Articles

John Danforth, the US president’s peace envoy to Sudan, arrived in Khartoum on November 12 with four proposals that favour the southern warlords and seem to be designed for partition of the country rather than for the peace his mission is supposed to be working for.

The United Nations conference on Afghanistan, scheduled for November 24 in Berlin, has been postponed until November 27 and the venue shifted to Bonn without explanation.

Delegates at the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference in Doha, Qatar, emerged on November 14 from six days of intense haggling to announce a compromise agreement that sets out an agenda for a new round of talks.

​​​​​​​EMPIRE by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Pub: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, and London, UK, 2000. Pp: 478. Pbk: $18.95 / £12.95.

Addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 10, US president George W. Bush did something that no US president has ever done: he used the word “Palestine” to describe the emasculated Palestinian ‘state’ that the US and Israel would like to set up in the West Bank and Ghazzah as part of a ‘peace settlement.’

When Allah’s final Prophet (saw) gained the power to exercise authority and influence over the society of Madinah the Jews in that society realised that they were in no position to oppose him, at least during these times of fervent popular support for the Prophet among the Ansar of Madinah.

It is often alleged, both in Pakistan and in the west, that “Islamic fundamentalists” wield too much influence, grossly out of proportion to their actual support in Pakistan. It is further alleged that the ‘virus’ of fundamentalism has even infected the military in Pakistan.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), long regarded as a powerful regional pact that served as an independent voice for the region, ceased to be so on November 5 when its leaders caved in to western pressure.

While America has couched its ‘war’ on Afghanistan in the language of morality, more sinister motives are at work: desire to control the Caspian Sea’s oil and gas, as well as the destruction or removal (‘neutralisation’) of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

The anthrax outbreak in the US has put many on edge about biological warfare and ‘bioterrorism’. Anthrax has killed four people and made 13 others ill since it appeared in the US in late September.