VATICAN CITY - Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.
“For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us,” Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican’s yearbook.
He said that Catholics [...]
Al Jazeera
Turkey’s highest court has agreed to hear a case calling for a ban on the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP).
The 11-member Constitutional Court said on Monday it had decided to hear the full case for shutting down the AKP on grounds that it is trying to scrap secular principles enshrined in the country’s [...]
You are at a business lunch, and you start choking. What do you do? Or else someone at the table thinks he/she is having a heart attack. Or you hear someone’s voice starting to slur. How can you tell whether that person is having a stroke and needs immediate medical help?
How do you help someone who [...]
Mon Feb 25, 3:07 PM ET
CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt has started exporting gas to Israel in accordance with a 2005 deal, an Israeli source told AFP on Monday, with the move set to irk the country’s powerful Islamist opposition.
“Egyptian gas has been flowing to Israel since last week but it has not yet been integrated [...]
LONDON, England (CNN) – A London-based Web site has dropped a Dutch lawmaker’s film that features disturbing images of terrorist acts juxtaposed with verses from the Quran to paint Islam as a threat to Western society, citing threats to its staff.
Geert Wilders’ 15-minute film, “Fitna,” was the top film on LiveLeak.com on Thursday.
LiveLeak.com said in [...]
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, March 26, 2008; A19
It’s a measure of America’s multicultural journey over the past half-century that we’ve gone from “God and Man at Yale” to Allah and Woman at Harvard.
In a contretemps scarcely imaginable in William F. Buckley’s day, Harvard has closed one of its gyms to men for six hours a week [...]
Arab News
JEDDAH, 27 March 2008 — The Labor Ministry is currently studying a proposal that calls for dropping work experience requirement for Saudi job seekers, an official said.
Muhammad Al-Dowaish, adviser to Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Gosaibi, said the proposal was made as part of efforts to create job opportunities for the increasing number of unemployed [...]
A historical milestone toward Muslim-Jewish relationship was reached with the formation of the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, a collaborative between USC Center for Religion & Civic Culture (CRCC) with Hebrew Union College (HUC) and the Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Foundation (Omar). This project represents an unprecedented institutional initiative promoted by three proven and successful educational structures. [...]
Creating a Compatible Environment for Spiritual and Religious Values and Practices.
Commentary by Rafik Beekun
One major source of individual values that is recently being linked to ethical thinking and behavior is spirituality (Giacalone and Jurkiewicz, 2003). As they indicate, at the individual level, recent research (e.g. Mitroff and Denton, 1999) suggests that spirituality-based values, ethics and [...]
First, it was Bill’s turn:
Now, it is Hillary’s turn:
Hillary has learned how to imitate her husband. Please click here to see how Hillary has mimicked her husband in the past. They are definitely using the same playbook.
The Death of Vince Foster, personal attorney to Bill and Hillary Clinton
Howard Phillips, host of Conservative Roundtable, interviews Attorney [...]
Arab News
JEDDAH, 23 March 2008 — Prices of essential commodities and house rents have increased by 30 to 50 percent, prompting Saudis and expatriates to call for government intervention to curb the unprecedented phenomenon and for increasing their salaries to cope with the situation.
“The government should stop the monopoly of big companies that supply essential [...]
Since 2002, ABC Islamic Bank E.C, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Arab Banking Corporation, has issued the first Islamic credit card. The card, considered the first Islamic credit card that conforms to Sharia principles, is expected to be well accepted by all customers who prefer to utilise a credit card based on Glorious Sharia principles.
Prior to [...]
CNN
The McCain campaign suspended a staff member Thursday afternoon for distributing a YouTube video that questions Barack Obama’s patriotism and includes footage from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons.
“We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy. He has been reprimanded [...]
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Osama bin Laden accused Pope Benedict XVI of helping in a ”new Crusade” against Islam and warned of a ‘’severe” reaction to European publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that insulted many Muslims.
Bin Laden’s new audiotape message raised concerns al-Qaida was plotting new attacks in Europe. Some experts said bin [...]
cnn
(CNN) — Barack Obama on Wednesday took aim at potential rival John McCain over the Arizona senator’s apparent misstep at a recent press conference in Jordon, the latest sign Democrats are looking to capitalize on the moment.
“Just yesterday, we heard Sen. McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and Al Qaeda,” Obama said during a speech [...]
BY NATHALIE ALONSO
Monday, March 10, 2008 3:05 PM EDT
As an adolescent, Jackson Heights resident Carla Carballo, 29, would greet her male friends in typical Latin fashion - with a kiss on the cheek.However, ever since she converted to Islam a decade ago, Carballo, who is single, has given up that custom and no longer socializes [...]
The Guardian, UK
The Vatican has been holding secret talks with the Saudi Arabian authorities on building churches in Muhammad’s homeland, according to one of Pope Benedict’s most senior Middle East representatives. Archbishop Paul-Mounged El-Hashem said: “Discussions are under way to allow the construction of churches in the kingdom. We cannot forecast the outcome.”
But, speaking to [...]
Scott Ritter describes Israel’s role in shaping U.S. foreign policy. Should all of us as American citizens be concerned?
Al-Jazeera
A state prosecutor has asked Turkey’s highest court to shutdown the ruling AK Party for allegedly undermining secularism.
Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the court of appeals chief prosecutor, as quoted by Turkish television as saying he wanted senior party members, including the president and prime minister, banned from politics for five years.
Yalcinkaya said a government move to lift [...]
March 16, 2008
By NOAH FELDMAN, Law Professor, Harvard University
Last month, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian courts to decide certain matters of family law. Britain has no constitutional separation of church and state. The archbishop noted that “the law [...]
Pakistani court has quashed the last remaining graft case against the husband of slain Benazir Bhutto, his lawyer has said.
Asif Ali Zardari was acquitted by the anti-corruption court in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, in the last of seven cases that had been hanging over him for more than a decade, lawyer Farooq [...]
Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government and Anthropology, Columbia University
Ever since September 11, there has been a growing media interest in Islam. What is the link, many seem to ask, between Islam and terrorism? The Spectator, a British weekly, carried a lead article a few weeks ago that argued that the link was not [...]
Muslim Philanthropists to Meet in Istanbul
Leading Muslim Philanthropists to mobilize human and financial resources to address poverty, literacy, social justice and economic development
Oakbrook, Illinois, March 14, 2008 - Eminent Philanthropists will gather from around the globe to attend the first assembly of the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists (WCMP), to be held in [...]
By David Corn
March 12, 2008
Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a “war” against the “false religion” of Islam with the aim of destroying it.
On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World [...]
Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:16pm EDT
By Judith Cebula
INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Indiana voters on Tuesday elected a Muslim to Congress, only the second of that faith chosen in U.S. history.
Andre Carson, grandson of the late Democrat Rep. Julia Carson, was elected to serve the balance of her term in the U.S. House of Representatives in a [...]
Note from Rafik Beekun: In their desperation to bring down Obama by any means possible, his adversaries are trotting out any kind of argument they can. Please read below a segment of an interesting column, “Obama and the Bigots” written by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. I have added in the Glen Beck video clip [...]
JERUSALEM (CNN) — Several people have been injured Thursday in what Israeli police are calling a “severe terrorist attack” at a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem.
The Associated Press reported at least seven people died in an attack by two people. A police spokesman told CNN one atacker was dead and at least 20 people were injured [...]
Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace
March 5, 2008 TAMPA— Yesterday afternoon, Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who began a hunger strike Monday to protest government harassment, was moved to the medical unit of Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Virginia. Jail officials made the decision to move Dr. Al-Arian so they can closely monitor his health. Dr. [...]
Julia Shearson, Harvard alumna and executive director of the Cleveland office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Cleveland), discusses a recent move to allot six hours per week for women-only workouts at one of Harvard’s campus gyms.
For those who complain about political correctness on behalf of Muslims, please listen to the video below from Anna, [...]
Al Jazeera Middle East Today Dinarstandard.com
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