Please read just a few of the headlines that World Net Daily has published.

September, 2008

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LAW OF THE LAND
Brand new push in Congress
to prevent Shariah invasion
Bill intended to assure citizens
they won't be governed by Islam

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Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., introduced a bill to the House of Representatives that seeks to prevent Islam's radical Shariah law from gaining a foothold in the U.S. legal system, as it has in other countries.

Tancredo introduced HR 6975, the Jihad Prevention Act, last week. If made into law, the bill would allow American authorities to prevent advocates of Shariah law from entering the country, revoke the visa of any foreigners that did champion Shariah law and revoke naturalization for citizens that seek to implement Shariah law in the U.S.

The radical form of Islam's Shariah religious law includes several statutes often objectionable to Western minds, including stoning for adulterous women, amputation for thieves and the death sentence for converting from Islam.

"When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims," Tancredo said in a press release, "you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of Western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism and individual liberty."

"The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place," Tancredo said.

As WND reported earlier, large Muslim populations in Canada seeking to live out their faith have convinced the Canadian government to permit the enforcement of Shariah law.

The journal of the American Bar Association reported last week that Islamic court rulings are now enforceable in the United Kingdom as well.

Tancredo said he "moved quickly" to prevent similar legal entanglements in the U.S.

"We need to send a clear message that the only law we recognize here in America is the U.S. Constitution and the laws passed by our democratically elected representatives," concluded Tancredo. "If you aren't comfortable with that concept, you aren't welcome in the United States."

WND contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations for comment on the bill, but received none.

HR 6975 has been referred to the House Committee on Judiciary for review.

 
World Net Daily
September, 2008
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GLOBAL JIHAD
Ex-Muslim reveals secret goal of Islam
Cites behavior of 'moderate,' 'peaceful' members of faith

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An Egyptian who fled Islam and now lives under that religion's sentence of death says the goal of global jihad simply is the takeover of the world.

The man, who now is a pastor in the United States and uses the pseudonym Muhammad Kemel, recently was interviewed by Joel Richardson, co-editor of "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out."

Kemel said Islamic tradition teaches that those who leave Islam should be killed, and Muhammad taught, "Whoever leaves his religion (Islam) kill him." And while the United States is not governed by Islam's Shariah religious law, many fundamentalist Muslims do not see Shariah law as being limited by national boundaries.

Kemel said the truth is that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were the actions of those who were following the Quran closely.

"Sadly I heard some of our American leaders and church pastors state that Islam is a peaceful religion, and what happened on 9/11 was done by fanatic Muslims," Kemel said. "These individuals ignore the fact that the main goal of Islam is to rule the world."

He said such instructions are clear in the Quran and Islam's hadiths, or sayings that have been handed down from generation to generation.

"Muslims all over the world are working hard to achieve [the] goal of submission of the entire world to Islam. They are particularly committed to the indoctrination of youth in madrassas, special Islamic schools, particularly in Pakistan and Indonesia," Kemel said.

He said the goal is to have at least 40 million Muslim youths who have memorized the entire Quran.

He said the "average peaceful Muslim and moderate western Muslim" are that way "because they have not studied the Quran."

"If a Muslim begins to study the Quran, understands the true religion of Islam, and what true Islam requires a true Muslim to do, he will either reject Islam or he will become a Muslim committed to violence," Kemel said.

Those who hijacked airplanes on 9/11 and killed thousands "are not extremists from a Quranic viewpoint; only a Western viewpoint," he said.

Kemel told Richardson he was born into a prominent Muslim family in Egypt and considered himself dedicated to Islam. He said he simply discovered his own faith in Jesus Christ through reading the Bible.

Immediately, he was arrested and held for eight months in solitary confinement in jail.

"I was given no bed to sleep on. I slept on the rough cement floor with no cover, no blanket, even through the winter. I was not even supplied with the basic necessities other prisoners were given. … Soldiers came to the cell door and threatened me with death if I would not renounce my belief in Jesus Christ. The secret police warned my family, who eventually learned that I was in prison, not to help me," he told Richardson.

Eventually, he was able to flee Egypt for the United States, where he's serving a Christian church.

He said he senses a massive conflict developing between hard-line Islam and the rest of the world.

"It was reported by very trusted missionary sources in Algeria that 170,000 Muslims had the same dream of Jesus and many of them became Christians. … Thanks to God, sincere Muslims are rebuking the spiritual forces of darkness that are holding them captive, and that held me captive," he said. "In addition, never witnessed in the past, many Muslim converts, despite the threats on their lives, are sharing their testimonies publicly through the media, through books such as 'Why We Left Islam,' YouTube and television. These are among the reasons why millions of Muslims are coming to know the Lord from many Islamic countries and nations."

Kemel also said on the leading edge of the Islamic aggression are individuals such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who speaks frequently about the Imam Al-Mahdi, Islam's coming messiah-figure.

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is trying to use this Islamic theology to brainwash Iranian youth, to transform them into jihadists, those willing to kill in the name of Islam. By killing and creating chaos in the world, Ahmadinejad and others that hold this viewpoint believe that the coming of Imam Al-Mahdi can be hastened," Kemel said.

"There is a fierce war that is raging between Islam and Christianity in the spiritual realm and this conflict has become more and more evident on the earth," Kemel said. "I believe we will see a dramatic clash between Islam and most of the world sometime in the future, but that the power of Islam will ultimately fail. Jesus Christ and his church will be victorious."

Richardson joined fellow Islamic expert Susan Crimp to create "Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out."

It includes gripping personal accounts of men and women who risked their lives by abandoning the Quran, and talking about it at the risk of their own lives.

 
World Net Daily
September, 2008
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Public school run by imam takes 'confrontational' stance
State trying to ensure facility follows all state, federal laws

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A publicly funded school in Minnesota that is located in the same building as a Muslim mosque and is run by a Muslim imam has refused state requests to move its regular Islamic prayers for students on Fridays off-campus, according to a report by a columnist in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., which also shares space in a building with the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society, came under state investigation after multiple reports by columnist Katherine Kersten on the situation there.

The institution has drawn criticism from a number of other observers, too, including Robert Spencer, who monitors such developments at Jihad Watch.

"Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and housed in the same building as a church? Add to that – in the same building – a prominent chapel. And let's say the students are required to fast during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax dollars," he wrote. "Inconceivable? Sure."

If such a place existed, Spencer said, "the ACLU lawyers would descend on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say 'separation of church and state,' to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the growing influence of the Religious Right in America."

Kersten's newest report about the Minnesota academy warns a storm may be brewing behind the scenes as the Minnesota Department of Education works with school officials to keep the institution in line with state and federal laws, including regulations that bar tax-supported sites from facilitating one religion.

Academy leaders have chosen to follow a "confrontational" path in discussions with the state regulatory agency, Deputy MDE Commissioner Chas Anderson told Kersten. Anderson reported regulators will have to be monitoring the school closely because there has been no agreement on at least one key issue.

The charter school for kindergarten through eighth grade is run by executive director Asad Zaman, who is a Muslim religious leader, and shares space in a building with a mosque and MAS.

In the school, there are daily breaks for prayer, halal food is served in its cafeteria and Arabic study is mandatory, Kersten said. And school buses do not take students home until after-school Muslim classes are completed.

The state's investigation focused on the Friday prayer events, 30 minutes long and at that time led by adults in the school.

The state found that violated the law, and has been seeking changes.

"We wanted TiZA to do Friday prayers the way all other public schools" deal with similar needs, as a release time under state law, Anderson told the columnist. Those times are available for classes that can include religion but in other schools those are off-campus.

Academy officials, however, refused, Anderson said. Zaman wrote to state regulators that the prayers still would be held on campus, only students would lead and staff would be present to make sure students are "safe," the columnist said.

Anderson subsequently complained of the school's "defensive" tone and said: "It is inaccurate for TiZA to imply that MDE's legal concerns regarding the school's operations ... were unfounded, and it is of utmost importance that TiZA take seriously its responsibility to comply with applicable state and federal laws."

"How can you have an assembly with older students in charge of younger students," Anderson asked in an interview with Kersten.

The school said it had an "agreement" with the state and would work to make sure it continues "to be in compliance."

But Anderson said there are some "gray areas" in the current law, and, "School authorities at TiZA know it's a gray area, and they are walking right up to and over that line."

WND reported earlier when members of a TV news crew were attacked while investigating the school's actions. There also were reports when a substitute teacher at the school said religion appeared to be a significant educational focus. Amanda Getz said her duties included taking students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing." She said teachers also "led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day" led prayer.

 
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September, 2008
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Texas to teachers: Bible will be taught
Plan requires instruction in both Old and New Testaments

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The Bible's history and literature will be required to be taught in public schools in Texas under a new law that has been clarified by the state attorney general to mean exactly what it says.

"This is a huge victory for the people of Texas and, I think, for people across the country for academic freedom," said Jonathan Saenz, a lawyer for Liberty Legal. "There are 1,300 references to the Bible in the works of Shakespeare alone. Over 60 percent of the allusions studied in [advanced placement] English come from the Bible. Students are going to be better academically and culturally when they hear about the Bible."

The decision is a result of work by the state legislature as well as an opinion from Greg Abbott, the state's attorney general, in a letter to Education Commissioner Robert Scott. House Bill 1287 was approved by state lawmakers in the spring of 2008, and it was signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry. It states all school districts must offer the course as an elective at the high school level by the 2009-2010 school year.

Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, the author of the plan, said if 15 or more students express interest in the course, districts must provide it.

"A lot of schools don't know they can have the course, and this bill notifies them that the Supreme Court ruled school districts can offer it," Chisum said earlier in advocating for the plan. "School districts should know they can offer the course because it better prepares students for college literature and history classes."

Kevin Franck, of the People for the American Way, told the San Antonio newspaper his group isn't necessarily opposed to the plan, but will be watching its implementation.

And Chisum said the legislature specifically addressed the Bible, not the Quran or any other religious writing, because "the Bible as a text … has historical and literary value."

"It can't go off into other religious philosophies because then it would be teaching religion, when the course is meant to teach literature," he said.

Saenz told WND the actual curriculum – whether schools use only the Bible or another text – is left up to the local school district boards.

"Students more and more have been demanding the courses," he said. "The problem has been that school districts have been threatened [by activists] for offering the courses.

"Now they've got the state board of education's clear guidelines, and support from the attorney general," he said.

He said his organization has been involved in the adoption of the law from its beginning. Counting members of both houses in the legislature, the vote in Texas was 167-3 for the plan.

Liberty Legal, a group committed to defending religious freedoms and First Amendment rights, had been asked to submit a brief on the issue of requiring schools to teach the Bible.

Saenz told WND the requirement allows such education to be either in a regular class or a separate class.

He noted that in one school district close to Dallas, already 160 students have signed up for the class.

Among the subjects that must now be taught in Texas are English, math, science, social students, health, physical education, fine arts, economics, technology and "religious literature, including the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and New Testament."

"A school district must, of course, offer instruction in the subject matter … 'as required curriculum,'" said the attorney general's opinion, confirming for state education officials the legislature's intent. "The Legislature did not mandate that this curriculum instruction be provided in independent courses.'

One group, the Greensboro, N.C.-based National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, promotes its curriculum as the only one that uses the Bible as its primary textbook. Supporters include the conservative American Family Association, Eagle Forum and Plano-based Liberty Legal.

Council President Elizabeth Ridenour said the group's material already is being used in 54 Texas school districts. There also are other curriculums that use their own textbooks.

 
World Net Daily
September, 2008
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Pelosi's abortion theology 'mangles' Christian teaching
Catholic House members say she 'denigrates common faith'

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DENVER – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's abortion theology remains under attack, with Catholic members of Congress writing her to castigate her re-interpretation of church teachings and a priest on the EWTN network condemning her for a perspective in which, he believes, she would bomb a city full of innocent people.

WND reported earlier when the Denver Catholic archbishop, Charles Chaput, said Pelosi and those who claim abortion can be reconciled with the Christian faith simply don't know Christianity.

The issue is hitting hard at the Democratic Party as it holds its 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver this week to nominate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, an ardent abortion proponent who has gone beyond the desires of even the National Abortion Rights Action League in advocating for the controversial procedure. In fact, as a state lawmaker in Illinois, he declined to support a requirement that an abortionist provide necessary medical services to a baby who survives an abortion, because it would be a burden on the abortionist.

"It's always important to know what our faith actually teaches," Chaput said. "The future of a community, a people, a church and a nation depends on the children who will inherit it. If we prevent our children from being born, we remove ourselves from the future. It's really that simple. No children, no future."

Pelosi on Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" was asked when human life begins. She said:

I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition … St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose.

Her response, however, mangled Catholic doctrine, charges a new letter from 19 Catholic members of Congress.

"We are compelled to refute your error," the letter said.

"In the interview, Tom Brokaw reminded you that the Church professes the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. As stated in the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church': 'Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being,'" said the letter, signed by Reps. Thaddeus McCotter, Steve Chabot, Virginia Foxx, Phil Gingrey, Peter King (NY), Steve King (IA), Dan Lungren, Devin Nunes, John Sullivan, Pat Tiberi, John Boehner, Phil English, Jean Schmidt, Jim Walsh, Jeff Fortenberry, Michael McCaul, Paul Ryan, Walter Jones and Mike Ferguson.

"To this, you responded, 'I understand. And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy,'" the letter said.

"Unfortunately, your statement demonstrates a lack of understanding of Catholic teaching and belief regarding abortion. From the Apostles of the 1st Century to Pope John Paul the Great 'the church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law,'" the letter said.

"Your erroneous claim about the history of the church's opposition to abortion is false and denigrates our common faith," the letter said.

A WND message requesting a comment from Pelosi was not returned.

"To reduce the scandal and consternation caused amongst the faithful by your remarks, we necessarily write you to correct the public record and affirm the church's actual and historical teaching that defends the sanctity of human life," the letter said.

In addition, Father Mitch Pacwa, a host on the EWTN Catholic television network, warned Pelosi if she is, in fact, an "ardent, practicing Catholic," then she must conform her "conscience to the teaching of the church that goes back [to] the very beginning of the church on this moral issue."

"If you are ignorant and you don't know [when life begins], then you go on the side of safety and protecting rights. You don't bomb a city where there might be a lot of civilians. You say, 'Well, I'm not sure.' Well, then be on the side of safety. Protect the lives of the innocent, the non-combatants."

In the abortion war, the unborn are the non-combatants, he said.

"You must also go on the side of your ignorance to say then, 'If I don't know, then I'll protect all the more. I don't want to act while I'm ignorant,'" he said. In her position as probably the most powerful woman in the nation, she must "make sure not that there are few and rare abortions, but that there are zero abortions and that you would do everything you can to protect life. This is the duty of us all," he said.

Chaput said there are two truths to remember: Society has an obligation and Christians have a Gospel duty to help the "unwed and abandoned mothers, women facing unintended pregnancies; and women struggling with the aftermath of an abortion" and "Killing an unborn child is never the right answer."

Catholic League president Bill Donohue said he was sending Pelosi a copy of "Catholicism for Dummies."

"So there we have it: the man running for president on the Democratic ticket supports selective infanticide, his running mate is a pro-abortion Catholic, the delegates are wildly out of step with Americans on abortion and the Speaker of the House hasn't a clue what her religion teaches on the subject," he said.

World Net Daily
August, 2008
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2008 SUMMER GAMES
China cracks down to clean Christians out of Beijing
'Government wants to eradicate house churches before start of Olympics'

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China has made headlines in its efforts to clean smog from Beijing's Olympic skies, but word is leaking out that the government is also making efforts to clean Christians out of the streets as the games draw near.

"There's been a dramatic rise in cases of persecution that we've seen in the months leading up to the Olympics," a staff writer for China Aid Association, Daniel Burton, told WND. "We've received reports that the government wants to eradicate the house church before the start of the Olympics."

China Aid Association, an organization dedicated to helping persecuted Christians and founded by a man who escaped from China after being imprisoned for teaching Bible classes, maintains ties with China's underground church. Those sources are telling CAA that state police have taken up a new tactic: compelling discovered house church Christians in the Beijing area to sign a covenant promising not to meet from July 30 to Sept. 30, the time period the Olympics and Paralympics are being held in the city.

"Reports come from house church members who have been persecuted, and we have direct contact with them," Burton told WND. "Police are making people sign the covenant then taking it away, so we can't get our hands on the actual document. But it's been reported from people that police are making them sign the covenant not to meet."

Burton told WND that in most cases, the Beijing Public Security Bureau uses the same terror-raid tactics to stifle free associations of Christians in what the government calls the "unregistered church": Police storm a building where a house church is meeting, arrest the pastor, disband the members and warn them not to meet again.

Those arrested in the raids are charged with "participation in evil cults" or "disrupting social order," Burton reports.

The compulsory covenants to stop meeting during the Olympic season are only the latest tactic in the Chinese government's attempt to strangle the freedom of religion – or at least Christian religion – in the country.

WND reported earlier, citing sources at the CAA and Voice of the Martyrs, that China expelled more than 100 foreign Christian missionaries over a 90-day period last fall, the largest expulsion of foreign religious workers since 1954.

WND also reported when CAA learned from reliable internal Chinese government sources that the country's Ministry of Public Security created a list of 11 categories of people that would be barred from attending the Olympics. Among those blacklisted will be "people who illegally distribute religious publications and video-audio materials" and "people who have illegally established both in China and abroad religious organizations, institutions, schools, sermon sites and other religious entities."

Burton also confirmed an earlier WND story that told of the arrest and persecution of Pastor "Bike" Zhang Mingxuan, chairman of the Federation House Church in Beijing.

"Bike has been chased out of Beijing by police, who refuse to let hotel owners or apartment owners rent to him," Burton said. "They chased him out so he can't be around reporters."

Despite signing a United Nations pledge to give citizens basic human rights and freedoms, including the freedom to worship as people see fit, China has established a government-sanctioned church called the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, or TSPM. The TSPM churches are required to report to the government, list who is welcomed in, list who is speaking and detail what's being preached. Christians who meet outside the TSMP in house churches or "unregistered churches", as the government labels them, are subject to persecution.

"The government has been finding these house churches, knocking down the doors, arresting the pastors, beating and interrogating members of the church – all illegal according to China's own religious laws – in order to get these people shut down," Burton told WND.

In a press release about an imprisoned Christian bookstore owner, the CAA stated, "The host of the Olympic Games, which signify honor and freedom amongst world citizens, has continued to mock the world community by pledging to uphold religious freedom while simultaneously persecuting its own citizens for their personal beliefs."

The bookstore owner, Shi Weihan, was first arrested late last year, when police discovered he ran a house church in the building next to his Holy Spirit Christian Bookstore in Beijing. The Beijing Public Security Bureau closed the store, confiscated the books, arrested Shi, arrested and interrogated his wife, then released her but kept Shi imprisoned for two weeks.

After Shi's case received international attention, the government released him.

In March, however, Shi was arrested again, and he's been held imprisoned ever since. The CAA reports that Shi, who is diabetic, has been barred from seeing his family, has only met once with his attorney and his physical condition is deteriorating. The CAA reports that BPSB has been known to use sleep deprivation, beatings and electric shock batons on their prisoners, and they have no idea if any of these techniques are contributing to his decrease in health.

"We put out such an effort to get him released the first time," Burton told WND. "The Chinese government has completely ignored the international outcries, spitting in the international community's face by re-arresting him."

World Net Daily
August, 2008
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ELECTION 2008
Obama-backed ally forged pact with radical Muslims
New book details Dem's intervention in Kenya's '07 presidential election

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Barack Obama directly intervened in last December's presidential election in Kenya, supporting fellow Luo tribesman Raila Odinga's candidacy, despite an agreement Odinga signed to back radical Muslims, according to an explosive new book written by WND senior staff reporter Jerome R. Corsi.

In "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," Corsi footnotes and discusses two television news videos that fully document his charges.

The first video shows Obama's direct involvement in Kenyan politics to support Odinga, and the second video shows a press conference held by the Muslims who signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Odinga.

"There is nothing on the record to indicate Obama ever withdrew his support from Odinga," Corsi told WND, "even after Odinga signed the agreement with the Muslims in Kenya."

Corsi said that to the contrary, Obama "appears even today to be a direct and active supporter of Odinga, as Odinga himself frequently boasts."

Obama visited Kenya in 2006, while President Kibaki was locked in the election contest against Odinga.

The Kibaki administration objected that Odinga was using Obama's visit to win votes. Obama's repeated public appearances with Odinga and the senator's almost daily criticism of the Kibaki government added to the administration's objections.

A report by Chicago's WBBM-TV news team, which covered Obama in Kenya, shows Obama in Kenya making statements critical of the Kibaki government.

Two separate video segments in the news broadcast document that Obama spoke at the offices of Kenya's oldest newspaper, the Standard, where he accused the Kibaki government of suppressing freedom of speech, and at the University of Nairobi, where he accused the administration of corruption.

The WBBM broadcast noted that criticizing the Kenyan government was "something [Obama] has done almost every day since he arrived in Kenya last week."

The news report also showed repeated clips of Odinga accompanying Obama at various speaking appearances in Kenya, so much so that the news broadcaster commented in the background that Odinga "has been at Obama's elbow here fairly often."

The WBBM news team also interviewed on camera Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua, who accused Obama of meddling inappropriately in Kenyan presidential politics.

Mutua said politely but pointedly that "I think Odinga has to look at critically where he is receiving his advice from. Just because somebody wants to run for president, and he is using Senator Obama as his stooge, as his puppet, to be able to get where he wants to get."

Odinga's agreement with Muslim leaders

Although Odinga professes to be an Anglican Christian, concerns even today continue to circulate that he intends to pursue an undeclared radical Islamic political agenda.

The concerns grew, especially among Kenya's Christian leaders, as rumors circulated prior to the December 2007 presidential election that Odinga had signed a secret agreement with radical Muslim leaders.

Finally, a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, which Odinga had signed with radical Muslims was posted on the website of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, a national Christian religious organization established in 1975.

What appears documented by Kenyan newspaper and television news reports is that Odinga, representing the Orange Democratic Movement, or ODM, and Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, or NAMLEF, signed an agreement Aug. 29, 2007.

The second news video shows a press conference held during the Kenyan election campaign and broadcast in Kenya by Nairobi-based NTV.

The NTV news report shows Sheik Abdullah Abdi, the chairman of NAMLEF, discussing the MOU point-by-point.

The NTV report ends by showing the three-page MOU clearly enough for the document to be recognized.

"For their own separate reasons, Odinga and Sheik Abdullah Abdi joined forces," Corsi wrote. "Sheik Abdullah Abdi agreed to swing Islamic voters to Odinga in Kenya and Odinga agreed to support Islam should he become president."

Corsi continued, "By endorsing Raila Odinga during his 2006 visit to Kenya, Obama positioned himself to be seen by Kenyans as an important U.S. senator who was joining forces with his Luo tribal kinsman. This positioning further sided Obama with Raila Odinga as he ran against President Mwai Kibaki in the December 2007 presidential election in Kenya."

When Obama decided to support Odinga, Corsi noted, Obama embraced the extreme left wing of Kenyan politics, going back to Raila Odinga's father, Odinga Odinga, known as "Double-O," who was overtly communistic during the presidency of Jomo Kenyatta.

Odinga's current party, the Orange Democratic Party, or ODM, is a leftist-socialist political party that stops short of being openly communist.

World Net Daily
August, 2008
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Muslim father burns Christian daughter alive
Man slices out girl's tongue, ignites her after 'heated debate on religion'

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A Muslim father cut out his daughter's tongue and lit her on fire upon learning that she had become a Christian.

The child became curious about Jesus Christ after she read Christian material online, the Gulf News reported.

Her father read her Internet conversation, detached her tongue and burned her to death "following a heated debate on religion," according to an International Christian Concern report.

The Muslim man lives in Saudi Arabia and is employed by the muwateen, or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The muwateen are police tasked by the government with enforcing religious purity. The man has been taken into custody, and his identity has not been released.

According to the report, Saudi Arabia's school curriculums and teachers deliberately instill hatred toward Christians and followers of non-Muslim religions.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a press release stating that textbooks at the Saudi Arabian government school in Northern Virginia teach, "It is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam)."

The ICC claims Saudi Arabian authorities have begun exporting Wahabbism – a version of Islam that is said to be least tolerant toward non-Muslims – to other nations including the U.S.

Saudi oil money is said to be used to encourage countries such as Ethiopia and Indonesia to kill Christians and destroy their possessions.

ICC president Jeff King said, "Saudi Arabia has to treat Christians with the same respect that it wants Muslims to be treated in other countries. It has to stop exporting hate and persecution against Christians in other countries."

World Net Daily
August, 2008
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Iranians consider mandatory execution for apostasy
Christians being interrogated on suspicion of crime of leaving Islam

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A plan is being discussed by lawmakers in Iran that would require the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam for Christianity or someone who promotes such a conversion even on the Internet, according to a new report from Compass Direct News.

Those discussions of a penal code that was drafted earlier this year bring urgency to situations such as the two men arrested recently and under interrogation for that very crime, the report said.

The report said Iranian authorities arrested a number of converts to Christianity in the city of Shiraz about two months ago on suspicion of "apostasy."

Arash Bandari, 44, and Mahmood Matin, 52, were arrested at the time along with 13 other Muslim converts to Christianity. But while the other 13 were told they have a court case pending and then released, Bandari and Matin have been held ever since.

The 13 who have been released have not been told of any specific charges, but they report the nature of their questioning gives them reason to think the allegations may include apostasy and political crimes.

The other two, Bandari and Matin, have been held almost incommunicado. Matin's wife was able to see him for several minutes on June 24, when the prisoner told his wife "there had been a misunderstanding and that he could not teach Christianity any more," Compass reported.

"They are pushing me to tell them that I am connected to a church outside [Iran] and that I am receiving a salary, but I told them that I am doing it on my own," he said, according to a Compass source whose identity was concealed.

Compass noted that under the existing sharia laws in Iran, the death penalty is available for the crime of apostasy, but not required.

The proposal, however, would change that.

"If passed, the penal code drafted last January would require execution of any Muslim who converts to Christianity," Compass said. Such punishments could not be "changed, reduced or annulled."

"Many believe that the government intends to use the proposed penal code to clamp down on the surge in conversions in Iran over the last few years. Commentators have called the surge a 'mass exodus' from Islam, which in its Iranian Shiite version imposes harsh limitations on lifestyle and personal freedoms," Compass reported.

Iran's Members of Parliament voted only a week ago to discuss the plan as a priority, according to Agence France-Press, which described the proposal as to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society."

Alarmingly, the report also documented that the death penalty would be imposed for "establishing weblogs and sites promotion corruption, prostitution and apostasy."

"Over the last few years, the Internet and media such as television have been conduits of information on Christianity and are feared as sources of 'corruption' of the Iranian people," Compass reported. "The Internet is widely used in Iran despite restricted access for thousands of websites with 'immoral' content or content – including Christian ones – deemed as insulting religion and promoting political dissent."

Executions in Iran totaled 317 in 2007, up from 177 in 2006, and human rights groups say such punishments are excessive. Tehran insists death is an "effective deterrent," according to AFP.

"Christians in particular have suffered persecution in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979. No converts to Christianity have been convicted of 'apostasy' since international pressure forced officials to drop the death sentence of Christian convert Mehdi Dibaj in 1994. But in the years following the convert's release, Dibaj and four other Protestant pastors, including converts and those working with converts, have been brutally murdered," Compass said.

The attackers in those cases never have been brought to justice.

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
U.N. scheme to make Christians criminals
Sharia-following Islamic nations demanding anti-'defamation' law Dozens of nations dominated by Islam are pressing the United Nations to adopt an anti-"defamation" plan that would make Christians criminals under international law, according to a United States organization that has launched a campaign to defend freedom of religion worldwide.

"Around the world, Christians are being increasingly targeted, and even persecuted, for their religious beliefs. Now, one of the largest organizations in the United Nations is pushing to make a bad situation even worse by promoting anti-Christian bigotry," the American Center for Law & Justice said yesterday in announcing its petition drive.

The discrimination is "wrapped in the guise of a U.N. resolution called 'Combating Defamation of Religions,'" the announcement said. "We must put an immediate end to this most recent, dangerous attack on faith that attempts to criminalize Christianity."

The "anti-defamation" plan has been submitted to the U.N. repeatedly since about 1999, starting out as a plan to ban "defamation" of Islam and later changed to refer to "religions," officials said. It is being pushed by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference nations, which has adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, "which states that all rights are subject to sharia law, and makes sharia law the only source of reference for human rights."

The ACLJ petition, which is to be delivered to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, already had collected more than 23,000 names in just a brief online existence.

The ACLJ's European division, the European Center for Law & Justice, also has launched its work on the issue. It submitted arguments last month to the U.N. in opposition to the proposal to institute sharia-based standards around the globe.

"The position of the ECLJ in regards to the issue of 'defamation of religion' resolutions, as they have been introduced at the U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly, is that they are in direct violation of international law concerning the rights to freedom of religion and expression," the organization's brief said.

"The 'defamation of religion' resolutions establish as the primary focus and concern the protection of ideas and religions generally, rather than protecting the rights of individuals to practice their religion, which is the chief purpose of international religious freedom law."

"Furthermore, 'defamation of religion' replaces the existing objective criterion of limitations on speech where there is an intent to incite hatred or violence against religious believers with a subjective criterion that considers whether the religion or its believers feel offended by the speech," the group continued.

Interestingly, in nations following Islam, the present practice is to use such laws to protect Islam and to attack religious minorities with penalties up to and including execution, the brief noted.

"What should be most disconcerting to the international community is that laws based on the concept of 'defamation of religion' actually help to create a climate of violence," the argument explained.

For example, just two months ago an Afghanistan court following Islam sentenced to death a 23-year-old apprentice journalist who had downloaded an article from an Iranian website and brought it to his class, the ECLJ said. Other instances include:

• Award-winning author Mark Steyn has been summoned to appear before two Canadian Human Rights Commissions of vague allegations of "subject[ing] Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt" for comments in his book, "America Alone," the group said.
  
  
• In Pakistan, 15 people were accused of blasphemy against Islam during the first four months of 2008, the organization said.
  
  
• Another Pakistani man sentenced to life in prison for desecrating the Quran was jailed for six years before being acquitted of the charge.
  
  
• In Saudi Arabia a teacher was sentenced to three years in prison plus 300 lashes "for expressing his views in a classroom."
  
  
• In the United Kingdom, police announced plans to arrest a blogger for "anti-Muslim" statements.
  
• In the United States, a plaintiff sued his Internet service provider for refusing "to prevent participants in an online chat room from posting or submitting harassing comments that blasphemed and defamed plaintiff's Islamic religion."

The ECLJ said, "The implementation of domestic laws to combat defamation of religion in many OIC countries reveals a selective and arbitrary enforcement toward religious minorities, who are often Christians. Those violations are frequently punishable by the death penalty."

The newest "anti-defamation" plan was submitted in March. It specifically cites a declaration "adopted by the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers" at a meeting in Islamabad "which condemned the growing trend of Islamophobia and systematic discrimination against adherents of Islam."

It also cites the dictates from the OIC meeting in Dakar, "in which the Organization expressed concern at the systematically negative stereotyping of Muslims and Islam and other divine religions."

It goes on to cite a wide range of other practices that "target" Islam, but does not mention any other religions, and urges all nations to provide "adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from the defamation of any religion."

According to published reports, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights' 53 members voted to adopt the resolution earlier this year, with opposition from the United States and the European Union.

At the time, Cuba's delegate, Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, said: "Islam has been the subject of very deep campaign of defamation."

"They're attempting to pass a sinister resolution that is nothing more than blatant religious bigotry," the ACLJ said in its promotion of its petition. "This is very important to understand. This radical proposal would outlaw Christianity … it would make the proclamation of your faith an international crime."

"In his recent dissent on the Supreme Court's ruling on Guantanamo Bay, Justice Scalia said, 'America is at war with radical Islamists.' Never has this rung more true than today. Never have Christians been more targeted for their religious beliefs. And never have we faced a more dangerous threat than the one posed by the OIC," the ACLJ said.

On the Grizzly Groundswell blog, the author described the situation as, "The United Nations: 160 cannibals and 17 civilized people taking a majority vote on what to have for dinner."

The U.S. State Department also has found the proposal unpalatable.

"This resolution is incomplete inasmuch as it fails to address the situation of all religions," said the statement from Leonard Leo. "We believe that such inclusive language would have furthered the objective of promoting religious freedom. We also believe that any resolution on this topic must include mention of the need to change educational systems that promote hatred of other religions, as well as the problem of state-sponsored media that negatively targets any one religion."

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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Sex OK at 9, says Saudi cleric
'Muhammad is model we follow. He took 'Aisha to be his wife when she was 6'

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Age, or lack thereof, is no hindrance to marriage under Islam, according to Ahmad Al-Mu'bi, an officiant for marriages from Saudi Arabia who says sex at 9 is fine.

According to a video of the Saudi official recorded and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Mu'bi has confirmed that marriage contracts are appropriate for girls as young as age 1.

And he said the model for marriage continues to be Muhammad, who married one of his wives when she was but 6.

The video comes from a broadcast on LBC Television on June 19, according to the MEMRI report.

Al-Mu'bi said, "Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing.

"There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7, or 8. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father's opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife," he said.

"But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at 9, 10, 11, 8, or 13, while in other countries, they are married off at 16. Some countries have legislated laws forbidding having sex before the girl is 18," he said.

He confirmed, "The Prophet Muhammad is the model we follow. He took 'Aisha to be his wife when she was 6, but he had sex with her only when she was 9."

An interviewer asked: "My question to you is whether the marriage of a 12-year-old boy to an 11-year-old girl is a logical marriage permitted by Islamic law."

"If the guardian is the father... There are two different types of guardianship. If the guardian is the father, and he marries his daughter off to a man of appropriate standing, the marriage is obviously valid," said Al-Mu'bi.

"People find themselves in all kinds of circumstances. Take, for example, a man who has two, three, or four daughters. He does not have any wives, but he needs to go on a trip. Isn't it better to marry his daughter to a man who will protect and sustain her, and when she reaches the proper age, he will have sex with her? Who says all men are ferocious wolves?" Al-Mu'bi said.

MEMRI also recently reported that Hamas Minister of Culture Atallah Abu Al-Subh made a statement on Al-Aqsa Television that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has worked diligently to help establish a Palestinian state, should be condemned as a murderer.

"Every proud Palestinian views you as a murderer, and sees the blood of the children of Palestine between your lips and on your fangs. I pray to Allah that you will soon slither away," Al-Subh in a statement aired by Al-Aqsa.

A year ago, WND reported an online forum tied to the website of Hamas posted a photo of a little girl in a combat vest and the head band of the terrorist Al-Qassam Brigades.

The message accompanying the photo said the girl "is part of the Muslim generation which will go down in history [as a generation] … that refused to [accept] humiliation and defeat."

MEMRI is an independent nonprofit that monitors and reports on media broadcasts and publications in the Middle East.

The organization previously has featured messages to children about Nahoul, the bee, weeping over his "martyred" family as well as the "martyrdom" of Farfour, the Mickey Mouse-lookalike.

Hamas, which won a majority in parliament in January 2006 elections, officially is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. As WND reported, a prominent Hamas leader recently was captured on video boasting of using children, women and the elderly as human shields in its firefights with Israeli soldiers.

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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TESTING THE FAITH
Judge blasts state ban on distributing Bibles to students
Law unconstitutional because it 'encourages arbitrary enforcement'

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A federal court has declared a Florida law banning representatives of the Gideons from handing out Bibles within 500 feet of any school in the state unconstitutional because it is vague and actually "encourages arbitrary enforcement."

The ruling in a case brought by the Alliance Defense Fund comes from U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore and addresses an incident that developed Jan. 19, 2007, at Key Largo School, run by Principal Annette Martinson.

The law actually prohibits anyone without "legitimate business" from being within 500 feet of schools in the state and specifies "each principal or designee of each public or private school in this state shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency to prohibit any person from loitering in the school safety zone who does not have legitimate business in the school safety zone or any other authorization, or license to enter or remain in the school safety zone or does not otherwise have invitee status in the designated safety zone."

The issue arose because of team of Gideons, known for paying all of their own expenses out of pocket while raising all of their own funds and giving away Bibles, had been distributing the Scriptures at Key Largo School.

The Gideons' procedure is to notify local police departments two weeks before their distribution date, give school administrators notice and have participants stand on a public bike path or sidewalk and avoid stepping on school grounds.

But WND reported earlier when two members of the Gideons organization were charged for handing out Bibles there, and when a judge dismissed those counts. 

Ernest Simpson and Anthony Mirto had been taken into custody by a sheriff's deputy and charged with trespassing after the principal of Key Largo School, Martinson, complained they were handing out Bibles.

The initial counts were dismissed at the request of the ADF shortly after the law firm got involved, but then authorities filed a second round of counts, under a different law – this state law that prohibits anyone from being within 500 feet of any school property, including on public sidewalks and streets, without having either "legitimate business" or permission.

The lawsuit lawsuit at hand then was filed on behalf of Gideon Thomas Gray, who was not arrested with Simpson and Mirto but arrived when they called to report trouble with a particular deputy sheriff.

"Gray approached Officer [John] Perez and asked what the charges were. Officer Perez was highly agitated and said that Gray would know in 48 hours when he received the report," the judge said.

Gray contacted another deputy through whom he'd arranged for the distribution.

"Gray then called Deputy [Ralph] Williams and asked for his assistance … Deputy Williams indicated that he would e-mail Officer Perez … Gray told Officer Perez that he had an e-mail in his car from another officer stating that the Gideons have a right to distribute Bibles from the public bike path/sidewalk, but Officer Perez indicated that he did not care," the judge wrote.

The ADF reported the two Gideons who were arrested were "placed in a Monroe County patrol car. A police officer mocked the two men, saying they could 'pray to Jesus all the way to jail.'"

The ADF, after seeing that the charges against Simpon and Mirto were dismissed, filed the action on behalf of Gray, who said he feared arrest if he exercised his right to distribute Bibles.

The federal judge found that the state definition of a school safety zone, in the Key Largo School location, would include a public bike path and walkway abutting U.S. Highway 1, the highway itself and businesses including a pet motel, a gas station, a restaurant and a plumbing business.

"Given the wide range of non-exempt persons and the various types of areas within the school safety zone, such as sidewalks, residential houses and streets, businesses, parking lots, etc., construing 'legitimate purpose' to mean any purpose which is connected with the operation of the school would result in an application so broad that it would likely infringe of First and Fourteenth Amendment rights," the judge said.

He ordered the state never again enforce that particular law.

"Christians shouldn’t be penalized for expressing their beliefs," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. "Arresting or threatening to arrest Christians simply because they choose to exercise their First Amendment rights in a public place is unconstitutional. The court was right in its assessment that the particular law used against these members of the Gideons does not pass constitutional muster."

In a statement at the outset of the case to WND, Becky Herrin, of the public information office in the Monroe County sheriff's office, stated as a fact that the defendants in the case did trespass. She later declined additional comment.

"A copy of our police report (see attached) … clearly states that the people in question were arrested for trespassing on school property – not on a public sidewalk… In fact, they were given the opportunity to step off school property and onto public property, and they could have continued with their activities if they had done so. They chose instead to remain, against repeated warnings, on school property so deputies were forced to arrest them," Herrin said in a statement to WND.

But the attached report forwarded to WND revealed the two were arrested while in their vehicle parked near, but not on, school property.

The Gideons, a group founded in the late 1800s, has as its "sole purpose" the goal "to win men, women, boys and girls to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through association for service, personal testimony, and distributing the Bible in the human traffic lanes and streams of everyday life."

Gideons have placed the Bible in 181 nations in 82 different languages over the years.

The organization focuses on hotels and motels, hospitals and nursing homes, schools, colleges and universities, the military and law enforcement and prisons and jails.

"The demand for Scriptures in these areas far exceeds our supplies that we are able to purchase through our donations. Much more could be done – if funds were available. However, we are placing and distributing more than one million copies of the Word of God, at no cost, every seven days in these areas…" the group said.

The organization only gives away the Bibles with the Gideon logo on the covers, but plain Bibles are available for consumers to purchase at its distribution center at P.O. Box 140800, Nashville, Tenn., 37214-0800. Information about the products is available on the group's website.

The Gideons serve as an extended missionary arm of the Christian church and are the oldest Christian business and professional men's association in the United States.

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
State denies cancer treatment, offers suicide instead
'To say, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel'

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State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician.

The story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a report in the Eugene Register-Guard.

But the word from the state was coverage for palliative care, which would include the state's assisted suicide program, would be allowed but not coverage for the cancer treatment drugs.

"To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper. "I get angry. Who do they think they are?"

She said she was devastated when the state health program refused coverage for Tarceva, the drug her doctor ordered for treatment of her lung cancer.

The refusal came in an unsigned letter from LIPA, the company that runs the state program in that part of Oregon.

"We had no intent to upset her, but we do need to point out the options available to her under the Oregon Health Plan," Dr. John Sattenspiel, senior medical director for LIPA, told the newspaper.

"I understand the way it was interpreted. I'm not sure how we can lift that. The reality is, at some level (doctor-assisted suicide) could be considered as a palliative or comfort care measure."

The 64-year-old Wagner lives in a low-income apartment in Springfield with her dog, the newspaper said.

State officials say the Oregon Health Plan prioritizes treatments, with diagnoses and ailments deemed the most important, such as pregnancy, childbirth and preventive care for children at the top of the list. Other treatments rank below, officials said.

"We can't cover everything for everyone," Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, told the paper. "Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most peopl