Global

Terrorism will never be defeated. Governments need to combine security with a sense of proportion and a commitment to political dialogue

The consequences of the Madrid atrocity will flow back and forth for some time. It underlines the vulnerability of free societies and makes London and other British cities appear all the "softer" as potential terrorist targets. George Bush and Tony Blair might feel some grim satisfaction that the Madrid bombing has brought Europe back into the "global war on terror", but it should also force us to reflect afresh on what this is all about.

The war on terror has become a theme war, like similar "wars" on crime, poverty or drugs: fashionable and im portant, but unwinnable in the sense that wars are supposed to be won. Terrorism is a technique of violence - not a group of people - as familiar to the ancients who opposed the Pax Romana as to those who now oppose a Pax Americana. The scale and techniques of the 9/11 and Madrid attacks have certainly created new problems for societies trying to defend themselves against indiscriminate violence, but we have to understand that the phenomenon will continue and yet keep the scale of the threat in proportion to what we seek to protect.

Modern 'Dreyfus Affair' is unworthy of America

By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor

Hatred of Muslims has become the anti-Semitism of our era. The latest example of this ugly fact is the vicious prosecution by the U.S. military of a Muslim army chaplain, Capt. James Yee.

I call this disgraceful and shameful case America's Dreyfus Affair.

In 1894, a French army officer, Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, who was Jewish, was wrongfully convicted of spying on the basis of forged documents. Though evidence pointed to another officer, anti-Semites in the French Army framed Dreyfus. He was given a life sentence on Devil's Island, a brutal, malarial penal colony in the Caribbean off French Guiana.

George Galloway's historic speech
It is a misunderstanding created by circumstances that I am interested only in Middle Eastern affairs - notably, the struggle for self determination of the Palestinian people and  against  the horrific effects of sanctions and war on the Iraqi people  during  Saddam's vile dictatorship.
I  have been, of course, passionately engaged in these issues but my interest in opposing all forms of imperialism - including the fashionable neo-liberal version of Mr Blair - arises from a deep patriotism about my own islands.

Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad at the opening of the tenth session of the Islamic Summit conference at Putrajaya Convention Centre on October 16.
Alhamdulillah, All Praise be to Allah, by whose Grace and Blessings we, the leaders of the Organisation of Islamic Conference countries are gathered here today to confer and hopefully to plot a course for the future of Islam and the Muslim ummah worldwide.

I might actually forgive Alfred Nobel for some of his inventions! With a stroke of genius, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee has achieved a lot of objectives, the foremost of which -- of course -- is the great work that Shirin Ebadi had done under trying conditions.

The picture of an Iranian Muslim female intellectual winning the Nobel Peace Prize is historic as well as influencing future events:

The editorial page of the National Post has hit a new low.

2003-10-03.Toronto.In Friday's National Post editorial page, Mr. Jonathan Kay called Arafat a "murderer", called Edward Said a "fabricator and liar" and his only sadness at Said's death was that Death had taken the wrong person.

Hearts are filled with sadness at the demise of this great champion of humanity. His eloquence, relentlessness, courage, perception and sense of identity and history was unparalleled. A lesser man would have been bruised by the fight with the media, but he turned his sensitivity into a weapon -- a weapon so effective that according to Ha'aretz, "many Israeli acquaintances and had many Jewish friends in the United States. However, among the American Jewish establishment, he was considered public enemy No. 1".

Alex Cockburn, in these pages a few weeks ago, caustically noted that UN officials, most especially the Secretary General Koffi Annan, confused the UN with the US: the UN is the US to all intents and purposes. Annan received his anointment in much the same manner as Bush received his--through the blessings of those who are the real power, the corporations and lobbyists who own the judges and the politicians; for Bush the court system and party operatives particularly in Florida and DC; for Annan the controlling administration in the US that pulls the strings on who will serve appropriately US interests as Secretary General.

Tuesday, December 10, 2002 at 09:21 JST
TOKYO - A group of citizens in Japan said Monday they will launch a mock tribunal to try U.S. President George W Bush on war crime charges over military attacks on Afghanistan last year in retaliation for last year's Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

Ignacio Ramonet is Editor of the prestigious French publication, "Le Monde Diplomatique."

In this op-ed piece for LeMonde, Ramonet debunks conventional wisdom that since 9/11, a new kind of violence is sweeping the planet. The French writer claims that compared to the last 25 years "almost all the radical protest groups engaged in armed struggle then have disappeared. And most of the high- and low-intensity conflicts that each year caused tens of thousands of deaths across the world have now passed into history."

However, he warns us that the disappearance of armed rebellion by the poor of the world may soon be over. "It is not yet political violence. But we all suspect that it might be a lull before a storm. How long will it last?" Ignacio Ramonet asks. Read and reflect.