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.

Mubarak has ordered the arrest of 94 Islamic activists and their appearance before a military tribunal, accusing them of plotting terrorism against American, Israeli, Russian and Balkan targets. According to Muntassir al-Ziyat, an Egyptian lawyer representing 87 of those appearing before the military tribunal...

Intoxicated by the devastating display of America’s military juggernaut in Afghanistan, senior US officials have been issuing bellicose statements about Iraq. President George W Bush joined the chorus on November 26 when he warned Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to readmit UN arms-inspectors or face unspecified consequences.

Two Palestinian children, one of them just three years old, were killed in al-Khalil (Hebron) on December 10 when two missiles fired from Apache helicopters — supplied to Israel by the US after the current intifada began last year — slammed into cars at the city’s busy al-Salaam junction during the afternoon rush-hour.

The Saudi ‘royal’ family rarely commits the error of publicly expressing anxiety or doubt about the durability of the House of Saud, or of openly criticising its US protectors’ backing for Israel.

Nur Misuari, chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), was arrested by Malaysian authorities on November 24 on Jampiras island, Sabah, North Borneo...

December 6 is a black day for Muslims. Nine years ago it was a milestone in Muslim history in India. On that day in 1992 what was destroyed was not merely a monument of the Mughal era, nor just a place of worship for Muslims. The enemies of Islam tried not just to shake the Muslim will-power but uproot their foundations.

The aftermath of September 11 has focused attention once more on the House of Saud and its ability to survive. There are growing indications that the genie of waning popularity, which the Saudi dynasty has long feared and tried to control by a legion of gimmicks, has again escaped.

The ink had not even dried on the interim accord signed in Bonn on December 5 when various Afghan factions had denounced it as a foreign imposition that could not bring lasting peace to Afghanistan.

About 1500 people braved the cold and the hostile media to attend the Quds Day protests in London, UK, on Sunday 9 December. Traditionally held on the last Friday of Ramadan all over the world, the march broke with tradition in several ways this year.