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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 14th, 2008 This WEEK in the European Union EUOBSERVER / AGENDA (6 – 13 July) – Next week will be marked by the launch of the EU’s Union for the Mediterranean, as well as by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s presentation in the European Parliament of his priorities for France’s six-month EU presidency. The Mediterranean Union was proposed by France last year to boost ties with the EU’s southern neighbours, and its official launch is planned to take place during a summit in Paris on Sunday (13 July).
The launch of the Mediterranean Union in Paris is expected to be one of the cornerstones of the French EU presidency. (Photo: French presidency of the EU) It is a major project of the French presidency and the brainchild of Mr Sarkozy – but its initial version was met with opposition by some member states and was eventually watered down. Additionally, it is not yet clear who exactly will attend the Paris summit on Sunday. Leaders of all 27 EU members, plus 17 Mediterranean states, have been invited to the event, but some countries, including Algeria and Turkey, have still to decide whether they will accept the invitation or not. Meanwhile Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who has spoken out strongly against the idea, has said he would not go. Before hosting the launch of the project and the celebrations in Paris, Mr Sarkozy will pass by Strasbourg on Thursday (10 July), where he will present the priorities of his country’s EU presidency to MEPs gathered for their monthly plenary session. Parliament plenary in Strasbourg The deputies will also host European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet on Wednesday (9 July) for a debate on the parliament’s annual report on the ECB, following the bank’s decision to raise interest rates and in a global context of rising prices. On Wednesday, MEPs will also debate and vote on a report on the EU’s future enlargement strategy, stressing that the bloc’s own capacity to absorb new states should be taken into account when considering membership applications in the future. The report - which also says the EU will respect the commitments it has already taken, was approved by MEPs in the parliament’s foreign affairs committee on 24 June. Other issues on the parliamentarians’ agenda will include a first-reading vote on the EU’s energy package, in particular on the part focusing on gas unbundling – or the extent to which gas suppliers should be separated from gas distribution networks – on Wednesday, preceded by a debate on the issue on Tuesday. They will also debate on Tuesday in a second reading and vote on a plan to include aviation in the EU’s emissions trading system; a package of reforms to EU rules on food additives; and rules on airline ticket pricing that aims to do away with the annoyance of hidden taxes and charges in online ticket pricing. On Thursday, MEPs will also vote on resolution on Zimbabwe and China, preceded by debates with the commission and the EU presidency on Wednesday.
This week (7 - 9 July), leaders of the group of eight largest economies in the world - US, Canada, Russia, Japan, the UK, Germany, Italy and France, collectively referred to as the G8 – will meet in Tokyo to discuss, among other things, the challenge of climate change and increasing concerns about global inflation, which is being driven by soaring oil and food prices. With only a few days left before the summit, World Bank president Robert Zoellick this week called on the G8 leaders to act immediately to address the issue of increasing food prices, calling the crisis “a man-made catastrophe … [that] must be fixed by people.” Meanwhile, the European Commission will on Monday (7 July) present a proposal to change the current directive on value added tax (VAT) in the EU, so as to allow member states to apply reduced VAT on a permanent basis in some sectors. On Tuesday, the EU executive is to adopt a package aiming to make transport greener; a proposal for a School Fruit Scheme with the goal of increasing the share of fruit and vegetables in the diets of children at school; and two communications on the situation in the fisheries sector following the surge in oil prices. On the same day, the commission will present a proposal for a special financing tool to help farmers from poorest countries boost their food production in the context of soaring food prices. According to press reports, Brussels is to offer €1 billion from the EU’s unspent agriculture funds to achieve this goal. ———— TOKYO — The Group of Eight, holding its summit in Japan starting Monday, has always been a club for the world’s biggest economies. Now a growing chorus is saying it’s time that the clubhouse doors swing open to some newcomers. China has eclipsed more than half the club’s members in economic size, and the gross domestic product of Brazil is larger than Russia’s. “When do they move from the G-8 to the G-13?” asked Lael Brainard of the Brookings Institution, a Washington public policy organization. “None of these problems can be solved without the participation of countries like China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa.” Indeed, the G-8’s grip on the world economy isn’t what it used to be. The United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia accounted for 58 percent of the world economy at current prices in 2007, International Monetary Fund figures show — down from 65 percent in 1997. China’s $3.4 trillion economy is the fourth-largest in the world, nipping at the heels of No. 3 Germany. Brazil has the 10th-largest economy, just behind Canada but ahead of Russia. After Russia awaits fast-growing India. It’s not only raw economics. The five nations mentioned by Brainard include serious military powers and the world’s two most populous nations, China and India. It wouldn’t be the first time the G-8 has changed its membership. The group held its initial summit in France in 1975 with six members: the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Italy and Japan. Canada came on board the following year. Russia formally joined in 1997. In recent years, as G-8 countries have struggled to address the concerns of the rest of the world, such as poverty in Africa, the list of summit participants has ballooned, though the core nations still hold exclusive meetings. A total of 22 heads of government — eight from the members, seven from Africa and seven from other leading economies — will be at the summit in Japan. Members themselves are split over whether they need to formally open the group to new entrants. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been outspokenly in favor, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also supports expansion. “It is in our interest to put them at the negotiating table, to treat them like partners and to put them face to face with their obligations,” Sarkozy told the French-Japan Club in November. Others are not so sure. Japan, which has long basked in the honor of being the G-8’s only Asian member, has repeatedly shrugged off suggestions of expansion in the weeks leading up to the summit. Then there’s the question of democracy. John Kirton, director of the G-8 research group at the University of Toronto, has argued that the summit’s founding principles included promotion of open democracy. By that criteria, China does not meet requirements for membership, he has written. ————— Sarkozy beaming at birth of Mediterranean Union. ELITSA VUCHEVA, July 14, 2008, EUOBSERVER / PARIS – France officially announced the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean on Sunday (13 July) – the brainchild of its president Nicolas Sarkozy, who did not hide his pride in seeing the project’s official birth. “We had dreamt of it. The Union for the Mediterranean is now a reality,” a visibly content Mr Sarkozy told journalists in Paris after a four-hour long working session with leaders of the countries members of the Union. The project – under its official name Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean – regroups 43 states, including all EU members, and will be co-presided over by one EU and one Mediterranean country – currently Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, and Mr Sarkozy himself. The goal is to boost ties between the EU and its southern neighbours, while the aim of the co-presidency will be to “improve the balance and the joint ownership” of the Union, reads the final declaration adopted by the 43 leaders. Some critics of the project however had accused European states of wanting to dominate their southern partners. But “north and south will be on an equal footing … We have exactly the same rights, exactly the same obligations,” said the French president during the opening of the summit. Details of the Union for the Mediterranean’s institutional structure are still to be sorted out, but it will have a Joint Permanent Committee based in Brussels that will assist in the preparation of meetings of senior officials; and a joint Secretariat – whose “political mandate,” location, as well as the nationality of its director, are to be decided by the Union’s foreign ministers, who will meet in November. A Union for the Mediterranean high-level summit will take place once every two years, while its foreign ministers will meet once a year. The only one who was invited but declined to attend was Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi – an outspoken opponent of the project, while the kings of Morocco and Jordan did not come, but instead sent representatives. “Concrete projects:” The leaders unanimously adopted a declaration deciding to work on six “concrete projects” as initial activities, Mr Sarkozy said. 4. The yet to be established Secretariat will also aim to “explore the feasibility, development and creation of a Mediterranean Solar Plan,” looking into solar energy as an alternative source of energy. 5. A Euro-Mediterranean University, whose seat will be somewhere in Slovenia, hopes to “contribute to the establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean Higher Education, Science and Research area.” 6. Additionally, a so-called Mediterranean Business Development Initiative will support small and medium-sized enterprises. A diplomatic success? But the project’s overarching goal is to progressively lead to peace in the Middle East, Mr Sarkozy said. Conflicts in the region are seen as the main reason preventing the Barcelona Process – an initiative started in 1995 with similar ambitions to the new project – from achieving significant results. On Sunday, “over the course of four hours, everybody was there. Everybody spoke, discussed and agreed [on things] … If it is possible during four hours, if we could agree on all these projects, we will continue, we will go further,” Mr Sarkozy told the press, stressing there had been no incidents at the summit, despite the tense relations between some of the leaders, and said he already saw a chance for peace from this first meeting. Prior to his statement, Israel’s premier, Ehud Olmert, said Furthermore, the French president announced on Saturday that Relations between the two countries have been particularly tense since the assassination of Lebanon’s former premier, Rafiq Hariri, in April 2005 – followed by Syria’s troops’ forced withdrawal from Lebanon. Damascus has denied any involvement in Mr Hariri’s killing, but a number of UN inquiries have suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence forces had played some role in the assassination. “Our position is that there is no problem with the opening of embassies between Syria and Lebanon … If Lebanon is willing to exchange embassies, we have no objections to doing it,” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was quoted as saying by French news agency AFP. But the two countries must “define the steps to take to arrive at this stage” before mutual recognition, he stressed. Observers have adopted a cautious approach however, insisting that many things have been said about peace in the region over the years and one should wait for concrete results before claiming success. At the summit, Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, warned: “The world is not going to be changed by the meeting today,” reported AFP. “But the entire region will, hopefully, be changed over time by this particular approach,” he added. ———————— Sarkozy revels in Club Med ‘bringer of peace’ role. France gathers world leaders for Bastille Day parade - Les Français sont arrivés. A gargantuan summit of European and Middle Eastern leaders in Paris has produced a series of breakthroughs and diplomatic coups for the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. It remains to be seen whether the Sarkozy-inspired, 43-nation “Union for the Mediterranean”, launched yesterday, will suffer the same fate as previous botched efforts to establish formal links between Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The success of the inaugural summit suggests the new “Club Med” – dismissed by some as just another talking shop – might finally allow Europe to become a serious player in the game of Middle East peace. Middle Eastern leaders joined their EU counterparts, including Gordon Brown, to discuss practical co-operation on issues such as energy, pollution, climate change and immigration. War and peace were not on the formal agenda but the unprecedented gathering provided an opportunity, and impetus, for deal-making between perennially hostile neighbours. Mr Olmert, under increasing domestic pressure from allegations of corruption, held pre-summit talks in Paris yesterday morning with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. M. Sarkozy also attended. Afterwards, Mr Olmert said that the two sides had “never been as close to the possibility of reaching an accord as we are today”. Israeli officials said that Mr Olmert was ready to release an unspecified, but large, number of Palestinian prisoners to help to achieve a settlement with Mr Abbas, on the permanent boundaries of the West Bank (Jerusalem excepted). The Israeli Prime Minister and Syrian President took their seats in the vast summit chamber in the sprawling, glass-roofed Grand Palais exhibition hall, just off the Champs Elysées. They did not exchange a handshake or a word or establish eye-contact. All the same, this was, as President Sarkozy pointed out, “a historic event”: The “Union for the Mediterranean”, linking the 27 European Union member states, and 16 nations on the southern and eastern rims of the Med, is not what President Sarkozy first intended. He wanted an organisation which united only those countries with a Mediterranean coast-line. Germany and Spain objected. President Sarkozy – currently president of the EU council – agreed to merge his idea with an existing, and largely moribund, EU-Mediterranean association launched in Barcelona in 1995. The new Union for the Mediterranean will attempt to set up common approaches to, among other things, global warming, investment, solar energy, water shortages, illegal immigration, maritime pollution, road and sea transport and university exchange programmes. President Sarkozy said, in his opening speech to the summit, that this was an attempt to emulate the nuts-and-bolts approach of the original European Common Market. Age-old national quarrels and hatreds would be doused in debate and co-operation on vital issues of everyday importance. “The European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable,” he said. “We will build peace in the Mediterranean together, like yesterday we built peace in Europe … We will succeed together; or we will fail together.” The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, the co-chairman of the summit with M. Sarkozy, stressed the importance of progress on practical, everyday issues as “building blocks” for peace. The inaugural summit owed its success partly to President Sarkozy’s energy and vision – and partly to luck. Officials pointed out that several favourable factors came together: the diplomatic vacuum created by the change of administration in the US; the Israeli Prime Minister’s domestic political crisis, which made him hungry for progress with the Palestinians; and the Syrian President’s strategic decision to reduce his country’s diplomatic isolation. All the same, the summit will go down as a diplomatic and political triumph for President Sarkozy: perhaps the most important single event in his 14 months in the Elysée Palace. But Syrian and Israeli Leaders did not see eye-to-eye: The men were among more than 40 leaders gathered in Paris for the EU-Mediterranean summit and it was the first time they had ever been in the same room together. Although Syria recently revived indirect negotiations with its long-time foe, President Assad clearly considered it was too soon to shake hands, chat or even nod to Mr Olmert. As Mr Olmert entered the main hall of the Grand Palais, a Reuters photographer captured him casting glances toward the tall Syrian leader. But Mr Assad turned away, raising one hand to his face as if to block off any eye contact with the Israeli. Mr Assad skirting the far wall, where interpreters sat in plexiglass booths, as Mr Olmert turned to talk to another delegate. The Syrian leader had left the room byt the time Mr Olmert gave his speech. A seating chart showed Mr Olmert had been assigned a place almost directly opposite Mr Assad for the round-table discussion. Earlier yesterday, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid al-Mouallem, attended talks at which his Israeli counterpart, Tzipi Livni, was also present. He did not speak to her and left the room when she got up to speak. Reuters Damascus has denied any involvement in Mr Hariri’s killing, but a number of UN inquiries have suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence forces had played some role in the assassination. “Our position is that there is no problem with the opening of embassies between Syria and Lebanon … If Lebanon is willing to exchange embassies, we have no objections to doing it,” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was quoted as saying by French news agency AFP. But the two countries must “define the steps to take to arrive at this stage” before mutual recognition, he stressed. Observers have adopted a cautious approach however, insisting that many things have been said about peace in the region over the years and one should wait for concrete results before claiming success. At the summit, Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, warned: “The world is not going to be changed by the meeting today,” reported AFP. “But the entire region will, hopefully, be changed over time by this particular approach,” he added. ——————–
right, attend a meeting at the Elysee Palace Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on July 4th, 2008 We wonder why it has to be this way - but seemingly progress comes because of suffering. Now, if they write to their families, in their old homes, what they just learned in Britain, Europe, the US, and the understanding of reality hits Do you think that then, without the economic effect of a potential oil-boycot startted by the Middle East brethren, there could also be less Xenophobia in the new country?
REUTERS Today’s print edition Minister’s shock warning on rise of anti-Islamic prejudice By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter Britain’s first Muslim minister has attacked the growing culture of hostility against Muslims in the United Kingdom, saying that many feel targeted like “the Jews of Europe”. Shahid Malik, who was appointed as a minister in the Department for International Development (Dfid) by Gordon Brown last summer, said it has become legitimate to target Muslims in the media and society at large in a way that would be unacceptable for any other minority. Mr Malik made clear that he was not equating the situation with the Holocaust but warned that many British Muslims now felt like “aliens in their own country”. He said he himself had been the target of a string of racist incidents, including the firebombing of his family car and an attempt to run him down at a petrol station. “I think most people would agree that if you ask Muslims today what do they feel like, they feel like the Jews of Europe,” he said. “I don’t mean to equate that with the Holocaust but in the way that it was legitimate almost – and still is in some parts – to target Jews, many Muslims would say that we feel the exact same way. “Somehow there’s a message out there that it’s OK to target people as long as it’s Muslims. And you don’t have to worry about the facts, and people will turn a blind eye.” The claims are made in an interview to be broadcast on Monday in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to coincide with the third anniversary of the London bombings of 7 July. A poll to accompany the documentary highlights the growing polarisation of opinion among Britain’s 1.6 million Muslims, who say they have suffered a marked increase in hostility since the London bombings. The ICM survey found that 51 per cent of Britons blame Islam to some degree for the 2005 attacks while more than a quarter of Muslims now believe Islamic values are not compatible with British values. While 90 per cent of Muslims said they felt attached to Britain, eight out of 10 said they felt there was more religious prejudice against their faith since the July bombings. The Dispatches film, “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim”, presented by the writer and broadcaster Peter Oborne, examines claims that negative attitudes to Muslims have become legitimised by think-tanks and newspaper commentators, who use language that is now being parroted by the far right. Mr Malik, who narrowly escaped serious injury when a car was driven at him at a petrol station in his home town of Burnley in 2002, said he regularly receives anti-Muslim hate mail at his constituency office in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, which has the highest BNP vote in the country and was home to Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the suicide attackers who killed 52 people in London in 2005. The MP said the negative portrayal of Muslims in the media, including a story run by several national newspapers in December last year wrongly stating that staff in the Dewsbury and District Hospital had been ordered to turn the beds of Muslim patients towards Mecca five times a day, was a key example of how his co-religionists were being alienated from the mainstream. He said: “It’s almost as if you don’t have to check your facts when it comes to certain people, and you can just run with those stories. It makes Muslims feel like aliens in their own country. At a time when we want to engage with Muslims, actually the opposite happens.” The Dispatches programme also speaks to Andy Hayman, the former Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner who was Britain’s most senior anti-terrorism officer until he resigned last December. Mr Hayman, who was criticised for failing to tell senior Scotland Yard officers that an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, had been shot dead after being mistaken for a suicide bomber, is asked why he thinks it is important to engage with Muslims expressing extreme views. Mr Hayman said: “Because we’re tackling head on the people that we feel are at the heartbeat of this whole complex agenda. Not to have a dialogue with them would seem that we are apprehensive, we’re scared, we’re frightened… So even if it’s appeasement in some quarters, that is still a conversation that is not being had and needs to be had.” Mr Malik’s comments were backed by Simon Woolley, a member of the Government’s task force on race equality, and co-founder of Operation Black Vote. He said: “On an almost daily basis, there is rampant Islamophobia in this country, the effect of which is not for our Muslim community to get closer to a sense of Britishness but to feel further away from a feeling of belonging in British society.” ——————- Also: The enemy within? Fear of Islam: Britain’s new disease Suspicion of the Muslim community has found its way into mainstream society – and nobody seems to care. By Peter Oborne The Independent, Friday, 4 July 2008 Three years ago, four young suicide bombers caused carnage in London. Their aim was not just to kill and maim. There was also a long-term strategic purpose: to sow suspicion and divide Britain between Muslims and the rest. They are succeeding. In Britain today, there is a deepening distrust between mainstream society and ever more isolated Muslim communities. A culture of contempt and violence is emerging on our streets. Sarfraz Sarwar is a pillar of the Muslim community in Basildon, Essex. He is constantly abused and attacked, and the prayer centre he used has been burnt to the ground. Mr Sarwar, who has six children and whose wife is matron of an old people’s home, is a patently decent man. His only crime is his religious faith. He and his fellow worshippers now meet in secret to evade detection, and the attacks that would follow. The first abuse that Mr Sarwar’s family suffered was in October 2001 – just after the 9/11 attacks – when pigs’ trotters were left outside their door, the walls of their house were covered with graffiti and two front windows were broken. Since then, the family has suffered many attacks, including a failed fire-bombing. In February, the tyres of Mr Sarwar’s new car were slashed; in March his windows were broken again. He has now installed CCTV cameras, replaced his wooden back door with one made of steel and erected higher fences. An investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme discovered many violent episodes and attacks on Muslims, with very few reported; those that do get almost no publicity. Last week, Martyn Gilleard, a Nazi sympathiser in East Yorkshire, was jailed for 16 years. Police found four nail bombs, bullets, swords, axes and knives in his flat. Gilleard had been preparing for a war against Muslims. In a note at his flat he had written, “I am sick and tired of hearing nationalists talking of killing Muslims, blowing up mosques and fighting back only to see these acts of resistance fail. The time has come to stop the talking and start to act.” The Gilleard case went all but unreported. Had a Muslim been found with an arsenal of weapons and planning violent assaults, it would have been a far bigger story. There is a reason for this blindness in the media. The systematic demonisation of Muslims has become an important part of the central narrative of the British political and media class; it is so entrenched, so much part of normal discussion, that almost nobody notices. Protests go unheard and unnoticed. Why? Britain’s Muslim immigrants are mainly poor, isolated and alienated from mainstream society. Many are a different colour. As a community, British Muslims are relatively powerless. There are few Muslim MPs, there has never been a Muslim cabinet minister, no mainstream newspaper is owned by a Muslim and, as far as we are aware, only one national newspaper has a regular Muslim columnist on its comment pages, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown of The Independent. Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures. Islamophobia – defined in 1997 by the landmark report from the Runnymede Trust as “an outlook or world-view involving an unfounded dread and dislike of Muslims, which results in practices of exclusion and discrimination” – can be encountered in the best circles: among our most famous novelists, among newspaper columnists, and in the Church of England. Its appeal is wide-ranging. “I am an Islamophobe,” the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee wrote in The Independent nearly 10 years ago. “Islamophobia?” the Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle asks rhetorically in the title of a recent speech, “Count me in”. Imagine Liddle declaring: “Anti-Semitism? Count me in”, or Toynbee claiming she was “an anti-Semite and proud of it”. Anti-Semitism is recognised as an evil, noxious creed, and its adherents are barred from mainstream society and respectable organs of opinion. Not so Islamophobia. Its practitioners say Islamophobia cannot be regarded as the same as anti-Semitism because the former is hatred of an ideology or a religion, not Muslims themselves. This means there is no social, political or cultural protection for Muslims: as far as the British political, media and literary establishment is concerned the normal rules of engagement are suspended. “There is a definite urge; don’t you have it?”, the author Martin Amis told Ginny Dougary of The Times: “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. Not letting them travel. Deportation; further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or Pakistan. Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.” Here, Amis is doing much more than insulting Muslims. He is using the foul and barbarous language of fascism. Yet his books continue to sell, and his work continues to be celebrated. And we found the language of Islamophobic columnists such as Toynbee, Liddle, or novelists such as Amis, duplicated by the British National Party and its growing band of supporters. All over Europe, parties of the far right have been dropping their traditional hostility to minorities such as Jews and homosexuals; in Britain, the BNP has come to realise that anti-Semitism and anti-black campaigning won’t work if they are serious about electoral success. To move to mainstream respectability, they need an issue that allows them to exploit people’s fears about immigrants and Britain’s ethnic minority communities without being branded racist extremists. They have found it. Since 9/11, and particularly 7/7, the BNP has gone all out to tap a rich vein of anti-Muslim sentiment. The party’s leader, Nick Griffin, has described Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” and has tried to distance himself and the party from its anti-Semitic past. Party members are now rebuked for discussing the Holocaust and told to focus on terrorism, the evils of Islam, and scare stories of Britain becoming an Islamic state. Griffin’s strategy has been inspired by the press. He said: “We bang on about Islam. Why? Because to the ordinary public out there it’s the thing they can understand. It’s the thing the newspaper editors sell newspapers with.” Last month, we visited Stoke-on-Trent, a BNP heartland with nine BNP councillors, a council second only to Barking and Dagenham in far-right representation. The party has made this progress in large part by mounting a vicious anti-Muslim campaign. Stoke has one of the lowest employment rates in the country since the pottery industry collapsed. The BNP has tried to link this decline to Muslim immigration. Other campaigns have focused on planning issues over mosques, a flashpoint elsewhere too. The BNP accuses the Labour council of cutting special deals with Muslim groups in exchange for support. Wherever we explored tension between Muslims and the local community we tended to discover the BNP was present, fanning discontent. Many categories of immigrants and foreigners have been singled out for hatred and opprobrium by mainstream society because they were felt to be threats to British identity. At times, these despised categories have included Catholics, Jews, French and Germans; gays were held to subvert decency and normality until the 1980s, blacks until the 1970s, and Jews for centuries. Now this outcast role has fallen to Muslims. And it is the perception that Muslims receive special treatment that fuels the most resentment. When we investigated clashes at a Muslim dairy in Windsor, we found the perception that police had failed to investigate what seemed to be a racist attack by Asian youths on a local woman played a powerful role in fanning resentments. But by the same token we believe that Muslims should be given the same protection as other minority groups from insults or ignorant abuse. This protection is not available. Ordinary Muslim families are virtually a silenced minority. We should all feel ashamed about the way we treat Muslims, in the media, in our politics, and on our streets. We do not treat Muslims with the tolerance, decency and fairness that we often like to boast is the British way. We urgently need to change our public culture. Peter Oborne’s Dispatches film, “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Muslim”, will be screened on Channel 4 at 8pm on Monday. The pamphlet Muslims Under Siege, by Peter Oborne and James Jones, is published next week by Democratic Audit
By David Barrett
GETTY Sharia could play a role in some parts of the legal system, the most senior judge in England and Wales said today. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, ruled out the possibility of sharia courts sitting in this country or deciding penalties. But in a speech at the East London Muslim Centre, in Whitechapel, he said there was no reason why sharia principles could not be used in “mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution”. Sharia, a set of principles governing the way many Muslims believe one should live one’s life, suffered from “widespread misunderstanding” by the rest of the world, he added. Lord Phillips said: “There is no reason why sharia principles, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution. “It must be recognised, however, that any sanctions for a failure to comply with the agreed terms of mediation would be drawn from the laws of England and Wales.” The Lord Chief Justice said severe physical punishments such as flogging, stoning and the cutting off of hands would not be acceptable. He added: “There can be no question of such courts sitting in this country, or such sanctions being applied here. “So far as the law is concerned, those who live in this country are governed by English and Welsh law and subject to the jurisdiction of the English and Welsh courts.” The judge said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had been misunderstood when it was reported that he said British Muslims could be governed by sharia. Dr Williams suggested sharia could play a role in “aspects of marital law, the regulation of financial transactions and authorised structures of mediation and conflict resolution”. The Lord Chief Justice told his audience: “It was not very radical to advocate embracing sharia in the context of family disputes, for example, and our system already goes a long way towards accommodating the Archbishop’s suggestion. “It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.” Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 28th, 2008 From: rcervigni at worldbank.org We are pleased to announce the launch of the World Bank web site on climate change in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). The site contains information on ongoing and planned World Bank activities aimed at helping MENA countries enhance their resilience to Climate Change, and move to a low carbon development path. The URL for the site is: http://www.worldbank.org/mena/climatecha… Raffaello Cervigni Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 27th, 2008 ITALY, June 25, 2008, The Interanational Organization for Migration (IOM) – Memorial to Migrants Perished at Sea - A memorial dedicated to the thousands of migrants who have died at sea trying to reach Italy will be unveiled tomorrow on Lampedusa island. The project initiated by the Italian NGOs Alternativa Giovani Onlus, Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori and Associazione Amani is supported by IOM, the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the regions of Sicily and Puglia, the municipality of Milan and UNHCR. Designed by Italian sculptor Mimmo Paladino, the five-meter high monument, built in the shape of a door facing the sea, representing the gateway to Europe, commemorates the men, women and children who lost their lives in search of a better life. “In the first six months of 2008 more than 7,000 migrants reached Lampedusa – double the number who arrived in 2007. But while the number of migrants who made it safely increased, we believe that the number of deaths also increased,” said IOM Regional Representative for the Western Mediterranean Peter Schatzer. “IOM has provided information and legal advice to more than 30,000 migrants arriving in Lampedusa and Sicily since 2006. We hope that this monument will focus attention on the human suffering taking place in the Mediterranean every day and make us think about why people are prepared to take such risks,” he added. The memorial has also been welcomed by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who sent a letter of appreciation to the organizers. A number of leading Italian artists will also attend tomorrow’s unveiling. For further information, please contact Flavio Di Giacomo at IOM Rome. Tel: +39 06 44 186 207. Email: fdigiacomo at iom.int Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 23rd, 2008 Algeria unimpressed by Sarkozy’s Med union as per http://www.theparliament.com/press-revie… French prime minister François Fillon has failed to convince Algerian leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika to take part in the inaugural meeting of the union for the Mediterranean during a visit to the country, Le Monde reports. Libyan president Muammar Gadaffi is the only African leader who has so far declined to attend, calling the idea an “affront” to the southern nations. Permalink | ### |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 1st, 2008 nbsp;washingtonpost.com > World > Africa - looking at a new mess in the making. U.S. Africa Command Trims Its Aspirations - Nations Loath to Host Force - Aid Groups Resisted Military Plan to Take On Relief Work. The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America’s image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after Africom, due to begin operations Oct. 1, will now be based for the foreseeable future in Stuttgart, Germany, with five smaller regional offices planned for the continent on hold while the military searches for places to put them. “I don’t think we should push African governments to a place they don’t really want to go in terms of relationships,” Gates said. Africa has always been an orphan in the U.S. defense establishment, divvied up among the Pentagon’s four regional “Unified Combatant Commands” — European, Central, Southern and Pacific — that manage U.S. military relationships and operations overseas. Of the four, only Eucom, established in post-World War II Germany, is based overseas. Pacom handles Asia from its headquarters in Hawaii; Southcom, responsible for Latin America, and Centcom, in charge of operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, are both in Florida. There was no Africom - period - probably Nigerian oil was left to be handled by the local ccoperative rulers. That was good until the Chinese showed up. Now the Indians, the Japanese, the Brazilians, are not far behind. www.SustainabiliTank.info comments.} Under Africom, one command will consolidate military responsibility for all of Africa, excluding Egypt. Although it encompasses the volatile Horn of Africa and the U.S. Navy’s forward operating base in Djibouti and will take over training tasks on the continent, it has no other dedicated troop components. “There are very few scenarios which would create a U.S. military intervention” in Africa, said one Africom officer who was not authorized to speak on the record. “Arguably, there are no scenarios.” “If you know the politics of Africa,” said Opande, who has headed U.N. peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone and Liberia, “you know there are certain very powerful countries who said, no, we are not interested in having a headquarters here.” South Africa and Nigeria were among them, and their resistance helped persuade others. |