Gamal Nkrumah focuses on the four-year-old girl allegedly decapitated by an Indonesian domestic servant in Saudi Arabia Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia will fight tooth and claw for their national interests. Neither country would contemplate a rethink in its operating political model. To many outsiders such diplomatic introspection on the part of Turkish, Saudi and Iranian policymakers is considered increasingly irritating even though it may not come as a surprise. What is less well-known is that there is an undercurrent of competition, if not quite animosity, between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The two countries have been instrumental in driving reform across North Africa and the Middle East and are largely responsible for geopolitical change in the Arab region. Both countries are thinking hard about how to collaborate with outsiders -- most notably the United States and Turkey. Saudi Arabia is sticking to its traditional task. The world may be changing but the old rivalries of the Middle East never die. The Lebanese daily As-Safir, like many other papers in the country, was preoccupied with the latest round of exchange of artillery fire between Turkey and Syria. The shelling started from Syria, most pundits' stress. Fresh Syrian mortar fire against targets well within the Turkish border threatens not just Syrian refugees but also Turkish citizens living in the vicinity of the frontline. The fighting threatens to escalate into a regional conflagration. It is against this grim backdrop that an article by the Moroccan academic Abdel-Ilah Belqaziz must be read. The article in As-Safir is entitled 'Saudi Arabia and Qatar: Contrary banners'. The rivalry between the two oil-rich Arab Gulf nations has had some interesting moments in the past two years, the writer reckons. "Between Doha and Riyadh, the capitals of the two countries driving the 'movement for Arab national liberation' is a disagreement that is not declared publicly. The difference in emphasis is on the nature of the political future that the 'creative chaos' policy espoused by the two capitals engenders,' Belqaziz expounded. The Saudi daily Okaz tackled the touchy topic of Tala, the four-year-old girl allegedly decapitated by an Indonesian domestic servant in the Saudi city of Yanbu. Commentator Hashim Abdu Hashim wrote a heart-wrenching and thought-provoking article entitled 'What after the incident of Tala". "We must stress the humanity of the Asian domestic servants and those people who render us vital services. We will find that we live in an extremely callous society if we do not take the sacrifices of those foreigners who serve us into account," Hashim extrapolated. The London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat editorial focussed on a rather interesting subject not often reviewed in depth in the Arab media. Mohamed Al-Ashhab in an opinion piece entitled 'Africa and European stability' insinuated that the tables have turned. Africa is no longer simply a recipient of European humanitarian assistance and aid. "Africa," Al-Ashhab wrote in Al-Hayat "must now be taken seriously. It holds the key to Europe's economic and political stability". "Last century, and in particular in the 1990s, there was a European fear that the Algerian crisis would spread to Europe through immigration. There were shifts in the manner immigrants from North Africa were viewed. They were no longer welcome as cheap labour." The Saudi academician and commentator Khaled Al-Dakhil in an article in Al-Hayat entitled 'The scene after the theory of Ibn Khaldoun', said that the Arab Spring must be viewed in terms of its historical context. "It does not matter how many centuries separate us from Ibn Khaldoun," noted Al-Dakhil in Al-Hayat. The writer was obviously besotted with the "father of sociology" Abdel-Rahman bin Mohamed bin Khaldoun. Also in Al-Hayat, the Palestinian writer Khaled Al-Horoub wrote 'The Islamists and government'. "Arabs have wasted one century and a half in a futile effort to create a political climate and institutions that would inherit the Ottman Empire and colonialism and ensure their independence," declared Al-Horoub. "Today, the emergence of Islamist movements have complicated matters," Al-Horoub extrapolated. "We must look forward to the future and not draw conclusions only from our past," he concluded. In the London-based pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat Syrian commentator and pro-democracy campaigner Michel Kilo wrote an opinion piece entitled 'New balance of power' deriding the desperate acts of terror and atrocities committed by the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad against the Syrian opposition forces. "A few days ago, a Parisian taxi driver of African origin, when he realised that I was Syrian, asked me if the Syrian president was mad. Does he not know that there is no power on earth capable of destroying the will of the people yearning for dignity and freedom? I hope that the supporters of Bashar Al-Assad pause to ponder that question posed to be by the Parisian taxi driver of African descent. And, I hope that they answer the question honestly and objectively and with humanity and national consciousness," the Syrian commentator mused. Kilo was convicted of weakening national sentiment and encouraging sectarian strife but was later released and is now living in exile. Also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashed wrote 'Turkey between talk and action'. The writer stressed that the interests of Turkey are identical with the interests of Syria and the rest of the Arab world. "I am not sure whether Turkish officials are aware of their own handling of the Syrian crisis," he pondered. "The widely televised images of the Turkish prime minister and his foreign minister and their photo snapshots with the Burmese Muslims captures in a nutshell Turkey's ambitions to become the champion of Muslims around the world... from Israel to Syria and Burma". Al-Rashed admonished. Asharq-Al-Awsat conducted an exclusive interview with Abdel-Hakim Belhaj, the former president of the commander of the Military Council in the Libyan capital Tripoli. "We hear that Al-Qaeda is very active in many North African countries including Algeria and that it has embarked on terrorist activities in Mauritania and Mali. I personally have not noticed any serious operations of Al-Qaeda or its affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Arab Maghreb (AQIM) in Libya. Yes, there are some indications that certain individuals are affiliated to AQIM. And, that was especially so in the aftermath of the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi," Belhaj noted. "We try our level best that the members of Al-Qaeda or AQIM do not thwart our efforts to institute democracy in Libya". And last but not least, the last word on Iran. Ali Salem, also writing in Asharq Al-Awsat, launched a stinging criticism of the Iranian Islamic Republic entitled 'Economic embargo that pains the Iranian people and pleases the Iranian government'.
