September 2006

FIDEL CASTRO, who was about to undergo an operation, transferred his constitutional responsibilities as president of Cuba on 31 July to a team of seven, including his brother Raul. The world held its breath and thousands of exiled Cubans in Miami celebrated the illness and even the death of the “tyrant”.
The Florida-based Cuban American National Foundation, which had supported the invasion of Iraq in April 2003 on the principle of “Iraq today, tomorrow Cuba”, immediately called for a civil or (...)

Israel has always feared Lebanon’s multi-confessional culture and wanted to break it up. But the latest attack, unlike earlier interventions and invasions, has so far failed to provoke internal conflict.

The British government played an active role in the war in Lebanon. Far from standing back, it provided Israel with substantial military, diplomatic and political support.

The commission set up in Israel to look into the lethal chaos of this summer’s attacks in and on Lebanon should be replaced with a proper independent state enquiry, prepared to face facts.

It takes more than religion to form a homogeneous whole at a regional or national level as demonstrated by the internal divisions within Iraq’s Shia community. Their loyalties are unpredictable.

The Taliban were said to have been defeated after an allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2003. In fact, as usual in that country, they have merely been dormant, regrouping and revising their strategy. By winter, they may well control Helmand and other provinces.

The US intelligence service, which remains obsessed with the risk of Taliban infiltration in Somalia, inadvertently helped the Union of Islamic Courts seize power this June.

Even before the events of 11 September 2001, the heads of state in the United States and Britain concentrated and consolidated executive power and tried to constrain judicial autonomy. Democracy in the West may now be more formal than real.

India has patiently and deliberately created and cultivated a diplomatic and economic relationship with the United States. Many in the new Indian elite regard the European Union, once a prospective partner, as in terminal decline.

The African National Congress is losing the support of its communist and trade union allies in South Africa after 12 years in power. The growth rate there is rising impressively but economic divisions within society are deep and rapidly worsening.

Local councils – Units of Popular Power – are being set up in the hope that their members, and the small groups they represent, will take responsibility for changing their lives.

The country is still beset by violence and a culture of lawlessness long after the end of its civil war. Yet the West backs Guatemala’s candidacy for a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Power in Poland has passed to the right, with Lech Kaczynski as president and his twin brother Jaroslaw as prime minister. They are economic ultraliberals and moral conservatives who have repressed the social movement and caused severe domestic problems.

The net is the perfect medium for counter-information, analysing available data on the 11 September attacks, challenging official findings on the events and exploiting conspiracy theories.

Although many Israelis cannot bear to confront at the cinema the harsh reality of their own and their neighbours’ lives, there is a new generation of directors from complicated and ambivalent backgrounds. They must be careful not to alienate their potential audiences.