Simon Tisdall

Allies of Jacob Zuma seem prepared to stop at nothing to save their man after the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that he should stand trial.

Queues for petrol on British petrol station forecourts appear to bear scant relation to ongoing killing, rape and mass refugee movements in eastern Congo. The unfolding humanitarian disaster in ungoverned Somalia likewise seems unconnected to Western taxpayers’ worries about falling mortgage lending and rising prices.

Pakistan’s new leaders are doing the easy stuff first. Judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf, including the former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, will probably get their jobs back soon. Early last week the Supreme Court cleared the way for the late Benazir Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to run for Parliament in June.

General Pervez Musharraf’s plan to retain power as Pakistan’s civilian president is still intact, despite weeks of jaw-dropping blunders. But insiders say he will not last long, once a new government is elected and his army ties fade. They predict his final posting, following a trail into exile blazed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, will be duke of Knightsbridge or king of Dubai, writes Simon Tisdall.

Like General George Custer, General Pervez Musharraf has got himself surrounded — and is looking for a way out. Pakistan’s famous Indian-fighter, who gained prominence in the 1999 Kargil conflict with Delhi, is under hostile fire from the opposition, the professional classes, the judiciary, the mullahs and the media.

To hear George W Bush and Dick Cheney tell it, Iranians live under the boot of a monolithic dictatorship run by fanatics. But while political repression is ever-present in mullahdom, an increasingly vibrant debate ahead of parliamentary elections next March is giving the lie to the White House’s totalitarian parodies.

The United States general in charge of Norad, the North American aerospace defence command, unwittingly gave a clue this week as to why President Vladimir Putin is so popular. The resumption this year of unannounced sorties close to US and Nato airspace by Russia’s strategic bombers were becoming a real worry, said General Gene Renuart.

Asked in Tehran earlier this year about the possibility of a United States military strike on Iran, a senior official laughed. "Are you serious?" he asked. "They will never attack us. That would be madness." His amusement was genuine — and chilling. Ignorance and complacency about US motivations and intentions abound in equal measure in the land of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

As Iran sees it, provocative British trespassing in the Shatt al-Arab waterway is one element in an American-driven policy of destabilisation that includes systematic infringements of the country’s territorial, economic and political sovereignty. As the United States and Israel see it, Iran’s unjustified actions are proof that the Tehran regime is dangerous beyond reason.

Turkey was not invited to Europe’s big birthday bash on Sunday despite being an official candidate for European Union membership. Ankara expressed disappointment at a "missed opportunity". Media reaction to the perceived snub was sharper.

Playing on European and United States fears of expanding terrorist networks in North Africa, Morocco is seeking international backing for a new peace plan for the Western Sahara. But ownership of the vast mineral-rich territory bordering the Atlantic is disputed by Algerian-backed Polisario Front separatists.

Ostensibly building on limited political reforms enacted in 2005, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has proposed more than 30 constitutional amendments to be decided by referendum in April. But the veteran president’s bid to nurture a second "Egyptian spring" faces deep-rooted public scepticism.

Tony Blair may hang on as Britain’s prime minister for a few more months but as an international leader he is already history. When Russia’s Vladimir Putin talks European energy security or Kosovo these days, he talks to Germany, leader of the European Union and the G8.

United States officials in Baghdad and Washington are expected to unveil a secret intelligence "dossier" this week detailing evidence of Iran’s alleged complicity in attacks on American troops in Iraq. The move, uncomfortably echoing Downing Street’s dossier debacle in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, is one more sign that the Bush administration is building a case for war.

Since their election victory last January, Hamas leaders have come under fierce United States and European pressure to moderate their rejectionist stance and cut a deal with the moderate Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. But now the squeeze on Ehud Olmert’s government is also growing as the "international community", fearing a region-wide implosion, gears up for another drive for peace.

Lebanon’s latest assassination has underscored how dangerously high the Middle East stakes have risen in the years since 9/11 and the Iraq invasion — and how intricately interconnected are the region’s multiple, ongoing tragedies. But while illustrating the problem, Pierre Gemayel’s death also underscored the persisting, corrosive lack of an agreed solution. Those who hope for peace are grasping at straws.

A massive defence build-up by the United States has prompted fears of a new global arms race.