THE following statement was made recently on behalf of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC): “Muslims have noted with concern that the values of tolerance are eroding and there is now shrinking space for others’ religious, social and cultural values in the west”.

Muslim leaders demanded an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah yesterday at an emergency meeting in Malaysia, where Iran’s hard-line president said the solution was the obliteration of the Jewish state.

The Islamic world’s biggest bloc today demanded that the United Nations implement an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and investigate what it called flagrant human rights violations by Israel.

The Islamic world’s biggest bloc today demanded an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and a role for Muslims in a UN peacekeeping force, stressing that a slow end to Israel’s warfare could drown chances for lasting peace.

The United Nations and the world’s largest Islamic grouping appealed for calm after more clashes linked to global protests over Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammad.

Leaders and ministers of more than 50 Muslim countries urged their nations to fight terrorism and called for moderation within Islam, as they opened a summit yesterday in a palace overlooking Islam’s holiest shrine.

THE Ombudsman was forced to contact the gardaí after the former credit union watchdog ignored repeated requests to release a report under the Freedom of Information Act.

DECISIONS on the release of contentious records under the Freedom Of Information Act are being delayed by years due to a lack of staff in the appeals body.

The world’s largest Islamic organisation pledged today to “actively help” Iraq in its transition to sovereignty and democracy – support that could help lift the Iraqi interim government’s stature and give a key boost to US policy in the war-torn country.

Two more American soldiers were killed and three were wounded in two incidents in northern Iraq, the US military said.

A summit of Muslim leaders from around the world degenerated into chaos today as an Iraqi official hurled insults at his Kuwaiti counterpart.

ISLAMIC leaders will gather in Qatar tomorrow Wednesday for an emergency summit in yet another 11th-hour bid by a regional organisation to convince the US to forgo plans to invade and occupy Iraq.

Hundreds of rabid dogs are roaming the streets of Afghanistan’s war-wounded capital, a Taliban official said today but there is no vaccine for the three or four people who report to hospitals with dog bites every day.

Afghanistan’s Taliban Government has asked for a special meeting of the organisation of the Islamic Conferences to discuss the fallout from the attacks in the United States earlier this month.