New York, New York - The current popular challenges to the Western-sponsored Arab dictatorships are hardly a new occurrence in modern Arab history. We have seen such uprisings against European colonialism in the region since its advent in Algeria in 1830 and in Egypt in 1882. Revolts in Syria in the 1920s against French rule and especially in Palestine from 1936 to 1939 against British colonial rule and Zionist settler-colonialism were massive by global standards. Indeed the Palestinian Revolt would inspire others in the colonised world and would remain an inspiration to Arabs for the rest of the century and beyond. Anti-colonial resistance which also opposed the colonially-installed Arab regimes continued in Jordan, in Egypt, in Bahrain, Iraq, North and South Yemen, Oman, Morocco, and Sudan. The massive anti-colonial revolt in Algeria would finally bring about independence in 1962 from French settler colonialism. The liberation of Algeria meant that one of the two European settler-colonies in the Arab world was down, and only one remained: Palestine. On the territorial colonial front, much of the Arabian Gulf remained occupied by the British until the 1960s and early 1970s, and awaited liberation.   

After the 1967 War

Amidst the dominant melancholia that struck the Arab world following the 1967 defeat by Israel's simultaneous invasions of three Arab countries and the occupation of their territories and the entirety of Palestine, the Palestinian revolutionary guerrillas' challenge to Israel's colonial power at the Battle of Karamah in March 1968 brought renewed hope to tens of millions of Arabs and renewed concern for the Arab neo-colonial dictatorships (Arafat's much exaggerated role of his exploits during the battle notwithstanding). The Palestinian revolution was inspirational to many but it also coincided with revolutionary efforts not only around the Third World generally but also in Arab countries as well, which in turn, had inspired the Palestinians.

The best revolutionary anti-colonial news in the Arab world after the June 1967 defeat would come from the Arabian Peninsula. It was in November 1967 that the South Yemeni revolutionaries delivered an ignominious defeat to the British and liberated their country from the yoke of colonial Britain, which had ruled Aden since 1838. The South Yemenis would soon found the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, which would last for 22 years before its ultimate dissolution by North Yemen and its Saudi allies.

In neighbouring Oman, the on-going struggle to liberate the country entered a new stage of guerrilla warfare under the leadership of the People's Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG), which came together in September 1968 as a result of the unification of a number of Omani guerrilla groups fighting the British-supported Sultan Said bin Taymur. The PFLOAG had liberated territory in Dhofar from which it continued to launch its attacks to liberate the rest of the country. Indeed national liberation movements were active across the Gulf, and not least in Bahrain where an on-going national liberation struggle, a workers' movement, students and women's activism, all coalesced against British colonial rule and their local servants.

Repression

But the US-British-Saudi-Israeli alliance was determined to crush all the revolutionary groups that it could defeat and co-opt those that it could not crush. The effort started in the Gulf. Bahrain, which had been the hotbed of workers and anti-colonial unrest for decades, continued its struggle against British domination and the Bahraini ruling family allied with British colonialism. But as the British were forced out of South Yemen and the threat to their Omani client continued afoot, they transferred their military command to Bahrain, a step that was followed  by massive British capital investment in the country (as well as in Dubai). These developments expectedly brought more repression against the Bahraini people and their national liberation movement. Indeed, it was in this context that the Shah of Iran laid territorial claims to Bahrain and threatened to annex it to Iran as its "fourteenth province." His territorial ambitions would only be tempered by his Western allies and the United Nations in 1970, after which the Shah would give up on his claims in return for massive Iranian capital investment in the emerging small Arab states of the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates. The West thanked the Shah for his magnanimity and continued to reward him diplomatically and politically.

On the Jordanian front, King Hussein's army would reverse the Palestinian guerrillas' triumphs and defeat them in a massive onslaught in September 1970. The PLO guerrillas would finally be expelled from the country completely in July 1971. However, the PLO guerrillas continued to have a strong base in Lebanon from which they continued to operate against Israel and the Arab dictatorships.

In Sudan, the communist party continued to get stronger in the late 1960s, until the 1969 coup by Ja'far al-Numeiri, who initially could not fully marginalise the communists and waited until he strengthened his regime in 1971 to do so. An attempted coup against his authoritarian rule failed. In its wake, he rounded up thousands of communists and executed all the party's major leaders, destroying the largest communist party in the Arab world. The Numeiri dictatorship would continue until 1985 and soon the democratic struggle against him would fail bringing in the Saudi-supported candidate Omar al-Bashir who seized power in 1989 continuing in Numeiri's footsteps.

Only the PFLOAG kept advancing in the early seventies, which required a massive effort on the part of the US-British-Saudi-Israeli alliance to defeat it. The Shah of Iran and the Jordanian King were subcontracted for the effort. They dispatched military contingents to Oman, and, abetted by British advisors, were finally able to defeat the guerrillas and safeguard the throne for Sultan Qabus, the son of Sultan Said, who overthrew his father in a palace coup in 1970 organised by the British.  With the final defeat of the Omani revolutionaries in 1976, the PLO remained the only revolutionary group that survived the onslaught alongside a poor and weak South Yemen, which would finally be swallowed up by the Saudi-supported North Yemen in 1990.

Co-Optation

Saudi and other Gulf money poured into the coffers of the PLO to make sure that Palestinian revolutionism, which was partially crushed in Jordan, would never turn its guns against another Arab regime again. Indeed, Gulf money would transform the PLO into a liberation group that was funded by the most reactionary regimes in the Third World. Arafat's road to Oslo began after the 1973 war and the massive funding he would begin to receive from all oil-rich Arab dictatorships, from Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein and all the Gulf monarchies. It was this domestication of the PLO that impelled Arab regimes to recognise it in 1974 as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the main reason why they supported its recognition by the UN that same year. Indeed, Arafat's reactionary alliance with Arab dictators was such that some PLO intelligence apparatuses began to share intelligence on Arab dissidents with Arab dictators, including the PLO intelligence apparatus led by Abu Za'im who surrendered Saudi dissident Nasir Sa'id in December 1979 to Saudi intelligence based on the request of the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon. Said was never heard from again and is believed to have been killed by the Saudi authorities. On the diplomatic and solidarity front, while the Polisario front declared the independence of the Western Sahara in 1976, Arafat refused to recognise the state out of respect for his alliance with King Hassan II.

The New Uprisings

As the Palestinian revolutionary groups were the only ones not fully domesticated, as far as the US and other imperial powers were concerned, though they had become sufficiently domesticated from the perspective of the Arab regimes, the new challenge would come from the Palestinian people themselves who revolted in 1987 against their Israeli occupiers. It was this second Palestinian major revolt in half a century, which many now see as inspirational to the present uprisings across the Arab world, which had to be crushed. The Israelis tried their best to crush it but failed. The PLO took it over quickly lest a new Palestinian leadership supplant the PLO's own authority to represent the Palestinians. As the PLO took over the intifada, efforts were made by the Israelis and the Americans to finally co-opt the PLO and neutralise its potential as a spoiler of US and Israeli policy in the region. It was in this context that Oslo was signed and the PLO was fully transformed from a threat to Arab dictatorships, their US imperial sponsor, and the Israeli occupation, into an agent of all three, under the guise of the Palestinian Authority, which would help enforce the Israeli occupation in an unholy alliance with Gulf dictators and the United States. From then on, PLO/PA guns will only target the Palestinian people.

The US-British-Saudi-Israeli alliance in the region today is following the same strategies they followed in late 1960s and early 1970s and continuing the strategy they followed with the PLO in the early 1990s. They are crushing those uprisings they can crush and are co-opting those they cannot. The efforts to fully co-opt the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings have made great strides over the last few months, though they have not been successful in silencing or demobilising the populations. On the other side, Bahrain's uprising was the first to be crushed with the efforts to crush the Yemenis continuing afoot without respite. It was in Libya and in Syria where the axis fully hijacked the revolts and took them over completely. While Syrians, like Libyans before them, continue their valiant uprising against their brutal regime demanding democracy and social justice, their quest is already doomed unless they are able to dislodge the US-British-Saudi-Qatari axis that has fully taken over their struggle - which is very unlikely.

The Palestinians

This brings us to the Palestinian scene. The Palestinian uprising or intifada of 1987 was the first unarmed massive civilian revolt to take place in decades. It was in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union and the first US invasion of the Gulf that the United States decided to co-opt the Palestinian uprising by giving political and financial benefits to a PLO class of bureaucrats who would proceed to sell out the Palestinian struggle. Thus Arafat neutralised the uprising at Oslo in 1993 and went on to wine and dine with Israel's and America's leaders while his people remained under occupation.

But If the Palestinians were a source of concern to the Arab regimes after 1968 lest they help other Arabs revolt against their dictatorships, today, it is the Palestinian Authority (PA) that is worried that the Arab uprisings may influence West Bank Palestinians to revolt against the PA, which continues its intensive security collaboration with the Israeli occupation and its US sponsor. Indeed, while the Israelis failed in the late 1970s in their effort to create a political body of Palestinian collaborators through their infamous Village Leagues, the PA became, not the new "Urban Leagues" that many Palestinians dubbed it, but a veritable National League of collaborators serving the Israeli occupation. The PA's recent bid for statehood and recognition at the UN and at UNESCO is an attempt to resolve the current stasis of its non-existent "peace process" and the dogged negotiations with the Israelis before the Palestinians revolt against it, especially given the dwindling dividends to the beneficiaries of the Oslo arrangement. 

The PA indeed has two routes before it in the face of the collapse of the so-called "peace process": dissolve itself and cease to play the role of enforcer of the occupation; or continue to collaborate by entrenching itself further through recognition by international institutions to preserve its power and the benefits to its members. It has chosen the second option under the guise of supporting Palestinian national independence. How successful it is going to be in its entrenchment bid remains to be seen, though its success or failure will be calamitous for the Palestinian people who will not get any independence from Israeli settler colonialism as long as the PA is at the helm.

As I have argued before, the Israeli-PA-US disagreement is about the terms and territorial size of the disconnected Bantustans that the PA will be given and the nature and amount of repressive power and weapons its police force would have to use against the Palestinian people, while ascertaining that such weapons would never have a chance of being used against Israel.  If Israel shows some flexibility on those, then the disconnected Bantustans will be quickly recognised as a "sovereign Palestinian state" and not a single illegal Jewish colonial settler will have to give up the stolen lands of the Palestinians and return to Brooklyn, to name a common place of origin for many Jewish colonial settlers. It is this arrangement that the PA is trying to sell to Israel and the US. Without it, the PA is threatening that West Bankers may very well revolt against it, which would be bad for Israel and the US. So far, neither the US nor Israel is buying it.

The Struggle Continues

As for the larger Arab context, those who call what has unfolded in the last year in the Arab World as an Arab "awakening" are not only ignorant of the history of the last century, but also deploy Orientalist arguments in their depiction of Arabs as a quiescent people who put up with dictatorship for decades and are finally waking up from their torpor. Across the Arab world, Arabs have revolted against colonial and local tyranny every decade since World War I. It has been the European colonial powers and their American heir who have stood in their way every step of the way and allied themselves with local dictators and their families (and in many cases handpicking such dictators and putting them on the throne).

The US-European sponsorship of the on-going counterrevolutions across the Arab world today is a continuation of a time-honoured imperial tradition, but so is continued Arab resistance to imperialism and domestic tyranny. The uprisings that started in Tunisia in December 2010 continue afoot despite major setbacks to all of them. This is not to say that things have not changed and are not changing significantly, it is to say, however, that many of the changes are reversible and that the counterrevolution has already reversed a significant amount and is working hard to reverse more. Vigilance is mandatory on the part of those struggling for democratic change and social justice, especially in these times of upheaval and massive imperial mobilisation. Some of the battles may have been lost but the Arab peoples' war against imperialism and for democracy and social justice continues across the Arab world.

Joseph Massad is Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University. He is author of several books including: The Persistence of the Palestinian Question (Routledge, 2006) and Desiring Arabs (Chicago University Press, 2007), and Colonial Effects (Colomibia University Press, 2011).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

...تابع القراءة

New York, New York - The current popular challenges to the Western-sponsored Arab dictatorships are hardly a new occurrence in modern Arab history. We have seen such uprisings against European colonialism in the region since its advent in Algeria in 1830 and in Egypt in 1882. Revolts in Syria in the 1920s against French rule and especially in Palestine from 1936 to 1939 against British colonial rule and Zionist settler-colonialism were massive by global standards. Indeed the Palestinian Revolt would inspire others in the colonised world and would remain an inspiration to Arabs for the rest of the century and beyond. Anti-colonial resistance which also opposed the colonially-installed Arab regimes continued in Jordan, in Egypt, in Bahrain, Iraq, North and South Yemen, Oman, Morocco, and Sudan. The massive anti-colonial revolt in Algeria would finally bring about independence in 1962 from French settler colonialism. The liberation of Algeria meant that one of the two European settler-colonies in the Arab world was down, and only one remained: Palestine. On the territorial colonial front, much of the Arabian Gulf remained occupied by the British until the 1960s and early 1970s, and awaited liberation.   

After the 1967 War

Amidst the dominant melancholia that struck the Arab world following the 1967 defeat by Israel's simultaneous invasions of three Arab countries and the occupation of their territories and the entirety of Palestine, the Palestinian revolutionary guerrillas' challenge to Israel's colonial power at the Battle of Karamah in March 1968 brought renewed hope to tens of millions of Arabs and renewed concern for the Arab neo-colonial dictatorships (Arafat's much exaggerated role of his exploits during the battle notwithstanding). The Palestinian revolution was inspirational to many but it also coincided with revolutionary efforts not only around the Third World generally but also in Arab countries as well, which in turn, had inspired the Palestinians.

The best revolutionary anti-colonial news in the Arab world after the June 1967 defeat would come from the Arabian Peninsula. It was in November 1967 that the South Yemeni revolutionaries delivered an ignominious defeat to the British and liberated their country from the yoke of colonial Britain, which had ruled Aden since 1838. The South Yemenis would soon found the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, which would last for 22 years before its ultimate dissolution by North Yemen and its Saudi allies.

In neighbouring Oman, the on-going struggle to liberate the country entered a new stage of guerrilla warfare under the leadership of the People's Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG), which came together in September 1968 as a result of the unification of a number of Omani guerrilla groups fighting the British-supported Sultan Said bin Taymur. The PFLOAG had liberated territory in Dhofar from which it continued to launch its attacks to liberate the rest of the country. Indeed national liberation movements were active across the Gulf, and not least in Bahrain where an on-going national liberation struggle, a workers' movement, students and women's activism, all coalesced against British colonial rule and their local servants.

Repression

But the US-British-Saudi-Israeli alliance was determined to crush all the revolutionary groups that it could defeat and co-opt those that it could not crush. The effort started in the Gulf. Bahrain, which had been the hotbed of workers and anti-colonial unrest for decades, continued its struggle against British domination and the Bahraini ruling family allied with British colonialism. But as the British were forced out of South Yemen and the threat to their Omani client continued afoot, they transferred their military command to Bahrain, a step that was followed  by massive British capital investment in the country (as well as in Dubai). These developments expectedly brought more repression against the Bahraini people and their national liberation movement. Indeed, it was in this context that the Shah of Iran laid territorial claims to Bahrain and threatened to annex it to Iran as its "fourteenth province." His territorial ambitions would only be tempered by his Western allies and the United Nations in 1970, after which the Shah would give up on his claims in return for massive Iranian capital investment in the emerging small Arab states of the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates. The West thanked the Shah for his magnanimity and continued to reward him diplomatically and politically.

On the Jordanian front, King Hussein's army would reverse the Palestinian guerrillas' triumphs and defeat them in a massive onslaught in September 1970. The PLO guerrillas would finally be expelled from the country completely in July 1971. However, the PLO guerrillas continued to have a strong base in Lebanon from which they continued to operate against Israel and the Arab dictatorships.

In Sudan, the communist party continued to get stronger in the late 1960s, until the 1969 coup by Ja'far al-Numeiri, who initially could not fully marginalise the communists and waited until he strengthened his regime in 1971 to do so. An attempted coup against his authoritarian rule failed. In its wake, he rounded up thousands of communists and executed all the party's major leaders, destroying the largest communist party in the Arab world. The Numeiri dictatorship would continue until 1985 and soon the democratic struggle against him would fail bringing in the Saudi-supported candidate Omar al-Bashir who seized power in 1989 continuing in Numeiri's footsteps.

Only the PFLOAG kept advancing in the early seventies, which required a massive effort on the part of the US-British-Saudi-Israeli alliance to defeat it. The Shah of Iran and the Jordanian King were subcontracted for the effort. They dispatched military contingents to Oman, and, abetted by British advisors, were finally able to defeat the guerrillas and safeguard the throne for Sultan Qabus, the son of Sultan Said, who overthrew his father in a palace coup in 1970 organised by the British.  With the final defeat of the Omani revolutionaries in 1976, the PLO remained the only revolutionary group that survived the onslaught alongside a poor and weak South Yemen, which would finally be swallowed up by the Saudi-supported North Yemen in 1990.

Co-Optation

Saudi and other Gulf money poured into the coffers of the PLO to make sure that Palestinian revolutionism, which was partially crushed in Jordan, would never turn its guns against another Arab regime again. Indeed, Gulf money would transform the PLO into a liberation group that was funded by the most reactionary regimes in the Third World. Arafat's road to Oslo began after the 1973 war and the massive funding he would begin to receive from all oil-rich Arab dictatorships, from Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein and all the Gulf monarchies. It was this domestication of the PLO that impelled Arab regimes to recognise it in 1974 as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and the main reason why they supported its recognition by the UN that same year. Indeed, Arafat's reactionary alliance with Arab dictators was such that some PLO intelligence apparatuses began to share intelligence on Arab dissidents with Arab dictators, including the PLO intelligence apparatus led by Abu Za'im who surrendered Saudi dissident Nasir Sa'id in December 1979 to Saudi intelligence based on the request of the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon. Said was never heard from again and is believed to have been killed by the Saudi authorities. On the diplomatic and solidarity front, while the Polisario front declared the independence of the Western Sahara in 1976, Arafat refused to recognise the state out of respect for his alliance with King Hassan II.

The New Uprisings

As the Palestinian revolutionary groups were the only ones not fully domesticated, as far as the US and other imperial powers were concerned, though they had become sufficiently domesticated from the perspective of the Arab regimes, the new challenge would come from the Palestinian people themselves who revolted in 1987 against their Israeli occupiers. It was this second Palestinian major revolt in half a century, which many now see as inspirational to the present uprisings across the Arab world, which had to be crushed. The Israelis tried their best to crush it but failed. The PLO took it over quickly lest a new Palestinian leadership supplant the PLO's own authority to represent the Palestinians. As the PLO took over the intifada, efforts were made by the Israelis and the Americans to finally co-opt the PLO and neutralise its potential as a spoiler of US and Israeli policy in the region. It was in this context that Oslo was signed and the PLO was fully transformed from a threat to Arab dictatorships, their US imperial sponsor, and the Israeli occupation, into an agent of all three, under the guise of the Palestinian Authority, which would help enforce the Israeli occupation in an unholy alliance with Gulf dictators and the United States. From then on, PLO/PA guns will only target the Palestinian people.

The US-British-Saudi-Israeli alliance in the region today is following the same strategies they followed in late 1960s and early 1970s and continuing the strategy they followed with the PLO in the early 1990s. They are crushing those uprisings they can crush and are co-opting those they cannot. The efforts to fully co-opt the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings have made great strides over the last few months, though they have not been successful in silencing or demobilising the populations. On the other side, Bahrain's uprising was the first to be crushed with the efforts to crush the Yemenis continuing afoot without respite. It was in Libya and in Syria where the axis fully hijacked the revolts and took them over completely. While Syrians, like Libyans before them, continue their valiant uprising against their brutal regime demanding democracy and social justice, their quest is already doomed unless they are able to dislodge the US-British-Saudi-Qatari axis that has fully taken over their struggle - which is very unlikely.

The Palestinians

This brings us to the Palestinian scene. The Palestinian uprising or intifada of 1987 was the first unarmed massive civilian revolt to take place in decades. It was in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union and the first US invasion of the Gulf that the United States decided to co-opt the Palestinian uprising by giving political and financial benefits to a PLO class of bureaucrats who would proceed to sell out the Palestinian struggle. Thus Arafat neutralised the uprising at Oslo in 1993 and went on to wine and dine with Israel's and America's leaders while his people remained under occupation.

But If the Palestinians were a source of concern to the Arab regimes after 1968 lest they help other Arabs revolt against their dictatorships, today, it is the Palestinian Authority (PA) that is worried that the Arab uprisings may influence West Bank Palestinians to revolt against the PA, which continues its intensive security collaboration with the Israeli occupation and its US sponsor. Indeed, while the Israelis failed in the late 1970s in their effort to create a political body of Palestinian collaborators through their infamous Village Leagues, the PA became, not the new "Urban Leagues" that many Palestinians dubbed it, but a veritable National League of collaborators serving the Israeli occupation. The PA's recent bid for statehood and recognition at the UN and at UNESCO is an attempt to resolve the current stasis of its non-existent "peace process" and the dogged negotiations with the Israelis before the Palestinians revolt against it, especially given the dwindling dividends to the beneficiaries of the Oslo arrangement. 

The PA indeed has two routes before it in the face of the collapse of the so-called "peace process": dissolve itself and cease to play the role of enforcer of the occupation; or continue to collaborate by entrenching itself further through recognition by international institutions to preserve its power and the benefits to its members. It has chosen the second option under the guise of supporting Palestinian national independence. How successful it is going to be in its entrenchment bid remains to be seen, though its success or failure will be calamitous for the Palestinian people who will not get any independence from Israeli settler colonialism as long as the PA is at the helm.

As I have argued before, the Israeli-PA-US disagreement is about the terms and territorial size of the disconnected Bantustans that the PA will be given and the nature and amount of repressive power and weapons its police force would have to use against the Palestinian people, while ascertaining that such weapons would never have a chance of being used against Israel.  If Israel shows some flexibility on those, then the disconnected Bantustans will be quickly recognised as a "sovereign Palestinian state" and not a single illegal Jewish colonial settler will have to give up the stolen lands of the Palestinians and return to Brooklyn, to name a common place of origin for many Jewish colonial settlers. It is this arrangement that the PA is trying to sell to Israel and the US. Without it, the PA is threatening that West Bankers may very well revolt against it, which would be bad for Israel and the US. So far, neither the US nor Israel is buying it.

The Struggle Continues

As for the larger Arab context, those who call what has unfolded in the last year in the Arab World as an Arab "awakening" are not only ignorant of the history of the last century, but also deploy Orientalist arguments in their depiction of Arabs as a quiescent people who put up with dictatorship for decades and are finally waking up from their torpor. Across the Arab world, Arabs have revolted against colonial and local tyranny every decade since World War I. It has been the European colonial powers and their American heir who have stood in their way every step of the way and allied themselves with local dictators and their families (and in many cases handpicking such dictators and putting them on the throne).

The US-European sponsorship of the on-going counterrevolutions across the Arab world today is a continuation of a time-honoured imperial tradition, but so is continued Arab resistance to imperialism and domestic tyranny. The uprisings that started in Tunisia in December 2010 continue afoot despite major setbacks to all of them. This is not to say that things have not changed and are not changing significantly, it is to say, however, that many of the changes are reversible and that the counterrevolution has already reversed a significant amount and is working hard to reverse more. Vigilance is mandatory on the part of those struggling for democratic change and social justice, especially in these times of upheaval and massive imperial mobilisation. Some of the battles may have been lost but the Arab peoples' war against imperialism and for democracy and social justice continues across the Arab world.

Joseph Massad is Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University. He is author of several books including: The Persistence of the Palestinian Question (Routledge, 2006) and Desiring Arabs (Chicago University Press, 2007), and Colonial Effects (Colomibia University Press, 2011).

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

...تابع القراءة

Government monitors have reached seven camps spread across Nepal to begin asking 19,000 former fighters whether they will join the army or leave with cash to start new lives, five years after ending their armed operations to join a peace process.

Balananda Sharma, the chief monitor, said on Friday that the long-stalled process will start on Saturday.

Maoists wanted all their former fighters integrated into the army, which military leaders and other political parties resisted.

Nepal's main political parties finally reached agreement on a deal this month.

Since ending their bloody revolt in 2006, the former Maoist fighters have lived in huts in the camps surrounded by barbed wire.

The UN supervised the fighters, whose weapons stayed locked in metal containers inside the camps.

Some fighters married and have children living with them, though child soldiers left the camps last year.

Decisions on who will enter the army and who will leave the camps are expected to be finished within 10 days.

The agreement allows for 6,500 former fighters to be taken in the national army in non-combat roles. The rest will get a rehabilitation package with up to $11,500.

After the UN peace mission left Nepal in January, the fighters were closely monitored by a special government committee.

The agreement on the fighters' future now puts pressure on the coalition government to overcome political paralysis and finish a constitution that will determine how Nepal develops after years of civil war and upheaval.

...تابع القراءة

Government monitors have reached seven camps spread across Nepal to begin asking 19,000 former fighters whether they will join the army or leave with cash to start new lives, five years after ending their armed operations to join a peace process.

Balananda Sharma, the chief monitor, said on Friday that the long-stalled process will start on Saturday.

Maoists wanted all their former fighters integrated into the army, which military leaders and other political parties resisted.

Nepal's main political parties finally reached agreement on a deal this month.

Since ending their bloody revolt in 2006, the former Maoist fighters have lived in huts in the camps surrounded by barbed wire.

The UN supervised the fighters, whose weapons stayed locked in metal containers inside the camps.

Some fighters married and have children living with them, though child soldiers left the camps last year.

Decisions on who will enter the army and who will leave the camps are expected to be finished within 10 days.

The agreement allows for 6,500 former fighters to be taken in the national army in non-combat roles. The rest will get a rehabilitation package with up to $11,500.

After the UN peace mission left Nepal in January, the fighters were closely monitored by a special government committee.

The agreement on the fighters' future now puts pressure on the coalition government to overcome political paralysis and finish a constitution that will determine how Nepal develops after years of civil war and upheaval.

...تابع القراءة

Barack Obama has held previously unscheduled talks with China's premier, Wen Jiabao, after a week of sharp exchanges between the two nations.

Obama and Wen met on Saturday on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, following public quarrels over currency, trade and a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

The meeting came after spats between Beijing and Washington over trade, currency and territorial rights in the South China Sea.

A White House official said president Obama discussed the value of China's currency as well America's
interests in the South China Sea.

"The principal focus of the meeting was on economics," Tom Donilon, Obama's top national security adviser, had told reporters.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, Donilon, joined Obama for the talks, an AFP photographer present at the start of the meeting saw.

Obama announced on Friday the "transfer" of 24 used F-16 fighter jets to Indonesia to bolster its poor air defence.

The aircraft will be updated with advanced computers, improved radar and avionics, and the capability to carry and field more advanced weaponry and sensors, the US defence department said.

Ties with Australia

In Australia on Thursday, Obama said the US was switching focus to Asia and the Pacific as he announced an increase in US military presence in the region.

"We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace," he said.

Obama also said he stood for an international order in which "commerce and freedom of navigation are not impeded", in an apparent reference to China and its dispute with Taiwan and four ASEAN countries over the South China Sea.

China lays an all-encompassing claim to the sea and other claimants have complained it has grown more assertive by harassing ships travelling in the area.

Wen said in Bali on Friday that "outside powers" should not meddle in the dispute "under any pretext", in a veiled warning to the US.

"The disputes over the South China Sea between the relevant countries in the region have existed for many years," he said.

"They should be settled through friendly consultation and negotiation between the sovereign states directly concerned."

The US insists it is not taking sides in the dispute, but said it has a national interest in the area as a Pacific nation.

'Premiere arena'

China has said it is opposed to a discussion on the maritime disputes at the summit, but Obama said on Friday the gathering was "the premiere arena" to discuss issues such as maritime security.

"The East Asian leaders' meetings are occasions for regional economic co-operation, not a tribunal for quarrels over complex security or maritime issues," an opinion piece in China's official Xinhua news agency said.

"However, certain countries are complicating the issues by attempting to bring them to the meetings.

"And disappointingly ... Clinton signed a declaration with her Philippines counterpart on Wednesday to call for multilateral talks to resolve maritime disputes, such as those over the South China Sea."

The East Asia summit was expected to result in a document to be called the Bali Principles, which calls for countries to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states, renounce the use of force and settle disputes through peaceful means, officials said.

...تابع القراءة

David Cameron, the British prime minister, has said that he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have agreed on the need for "decisive action" to resolve the eurozone debt crisis, following talks in Berlin.

Merkel and Cameron downplayed differences between Germany, the eurozone's biggest economy, and non-eurozone member Britain, in a news conference after Friday's discussions.

Cameron said the two leaders agreed that "we need to take decisive action to help stabilize the eurozone". He acknowledged that the two countries have differences but said that they can "deal with" them.

Merkel highlighted the two countries' common interest in getting public finances in order and ensuring that a European Union budget increase is kept in check.

But there was no sign of progress on differences over Germany's wish for a financial transaction tax in Europe.

Merkel and Cameron have clashed recently on the way forward for Europe as it suffers what the chancellor has called perhaps its most difficult hour since World War II.

While Merkel sees "more Europe" as the solution, with member states agreeing to cede more sovereignty on issues such as fiscal policy, Cameron has taken a hard Euro-sceptic line of late in response to domestic pressure.

The opposing views were threatening to put the two camps on a collision course ahead of a December 9 EU summit to hammer out changes to the fiscal rule book for the 27-member bloc.

Euro tension

Berlin has accused London of being selfish about Europe as the UK are against an idea of a financial transactions tax, described by one UK minister as a "tax on Britain".

Cameron restated his opposition to a Franco-German proposal for the so-called Tobin tax on financial transactions,
which Britain believes would have a withering effect on its financial sector.

The idea, also backed by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, has caused alarm in the UK amid concerns that the US, China and other major economies may not come on board, and the City of London would be seriously damaged if the tax is only applied across Europe.

Prior to the talks in Berlin, The Financial Times reported that Cameron would be prepared to back Merkel's plans to strengthen economic union in the eurozone, on condition he wins safeguards to protect the UK from any European legislation.

In the wake over the eurozone crisis, Merkel is prescribing altering the EU treaty to impose German-style budget discipline, preferably on all 27 members of the EU, rather than just the 17 countries in the eurozone.

Peter Altmaier, chief whip of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, told the Reuters news agency that "plans for a possible treaty change are now at a very interesting point and we expect to exchange views with our British partners".

'Big bazooka'

However, treaty change talk seems to irritate Cameron's conservative-led coalition for two reasons: it falls far short
of the "big bazooka" response he urges; and it touches a raw nerve about ceding more sovereignty to the European Commission in Brussels.

Britain is already worried that Germany's proposals for a tax on financial transactions - which it still wants introduced in Europe despite rejection by the Group of 20 leading economies would hurt London's competitiveness as a financial hub.

This prompted Merkel's parliamentary leader, Volker Kauder, to tell the CDU at a conference in Leipzig that Germany would not accept Britain "only defending its own interests" and especially those of the City of London's financiers.

Speaking earlier this week, Merkel said the EU needed more powers to ensure budget discipline among member states and Germany was willing to give up sovereignty in some areas to facilitate this.

In contrast, Cameron is pushing for the UK to take powers back from Brussels in pursuit of what he says is his goal of a more flexible and diverse Europe.

In the event of eurozone members moving closer together, the UK has said it wants safeguards that those outside the single currency area will not be disadvantaged in terms of access to the single market and regulations on key sectors like finance.

...تابع القراءة

David Cameron, the British prime minister, has said that he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have agreed on the need for "decisive action" to resolve the eurozone debt crisis, following talks in Berlin.

Merkel and Cameron downplayed differences between Germany, the eurozone's biggest economy, and non-eurozone member Britain, in a news conference after Friday's discussions.

Cameron said the two leaders agreed that "we need to take decisive action to help stabilize the eurozone". He acknowledged that the two countries have differences but said that they can "deal with" them.

Merkel highlighted the two countries' common interest in getting public finances in order and ensuring that a European Union budget increase is kept in check.

But there was no sign of progress on differences over Germany's wish for a financial transaction tax in Europe.

Merkel and Cameron have clashed recently on the way forward for Europe as it suffers what the chancellor has called perhaps its most difficult hour since World War II.

While Merkel sees "more Europe" as the solution, with member states agreeing to cede more sovereignty on issues such as fiscal policy, Cameron has taken a hard Euro-sceptic line of late in response to domestic pressure.

The opposing views were threatening to put the two camps on a collision course ahead of a December 9 EU summit to hammer out changes to the fiscal rule book for the 27-member bloc.

Euro tension

Berlin has accused London of being selfish about Europe as the UK are against an idea of a financial transactions tax, described by one UK minister as a "tax on Britain".

Cameron restated his opposition to a Franco-German proposal for the so-called Tobin tax on financial transactions,
which Britain believes would have a withering effect on its financial sector.

The idea, also backed by France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, has caused alarm in the UK amid concerns that the US, China and other major economies may not come on board, and the City of London would be seriously damaged if the tax is only applied across Europe.

Prior to the talks in Berlin, The Financial Times reported that Cameron would be prepared to back Merkel's plans to strengthen economic union in the eurozone, on condition he wins safeguards to protect the UK from any European legislation.

In the wake over the eurozone crisis, Merkel is prescribing altering the EU treaty to impose German-style budget discipline, preferably on all 27 members of the EU, rather than just the 17 countries in the eurozone.

Peter Altmaier, chief whip of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, told the Reuters news agency that "plans for a possible treaty change are now at a very interesting point and we expect to exchange views with our British partners".

'Big bazooka'

However, treaty change talk seems to irritate Cameron's conservative-led coalition for two reasons: it falls far short
of the "big bazooka" response he urges; and it touches a raw nerve about ceding more sovereignty to the European Commission in Brussels.

Britain is already worried that Germany's proposals for a tax on financial transactions - which it still wants introduced in Europe despite rejection by the Group of 20 leading economies would hurt London's competitiveness as a financial hub.

This prompted Merkel's parliamentary leader, Volker Kauder, to tell the CDU at a conference in Leipzig that Germany would not accept Britain "only defending its own interests" and especially those of the City of London's financiers.

Speaking earlier this week, Merkel said the EU needed more powers to ensure budget discipline among member states and Germany was willing to give up sovereignty in some areas to facilitate this.

In contrast, Cameron is pushing for the UK to take powers back from Brussels in pursuit of what he says is his goal of a more flexible and diverse Europe.

In the event of eurozone members moving closer together, the UK has said it wants safeguards that those outside the single currency area will not be disadvantaged in terms of access to the single market and regulations on key sectors like finance.

...تابع القراءة

Barack Obama has held previously unscheduled talks with China's premier, Wen Jiabao, after a week of sharp exchanges between the two nations.

Obama and Wen met on Saturday on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, following public quarrels over currency, trade and a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

The meeting came after spats between Beijing and Washington over trade, currency and territorial rights in the South China Sea.

A White House official said president Obama discussed the value of China's currency as well America's
interests in the South China Sea.

"The principal focus of the meeting was on economics," Tom Donilon, Obama's top national security adviser, had told reporters.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, Donilon, joined Obama for the talks, an AFP photographer present at the start of the meeting saw.

Obama announced on Friday the "transfer" of 24 used F-16 fighter jets to Indonesia to bolster its poor air defence.

The aircraft will be updated with advanced computers, improved radar and avionics, and the capability to carry and field more advanced weaponry and sensors, the US defence department said.

Ties with Australia

In Australia on Thursday, Obama said the US was switching focus to Asia and the Pacific as he announced an increase in US military presence in the region.

"We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace," he said.

Obama also said he stood for an international order in which "commerce and freedom of navigation are not impeded", in an apparent reference to China and its dispute with Taiwan and four ASEAN countries over the South China Sea.

China lays an all-encompassing claim to the sea and other claimants have complained it has grown more assertive by harassing ships travelling in the area.

Wen said in Bali on Friday that "outside powers" should not meddle in the dispute "under any pretext", in a veiled warning to the US.

"The disputes over the South China Sea between the relevant countries in the region have existed for many years," he said.

"They should be settled through friendly consultation and negotiation between the sovereign states directly concerned."

The US insists it is not taking sides in the dispute, but said it has a national interest in the area as a Pacific nation.

'Premiere arena'

China has said it is opposed to a discussion on the maritime disputes at the summit, but Obama said on Friday the gathering was "the premiere arena" to discuss issues such as maritime security.

"The East Asian leaders' meetings are occasions for regional economic co-operation, not a tribunal for quarrels over complex security or maritime issues," an opinion piece in China's official Xinhua news agency said.

"However, certain countries are complicating the issues by attempting to bring them to the meetings.

"And disappointingly ... Clinton signed a declaration with her Philippines counterpart on Wednesday to call for multilateral talks to resolve maritime disputes, such as those over the South China Sea."

The East Asia summit was expected to result in a document to be called the Bali Principles, which calls for countries to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states, renounce the use of force and settle disputes through peaceful means, officials said.

...تابع القراءة

Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party and its two coalition partners have reached agreement in principle to share the top three government posts between them, senior sources from two coalition parties told Reuters news agency.

Under the deal, the most powerful post of prime minister will go to Hamadi Jbeli, secretary-general of the Islamist Ennahda party which won last month's election, sources said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Moncef Marzouki, leader of the secularist Congress for the Republic, a junior coalition partner, is to be named Tunisian president, and Mustafa Ben Jaafar, leader of third coalition partner Ettakatol, will be speaker of the constitutional assembly, the sources said.

The three parties have "an agreement in principle but it is not official yet," said one of the sources. The other source said an announcement would be made in the next few days.

Tunisia became the birth-place of the "Arab Spring" uprisings earlier this year after vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in an act of protest that swelled into a revolution and ousted the president.

In its first democratic election last month, Tunisia handed victory to the moderate Ennahda party, the first time Islamists had won power in the Arab world since the Hamas faction won an election in the Palestinian Territories in 2006.

Tunisia's transition to democracy is being watched closely by Egypt and Libya, where "Arab Spring" revolts pushed out entrenched leaders and where once-outlawed Islamists are also challenging for power.

Ghannouchi's pledge

Last month's election was for an assembly which will sit for a year to draft a new constitution.

Once that is done, it will be dissolved and new elections will be called for a legislature and possibly a president, depending on what new system of government the assembly chooses.

In depth coverage of first Arab Spring vote

There is no formal role for Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi. Some observers say he may have his eye on the president's job when new elections come around.

Ennahda emerged from last month's election as the biggest party but short of a majority in the assembly, forcing it to form a coalition.

Ennahda coming to power has worried many Tunisian secularists who believe their liberal lifestyles are under threat.

Ghannouchi has offered assurances that he will not impose a Muslim moral code, that he will respect women's rights and not ban the sale of alcohol or try to stop women wearing bikinis on the country's Mediterranean beaches.

Some secularists said Ennahda's hidden agenda had been unmasked this week when footage emerged of Jbeli at a meeting with supporters invoking an Islamic state.

But Ennahda said their opponents were deliberately distorting Jbeli's words.

...تابع القراءة

Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda party and its two coalition partners have reached agreement in principle to share the top three government posts between them, senior sources from two coalition parties told Reuters news agency.

Under the deal, the most powerful post of prime minister will go to Hamadi Jbeli, secretary-general of the Islamist Ennahda party which won last month's election, sources said on Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Moncef Marzouki, leader of the secularist Congress for the Republic, a junior coalition partner, is to be named Tunisian president, and Mustafa Ben Jaafar, leader of third coalition partner Ettakatol, will be speaker of the constitutional assembly, the sources said.

The three parties have "an agreement in principle but it is not official yet," said one of the sources. The other source said an announcement would be made in the next few days.

Tunisia became the birth-place of the "Arab Spring" uprisings earlier this year after vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in an act of protest that swelled into a revolution and ousted the president.

In its first democratic election last month, Tunisia handed victory to the moderate Ennahda party, the first time Islamists had won power in the Arab world since the Hamas faction won an election in the Palestinian Territories in 2006.

Tunisia's transition to democracy is being watched closely by Egypt and Libya, where "Arab Spring" revolts pushed out entrenched leaders and where once-outlawed Islamists are also challenging for power.

Ghannouchi's pledge

Last month's election was for an assembly which will sit for a year to draft a new constitution.

Once that is done, it will be dissolved and new elections will be called for a legislature and possibly a president, depending on what new system of government the assembly chooses.

In depth coverage of first Arab Spring vote

There is no formal role for Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi. Some observers say he may have his eye on the president's job when new elections come around.

Ennahda emerged from last month's election as the biggest party but short of a majority in the assembly, forcing it to form a coalition.

Ennahda coming to power has worried many Tunisian secularists who believe their liberal lifestyles are under threat.

Ghannouchi has offered assurances that he will not impose a Muslim moral code, that he will respect women's rights and not ban the sale of alcohol or try to stop women wearing bikinis on the country's Mediterranean beaches.

Some secularists said Ennahda's hidden agenda had been unmasked this week when footage emerged of Jbeli at a meeting with supporters invoking an Islamic state.

But Ennahda said their opponents were deliberately distorting Jbeli's words.

...تابع القراءة

The former Philippine president, G

loria Macapagal Arroyo, has had her photographs and fingerprints taken in a hospital room in Manila, following her arrest on electoral-fraud charges.

Police Senior Superintendent Jose Coronel said Arroyo was wearing a neck brace and hospital gown when her mugshots were taken on Saturday inside her room at the St Luke's Medical Center in Taguig City in Manila.

"Some intravenous fluids were also being administered to her," he said. "The fingerprints and pictures are now with our technicians for processing."

Lawyers of the Arroyo family appealed to the media not to publish the mugshots to avoid further humiliation for the 64-year-old former president.

About 30 police officers were deployed at the entrances and exits of the hospital since Friday evening when the arrest warrant was served to Arroyo. Two officers were also assigned to guard her room at the private hospital.

The Philippine supreme court upheld on Friday Arroryo's right to travel but a lower court later accepted the formal charges against her. The government rushed the case in court, saying she could be trying to evade justice.

Wrongdoing denied

Seventeen months after stepping down, Arroyo has become the second former Philippine president to face trial.

She denies wrongdoing and accuses the authorities of preventing her from seeking overseas medical treatment for a bone ailment.

Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas reports from Manila on the legal drama surrounding ex-president Arroyo's arrest

Her lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio, said the government had filed fabricated charges with "indecent haste".

He said he would start filing appeals when courts reopen on Monday.

Arroyo has been recovering in a hospital since her failed attempt to leave the country on Tuesday.

Arroyo ruled the Philippines for more than nine years until last year, when she won a seat in the lower house of parliament.

The charges arise from allegations that she conspired with officials to tamper with results of 2007 congressional polls to favour her candidates.

She was accused of having direct knowledge of massive cheating in an autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines, the country's poorest region.

An investigation this year by the Senate Electoral Tribunal found that an Arroyo ally, Miguel Zubiri, benefited from fake ballots. He resigned his senate seat in favour of an opposition candidate.

Repeated setbacks

Benigno Aquino, the current Philippine president, won a landslide presidential election on an anti-corruption platform and has pledged to bring Arroyo to justice, but has faced repeated setbacks to his campaign.

In one of the most prominent blows, the supreme court ruled in December last year that a "truth commission" that Aquino set up specifically to investigate Arroyo was unconstitutional.

If Arroyo is found guilty she could face a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.

Politics in the Philippines is notorious for corruption, vote-rigging and long-running bitter rivalries between clans and families.

Arroyo, herself the daughter of a former president, has been surrounded by corruption allegations for years, and survived several attempts to have her impeached while in office.

Her predecessor Joseph Estrada, was jailed for corruption, and another former leader, Ferdinand Marcos, amassed a vast fortune by embezzling public money.

...تابع القراءة

The former Philippine president, G

loria Macapagal Arroyo, has had her photographs and fingerprints taken in a hospital room in Manila, following her arrest on electoral-fraud charges.

Police Senior Superintendent Jose Coronel said Arroyo was wearing a neck brace and hospital gown when her mugshots were taken on Saturday inside her room at the St Luke's Medical Center in Taguig City in Manila.

"Some intravenous fluids were also being administered to her," he said. "The fingerprints and pictures are now with our technicians for processing."

Lawyers of the Arroyo family appealed to the media not to publish the mugshots to avoid further humiliation for the 64-year-old former president.

About 30 police officers were deployed at the entrances and exits of the hospital since Friday evening when the arrest warrant was served to Arroyo. Two officers were also assigned to guard her room at the private hospital.

The Philippine supreme court upheld on Friday Arroryo's right to travel but a lower court later accepted the formal charges against her. The government rushed the case in court, saying she could be trying to evade justice.

Wrongdoing denied

Seventeen months after stepping down, Arroyo has become the second former Philippine president to face trial.

She denies wrongdoing and accuses the authorities of preventing her from seeking overseas medical treatment for a bone ailment.

Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas reports from Manila on the legal drama surrounding ex-president Arroyo's arrest

Her lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio, said the government had filed fabricated charges with "indecent haste".

He said he would start filing appeals when courts reopen on Monday.

Arroyo has been recovering in a hospital since her failed attempt to leave the country on Tuesday.

Arroyo ruled the Philippines for more than nine years until last year, when she won a seat in the lower house of parliament.

The charges arise from allegations that she conspired with officials to tamper with results of 2007 congressional polls to favour her candidates.

She was accused of having direct knowledge of massive cheating in an autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines, the country's poorest region.

An investigation this year by the Senate Electoral Tribunal found that an Arroyo ally, Miguel Zubiri, benefited from fake ballots. He resigned his senate seat in favour of an opposition candidate.

Repeated setbacks

Benigno Aquino, the current Philippine president, won a landslide presidential election on an anti-corruption platform and has pledged to bring Arroyo to justice, but has faced repeated setbacks to his campaign.

In one of the most prominent blows, the supreme court ruled in December last year that a "truth commission" that Aquino set up specifically to investigate Arroyo was unconstitutional.

If Arroyo is found guilty she could face a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.

Politics in the Philippines is notorious for corruption, vote-rigging and long-running bitter rivalries between clans and families.

Arroyo, herself the daughter of a former president, has been surrounded by corruption allegations for years, and survived several attempts to have her impeached while in office.

Her predecessor Joseph Estrada, was jailed for corruption, and another former leader, Ferdinand Marcos, amassed a vast fortune by embezzling public money.

...تابع القراءة

Media reports are quoting Libyan sources as saying that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been arrested near Obari in southern Libya. More news will follow ...



...تابع القراءة

Media reports are quoting Libyan sources as saying that Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has been arrested near Obari in southern Libya. More news will follow ...



...تابع القراءة