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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (49148)	9/24/2005 3:49:30 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

The clash of the Holy Titans Hope v/s chaos - Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani v/s Muqtada al-Sadr! Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani meeting with aides Thursday in the holy city of Najaf, urged his followers to vote "yes" on the new basic law. It is Iraqi hopes v/s Iranian backed chaos for the background one needs to go back to the legendary Najaf v/s Qom confrontation; this is the great schism within the Shiite Islam. It is about the ownership of ‘khums’ and relocation of Shiite Islam from hijacked land of Qom to the holy city of Najaf. It is akin to relocation of shiite ‘Vatican’ from Qom to Najaf. The battle of wills so far in present altercation have undoubtedly been won by the elder grand Ayatollah Sistani and his favored doctrine of "quietism" won over calls of "activism." From designed chaos aimed at popular uprising of the South to peaceful withdrawal Sistani political maneuverings helped defuse the crisis, in the process he has emerged as a new force to reckon with. Iranian born Sistani plan to have higher goals his ambitions of Shiite heart and soul stems from his desire to shift the thrust of Shiite theocracy from Qom to Najaf and Karbela. Whether clerics should confine their activities to religious affairs or also seek, a role in politics has been a matter of fierce debate among Shi'ites for well over a century. Sunnis, who in theory are expected to obey their rulers and even tolerate a tyrant in order to avoid civil strife and preserve the cohesion of the Muslim community, observant Shi'ites recognize no authority on earth except that of the imam. The twelfth imam is believed to be hidden from view and is expected to return one day as a messianic figure, the Mahdi. In his absence, there can be no human sovereign who is fully legitimate. This ambivalence toward worldly power has resulted in different interpretations within Shi'ite Islam regarding government accountability and the role of the clerics in state affairs. Imam Khomeini's concept of the rule of the jurist is only one among several competing views. cybermusings.blogspot.com

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (49148)	9/24/2005 6:41:23 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

Impact of Oil on growth..English press today.. Growth was faltering, said Mr Brown, because oil prices were spiking as badly as in the early 1970s: the world, he said, has to come to terms “with an oil price shock as big as the 1970s”. This is untrue: oil prices quadrupled almost overnight in 1973; they have taken several years to triple this time and in real terms are still well below 1973 levels. The present oil shock is also nothing like as damaging as it was in the 1970s because modern, service-based Western economies are less dependent on oil; and Great Britain is a special case. Because of North Sea oil, the country is still just about self-sufficient in oil, making it much less affected on a macroeconomic level than countries that are net oil importers, such as the United States. Every extra pound that consumers are forced to spend on oil – and hence that they cannot spend on other things – ends up in the pockets of the North Sea oil companies. High oil prices cut non-oil gross domestic product (GDP) but lead to an equal increase in overall GDP. So the UK remains largely insulated at current oil prices, even though other European countries have seen 0.5 percentage points or so chopped off their growth because of the oil price spike.