 Click here for my latest article on FrontPage. Iraq is going through its greatest crisis since the pre-surge days of unimaginable violence and chaos, and it deserves much more attention than is being received. The March 7 parliamentary elections will have a profound impact on the region and the U.S. plan to withdraw from the country. With stakes so high, it’s remarkable that this isn’t making the headlines.
 Kenneth Pollack and Michael E. O’Hanlon have an editorial over at The New York Times discussing how the Iraqi government has banned 500 Sunni politicians from running for office. This is a very disappointing move. Reconciliation was going well, Iraq’s democratic foundations were taking hold, and the future seemed bright despite the frustrating deadlocks that define democracy, especially a new one in a bad neighborhood. They are banned because they had ties to the Baath Party, but they have mostly transformed into Sunni representatives that favor nationalism. To ban them is to ban a lot of the Sunni leadership.
Among those banned are Defense Minister al-Obeidi and Saleh al-Mutlaq. The authors note that al-Obeidi used to be a Baathist but was actually imprisoned and tortured by Saddam’s government. They warn that “It is just this kind of seemingly small problem that could unravel the entire political fabric of Iraq.” The Iraqis need to fix this, and fix it fast. World Threats
 BY CHARLES KURZMAN, IJLAL NAQVI Do Muslims automatically vote Islamic? That's the concern conjured up by strongmen from Tunis to Tashkent, and plenty of Western experts agree. They point to the political victories of Islamic parties in Egypt, Palestine, and Turkey in recent years and warn that more elections across the Islamic world could turn power over to anti-democratic fundamentalists. But these victories turn out to be exceptions, not the political rule. When we examined results from parliamentary elections in all Muslim societies, we found a very different pattern: Given the choice, voters tend to go with secular parties, not religious ones.
Over the past 40 years, 86 parliamentary elections in 20 countries have included one or more Islamic parties, according to annual reports from the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Voters in these places have overwhelmingly turned up their noses at such parties. Eighty percent of these Islamic parties earned less than 20 percent of the vote, and a majority got less than 10 percent -- hardly landslide victories. The same is true even over the last few years, with numbers barely changing since 2001. True, Islamic parties have won a few well-publicized breakthrough victories, such as in Algeria in 1991 and Palestine in 2006.
But far more often, Islamic parties tend to do very poorly. What's more, the more free and fair an election is, the worse the Islamic parties do. By our calculations, the average percentage of seats won by Islamic parties in relatively free elections is 10 points lower than in less free ones. Even if they don't win, Islamic parties often find themselves liberalized by the electoral process. We found that Islamic party platforms are less likely to focus on sharia law or armed jihad in freer elections and more likely to uphold democracy and women's rights.
And even in more authoritarian countries, Islamic party platforms have shifted over the course of multiple elections toward more liberal positions: Morocco's Justice and Development Party and Jordan's Islamic Action Front both stripped sharia law from their platforms over the last several years. These are still culturally conservative parties, by any standard, but their decision to run for office places them at odds with Islamic revolutionaries. In many cases, they're actually risking their lives. Almost two decades ago, even before his alliance with Osama bin Laden, Egyptian jihadist Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote a tract condemning the Muslim Brotherhood's abandonment of revolutionary methods in favor of electoral politics.
"Whoever labels himself as a Muslim democrat, or a Muslim who calls for democracy, is like saying he is a Jewish Muslim or a Christian Muslim," he wrote. In Iraq, Sunni Islamic revolutionaries recently renewed their campaign "to start killing all those participating in the political process," according to a warning received by a Sunni politician who was subsequently assassinated in Mosul. More at Foreign Policy
 KUALA LUMPUR - Arsonists in Malaysia struck a fourth church on Saturday as the government tried to soothe tensions arising from a row over the use of the word "Allah" to refer to the Christian God. The unprecedented attacks risk dividing the mainly Muslim nation of 28 million people, which has significant religious minorities, and complicating Prime Minister Najib Razak's plan to win back support from the non-Muslims before the next elections by 2013. The row, over a court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use Allah in its Malay-language editions, prompted Muslims to protest at mosques on Friday and sparked arson attacks on three churches that saw one Pentecostalist church gutted. While Najib visited the badly damaged Pentecostalist church and offered a government grant of half a million ringgit ($148,100) to maintain "a harmonious society," church leaders said they wanted more concrete assurances of safety. "We ask the government to make a strong statement to these wrongdoers so we can worship in peace on Sunday," Reverend Hermen Shastri, secretary-general to the Council of Churches Malaysia, told Reuters. Malaysia is mainly Muslim and Malay but there are substantial ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities who mainly practice Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. These minorities handed the government its biggest losses in 2008 state and national elections in part due to feelings of religious marginalization and growing disillusionment with corruption. In the latest attack on early Saturday, unidentified attackers flung a home-made petrol bomb at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in a suburb in Selangor state. The two-storey bungalow sustained minor damage, church officials said. Police said they have stepped up security at all places of worship but faced a manpower shortage. Inspector General of Police Musa Hasan told churches across the country to hire more security guards. Christians account for nine percent of the 28 million population, with a sizable number of non-English speaking Christians in Malaysia's Borneo island states of Sabah and Sarawak who have used the word "Allah" for decades. Najib's handling of the issue will determine whether he can keep the support of the Malays and win back ethnic Chinese and Indian voters to solidify his grip on power after taking control of the government last year. "Till today we are protecting the interests of other races besides championing those of the Malays," Najib was earlier quoted as saying by state news agency Bernama. "Don't point fingers and say UMNO is racist...when churches are burned," he said referring to his party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) that is the linchpin of the National Front that has ruled the country for 52 years. But Malay-Muslims, including those in UMNO, fear the word could be used by Christians to proselytize to Muslims, which is already illegal in the Southeast Asian country. More than 169,000 Malaysians have joined a group page on social networking site Facebook called "Protesting the use of the name Allah by non-Muslims," a fourfold increase from the start of this week that signals growing Islamic anger. Reuters
 IRAN'S controversial presidential election was the top Twitter topic in 2009, the popular microblogging service said. "Among all the keywords, hashtags, and phrases that proliferated throughout the year, one topic surfaced repeatedly," Twitter said in a blog post yesterday. "Twitter users found the Iranian elections the most engaging topic of the year." The San Francisco-based service that lets people broadcast news in short text messages using computers or mobile telephones was a primary communications tool by protesters in Iran angered by the results of their presidential election. Dead singer Michael Jackson was the most tweeted about person, while Harry Potter was the film that caused the most Twitter buzz, according to the internet firm. Google Wave - which allows email or instant messages to blossom into shared online arenas where anyone in the exchange can edit documents, add digital content, or comment at any time - was the most tweeted about technology, according to Twitter. The Australian
 TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian anti-government student protests continued on Sunday as debate raged over television images showing the burning of a photo of the revered Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for calm amid the anger over the images, even as he indirectly accused the opposition of creating an environment to allow such an incident to happen. State television has repeatedly shown a film clip, ostensibly taken during opposition protests on Dec. 7, of unidentified hands burning the picture of Khomeini, who remains widely respected in the country. "Some have converted the election campaign into a campaign against the entire system," Khamenei said without naming any opposition leaders. "We call on those who are angry to remain calm." Reformists, including former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Musavi, maintain that their supporters had nothing to do with the burning of the picture, which they say is being used by the regime to discredit the opposition. Dozens of police surrounded the campus of Tehran University as inside hundreds of pro-reform students protested against the accusations. The students contend the images were fabricated by government agents and are being used to justify further crackdowns on the opposition. The elite Revolutionary Guard, the country's most powerful military force, called on Sunday for the trial and punishment of those behind the move, as it continues to pressure the opposition. "The Revolutionary Guard ... won't tolerate any silence or hesitation in the immediate identification, trial and punishment of those carrying out this ugly insult and the agents behind them," it said in a statement posted on its Web site. Under the law, insult to the late or current supreme leader can lead to two years of prison. The Guard, which is tasked with defending the clerical regime that came to power in Iran in 1979 under Khomeini's leadership after the pro-U.S. shah was overthrown, was at the forefront of squashing Iran's post-election unrest. Reformists contend that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in fraudulent June contests and for months protested against the government before widespread crackdowns. The Dec. 7 rallies did see numerous attacks on the current supreme leader of the country, Khamenei. Students chanted slogans against him, burned and trampled his photos in unprecedented acts of defiance in a country where Khamenei has final say in all state matters. The actions of the students reflect how a protest movement that began by rejecting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's June 12 re-election has evolved to confront the country's ruling theocracy. FoxNews
Iran's human rights record has been criticised in a new report by Amnesty International.
The report highlights what it describes as exceptionally high levels of violence, used in the aftermath of June's disputed presidential election. It says that human rights violations are as bad as at any time in the past 20 years, and urges the Iranian leadership to ensure a full, independent investigation of all alleged abuses. The rights group called on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, to allow United Nations human rights experts to visit the country to help carry out an investigation. Official inquiries to date "seemed to have been more concerned with covering up abuses than getting at the truth", the report said. Iran has dismissed previous criticism of its human rights record.
As Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reports, some of those abused have had to flee Iran in fear of their safety and seek refuge in Turkey. Al Jazeera
 With today’s horrific bombing in Iraq, the BBC has posted a piece asking if al Qaeda is bouncing back in Iraq. The reason it’s a question is because no, it’s not. After every large bombing now, there are articles claiming that Iraq is descending into hell. Fortunately it appears that there are many factors which prevent this. - Iraq is more economically stable than perhaps any time in the last twenty years. Its currency is stable and appreciating while oil flows increase government coffers.
- Iraq’s security forces are still growing, now numbering over 600,000. Compare this to when it was under 100k in 2004.
- Iraq’s largest detractors, the Sunni Arabs, have largely accepted the new government and will be voting in the upcoming elections.
 BEIRUT - Palestinian National Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), said that there will be no parliamentary and presidential elections in the West Bank if Hamas does not accept holding a vote also in the Gaza Strip, a territory that they have controlled since 2007. This was reported by the press in Beirut, according to which, at the end of his official two-day visit to Lebanon, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), said: "if Hamas continues to refuse calling elections in Gaza, I will not allow them to be held in the West Bank."
Due to Hamas' refusal, the electoral commission advised postponing elections in the Palestinian Territories, initially set for January 24. Abbas, whose mandate as PNA President has already expired, underlined that his refusal to rerun "is not a political manoeuvre.
 Introduction In May 2009, four women were elected to the Kuwaiti parliament, for the first time in this country's history. Two of these women – Dr. Asil Al-'Awadi and Dr. Rola Dashti – do not wear the veil, and since their election, Islamists in the country have been demanding that they be required to wear it. MP Muhammad Hayef appealed to the Minister of Endowments and Minister of Justice, Rashed Al-Hammad, with a demand to give a formal expression to the Kuwaiti law which states that "a condition for women to vote and be elected is to abide by the rules and terms of shari'a law."
In response, the Religious Endowments Ministry issued a fatwa stipulating that the MPs must wear a veil like all other Muslim women. The fatwa stated that "when appearing in front of men not related to her, a Muslim woman must abide by the shari'a requirement to wear a veil hiding her entire body, except for the face and hands. [Furthermore], the veil must not be sheer so as to reveal any part of the body, must not be narrow so as to reveal her figure, and must not attract men's looks in any way."[1] Islamist MPs treated the fatwa as binding, stating that "the veil is [both] a legal and a religious duty."[2] Liberals, on the other hand, including the women MPs themselves, argued that the fatwa contravenes Kuwait's democratic character, and that fatwas like these threaten to turn Kuwait into a Taliban state. They also pointed out that the fatwa is at odds with Kuwait's constitution, which upholds individual freedoms, and therefore cannot be binding, since the constitution is the supreme legal source of authority.[3] On October 11, 2009, woman MP Dr. Rola Dashti proposed abolishing the clause in the Election Law requiring parliamentary candidates to abide by shari'a.[4] On October 28, 2009, the Constitution Court rejected a lawsuit filed by attorney Hamad Al-Nashi against the two women MPs who do not don the veil, in which he demanded to revoke their membership in the parliament for violating the shari'a.
The court ruled that "the laws of the Islamic shari'a do not have a binding force like the basic laws [of the state], unless the legislator has intervened and so stipulated... The Kuwaiti constitution does not stipulate that the shari'a – that is, Islamic law – is the sole source of legislation, nor does it preclude the legislator from utilizing other sources [of legislation], out of consideration for the people's [needs]. Moreover, the constitution guarantees complete religious and personal freedom and forbids discrimination... based on [an individual's] religion or gender."[5] MP Asil Al-'Awadi welcomed the court's ruling, stating that it represents a triumph for Kuwait's constitution and will end the debate on the veil which has been taking up parliament's time.
MP Rola Dashti said: "We four women MPs will continue to represent the Kuwaiti people in the best possible manner... This is not a triumph [only] for two women MPs or [even] for the Kuwaiti woman – it's a triumph for democracy."
She explained that even though the parliament is not a holy place or a house of worship, the women MPs would be careful to dress modestly and elegantly. She added that the court's ruling put an end to the attempts of "those who wish to bring Kuwait back [to an earlier era]." [6] MP Muhammad Hayef, for his part, said that he planned to appeal again to the Constitutional Court in this matter, and called on MPs Dashti and 'Awadi to "abide by Allah's law... in order to turn over a new leaf and quell this storm that has pitched the country into a crisis [caused by] disobedience to Allah's laws."[7] The Endowment Ministry's fatwa and the court ruling reignited the debate between two prominent camps in Kuwait, that is, the Islamists and the liberals, over the character of the Kuwaiti state and over which is the ultimate source of authority – shari'a law or the statutory laws. More at MEMRI 
 The presidential council on Tuesday postponed Iraq's parliamentary elections by seven weeks and set March 7 as the date for the vote, Reuters reported. The delay has raised concerns about an increase in violence in the country. The decision on the election date came as a series of coordinated attacks killed at least 102 people and wounded 197 in Baghdad. It was the worst day of violence in the Iraqi capital in more than two months. Three car bombs struck near government sites in the Iraqi capital, the third time since August that government buildings were targeted by multiple blasts that brought massive casualties. U.S. and Iraqi military officials had warned of the chance of increased pre-election violence aimed at destabilizing the government. Iraq was able to set the election date only after parliament approved a new law on balloting guidelines during an emergency session convened just before a midnight deadline Sunday. Failure to pass the new law would have forced Iraqi authorities to revert to rules used in its last parliamentary election in Dec. 2005 — a move that would have likely thrown the political process into a tailspin. The council's March 7 election date is a week later than what election officials initially recommended, said Faraj al-Haidari, the head of Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission. "We needed more time to organize voting abroad and time to complete preparations for the elections in general," al-Haidari said. The commission requested the Jan. 16 elections be postponed after the elections law was vetoed by Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who wanted a greater political voice for minority Sunni Arabs and changes in the distribution of seats in Iraq's expanded 325-seat parliament. On Monday, the electoral commission recommended a 45-day delay in the elections that would have pushed it to the end of February. But al-Haidari said the council decided to delay the elections a bit longer because of a series of religious holidays that could interfere with the planning. The U.S. military plans to withdraw all but 50,000 of its roughly 120,000 troops from Iraq after the elections. But the delay could complicate the timetable on that withdrawal, which American commanders have said will occur 60 days after the election. FoxNews
 FIVE powerful car bombs have rocked Baghdad, killing at least 101 people, many of them students, and wounding 182 and shattering a month of calm in the capital ahead of a general election. Two car bombs exploded near the labour and interior ministries and a suicide attacker driving a car struck a police patrol in Dora, in southern Baghdad, causing 15 of the deaths, an interior ministry official said. The first explosion in central Baghdad was heard at 10.25 am (0725 GMT) with a second blast within seconds and a third one minute later. Sporadic gunfire then sounded and the sirens of emergency vehicles were also heard, with helicopters taking to the skies soon afterwards. The interior ministry official said 12 of those killed by the suicide attacker in Dora were students at a nearby technical college. The remaining three victims were policemen working at the checkpoint. Violence across Iraq dropped dramatically last month, with the fewest deaths in attacks since the US-led invasion of 2003. Official figures showed a total of 122 people were killed in November. However the Baghdad government and the US military have warned of a rise in attacks in the run up to the election, which is expected to take place in February. The threat of political violence linked to the poll is a major concern after bloody attacks in Baghdad in August and October that killed more than 250 people. The attacks, including truck bombings outside the finance, foreign and justice ministries, punctured confidence in the Iraqi security forces. "We believe that there will be an attempt to conduct more attacks between now and the election,'' General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, said in November. Tuesday's bombings came two days after the war-torn country's parliament passed a law governing the election, which will be the second national ballot since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein from power. The United Nations on Monday urged Iraq to announce ``as soon as possible'' the date for the vote after more than two months of delays. The presidency council, made up of President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies, now has to announce a date for the ballot. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) in a statement said that February 27 was ``feasible'' and it stood ready to give all possible help to bring this about. US diplomats, most notably Christopher Hill, Washington's ambassador to Baghdad, had pushed MPs to pass the law, seeking to avoid delays to the planned pullout of tens of thousands of American troops in 2010. The United States has 115,000 soldiers in Iraq, but that figure will drop to 50,000 next year as all of its combat troops are pulled out before a complete withdrawal by the end of 2011. The Australian
 Prosecutors in the Philippines have formally filed 25 murder charges against a man accused of leading a election-related massacre on the southern island of Mindanao that outraged the nation. The charges against Andal Ampatuan Jr, the son of the governor of Maguindanao province, were filed in a court in the southern city of Cotabato, which has jurisdiction over the site of the massacre. According to prosecutors, at least 10 witnesses have said Ampatuan Jr led the gang of gunmen that carried out the killings of political campaigners and journalists. Ampatuan Jr has denied the charges. Prosecutors allege armed followers of the Ampatuan clan murdered 57 people including the wife and two sisters of their political rival, Esmael Mangudadatu. Also among those killed were journalists, lawyers and other civilians. Edilberto Jamora, the prosecutor in the case, said Ampatuan Jr was only being charged with 25 murders so far because authorities had only processed 25 death certificates. Ampatuan Jr is accused of leading the killings to prevent Mangudadatu from challenging him in the May 2010 race for governor of the province. Ampatuan's father, together with six other clan members, have been summoned to submit affidavits in the investigation into the massacre in Maguindanao province. They are also suspects in the investigation, but have not been charged. The Ampatuans control many local positions in the southern province of Maguindanao and have hundreds of armed followers there. Prosecutors said the killings were carefully planned and that more charges will follow. Jovencito Zuno, the chief state prosecutor, said at least one witness alleged that the Ampatuan clan had gathered in the patriarch's mansion in the provincial capital of Shariff Aguak days before to plan the killings. The graves were dug in advance and a backhoe positioned to bury the bodies, prosecutors said. Police said earlier they took into custody six officers, including the Maguindanao provincial police chief and his deputy. Two inspectors among them were allegedly seen during the massacre with Ampatuan Jr, said Erickson Velasquez, head of the criminal investigation division. The massacre has also embarrassed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Philippine president, who has longstanding ties with the Ampatuans. Arroyo has declared a state of emergency in Maguindanao and a neighbouring province, ordering troops and police to confiscate unlicensed weapons and restore order. But few think the measures will go far enough in the region which is notorious for its political warlords who have been outside the central government's control for generations. Al Jazeera
 Twenty-one people who were among a group abducted in the southern Philippines have been killed by armed men. Major General Alfredo Cayton said in a radio interview on Monday that the bodies had been found, but could not confirm who carried out the killings. "Our army troopers have reached the area where the vehicles and those held were taken ... they were shot by the armed men," Cayton said. "We have recovered 21 bodies. Our men are continuing to scour the area to find the others," he said. Hostage-takers earlier seized 29 people, among them the wife of Esmael Mangundadatu, a local mayor, his aides, supporters and journalists. Military officials said Mangundadatu's wife was among the dead. The journalists taken captive were accompanying Mangundadatu's group to a local elections office to file his candidacy for governorship of the predominantly Muslim Maguindanao province in the autonomous Mindanao region in the May 2010 vote when they were captured by the kidnappers. The Mangundadatu family is known to have a long-running feud with the family of Andal Ampatuan, Maguindanao's incumbent governor. Marga Ortigas, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the Philippines, said the families were well known to be political rivals. "This particular governor position is hotly contested because it is the seat of the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao and the incumbent has been there for years." Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner, a military spokesman, said that the hostage-takers had links to Amputuan. Brawner said there were about 100 armed men, most of whom were deputised as government guards by Ampatuan's family. He said the leader of the group that staged the kidnapping was one of Ampatuan's sons. Ampatuan was not immediately reachable for comment. Ortigas noted that Maguindanao was one of the most politically tense provinces in the country. "It is the site of three different armed insurgent movements," she said. "Elections in the Philippines over the last few years are becoming more and more violent, particularly in the area." Al Jazeera
 BAGHDAD — A top aide to Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader on Friday urged the country's fractious political blocs to solve a crisis over a key election law that threatens to delay national polls planned for January. Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, the representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Karbala, told worshippers during his regular Friday sermon that failure to break the deadlock could lead to a "constitutional vacuum" that would create "great dangers for Iraq." "I call upon all brothers in the political blocs to reach a reasonable solution so that elections can take place on time and avoid these consequences and dangers," al Karbalaie said. Parliament is to vote Saturday on how to resolve the crisis triggered by Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi's veto of the legislation earlier this week. Al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, wants more seats allocated for Iraqis living abroad, many of whom are Sunni. Lawmakers spent weeks wrangling over the long-delayed bill before finally passing it on Nov. 8, much to the relief of Iraqi leaders and the United States. But the veto threw into question whether the vote can be held by the end of January, as mandated in Iraq's constitution. While al-Sistani's words carry great weight with his fellow Shiites — most of whom support the election law — they hold no power over those who have objected to the election legislation — al-Hashemi and other Sunni Arab politicians, as well as Iraq's Kurds. Earlier this week, Kurdish leaders threatened to boycott the elections unless the three provinces they control in northern Iraq are guaranteed more seats in the next parliament, which will expand from the current 275 seats to 323. Lawmakers plan to vote on two options: sending the same election law back to the three-member presidency council, where it is likely to be vetoed again, or amending the law to address al-Hashemi's concerns. If the legislation is vetoed a second time, parliament can override it with a three-fifths majority. Washington has tied the pace of a major troop drawdown to the elections. So far, U.S. military commanders say their timetable for withdrawing all combat troops by the end of August 2010 are still on track. FoxNews
 TEHRAN - Iran has sentenced five people to death over the unrest that followed the country's disputed June presidential election, state television reported Tuesday. At least three others caught up in the turmoil have received death sentences previously. Iran began a mass trial in August of prominent opposition figures and activists, accusing them of a range of charges from rioting to spying and plotting what authorities have called a "soft revolution" to topple the country's Islamic rulers. The opposition led massive street protests and clashed with security forces in the weeks following the disputed June 12 presidential election. The opposition claimed fraud after election authorities declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner of a second term and their anger unleashed the most serious internal unrest in Iran in the 30 years since the Islamic Revolution. A Justice Department statement said the five sentenced to death were members of "terrorist and armed opposition groups," state television reported. The statement said the courts have sentenced a total of 89 defendants since the process began and 81 of them got prison terms ranging from six months up to 15 years. "So far, 89 of defendants were tried and based on their cases, death sentences were issued for five of them," the statement said. It said the 81 people sentenced to prison terms were charged with a range of offenses from security violations, agitating against the Islamic Republic, violating law and order, damaging public and private property, and assaulting civilians and security forces. Breitbart
 by Paola Del Vecchio The first Islamic party in Spain is getting ready to have representation in the key municipalities in the administrative elections in 2011.
The Renaissance and Union of Spain Party, promoted by Mustafa Barrach, a former journalist and Arabic professor in Granada, is close to Rabat, according to a report today in the ABC conservative newspaper.
Member of the Al Hegira Muslim community and treasurer of the Spanish Islamic Council, Barrak aspires to gathering not only votes from the nearly 1,300,000 Muslim residents in Spain but also from immigrants who represent 10% of the Spanish population. Mustafa Bakkach, who has been living in Spain for 15 years, dedicates much of his time to supporting immigrants.
The Islamic Council, an organisation inspired by the Sufi branch of Islam, is made up of a majority of Spanish converts belonging to the Yamaa Islamica-Liga Morisca. Moriscos is what the 300,000 Muslims are called who stayed on the Iberian peninsula after the expulsion of the Catholic kings and were forced to convert to Christianity and then banished for good in 1609.
In the internal gazette, the organisation expounds a clearly national vocation not only for consolidation in one area or autonomous region and considers Islam the base of its principals in political activities, a determining factor for the moral and ethical regeneration of Spanish society.
However, at the same time, it respects the Spanish constitution and refuses terrorism as an instrument of political struggle.
The organisation does not realistically aspire to winning the municipalities but wants to obtain a discreet number of councillors in some key Spanish cities.
According to ABC, the government does not hide a certain worry, since there are currently 1,300,000 resident Muslims in the country including Spanish converts and immigrants from Islamic countries of which there are 700,000 from Morocco.
But there could be more than two million if illegal immigrants are counted. The politicians fears have to do with the new party eventually lead to the non-integration in urban area with high
Muslim presence and that in cities where they already have a majority, the Muslims could attempt to impose their customs through municipal regulations.
 By KHALED ABU TOAMEH Mahmoud Abbas's decision to hold new presidential and parliamentary elections at the beginning of next year is seen by some of his aides as one of the strangest moves he has made since he was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat five years ago. These aides are now trying to persuade Abbas to find an honorable way to come down from the high tree he climbed when he issued a "presidential decree" a few weeks ago calling for a vote on January 24. One aide in Ramallah said that Abbas was "actually digging his own grave" by insisting on holding the elections before reaching an agreement with Hamas. The Islamic movement has already made it clear that it won't participate in the elections. Moreover, Hamas has declared that it won't allow the vote to take place in the Gaza Strip and would punish any Palestinian there who is involved in the electoral process. Hamas's decision means that the elections, when and if they are held, would be confined to the West Bank, where Abbas is partially in control, and perhaps some areas in Jerusalem that are under Israeli sovereignty. Abbas's opponents can then argue that since the election was not held in the Gaza Strip, he does not represent the entire Palestinian people. As Hamas legislator Salah Bardaweel explained: "Abbas will then become the mayor or governor of the West Bank." As such, maintaining the status quo would be the best option for Abbas. Under the current circumstances, Abbas can always argue that he represents a majority of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who voted for him in the 2005 presidential election. If Gaza is excluded from the planned elections, Abbas or whoever replaces him as head of Fatah will never be seen as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This means that the new Palestinian leader would not have a mandate to negotiate or sign a peace agreement with Israel because he was not elected by a majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. ABBAS'S DECISION to call the new elections came after the Egyptians failed to reach an agreement between Hamas and Fatah on ending their power struggle. The two rival parties were supposed to sign an Egyptian-brokered "reconciliation" accord in Cairo last month. But the signing ceremony was called off indefinitely after Hamas announced that it would not reach any deal with a "traitor" like Abbas. Read more here,,,, Source: JPost
 France on Friday urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to stay in office despite his recent announcement that he will not seek re-election. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he will travel to the Middle East in the coming days and would hold talks with Abbas, whose decision was seen in Paris as a new "threat to peace." "I will press Mahmud Abbas to obstinately continue his work for peace, that is, for the creation of a Palestinian state," Kouchner said in Paris. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed Abbas' announcement as an empty threat, saying it was "nothing to get worked up about." "He has resigned in the past during his tenure as Palestinian prime minister under chairman Yasser Arafat," said Lieberman, who is the first senior Israeli official to comment on Abbas' announcement. Another official said Jerusalem had no intention of abandoning the efforts to jumpstart the peace talks "as soon as possible and without preconditions." In Cairo, Arab League chief Amr Mussa urged Abbas to reconsider his decision and assured the beleaguered leader of his support, Egyptian state news agency MENA reported. Source: YNet
 Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has said he will not seek re-election at presidential elections he has called for January and that he is not ready to debate the issue. "I have told our brethren in the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organisation] ... that I have no desire to run in the forthcoming election," Abbas said on Thursday in a speech broadcast live from his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "This decision is not a kind of compromise or a manoeuvre." The 74-year-old leader who replaced Yasser Arafat five years ago as the Palestinian president said: "We're at cross roads. We have made lots of sacrifices in order to be able to have a right to a state. "Since the Oslo agreements in 1993, all these agreements are based on land and on peace and an end to Israel occupation of 1967. "We've pledged with Israel to reach a two-state solution but month after month we've seen nothing but complacency and procrastination."
Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said Abbas's decision would have "serious implications on Palestinian politics [and] also the prospect of peace and stability in the region".
She said reactions were pouring in from followers of Abbas's Fatah movement.
"They're beginning to speak ... and we understand they're planning to march to the president's office and express their support," our correspondent said. Read more here,,, Source: Al Jazeera (English)
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