Swiss Sharply Criticized After Vote to Ban New Minarets 
GENEVA — Switzerland’s political leaders on Monday faced a chorus of criticism at home and abroad over an overwhelming popular vote to ban construction of minarets.
The referendum, which took place Sunday, has propelled the country to the forefront of a European debate on how far countries should go to assimilate Muslim immigrants and Islamic culture.
Government ministers trying to contain the fallout from the vote voiced shock and disappointment with a result that the Swiss establishment newspaper Le Temps called a “brutal sign of hostility” to Muslims that was “inspired by fear, fantasy and ignorance.”
Foreign, domestic anger at Swiss minaret ban
GENEVA — A top Swiss official said Monday that voter approval of a ban on minarets next to mosques could be struck down in court, as critics at home and abroad swiftly condemned the vote, saying it undermined the country's secular image.
Legal experts have questioned whether the ban on the Islamic towers used for the call to prayer is compatible with Switzerland's constitution and international human rights law.
Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said it would come into force immediately, but indicated that it could be overturned.
Europe unlikely to respond fully on Afghan troops
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama's European allies are unlikely to send as many troops as he wants to Afghanistan but some analysts say this could rally support at home for his expected pledge to dispatch more U.S. troops.
Obama is widely expected to announce on Tuesday he will send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to help quell violence that has reached its deadliest level since the Taliban's overthrow in 2001.
Pentagon officials hope NATO member-states will supplement the buildup with up to 10,000 of their own troops and trainers, to make up the shortfall on the 40,000 additional troops General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, says are needed to counter the resurgent Taliban.
UK expected to confirm extra troops for Afghanistan
LONDON, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected on Monday to confirm Britain will send 500 more troops to Afghanistan, a day before U.S. President Barack Obama announces his own plans for increasing the war effort.
Violence has risen sharply in Afghanistan in the last two years, forcing a change in NATO strategy to try to stabilise the country and allow for the eventual withdrawal of troops from a war that is becoming unpopular on both sides of the Atlantic.
Obama is widely expected on Tuesday to announce 30,000 extra soldiers for Afghanistan and Brown has asked other coalition countries to send about 5,000 more troops.
Swiss minaret vote unlikely to be copied in Europe
PARIS (Reuters) - Switzerland's vote to ban minarets is the blunt expression of wider worries about Islam in Europe, but the typically Swiss option of holding a national debate and referendum on them looks unlikely to be repeated elsewhere.
Minarets already grace hundreds of mosques built across the continent in recent decades as immigration swelled the Muslim population -- now estimated at around 15-18 million -- to the point that Islam has become the second faith in some countries.
Thousands more have no minaret or only a small symbolic one, either because these mosques were set up in existing buildings or because local authorities limited the towers' height.
SNAP ANALYSIS: Iran's nuclear plans give impetus to sanctions
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran's vow to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants will give impetus to big power talks on new sanctions, and if the ambitious expansion happens it will increase the risk of a military attack on the Islamic Republic.
* Iran's announcement is a gesture of defiance, two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, rebuked Tehran for building an uranium enrichment plant in secret near the holy city of Qom.
"It's a crazy idea ... But you have to look under the surface. They're mad about the IAEA resolution ... It's playground behavior in a way," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
Swiss Vote to Ban New Minarets
Switzerland’s political right on Sunday scored a surprising victory in a referendum on banning construction of minarets, denting the nation’s cherished image as a bastion of tolerance and threatening to set it at odds with international law and the Muslim world.
The Swiss Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but the rightist Swiss People’s Party, or S.V.P., and a small religious party proposed inserting a single sentence banning the construction of minarets, the towers that typically stand adjacent to mosques and serve to issue the Muslim call to prayer.
Pre-referendum polls had indicated a comfortable, if slowly shrinking, majority against the proposal, but official results Sunday showed that the S.V.P. and its allies had won 57 percent of the vote. The result came after a controversial campaign that played aggressively on the same fears of Muslim immigration and the spread of Islamic values that already resonate in other European countries.
Upfront money needed to ease UN climate deal
NEW YORK — Money on the table — perhaps $10 billion a year or more — could help close a deal in Denmark next month and keep climate talks moving toward a new global treaty in 2010. But if poorer nations see too little offered up front, the U.N. conference could end in discord.
The money would help developing countries cope with ocean flooding, drought and other effects of climate change, while also helping them cut down on emissions of global-warming gases. The funds might eventually come from new sources, such as a tax on airline flights, but negotiators for now are seeking quicker infusions.
"Rich countries must put at least $10 billion a year on the table to kick-start immediate action up to 2012," the U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, told reporters last week in a preview of the two-week conference opening next Monday in Copenhagen.
Hondurans to elect new president after June coup
(For a Take a Look on the Honduras election, see [ID:nHONDURAS])
* Ousted President Zelaya, de facto ruler not running
* United States looks ready to recognize winner
Big developing countries form climate change front
BEIJING, Nov 29 (Reuters) - A clutch of major emerging economies including China and India have forged a united front to put pressure on developed countries at next month's climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.
Over two days of quietly arranged talks in Beijing, the countries said they had reached agreement on major issues, including the need for the West to provide finance and technology to help developing nations combat global warming.
The meeting was attended by senior officials from China, India, Brazil and South Africa as well as Sudan, the current chairman of the Group of 77 developing countries.
