On October 3, the International Awakening Centre (IAC) recommended the names of the Indian prime minister, AB Vajpayee, the US president, George W Bush, and the British prime minister, Tony Blair, to the Norwegian Nobel Institute for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
Tens of thousands of Muslims are living in renewed fear in Gujrat as Crescent goes to press, after government and police officials blamed Muslims for an attack on a Hindu temple in Gandhinagar on September 24.
In yet another attempt to legitimize its rule, India is again trying to impose a ‘democratic’ poll on Kashmir. The first phase took place on 16 September and the second on 24 September; the polls end later this month. With coercion by security forces, election boycotts in general...
Macedonia, which a year ago was on the verge of civil war, has held elections. They were marred only by sporadic incidents of violence traceable to criminal elements and Slav extremist groups. As in Kosova, the Muslim Albanians are blamed for the unrest.
Pakistan is again in the grip of election fever as people prepare for polls on October 10. With the leaders of the two main political parties, Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League, barred from participation because of corruption charges, the election has become a localized affair.
When Khartoum and the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) signed the Machakos peace deal on July 20, American officials said that they would exert pressure to make the deal stick.
When Richard Armitage, US deputy secretary of state, announced in Beijing on August 26 that the US has classified the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as a terrorist organisation, the move was interpreted as a “nod to China”, in acknowledgement of its apparent agreement not to sell missile technology to “aggressive states”.
The UN anti-racism conference in Durban, South Africa, last year saw a walk-out by Israeli and American delegates. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) that ended on September 4 in Johannesburg generate any more support for either government.
Events in Afghanistan are not going according to America’s script, despite tall claims of having routed the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. It is not just attacks on American and other so-called coalition forces, which are now becoming more frequent, but also the continuing factional fighting, especially between forces loyal to defence minister Mohammed Fahim and forces loyal to president Hamid Karzai...
The crash of a Russian army helicopter on August 19 near Johar-Gala (Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, also known as Ichkeria), in which at least 114 Russian soldiers, many of them officers, died, was a great embarrassment both to the military and to president Vladimir Putin.
Few politicians in Turkey’s recent history have stirred interest as have the secular and pro-Western Ismail Cem and Kemal Dervis.
Dr Mazen al-Najjar’s history encapsulates the plight of the Palestinians: they are accused of everything, but nobody is prepared to listen to their story. Dr Najjar, 43 years old and a former instructor at the University of Southern Florida, was finally released on August 24.
It was a grisly reminder of the Uzbek government’s brutality in dealing with Islamic activists. The bodies of two Uzbek prisoners who had died under torture while in police custody were handed back to their families on August 8 for burial.
The US’s disregard for law, even its own, since September 11 is now being emulated by others. The story of Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, 20, a Canadian citizen, was told on July 30 by Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, who related how he had been arrested and “kidnapped” to the US.
A month after 54 Afghani civilians were killed when American planes bombed a wedding party, the Times (London)newspaper published details of a report written by UN officials who visited the village two days after the bombing.
Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s environment minister, during his visit to India in February this year, said that “The main purpose of my visit is to enhance the relations between India and Israel as well as to commemorate the 10th anniversary of our diplomatic relations”.
Displaying supreme arrogance, India’s chief election commissioner on August 2 dismissed calls for international observers to monitor forthcoming elections in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir.
If Turkey joins the European Union (EU) it will be its largest member by population, and Europe will share borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria. Both prospects are bound to make most Europeans uneasy (to put it mildly), and they may prove to be an insurmountable obstacle to Turkey’s EU membership.
Africa took a new turn on June 8, when the African Union (AU) was launched. Forty-three of the 53 rulers of the continent gathered to witness the birth of AU, which the rulers profess to hope will be a vehicle for democracy, good governance and prosperity.
General Pervez Musharraf is not the first Pakistani ruler to believe that he has a divine right, not only to rule, but also to rearrange the political system because he alone knows what is best for the country.
