Court rejects Uribe third-term bid

Colombia's Constitutional Court has rejected a referendum to allow President Alvaro Uribe a chance to seek re-election after eight years in office.

The court's nine magistrates ruled the referendum unconstitutional by a margin of 7-2, denying Uribe's chance to run for a third consecutive term in May election.

The conservative leader, who had not confirmed he wanted to run for a third term, accepted the court's decision on Friday.

"I accept and I respect the decision of the constitutional court," Uribe told reporters.

The decision marks the start of a tough campaign among rivals seeking to replace Uribe, who after almost eight years in power became one of the country's most popular presidents for his US-backed campaign against leftist guerrillas.

Monica Villamizar, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Bogota, said: "The main reasons for the referendum being ruled unconstitutional lay in technicalities. The court also cited irregularities over the referendum's financing."

Possible successors

Any successor in Latin America's fourth largest oil producer would be unlikely to diverge far from the president's security policies.

Juan Manuel Santos, a former defence minister, closely associated with Uribe's security successes against FARC leftist guerrillas, led in most opinion polls when Uribe was not included as a candidate.

Sergio Fajardo, an independent praised for his performance as mayor of the major city of Medellin, is also making ground, while another former defence minister and three-time candidate Noemi Sanin has recently gained in the polls behind him.

During Uribe's presidency, Latin America's oldest insurgency has ebbed and foreign investment has flowed steadily into Colombia, a country once considered a byword for a violent, failed state.

A political transition could unnerve the local peso currency and benchmark TES debt markets as investors absorb the change in command, but long-term, most analysts see continuity in Colombian stability.

"While a constitutional court rejection may trigger a knee-jerk negative (peso) reaction, this is likely to be transitory as no major shift in economic, regulatory or security policy is expected," RBC Capital Markets said.

America’s Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow

They are young, enlightened, outspoken and determined to change the face of Islam in America and the world.

"We are the next generation of Muslims," Rushda Majeed, director of the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow group (MLT), told IslamOnline.net.

The MLT was launched in 2004 by a group of young, civic-minded Muslims who championed a revolutionary network.

Majeed, who grew up in Northern India, said the founders wanted to address the vacuum of leadership among Muslim communities whether in the US or Europe.

"The aim was to cultivate the next generation of Muslim leaders."

She believes they are not filling the vacuum of Muslim leadership per se, but rather making such leadership visible.

"We do have community activists working in all fields of life. But people do not know much about Muslim leaders and community activists. What the MLT is trying to do is to make sure people know about them."

The MLT gradually expanded and is now a global program and a grassroots movement that groups hundreds of Muslims from across the world.

Its second conference was held in Copenhagen in 2006 with the participation of some 175 Muslims from more than 25 countries.

"In 2009 when we held the third conference in Doha, Qatar, we decided to make the program truly global," said Majeed.

Today the MLT is the biggest group of its kind, with some 250 members from 70 countries.

"We have all groups with diverse ideologies, and different cultural and professional backgrounds," she noted.

All MLT branches work to create a platform for informed, collective and sustainable action true to the diversity and advancement of the Muslim Ummah.

"The MLT is very value-based, and we ask the members to subscribe to six core values of Islam: freedom, justice, pluralism, intellectual development, creativity and leadership," asserted Majeed, saying they welcome Muslims aged 20-45 who commit to these values.

Building Bridges

MLT’s focus in the US is not only to create Muslim leaders but to build bridges between their community and the bigger society.

"The biggest challenge is to build bridges between ordinary Americans and Muslims," said Majeed, who graduated with a Masters in International Relations from Columbia University.

She noted that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some Muslims who were not ready to answer all the questions about their faith.

"There are a lot of perceptions; there is the lack of information, the lack of knowledge."

For Hussein Rashid, a PhD candidate in Harvard University's Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, MLT also helps build bridges among Muslims from different countries.

"My first time to attend the MLT conference was in 2009 in Doha. It was eye-opener for participants especially those from the Muslim world," he told IOL.

"When they think about life in America, they think it is about alcohol and women running around naked."

Rashid, who was born and raised in New York and studied Islam academically, says that the young American Muslims have to look at the progress done in the past few years and add to it.

"We have a responsibility. We should correct our faults when we do them.

"We are always challenged to make ourselves better."

Mali Prophet Celebration Turns Deadly

A deadly stampede crushed at least 26 people to death during a celebration of the birthday of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) at a famed mosque in Mali’s northwestern desert city of Timbuktu.

"There were 26 killed and 40 wounded," Interior Ministry spokesman Oumar Sangare told Reuters by phone.

Local police earlier had said 15 died and 41 were injured.

The stampede occurred as thousands of Muslims celebrated Mouloud (Prophet’s birthday) at Timbuktu’s oldest Djingareyber mosque.

"People were circling the mosque, a ritual at each Mouloud, and there was a huge crowd built up," witness Mohamed Bandjougou said.

Officials blamed renovation works at the mosque for the deadly stampede.

"People took to narrow alleys, there was jostling, and the tragedy occurred," said imam Abdramane ben Essayouti.

An official at Timbuktu town hall said the 14th-century mosque was undergoing renovations.

"Because of these renovations, the passage on the north side of the mosque is closed off," the official told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"On that side, to get through, the faithful found an improvised alleyway.

"But the alley couldn't take the number of people using it. So there was a stampede. Somebody shouted 'someone has died' and panic took over."

Tragedy

Ali Kounta lost his young sister in the deadly stampede.

"I lost my sister,” a crying Kounta told AFP

“She was 16 and had gone to pray."

Built in 1327, the Djinguereber mosque is a famous learning center of Mali.

Except for a small part of the northern facade which is limestone, the mosque is made entirely of earth plus organic materials such as fibre, straw and wood.

It has three inner courts, two minarets and twenty five rows of pillars aligned in an east-west direction and prayer space for 2,000 people.

Djinguereber is one of three madrassas composing the University of Sankore. It was inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1988.

"We're in mourning. What happened is a real drama,” said Essayouti, the mosque imam.

“We accept the will of God. He gives us life, he takes it away."

In 2006, at least 364 people were killed in a stampede during the annual Hajj in Saudi Arabia.

Approximately 90 percent of Malians are Muslims while Christians comprise about 5 percent.

Circumcision Fights Zimbabwe AIDS

One of the world’s highest HIV prevalence, Zimbabwe is turning to the centuries-old procedure of male circumcision to curb the spread of the deadly AIDS virus in the country.

"It reduces the risk of transmitting HIV,” Lovemore, a 20-year-old Zimbabwean, told the BBC News Online on Friday, February 26.

“So whatever's needed for me to be safe, I've got to do it."

Lovemore was among 3,000 men who have been circumcised as a part of a nationwide government plan to fight AIDS.

"I'm doing it for sexual hygiene, I understand that it reduces the risk of you getting infected with HIV."

Harare has launched a campaign to circumcise 80 percent of all young men in the country – three million – in the coming eight years.

The campaign has already been taken to the armed forces, and will be expanded further this year.

The centuries-old operation, in which the penis foreskin is removed, is not widely practiced among Zimbabwe's cultural and religious groups.

Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV prevalence in the world -- 13.7 percent of the 15 to 49 age group, according to the Health Ministry statistics.

Circumcision is a confirmed Sunnah in Islam as an act pertaining to fitrah (pure human nature).

Effective

Researchers say that circumcision is one of the most effective weapons in fighting the incurable virus.

"It's the most effective intervention that we know today which can really save a lot of lives in terms of HIV acquisition," Karin Hatzold, whose US-based group Population Services International sponsors the project, told the BBC.

Hatzold urges the government to put circumcision as part of a more bigger package of procedures that tighten the grab against the virus.

"But 60 percent is not 100 percent, so male circumcision should not be sold as the magic bullet.

"All the other behavior interventions [such as abstinence and faithfulness] as well as the use of male and female condoms are as important, so they should all be used together."

The United Nations has affirmed the significant role of circumcision in helping reduce the risk of HIV spread.

In 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended male circumcision after three studies in Africa showed it reduced chances of contracting HIV by up to 60 percent.

Trials in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa have shown that the operation reduces by 60 percent the risk of a man contracting HIV - the virus that causes AIDS.

Some 30 percent of men worldwide are currently circumcised.

According to WHO, about 33 million people worldwide are infected with HIV virus.