Zimbabwe's Matabele minority has suffered at the hands of President Robert Mugabe's Shona-dominated Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party for as long as Zimbabwe has been independent. So it is no surprise that they, even more than their oppressed countrymen to the north, withstood threats, beatings, and murders and last March cast their ballots for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Tragically, the ZANU-PF bludgeoned and rigged their way to reelection nonetheless, as African leaders throughout the continent cheered. And Mugabe is now taking his revenge in maize. His catastrophic decision to cleanse the country's farms of their white owners has forced the country--once southern Africa's breadbasket--to import food from the world's charities. And Mugabe is making sure little of it enters the south. The government has only permitted half a million tons of maize into Zimbabwe, all of it distributed through the state-operated Grain Marketing Board, one of whose managers told The Times of London, "We only sell to Shona-speakers." Reports of desperate hunger have been trickling out of Matabeleland for months. And Didymus Mutasa, ZANU-PF's administrative secretary and senior bureaucrat, recently admitted that whittling down Zimbabwe's population from its current twelve million is his government's explicit plan. "We would be better off," he said, "with only six million people ... who support the liberation struggle. ... We don't want all these extra people."

... representatives from Hadash-Ta'al and Balad disagreed on the proper response if the Court upholds the CEC decision. Balad members said that the entire Arab public should threaten to boycott the elections if the disqualifications are allowed to stand, while Hadash-Ta'al members called for Arabs to vote in any case.

"The Arabs have a lot of trouble with their women. In the Arab sector the status of women is higher than the status of men. We can work together to stop this trend," he says, excitedly.

We are habituated to thinking of violence and subjugation as the sole products of conquest, forgetting that the vanquishers can also bring splendors of luxury, learning and even progress. Originally a nomadic people, the Mongols in the 13th century established - both through destruction and enlightened openness - the largest land empire in history, stretching from Hungary to Korea and down to present-day Iran and Iraq. Doubtless they were a fearsome and warlike people, yet "The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353," on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until February 16, is devoted to the gentler and more constructive faces of Mongol domination.

Indeed, many of the objects included bear the marks of cross-cultural influence. In a Central Asian textile of woven gold thread on silk, winged lions and griffins are paired - a common Iranian motif - while the cloudlike pattern on the lions' wings and the floral design of the background have a Chinese or East Asian origin.

The inescapable irony attached to this show at this moment is that today the lands once ruled by the Mongols are a mosaic of self-determining nations with considerably less tolerance, respect for history or good-natured love of decorative opulence than they experienced some 800 years ago.

The source said that Rear Admiral Bainimarama's resume also stated that former President Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara had resigned during the upheaval in May 2000 however facts state that he was requested to resign by the military headed by Rear Admiral Bainimarama.

In theory, Sharon can form his government given the current state of affairs. In practice, he only has enough votes to block the opposition. To put it mildly, Sharon does not want to be held captive by Avidgor Lieberman, the head of the National Union (seven seats) or the National Religious Party's Effi Eitam (six seats). If that were the case, he would desperately need the Labor Party to save him, once again, from the far right. In this position, Mitzna has enormous power...

[Bishara and Tibi] will have to bury the homes of Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein and Likud MK Yisrael Katz in flowers. They have turned Bishara from a controversial politician in the Arab street to a popular personality in the villages of the Galilee and the Triangle. Until Tibi was banned by the CEC, his new colleagues in Hadash were claiming that parachuting him onto their list would lose them at least half a seat. After Tibi was banned by the right-wing majority on the CEC, Tagadir Shavita, who was pushed down to the fifth slot on the Hadash list, is being told she can order a new dress for the Knesset.

To assess the ramifications of the decision to ban Bishara and Tibi on the level of interest Arabs have in the elections, one must await the court's decision. If the justices side with the two Arab MKs, they will reinforce Israeli Arab faith in the democratic system, which could mean a sharp increase in the number of voters and preservation of the Arab representation in the Knesset. On the other hand, if the court gives its kashrut stamp to the CEC's political decision to ban the two MKs, it would provide confirmation of the Arabs claim that echoed through the Or Commission's hearings: that Israeli society does not want Israeli Arabs as equal citizens. The result would be a new record for Arab apathy.

The banning of Bishara and Tibi will not send Balad and Hadash voters into the arms of other parties, whether Arab or Jewish. It will lead to a full-scale boycott of the elections, with a stigma firmly attached to any Arab who does go to vote on January 28.

I am just noticing that you never post about the subject of Arab terrorism, and frankly don't seem to care. This blog has been running for about a month and the one time you have even mentioned a terrorist incident it was in a throwaway line of a long post in support of Azmi Bishara...

It didn't happen in a vacuum. Malawi faces widespread starvation and a severe AIDS epidemic, as well as an uproar over efforts by the country's first and only democratically elected president, Bakili Muluzi, to override a two-term limit and remain in office after 2004.

"Vampires say a lot about our fears and hopes," said Nina Auerbach, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "Our Vampires, Ourselves."

For millennia, the storied undead that emerge from the grave to suck the lifeblood of the living have embodied power "and our fears of power," Ms. Auerbach said. "They can be whatever you want." They are immortal. And unlike ghosts, they are robustly corporeal.

Another scholar, David J. Skal, author of "The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror," has said that a fixation on demons often accompanies periods of national stress. "In times of social upheaval, the vampire asserts itself," he said.

President Muluzi, in debunking the vampire rumors, may have inadvertently encouraged them when he said, "No government can go about sucking the blood of its own people."

The denial rang false, Ms. Auerbach said, because, "Governments have always sucked the blood of their people."

The Egyptian president's political adviser has criticized Arab writers for attacking Israel, saying many use the same "racist" allegations resorted to by Adolf Hitler's Nazis to discriminate against Jews.

In a series of articles published last week in Egypt's semiofficial Al - Ahram newspaper, Osama el - Baz criticized the anti - Jewish sentiment being expressed in the Arab world and urged Egyptians not to be blinded by racist views.

"Our prejudices have turned us blind so we are not able to differentiate between good Israelis and bad Israelis," he said in one of his articles.

[...]

"Arabs and Jews belong to the same ancestry of (the biblical prophet) Abraham," el - Baz wrote. "Jews are descendants of Abraham's son Isaac, while the Arabs are descended from Isaac's half brother, Ishmael. For this reason, Arabs can't hate their blood relatives."

Yediot Ahronot’s Nahum Barne’a reports of a rather amusing creative Jordanian idea. According to Barne’a both Israel and Jordan are uneasy with a thought of a democratic post-Saddam Iraq. The two countries fear that the Iraq’s majority, the Shiite Muslims, will be in control and till now Shiite states (Iran) were not such a huge success. Thus Israel and Jordan would like to see a Sunni general rules Iraq.

Anyway Barne’a writes that recently an American Delegation came to Jordan to discuss the Iraq subject with the Jordanians. In a meeting with the Americans one of Jordan’s King Abdullah advisers came with a brilliant idea. “What do you say about Former Avodah leader, Binyamin “Fuad” Ben Eliezer? He was born in Baghdad, he is a general, he is totally not Shiite and he is available”.

Another very strange aspect of the affair is how exceptional it is. We are not used to seeing the attorney general seeking bans on candidates and parties. The extraordinary request is evidence of the ideological position that Rubinstein represents. In a number of essays that have appeared in the academic press, Rubinstein expressed vehement opposition to a "state of all its citizens" - the ideological and political stand that Bishara and his party represent. It therefore seems that what lies behind Rubinstein's moves is a political and ideological platform that seeks to preserve at all costs "the Jewish state." Rubinstein hides behind the "the public interest" and a veil of objective legalism, but this is merely a smoke screen meant to conceal his true intentions... Rubinstein's moves... are evidence of a tendentious effort to silence the leadership of the Arab minority and to reduce Israel's democratic space while expanding its Jewish space. There is no doubt that if successful, Rubinstein's move will have ramifications for the voting patterns of the Arab minority, because of its increasing sense that it lacks any political influence in the country.

Knesset members from Ta'al (Arab Movement for Renewal) and the United Arab List are arguing that the requests to disqualify their candidacies for the next Knesset are baseless, racist and designed to undermine the political representation of the entire Arab minority.

You say : "It's easier to talk to people who share one's background and assumptions, but it's more rewarding to understand the rest of the world and to be understood in turn." Believe me I know this, I have been rewarded immensely. My life was not only enriched by all that I have been exposed to, but very much transformed. In the comments you wrote "I want to know about the Egyptian soap operas too. It's selfish of me, but I want to be a guest at the party" I don't think that's selfish, this is also the reason I read weblogs, even the ones which are very personal. It's a glimpse into a world which I might have not seen before and usually is, as you said, very rewarding.

The feeling of betrayal comes from somewhere else. There was a time when I thought that one of the best things that have happened to me is that I have not been "rooted" anywhere. I felt that I will manage to feel at home wherever I go. Culture, as in my cultural heritage, was not something I could betray because it was not part of how I saw myself.

But this has changed, in this day I am forced to identify myself with something I don't fully believe in. They see a name, a passport and I am lumped with people and things I don't think I belong with. Actually when I think about it things haven't just changed over night, I was probably fooling my self or was a good chameleon. So instead of arguing with whoever I decided to stop fighting it. It is who I am after all, well sort of. The problem was that I found out my brain needed some serious re-wiring; I have major blank gaps and disagree with so much. Which leaves me in limbo. This is where the feeling of betrayal comes from. I can't fully connect as much as I try. So if I do understand the lyrics Um Kalthum sings (I see you have used the Egyptian pronunciation ‘Kolsoum') I can't quote the classical poets whose poems she sings like my cousins do.

Nobody in the territories believes that Israel is particularly generous. Yet they see the Israeli administration continues to provide electricity to the territories, as well as food and other supplies to "enemy" territory.