Religions for Peace Global Youth Campaign for Shared Security..

Disarmament Can Provide Means for Peace, Development, Secretary-General Tells

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s message to the Religions for Peace Global Youth Campaign on Disarmament for Shared Security in San Jose, Costa Rica, on 7 November:
It is a pleasure to send greetings to the World Conference of Religions for Peace and the Arias Foundation and all the participants in this Global Youth Campaign on Disarmament for Shared Security. I thank the Government of Costa Rica for hosting this event and for its staunch support, expressed at the September Summit of the United Nations Security Council, for the disarmament agenda and for my own five-point action plan to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded. We are now a generation beyond the end of the cold war, but military spending is rising and is now well above $1 trillion. More weapons are being produced, flooding markets, destabilizing societies and feeding the flames of civil war and terror.

Yet the world is also witnessing a new wave of interest in advancing disarmament goals ‑‑ an interest shared by Governments and civil society alike. People everywhere are recognizing as never before the tremendous burdens and risks of continuing to invest vast sums and energies in nuclear weapons, weapons of mass destruction, small arms, landmines, cluster munitions and other deadly weapons. Disarmament is back on the global agenda, and we must make the most of this new moment of opportunity.

The United Nations has always recognized the critical role religious communities play in building peace. Religious leaders and people of faith around the world, including Religions for Peace, have long been active in advocating for a number of disarmament measures, including the recent adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. This year’s global, multi-religious youth campaign is another welcome effort. I urge you to use this event to build and strengthen the networks of mutual support that are so essential for the success of disarmament initiatives. I hope young people will also support the UN’s “We Must Disarm!” campaign by joining us on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and elsewhere to tell the world why these weapons should have no place in the twenty-first century.

There can be no development without peace and no peace without development. Disarmament can provide the means for both. With your voice and strong support, we can get this message across and advance the international disarmament agenda. Please accept my best wishes for a successful conference.

Singapore terrorist linked to Abu Sayyaf..

SINGAPORE, Nov 8 — Muaiya. Manobo. Muawiyah.
Real or aliases, they are the names used by a Singaporean terrorist.
He is an Indian Muslim linked to regional terror network Jemaah Islamiah (JI), with skills in logistics and financial planning. He is now working as a ‘consultant’ to Filipino bandit group Abu Sayyaf.

This is what security expert Rommel Banlaoi told The Sunday Times.
The academic was in Singapore last week to release his book, Philippine Security In The Age Of Terror.

Some reports had suggested that Muaiya could have been killed in a Philippine counter-terror operation earlier this year, but Professor Banlaoi said his information suggests that the terrorist is still alive.
Muaiya is, in fact, helping senior Abu Sayyaf leaders prepare their terror operations, the head of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research said.
A Singapore Home Affairs Ministry spokesman said officials in Singapore have been in touch with the Philippine authorities on this issue but added that they are unable to disclose any other details.

Muaiya’s skills are said to be so good that slain JI leader Noordin Top once sought his help to secure M-16 rifles and rocket grenades.
Noordin, the hardline JI leader behind most of the major bombings in Indonesia, was killed in a security operation a few months ago.
Banlaoi, who has taught at the Philippine National Defence College, still works with the government on strategic issues.

He said Muaiya, who is in touch with senior JI leaders in the Philippines like Umar Patek and Dulmatin, works with a faction of the Abu Sayyaf that has ‘ground control’ over operations.
Muaiya reportedly left Singapore some years before the Sept 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the subsequent uncovering of JI cells in Singapore and elsewhere in the region.
According to Jakarta-based think-tank International Crisis Group, he was not a member of the JI cell broken up by the Singapore authorities in 2001.

Security experts became aware of Muaiya’s presence in the Philippines earlier this year when the Abu Sayyaf took as hostage three Red Cross workers in Mindanao.
The Indian Muslim was reportedly seen moving hostages about in Mindanao, while acting as a media spokesman.

Banlaoi said from his information, Muaiya is part of a group of between 25 and 40 JI members and a few foreign jihadists who are training the Abu Sayyaf.
He reports to at least one senior Abu Sayyaf leader, Isnilon Hapilon.
An upsurge in kidnappings suggests that the bandit group is financially stronger than it was before and continues to mobilise resources.

Banlaoi said the security situation in Mindanao is worrying, with newer bandit groups emerging even as older ones maintain links with one another.
In the most recent incident, the newly identified Bangsamoro National Liberation Army was involved in the killing of two American soldiers this month, he said.
Besides the Abu Sayyaf, Mindanao is also home to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, among other militant groups.

“They are getting financial resources, but the government’s efforts to counter them are hampered,” Prof Banlaoi said, adding that Filipino militant groups may seek to extend their tentacles by getting involved in regional operations as well. — Straits Times

KEADILAN TO EXTEND HELP TO EARTHQUAKE-HIT PADANG...

Seeing the pictures and video clips of the devastation wrought by the two earthquakes in Padang and surrounding areas, surely no-one could fail to be moved. The disaster caused destruction of not just homes and public amenities, but also of the lives of thousands of individuals.

There is now an urgent need to rebuild physical structures, and also to help the people to rebuild their lives and communities.

KEADILAN’s International Bureau will spearhead the Party’s initiative to offer assistance in whatever forms we are able, according to the needs on the ground. We will work through the Party’s Yayasan Aman (Peace Foundation), and will also cooperate with a number of NGOs which already have a presence there.
We will be sending a small team on a fact-finding mission and in the meantime we are launching an appeal for donations and volunteers.

We hope that caring Malaysians will be generous in offering whatever help they can. The task is huge, and it is our shared responsibility, especially as close neighbours, to reach out and assist our suffering brothers and sisters in Padang.

MUSTAFFA KAMIL AYUB
Chairman,

International Bureau

What happened to global warming?

By Paul Hudson Climate correspondent, BBC News

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

Average temperatures have not increased for over a decade

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on?

Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.

They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?
During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.

Recent research has ruled out solar influences on temperature increases

Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.

The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.

And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.

He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.
He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.

If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.

Ocean cycles

What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to our oceans. They are the Earth's great heat stores.

In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down. According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and global temperatures are correlated.
The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).

For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle, that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed that global temperatures were warm too.

But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.
So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.

Professor Easterbrook says: "The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling."
So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that this is evidence that they have been right all along.

They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small part compared with nature.
But those scientists who are equally passionate about man's influence on global warming argue that their science is solid.

The UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.

In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures - all of which are accounted for by its models.
In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.
What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures. And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.

The UK Met Office says that warming is set to resume

To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.
But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.

So what can we expect in the next few years?

Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.

It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).

Sceptics disagree. They insist it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say, that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling is more likely.

One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.

Global Humanitarian Contributions in 2009:

Totals by Donor as of 08-Nov. 2009

click here to know committed and uncomiitted donors...!!

http://ocha.unog.ch/fts/reports/daily/ocha_R18_Y2009___0911080205.pdf

GLOBAL ISSUES FORUM..

AFTA - ARE WE READY?

Saturday 5 Sept. 2009

Seminar Hall, PJ Civic Centre,

9.00am - 1.00pm

Programme:

9.30- Welcoming address and introduction to the GIF by

Mustaffa Kamil Ayub - Head of International Bureau

9.50- Keynote address by YB Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim

10.30- Panel presentations and Q and A

Moderator: Datin Paduka Dr Tan Yee Kew

Panelists:

1. Dr. Mary Cardoza, (Pres. Elect MMA)

2. Prof Dr Ananthan Krishnan (AMRI-ASIA)

3. Dato' Rameli Musa (Ingress)

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE.. 29 SEPT

Disarmament and non-proliferation

The International Day of Peace, observed each year on 21 September, is a global call for ceasefire and non-violence. This year the Secretary-General is calling on governments and citizens to focus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

On 13 June 2009, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched a multiplatform campaign under the slogan WMD – We Must Disarm to mark the 100-day countdown which lead to the International Day of Peace on 21 September.

The United Nations will continue to raise awareness of the dangers and costs of nuclear weapons, and on why nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are so crucial. The Secretary-General was joined in the campaign by United Nations Messenger of Peace Michael Douglas, who has championed the cause of disarmament for the United Nations since 1998, and American actor Rainn Wilson, featured in the TV series The Office.

The International Day of Peace was established by the UN General Assembly in 1981 for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace within and among all nations and people.” Twenty years later, the General Assembly decided that 21 September would be observed annually as a “day of global ceasefire and non-violence" and invited all Member States, organizations and individuals to commemorate the day, including through education and public awareness, and to cooperate with the United Nations in the establishment of a global ceasefire.