Articles

Just a few weeks after Egyptian president Gamal Mubarak was re-elected in presidential polls widely dismissed as the flimsiest political charade, he suffered a substantial setback in November when the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen made major gains in the elections for Egypt’s parliament, despite operating under severe restrictions because it remains officially banned.

President Ali Saleh of Yemen often boasts publicly that his country's "all-out war on terror" is the most effective weapon against international terrorism. He has even claimed that he regularly compares notes with US president George W. Bush and heads of US intelligence agencies, who seek his advice and admire his contribution.

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.