Articles

When the trial of Azmi Bishara, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, opened on December 10, another demonstration of the apartheid-like nature of Israel began. According to the indictment prepared by Elyakim Rubenstein...

Hardly an eyebrow rose on December 12 when the chairman of the Jewish Defence League (JDL) and another senior member were arrested in a plot to bomb a large mosque, the office of a congressman, and other targets.

Afghanistan’s American-installed puppet, Hamid Karzai is feeling puffed up because he was promised US$2.6 billion at an international conference in Tokyo on January 21-22. It was attended by representatives from Western countries, the World Bank/IMF and the UN.

On December 22, almost exactly 22 years after the Soviets installed a puppet government (on December 27, 1979, headed by Babrak Karmal) in Kabul, the Americans repeated the feat. Hamid Karzai was “sworn in” as prime minister with British troops guarding the interior ministry building where the ceremony took place...

Thirteen Pakistani troops were reported killed on December 26, as a result of Indian shelling across the Line of Control dividing Kashmir.

The persistent speculation of the last month about whether Somalia will be the next battleground in the US’s “war on terrorism” is practically over. Senior US government officials assert that Washington is indeed interested in Somalia, and US special forces and diplomats have already arrived there.

In a move to cripple Muslim charitable work, the US government moved against three leading charities during Ramadhan, accusing them of “supporting terrorism”.

THE GLOBAL GAMBLE: WASHINGTON’S FAUSTIAN BID FOR WORLD DOMINANCE by Peter Gowan. Pub: Verso Books, London/New York, 1999. Pbk: 320. £13.00 / $ 20.00

While assorted representatives of Afghan groups were meeting with Western leaders in Bonn to map out a government for Afghanistan “freely determined by its own people,” and American bombs were continuing to fall on towns and villages in some parts of the country, two other conferences on Afghanistan’s future were taking place in Washington and Pakistan.

In the two-month period from October 7 to December 7, the Taliban’s world has been turned upside down; from controlling more than 90 percent of Afghanistan’s territory they were forced to surrender their last stronghold of Qandahar to tribal elders on December 7.