Articles

The six member-states of the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) signed a defence pact on December 31, pledging themselves to come to each other’s aid in the event of attack.

Dr Mazen al-Najjar, a former adjunct professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, was released from prison on December 15, 2000, after more than 3 and a half years in jail as a victim of the US’s notorious “secret evidence” system.

Like other Arab dictators, General ‘Umar Hassan al-Bashir thinks that nothing can offset the precipitous decline in public support for his regime like prattling about democracy and holding elections boycotted by all major opposition groups. In a press conference in Khartoum on December 29, the head of Sudan’s General Election Authority...

The long-awaited Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report into the East Pakistan debacle of 1971 was finally released on December 30, 2000, although “sensitive” segments still remain out of the public eye. Even the 700 pages that have been released...

Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s announcement last month extending the ceasefire in Kashmir has generally been welcomed, although it has not prevented the Indian occupation army from continuing its murderous campaign against civilians.

In a new twist in the west’s escalating campaign against the independence-seeking ethnic Albanians in southeastern Serbia, the NATO-led ‘peacekeeping force’ in Kosova (KFOR) on January 8 launched a propaganda campaign to discourage the rebels from continuing their armed struggle.

President Islam Karimov, a dictator well-schooled in the old methods of Soviet repression, is intensifying his regime’s crackdown on all forms of dissent, whether Islamic or secular.

Out-going US president Bill Clinton signed the international treaty establishing the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal on December 31, in an unexpected move.

Even the most casual observers of current events will notice a tension between Western civilization and Islam. This tension is often made explicit in Western public discourse about "Islamic fundamentalism" and the "clash of civilizations." Similarly, Muslim public discourse often focuses on the Zionist occupation of Palestine and the destruction of places like Bosnia and Iraq.

Contending Images of World Politics edited by Greg Fry and Jacinta O’Hagan. Pub: Macmillan Press, Basingstoke, UK, and St Martin’s Press, New York, USA, 2000. Pp: 314. Pbk: UK£19.95.