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In a move that illustrates the fundamentalist Islamic culture's inability to
embrace the notion of "self-restraint," the Russian-installed leader of
Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov (l), said women need to wear Islamic headscarves so men
aren't "distracted." |
Chechen
Leader: Women Should
Be Covered to
Prevent 'Distractions'
The Independent
Ramzan Kdyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, said this week that a
local rule forcing women to wear headscarves was justified because the sight of
female flesh prevents him from concentrating on his work. Mr. Kadyrov made the
comments in a televised interview with Tina Kandelaki, a glamorous Russian
television star who has posed for a number of men's magazines. "You are too
provocatively dressed, so I'm trying not to look at you," Mr. Kadyrov told the
television presenter. Ms Kandelaki was wearing a black jacket and a knee-length
skirt with tights. "If women go to work half-naked, then men won't be able to
work," the Chechen leader continued. "I'll look at you, and day and night I'll
be thinking about how to say salaam alaikum [hello] to you. Work will be
the last thing on my mind." Mr. Kadyrov has previously cited Chechen tradition
and Islamic values as reasons why women should cover up, but this is the first
time he has used this particular excuse. Tanya Lokshina, the deputy director of
the Moscow Office of Human Rights Watch, said the campaign to promote
headscarves has been gaining momentum in the southern Russian region...
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 HUD-Funded
Wasted Money
on Sex Offenders, Deceased
The Center for
Public Integrity
Even by Washington standards, $26 billion is a lot of
money. That's the amount spent by taxpayers annually to
provide housing for needy Americans. But there's
significant evidence that some of the monies have been
poorly spent for years. A joint investigation by ABC
News and the Center for Public Integrity found that the
Department of Housing and Urban Development has
struggled to combat theft, corruption, and mismanagement
in the more than 3,000 public housing agencies
nationwide it funds, and particularly inside the 172
that HUD considers the most troubled. The problems are
widespread, from an executive in New Orleans convicted
of embezzling more than $900,000 in housing money around
the time he bought a lavish Florida mansion to federal
funds wrongly being spent to provide housing for sex
offenders or to pay vouchers to residents long since
dead.
 Global
Muslim Population Gains
Will Outstrip Non-Muslim Growth
The Washington
Post
The world's Muslim population will grow at double the
rate of non-Muslims over the next 20 years, according to
a broad new demographic analysis that is likely to spark
controversy in Europe and the United States. If current
trends continue, the study found, the number of Muslims
in the United States will more than double, from 2.6
million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030. The percentage
of native-born Muslims in the U.S. is projected to rise
from 35 percent today to 45 percent in 2030. The Future
of the Global Muslim Population may be the first to
attempt to map the Muslim population of most of the
world's countries. Among its other projections: Muslim
populations in some parts of Europe will reach the
double digits, with France and Belgium at 10.3 percent
by 2030; Pakistan will overtake Indonesia as the world's
most populous Muslim nation...
 Federal
Judge Upholds Government Funding of Sharia-Compliant
Financing
Thomas Moore Law
Center
Last week, Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff, a federal district
court judge in Michigan, dismissed a constitutional
challenge to the US Government's bailout of AIG, which
used over a hundred million dollars in federal tax money
to support Islamic religious indoctrination through the
funding and promotion of Sharia-compliant financing (SCF).
SCF is financing that follows the dictates of Islamic
law. The challenge was brought by the Thomas More Law
Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and co-counsel David Yerushalmi,
on behalf of Kevin Murray, a Marine Corps veteran of the
Iraqi War. TMLC filed a notice of appeal immediately
after the ruling and will be seeking review of the
decision in the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth
Circuit.
 Egypt
Islamic Authority
Halts Dialogue with Vatican
Thomson-Reuters
Egypt's highest Islamic authority, al-Azhar, said on
Thursday it was freezing all dialogue with the Roman
Catholic Church over what it called Pope Benedict's
repeated insults towards Islam. Benedict this month
condemned attacks on churches that killed dozens of
people in Egypt, Iraq and Nigeria, saying they showed
the need to adopt effective measures to protect
religious minorities. His remarks followed a New Year
bombing outside a church in the Egyptian city of
Alexandria that left 23 people dead and dozens injured
and prompted demonstrations by both Christians and
Muslims against sectarian violence. The pope urged
Christian communities to persevere in a non-violent
manner in the face of what he described as "a strategy
of violence that has Christians as a target."
 Man
Tries to Kill Wife After
Ultrasound Result
Source: Int'l Herald Tribune
A Pakistani man tried to kill his wife after ultrasound reports revealed that
she was about to give birth to a baby girl, the couple's third daughter. The
pregnant woman, who was beaten and maybe poisoned by her husband, gave birth in
a car in route to the hospital. Kacha Kho resident, Aliya, was beaten by her
husband after the couple returned from the doctor's offices on Tuesday
afternoon. Aliya's husband, Muhammad Ali, was enraged after he discovered that
he was about to have a third daughter. Muhammad Ali and his father, Allah Ditta,
shackled Aliya with manacles to a door after they returned from the doctor's
appointment. Ali tried to abort the child and tried to inject his wife with
poison. Three hours after Ali had administered the injection, he started beating
Aliya along with his father. Aliya began yelling out loud for help and her
neighbors stormed into the house.
 Somali
Mother
of Four Slaughtered for Her Faith
Source: Compass
Direct
A mother of four was killed for her Christian faith on
Jan. 7 on the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia by Islamic
extremists from al Shabaab militia, a relative said. The
relative, who requested anonymity, said Asha Mberwa, 36,
was killed at 5:15pm in Warbhigly village; the Islamic
extremists from the insurgent group had arrested her
outside her house the previous day at 8:30 a.m. She died
when the militants cut her throat in front of villagers
who came out of their homes as witnesses. She is
survived by her children – ages 12, 8, 6 and 4 – and her
husband, who was not home at the time she was
apprehended. They had married in 1993. Al Shabaab
insurgents control much of southern and central Somalia
and have embarked on a campaign to rid the country of
its hidden Christian population.
 Experts:
Christian Communities Battle for Survival
in Middle East
Source: The Daily
Caller
With attacks against Christians on the rise in
majority-Muslim nations in the Middle East, experts say
the future of Christianity in the region is gravely
threatened. From the most restrictive countries to the
more open ones, Christians are facing an uphill battle
for survival in a majority of Middle Eastern countries.
In the last ten years and especially in recent months,
attacks against churches and Christian populations in
Muslim lands have reached crisis proportions. In almost
every majority-Muslim nation in the Middle East the
situation of Christians is worsening, according to Paul
Marshall, senior fellow at the Center for Religious
Freedom at the Hudson Institute. Those countries in
which Christians are already significantly out-numbered
will likely see their Christian population vanish unless
the violence against them is brought to an end.
 Killings of
Newborn Babies on the Rise in Pakistan
Source: AFP/Yahoo! News
The lifeless bodies of two tiny babies are being given their final bath before
burial in Karachi, after they were left to die in the southern Pakistani city's
garbage dumps. "They can only have been one or two days old," says volunteer
worker Mohammad Saleem, pointing at the two small corpses being gently washed by
his colleagues at a charity's morgue. In the conservative Muslim nation, where
the birth of children outside of marriage is condemned and adultery is a crime
punishable by death under strict interpretations of Islamic law, infanticide is
a crime on the rise. More than 1,000 infants -- most of them girls -- were
killed or abandoned to die in Pakistan last year according to conservative
estimates by the Edhi Foundation, a charity working to reverse the grim trend.
 Taliban
Relent
(for Now) on Education of Girls
Source:
Sydney Morning Herald
The Taliban are prepared to drop their ban on girls'
schools, an influential Afghan cabinet minister says.
The Education Minister, Farooq Wardak, says the movement
has decided to scrap the ban on female education that
helped earn it worldwide infamy in the 1990s. Mr. Wardak
said the Taliban's leadership had undergone a profound
change since losing power after the US-led invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001. "It is attitudinal change, it is
behavioral change, it is cultural change...What I am
hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taliban is
that they are no more opposing education and also girls'
education." The minister, one of the most trusted
members of the Karzai inner circle, has a central role
in official efforts to bring the Taliban to peace talks.
The Taliban have never made any public statements that
back up Mr. Wardak's claim.
 Iran
Rounds
Up Christians
in Crackdown
Source: AP/Yahoo!
News
Iran has arrested about 70 Christians since Christmas in
a crackdown that demonstrates the limits of religious
tolerance by Islamic leaders who often boast they
provide room for other faiths. The latest raids have
targeted grass-roots Christian groups Iran describes as
"hard-liners" who pose a threat to the Islamic state.
Authorities increasingly view them with suspicions that
range from trying to convert Muslims to being possible
footholds for foreign influence. Christian activists
claim their Iranian brethren are being persecuted simply
for worshipping outside officially sanctioned mainstream
churches. Caught in the middle is the small community of
Iranian Christians who get together for prayer and Bible
readings in private residences and out of sight of
authorities. |
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