violence”, respect past “peace deals” and recognize Israel’s “right to exist”.
It is a safe bet that the Taliban have never heard of much less read Barack Obama’s book, Audacity of Hope yet they have shown plenty of it in what they did in Qandahar on April 25. Digging a tunnel some 360 meters long (some reports have suggested it was 1,000 meters long) under the Qandahar-Herat highway, they reached the Sarpoza prison and rescued 487 prisoners, many of them Taliban fighters while the guards were asleep.
In the late hours of May 1, US President Barack Obama went on the air to break the news of Osama bin Laden’s killing in Pakistan. While he did not give much detail about the operational side of the attack, he did “thank” the Pakistanis for their “cooperation” in the operation that was carried out on a “compound in Abbottabad”, home to the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul (just outside Abbottabad).
Tens of thousands of people blocked the road between Peshawar and the Pakistan-Afghan border post of Torkham on April 23 and 24. The call to block the road was issued by Imran Khan, leader of Pakistan Tehrik-e Insaf (PTI, or Pakistan Justice Movement) in protest over the indiscriminate US drone attacks that have killed hundreds of people in the last year alone.
The people of Egypt are gradually waking up to the reality that it is one thing to drive a dictator out, even one that has been around for as long as Hosni Mubarak — 30 years — and quite a different matter to change the political system and the culture of entitlement that has grown within it. There are many constituencies that have unfairly benefitted under the old system; they are not likely to give up their privileged positions so easily, Mubarak or not.
In October 2010, the ruling regime in Azerbaijan banned hijab in public schools and revived an unprecedented socio-political activism of the Islamic movement. The mobilization is not only domestic, but also international. For the first time an international conference on an Islamic issue in Azerbaijan was organized.
In recent years rapid rapprochement has occurred between Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. The US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) political triumph in Turkey, and Bashar Assad’s succession of his father, were a series of events that brought these countries together.
The release of Raymond Davis on March 16 has dismayed most Pakistanis who felt the American was guilty of murder and should have been dealt with according to the law of Pakistan. Instead, what this confirms yet again is the craven attitude of the government in its dealings with the US.
This past winter, American troops murdered even more Afghan civilians than in previous years. And true to form, they routinely claim the attacks were aimed at militants and that no civilians were killed.
In characteristic arrogance, the Saudi regime sent in its army backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers to the tiny island of Bahrain on March 13 to crush the people’s movement for freedom and dignity. Some 2,000 troops from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) including 1,000 Saudis were rushed to Bahrain to attack protesters that had peacefully rallied in Manama’s Pearl Square for a month.
