Cathy Stefani places a teddy bear beside a marker bearing the name of her daughter..
--9/11 Supplement--

Signals in conflict
As confidence ebbs, will confrontation grow? From Washington, Mohamed El-Sayed Said examines the likely impact of the first anniversary of 11 September

  A semantic game
Scott Ritter, the UN arms inspector who resigned in 1998 in protest at US manipulation of the UNSCOM mandate was in Baghdad this week to deliver a message to the Iraqis: allow the inspectors back or risk the destruction of Iraq. Al-Ahram Weekly interviewed him in Baghdad

9/11 a year later

One year ago, 19 people transformed four civilian aircraft, including their passengers, into devastating bombs. A heinous atrocity was committed. More than 3,000 innocent civilians were killed. The culprits were Arabs and Muslims; they committed their horrific crime in our name. We may disavow them, but we cannot abjure responsibility for the conditions that produced them. Yet, the world after 9/11 looks to be no less horrifying than the event that inaugurated it. With Israel's Sharon jumping on America's "war on terror" bandwagon, the cost in human lives and suffering is already tremendous. The US's threatened invasion of Iraq seems destined to cause a great deal more. In the following pages, Al-Ahram Weekly marks the tragic day with reports, analyses and commentaries, expressing a wide range of views and perspectives, both on the event itself and the complex developments it set in motion. A closer look at ourselves and the world, one year after 11 September 2001

Al-Ahram Weekly poll:
Seeing through it all
What everyone seems to have been worried about lately is how the West perceives us. But what do we think about the West and 9/11?

'Double standards don't work'
In the aftermath of 11 September, the US seemed to shift its priorities in the Middle East. At times, the changes to its policies have brought it head to head with its traditional allies in the region, including Egypt. Soha Abdelaty talked to Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher in an exclusive interview about US foreign policy in the Middle East during the post-9/11 period

Reclaiming history
The victor imparts his own thoughts on the vanquished. This is why, Tarek El-Beshri argues, we spend much time thinking about 11 September 2001 and forget a more important date

A new, post-9/11, Middle East
War against terror or war on the Arabs? America's Middle East policy after 11 September is pushing the region towards disaster, writes David Hirst, and a US colonial order

The great accelerator
11 September has brought the new American 'project' out into the open, writes Gamil Mattar

Doing as the Romans did
The notion that the US 'war on terror' will defeat terrorism is a sick joke, writes Tariq Ali

Fitting in, as Arabs
Beleaguered and racially profiled since 9/11, Arab-Americans seem to be taking a road well-traversed by other US minority groups. Amr Shalakany, in New York, discusses the implications

Heaven, which way?
The silver thread between man and God has been pulled every which way. Some of the strands, says Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, are beginning to wear a bit thin

The imperial moment
In the wake of the 11 September attacks, US strategy has been to extend its hegemony in formerly Soviet Central Asia, with a view to controlling the region's vast petroleum reserves, writes Galal Nassar

To whom it may concern
The future of Saudi society will not be secure as long as it refuses to confront its own extremist elements, writes Jamal Khashoggi

Plus ça change
Almost a year after America's 'liberation' of Afghanistan, Iffat Malek finds only small gains against a backdrop of continued, albeit changed, suffering

Our own agenda
Is the Arab world Europe's nemesis, asks Dyab Abou Jahjah -- or its last hope?

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Egypt

Countdown to 'New Thinking'
The two-year conflict between the ruling NDP's old guard and its younger members is expected to reach a climax when its general congress meets next week. Gamal Essam El-Din reports

'Giants', sleeping and on the run
Islamists taking part in a Cairo seminar called upon the US to change its "biased" policies and embrace peaceful coexistence with the Islamic world. Jailan Halawi writes

Region

The world according to Sharon
Sharon has apparently abrogated Oslo, doing so unilaterally. Khaled Amayreh reports

International

Close shave for Karzai
The recent attempt to assassinate Hamid Karzai signals troubled times in Afghanistan, writes Iffat Malik from Islamabad

Politics of desperation
The defeat of two of the most sympathetic US lawmakers to the Arab cause was a setback for Arab, Muslim, African Americans and the Democratic Party, argues Manar El Shorbagy

Economy

The winds of change
A new generation of bankers has taken the helm at the country's most strategic banking institutions. They come with no dearth of plans to reform and modernise Egypt's flailing banking sector. Yasser Sobhi writes

Features

The young and the unemployed
If you are under the age of 24, it is likely that you're unempowered. Fatemah Farag attends the launch of a decade-long campaign that promises a better future

On the line or beneath it?
Amira El-Noshokaty goes to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to learn to iron out her scribbles, and try her hand at Play-doh

Living

Heritage

No question of costume
Gamal Nkrumah wonders why Egyptians decline to adopt a national dress

Sports

Out in the open
A billiards tournament will be played not under a roof but under the sun. Inas Mazhar reports