The World Today

August & September 2006: August/September 2006

An Iraqi looks at the image of slain al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Baghdad

Having recently looked into the eyes of a prospective suicide bomber, while ﬁlming a BBC documentary on Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, I must admit to scepticism when reading predictions following his death of the imminent defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Articles

George Glendon's The Emperor of the Air (1910)

In 1910 a novel published in London, The Emperor of the Air, described the destruction of Wall Street by an airship, the Zara, with a powerful engine.

A policeman searches out Warren St tube station, London after following an explosion in July 2005

The recent death of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and a brutal Jordanian terrorist who specialised in beheading kidnap victims, was hailed as a victory by America.

Afghan university students shout anti-US slogans and burn vehicles during a protest in Jalalabad, May 2005

The riots in Kabul in May prompted a wave of pessimism about the outcome of the international intervention in Afghanistan, with predictions of an ‘arc of instability’ covering yet more of South Asia and the Middle East.

Somalia has been without a government for ﬁfteen years, and now Islamist forces have expelled the warlords from Mogadishu, the capital. Can the new authorities reach out to other groups and form the hub of a more legitimate, political dispensation? Or does this mark the deepening of divisions, ushering in renewed conﬂict that could become dangerously internationalised?

President George W. Bush addresses a crowd at Mount Rushmore

An unpopular war and economic worries might be expected to send voters ﬂocking to the opposition. But November’s mid-term elections in America are still open. President George Bush’s Republicans may snatch victory from defeat, while Democrats have yet to make the case that they could do better.

Iranian religious students shout anti-US slogans during a protest in Qom, Iran's clerical capital

Iran’s hard-line government has a lot to thank America for

Also in this issue

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi(C) bows down

In September Junichiro Koizumi will stand down as President of the Liberal Democratic Party and so end his reign as Prime Minister of Japan. People are beginning to ask if the new leadership could see a return to old-style Japanese politics, or whether the Koizumi revolution will have a longer lasting impact. Have things really changed during the Koizumi era and what are likely to be the key issues for his successor?

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan makes surprise visit to Iraq in November 2005

For more than a quarter of a century, the UN has been preoccupied by Iraq, for good and ill. Today, the big question at UN headquarters in New York revolves around the selection of Koﬁ Annan’s successor as Secretary-General. Consensus will emerge some time later in the year, with the successful individual chosen from a wide ﬁeld of declared and undeclared candidates. Iraq is bound to be an issue from day one, just as it has been for the last four people in the job.

Laura Bush at the Conference And Exhibition Center of La Defense in Paris

Life apparently begins at 40. But, as American journalist Helen Rowland wryly observed, ‘so do fallen arches, rheumatism, faulty eyesight, and the tendency to tell a story to the same person, three or four times’. Such sentiments might resonate in the Parisian corridors of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which celebrates its 45th anniversary at the end of September.

Iranian youth rally with flags and banners for reformist presidential candidate Mustafa Moin

The majority of people in Iran have been born since the revolution brought a clerical government to power. So how does the younger generation view their country’s stand-off with the international community?

Afghan horsemen, known as chapandaz, ride at sunset

The calm of Central Asia – a landlocked region on the borders of Afghanistan and China – is periodically disrupted by sudden outbursts of violence. This is especially true in the Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan meet. Most such attacks are attributed to the rise of Islamism.