The rising tide of public corruption in Algeria – an issue that was never the centre of concern before – has now forced the regime to address it. The senior military officers who have really ruled the country since its independence in 1962, and the civilian politicians who have been a cloak for them, have focused their attention on fighting Islamic groups, rather than controlling a practice that they obviously benefit from.
One feature of Palestinian politics for the last 15 years or so, since the first intifada, has been the increasing political importance of Hamas, the main Islamic movement in Palestine, despite the entrenched political positions of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the main representative of the Palestinian people on the international stage, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the main civil authority in Palestine since 1992.
President Husni Mubarak has turned one of the most powerful and influential Muslim countries into Uncle Sam's errand boy – humiliating Egypt, its people and Muslims at large in the process. The time is coming to be rid of him, his colleagues, collaborators and intended successors.
The protracted negotiations and bitter wrangling surrounding the formation of Iraq's new government have focused attention on the complexities involved in establishing a political balance among the country's fractious ethnic, religious, tribal and partisan mixture.
Like a large rock thrown into a still pool, the succession of ripples resulting from the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in a massive bomb-explosion on February 11 continue to emerge and spread by the day.
In many ways, the results of the recent elections in Iraq have come as no surprise. The United Iraqi Coalition (UIC), the Shi’a Muslim slate sponsored by Grand Ayatullah Ali al-Hussayni al-Sistani, got 48 percent of the 275 seats in the new national assembly; a Kurdish alliance 25 percent; and US-backed interim prime minister Iyad Allawi’s list 14 percent.
The assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in an enormous explosion in Beirut on February 14 sent as many political ripples through the region as questions it raised about the motives and identity of those who carried out the attack.
Kuwait’s role as a launch-pad and base for US-led troops operating in Iraq is coming to haunt the Gulf emirate. A string of gun-battles between government troops and militants planning to target American troops in the country, as well as oil facilities, has pushed Kuwait closer to the brink.
Officials of the new Palestinian administration under Mahmood Abbas, elected president in flawed elections on January 9, claimed success on January 24, when Hamas, Palestine’s main Islamic movement and leading militant resistance group, reiterated its willingness to suspend military operations provided Israel do the same.
It is perhaps ironic that a part of the heart of the Muslim world that has been under western occupation for over half-a-century should have some of the most vibrant politics in the modernMiddle East. For the west, the presidential elections in the area of Palestinian autonomy was proof of their commitment to bringing democratization to the Muslim world.
Since 1967 Israel has been occupying the Golan Heights, which are a Syrian territory wrenched away in a war that has not formally ended; Syria has good legal, moral and political reasons to try to recover its land.
The election campaign season began officially in Iraq last month. Like much else in the political life of modern Iraq, these elections, scheduled for January 30, have led to fierce competition. Nowhere can the intensity of electoral clamoring better be seen than in the number of electoral tickets competing for seats in the 275-member National Assembly.
The two car-bombs that rocked the Shi’a holy cities of Karbala and Najaf on December 20, killing at least 62 people and wounding 120, have focused attention once again on the deepening sectarian passions in Iraq that have opened the door to speculations about a looming civil war and the possible “Lebanonization” of Iraq.
Given the size of its territory and population and the educational standards of its people, Egypt could be a power to reckon with and could, if it chose, play an effective and beneficial role in African, Arab and Muslim affairs. Instead, its government has chosen to serve the US’s interests, including the survival of Israel, the drastic limitation of Palestinian ambitions and the suppression of Islamic revivalism.
The ailing 76-year-old president Husni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for 23 years with an iron grip, is busy paving the way for Jamal, one of his sons, to succeed him...
Few sceptics doubted that the long-anticipated attack on the Iraqi city of Falluja, some 70 kilometres (about 45 miles) to the west of Baghdad, would be launched with unusual ferocity. Still fewer doubted the US Marines’ ability to retake the city...
The second battle of Fallujah, during which US and Iraqi forces battered a city of 300,000, has focused attention on the escalating resistance to the occupation of Iraq...
Although Ariel Sharon’s plan for the withdrawal of Israeli settlements from Ghazzah, and the redeployment of troops in the area, is part of a larger plan to secure Israel’s control over Palestine as a whole...
The stage now appears to be set for the growing US and European pressure on Syria to come to fruit. Applied directly but also through the UN, the EU and Arab leaders such as president Husni Mubarak of Egypt...
1September 2004 was described as “a month of death in Iraq” by one Arab commentator after a series of major clashes in which at least a thousand Iraqis, many of them civilians, were killed...
