No Indoctrination 5: Summit's Outcome Important for Islamic Countries

Summit’s Outcome Important for Islamic Countries on WTO
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=117246

Out of Saudi Arabia, home of women who are not allowed to drive, Sharia, Wahhabism, Saudi-funded Wahhabi schools in North America, their generosity in funding imams to come to North American to instruct Muslims in Wahhabism and more........

WTO most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment, OIC & empowerment of women
OIC = Organization of Islamic Countries

How to get around the WTO's "most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment" would allow exclusion of Israel ... (possibly the US?), I should think.


Summit's outcome important for Islamic countries on WTO 07/12/2005

JEDDAH, 7 December 2005 — There are two important international events taking place this month in which Islamic countries are participating. One event is political while the other is economic. The Third Extraordinary OIC Summit is the political event; it precedes the economic one, the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference (HKMC).

There is a strong link between the two events in that the outcome of the OIC summit might influence the future of Muslim countries in the World Trade Organization. Without doing a political analysis, it is possible to understand the nature and the importance of the OIC summit by being aware of the challenges that WTO imposes on the economic and political future of Islamic countries. In other words, to understand the political it is essential to understand the economical.

Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries face significant challenges in the WTO because its rules impose limitations on the interaction of Islamic member countries. The major principle affecting the presence of Muslim countries in the WTO is trading without discrimination. Under WTO most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment, a country cannot discriminate between its trading partners by granting some nations special favors (such as lower tariffs) and not granting them to others. According to this principle, Muslim countries that are WTO members cannot grant each other special favors. Moreover, Muslim countries should treat all member nations equally; this of course includes Israel, which many Muslim countries boycott. Forming a regional trade agreement, however, between Muslim countries might solve the problem of the (MFN) treatment. Under Article 24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade — GATT was the forerunner of WTO — countries are allowed to form regional trading arrangements as a special exception even though this might sometimes violate WTO's principle of equal treatment.

The formation of a Muslim multilateral trading bloc as an adjunct to OIC membership could pave the way for those Muslim countries not already WTO members to join the organization. Countries that are not WTO members such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Libya could be easily absorbed into the multilateral trading system once they became part of an Islamic regional agreement. If the OIC were an internationally effective body, it could provide solid ground for negotiating WTO membership for non-member Muslim countries.

[. . . . ] Secondly, most OIC countries are members of WTO and they could exert pressure within the organization for the admission of non-members.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Muslim leaders realize the importance of reinventing the OIC as a political and economic organization.

At the present extraordinary summit, OIC countries are considering the establishment of a common market. This is evidence that they have realized the power they could exert on the WTO if they were a unified market. [. . . . ]

The strength of the European Union comes primarily from its being a common market; [. . . . ] The attendance of the newly elected Iranian president and the announcement of Libya's participation in the summit are strong indications that leaders have finally been able to abandon their disputes in order to pursue their economic and political interests.




Focus on 10-Year Action Plan

JEDDAH, 7 December 2005 — Nearly 40 foreign ministers of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference met in Jeddah yesterday to finalize the agenda of a two-day extraordinary summit that opens in Makkah today.

[. . . . ] OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu also welcomed the foreign ministers. He said that the 10-year action plan of the OIC, to be agreed upon during the summit, would be a road map for common Islamic action. The plan was meant to be a blueprint for confronting the massive challenges Muslims face in political, economic, cultural and scientific fields.

[. . . . ] The strategic plan is based on the recommendations of Muslim scholars and intellectuals who met in Makkah in September. [. . . . ]

Expectations High

JEDDAH, 7 December 2005 — There are high expectations about the outcome of the two-day extraordinary summit of Islamic nations that opens in the holy city of Makkah today.

[. . . . ] King Abdul Aziz University [. . . . ] "We are in a unipolar world where the only superpower has almost untrammeled power to effect changes at whim," he added, hinting at American intervention in Muslim states.

[. . . . ] He said the 10-year strategic plan was prepared by a group of scholars and intellectuals who knew the problems of the Ummah and who wanted to improve its situation.

Abdul Wahab Al-Rajhi, chairman of Al-Rajhi group, urged the summit leaders to implement their resolutions. "We hope the summit will have a positive effect on UN resolutions and in restoring the Ummah's world position," he told Arab News.

[. . . . ] Sabrina Hassan, a Syrian who works in a Jeddah hospital, said she was happy that empowerment of women was on top of this summit's agenda. "We have been ignored all this while. We have not been given the kind of place that we deserve. Muslim women are in a good position to counter the attack on Islam from within and without," she said.

Protecting women, protecting Islam......... I wonder what would be the reaction to the cartoons mentioned here: free speech in the face of Muslim intolerance at others' free speech with photos of the cartoons -- Oriana Fallaci: The enemy that we treat like a friend 2006/01/25


How very interesting that the Canadian Ministry of Heritage and responsible for the Status of Women would have been supporting a liason with this group's view of women's place........ all through a UNESCO protocol. Politics does indeed make for strange bedfellows.

No wonder that it was terribly important for those who would control, for those who would promote a global agenda, to return the Liberal government of Paul Martin which signed this protocol Nov, 23, 05. I would say, given the plan of activism delineated on this website, that the Harper government would be wise to look before it leaps. Is it any wonder that CBC's "political comedy" shows have their knives out for Conservatives and in particular for a decent new PM, Stephen Harper? They stood to gain with a Liberal government; CBC now make no pretense of balance, whatever they claim. Much more is covered by UN agreements than at first appears.