Articles

Within two weeks of India’s five nuclear explosions, Pakistan responded with five tests of its own on May 28 followed by one more on May 30. Not only did it out-bang India but also turned the near-gloom in Pakistan into euphoria.

The first point any informed reader will note about this book is that Malcolm uses the Serbian form ‘Kosovo’ throughout in preference to the Albanian form ‘Kosova’, used by Kosovars themselves. As in the Bosnian case, the use of terminology in discussing Kosova is politically sensitive.

When the Arab interior and justice ministers’ meeting in Cairo in late April finally signed an accord on the only thing they normally agree on - the need to fight Islamic activism, euphemistically referred to as terrorism - Arab secular commentators and politicians hailed it as a secure bulwark against the dark forces of anarchy and backwardness.

‘I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms.

Lebanon, it is commonly joked in Beirut, has three presidents: Elias Hrawi, Rafic Hariri and Nabih Berri. ‘What about Hafez al-Asad?’ asked a recent visitor to Beirut.

From Bangladesh through Central Asia to Iraq, tens of millions of Muslims have been poisoned, many terminally, as a result of pollution from nuclear dust, pesticides and arsenic in water wells - all at the hands of western governments, international aid agencies and Russia, as the dominant power in the former Soviet Union.

While Afghan factions are locked in a power struggle for control of territory, they are losing their people to Christian missionaries in the refugee camps in Peshawar.

Throughout Europe, political parties campaigning on anti-foreigner platforms are chalking up remarkable gains, with Germany leading the way as poll figures and recently published figures on racist attacks show.

The struggle in Kashmir has undergone a major metamorphosis over the last 18 months, sending the Indian occupiers into a tail-spin. If the years 1995-1996 were characterised by extreme hardships for the mujahideen...

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan - fresh from the triumph of brokering the Iraqi deal, and cruising through his African tour with the air of a savior come to rescue his beloved continent from the folly of its ruler - suddenly faces the cruel prospect of being cut down to size.