Author: Staff Writer

Source: The Christian Science Monitor/AP and Agence France-Presse

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0225/p04s03-wosc.html

Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing "blasphemous" content and material considered offensive to Islam, officials said Sunday.

An inter-ministerial committee has decided to block YouTube because it contained "blasphemous content, videos and...

Author: Jonathan Wynne-Jones

Source: The Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/24/nchurch124.xml

In his first interview since his controversial comments, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali vows not to be forced into silence.

The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, who received death threats for airing his views on Islamic issues, has vowed that he will continue to speak out.

His claim that...

Author: LARRY MITCHELL

Source: ChicoER

http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_8349753

Ishmael Khaldi hasn't done what was expected, but one day he will.

The expectation -- of his family and culture -- was that once he got an education, he'd return to his village in northern Israel, get married and raise a family.

Instead, Khaldi, 36, is still single and traveling the world as an Israeli diplomat.

He was in Chico Friday, speaking to a...

Author: Ruth Gledhill

Source: The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3426682.ece

Muslim leaders from around the world will tomorrow issue a statement to the world's Jewish Community in "a call for positive and constructive action that aims to improve Muslim - Jewish relations."

In the letter, which has emerged from the Muslim-Jewish study centre at the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths in Cambridge,...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Gulf Daily News

Author: AMBIKA AHUJA

Source: Fox News

Wire Service: AP

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Feb23/0,4670,ThailandUnderSiege,00.html

The tea shop is abandoned. Rubber plantations stand untended. Soldiers constantly patrol the one-lane road leading into this Muslim village.

Rae Poh was once designated a "green zone" village, one of more than 1,600 such islands of peace amid the violence that...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Times of India

Wire Service: Reuters

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Rest_of_World/Religious_scholar_calls_on_Muslims_to_boycott_Danish_products/articleshow/2806603.cms

One of the world's most prominent Sunni religious scholars called on Muslims to boycott Danish products in response to the...

Author: Ruth Gledhill

Source: The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3412734.ece

Freedom from religion in Britain is becoming as important as freedom of religion, according to a United Nations investigation.

A 23-page report by Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, says that the 2001 census findings that nearly 72 per cent of the population is Christian can no...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicestershire/7259848.stm

A Muslim group has called for clearer labeling by Walkers crisps as it said traces of alcohol can be found in some of its products.
l
Alcohol is used in small quantities as an agent to extract the flavour from an ingredient.

The Food Standards Agency said that as the amount of alcohol was so...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Fox News

Wire Service: AP

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,332031,00.html

Belarusian authorities released an independent journalist from prison on Friday, his lawyer said, a decision that appeared to be part of the authoritarian president's efforts to improve ties with the West.

Alexander Sdvizhkov, a former deputy editor of the Zgoda newspaper, had been convicted in January of...

Author: Mark Sappenfield

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0222/p01s01-wosc.html

Hajji Ali Akbar wants his country to be governed by Islamic law.

Yet in Monday's elections in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), he and many others voted for a party that rejects religion in politics. It has led many to herald these elections as a victory for secular democracy and as a sign of the failure of Islamic...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: CAIR Press Release

Author: Ruth Gledhill

Source: The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3412722.ece

A diocese of the Church of England is giving an unprecedented £250,000 towards a multifaith building in which the largest amount of worship space will be reserved for Muslims.

The Guildford diocese is one of the wealthiest in the UK. The Bishop of Guildford, the Right Rev Christopher Hill, gave the £250,000 cheque...

Author: P. Aliyeva

Source: Trend News

http://news.trendaz.com/index.shtml?show=news&newsid=1141326&lang=EN

Eighteen Muslim Shops in the south regions of Azerbaijan – Bilasuvar, Jalilabad, Masalli and Lankaran, have been raided, Miryahya Badirov, the head of the South Office of the Azerbaijani State Committee for Religious Organizations, said to Trend News.

Last year, the State Committee for Religious Organizations...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Baha'i World News Service

http://www.bahaiworldnews.org/story/606

The Iranian Parliament is considering legislation that would institutionalize a series of gross human rights violations, affecting not only Baha'is but many others, even outside of Iran, the Baha'i International Community said today.

Of greatest concern is a section that would mandate the death penalty for anyone who converts from Islam to...