Speaking at the UN Culture of Peace gathering, President Bush emphasized how religious freedom is crucial to a flourishing society. Bush maintained that freedom to worship as you want is "God's gift to every man, woman, and child."
Bush cited the US as an example of how to promote religious freedom: Our nation has helped defend the religious liberty of others, from liberating the concentration camps of Europe to protecting Muslims in places like Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
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An exaggerated fear of "Islamofascism" ignores a complex reality, causing the US to overreact and damage its own interests. So says columnist Nicholas D. Krsitof, who argues that the situation in Somalia is one of the least-known Bush administration failures.
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At a meeting to discuss social threats to Muslims in Malaysia, a fatwa — scholarly opinion on Islamic law — was issued that forbids women to act like men. According to the ruling, women should not cut their hair short nor walk, talk, or otherwise act like men.
The fatwa, however, is not legally binding so it's not illegal to act masculine, just immoral.
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China, an officially atheist government, closely controls the five recognized religions — Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Taoism, and Buddhism. China keeps an especially close look at the northwestern Xinjiang region, where Islamic and separatist ties are strong. This weekend's New York Times took a look into how a rising China wants to blunt the rise of Islam.
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Following an offensive by Pakistani forces against militants, as many as 190,000 Pakistanis and Afghans have fled their homes, according to reports given to the UN High Commission Refugees. Most refugees, running from the clashes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, are staying with host families in either country.
In the Bajaur region of Pakistan, government jets hit insurgent trenches, killing five, today.
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When American politicians do something awkward they have to answer to YouTube, but Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, has to answer to religious leaders and feminists. A religious leader issued a fatwa, a nonbinding opinion on Islamic law, condemning Zardari for flirting with Sarah Palin at the UN. The radical prayer leader said Zardari disgraced the whole nation with "indecent gestures, filthy remarks, and repeated praise of a non-Muslim lady wearing a short skirt."
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Negative attitudes toward Muslims and Jews are mounting Europe. A new survey found negative views among 46 percent of Spanish, 36 percent of Poles, 34 percent of Russians, 25 percent of Germans, and 20 percent of French. Britain is the only surveyed European country where anti-Semitic views did not rise, as only nine percent rate Jews unfavorably.
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Taking advantage of the 1996 Arbitration Act, a new network of sharia law courts in Britain have legal authority in some marriage, financial, inheritance, or domestic violence disputes. Even the UK's High Court must enforce the decisions of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal panels set up in five major cities.
The lawyer who set up the courts last Summer explained:
We realized that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and High Courts.
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An unprecedented conflict has erupted between Muslim workers and management at JBS Swift & Co.'s Colorado meat packing factory, regarding when employees can pray in observance to Ramadan. Over 200 workers walked out during a shift, since management would not give them an official sunset break for prayer. As a result, the company fired half of them.
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The war on terror might be about to get much, much hotter. Dwindling resources and diminishing weaponry are causing Muslim extremists to call upon their numbers to start a “forest jihad” in Australia. According to one website extremists have to “start forest fires," claiming “scholars have justified chopping down and burning infidels’ forests when they do the same to our lands.” The website continues, "Imagine if, after all the losses caused by such an event, a jihadist organization were to claim responsibility for the forest fires.
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