After the success of the Hindu fascists’ ‘Gujarat model’ for electoral success last year, communal politics in India have received a major boost and the Babri mosque controversy has become especially relevant again.
Even as Iraq is bombed into submission, Arab rulers continue to cooperate with the US while mouthing slogans to give the impression that they oppose the war. The "Arab street" will not tolerate these attacks, they say, yet their security forces feel no compunction about attacking anti-war protesters in Cairo, Amman, Sana and other capitals.
DR PERWEZ SHAFI, director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought in Pakistan, examines the regional and geo-strategic thinking behind the US’s plans to attack Iraq, in the context of both its drive for oil and its commitment to zionism
George Bush senior, father of the US president, attacked Iraq in 1991 because Saddam Husain had dared to disrupt the order imposed on the Middle East (by the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916) by invading and occupying Kuwait.
It was hardly surprising that Kashmiri Muslims are among those who offered the strongest condemnation to the victory of the fascist BJP Party in the Gujarat election late last year, for they have suffered more than most at India’s hands. QAZI OMAR reports.
Iraqi president Saddam Hussain must be wondering what more he can do to get off George Bush’s list of “evildoers” who are marked for destruction. He has allowed unimpeded access, even to his palaces, to the UN weapons-inspectors, who have found nothing suspicious so far, although that is unlikely to prevent an American attack.
The current crisis in Iran arising from a court verdict against Hashemi Aghajari, a professor at Tehran University, is clearly a case of an unnecessary self-inflicted wound. As Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Rahbar, pointed out after several days of demonstrations by students...
The operations of so-called suicide bombers against the Israeli occupiers of Palestine have come under severe attack in the West. Yusuf al-Khabbaz compares their nature with the epidemic of suicide sweeping through America and other Western countries.
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...
As you walk through the camps of riot survivors in Ahmedabad, in which an estimated 53,000 women, men, and children are huddled in 29 temporary settlements, displays of overt grief are unusual.
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.
Jenin: remember this name. Every time you lose faith in humanity, recall it. Repeat it inside yourself, slowly, when you are feeling down and frail; it should lift your spirit...
Almost eighteen months after the launching of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, many observers continue to argue that it is achieving nothing, and that a return to the ‘peace process’ is inevitable.
Flushed with their success in controlling news at home about the ‘war’ in Afghanistan, some Pentagon planners want to extend such manipulation to other parts of the world. The name of the game is deception: planting lies in newspapers, and on radio and television channels around the world...
Muslim governments, vying with each other to demonstrate their readiness to back the so-called war against terrorism, are tightening the noose on Islamic charities and schools, controlling their funding, enrollment and curricula to eradicate ‘Islamic extremism’.
In the decade since the US’s high-tech destruction of Iraq in 1991, the US has consistently talked of overthrowing Saddam Hussain while being happy to leave him in place as a useful enemy to have. Now there are signs that they may actually be preparing to replace him. KHALIL OSMAN reports.
George W. Bush’s inauguration as president a year ago followed one the most controversial and tainted elections in US history. A year later, with all attention turned to the ‘war against terrorism’, he hopes to be remembered as a great president. YUSUF AL-KHABBAZ has a better memory...
General Pervez Musharraf won widespread praise for his speech of January 12, attacking Pakistan’s Islamic institutions, not only from the West but from other established enemies of Islam such as Indian home affairs minister L. K. Advani and Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres.
As the world’s nations line up with the US in its ‘war against terrorism’, another war has also begun. The “other” war is against Afghan women and children, and is being waged by the infamous United Nations Family Planning Agency (UNFPA).
America’s policy vis-a-vis its declared enemies — real or imagined — is clear: first demonize, and then attack and destroy them. Interestingly, even those who are considered “friends” for a while are not spared...
