Moreover, Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) succeeded in getting the dozen or so Palestinian security services and militias under his control. This guaranteed his victory, though the parades of armed men brandishing guns at his rallies were not exactly what democratic norms call for.

For Hamas, this is a life and death struggle. It has not shrunk from bombarding Abbas s presidential compound, attacking Fatah s command centers, and targeting Fatah military leaders like Rashid Abu Shbak, the commander of Fatah s internal security and many others, all of them lieutenants of the supreme Fatah military authority in the Gaza strip, Mohamed Dahlan.

But today's other EU members view the prospect of an ever expanding Union to include Ukraine with fatalism and dread, for several reasons. The first, inevitably, is money.

Anwar can finally make the opposition a credible check on the National Front ruling coalition, but knows that he will never become prime minister this way. No one, after all, expects the opposition to win enough seats to form a government in the conceivable future. He can allow himself to be wooed back by his former party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the National Front s leading member.

LONDON It is difficult to separate some of my personal memories of Margaret Thatcher mundane but revealing from the sweeping judgments of history. I had worked for her as the Conservative Party s research director, and as a minister for about 15 years, before going to Hong Kong as Britain s last Governor there.

One jihadist who trained in al Qaeda s camps, and met bin Ladin, told me that upon his return from Afghanistan, he was invited to meet al Ahmar s associates and was given a monthly stipend. During a 1999 trial of Yemenis convicted of kidnapping 16 Europeans, it emerged that the group s ringleader called al Ahmar during the ordeal.