NYMHM: Alaska oil politics; poverty Down Under; Islamo-liberalism

Wed Dec 12 15:46:08 PST 2007

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 NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED * December 12, 2007 * Vol. 6, No. 50

 Important but overlooked news from around the world.
 NYMHM is a free service of Newsdesk.org.

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QUOTED: 

   "[W]hen former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan,
   where did he go? To the Sufi shrine in Lahore."

   -- Pakistani anthropologist Akbar Ahmed on Sufism as an antidote
   to Islamic fundamentalism (see "Islam," below).  

CONTENTS:

   *Top Stories*
     Oil industry's Amazon frontier
     A man, a dam and a salmon plan
     Corruption roils Alaska oil politics

   *Australia*
     Things looking up for the poor Down Under

   *Islam* 
     The stirrings of Islamo-liberalism

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 TOP STORIES
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 > Oil Industry's Amazon Frontier

   Economic development and ecological conservation are once again
   at odds in the Amazon, where a remote region thick with rare
   species -- and indigenous peoples in "voluntary isolation" -- has
   been opened to extensive oil and gas development. 

   Environment News Service reports that Brazil's Petrobras, the 
   U.S. firm Barrett Resources and Spain's Repsol have all been 
   approved to develop vast ...

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004498.html

 > A Man, a Dam and a Salmon Plan

   A federal judge rebuked the government for its latest plan to 
   restore salmon runs along the Columbia and Snake rivers. 

   According to The Oregonian, U.S. District Judge James A. Redden 
   has declared that the government plan, like two previous plans he
   also rejected, won't live up to the Endangered Species Act 
   because it does not ...

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004499.html

 > Corruption Roils Alaska Politics

   With two oil executives headed to jail for giving hundreds 
   of thousands of dollars in illegal payments and "benefits" to 
   prominent state politicians, Alaskans can look forward to 
   plenty of court-watching in the months to come. 

   According to The Christian Science Monitor, the appetite in 
   Alaska extends beyond courtroom voyeurism, however, thanks to
   an array of oil-related issues -- from corrosion in pipelines
   to disputes over the Exxon Valdez ...

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004500.html

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 AUSTRALIA
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 > Things Looking Up for the Poor Down Under

   When Australia's conservative government was voted out of office 
   last month, much of the world's media emphasized the possible 
   ramifications for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- or the fact
   that the former singer of politically charged rockers Midnight Oil
   is now the nation's environment minister. 

   But the changes go much deeper than that.

   The newly installed government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is 
   acting quickly to reverse the policies of previous Prime Minister 
   John Howard on a wide range of social justice issues.

   This week, the government  announced that it would discontinue the
   controversial "Pacific Solution," whereby Asian refugees seeking 
   asylum in Australia were held in camps in ...

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004501.html

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 ISLAM
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 > The Stirrings of Islamo-Liberalism

   Plenty of media attention has been given to fundamentalist
   Islam and Taliban-style "Islamo-fascism."

   But a trio of recent articles brings to light an overlooked
   liberal trend in the Muslim world, in the form of emerging 
   pro-democracy movements and an apparent resurgence of Sufism.  

   The Netherlands-based academic Asef Bayat notes in a recent 
   essay that democracy in the Middle East is impossible without 
   the emergence of a new type of Muslim citizen -- "teachers, 
   students, the young, women, workers, artists, and intellectuals"
   -- who can spur a "post-Islamist" interpretation of ...

   GET THE WHOLE STORY: 

   http://www.newsdesk.org/archives/004502.html

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Editors: Josh Wilson, Will Crain
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