Although there is much noise about Indo-Pakistan rapprochement since the February 20 meeting between their respective prime ministers in Lahore, there has been no let-up in the killing of Kashmiris by the Indian occupation army.
He came, he saw, he conquered. Mohammed Khatami, Iran’s philosopher president, brought no legions to Rome during his three-day state visit from March 9-11. Instead he came armed only with intellectual vigor and the authority of the Islamic State, and took the ancient capital of the west by storm.
The west finally accepted the necessity to bomb Yugoslavia on March 25, after their repeated attempts to help Milosevic to solve his Kosova problem were rebuffed. Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy on the Balkans, had left Belgrade on March 23 admitting that he had failed to persuade president Slobodan Milosevic...
The west finally accepted the necessity to bomb Yugoslavia on March 25, after their repeated attempts to help Milosevic to solve his Kosova problem were rebuffed. However, the strategy they implemented, and the predictable results of the first few days of their attacks, raise serious questions about their genuine intentions.
The west left the Muslims of Kosova to the Serbs’ mercy on February 23 when the threat of NATO air strikes was withdrawn at the end of 17 days of peace talks in Paris without any political agreement or sending NATO troops but with the Kosovars forced to agree to disarming.
The controversy over the arrest of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, and the subsequent backlash from Kurds inside and outside Turkey, have tended to overshadow the fact that Islam remains the Turkish secular establishment’s greatest fear.
Beware Islam in Bangladesh! In the latest Islamophobic scare story, the western media reported that Shaikh Osama Bin Laden has been financing Muslims in Bangladesh.
The status of Bosnia-Hercegovina’s northern town of Brcko, the only territorial issue in Bosnia left unresolved by the Dayton Accords in December 1995, was finally settled this month, by a typically indecisive western fudge.
America’s senior envoy to the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke, who brokered the Dayton Accords which ended the Bosnian war in December 1995, flew to Belgrade on March 9 to negotiate a final Kosova peace deal directly with Slobodan Milosevic, confident of having finally obtained the Kosovars’ agreement.
He is not a new face; he is not a civilian: he is General Olusegun Obasanjo who ruled Nigeria from 1976-79. Obasanjo was declared winner of Nigeria’s February 27 elections with 63 percent of the vote, well ahead of Olu Falae, the only other candidate.
Former Chechen mujahideen leader, Shamyl Basayev was elected leader of Ichkeria’s unofficial new Mekh Khhel (Shura Council) on February 20. The 35-member Council was established by opposition leaders on February 9, apparently in an attempt to create a de facto alternative to president Aslan Maskhadov’s increasingly isolated and beleaguered government.
Persistent charges over several years by Christian Solidarity International (CSI) that slavery is rife in Southern Sudan finally backfire as Khartoum, in an unprecedented move, invites the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to investigate the allegations, and the agency accuses the Swiss-based but British-led Christian group itself of encouraging slavery in the area.
Even as Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was being dined in Lahore, Pakistan, at least 34 persons were killed in the troubled Kashmir Valley over the two-day period on February 19 and 20.
Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit could hardly conceal his glee when he announced on February 16 that Ankara’s most wanted man had finally been captured. Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), had been arrested by Turkish Special Commandos and brought back to Turkey ‘to account for his deeds before an independent court.’
From the Atlantic coast in the west to the Indian Ocean shores in the east, Central African States locked in civil or regional wars are on the brink of unravelling--in some cases facing the prospect of having their borders redrawn--as those conflicts defy solution, despite external intervention or because of it.
Five British Muslims went on trial in Aden, Yemen, on January 26, accused of planning to bomb the city’s main hotel, the British consulate and a church.
The French apparently see nothing wrong in naming their children after Muslim football stars (presumably as long as they are not called Muhammad--a name redolent with Islamic connotations) who secure victory for their country in world cup final...
The bodies of six murdered Kosovars were found in different locations in the country on February 8, the day after ‘proximity’ peace talks between the Serbs and Kosovars began in France. They included a 20-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl found together in Djakovica, 45 miles south-west of Pristina...
There appears to be a dichotomy in the attitude of the Pakistan government as far as the Afghans are concerned. Islamabad is virtually alone in backing the Taliban-backed government in Kabul.
The gladiatorial contest between the government of prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the Jang Group of newspapers would be comical were it not for its deadly intent. Both sides are trying to occupy the moral high ground where none exists.
