The Frankfurt Book Fair took pride of place in the Tuesday edition of the London-based Pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat. But the tragic turn of events in Iraq and Gaza also featured prominently throughout the week. An especially attractive photograph graced the front page of Tuesday's edition of Al-Hayat, lending the paper the flavour of this year's theme of Arab culture at the Frankfurt fair. The photograph of a Yemeni youth in traditional garb keeping half an eye cocked on a huge book on Yemen conjured up images of Arabia Felix and served as a poignant reminder of the rich Arab cultural heritage. The strength of the motif was accentuated by hundreds of traditional Yemeni daggers stacked against the background, signalling how difficult it is for Westerners to get away from the clichés of Orientalism. Monday's Al-Hayat captured the acrimonious mood in Iraq's battered so-called Sunni Triangle. An embittered Iraqi woman of Samaraa hurriedly hoists the white flag of surrender as she approaches a US military checkpoint. Al- Hayat editorials dwelt at some length on the ferocity of the fighting in Falluja, Samaraa and other cities of the Sunni Triangle. The editorials highlighted how long it took for US troops to contain and pacify Sunni cities. "Days of remorse: death and darkness as Arabs appeal to the UN Security Council to save Gaza", was how the front page banner of Al- Hayat 's Tuesday edition symbolised the grim Arab mood. Accompanying articles included one on the drowning in the Mediterranean of dozens of illegal Moroccan immigrants fleeing North Africa for greener pastures in Italy. Another equally disheartening story was on the death of Iraqis and wanton destruction by the Americans in Baghdad and Samaraa. Sudanese affairs were also spotlighted in Al- Hayat. "A new 'official language' in the 'liberated zones' of eastern Sudan", ran the front-page banner of Sunday's Al-Hayat. A suspicious American organisation, the paper warned, sponsors the local dialects which are spoken by two million-strong Beja people in eastern Sudan. The paper went on to explain that Bedaweit, the Beja language, has emerged as the language of instruction in 19 primary schools in liberated zones of eastern Sudan. The US-based International Rescue Committee (IRC) has worked incessantly over the past few years to revive the 4,000-year-old language of the Beja people. Many of the nomadic Beja people who inhabit eastern Sudan's arid expanses do not speak the Arabic language even though they are devout Muslims. Islam has left an indelible mark on the lifestyle, cultural heritage, customs, religious beliefs and practices of the Beja people. With the help of the IRC and other international humanitarian relief agencies, the Beja people are now overturning the Arabisation policies of the central Sudanese government in a bid to curtail Arab cultural hegemony in Sudan. Al-Hayat concluded that once again because of American intervention, the conflict against the central Sudanese government by the disparate marginalised ethnic groups of Sudan might erupt into a full-scale war in the east of the country among the Hadendowa, Beshariyin and Beni Amer tribesmen of the Beja people. "[Sudanese President Omar Hassan] Al-Bashir slams calls for autonomy in Darfur", trumpeted the pro-Sudanese government daily Al-Ra'i Al- Aam. The paper dwelt at some length on the Sudanese president's address to the Sudanese Women's Union where he promised Sudan's women peace, assuring them that the Darfur crisis "can be resolved only through community and tribal dialogue and peace negotiations". Al-Ra'i Al-Aam also highlighted the visit to Eritrea by Othman Al-Mirghani, the leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), the umbrella opposition body grouping northern opposition parties and the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation Army. The paper stressed that Al-Mirghani's chief mission was to help mediate a reconciliation between Eritrea and the Sudanese government. Al-Mirghani, who flew from his headquarters in Cairo last Thursday to the Eritrean capital Asmara where the NDA is headquartered, met with Eritrean President Isias Afewerki. But Iraq, not Sudan, dominated the headlines of Saudi newspapers this week. "The grizzly remains of Westerners found in Falluja", ran a front page banner in Saudi Arabia's daily Al-Jazira on Monday. The paper also spared a little space on domestic concerns. "Emir Sultan meets members of the National Association for Human Rights", run another headline. Another Saudi daily, Okaz, focussed too on domestic matters. "The reorganisation of girl's colleges after their transfer to the Ministry of Higher Education," ran a front-page banner of Okaz, highlighting the kingdom's current preoccupation with educational reform. "A computer laboratory for every school, courtesy of Prince Abdel-Meguid, the emir of Mecca", ran another headline. Again the focus was young women's education in the kingdom. The Saudi daily Ar-Riyadh, like other Saudi papers, picked up on the education theme with the gruesome inferno in Mecca in which a girl's college was "accidentally" set on fire. The timing of the inferno, in which scores of girls were burnt to death and injured proved to be a strange irony in a week when radical reforms for girl's education got under way. The paper also condemned in strongly-worded editorials what it described as "Israeli acts of aggression and genocide in Gaza". The calamities in Palestine and Iraq eclipsed all other news items on the front and inside pages of the other London-based Pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat. In an exclusive interview with the paper, the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat declared that he intends to give up power after the establishment of a Palestinian state. "I will abdicate and become the Nelson Mandela of Palestine after the State of Palestine is founded," Arafat mused. He described the deplorable state of affairs in the Middle East as a re-enactment of the Sykes-Picot Treaty. Lebanese papers also focussed on Iraq and Palestine but their main interest lay in the volatile domestic Lebanese political situation. The Lebanese daily Al-Anwar reported that Maronite Patriarch Nassrallah Sfeir had warned that the recent assassination attempt on the life of Lebanese MP and former Minister of Justice Marwan Hamadeh "has pushed us [Lebanese] back to the days of sectarian violence that we worked hard to obliterate and supersede". The paper also reported clashes between the two rival Shia organisations in southern Lebanon -- Amal and Hizbullah. Al-Anwar also touched upon Israel's aggression in Gaza. It quoted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as boasting that he was satisfied with the results of his government's aggression in Gaza. "The [Israeli military] operation [in Gaza] is progressing in a satisfactory manner... Our troops are acting in a professional and capable manner," Sharon was quoted as saying in Al-Anwar. Another Lebanese daily An-Nahar pointed out that the Palestinian people decry the Arab and international silence over the genocidal campaigns of the Israelis in Gaza. The paper also noted that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was the first to break the silence over the barbaric Israeli clampdown in Gaza. "Annan calls on the Israelis to end the aggression against the defenceless Palestinian population in Gaza," the paper reported. The Yemeni daily Al-Thawra also highlighted the Palestinian predicament. "Yemen urges the UN Security Council to deal with the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza as war crimes against humanity." Al-Thawra called the Israeli aggression "state terrorism". By Gamal Nkrumah
