THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF THE MADISON TIMES WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Compiled By Rob Hunter

Saudis threaten to close Islamic Affairs divisions

WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) — The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is threatening to close its Islamic Affairs divisions in Saudi embassies around the world, days after the United States withdrew the diplomatic visa of a Sudanese religious figure working in the Islamic Affairs division of the Saudi embassy in Washington.  The Washington Post on Sunday, Dec. 7, quoted a senior Saudi official who refused to be named as saying, "We'll close all Islamic Affairs divisions in all our embassies."

The Saudi official’s  statement comes several days after the withdrawal by U.S. authorities of the diplomatic visa of Sheikh Jaafar Idris, who carries a Saudi diplomatic passport, works in the Saudis Islamic Affairs Division in Washington, and doubles as a lecturer at the Islamic Institute in Virginia.

"Jaafar Idris, a Saudi-born Sudanese, left the U.S. two weeks before his visa was withdrawn," the Post quoted official U.S. sources as saying.

If the Saudi government follows through on its pledge to shut down the Islamic affairs offices in its embassies here and around the world, "it would be the first visible sign of an effort to tone down decades of extremist Wahhabi propaganda," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, a counterterrorism think tank.

Wahhabism is a puritanical strain of Islam that sometimes views non-Muslims and Western cultures as enemies of Islam. Saudi officials reportedly made the decision on the Virginia institute after looking into accusations that it promoted a brand of Islam that critics say is intolerant of other strains of the religion, as well as of Christianity and Judaism.

"Diplomatic passports and privileges in all Saudi embassies will be confined in the future to those holding diplomatic posts. This is part of a broader approach to keep embassies free of any tasks related to religious affairs," the Saudi official said.

"A great number of Saudis living in the U.S. and holding diplomatic passports do not perform any diplomatic tasks in the U.S.," a U.S. State Department official was quoted by the paper as saying, reiterating that "some of them have recently been deprived of their [diplomatic] passports." — This story was provided to Global Information Network by IslamOnline.net, a reference portal for Islam on the Internet.

Nobel winner says U.S. used 9-11 to break law

OSLO, Norway (IPS/GIN) — In her speech accepting the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, Iranian rights activist Shirin Ebadi criticized the United States for using the 9-11 attacks as an excuse to violate international law and human rights.

“In the past two years, some states have violated the universal principles and laws of human rights by using the events of Sept. 11 and the war on international terrorism as a pretext,” Ebadi said.  She asserted that detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base had been deprived of "the rights stipulated under the international Geneva conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the [U.N.] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Ebadi criticized the United States for trying to impose democracy by military force, warning that such attempts were “null and void. Democracy should not be used to attack other countries, to launch military attacks against other countries,” she added, asserting that she did not want to see a repetition in Iran of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

“The realization of democracy is a national and patriotic duty of ours," and "any kind of military assault is futile,” said Ebadi, who was recognized for her democracy-building efforts and her work to improve human and women’s rights in Iran.

Ebadi argued against charges that Islam is incompatible with the Western concept of human rights. “Islam is not incompatible with human rights, and all Muslims should be glad of this prize,” she said. “If you read the Qur’an, you will see there is nothing in it that is against human rights ... For 20 years, I have been putting out the message that it is possible to be Muslim and [to] have laws that respect human rights,” she told a news conference in Paris in October, after the prize announcement.

Ebadi is the first Muslim woman ever to receive the prestigious award. The Nobel Prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal, and a check for 10 million Swedish kronor, about $1.4 million. — Inter Press Service and Global Information Network

Farmers seek food sovereignty as alternative to WTO

NEW YORK  (IPS/GIN) — Farmers and agricultural groups around the world are pressing the concept of “food sovereignty” as a challenge to the World Trade Organization WTO’s agricultural policies, which they say push millions of small farmers off their land and lead to food insecurity.  Described as “the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture and to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade,” food sovereignty, its proponents say, is the only way to alleviate poverty and achieve sustainable development in the poorer nations.

A new report released by the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) claims that current approaches to food security — the goal of ensuring that people have enough to eat each day — do nothing to secure productive, sustainable land for rural farmers or stable prices for their crops.

“In trade negotiations under way in the WTO, NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], and the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), Washington has argued that importing cheap food from the U.S. is a better way for poor countries to achieve food security than producing it themselves,” said the authors of the report.

NAFTA was created in 1992 and includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The FTAA, a much larger version of NAFTA, is set to be launched in 2005; but it has come under intense criticism by farmers, trade unions, and activists from North and South America who fear the deal will entrench neoliberal trade policies they see as harmful to developing countries. Activists say that by prioritizing international trade over local food production, the free trade agenda of the WTO, NAFTA, and the FTAA increases the dependence of developing countries on cheap imports of subsidized grains from the North, causing hundreds of millions of farmers, who cannot compete with the artificially low prices, to abandon traditional agricultural practices.

Dr. Raj Patel, an analyst for Food First, says that agriculture should be removed from WTO negotiations because the millions of farmers who are most affected are not represented. He claimed that WTO negotiations are dominated by governments and corporate lobbyists. — Daniel Porras

END OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS