June 2006

The issue of women’s right is a matter of universal concern, given that they constitute about half of the entire population of the world. The status of women in most Islamic countries, which adhere to old-fashioned patriarchal principles, is under international scrutiny. Most Muslim governments that wish to cover up for their own male-dominated views of women hide behind Islam, alleging that they wish to bring about sexual equality but they are forbidden from doing so on the basis of Islamic teachings. This is a deeply flawed argument, because Islam like any other religion has many interpretations. The best proof of this is that some Islamic countries have been able to bring about sexual equality without compromising their Islamic principles. Some Muslim countries, such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Turkey have already had female presidents or prime ministers. In fact, it could be argued that Islam has done more for...

LONDON – In Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, Sherlock Holmes lectures Watson on the unlikely subject of free trade. Says Holmes: “Capital article this on free trade. Permit me to give you an extract from The Times. ‘You may be cajoled into imagining that your own special trade or your own industry will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but it stands to reason that such legislation must in the long run keep wealth away from the country and lower the general conditions of life in this island.'” “What do you think of that, Watson?” cries Holmes in high glee, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. That was written in 1901. And in 2006 we are still arguing the toss. And at the heart of the argument is how to deal with the fast growth of imports from the low cost, developing world. This week is showdown...

HVA GØR NORGE I AFGHANISTAN? – spurte Verdens Gang 7 mars i år utenriksminister Jonas Gard Støre. Svaret var tredelt: for å stabilisere Afghanistan som hjemstedet for Taliban og støttespiller for terror, for å beskytte nordmenn mot terror–tilfeldigvis ble ingen nordmenn rammet i London 7 juli 2005–og for å beskytte norske barn mot heroin på norske gater. Gode norske svar. Men fire dager før, 3 mars, hadde Seddiq Weera, afghansk-kanadisk lege, en artikkel i Toronto Star. Han satt lenge fengslet i Kabul under kommunistene, kom ut med sterk kjensle av at her trenges noe nytt, har pendlet mellom landene og arbeidet utrettelig for fred i Afghanistan. Og Weera forteller en helt annen historie enn den angloamerikansk-norske, og med helt andre svar. Hvorfor er det ingen stabilitet i landet etter fire år med internasjonale tropper og økonomiske støtte? La oss gå tilbake til den fatale Bonn-avtalen av november 2001, etter USAs invasjon 7 oktober. Nord-alliansen hadde...

BRUSSELS – An old saying in Montenegro used to say “Crna Gora i Srbija – to je jedna familija” (“Montenegro and Serbia – one family”). Today, pro-independence graffiti in Montenegro read “Crna i Gora i Baskija – to je jedna familija” (“Montenegro and the Basque Country – one family”). With Montenegro independent, the process of the Europe’s balkanization of the Balkans will have scored one more point. Some say it also paved a chance for many independence-hopefuls around Europe, be it in Catalonia, the Basque Country or Scotland, which have sent their observer missions to Podgorica to monitor the mechanics of intra-state divorce. It might be contrary to the logic of European integration and the equation mark between the European Union and “borderless Europe”, but it is real and it is happening in 2006, just a few weeks before the June summit on “the future of Europe”. As far as...

June 26, 2006 Biljana Vankovska * This article has been shortened and edited by the editor of this hompage  June 26, 2006 SKOPJE, MACEDONIA – You may well have heard the old children’s shaggy dog story about Tomboy, a nickname given to a girl because she behaves like a boy. It came to my mind when I returned from what was supposed to be an important conference organized by the Finish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the prestigious London School of Economics, LSE. Mars, Venus and chameleons I also came to think of that inspirational analysis of Robert Kagan about Mars (USA) and Venus (EU) published in 2002. It seems, however, that the equation between Venus and EU becomes more and more problematic due to the rapidly ageing EU Lady. One might expect her to be armed with the charm and wisdom of her age, but if you...

* This article has been shortened and edited by the editor of this hompage  SKOPJE, MACEDONIA – You may well have heard the old children’s shaggy dog story about Tomboy, a nickname given to a girl because she behaves like a boy. It came to my mind when I returned from what was supposed to be an important conference organized by the Finish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the prestigious London School of Economics, LSE. Mars, Venus and chameleons I also came to think of that inspirational analysis of Robert Kagan about Mars (USA) and Venus (EU) published in 2002. It seems, however, that the equation between Venus and EU becomes more and more problematic due to the rapidly ageing EU Lady. One might expect her to be armed with the charm and wisdom of her age, but if you want my opinion about what can we expect...

LONDON – Whenever I introduced Munir Khan to a friend I would say light-heartedly “and this is the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb” just to enjoy the pleasure of watching the reaction. Kahn himself would give a self-depreciatory smile. As Hans Blix, the former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s nuclear policeman, put it to me, Khan was “a cheerful soul”. The world has been told over and over again that the father of the Pakistani bomb was A.Q. Khan, the metallurgist, who in fact ran only one part of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission whose chairman was Munir Khan. More correctly we have recently been told that Qadeer Khan secretly set up an international network to supply the likes of North Korea, Libya and Iran with blueprints and materials for the manufacture of their own nuclear weapons. This was done for his private profit. Kahn and...

1. Diagnosis There are obvious similarities to USA/UK vs Iraq, but possibly less obvious that UK will follow suit or even play a major role (“The Downing Street Memorandum”) this time. The goals of the USA seem to be diverse, like these nine: – regime change, like in 1953, possibly also to reinstate the Shah family, again assuming Iranians will be receptive; – Middle East political control, fearing that control is slipping from USA-Israel to Iran-Hamas and shia/radical Islam; – revenge for the 52 hostages-444 days humiliation; – eliminating any Iranian threat to the US/UK Iraq construction; – eliminating any Iranian threat to Israel, nuclear or not, given the statements by president Ahmadinejad; – securing Iranian oil flow at affordable prices; – protecting the use of dollars against euros for oil trade; – expanding further the military bases encircling Russia-China; – eliminating any Iranian nuclear weapon capability. The last goal...

LONDON – On September 17th 2002, six days after the planes destroyed the World Trade Center, George W. Bush declared he was going to hunt down Osama bin Laden. “There’s an old poster out West, I recall, that said, ‘Wanted, Dead or Alive’.” Now we learn, nearly four years’ later, that Bush’s wife Laura, had privately admonished him for talking like a gun-slinger – not very sophisticated and presidential seems to have been the gist of her remarks. Yet, as you can tell a tiger by its stripes, you can tell a person by the way they talk, especially when they are charged up. This is a president who acts on the baser instincts that dominate his personality. Means and ends do not cohere in Bush, as Martin Luther King might have said. There are no regrets about suspending perhaps the oldest of all codified human rights – habeas corpus....

LONDON – One hundred black men crammed together in a small boat crossing a patch of the wild Atlantic. The Spanish know how many arrive, but have no idea how many are lost at sea. No one mentions, either African or Spaniard, that this island is where Thor Heyerdahl of Kon Tiki fame made his home until he died two years ago. The panicky feeling now dominating the airwaves and newsprint leaves no time for either irony or imagination. In the local press here it’s a front-page story every day. The president of the local Tenerife government has written to all the media asking them “to tone down” their coverage as it is undermining the tourist industry, the driving force in the local economy. Yet, as Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero told parliament last week, the number of illegal immigrants arriving in Spain has been less over the last...