New delhi—India signed an agreement with
China, the world’s biggest polluter, to increase
cooperation on tackling climate change after the
countries rejected calls from rich nations to
set binding caps on carbon emissions. The
memorandum of understanding was signed in New
Delhi by India’s environment minister Jairam
Ramesh and Xie Zhenhua, vice minister at China’s
National Devel-opment and Reform Commission. The
agreement comes ahead of a United Nations cli-mate-change
summit in Copenhagen in December. The world’s
fastest-growing major economies called on rich
nations to slash car-bon dioxide output while
refusing to accept binding reduction targets
that they say will hurt development. Chinese
President Hu Jintao said last month his coun-try
will cut emissions in proportion to economic
growth, without outlining spe-cific goals.
Mathura—A Delhi-bound Indian express train
ploughed into the back of another near the Taj
Mahal town of Agra early Wednesday, killing up
to 21 and injuring more than 20, police said.
Local police said 21 had died while railway
officials put the toll at 13 from the early
morning crash on tracks outside the town of
Mathura, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Agra
in northern India. Rescuers, working with
mechanical cutters amid a huge crowd of
onlookers, bat-tled to free people trapped in a
badly mangled carriage that bore the brunt of
the collision.
Kabul—Officials involved
in flawed Afghan elections are being removed
ahead of next month’s run-off, the UN has said.
Earlier Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the
BBC the UN wanted 200 top poll officials who
were complicit in fraud replaced to make the
vote credible. World leaders have welcomed the
acceptance by President Hamid Karzai that he had
not won the poll outright.
Geneva—Swiss
officials tipped off the United States and set
in motion the ar-rest of director Roman Polanski
last month in his decades-old child sex case,
according to documents obtained by The
Associated Press. On Wednesday, a top Swiss
official defended the move. Justice Ministry
spokesman Folco Galli said the e-mails -
obtained in Los Ange-les by the AP under a U.S.
public records request - showed that Swiss
officials followed proper police procedure when
a wanted individual is expected in Swit-zerland.
“An arrest is a big operation,” Galli told the
AP. “If we know a wanted individ-ual is coming,
we always ask if the arrest warrant is valid.”
A Muslim writer begins an article with, “Who
says the campaign for animal rights was started
in the West..?” She goes on to point out that
Islam provided the original treatise on the
humane treatment of animals. Her case was poorly
con-structed, inadequately executed, although
the essence of her idea was to a de-gree,
accurate. Islamic tradition has indeed laid a
foundation, with clear boundaries, regarding the
humane treatment of animals. But why did the
author, like so many others, choose to turn what
should have been a constructive argument, into a
diatribe? Was it necessary to attack West-ern
discourses, resorting to the ever-predictable
classification of “us and them” - instead of
trying to find a common cause?
