JEDDAH: The conference of Islamic Foreign Ministers yesterday [Aug 10] approved … most provisions of an agreement to establish a 1,000 million dollar Islamic Development Bank. Conference sources said the two points that were the centre of discussion … related to the shares of participating countries in the bank’s capital and the right to vote. … Pakistan was the first country to welcome the inclusion of Bangladesh and Turkey into the 26-nation conference. … Today’s [Aug 11] session was expected to approve articles of association … of the [IDB].

[Meanwhile, as reported by news agencies from Tel Aviv,] Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin … asked his people to be prepared for a new war because Israel “must do everything possible to prevent the formation of an eastern front” along its border.

Mr. Rabin was replying to a question … about the alleged … “enlarged military capacity” of Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Mr. Rabin feared that Syria, together with Iraq, “is today a bigger military Power than Egypt”. “This Power is geographically much closer to Israeli population centres than Egypt, and this can become dangerous,” he told his people, adding they should know what they could face.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2024