Articles

All creatures learn by example. Although this is a natural process, it can also have negative consequences. There is a well-known hadith of the noble Prophet of Allah, upon whom be peace, to the effect that a person adopts the character of the company he keeps for 40 days.

"Academic-turned-militant", "bomb expert", "terrorist", "Bali-bomb brain": these are just some of the abusive remarks that the media in Indonesia and Malaysia have borrowed from western news agencies to libel Dr Azahari Husin, who died on November 9 after what the Indonesian police claim was a shoot-out.

By taking a firm and principled stand over its right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has forced the US to blink. The meeting on November 24 of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna was a far more civilized affair than the bellicose threats issued by the same body two months earlier.

The donors' conference in Islamabad on November 19 might as well have been held on Mars, as far as the victims of Pakistan's devastating earthquake are concerned. Donors pledged US$5.8 billion ($0.6 billion more than what Pakistan had asked for), but the sting is in the detail.

Are parliamentary elections – or, for that matter, presidential polls – inevitably rigged in a Muslim country that happens to be strategically placed, oil-rich and allied to Western countries, particularly the US? The answer seems to be "yes".

Last month, the British charity MARCCH convened a major conference on “Chechen after Maskhadov”, in cooperation with other Chechen support groups in the UK. It was attended by AHMAD MUSA, a contributor to Crescent International and a supporter of the Save Chechnya Campaign (SCC).

Since it agreed to start accession talks with Turkey in October, the European Union has been highly critical of Turkey's human-rights record, including its treatment of the Kurds, who are concentrated in the south east of the country.

After the “shock and awe” hype of the Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld, and the extravagant claims of “Mission Accomplished” by his commander in chief in the White House, a clearer picture of the war in Iraq has gradually emerged, even in the US. Now we see a US government that finds itself stuck in aunwinnable war against the Islamic movement.

Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules by Philippe Sands. Pub: Allen Lane Ltd., London, UK, 2005. Pp. 200. £12.99. By Leila Juma Among the many interesting points in this book is the difference between the covers of the British and American editions. It is not unusual for books to have different covers for different markets, but in this case the contrast is unusually obvious. The original British edition, published by Allen Lane Ltd. in February, is bright orange and shows a picture of a bound and masked man, wearing an orange jumpsuit, a clear reference to the political prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It also promises “new revelations” about “Bush and Blair’s illegal war”. The US edition, published by Viking last month, is far lower key, a mottled gray colour with a stylised crown incorporating the stars-and-stripes, a subtle reference to American imperialism.

There is one particular policy that the US and Israel have always followed in their efforts to bring the Palestinian resistance to zionism and the zionist state under control, and that is the cultivating of leaders among the Palestinians whom they feel they can most easily control and manipulate. When the PLO was first established, the Israelis insisted on dealing only with Arab governments. When the first intifada radically changed the dynamics of the Palestinian struggle, the Israelis suddenly discovered that they could deal with Yasser Arafat after all; hence the Oslo talks and the peace process.