Islamic festivals

The two major festivals in the Islamic calendar, apart from the Proph­et's birthday, the Ascension of the Prophet and the Islamic and Chris­tian New Years, are: (a) the īd al fitr or Little Festival which marks the end of the month Ramadān and is held during the first days of the following month, Shawwāl; and (b) the id al adha al mubārak or Great Festival which lasts for four days and is associated with the sacrifice at Minā made by the pilgrims who are undertaking the Hajj to Mecca.

During the entire month of Ramadān fasting takes place from dawn to sunset, and a special festival is the Day of Decrees on the twenty-seventh of the month.

The Islamic calendar takes as its starting point the Prophet's move from Mecca to Medina (the Hijra) on 16 July AD 622 (or 'CE' for Christian era) which became the first day of the Islamic era ('AH' for Anno Hegirae). The calendar is based on the lunar month of 29½ days with twelve months in the year (the months consisting of twenty-nine and thirty days alternately) which results in a year of 354 days. The Islamic year is consequently shorter by approximately eleven days than the solar year, and Ramadān and other festivals are therefore eleven days earlier each year according to the non-Islamic (or Gregorian) calendar. It should be noted that, traditionally, a 'day' starts at sunset. Friday is the Day of Prayer when all offices are closed; and in some countries the Thursday is included in this 'week-end'.

In addition, Shī’ite Muslims celebrate the death at Kerbela of Husain, grandson of the Prophet and son of Alī the fourth Caliph. This festival begins on the first day of Muharram (the first month of the Islamic year) and comes to a climax on the tenth day, the anniversary of Husain's death in the year 61 AH (10 October AD 680). The occasion is one of deep mourning.

Appendix D

THE ENVIRONMENT

The protection of the local environment (as exemplified by the U.K. Clean Air Act of 1956) has long been a matter for national politicians, whilst the protection of the regional environment has been dealt with by diplomats, negotiating such treaties as the Rhine River Treaty and the 1991 Protocol for the Protection of the Environment in the Antarctic.

Now, as a result of man's ability to influence the world's climate through rapid advances in technology and a dramatic increase in pop­ulation, it is accepted that the global environment is under threat, and it has become a matter of major international concern, of urgency and priority for the international Community as a whole. Population pres­sures, industrialisation, deforestation new technologies, a build-up of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other 'greenhouse' gases in the atmosphere, new pollutants, man's enhanced material expectations, changes in methods of farming the land and sea - all have combined to threaten the stability of the world's climatic system, and with it the world's existing ecosystem. It is difficult to gauge the extent of this threat to the world's climate, since change is the essence of climate as a conse­quence of global and universal factors outside man's knowledge and influence - such as the change in the earth's angle on its axis or the phases of sunspots, and little is known of the interrelationships between these factors. Accurate measurements have been available only for decades, whereas climatic changes are to be reckoned in millennia; nevertheless the protection of the global environment is a supreme example of the need for positive diplomacy and international coopera­tion, and the 'Earth Summits' of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro and of 1997 in New York and Kyoto have addressed the problem to some extent, but have not succeeded in giving practical effect to the 1992 Frame­work Convention on Climate Change: nor determined who shall pay for it. The destructive effect of present practices on the ecosystem - such as desertification and loss of bio-diversity - acid rain, toxic waste and marine pollution are being actively tackled, but there are four major areas of global concern, which can only be resolved by positive diplo­macy on a comprehensive international basis: