Muslim Community Lobby Ireland is an independent organization established 1st May 2007. Its motto is TO USE THE VOTE RIGHTLY AND TO RAISE THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY AWARNESS WITH THEIR RIGHTS AND TO PROMOTE TOLERANCE AND UNDERSTANDING OF OTHER EXISTING GROUPS. لترشيد استعمال الصوت الانتخابي ولتوعية وتعريف المسلمين بحقوقهم في ايرلندا وان يعيشوا بتفهم للواقع وللجماعات الاخرى الموجودة على الساحة

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Kidnapped Aid workers released





Kidnapped aid workers released in Darfur

Two women who had been held hostage for three months by kidnappers in Darfur were released Sunday morning in good health, according to BBC News.

Sharon Commins, an Irish woman, and Hilda Kawuki, a Ugandan, had both been working with the Irish charity Goal when they were taken by armed kidnappers.

The kidnappers apparently made a $2 million ransom demand earlier in the year, but Sudan’s Minister for Humanitarian Affairs said that “no ransom was paid.” Instead, it was pressure put on the captors by local tribal leaders that led to the women’s release.

Despite the risk, humanitarian organizations working in the Darfur region do so without any government or security intervention. This was the third abduction of aid workers since the International Criminal Court served the country’s president an arrest warrant in March.

Suicide bombing in Iran targets military leaders

According to Iranian state television, 29 people were killed and 28 wounded in a blast in the country’s southeast region last Sunday. Among the dead were at least five commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, an Ayatollah-faithful branch of Iran’s military.

“Very soon we will catch the perpetrators of this terrorist action and punish them,” read a statement by Iran’s interior ministry posted on their Web site shortly after the attack.

A group called Jundallah took responsibility for the attack, the state-owned news reported. Jundallah is a group comprised of Baluchis, an ethnic minority that stretches into Pakistan.

The strike – the action of two suicide bombers – hit when the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard were meeting tribal leaders in the Sistan-Baluchistan region. Tribal leaders, as well as some innocent bystanders, were also killed in the attack.

According to analysts, the attack was meant to harm Iran’s image and spread rumors of instability.

Leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition party boycotts cabinet

After eight months of wary cooperation between Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe’s transitional government, Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change party has vowed to boycott all cabinet meetings, according to BBC News.

The radical move was in response to a laundry list of grievances Tsvangirai aired at a news conference on Friday, but chief among them was the imprisonment of his deputy agricultural minister Roy Bennett on terrorism charges.

Tsvangirai has called Mugabe and his political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union, “unreliable” partners.

“Until confidence has been restored, we can’t continue to pretend that everything is well,” Tsvangirai said.

Bennett was recently re-jailed after spending seven months on bail, which catalyzed Tsvangirai to essentially pull out of the government. Bennett was charged with terrorism, insurgency, sabotage and banditry, and he stands to serve a life sentence if he is convicted.

Reach columnist Morgan Gard at news@dailyuw.com.