THE TRIPLE HELIX: GENE, ORGANISM, AND ENVIRONMENT by Richard Lewontin. Harvard University Press, 2000. Pp. 136. Hbk. US$23.

Tens of thousands of people may have died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11.

The US’s position as the dominant power in the world is now widely recognised, as is its freedom to do as it pleases, virtually anywhere in the world, with scant regard even for its Western allies, let alone anyone else. Equally clear is its ability to manipulate international institutions such as the UN to legitimise its actions...

The ICIT’s next Seerah conference takes place in Erasmia, South Africa, later this month (September 21-23, 2001). It follows similar conferences previously organized by the ICIT at the same venue and also in Pakistan, Canada and Sri Lanka.

Violence in Algeria has increased considerably in recent weeks and has now spread from outlying districts to Algiers, the capital, and holiday resorts in its vicinity. The attacks apparently occur at random, and responsibility for them is seldom claimed by anybody, with the result that Algerians throughout the country feel unprotected and bewildered.

The UN and Iraq look set for yet another confrontation: there is mounting concern in Washington about the growing perils facing American pilots flying over Iraq as Baghdad continues to improve its air defences. Baghdad has expelled eight UN staffers in recent weeks, accusing them of “violating their standard operating procedures” and passing security-related information to “enemy states.”

While protests against Israel and zionism were dominating the UN’s World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, little was changing for Palestinians under Israeli rule, with the zionist army continuing its brutal crackdown.

‘President’ Yasser Arafat found his host cooler towards him when he flew to Kuala Lumpur late in August. In a change from the past, he was given a less-than-friendly welcome by the Malaysian regime, which was caught in the middle of a virtual war against Islamic militants, and had to downplay its reception to the Palestinian delegation.

Most of the participants at the third UN World Conference Against Racism arrived in Durban filled with cautious optimism, coming to raise critical issues of racial justice. Some were seeking reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave-trade, others for exposing the racist core of Zionism.

Ahmad Kadyrov, the Moscow-appointed head of Chechnya’s puppet administration, members of his cabinet and local government chiefs gathered on September 3 for an official meeting at the government’s headquarters in Johar-Gala (Grozny), where they were protected by Russian troops and Chechen policemen...

It took seven days and 48 hours, but finally the third United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance came to some sort of consensus.

If you thought the US veto was only effective in the UN security council, think again. It is just as useful at international conferences, as the Palestinians found in Durban.

The Sudanese mediation game is beginning to look more like the Middle East ‘peace process’, now that president George W. Bush has appointed a ‘peace envoy’ to bring “sanity and compassion” to a land ravaged by decades of civil war; there is even talk of the US being the only country that can bring ‘peace’ to southern Sudan.