Islami News: Dec 9, 2009

UN: Leaked document not formal text

The head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat has said a leaked text which appears to undermine the existing Kyoto Protocol and on-going UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen is out of date and is unlikely to constitute the final outcome.

There has been widespread anger among developing nations over the document, which was leaked by The Guardian, a British newspaper and appears to have been drawn up by a small group of rich nations including the US, UK and Denmark.

Speaking on Wednesday, Yvo de Boer said: "That text, and other texts that have been circulating, have not been on the table in a formal sense."

De Boer said that the document was "the basis for discussion among a number of countries, actually a week and a day ago, and have never been tabled in any formal way".

"But I think the [mood] that's out there, people see that as a document that they don't want to be the base for negotiation," he said.

Developing countries have said that the text is part of a plan by rich nations to set unequal limits on carbon emissions in 2050, according to a confidential analysis of the proposals that The Guardian also obtained.

The analysis says that the text worked on by rich nations is a strategy to get developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts, the newspaper reported.

The text seeks to set a limit on developing nations that would not allow them to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050 - while developed nations will be allowed to discharge 2.67 tonnes per head.

Unequal limits

Kim Carstensen, head of the climate initiative for the WWF, an environmental group, said: "The behind-the-scenes negotiation tactics under the Danish presidency have been focusing on pleasing the rich and powerful countries rather than serving the majority of states who are demanding a fair and ambitious solution."

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Copenhagen, said: "There are two possible reasons for the leak. One is that Western nations were saying - this is our bottom line, these are the draconian measures we are prepared to take to safe-guard our interests.

"Or it could have been the developing nations saying - if you are even considering anything like this, there is going to be a revolt you have never seen the like of before.

"The Danes are not denying that the document exists, but they are saying it doesn't carry any official weight at all."

'Betrayal'

The draft text, which was leaked on Tuesday, is also understood to call for handing control of climate change finance to the World Bank.

Waldon Bello, the director of "Focus on the Global South", a non-governmental organisation specialising in policy research, said that the text was evidence of a "betrayal" on the part of rich nations.

"This is a terrible document - the idea that there would be differential limits put on emissions to favour the north [and] the fact that there would be abandonment of the only legitimate framework, which is the Kyoto Protocol," he said.

"This is not what developing countries were expecting. They were expecting the north to make a serious offer and this is definitely not a serious offer at this point in time. This shows that there is just no 'give' when it comes to the north."

On the same day that the text was leaked, a senior Chinese negotiator told reporters in Copenhagen that the US's emissions target was not notable, that the EU's was not enough, and that Japan's came with impossible conditions.

He also criticised talk of developed nations contributing $10bn annually to poor countries to help them cope with climate change, saying that more money is needed.
Source: Agencies

Zelaya 'aims to leave' Honduras

The ousted Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, is aiming to leave the country for exile to Mexico, sources have said.

Zelaya, who was forced to leave the country by the Honduran military in a June coup, has been holed up in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, since he slipped back into the country in September.

A politician close to Zelaya told Reuters on Wednesday: "He is going to leave the country today. He is leaving of his own will".

But the de facto government said that the plans for Zelaya to leave his refuge in and fly to Mexico had been abandoned for the time being.

"It's aborted under current circumstances," Carlos Lopez, Honduras's foreign minister, told Honduran television.

'Paperwork needed'

Milton Mateo, a spokesman for the Honduran foreign ministry, had earlier said that Mexico had asked for a safe-conduct pass for Zelaya, and that the pass had been signed off.

Craig Mauro, an Al Jazeera correspondent who has reported on the politicial events in Honduras, said: "There was a lot of activity around the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa where Zelaya has taken refuge for the last couple of months.

"There were reports that the number of security forces there have been doubled, and that Zelaya would be leaving to take asylum in Mexico," he said from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

“Since then there have been conflicting reports. Honduran aviation officials say that a plane is on the way from Mexico, and there are some reports from Mexico, quoting un-named sources, that he has been granted asylum.

"Zelaya has just spoken to a Venezuelan television network and he has neither confirmed nor denied that he would be seeking asylum."

Political crisis

Zelaya had been demanding his reinstatement since the coup but the country's congress voted against restoring him to power and fresh elections held last month saw Porfirio Lobo win the presidency.

Zelaya was forced into exile on June 28 after the supreme court, congress and business leaders said he acted against the constitution and tried to illegally extend limits to his term in office.

He has repeatedly denied this and pointed out that it would have been impossible to change the constitution before his term in office was complete.

Divisions in the Central American nation remain wide even after the election, which Zelaya's supporters boycotted, and nations across the Americas are also at odds over whether to recognise the poll.

"The US has said that it recognised the elections but that it was only a step forward, and that it wanted to national reconciliation," Mauro said.

"Several countiries have followed the US's lead there, but there is also a bloc, led by Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela, that refuses to recognise the elections and which is demanding that Zelaya be restored to the presidency [to serve out the rest of his term], no matter what."

Lobo, who was defeated by Zelaya in the 2005 election, has pledged to form a unity government and seek dialogue.

He is due to take office on January 27, when Zelaya's term officially ends.
Source: Al Jazeera

Iraq PM orders security reshuffle

Under pressure over Tuesday's devastating bomb attacks in Baghdad, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has reshuffled the leadership of the country's security forces.

Lieutenant-General Abboud Qanbar, the head of Baghdad security, and Lieutenant-General Ahmed Hashem Awoudeh, the deputy army chief of staff, were ordered to swop positions on Wednesday.

At least 127 people were killed and around 500 wounded in five co-ordinated attacks on Tuesday that targeted government institutions.

An Al-Qaeda group in Iraq claimed responsibility for the bombings, the US-based Search for International Terrorist Entities (Site) intelligence group said on Wednesday.

Al-Qaeda claim

Site said the Islamic State of Iraq issued a statement on an extremist website forum saying it carried out the string of car bombings.

"The list of targets will not end, with permission from Allah, until the flag of monotheism is raised once against on the land of Baghdad and the sharia of Allah rules the land and the worshippers," the statement posted on Wednesday said.

Tuesday's attacks were the latest in a series of large-scale bombings and came just as it was announced that national elections would be held in March.

Al-Maliki, who has been running for re-election on a platform of improved security, had previously not asked any senior security officials to step down over lapses.

But he is facing mounting public anger over the attacks and a lack of response could cost him and his party votes.

In a televised address on Wednesday, he appealed for Iraqis to be patient, saying security strategies would be reviewed and further personnel changes possibly made.

He stopped short of saying whether any of his ministers would be held responsible for allowing Tuesday's attacks to occur.

"I call on the Iraqi people for more patience and steadfastness," al-Maliki said in his address.

He also called on politicians "to avoid using these disasters to create conflicts during the election campaign because if the temple falls, it falls on everyone, and no one will be spared".

Mounting anger

The prime minister was expected to attend a special parliamentary session on Thursday, where MPs have demanded his security ministers answer for lapses that allowed for the attacks.

"MPs are angry, and the people are even more angry," Mahmud Othman, an independent Kurdish MP, told the AFP news agency.

"We want to know what is going on. What is the security plan? Have they revised the plans since the explosions in August and October? What are the results of their investigations? Why do these explosions keep happening?"

Suicide bombings at government buildings in August and October left more than 250 people dead.

The group that the government has accused of masterminding Tuesday's bombings, along with the two previous attacks, has also called on security officials to step down.

"He who cannot ensure security for Iraqis should leave," Khudair al-Murshidi, a spokesman for the Baath party, told Al Jazeera from Syria, adding that loyalists to Saddam Hussein's party were not behind any of the attacks.

Roads around Baghdad were reopened on Wednesday after being shut in the wake of Tuesday's attacks but security was beefed up at checkpoints across the city.

Violence continued in and around the capital, however.

In the predominantly Sunni northern district of Adhamiyah on Wednesday, a roadside bomb killed two people and wounded seven while a sniper killed a policeman and a bomb hidden inside a minibus killed two people and wounded 11.

In Mahmudiyah, an ethnically mixed town just south of Baghdad, another bomb concealed inside a minibus killed three people and injured eight.

'Foreign elements'

In his address, al-Maliki blamed Tuesday's co-ordinated attacks on "foreign elements" that backed al-Qaeda and called on Iraq's neighbours - an apparent reference to Syria - to do more to prevent attacks in Iraq.

"I demand of the international community and all countries, including neighbouring countries, who condemn the attacks to turn their words into actions and support the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government by confronting terrorism," al-Maliki said.

Baghdad has previously accused Syria of harbouring senior Baath party loyalists who it says masterminded the attacks in August and October, a claim Syria denies.

A senior Iraqi policeman, meanwhile, said the explosives used in Tuesday's attacks were manufactured abroad and that the bombers were backed by groups in Syria or Saudi Arabia.

"This material could not have been manufactured in Baghdad, it came from abroad," Major-General Jihad al-Jaabiri, the chief of the explosives unit, told reporters.

"Neighbouring countries helped them. The operation required lots of funding, which came from Syria or Saudi Arabia."

Violence across Iraq had dropped dramatically in November, with the 122 deaths recorded being the fewest since the 2003 invasion.

But the Iraqi government and the US military have warned of a rise in attacks in the run-up to the March election.

And while the latest attacks have underlined concerns over the readiness of Iraqi forces to handle security alone when US troops leave, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said they will not derail plans to begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq next year.
Source: Al Jazeera

MCB Welcomes the Rethinking on Prevent

The Muslim Council of Britain today welcomed the speech by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to the national prevent conference in which he stated that “Prevent should not and must not stigmatise or demonise Muslim communities”.

The MCB also endorses the Communities Secretary's view that “while Al Qa'ida inspired terrorism is a serious problem which needs to be tackled it must never been seen as the defining issue for British Muslims; or for the Government's relationship with Muslim communities nationally or locally; or for public agencies like the police or for the media.”

In the experience of many Muslim civil society bodies, the government’s Prevent policy has become the central policy tool for engaging with Britain’s Muslim community. Moreover, according to views gathered from the MCBs affiliate organisations, ‘Prevent’ has wittingly and perilously conflated anti-terrorism strategy with community services delivery.

To this end, the Muslim Council of Britain welcomes Mr Denham's commitment to widen the scope of the Prevent programme. However, the programme has flawed analytical underpinnings and many bodies, including those who took funding, are reporting that the programme is not working. Prior to 7/7 and even 9/11, British Muslims were establishing institutions and making vibrant contributions to the voluntary third sector. Through active engagement with a range of funding bodies, Muslim community groups could deliver projects on par with other organisations of all faiths and none. These options have been detrimentally affected by the Prevent funding stream and its disproportionately determining financial allocations for Muslim third sector activity. Any reform of Prevent must take this concern into account.

Commenting on the Secretary of State’s speech, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain said: “Mr Denham is absolutely right in saying that ‘there is no legitimate reason, no matter how passionately you feel, to use concerns about any international issues to justify terrorist activity here’, and that ‘any area facing far right or racist extremist problems which divide communities should have a strategy for addressing those problems’. We are all responsible for conveying and demonstrating the belief that politics and peaceful democratic participation is the only way to affect change. It is imperative that we all work together in tackling the common challenge facing us from fascist groups however they are disguised, and the hatred and violence that inevitably results”

He added “We agree that ‘Having a passionate belief in a cause does not make you a terrorist.’ We need to let people know that legitimate concerns of social justice can only be addressed in our country by seeking common cause with fellow Britons and effectively engaging with those who represent us.”

Source: AJP

Faith Leaders Urge Better Understanding

CAIRO — Participants in the Parliament of the World's Religions are calling for more interfaith understanding and a world move to save humanity from a climate disaster, the Australian daily the Age reported on Wednesday, December 9. "A new global conversation has to begin," Chandra Mufazzar, founder of the International Movement for a Just World, told the several-days meeting, which concluded its activities in the Melbourne Wednesday.

The Muslim leader, also a professor of international studies at University Sains Malaysia, called for an inclusive and constructive dialogue among followers of different faiths.

"We need a conversation with three dimensions; First, respect, which will only emerge when there's a feeling of equality. Second, learn to be inclusive. Third, whatever our differences, we must not resort to violence because the global conversation breaks down."

Leading European Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan said the problem was a clash of perceptions.

"We have to understand that Islam is now a Western religion," he asserted.

"Not only must Muslims integrate in the West, but the West must accept Islam."

Hsin Tao, a Taiwanese Buddhist monk and President of the Global Family for Love and Peace, said understanding the other is a key to avoid a clash of faiths.

"Mutual understanding can only happen if we can stand in the shoes of the other side."

The week-long event, which is held every five years, features nearly 700 panels, workshops and lectures, plus worship and music events.

The event, which brought together representatives from 80 nationalities and more than 220 faith traditions, aimed to cultivate harmony among the world's religion.

Climate Change

The religious leaders also made an appeal to climate negotiators at the UN summit in Copenhagen to reach a deal to save humanity.

"Is the earth sacred enough to make those hard, courageous short-term decisions that will have implications for decades to come?" asked Rev Dirk Ficca, director of the parliament.

"Religious leaders are trying to draw on their wisdom and persuasiveness to make sure that we all believe it is sacred enough."

An early draft text at the UN climate marathon highlighted the summit tensions between rich carbon emitters and the world's poor.

Yvo de Boer, the UN climate pointman, insisted the document was out of date, and would be most unlikely to constitute the final outcome.

The text unleashed charges by poorer nations and activists that it had been cooked up in private and favored advanced economies.

If all goes well, the 194 nations meeting in Copenhagen under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will secure a political agreement spelling out national pledges for curbing heat-trapping carbon emissions, also called greenhouse gases.

Over the past 250 years, atmospheric concentrations of these invisible, odourless, tasteless gases have risen, propelled by the unbridled use of coal, oil and gas.

In tandem, atmospheric temperatures have surged in the last quarter-century, inflicting damage to glaciers and snowfall.

Scientists fear far worse is to come this century in the form of drought, flood, storms and rising seas that will threaten tens of millions.

Source: IslamOnline

The politics of minaret

In a referendum on November 29 the Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of new minarets on mosques. Under Switzerland’s system of direct rule, the referendum is binding. Switzerland’s 400,000 or so Muslims, most of whom come from Kosovo and Turkey, are legally barred from building minarets as of now.

Anti-immigrant, right-wing People’s Party - the Union Démocratique du Centre (UDC) - had launched the initiative for referendum, which passed with more than 57 percent of the vote. The outcome says a lot about how Western Europeans feel about the growing number of Muslim immigrants, who live as second-class citizens for all practical purposes. To borrow Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Swiss Muslim scholar, the Swiss majority are sending a clear message to their Muslim fellow citizens: we do not trust you. (Ironically the UDC has in the past demanded Tariq Ramadan’s citizenship be revoked because he was defending Islamic values too openly.)

Telling only four of Switzerland’s 150 mosques have minarets, and none are used for the call to prayer because of strict noise-pollution rules. Hence, it is only a tiny fraction of the Swiss population which regularly encounters the sight of a mosque minaret. So what the real motives were behind the most dramatic move any nation has made to limit the visibility of Islam?

The campaign posters as well as those who have promoted this ban, indicate that Europe is in the throes of an Islamophobic trend gathering pace. Posters featured a woman wearing a burka with the minarets drawn as weapons on a colonized Swiss flag. The claim was made that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Swiss values. Not surprisingly, anti-minaret agitators pointedly referred to a poet once quoted by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “The mosques are our barracks…the minarets our bayonets.” Mr Erdogan made the allusion long before he took national power, and it landed him in jail.

The niqab (scarf) and the minaret issues have been regularly used to stoke the flames of hatred and fear against Muslims throughout Europe in recent times. Earlier last month, France considered whether to bar Muslim women from wearing full-face veils, sparking a heated debate in which one French politician described burqas, the head-to-toe veils worn by some very devout Muslim women, as "walking coffins." The government issued a recommendation against wearing burqas, but stopped short of an outright ban.

Tellingly, the Swiss referendum coincides with the rise of far-right parties across Europe. According to John Esposito, Professor of religion, international affairs and Islamic at the Georgetown University, the stunning Swiss vote was really not all that surprising, considering the growing power of Islamophobia. In both Europe and America right-wing politicians, political commentators, media personalities, and religious leaders continue to feed a growing suspicion of mainstream Muslims by fueling a fear that Islam is a threat.

In last June's European elections, the British National Party got its first two seats in the European Parliament. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party for Freedom, PVV) grabbed the second place in the Netherlands' Euro poll. Around Europe a ragbag of extremist parties, united by a vehement nationalism that singles out minority groups as a growing threat, scored in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia.

As Tariq Ramadan said the political parties, in Europe as in Switzerland have become cowed, and shy from any courageous policies towards religious and cultural pluralism. It is as if the populists set the tone and the rest follow.

Already right-wingers in Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands have called for similar measures, and others are likely to be encouraged by the success of the Swiss People’s Party.

Dutch deputy Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom has suggested that they will be following the example of their Swiss compatriots and pursuing a ban on mosque minarets in the Netherlands.

Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of the radical-right Austrian Freedom Party, and Marine Le Pen, vice-president of France's National Front, have also welcomed the Swiss result which points to the possibility of religious and political extremism spreading further in Europe.

And the Swiss vote will certainly give heart to politicians in Italy who are resisting mosques in frankly nativist terms. They include Roberto Maroni, Italy’s interior minister, who is a senior figure in the anti-immigrant Northern League. Its leaders hailed the Swiss result and called for a similar ballot in Italy. Anti-Muslim feeling is strong in many Italian cities, such as Genoa where critics of a mosque project held a candle-lit protest on December 1st.

Walter Wobman, leader of the Swiss People’s Party that promoted the referendum, said the group will now fight to ban the burqa as well as to institute a law against forced marriage. It may be pointed out that the People’s Party first wanted to launch a campaign against the traditional Islamic methods of slaughtering animals but was afraid of testing the sensitivity of Swiss Jews.

To quote Esposito again, the far right persistently refuses to face a 21st century reality: to acknowledge and accept the fact that many Muslims are integrated citizens and that Islam is now a European religion, and, in fact, the second largest religion in many European countries.

The seven-million strong American Muslim community has received the ban on Minarets in Switzerland with alarm and dismay. The referendum is seen as part of a recent disturbing trend in Europe to restrict the religious freedom and self-expression of religious and ethnic minorities, notably of Muslims.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) urged President Obama to repudiate the decision of Swiss voters to deny Muslims in that nation the same religious rights granted to citizens of other faiths. “Our nation’s silence on this flagrant denial of religious freedom would send a very negative message throughout the Muslim world, which must improve its own record on religious rights.”

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is troubled that Swiss voters have succumbed to the intolerance and fear mongering of the Swiss Party. ”The decision to ban mosque minarets is an act of religious discrimination and intolerance, as it targets Islamic places of worship and denies Swiss Muslims the freedom to build their house of worship using their preferred architectural style.”

The Swiss vote raises the question whether the values of human rights, civil liberties and democracy - upheld so preciously by the European nations - are practiced as reverently as they are preached? By voting to ban this right, it is Swiss - and Western - values which become poorer and less meaningful. This is a setback for strategies to bring Islam into the European mainstream.

By - Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Executive Editor of the online magazine American Muslim Perspective (www.amperspective.com). His e-mail is: asghazali@gmail.com.
Source: Middle East Online