Today's Top Islamic News (DAILY)

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Burqa ban hits official hurdle in France
Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:01:57 GMT

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has raised the prospect of a non-binding parliamentary resolution against the burqa.
The largest left-wing political party in France has contested the prospects of a legal ban on wearing of the burqa by some Muslim women.

"... an ad hoc law would not have the anticipated effect," said Spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party (PS) Benoit Hamon on Wednesday, AFP reported. "We should not make a law when it is not clear how it would be enforced."

The party official, however, added that the party is "totally opposed to the burqa."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said last year that the Islamic dress was "not welcome" in the country. "The issue of the burqa is not a religious issue, it is a question of freedom and of women's dignity," he claimed.

Yesterday, Sarkozy raised the likelihood of a non-binding parliamentary resolution against the burqa.

Many politicians, however, have warned that such a law could face a challenge in the European rights court.

A parliament report on the issue is expected at the end of this month.

HN/SS/RE

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France plans to set up war crimes tribunal
Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:21:07 GMT

Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie says France is the "homeland of human rights."
The French government says it will form a panel to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

The new judicial unit was concocted to advance the efficiency of legal procedure surrounding such cases, according to France's Justice Ministry spokesman, Guillaume Didier.

French legislation permits the prosecution of crimes committed outside of France as long as there is some connection between the European country and the alleged crime, such as the presence of the accused on French soil or the involvement of French citizens.

"As the homeland of human rights, France will never be a sanctuary for the authors of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity," Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie said in a joint statement published in Le Monde newspaper.

Presently, France has given refuge to individuals accused of being involved in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

SES/MD

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UK MPs Urge Alcohol Clampdown
08/01/2010 06:11:34 PM GMT

LONDON – Clamping down on alcohol use in the European country, British lawmakers are calling for a fundamental overhaul of government policies to fight alcohol misuses. “The facts about alcohol abuse are shocking,” Labor MP Kevin Barron, chief of House of Commons Health Select Committee, told the BBC Friday, January 8.

“Even small reductions in the number of people misusing alcohol could save the NHS millions.”

A report issued by the Committee called for slapping stricter regulations on alcohol advertising.

It suggested a ban on alcohol advertising before 9pm on television, on billboards or posters near schools and on socialworking websites.

Islam Prohibits alcohol and Drugs

Alcohol: Dangerous, But Why?

“What is required is fundamental culture change,” MP Barron said. The report also suggested a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, saying it would save 3,000 deaths a year.

“Increasing the price of alcohol is the most powerful tool at the disposal of a government,” the report said.

“The key argument made by the drinks industry and others opposed to a rise in price is that it would be unfair on moderate drinkers.

“We do not think this is a serious argument.”

The call drew welcome from the Scottish government.

“The critics have claimed that minimum pricing punishes moderate drinkers; that it won't work; and that it's illegal,” Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said.

“These claims just don't stack up and the select committee has comprehensively rubbished them.”

According to surveys, a quarter of people in England aged 16 and over is classified as hazardous drinkers.

Alcohol abuses is also causing up to 40,000 killings in England and Wales and £55bn costs of economy every year.

Alcohol is banned under Islam.

The general rule in Islam is that any beverage that get people intoxicated when taken is unlawful, both in small and large quantities, whether it is alcohol, drugs, fermented raisin drink or something else.

Cosy Relationship

The parliamentary report accused the British government of siding with alcohol industry.

“This cosy relationship needs to end,” said Dr Vivienne Nathanson, ethics head at the British Medical Association.

“We need radical action to tackle alcohol misuse.”

Defending the government position, Public Health Minister Gillian Merron said several initiatives were introduced by the government to dismay people from alcohol.

But the politicians and experts opened fire at the government for its opposition to the proposed minimum pricing policy.

“This is a damning indictment of the way successive governments have tackled alcohol health harm, with action ranging from the non-existent to the ineffectual,” Alison Rogers, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, said.

Don Shenkar, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, agrees.

“If they don't act on these recommendations now, they'll lose all credibility in their stated attempts to change British drinking culture.”

Source: IslamOnline

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UK MPs Urge Alcohol Clampdown
08/01/2010 06:11:34 PM GMT

LONDON ? Clamping down on alcohol use in the European country, British lawmakers are calling for a fundamental overhaul of government policies to fight alcohol misuses. ?The facts about alcohol abuse are shocking,? Labor MP Kevin Barron, chief of House of Commons Health Select Committee, told the BBC Friday, January 8.

?Even small reductions in the number of people misusing alcohol could save the NHS millions.?

A report issued by the Committee called for slapping stricter regulations on alcohol advertising.

It suggested a ban on alcohol advertising before 9pm on television, on billboards or posters near schools and on socialworking websites.

Islam Prohibits alcohol and Drugs

Alcohol: Dangerous, But Why?

?What is required is fundamental culture change,? MP Barron said. The report also suggested a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, saying it would save 3,000 deaths a year.

?Increasing the price of alcohol is the most powerful tool at the disposal of a government,? the report said.

?The key argument made by the drinks industry and others opposed to a rise in price is that it would be unfair on moderate drinkers.

?We do not think this is a serious argument.?

The call drew welcome from the Scottish government.

?The critics have claimed that minimum pricing punishes moderate drinkers; that it won't work; and that it's illegal,? Scottish health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said.

?These claims just don't stack up and the select committee has comprehensively rubbished them.?

According to surveys, a quarter of people in England aged 16 and over is classified as hazardous drinkers.

Alcohol abuses is also causing up to 40,000 killings in England and Wales and £55bn costs of economy every year.

Alcohol is banned under Islam.

The general rule in Islam is that any beverage that get people intoxicated when taken is unlawful, both in small and large quantities, whether it is alcohol, drugs, fermented raisin drink or something else.

Cosy Relationship

The parliamentary report accused the British government of siding with alcohol industry.

?This cosy relationship needs to end,? said Dr Vivienne Nathanson, ethics head at the British Medical Association.

?We need radical action to tackle alcohol misuse.?

Defending the government position, Public Health Minister Gillian Merron said several initiatives were introduced by the government to dismay people from alcohol.

But the politicians and experts opened fire at the government for its opposition to the proposed minimum pricing policy.

?This is a damning indictment of the way successive governments have tackled alcohol health harm, with action ranging from the non-existent to the ineffectual,? Alison Rogers, chief executive of the British Liver Trust, said.

Don Shenkar, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, agrees.

?If they don't act on these recommendations now, they'll lose all credibility in their stated attempts to change British drinking culture.?

Source: IslamOnline

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Germany angered by alleged CIA murder plot
Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:24:37 GMT

German prosecutors have launched an investigation over a magazine report claiming CIA agents and employees of a notorious US private security firm had sought to assassinate a German-Syrian terror suspect.

Berlin on Monday denied any knowledge of the CIA's operation, several days after the report's publication in Vanity Fair just before Christmas.

The controversy centers around claims that the American intelligence agency and the Blackwater — renamed Xe — private security firm sent a covert assassination team to Hamburg in 2004 to spy on and liquidate 51-year-old businessman Mamoun Darkazanli.

The report also alleges that aside from regular CIA agents, German authorities and lawmakers had also been kept in the dark.

Darkazanli is believed to have had contact with several of the terrorists involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York since they lived or studied in the northern German port city.

For five years after the 2001 tragedy, police investigated Darkazanli's alleged terror links with several of the terrorists involved in 9/11 attacks. The probe was closed due to lack of any incriminating evidence.

While CIA's tactics have long been criticized amid accusations of torturing terror suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Blackwater is perhaps the world's most notorious private military contractor, haunted by claims of brutality and aggression.

The company is accused of bribery and the voluntary manslaughter in Iraq.

While the issue has united the coalition government as well as the opposition in condemnation of a murder plot against a German citizen, Hans-Christian Strobele, a prominent German Green Party politician, criticized Berlin for not confronting the CIA.

"The fact is that the CIA can, for the most part, do whatever it wants here in Germany…The secret prisoner transports after Sept. 11 showed that -- and no one dared to do anything about it, " he said. "Try to imagine the opposite happening."

"Imagine if the BND (Germany's federal intelligence agency) were to carry out a hit job via a front company, say in New Orleans. It would be a shocking occurrence," said the parliamentarian.

ZHD/MD

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Gunfire reported at Sweden mosque
Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:13:38 GMT

A gunman has fired at the main mosque in Sweden's city of Malmo, an eyewitness told Press TV Friday.

A group of Muslims were attending a religious meeting in the mosque when they heard a loud gunfire, the witness said.

The bullet missed the prayer leader, but the shattered glass from the bullet's impact wounded him. Swedish police have not made any arrests at this time.

The head of the mosque says he has been the target of repeated threats but says he is immune to them. He added that police have never arrested anyone in the face of the threats and attacks against him and the mosque.

Arsonists have attacked the Islamic center three times during the past seven years.

VA/SAR/MD

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France Moves to Ban Face-Veil
08/01/2010 06:11:34 PM GMT

CAIRO — After banning hijab in public places, France’s ruling party is preparing to draft a bill to ban the face-veil across the southern European country. "The proposed measure would prohibit the covering of the face in public places and on the streets," Jean-François Cope, head of the Union of a Popular Movement (UMP) party’s parliamentary bloc, told Le Figaro in an interview.

Under the proposed bill, fines of up to €750 will be slapped on people covering their faces in public places.

"There will be a few cultural exceptions, such as carnivals, but we have not yet drawn up the list," he said.

We Are Not Oppressed: Burka Women

The bill will be presented to the National Assembly in two weeks but will not be debated until after regional elections in March. If passed by the parliament, the bill will be put in place gradually, said Cope.

The move comes ahead of the release of a much-awaited parliamentary report on the wearing of burka, a loose body-covering, in France.

A debate has been raging across France over burka, with President Nicolas Sarkozy describing the outfit as “unwelcome” in France.

But the debate saw politicians, opponents and advocates of the burka using interchanged terms such as burka and niqab, despite the fact they describe very different types of Islamic dress.

A burqa is the all-enveloping cloak, often blue, with a woven grill over the eyes, that many Afghan women wear, and it is almost never seen in France.

The niqab, a garment that is often black, covers the face but leaves the eyes uncovered.

“Uncovered”

Cope said the bill will send a message that France will not allow women to fully cover themselves.

"We can measure the modernity of a society by the way it treats and respects women."

He said “stiffer” punishments would be laid down for men who force their wives or daughters to wear full-body veils.

"Wearing the full body veil is about extremists who want to test the republic."

Many French politicians have warned that the bill would be difficult to enforce and would probably face a challenge in the European rights court.

Critics also argue that a specific law enacted to ban the full veil would be tantamount to using a sledgehammer to swat a fly.

Muslim community leaders say that burka remains a rare exception among France's nearly seven million Muslims, the biggest Muslim minority in Europe.

In 2004, France banned hijab in schools and public places, with many European countries following suit.

While hijab is an obligatory code of dress for Muslim women, the majority of Muslim scholars agree that a woman is not obliged to wear the face veil.

Scholars believe it is up to women to decide whether to take on the veil or burka.

Prominent Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan has said that the French debate on the wearing of burka reflects growing self-doubts inside the society.

Source: IslamOnline

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London witnesses anti-Egypt protest
Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:39:27 GMT

At least 200 protestors gathered Friday outside the Egyptian Embassy in London after news spread that Gaza peace activists had been beaten by Egyptian police in Cairo.

The protest was organized by the British Muslim Initiative in association with the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

The demonstrators called on the Egyptian president to allow the international aid convoy "Viva Palestina" to enter Gaza through the Egyptian border.

More than 200 vehicles packed with food and medicines left London on December 6 for Gaza. But they are now stranded at the Syrian port of Lattakia as the Egyptian authorities do not issue permits for the convoy to enter Gaza through the port city of El-Arish in Egypt.

The demonstrators in London chanted slogans such as “Mubarak Siege Must End”, “Mubarak Wall Must Fall”, “Free Free Palestine,” and “Mubarak Zionist.”

They also urged the ban on the entry of “Viva Palestina” convoy to be lifted.

The Egyptian government is building a steel wall along its border with Gaza to prevent the traffic of any goods to the blockaded strip. It is also avoiding opening of the Rafah crossing for international aid convoys to pass through Gaza.

Peace activists and human rights campaigners have called on Cairo to lift the ban and allow the flow of international aid into Gaza to avoid a humanitarian crisis.

VA/SAR/MD

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Venezuela devalues currency

CARACAS: President Hugo Chavez devalued Venezuela’s bolivar currency on Friday, attempting to resuscitate local production but running the risk of worsening inflation in the South American oil-exporter’s flagging economy.

Facing a recession and galloping prices in the 11th year of his presidency, Chavez had long been pressured by business for an adjustment of the over-valued exchange rate, but was not expected to make the move so close to an election.

Venezuela votes for a new National Assembly in September.

The move will likely boost the state’s bolivar revenues from oil and help local exporters, but add pressure on prices, which soared 25 percent in 2009, the highest in the Americas.

The bolivar had been fixed at 2.15 to the dollar since 2005 as part of Chavez’s strict controls of Venezuela’s economy in line with his “21st century socialism” policies.

But Chavez, in a live address on state TV, said the bolivar would now have two levels — a preferential rate of 2.6 per dollar for essential imports like food, health and machinery and a 4.3 “petrodollar” rate for other things.

“This has several objectives, to revive the productive economy, strengthen the Venezuelan economy, slow imports that are not strictly necessary and at the same time ... stimulate production for exports,” he said. “Venezuela has to be a country which exports more than just oil.”

Widely considered to have been overvalued for several years, the bolivar also trades on a tolerated parallel black market and will continue to do so.

Ahead of Friday’s announcement, the bolivar weakened during the day from about 5.90 to 6.10 to the dollar in parallel trade, on the rumors of a devaluation.

Chavez, whose self-styled revolution since coming to power in 1999 has sharply polarized Venezuela’s 28 million people, hopes to stave off an opposition effort to overturn his majority in the September vote.

The devaluation could stoke social tensions and weigh on his ratings, now at about 50 percent.

Asked how the devaluation would impact inflation, Venezuelan Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez told state TV it could add “three to five” percent to the annual rate. It was not clear if he meant percentage points.

Local economists said the main risk from the devaluation was further price pressures. “Among the disadvantages is the inflationary effect,” said Pavel Gomez, of local business institute IESA.

But the government hopes the inflationary impact of the devaluation will be offset by subsidies to food and gasoline prices, provision of some free services including health clinics, and frequent increases to the minimum wage.

At the 4.3 percent rate the bolivar is 50 percent weaker, while the 2.6 rate represents a devaluation of 17.3 percent.

Venezuela last devalued its currency in 2005, to 2,150 bolivars per dollar from 1,920 bolivars. In 2008, it re-denominated the currency, lopping off three digits.

Venezuela’s economy is estimated to have shrunk 2.9 percent in 2009, and officials are hoping for moderate growth at the very best this year.

“When you depend on oil and you keep increasing spending on social programs and you hold the exchange rate at that level, you are clearly going to have monetary and fiscal deterioration,” a New York-based source at a major global bank said just before the devaluation as rumors grew.

“Maybe he didn’t want to do this sooner because he doesn’t want to show weakness.”

The devaluation will affect neighboring Colombia’s economy, already hit hard by diplomatic strife with Venezuela as Chavez has clamped down on bilateral trade in protest over a military cooperation deal signed by Washington and Bogota in October.

“All our exports to Venezuela will increase in price overnight,” said Camilo Perez, chief economist at Banco de Bogota in Colombia. “This will be true of all countries that export to Venezuela, but Venezuela is Colombia’s second biggest trade partner, so the impact will be significant here.”

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Okinawans urge US troops expelled
Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:27:38 GMT

Okinawa governor has urged Japan's chief cabinet secretary to back the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma off the island.

"Prefectural residents strongly hope that the base be moved out of the prefecture. I'd like you to consider it when you make a final decision," Governor Hirokazu Nakaima told visiting Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano in a meeting on Saturday.

"It'll take years before the relocation has been completed. I'd like operations at Futenma base to be downscaled," he told Hirano.

Following Japanese-Allied forces confrontation in the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, US troops occupied the airbase. In 2006, Japan and Washington agreed on a plan to move Futenma Air Station from an urban area to a less populated coastal region within Okinawa.

Locals in Okinawa, which currently hosts more than half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan, associate the US military presence on the island with crime and pollution, recalling the appalling account of the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by three American soldiers in 1995.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary is the head of a committee tasked with finding a place for the relocation of the US air base. In his visit to the area, he said the committee tries to hear the local and the US military officials to reach a solution by May.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's center-left government, which came to power in Japan in August after almost five decades of conservative rule, has pledged to reconsider past agreements on the US military presence and adopt a less subservient position toward Washington.

However, the United States has maintained that the planned airfield at the more northerly and remote Camp Schwab along Okinawa's rural northeast coast is the only viable plan.

RZS/SC/DT