Articles

Somalis have one language, one religion (Islam), and constitute a single ethnic group, and should not have found great – let alone insurmountable – difficulties in being united and living in peace together. Yet their country is in ruins, split into Somaliland, a former British protectorate in the north, and Somalia, a former Italian colony, in the south.

The construction of the world’s tallest building was disrupted in March when Asian expatriate workers rioted in protest at their working conditions. It was the latest of a series of protests. NASR SALEM discusses the plight of most foreign workers in the region.

Three months after Hamas won a decisive victory in the elections for the Palestinian legislative council, and a month after the new Hamas administration was sworn in, it remains under immense political pressure from Israel and Israel’s Western allies to abandon the program on which it was elected and accept instead the West’s plans for the future of Palestine.

Is the West’s war on Islam -- and the Islamic movement in particular -- now reaching a significant new level? That is certainly one conclusion that might be drawn from the intensification of its political, diplomatic and propaganda war on the Islamic State of Iran in recent months. The West has, of course, been at war with Islamic political activism for most of recent history.

The long-running case of Palestinian academic Sami al-Arian, jailed in Florida since early 2003, accused with others of supporting terrorism in Palestine, appeared to reached a conclusion of sorts on May 1. The former professor at the University of Southern Florida was sentenced to 57 months in jail -- the maximum possible sentence -- after he pleaded guilty last month to a minor charge of giving support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement as part of a plea bargain.

Al-mu'min mir'atu akhihi (“a committed Muslim is the mirror of his brother”). In other words, we Muslims should be building on our perceptions of each other. One should be able to identify one's own characteristics as a Muslim through the character andbehavior of another Muslim.

Why is US President George Bush threatening to go to war against Iran over its civilian nuclear program at a time when American forces are bogged down in Iraq and US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld is facing a virtual insurrection against his disastrous handling of the war by retired American military generals?

For us at Crescent, the month of April was dominated by two conferences, a massive one in Tehran from April 14-16 in support of the Palestinian struggle, attended by about 1,000 people from all over the world, and a much smaller one in London on April 23, convened by Crescent International to mark the 10th anniversary of the death of the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui, Director of the Muslim Institute, London, founder and leader of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, and the man responsible for transforming Crescent from a local community newspaper in Toronto to an international newsmagazine of the global Islamic movement.

The two suicide bombings in Egypt on April 26 were the latest of a series of armed attacks in the country over the last two years. The coincide with demonstrations by thousands of Egyptians in central Cairo to protest against the prosecution of two senior judges who are known for their public criticism of the government's control of the judiciary.

It took four months of gruelling and protracted negotiations, bargaining and threatening, manoeuvring and arm-twisting before Iraqi leaders finally broke the prolonged deadlock that had been hindering the formation of a new cabinet, and agreed on a new prime minister.