Australia Suspends Exports to Some Indonesian Slaughterhouses

• Section: Current Affairs - Category: Current Affairs

The Australian government has suspended live cattle exports to some Indonesian slaughterhouses following a program on Australian television that showed animals being kicked and hacked to death.
Indonesian cattle traders deny allegations of cruel and inhumane treatment, but some Australian lawmakers want all live animal exports to Indonesia suspended until standards improve.  We must warn viewers that some of you may find the video in this report particularly gruesome.
The video secretly shot by a group calling itself Animals Australia is difficult to watch. It shows the treatment of live animals at some slaughterhouses in Indonesia.
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd expressed outrage after watching the video. "It's disgusting and it's inhumane," he said.More than half of the live cattle Australia exports is destined for Indonesia, nearly $350 million worth.
Australian TV aired the footage on Monday, and it drew a quick response from lawmakers.  On Tuesday, Australia's agriculture minister announced an immediate ban on live cattle exports to 11 Indonesian slaughterhouses.

Joe Ludwig says more could be added to the list. "I've also asked the department to start an investigation into the live animal export industry right across the supply chain," he said.

Some lawmakers say that is not good enough.  Australian MP Andrew WIlkie is pressing for a ban on all livestock exports to Indonesia. "We've got to start putting the welfare of our animals ahead of other considerations. We've got to immediately stop the export of animals to Indonesia because of the deep and systemic flaws we saw there," he said.

About 40 percent of all the beef consumed in the predominantly Muslim nation comes from Australia.

Indonesian cattle exporters say the slaughter of animals follows strict Islamic requirements and insist the complaints are baseless.

Iqbal Siregar says the video shows only the worst offenders. "We importers in Indonesia always choose the best slaughterhouses. The Australian government must know that we set the international standard for slaughterhouses," he said.

Muslim tradition calls for animals to have their throats cut, and the blood allowed to drain while the animal is still alive.

Cattle exporters have asked Australian lawmakers to respect Indonesia's religious practices, citing the long standing trade relations between the two countries.

HSBC eyes Islamic services in Australia: report

• Section: Current Affairs - Category: Current Affairs

Banking giant HSBC said Monday it was thinking of introducing Islamic financial services in Australia where the government is keen to use such offerings to grow as a regional finance hub."We are a major player in Islamic finance globally and that's an area that we are keeping an eye on," HSBC Bank Australia chief executive officer Paulo Maia told Dow Jones Newswires. "It could be the next one.""We see demand growing," Maia added.Australia has been slow to introduce banking services that comply with sharia law but has said providing Islamic financing was a crucial plank in its strategy to make the nation a financial hub in the Asia-Pacific.

A 2010 government report on Islamic banking said growth in such services was being driven in part by foreign petrodollar investors whose domestic economies and financial systems were too small to absorb all oil export revenues.
Growth was also being spurred by rapid Muslim population growth worldwide and rising living standards.
Islamic financial products have an ethical focus and notably exclude investment in alcohol and gambling while under Muslim sharia law the earning of interest is prohibited.
Australia, which has some 365,000 Muslims, has said it is well positioned to service almost one billion Muslims who live in the Asia-Pacific region.

Egypt to use ‘iron hand’ to protect security

ritten by Administrator

Sunday, 08 May 2011 17:24

Egypt said on Sunday that it will use an “iron hand” to protect national security and will use anti-terror laws against those sowing unrest, following deadly sectarian clashes in Cairo.Authorities will “strike with an iron hand all those who seek to tamper with the nation’s security,” Justice Minister Abdel Aziz al-Gindi told reporters after cabinet crisis talks. Gindi said the government would “immediately and firmly implement the laws that criminalise attacks against places of worship and freedom of belief” and will use anti-terror laws to combat those “threatening national security.” The clashes in the working class neighbourhood of Imbaba, in northwestern Cairo, on Saturday left 12 people dead and 232 injured, state television said.Among those killed were four Christians and six Muslims, while the two other bodies were still unidentified. The two groups clashed after Muslims attacked the Coptic Saint Mena church in Imbaba to free a Christian woman they alleged was being held against her will because she wanted to convert to Islam. The country has been gripped by insecurity and sectarian unrest since a popular uprising toppled president Hosni Mubarak on February 11. Gindi blamed the events on a “counter-revolution” which the government has repeatedly said is being orchestrated by remnants of the Mubarak regime, for stirring unrest in the country. “Egypt’s people, the noble police and the great army are standing together today to foil the counter-revolution,” Gindi said. He said that laws criminalising attacks on national unity “face severe punishment and can lead to a death sentence.” “The government will be using the regular law, not exceptional laws and not the emergency law,” said Gindi. Mubarak had ruled for 30 years under the emergency which gave police wide powers of arrest and suspended constitutional rights. “This government is a government that believes in the sovereignty of the law,” Gindi said. Copts account for up to 10 per cent of the country’s 80 million people. They complain of discrimination, and have been the targets of fairly regular sectarian attacks.

Great Britain edge Pakistan 3-2 in Azlan Shah Cup

Written by Administrator

Sunday, 08 May 2011 17:28

Pakistan’s two-match winning streak was brought to an end on Sunday as they squandered chances and lost to Great Britain 3-2 at the Azlan Shah stadium in Ipoh, Malaysia.Great Britain opened the scoring in the 8th minute through Robert Moore. After that, Pakistan struggled to create chances in the first half, with Shakeel Abbasi missing a chance to equalise in the 24th minute. Simon Mantell came close to making it 2-0 for Great Britain in the 25th minute but his shot was saved by Pakistani keeper Imran Shah. Pakistan’s first penalty corner came in the 27th minute and the opportunity was wasted but soon enough, Sohail Abbas scored the equaliser for Pakistan through their second penalty corner in the 31st minute. In the second half, Great Britain once again took the lead over Pakistan through Jonathan Clarke in the 39th minute. Pakistan got another chance to equalise but the shot from the penalty corner was saved by Great Britain’s keeper, while Umar Bhutta also missed a sitter for Pakistan in the 55th minute. Great Britain increased their lead in the 63rd minute as Clarke scored his second goal and the score stood at 3-1. Pakistan quickly caught up and made the score line 3-2 as Abdul Haseem Khan scored in the 64th minute. Pakistan were given another penalty corner in the 67th minute but failed to convert it into a goal as Sohail sent it wide. Pakistan defeated New Zealand and South Korea in the first two matches with impressive performances and will now face Australia on May 9. India vs Australia Earlier, India and Australia’s match ended in a 1-1 draw. AFP reports, world champions Australia were held to a 1-1 draw by India thanks to a superb defensive performance against a second-half onslaught from the world’s leading team. Both teams now have four points after a win and a draw, but the Indians have played a game more, losing to South Korea. Just six months ago India were thrashed 0-8 by Australia in the Commonwealth Games final in New Delhi and Australian coach Ric Charlesworth said the result was disappointing. “But I am not surprised… India played good hockey but I think we too were responsible as we did not take our chances,” he said. It was a resilient performance by India who had to absorb tremendous pressure in the second-half as the Australians pushed for victory after being pegged back from a 14th minute lead. Australia created early opportunities with Glenn Turner and Jacob Whetton having good shots at goal saved by India’s Adrian D’Souza. The Aussies took the lead through Whetton, who scored with a field goal after dribbling into the D. India had several chances but the best opportunity came in the 19th minute when Shivender Singh missed the final touch. But Indian pressure paid off in the 23rd minute, equalising from their first penalty corner. Rupinderpal Singh, who scored three penalty goals in the match against Britain, flicked home the ball for his fourth goal of the tournament. Australia, the World Number one, responded by going on the offensive, dominating play for much of the second-half. But the Indians managed to hold out for the draw, ably clearing the ball from defence. Both teams were unhappy with the umpiring claiming it was inconsistent and that decisions had gone against them.

US releases seized Osama bin Laden videos

Written by Administrator

Sunday, 08 May 2011 17:37

US officials on Saturday released extraordinary videos of Osama bin Laden seized in the daring raid that killed Al-Qaeda chief, saying the material shows he was a hands-on leader who took pains to shape his public image. The tracking of bin Laden and the May 1 raid, in which more than 20 US Navy SEALs swooped on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan and shot him dead, represented an intelligence coup on a historic scale, a senior US intelligence official said. The Al-Qaeda leader “was far from a figurehead, he was an active player,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters at the Pentagon. The seized material includes digital, audio and video files, printed items, computer equipment, recording devices and handwritten documents. “As a result of the raid, we have acquired the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever,” the official said. “This is the greatest intelligence success perhaps of a generation,” the official said. Five videos were made public, including an extraordinary one in which the Al-Qaeda chief is seen holding a remote and sitting with a blanket over him, watching images of himself on television in a spare-looking room. In that video, bin Laden has a gray beard, but in other videos that were apparently meant for distribution as propaganda his beard appears to have been dyed black. Audio was removed from the videos to avoid any possible terror messages, US officials said. One video is styled as a “message to the American people” and is believed to have been recorded in October or November. Bin Laden is groomed and is speaking from a prepared text. Three others recordings appear to be propaganda message rehearsals. The official said these show missed “cues” and problems with lighting. “This clearly was an Al-Qaeda leader who was very interested in his own image,” the official said. He “jealously guarded his image.” It remains an “open question” now who will succeed bin Laden as head of the terror network, the official said. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian surgeon long considered Al-Qaeda’s number two, “is obviously the presumed successor.” However, Al-Qaeda acknowledged their chief’s death in a statement, but “did not announce a new leader, suggesting it is still trying to deal with Bin Laden’s demise,” the official said. There are “strong indications he is not popular within certain circles of the group. So I believe it’s an open question as to who will take over from Osama bin Laden.” Like his Saudi-born co-conspirator, Zawahiri has been in hiding ever since the September 11, 2001 terror strikes on the United States. Reportedly last seen in October 2001 in eastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border, Zawahiri has released multiple videos from hiding, calling for war on the West. The material seized from the compound “only further confirms how important it was to go after Bin Laden,” CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a statement. The effort that traced Bin Laden to Abbottabad also showed the CIA’s “perseverance, skill and sheer courage,” Panetta said. In Pakistan, bin Laden’s Yemeni wife said the Al-Qaeda kingpin had lived for five years in the Abbottabad compound, Pakistani security officials said. The revelation, if corroborated, would pile further embarrassment on the country, which is already reeling from accusations of incompetence and complicity in allowing bin Laden to hide out a mere 30 miles (50 kilometres) from the capital Islamabad. The terror chief’s wife, who was shot in the leg during the raid by US Navy SEALs, is undergoing medical treatment and interrogation in Pakistan along with 15 of his other relatives, the officials said. “She said in Arabic that bin Laden and his family were living in this compound for the last five years and he never left the compound,” said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But this is only her statement and we have not yet corroborated it,” the official added. A second security official confirmed the information. Mounting questions have been raised about how bin Laden managed to hide out for so long in Pakistan, in a garrison town which is home to a top military academy and many retired generals. The leader of Pakistan’s opposition in parliament demanded that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani resign following the incident. “The operation tramples on our honour and dignity, and the president and prime minister must either give an explanation or resign,” Chaudhry Nisar Ali told reporters. “The government is keeping silent and there appears to be nobody to respond to propaganda against Pakistan,” he added, saying that people in the country were feeling “insecure” after the covert US mission. Al-Qaeda has vowed to avenge the death of the architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks, declaring him a “martyr” and calling on Muslims to rise up against the United States. Attacks on government targets in the Afghan city of Kandahar which killed two and wounded 29 on Saturday were described as “revenge” by extremists for Osama’s killing, a statement from President Hamid Karzai’s office said. “Al-Qaeda and its terrorist members who have suffered a major defeat with the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistani territory have tried to hide this defeat by killing civilians in Kandahar and take their revenge on the innocent people of Afghanistan,” the statement said. US President Barack Obama had earlier swept aside the threats, decorating on Friday the team that killed Osama and pledging the United States would crush Al-Qaeda. The White House has been eager to avoid triumphalism over the killing of the world’s most wanted man, blamed for the deaths of 3,000 people in the attacks, in a bid to avoid whipping up Muslim anger. Obama on Thursday laid a wreath at Ground Zero, the site where the World Trade Center once stood, in a sombre moment aimed at bringing closure to Americans still haunted by the September 11 attacks.

Badminton body defends ‘sexist’ new rule on skirts

• Monday, 09 May 2011 13:21
• Written by Muslim News Magazine

Badminton’s governing body has responded to criticism that it is being sexist by ordering women players to wear skirts. The Badminton World Federation says it’s “never been the intention … to portray women as sexual objects.” Some players have opposed the new rule, which will apply at the world championships in London from August 8-14, and the Olympics next year.
The federation says women can “continue to wear shorts if they wish but simply wear a skirt over the top of the shorts.”

The BWF says “aesthetic and stylish presentation” of players is important to increase badminton’s popularity.

The rule takes effect at international events from June 1 following the federation’s annual meeting in Qingdao, China.

Death of Osama Bin Laden beyond a good versus evil perspective

• Section: Current Affairs - Category: Current Affairs

And once again, in this Manichean good-versus-evil, us-versus-them, black-versus-white, world that we are told we live in, we are expected to take ‘sides’, and either jump for jingoistic joy as we thump our chests screaming, ‘USA! USA!’, or else mourn the death of a ‘martyr’.
And once again, many people, myself included, will have to take a deep sigh and wonder whether we can ever successfully explain, to an increasingly polarized world, the complexity of our stances and the nuances of our positions.

The fact of the matter is, contrary to what both bin Laden and his one-time nemesis Bush propagated, we don’t live in a stark black-and-white world. We live in a very colorful, very multi-faceted world. Because I refuse to see everything in black-and-white, my position is neither one of sorrow nor one of elation.

It is not one of sorrow because I never viewed bin Laden as someone worthy of my reverence. He was a reactionary who lacked wisdom and who had no long-term vision. His response to Western imperialism was a visceral rage expressed in the language of a false pseudo-jihad – an understanding of ‘jihad’ that he himself invented, and not one that the trained scholars of our glorious religion shared with him. He helped formulate and propagate ideas that caused more bloodshed in Muslim lands, and more civil war, than any non-Muslim invasion in the last decade. Suicide bombers claiming allegiance to him cheerfully bombed men, women and children in bazaars in Baghdad, in shrines in Karachi, in sky-scrapers in New York, and in markets in Kabul.

Through his rhetoric of takfir, hundreds of people who were deemed ‘co-operating’ with the enemy were considered permissible to slaughter, and if a few thousand innocent bystanders needed to be killed in order to get to those handful, so be it. This was to be a permissible form of ‘collateral damage’ – one that seems to provoke only a fraction of the ire from those who harp on and on about Western collateral damage. (For the record, both are evil, and both need to be condemned; and again for the record, the ‘collateral damage’ of Muslim extremists groups is far more severe than the ‘collateral damage’ caused by Western drone attacks). His death was expected, for his own words and deeds called for action against him from a powerful military and a mighty country.

So I feel no personal grief at his death. After all, he was already largely irrelevant in the Arab and Muslim world. What good did all of his fiery rhetoric ever do for the Palestinians he claimed to have been fighting for? And what impact did he have amongst the Arab masses as they all rallied together (and continue to do so) against their brutal dictators? From the alleyways of Benghazi to the maydans of Cairo, and from the mosques of Damascus to the streets of Sana, not one protestor waved the flag of Osama or chanted slogans of al-Qaeda. It was the people who brought about real change, not Osama with his anti-American rage and calls for violence.

Yet, I cannot cheer his death either. Why?

Firstly, because the intentional taking of another human life is not a cause for cheering. Even if a murderer is legitimately executed (qisas) by the State for his crimes, it is not in our religion to rejoice at such a death; therefore how much more so when the death was caused in this fashion? (By this I mean that I would have preferred a live capture and public trial – but then again, at this stage we do not know the circumstances of his death).

Secondly, those who looked up to bin Laden for inspiration were not motivated to become suicide bombers and radical terrorists because bin Laden managed to brainwash them. The grievances that all such radicals recite are political and social (I have discussed these in other articles at length). Bin Laden was but a figurehead, and his death will actually feed into the whole martyrdom mythology that these movements weave around themselves. As Jeremy F. Walton, professor of Religious Studies at NYU, wrote on his blog today,

“I do not mean to denigrate the persistent grief of the families of 9/11 victims, or, for that matter, the pain that countless Americans continue to experience when they recall or witness the indelible images of that infamous Tuesday morning. But make no mistake: last night’s celebrators, and all those whom they represent, have no comprehension of the political history, quotidian violence, and post-colonial frustration over increasing global inequities—to gesture to but a few factors—that made Osama bin Laden and his network possible. Political theorist Mahmood Mamdani, for one, has vigorously argued that a reckoning of the American role in the creation of jihadist violence during the Cold War is indispensable to understanding al-Qaeda itself. Acknowledgement of this neglected political history is even more crucial in the wake of bin Laden’s death.”

Therefore, the real question for me is not whether we should rejoice or not. The real questions are far more profound and difficult to answer.

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will his death extinguish his ideas and truly make the world a safer place?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will the anger that millions of people around the world feel towards our foreign policy simply dissipate into thin air?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will that justify the trillions of dollars that we have spent on our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the hundreds of thousands of dead since 9/11?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will our infamous ‘War on Terror’ finally come to an end, and will we discontinue drone attacks in far-away lands and draconian policies back home? (And on that note: can we finally travel with our toothpaste and without having to be sexually assaulted by TSA officials?!)

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will the hysteria being propagated by the Right and the Islamophobia that is rampant across Europe and America subside?

Now that we have killed bin Laden, will we start concentrating on far more important domestic and international issues?

I guess the bottom line is: now that we have killed bin Laden, has status quo really changed all that much?

I don’t have answers to all of these questions, but these are the questions that need to be asked before we rush to celebrate his death or, as some overzealous Muslims are doing, label him a shahid. (And on a theological note, I remind our readers that only Allah assigns Heaven and Hell to anyone, so let us not challenge this right of Allah by proclaiming anything about any individual’s fate in the Hereafter).

It took America – the most powerful and technologically advanced country on earth – a full ten years to find this one man. How great it would have been if we had managed to capture the perpetrators of 9/11 back then! But our own reactions to 9/11 created a whole list of new issues, both domestic and international, that the killing of bin Laden will not solve. And to make matters even worse, in that decade a new generation, a young generation, has come of age – a generation for whom 9/11 evokes barely a memory. For this young generation, the death of bin Laden does little to solve its own problems.

If we have learned anything from the Arab protestors across the Middle East, it is that change has to begin from within, and the best way to fight for the change that you believe in –  even if that fight be against powerful regimes – is through nonviolent means.  Killing your enemies doesn’t solve problems; working proactively and productively to gain the world’s sympathy when clear injustices have been committed does.

A blogger friend of mine wrote that it is as if America is playing a game of chess with a small group of radical Muslims. We are not playing this game ourselves, for we are spectators. We understand both players very well, and both have made ridiculous moves in the past that have caused many unnecessary pieces to be lost.

America has just made its latest move.

< Prev		Next >