Islami News: Dec 19, 2009

Hariri urges 'real' ties with Syria

Saad al-Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, has stressed the need to establish "real and strategic" relations with Syria during the first day of his landmark two-day visit to the neighbouring country.

Al-Hariri held "constructive" talks with Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, on Saturday following his arrival in the capital, Damascus, for a visit aimed at rebuilding ties between the two countries, officials said.

Ties have been tense since the 2005 assassination of al-Hariri's father and former premier, Rafiq al-Hariri, and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon that followed.

In the past, al-Hariri has implicated Damascus in his father's killing in a Beirut bombing in February 2005. He has never had any official contact with al-Assad's government.

But Buthaina Shaaban, an adviser to al-Assad, said talks between the two leaders on Saturday were "frank" and "succeeded in overcoming difficulties that marred relations in the past five years".

"The guarantee to that is the will of both President Assad and Hariri to build a positive and constructive relationship," she said.

'Personal beliefs aside'

Al Jazeera's Rula Amin, reporting from Damascus, said the visit indicates that the political landscape in the region has changed.

"Syria has reasserted itself as a regional indispensible player. And as [al-Hariri] assumed power of Lebanon he said he feels that there is a need to improve relations with Syria and that is why he is here," she said.

"His personal beliefs on who killed his father are put aside and he is here as a politician.

"For many Lebanese who are shocked by this they feel that on this visit, Saad al-Hariri has been baptised as a politician.

"For many its a disappointment. Other people feel that the stability and security of Lebanon requires and warrants such a visit and by doing so, he is proving to be a good politician."

The international community has largely pinned the blame for the assassination of al-Hariri's father on Syria, pressure that ultimately ended Syria's 29 years of occupation in Lebanon.

But Damascus has consistently denied involvement in the assassination, and while a UN inquiry has said it has evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were linked to the killing - no charges have ever been brought.

Investigation

Earlier this month, a Syrian court asked 25 prominent Lebanese figures, including individuals close to al-Hariri himself, to appear for questioning over the murder.

The Syrian court acted after Jamil Sayyed, the former Lebanese security services director, filed a lawsuit in October regarding his four-year detention without charge over Rafiq al-Hariri's murder.

The list also included Ashraf Rifi, a former Lebanese police chief and the prosecutor general, Saeed Mirza, as well as several MPs and journalists.

The initiative to improve relations between Lebanon and Syria began in 2008 with an exchange of ambassadors. Syria opened its first embassy in Lebanon just under a year ago, and Lebanon sent an ambassador to Damascus in March.

It was the two countries' first diplomatic exchange since gaining independence from France more than 60 years ago.

The Syrian president also welcomed the Lebanese president, Michel Sleiman, to Syria on Friday.
Source: Al Jazeera

UN 'takes note' of climate accord

United Nations member countries have stopped short of approving a climate accord during talks in Denmark, saying they would only agree to "take note" of it.

The official recognition on Saturday of the non-binding pact agreed by the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa brought the 193-nation climate summit in Copenhagen to a close.

"Finally we sealed a deal," Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said. "The 'Copenhagen Accord' may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this decision ... is an important beginning."

Developing nations were strongly critical of the pact, saying that it was not enough to arrest climatic changes that would lead to floods and famine and kill millions.

But David Doniger, policy director of the Climate Center at the US Natural Resources Defence Council, said that the UN ruling means it has adopted "the accord in such a way that those countries [who had been opposed to it] were persuaded not to object".

'Framework set'

Barack Obama, the US president, had earlier hailed the agreement between the five nations as a success and said it would provide the framework for future talks.

"Today we have made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen," he said on Friday evening.

"For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.

"This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough ... We've come a long way but we have much further to go."

But Lumumba Stanislas Dia-ping, Sudan's representative and chair of a Group of 77 developing nations, said the accord meant "incineration" for Africa and likened it to the Holocaust.

The agreement "is a solution based on values, the very same values in our opinion that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces," Dia-ping said.

No specifics

Obama said the signatories to the deal had agreed to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius to help meet their new objective.

The deal calls for the participating countries to list specific actions they have taken to control emissions and their commitments to achieve deeper reductions.

The agreement also includes a commitment by the countries to give developing nations $100bn dollars in assistance from 2020 to help them deal with climate change.

The deal includes some progress in helping developing nations cope with climate change, but it falls short of committing any nation to pollution reductions.

But many countries are angry they were excluded from the negotiations and have criticised the accord because it is non-binding and sets no overall target or time-scale for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

"You are going to endorse this coup d'etat against the United Nations," Claudia Salerno Caldera, Venezuela's representative, told Lars Loekke Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister and the conference chairman, in a speech from the floor.

"Those of us who wish to speak have to make a point of order by cutting our hands and drawing blood," she said, opening a red-stained palm.

Opposition to deal

Tuvalu's Ian Fry, whose country is one of the most at risk from global warming, said the deal amounted to a betrayal.

"It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future," he said.

"Our future is not for sale. I regret to inform you that Tuvalu cannot accept this document."

Some European nations have accepted the deal, but Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, said that it was "clearly below" the goal of the European Union.

"I will not hide my disappointment," he said.

Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera's correspondent at the summit, said that many countries have criticised the lack of detail in the US-backed accord.

"What is important about this deal is what is not in it. There are no verifiable emission cuts targets, no number or dates, and crucially no deadline for when world leaders must come back together and put the terms of this deal into a legally-binding treaty," Hull said.

"The small island nations want to see a limit in temperature rises to 1.5C. They say that 2C just is not enough to save large areas of the planet from catastrophe."
Source: Al Jazeera

Climate Deal Meets World Fury

COPENHAGEN – UN climate talks fell into crisis Saturday, December 19, after developing nations vented anger at a plan worked out by the United States and a group of world countries.

"You are going to endorse this coup d'etat against the United Nations," said Venezuela’s representative Claudia Salerno Caldera, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Caldera held up what appeared to be a bloody palm, saying she had cut her hand in an effort to gain attention as her nation was excluded from US-led, closed-door talks.

Ian Fry of Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific island whose very existence is threatened by climate change, said the agreement amounted to Biblical betrayal.

* Truth About Climate Change (Folder)

"It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future," he said to applause in the chamber.

A US-led group of five countries, including China, announced a last-minute agreement on global warming in the finale of a 12-day UN summit.

"Today we have made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen," US President Barack Obama told reporters.

"For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change."

The agreement set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).

However, it fails to spell out the global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050, nor the necessary mechanisms to ensure nations honoured their promises.

"Going forward, we are going to have to build on the momentum we have achieved here in Copenhagen,” Obama said.

“We have come a long way but we have much further to go."

Holocaust

Likened it to the Holocaust, Sudan’s delegate Lumumba Stanislas Dia-ping said the deal meant incineration for Africa.

The pact "is a solution based on values, the very same values in our opinion that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces," said Dia-ping, who chairs the Group of 77 and China bloc of 130 poor nations.

It “asked Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries," he said, describing the deal the worst in the history of climate negotiations.

President Mohamed Nasheed of Maldives, the Indian Ocean archipelago that is at the risk of being swept up by rising sea levels, said he was unhappy with the deal.

"I beg all nations," he said, "do not let these talks collapse."

The UN climate talks were marred by disagreements between China and the US -- the world's No. 1 and 2 carbon polluters.

China had bristled proposals to cut its carbon emissions, saying that rich nations bore primary responsibility for global warming.

For any deal to become a U.N. pact it would need to be adopted unanimously at the 193-nation talks.

If some nations are opposed, the deal would be adopted only as a less binding document or merely by its supporters – a group representing far more than half the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

Abject Failure

Environmental campaigners also denounced the US-championed deal an abject failure.

"By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world's poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates," said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

"The blame for this disastrous outcome is squarely on the developed nations."

Kumi Naidoo, head of Greenpeace International, said the deal contained so many loopholes.

"You could fly an airplane through it – Air force One, for example."

"The only thing we can agree on is the science. Everything else is a fudge, everything else is a fraud, and it must be called as such," he said.

Naidoo said the outcome of what was intended as a planet-saving deal should be a "wake-up call" for civil society.

"We have to put our leaders under much more pressure than they have been," he said.

Oxfam was also scornful at the non-binding climate deal.

"It can't even be called a deal,” Antonio Hill of the aid group said.

“It can be called a 'copout' -- It has no deadline for an agreement in 2010, no certainty that it will be legally binding.

"We know that this is going to deliver much anger, much disappointment, much outrage that all these leaders of the world have gathered to deliver just this."

Iran Confirms Iraq Oilfield Takeover

TEHRAN – Iran confirmed Saturday, December 19, the takeover of an oil well on the Iraqi border, in the first such incursion since the US invasion, insisting that the field lies on its territory.

“Our forces are on our own soil,” the armed forces command said in a statement cited by Iran’s Arabic-language Al-Alam television.

“Based on the known international borders, this well belongs to Iran."

Iranian troops on Friday took over Well 4 in Maysan province and raised the Iranian flag over the field.

"We summoned Iran's ambassador to Baghdad yesterday (Friday) to tell him that this attack is unacceptable,” Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad al-Hajj Hamud told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Our ambassador to Tehran delivered a note to their foreign ministry to ask them to pull out their troops.”

Hamud said an Iranian unit made up of around a dozen soldiers and technicians was still posted at the disputed oil well on Saturday.

Well 4 is in the Fauqa Field, part of a cluster of oilfields which Iraq unsuccessfully put up for auction to oil majors in June.

The field has estimated reserves of 1.55 million barrels.

The Iranian incursion is the first into Iraq since the US-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein, whose forces fought a 1980-1988 war against Iran.

Many leaders of Shiite parties who were exiled to Iran during the Saddam era are now in power in Baghdad.

Oil Fears

But Tehran insisted that the oil well lies on its territory.

"The claim that Iran has occupied an Iraqi oil well is strongly rejected," Alaeddin Borujerdi, head of parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, told IRNA.

The Iranian foreign ministry also accused "external sources" of working to damage relations between Tehran and Baghdad.

Iran said that it would seek a diplomatic solution to the dispute.

"We will resolve this issue in a diplomatic fashion," a spokesman for the Iranian embassy in Baghdad told Reuters.

The Iranian ambassador to Baghdad Hassan Kazemi-Qomi met Iraqi government officials Saturday to discuss the dispute.

The dispute has left world oil markets edgy and sent oil prices high.

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for January, rose 71 cents on Friday to close at 73.36 dollars a barrel.

In London, Brent North Sea crude for February delivery settled 38 cents higher at 73.75 dollars a barrel.

But the Iraqi government sought Saturday to alley fears of the oil markets.

"This event ... will not affect Iraqi oil production or exports," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters television.

Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

Cambodia to Expel Uighurs to China

PHNOM PENH — The Cambodian government announced plans Saturday, December 19, to deport at least 20 Uighur Muslims, who fled China after deadly ethnic violence, back to Beijing despite fears of persecution and torture there.

"Currently they are still in Cambodia, but they will be sent out of the country within seven days," Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak said, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The Cambodian Foreign Ministry said the Uighur Muslims could be sent back to China.

"I can't say where they will be sent but I assume their final destination will be China, the place where they come from," spokesman Koy Kuong said.

"They are illegal immigrants and according to Cambodian immigration law they should be expelled from the country. So we must expel them."

The Uighurs fled China into Cambodia following deadly ethnic violence in the north-western province of Xinjiang in July.

At least 197 people were killed and more than 1,600 injured when Chinese security forces suppressed protests by Uighur Muslims over discrimination and religious and cultural controls in their region.

Chinese authorities convicted 21 Uighurs in October on charges of murder, intentional damage to property, arson, and robbery.

Last month, nine Uighurs were executed for their roles in the protests.

Xinjiang and its Uighur Muslims, a Turkish-speaking minority of more than eight million, continue to be the subject of massive security crackdowns.

Muslims accuses the government of settling millions of ethnic Han in their territory with the ultimate goal of obliterating its identity and culture.

Beijing views the vast region as an invaluable asset because of its crucial strategic location near Central Asia and its large oil and gas reserves.

Possible Torture

The planned deportation of Uighur Muslims sparked international outcry for fears of possible torture in China.

"We have definitely conveyed a message to the Cambodian government to refrain from deporting them," Kitty McKinsey, spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) office in Phnom Penh, said.

McKinsey said as signatories to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, Cambodia should not force the Uighurs to return to China.

Human rights groups warned that the lives of the Uighur Muslims would be in danger if they are deported to China.

"Cambodia will be sending these Uighurs to a terrible fate, possible execution and likely torture," said Amy Reger, a researcher at the Washington-based Uighur American Association.

She cited the case of Shaheer Ali, a Uighur political activist who fled to Nepal in 2000 and was granted refugee status by the United Nations.

But the activist was forcibly returned to China from Nepal in 2002 and was executed a year later.

The US also warned against the deportation of the Muslim Uighurs to China.

"The US strongly urges the Cambodian government to honor its commitments under international law," said US embassy spokesman John Johnson.

Cambodia's decision comes as Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping is expected to visit the country for a three-day visit beginning on Sunday.

China and Cambodia have long kept close relations, with China giving large amounts of aid to the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

Karzai’s New Govt Courts West, Warlords

KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai unveiled Saturday, December 19, a long-awaited cabinet lineup that seeks to appease his Western allies demanding an honest government and warlords seeking political paybacks.

"The president has listened to the Afghan people, to different political parties, to the international community," Presidency Spokesman Waheed Omar told reporters, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported.

"He has made a decision based on all those consultations."

Karzai presented a list of 23 ministers to the parliament, with the candidates of the foreign affairs and urban development portfolios still unnamed.

The new lineup features 11 current ministers, including the finance and interior ministers.

All three security offices, including the head of the intelligence agency, are also unchanged.

The lineup also features 12 new ministers in addition to a female minister for the women’s affairs portfolio.

The parliament will debate the cabinet lineup in the coming days before approval.

Karzai's lineup is seen as the first test of his commitment to building a clean and accountable government.

The Afghan leader, installed after the 2001 US invasion, has been under fire over the rampant corruption in the central Asian country.

Karzai was sworn into power for a second five-year term a month ago following a controversial election steeped in fraud.

Appeasing

Karzai's lineup reflects his effort to appease both Western allies and local warlords who helped him win re-election.

"Karzai has been under two sorts of pressure forming this cabinet, in fact two sorts of opposition -- domestic and foreign," Political analyst Waheed Mujda told AFP.

In his lineup, Karzai was keen to keep all the West-liked figures and to increase the number of technocrats as demanded by his western allies.

But he was also keen to appease the West-criticized, corruption-tainted warlords who supported his election campaign.

Warlord Ismail Khan has been nominated energy minister, a powerful post seen as a reward for delivering substantial votes in the August ballot.

A list released to AFP featured a second warlord, Gul Agha Shairzai for the development portfolio, but he did not appear on the list read to parliament Saturday.

Karzai also nominated Commerce Minister Wahidullah Shahrani to the mines portfolio, a sector with the potential to earn Afghanistan significant revenues in the future.

In his current post, Shahrani adopted a vigorous privatization campaign and doggedly rooted out corruption.

Analysts believe that the nomination of warlords and corruption-tainted politicians in the new cabinet does not augur well.

"We do not see new figures or faces in this cabinet to give us any expectation for a major change for the country's future," Mujda said.