Wednesday, September 30, 2009 ISLAMABAD: The two-day fourth Interfaith Conference under the aegis of the Muslim World League (MWL) will begin in Geneva, Switzerland, today.The custodian of the two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, who took initiative of the Interfaith Dialogue, will inaugurate the major event. As many as 128 prominent religious leaders and officials from around the world, including the US, the UK, China, Italy, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Japan and the Philippines, will take part in the conference.According to the MWL website, the main theme of the conference is ‘The Impact of King Abdullah’s Inter-Religious Dialogue Initiative in Disseminating Human Values’. Other topics for discussion in the conference are: King Abdullah’s Initiative and the Scope of Coexistence Among the Various Civilisations; the Role of Religion and Culture in Promoting Dialogue; the Impact of Religious Values in Reforming Societies; and the Role of Media in Strengthening Dialogue and Human Values.The first conference was held in Makkah in June 2008, the second in Madrid in July 2008 and the third at the United Nations headquarters in New York in September 2008.The Makkah conference, which was held from June 6 to 8, 2008, brought together about 500 Muslim leaders from around the world in order to set an agenda for the building of better relations between Muslims and followers of other faiths.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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