The conviction on February 10 of Lynne Stewart, a leading civil-rights lawyer, on five counts of conspiring to aid “terrorists” and lying to the government has shocked the American legal profession. Others, too, have expressed concern about civil liberties and see fascism on the march in the US under George W. Bush and his army of “neo-cons”.
Aslan Maskhadov, the exiled leader of the Chechen independence movement, last month urged the Kremlin to begin talks to end a decade of conflict. The call for peace talks came as local officials admitted that the ceasefire Maskhadov had ordered earlier had been effective.
Despite his rhetorical claim that he is “not scared of anyone”, general Pervez Musharraf is a worried man. The “not scared” boast flies in the face of the facts: he is in effect a prisoner in the presidential compound. Meetings and conferences are organized inside the compound so that he does not have to go out, for fear of being assassinated.
The Kyoto protocol on climate change came into effect on February 16, when it was ratified by more than 140 countries, including the 34 most industrialised nations. But the US, the world’s worst polluter, has refused to sign it, and developing countries, including China, the next biggest polluter, and India and Brazil, both significant contributors to today’s worst environmental problem, are exempt.
The agreement signed between the Sudanese government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, on January 9 has been hailed as a “historic peace deal” that ends a long-drawn-out and ruinous war between the “Muslim north” and the “Christian”-animist south.
The top posts of some of the world’s most prominent international agencies have fallen vacant and must be filled soon. Three of the agencies that need new or reappointed heads are the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The Turkish government has recently announced a programme for retraining schoolchildren, teachers and even imams to “promote modern and peaceful interpretations of Islam”, and to rebrand old European enemies such as Greece and Russia as friends.
Hamid Karzai was sworn in as president of Afghanistan on December 7 amid unprecedented security: foreign troops protected him from the very people who are supposed to have elected him to his office. In attendance were not only US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld but also vice president Dick Cheney, with an entire hospital in tow, just in case his pacemaker should stop during the ceremony.
The deal recently negotiated by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, in Brussels on his country’s longstanding quest for membership of the European Union is, by general agreement, unfair and humiliating, and by no means indicates – let alone guaranteeing – that Turkey will eventually be allowed to become a member of the EU.
There was some sense of relief in the Muslim world in late November, when negotiators representing the Islamic Republic of Iran of succeeded in persuading the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) not to report it to the UN Security Council for having a nuclear weapons programme.
Hamid Karzai was sworn in as president of Afghanistan on December 7 amid unprecedented security: foreign troops protected him from the very people who are supposed to have elected him to his office. In attendance were not only USdefence secretary Donald Rumsfeld but also vice president Dick Cheney, with an entire hospital in tow, just in case his pacemaker should stop during the ceremony.
The Netherlands, which until now has always claimed to be more tolerant than the rest of Europe, is now openly hounding its Muslim population, on the pretence of fighting terrorism...
On September 14, the establishment of a “Government of the Republic of East Turkestan in Exile” was declared in Washington DC by the East Turkestan National Freedom Centre (ETNFC), an Uigurexile group based in Washington...
What fate awaits a government that wages war on its own people as the regime of general Pervez Musharraf is doing in Pakistan? Having experienced the tragedy of East Pakistan, most Pakistanis know the answer, but appear not to have grasped the gravity of the current crisis...
What do Sudan and Syria have in common apart from being two Muslim countries that are also members of the Arab League? Each is the victim of mounting and relentless pressure from the West and their Arab allies, the UN and the international media, over their internal and regional policies, which they are required to abandon in the interests of those targeting them...
As the date (November 2) for the US presidential election draws near, the deep divisions in American society, exacerbated by George Bush’s policies, are becoming more pronounced. The two main political parties—Republican and Democratic—have marshalled more than 10,000 lawyers to fight legal battles in what is believed will be a closely contested race that is wide open to manipulation and fraud...
The US’s long-running campaign to pressure Iran over its nuclear programme was ratcheted up to a new level last month, when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution effectively threatening to report Iran to the UN Security Council if it is not satisfied that Iran’s nuclear programme is for purely civilian purposes by its next meeting, which is on November 25...
In addition to the three official candidates– George Bush, John Kerry and Ralph Nader– two others are likely to influence the outcome of the US presidential elections on November 2: Osama bin Laden and Pakistani president general Pervez Musharraf...
Russian president Vladimir Putin, in a vain attempt to exploit the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia on September 3, in which more than 340 people died, has sharply increased the scale and intensity of executions, tortures and kidnaps in Chechnya that are already a part of the Chechens’ lives...
1Sudan is the largest country in Africa, its western region of Darfur alone being larger than France; the “Islamic and Arab” government of president Omar Hassan al-Bashir is financing and arming the Janjaweed– the “Arab” militia which is allegedly ethnically cleansing the “African” tribes in that region...
