The View from Number 80

Dr Mariam Rajavi, the PMOI leader who lives in exile in France, warned in an interview with The Telegraph, that the West would be "sleep-walking to disaster" if it didn't wake up to the threat Iran posed not just to the Middle East, but to the wider world. "Iran is being run by a religious dictatorship that wants to export its ideals throughout the world," she said. "This religious fascism has similar aims to the fascism of Adolf Hitler - world domination. Western governments are deliberately turning a blind eye to what is going on, but I fear that one day very soon they will wake up to the grim reality of what is really going on."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/09/do0902.xml

Knees don't so much bend in the Church of England these days as jerk. There was a fine example of the Anglican knee-jerk yesterday, when a Christian think tank published research that purported to demonstrate that Britain's mosques would be fuller than its churches by 2035. Never mind that the researchers' methodologies were fundamentally flawed. Never mind that they used a simple flat-line projection from their flawed premise and rather daftly pointed to where the Christian and Muslim axes crossed on 2035. Never mind that some Christian organisations seem to have a vested interest in scaremongering with specious statistics so that they can market their own evangelistic solutions.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1939646/Dove%27s-real-beauty-ads-%27were-retouched%27.html

A major advertising campaign, which flaunted the "real beauty" of its ordinary women stars, was perhaps not as naturalistic as first thought after an expert who worked on the pictures claimed he touched them up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/09/health.health

Forty years ago abortion became legal, one of the good legacies of 1968. But the significance of that era of radical reform remains a battleground between liberal and conservative values. Were the 60s the road to freedom or to moral perdition? (Op-ed from Polly Toynbee)

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/cath_elliott/2008/05/the_crusader_returns.html

Nadine Dorries is once again campaigning for an earlier limit on abortion. But she's using emotive arguments and flawed science

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/09/uksecurity.terrorism

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, last night expressed her "extreme disappointment" at the decision yesterday by three high court judges to order the release of the radical preacher Abu Qatada, who has been described as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/09/catholicism.religion

British public life cannot be a "God-free zone", the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales warned last night. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said he was unhappy about attempts to "eliminate the Christian voice" from the public forum. He urged Catholics to prevent the country from becoming a "world devoid of religious faith" through a deeper engagement with God by praying, studying and performing charitable acts. (How about the charitable act of Murphy-O'Connor's resignation over the Michael Hill case? That would be a good start)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080507/tc_nm/australia_pope_dc_2

Pope Benedict will text message thousands of young Catholics on their mobile phones during World Youth Day in Sydney in July, hoping going digital will help him connect better with a younger audience.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-seekerboxmay02,0,4059884.story

You might think a hospital sounds like an odd place to launch a spiritual quest. But for some patients, that's precisely where they find religion. In fact, some doctors even rely on divine intervention to assist them in the healing process. Tribune reporter Joel Hood's story this week about a continuous prayer week held in Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital illustrated how some hospitals recognize and embrace their role as a spiritual destination. (If "divine intervention" helps in the healing process why doesn't the omniscient and omnipotent deity just heal the patient straight away? Because it is a god of the gaps, a feeble entity that cannot even prove it exists.)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3882980.ece

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nesrine_malik/2008/05/sex_and_the_city_of_riyadh.html

Just a few hours after lugging my own bags and jostling with the rush-hour male workforce on the tube to Heathrow, I found myself donning my abaya and being shepherded into a females-only line for immigration control at Riyadh airport.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/07/spain.catholicism

Topless and dressed in suspenders, she stares from the cover of one of Spain's bestselling soft porn magazines. But this is not another of the scantily clad models who feature every week in Interviú, rather it is the niece of the conservative head of Spain's Catholic church, Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/07/1

The cosmetic chain Neal's Yard Remedies has been ordered to withdraw a homeopathic remedy for malaria after medicines watchdogs decided its sale was potentially dangerous and misleading.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anas_altikriti/2008/05/we_got_out_the_vote.html

So it was the Muslim4Ken campaign that did it for Ken, according to Asim Siddiqui. Never mind the fact that the campaign mobilised the Muslim community, traditionally politically apathetic, to turn out in unprecedented numbers. Never mind our success in sticking one up to those who want the Muslim community to simply sit back and do nothing, or maybe even seek alternative, destructive ways of expressing their concerns - it's the fact that the campaign identified itself by the faith of its target audience that Siddiqui denounces. (Why should Muslims be expected to act as a single bloc vote instead of making up their own minds as individuals. This "Muslim community" crap is just a way to exercise religious control. What happened to the term British Asians?)

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/abeer_mishkhas/2008/05/saudi_women.html

Last week Human Rights Watch issued a report on Saudi women entitled "Perpetual Minors," dealing with the effects of gender segregation and male dominance in Saudi Arabia. As its title suggests, the report is pretty comprehensive in its condemnation of the Saudi regime.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/03/do0303.xml

God is very disappointed with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Before you ask, I have not had a vision. Nor do I have a celestial hotline to heaven. I am merely passing on the eye-catching claim of Gene Robinson, the American bishop, in a compelling interview this week on BBC's Hard Talk with Andrew Neil. Robinson, whose homosexuality threatens to trigger a schism in the Anglican church, is clearly on a higher plane than the rest of us mere mortals who would not presume to know the thoughts of the Almighty. (After a rambling intro the writer lays into the homophobic bigot Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria)

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080503/tts-us-religion-rights-asia-3c8ed92.html

A US religious freedom watchdog on Friday asked the State Department to include Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkmenistan in its global blacklist of religious freedom violators, and maintained Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, on a watchlist.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/01/AR2008050103199.html

IN MANY countries where elections and Islam overlap, religious political parties are suspected -- often rightly -- of trying to use the democratic system to advance an illiberal agenda. Turkey, the most advanced democracy in the Muslim world, has the opposite problem. Its mildly religious ruling party has led the way in introducing progressive political and economic reforms and preparing the country for membership in the European Union. Its secular opposition, meanwhile, has repeatedly resorted to antidemocratic tactics.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3855369.ece

Few apart from his small band of fanatical followers will mourn the passing of Aden Hashi Ayro, the leader of Somali’s Islamist insurrection.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/02/monarchy

Terrible things do happen, but it would have to be something very terrible indeed to hoist Peter Phillips to the throne. He is 11th in line, with lots of young and healthy relatives ahead of him in the succession. Even if Princes William and Harry were to come a cropper in one of their dashing helicopter jaunts, his expectations would remain exceedingly dim. But in the breast of his Canadian bride-to-be, Autumn Kelly, hope springs eternal, for she has renounced the Roman Catholic faith of her Irish forebears and converted to the Church of England so that her future husband can keep his place in the royal pecking order.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7377873.stm

Officials in Texas have found signs of injury among children removed from a polygamous sect and are checking for possible sexual abuse of boys.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2277003,00.html

Peter Phillips, the Queen's eldest grandson, will not have to surrender his place in the succession after his fiancée renounced her Roman Catholic faith. The Telegraph can disclose that Autumn Kelly, 29, has recently been accepted into the Church of England. Under the Act of Settlement of 1701, Mr Phillips, 30, the son of the Princess Royal and 11th in line to the throne, would have automatically given up his birthright if Miss Kelly had not abandoned her faith before their marriage on May 17. (What archaic silliness. Is this the the 21st or the 16th century?)

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/83710/

At first glance Shawbo Ali Rauf appears to be slumbering on the grass, her pale brown curls framing her face, her summer skirt spread about her. But the awkward position of her limbs and the splattered blood reveal the true horror of the scene. The 19-year-old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area in Dokan and shot her seven times. Her crime was to have an unknown number on her mobile phone.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/reproductivejustice/83804/

You know that stupid Ben Stein movie Expelled, that argues in favor of "intelligent design" and chastises the sane for not allowing religious bullshit to be taught in science classes? Apparently, they used the John Lennon song Imagine in the film . . . without permission. Yoko Ono, one of my all-time favorite feminists, isn't having any of that shit. The issue came to her attention when bloggers started accusing her of selling out. And so she slapped the filmmakers with a lawsuit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042902586.html

Every morning, Hindu devotees haul buckets of fresh, creamy milk into this neighborhood temple, then close their eyes and bow in prayer as the milk is used to bathe a Hindu deity. At the foot of the statue, they leave small baskets of bananas, coconuts, incense sticks and marigolds. But recently, Ram Gopal Atrey, the head priest at Prachin Hanuman Mandir, noticed donations thinning for the morning prayers. He knew exactly why: inflation.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3838229.ece

Italy professes to be a Catholic nation - but a majority of Italians do not know "even the most basic facts" about the Bible, according to a survey

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/high-teen-pregnancy-rate-found-at-sect-ranch-818167.html

Nearly two-thirds of the teenage girls removed from a polygamist sect earlier this month are either pregnant or have already given birth, officials said yesterday. Of the 53 girls, aged 14 to 17, taken from the Yearning for Zion ranch in the remote west Texas town of Eldorado, 31 were either mothers or mothers-to-be.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/30/religion.gayrights

God is "very disappointed" with the failure of the Archbishop of Canterbury to confront the Anglican communion's outspoken critics of homosexuality, its first openly gay bishop says today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/30/barackobama.uselections2008

Barack Obama sought to distance himself from his former pastor Jeremiah Wright yesterday, describing recent public appearances in which the clergyman suggested the US government invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against minorities as divisive and outrageous.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802174.html (reg rqd)

THE REV. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose incendiary and controversial sound bites have knocked the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) off balance, strutted to the microphone of the National Press Club and made an audacious claim: "This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. It is an attack on the black church." No. The harsh spotlight under which the Chicago pastor finds himself is exactly where it belongs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/28/AR2008042802560.html (reg rqd)

This prison is majority Muslim -- as is virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country's prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders, sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population. "The high percentage of Muslims in prisons is a direct consequence of the failure of the integration of minorities in France," said Moussa Khedimellah, a sociologist who has spent several years conducting research on Muslims in the French penal system.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3835551.ece

The BBC is facing a High Court challenge over its decision to censor a party political broadcast in the run-up to Thursday’s local elections. A Christian party has begun legal action after the corporation insisted on changes to a short film in which the party voiced opposition to the building of Europe’s biggest mosque next to the site of the 2012 Olympics.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3837925.ece

An Anglican bishop has resigned after weeks of speculation about his marriage and his relationship with his chaplain, the Church in Wales announced this morning.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/29/nchurch129.xml

The Church of England is proposing to create new dioceses that will specifically cater for those opposed to women priests and bishops. Church leaders fear that any attempt to introduce women bishops could enrage conservative members of the congregation and lead to mass walk-outs. (So the CofE thinks gender apartheid is the answer - it is only papering over the cracks leading to schism)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/29/wiran129.xml

Barbie dolls are having “destructive” social and cultural consequences in Iran, the country’s top prosecutor has warned.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/29/barackobama.uselections2008

Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the Chicago pastor whose provocative sermons have damaged Barack Obama's campaign, yesterday condemned criticism of his views as an attack on America's black churches.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5go3YgXA43arqLic2P3Nf1deDnGHQD90AVQO00

New York Cardinal Edward Egan says Rudy Giuliani should not have received Holy Communion during the pope's visit because he supports abortion rights. Egan says he had "an understanding" with the former presidential candidate and New York mayor that he is not to receive the Eucharist. The Catholic church opposes abortion.

http://reason.com/news/show/125988.html

Ben Stein's new anti-science movie Expelled is all worldview and no evidence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7359258.stm

Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth. (You just cannot make this stuff up)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/5718593.html

For a society accustomed to the likes of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, the images of the women from the polygamist compound in Texas are almost shocking in their understatement: Ankle-length dresses, makeup-less faces, hauntingly uniform hair. John Llewellyn, a polygamy expert and retired Salt Lake County sheriff's lieutenant, says the women cover themselves "so that they're unattractive to the outside world or other men."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3828082.ece

A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/zeina_zaatari/2008/04/caught_up_in_the_whirlwind.html

Iraqi women's organisations and international observers point to an escalating war against women in Iraq, aided by widespread chaos and lawlessness under the US occupation. In addition to violence by US troops inside and outside of prisons, women in Iraq face daily violence from militants under the guise of religion and "liberation". In Iraq's second largest city, Basra, a stronghold of conservative Shia groups, as many as 133 women were killed last year for violating "Islamic teachings" and in so-called "honour killings", according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2822435.html?menu=

A Russian priest was left cursing after he was tricked into giving a sacred blessing to a strip bar. Father Nickolai blessed the Studio 74 strip club in the city of Chelyabinsk after he was told it was a ballet school.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7368020.stm

The role of Islam in Turkish society is a subject of continual debate. Secularists are protesting against what they see as the government's increasingly Islamic agenda, and as Sarah Rainsford found out, the latest battleground could be across the butcher's counter. (On the demise of Turkey's pork butchers  caused at least in part  by the Muslim government of this secular state using regulations to close down abattoirs that slaughter pigs)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/world/middleeast/22aramaic.html (reg rqd)

Elias Khoury can still remember the days when old people in this cliffside village spoke only Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Back then the village, linked to the capital, Damascus, only by a long and bumpy bus ride over the mountains, was almost entirely Christian, a vestige of an older and more diverse Middle East that existed before the arrival of Islam. (In this case Aramaic is not the "language of Jesus" but the lingua franca of those areas that were part of the Persian empire, a language which survived the conquests of Alexander)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080422.wjesus22/BNStory/International/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20080422.wjesus22

A University of Toronto mathematician is lending new support to the controversial claim that an ancient burial tomb near Jerusalem once held the bones of Jesus of Nazareth and his family. (What utter nonsense. First prove that there was an historical Jesus (something not yet done) otherwise it is just begging the question. This sort of article is a waste of print)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/27/wegypt127.xml

In the back rooms of trinket shops, hidden in the snaking alleyways of Cairo, licences for love are signed, sealed - and sold. Young, middle-class Egyptians are buying so-called "urfi", informal marriage contracts, in growing numbers to get around religious strictures against having pre-marital sex.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/27/ireland.catholicism

One of the founders of a group representing victims of Catholic clerical abuse vowed last night to defy a gagging order banning him from linking compensation payouts to sexual and physical assaults in Ireland's industrial schools and orphanages

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/27/barackobama.hillaryclinton

Racial divisions loomed over the Democratic race last night as Senator Barack Obama's controversial pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright admitted his church has received bomb threats.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=562154&in_page_id=1770

The last time I 'died' was in Jerusalem in 1276. Pope Gregory X's Crusade against Islam had collapsed and the city's Christians would soon be abandoned to their fate. (Uncritical puff-piece for reincarnation and past lives regression hooey. I prefer reintarnation - coming back as a hillbilly...)

http://www.alternet.org/movies/83427/

With "Expelled," proponents of Intelligent Design prove that they are much better at marketing than they are at science.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/83311/

Did you know that for the past two years, Congress has designated the first weekend in May as "Ten Commandments Weekend (TCW)?" Most of us pay little attention to congressional resolutions. All sorts of resolutions are proposed; some pass, others are tabled, and still others are withdrawn. These days, two resolutions relating to the Ten Commandments are being considered by Congress; one will again designate the first weekend in May as "Ten Commandments Weekend," while the other aims to celebrate the Ten Commandments Commission (TCC), an organization led by a former veteran of the Israeli Armed Forces, and made up of a host longtime conservative evangelical Christian leaders.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/26/do2606.xml

Few experiences are more disorientating than the erosion of faith. I have seen it many times in my encounters with religious believers: the fixed smile contradicted by a flicker of doubt in the eyes; the desperate appeal to half-remembered scriptures. And then the confession: "I've been doing some... questioning." Recently, I've heard these words many times. Troubled believers, their tongues loosened by a few glasses of Chablis, admit to what Catholics used to call "doubts". Interestingly, many of them are women. The faith in question is the system of belief built around Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Women have always been attracted to alternative remedies. Now that faith is crumbling.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/26/do2603.xml

There has been nothing this week so hypnotic and perplexing as the footage shown at the trial of the four suspects linked to the July 7 bombings. Mohammed Sidique Khan's home-videotaped farewell to his baby daughter was extraordinary because it was so wretchedly ordinary: so gauche, so charming, so intermittently comical. I was surprised that his speech to his daughter had the cadences of a grown man who was regretfully, but with sober determination, leaving his family to go on a necessary journey. I was surprised, in other words, that this murderous lunatic was so obviously and decipherably a human being.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/26/religion.faithschools

Faith schools may provide a good education but they are bad for social cohesion, says Rabbi Jonathan Romain

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/26/medicalresearch.health

And so our ongoing project to learn about evidence through nonsense enters its sixth improbable year. This week the assembled celebrity community and vitamin pill industry will walk us through the pitfalls of reading through a systematic review and meta-analysis from the Cochrane Collaboration, an international not-for-profit organisation set up 20 years ago to create transparent, systematic, unbiased reviews of the medical literature on everything from drugs, through surgery, to community interventions. (Ben Goldacre's Bad Science)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/26/poland.religion

Poland's 28,000 Roman Catholic priests have been told by church authorities that they may be fined if they are discovered to have plagiarised their sermons from the internet, and could even face up to three years in prison.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/26/religion.korea

Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification church known globally as the Moonies, has handed over control of the movement to his Harvard-educated youngest son in what is being seen as an attempt to broaden the controversial religious organisation's appeal.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080426/ap_on_re_us/army_atheist_speaks;_ylt=AsKP7ha9g_nfXeCCeGaqxSFH2ocA

Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging he's been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn't believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "I'm not in it for cash," Hall said. "I want no one else to go what I went through."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/20/do2012.xml

'I see no contradiction at all being British and being Muslim. You don't love your first child less because you have a second". Those words sum up exactly what integration into British society for Muslims should involve. Nazir Afzal is in many ways its best example: born to working-class parents from Pakistan, he is now a leading lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service. He contributes enormously to Britain - without, as he insists, "in any way diluting my identity as a Muslim".Unfortunately, stories of successful integration like Mr Afzal's are much rarer than most of the rest of us would wish.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/23/congo_panic/

Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this week cuffed for their own protection 13 "suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises", Reuters reports. The arrests come after a "wave of panic" swept the capital Kinshasa last week, provoked by rumours that the unwary might be relieved of their todgers, and fuelled by radio reports advising listeners to "beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings". The cops also detained 14 "victims" of the spam-javelin lifters, who claimed that sorcerers "simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear" - apparently in an attempt "to extort cash with the promise of a cure", according to some locals. (This seems to happen all over Africa - not so much the Dark Continent as the Daft Continent. See here and here)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/battle-of-the-belly-buttons-on-afghan-television-815434.html

Love affairs, foreign gods and ladies' belly-buttons are at the centre of a row threatening Afghanistan's free press. Broadcasters are locked in a battle with the country's Information Minister, after two television stations ignored ultimatums to stop showing Indian soap operas. The government is trying to ban Indian serials – must-see TV for millions of ordinary Afghans – on the grounds that they are un-Islamic, because they show couples courting, women cheating and too much female flesh. They also show characters worshipping Hindu gods.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3671861.ece

Young women are daring to wear jeans, soldiers listen to pop music on their mobile phones and bands are performing at wedding parties again. All across Iraq’s second city life is improving, a month after Iraqi troops began a surprise crackdown on the black-clad gangs who were allowed to flourish under the British military. The gunmen’s reign had enforced a strict set of religious codes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/25/wchurch225.xml

A church warden has gone on trial accused of dripping his own blood on the face of a Virgin Mary statue so that she appeared to be weeping.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/25/islam.uksecurity

Ziauddin Sardar's attack on Britain's first direct Muslim counter-extremism initiative, the Quilliam Foundation, was ill-informed in a number of ways (To lionise former extremists feeds anti-Muslim prejudice, April 24).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/25/barackobama.uselections2008

Barack Obama, under pressure to demonstrate his electability against the Republican presidential nominee John McCain, today faces a potential re-run of the controversy over the fiery sermons of his former Chicago pastor. (Again, all the attention is on Obama's religious affiliations - McCain's are even worse)

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,2275377,00.html

If religion isn't the greatest threat to rationality and scientific progress, what is? Perhaps alcohol, or television, or addictive video games. But although each of these scourges - mixed blessings, in fact - has the power to overwhelm our best judgment and cloud our critical faculties, religion has a feature of that none of them can boast: it doesn't just disable, it honours the disability. People are revered for their capacity to live in a dream world, to shield their minds from factual knowledge and make the major decisions of their lives by consulting voices in their heads that they call forth by rituals designed to intoxicate them. (Dennet vs Winston)

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/terry_sanderson/2008/04/faith_no_more.html

The Office for National Statistics issues an annual collection of statistics about life in this country called Social Trends. This year's edition (pdf) has just been published. The section on religion begins, like most government documents do, with a paean to the benefits of faith. Apropos of nothing, the report says: "Belonging to a religion can provide a spiritual and a moral framework to a person's life, as well as involving contact with other individuals and participation in the local community. According to the British social attitudes survey, more than one-half (54%) of the population in Great Britain claimed to belong to a religion in 2006, a fall of three percentage points since 1996." But doesn't that mean that just under half don't belong to a religion? (Op-ed by Terry Sanderson of the NSS)

http://nymag.com/news/features/46214/

It seems unlikely that many of the 850 or so people at the Society for Ethical Culture on a recent Saturday night believed that God was still extant. But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and possibly the most famous atheist in the world, was not taking any chances. He gave a PowerPoint presentation driving home that religion does not meet any of the standards of basic scientific inquiry, before casually flicking away a few of His last crutches. Doesn’t God provide people some solace? asked an audience member. “Isn’t that a little childish?” Dawkins replied. “Just because something is comforting doesn’t mean it’s true.” Then someone asked about death, and Dawkins quoted Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/17/nstars17.xml

Good news for rational, level-headed Virgoans everywhere: just as you might have predicted, scientists have found astrology to be rubbish. Its central claim - that our human characteristics are moulded by the influence of the Sun, Moon and planets at the time of our birth - appears to have been debunked once and for all and beyond doubt by the most thorough scientific study ever made into it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/23/ndarth123.xml

A judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of a Darth Vader impersonator who allegedly attacked two Star Wars fans in their own back garden. Arwel Wynne Jones, who was dressed in a black bin liner and shiny black helmet, is accused of assaulting Barney and Michael Jones while they were being interviewed for a TV documentary about their love of the films. A judge has issued a warrant for the arrest of a Darth Vader impersonator who allegedly attacked two Star Wars fans in their own back garden. Arwel Wynne Jones, who was dressed in a black bin liner and shiny black helmet, is accused of assaulting Barney and Michael Jones while they were being interviewed for a TV documentary about their love of the films. Barney Jones, 36, one of the brothers who was attacked, is also known as Jedi Master Jonba Hehol and founded the first ever British Jedi Church.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/24/nuni124.xml

A growing number of universities are offering "bogus" degrees in alternative and complementary medicine, researchers warn today. The increasing number of courses in subjects such as homeopathy, acupuncture and Chinese medicine is "besmirching the reputation" of the country's higher education system, they say.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/24/nplot224.xml

The leader of the July 7 bombers is shown saying an emotional goodbye to his baby daughter in a home video made public for the first time.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/24/wpio124.xml

A million Roman Catholic pilgrims are expected to file past the exhumed body of Padre Pio, which has gone on display in Italy.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sunny_hundal/2008/04/walking_a_tightrope.html

There's a long-running joke among British Asians that they never get an event started on time. The launch of the anti-terrorism thinktank Quilliam Foundation yesterday proved no exception, and being well versed in this ancient art, I arrived an hour late. Just in time for the sandwiches. Maajid Nawaz and Ed Husain, former Hizb ut-Tahrir members and the brains behind QF's launch, were no doubt pleased by the huge turnout for their event and duly unveiled a list of 11 speakers that had the journalists collectively glancing at their watches in panic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/24/afghanistan.islam

The Afghan parliament is considering a law to ban makeup, men's jeans, long hair and couples talking in public, amid fears that the country is sliding back to Taliban-style rules and conservative power. The proposal is seen as part of a wider push for Islamic values by Afghanistan's ruling religious elite. It follows government attempts to ban hugely popular Indian soap operas and a recent decision by the high court to confirm the death sentences of nearly 100 people.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080423/sc_livescience/mysteriousphoenixlightsaufohoax;_ylt=AiEH9QkGJOGP.8OUeNfr7_MiANEA

On Monday evening, April 21, mysterious lights were seen over Phoenix, Arizona. At just after eight, hundreds of residents called police and local news media to report four bright red lights hovering silently over the city. They changed shape after a while, moving from a triangular to rectangular configuration, then disappeared one by one. The case took a twist two days later when a local television station aired a startling confession by an anonymous hoaxer: He had created the UFO lights using road flares tied to helium balloons, launching them in one-minute increments. Some people were amused by the hoax, others were angered, and many conspiracy-minded UFO buffs were skeptical of such a mundane explanation.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/wenn/20080423/ten-williams-obsessed-with-alien-hunting-c60bd6d.html

Singer Robbie Williams is taking an indefinite hiatus from his pop career - to focus his time on investigating the existence of aliens. (Now there's an intelligent use of his time...)

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sunny_hundal/2008/04/walking_a_tightrope.html

There's a long-running joke among British Asians that they never get an event started on time. The launch of the anti-terrorism thinktank Quilliam Foundation yesterday proved no exception, and being well versed in this ancient art, I arrived an hour late. Just in time for the sandwiches. Maajid Nawaz and Ed Husain, former Hizb ut-Tahrir members and the brains behind QF's launch, were no doubt pleased by the huge turnout for their event and duly unveiled a list of 11 speakers that had the journalists collectively glancing at their watches in panic.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/23/uksecurity

Four men serving at least 40 years for planning the failed July 21 suicide bombings in London today lost their court of appeal bid to challenge their convictions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/23/brazil

A Brazilian priest is missing after drifting out to sea while trying to set a record for a flight using helium-filled party balloons, authorities said yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/23/uksecurity.bbc

We are writing about the "Muslim preachers" who have been found guilty of terrorism (Report, April 19). One of them, Abu Izzadeen, was interviewed several times on Newsnight.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/peter_tatchell/2008/04/not_making_a_killing.html

Anti-gay Jamaican "murder music" singer, Bounty Killer, is facing financial meltdown as his European tour is besieged by protests and concert cancellations. Despite the shameful collusion of the Metropolitan police with this notorious singer, Bounty Killer's UK tour dates outside London - in Bradford and Birmingham - were axed, losing him thousands of pounds in performance fees. In Germany, Bounty Killer's concerts in Dortmund, Essen and Berlin were also cancelled, together with his gig in Antwerp, Belgium. (Op-ed by Peter Tatchell)

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/riazat_butt/2008/04/our_dirty_little_secret.html

The way women are treated in Saudi Arabia is a disgrace - and Muslims, including myself, are colluding with the regime's gender apartheid. (Good op-ed by Riazat Butt)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/20/AR2008042001930.html (reg rqd)

Maria Susana Espinoza wanted only two children. But it was not until after the birth of her fourth child in six years that she learned any details about birth control. She and her family belong to the fastest-growing segment of the Philippine population: very poor people with large families. Birth and poverty rates here are among the highest in Asia. And the Philippines, where four out of five of the country's 91 million people are Roman Catholic, also stands out in Asia for its government's rejection of modern contraception as part of family planning. The organization that is helping Espinoza agreed to introduce this reporter to her on condition that it not be named. The group's health workers said they fear retaliation and harassment from officials in the national and city government, as well as from the Catholic Church.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/19/AR2008041901183.html (reg rqd)

Pope Benedict XVI has said he would like to reach out to the Muslim community through dialogue, and Muslims were included in the pontiff's meeting with interfaith leaders in Washington on Thursday night. But many Muslims in America remain wary, saying the pope has created the impression that he is insensitive to their faith.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/21/nmayor121.xml

Ken Livingstone defended his decision to share a platform with a homophobic Islamic preacher as he and his challenger, Boris Johnson, were neck and neck in the race for the capital yesterday. Yusuf al-Qaradawi has described homosexuality as an "unnatural and evil practice" and said the Koran permitted wife-beating in certain circumstances. (You can tell something about Livingstone by the company he keeps)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/21/wsomalia121.xml

Fresh fighting between Islamist insurgents and Somali government troops in Mogadishu has killed at least 81 people in two days, witnesses reported yesterday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/21/wcardinal121.xml

Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, a Colombian prelate who helped lead the Vatican's campaign against abortion and insisted condoms do not prevent transmission of the Aids-causing virus, has died in a Rome hospital, aged 72. (Good riddance)

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/nick_taylor/2008/04/secret_wishes_granted.html

For those still out of the loop, The Secret is a book by Rhonda Byrne that reveals her experience of a universal law as yet untaught on the GCSE physics syllabus but as central to our existence as gravity or magnetism: the law of attraction. Attraction tells us that you get what you live. If you emanate confusion, confusion will come right back at you. If you walk with a spring in your step, the universe will give you more of the same.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/21/saudiarabia.gender

Saudi Arabia's rigid sex segregation, compulsory male guardianship of women and other "grossly discriminatory" policies are a denial of fundamental rights, a leading human rights watchdog says today. Women are treated like legal minors who have no authority over their lives or their children, finds a new report by Human Rights Watch.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/sue_blackmore/2008/04/the_pope_nope.html

If the Pope came to Britain, would he get the same rapturous reception he is getting in the States? And should he? That's the question I'm being asked, and my answers are "I hope not" and "No" (Op-ed by Sue Blackmore)

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080419/tuk-third-blast-carried-out-in-bristol-dba1618.html

A third controlled explosion has been carried out at the home of a terror suspect in Bristol. A loud crack from the detonation was audible this morning at Comb Paddock, in the Westbury-on-Trym area of the city. Residents have been evacuated from their homes following the arrest of the 19-year-old teenager, named locally as Andrew Ibrahim, which came after police received an intelligence tip-off. The arrested man is understood to have recently converted to Islam and police questioning him have been granted seven days to hold him following his arrest.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041800354.html (reg rqd)

Pope Benedict XVI, using the stage provided by the United Nations, gently but forcefully warned on Friday against the perils of the modern world -- technology and science that violate "the order of creation," environmental degradation, the abuse of human rights and the unwillingness of many nations to embrace multilateralism at a time when the world's problems "call for interventions in the form of collective action." (The order of creation? Does that place Ratzinger just below the angels?)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041800450.html (reg rqd)

The more than 400 children taken from a ranch run by a polygamous sect will stay in state custody and be subject to genetic testing to sort out family relationships that have confounded welfare authorities, a judge ruled Friday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/us/nationalspecial2/19abuse.html (reg rqd)

After three days in which Pope Benedict XVI has persistently addressed the scandal of child sexual abuse by priests, a top Vatican official said on Friday that the church was considering changes to the canon laws that govern how it handles such cases.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kay_ebel_080413_vatican_pr_machine_k.htm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article3746920.ece

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/18/nmuslim118.xml

A father has described his anger after he and his son were refused entry to their local swimming pool because they weren't Muslims. David Toube and Harry, five, were turned away by staff from the men-only session. "I arrived at the pool to discover that they were holding what staff described to me as 'Muslim men-only swimming’," he said. "I asked whether my son and I could go as we were both male. I was told that the session was for Muslims only and that we could not be admitted."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/19/nhealth119.xml

Health tips passed down through the generations in the form of old wives' tales should not be trusted and some could even make illnesses worse, according to a report. Cracking your knuckles does not cause arthritis, sitting on cold surfaces does not give you piles and vitamin C will not cure a cold, said the myth-busting study by health experts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/19/health

This is Chiropractic Awareness Week. So let's be aware. How about some awareness that may prevent harm and help you make truly informed choices? First, you might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that, "99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae". In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body. In fact, Palmer's first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra. You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/19/uksecurity.ukcrime

Abu Izzadeen, the radical Muslim cleric who heckled former Home Secretary John Reid at a public meeting, and called for volunteers to fight against British and American troops in Iraq, was yesterday jailed for 4½ years for inciting and funding terrorism. Referring to Izzadeen, (the judge) said: "I am left in no doubt that your speeches were used by you as self-aggrandisement and not as an expression of sincerely held religious views ... you are arrogant, contemptuous and utterly devoid of any sign of remorse."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/19/humanrights.catholicism

Pope Benedict XVI made an impassioned plea yesterday for greater international cooperation on human rights, warning that the global consensus was being subordinated to the will of a small minority. (Naturally this doesn't include the right to use contraception or a woman's right to choose an abortion, even if her pregnancy is the result of rape and incest)

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ali_eteraz/2008/04/history_lessons.html

The Islamists have it wrong: a book by Tarek Fatah convincingly argues there's no historical justification for the concept of an Islamic state

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3772148.ece

A court hearing to decide the fate of 416 children swept up in a raid on a polygamous sect collapsed into farce yesterday, as the judge struggled to keep control of hundreds of lawyers. The case, which is believed to be one of the most complicated child-custody hearings in legal history, centres around the attempt by Texas state authorities to place the children of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in foster homes after widespread allegations of physical and sexual abuse.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7353809.stm

A major Buddhist temple has withdrawn from plans to host Japan's opening stage of the Olympic torch relay. Zenkoji Temple, in the city of Nagano, had been due to serve as the starting point for the parade on 26 April. An official said the monks were worried about safety but also linked the decision to concern over recent unrest in Tibet.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/18/nedu318.xml

Thousands of teenagers will be taught about humanism for the first time as part of a religious education GCSE. Pupils will be encouraged to debate controversial issues from the standpoint of all the major faiths - as well as those that reject the existence of God. (Why has this taken so long to implement?)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/18/wspirits118.xml

Mediums, psychics, tarot card readers and spiritual healers are predicting problems in the future over new European Union legislation which they fear could leave them open to litigation from sceptics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/18/religion.iraq

Christians in the Middle East are suffering from being associated with British and US foreign policy, the Archbishop of Canterbury has warned.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/18/uksecurity

An Islamist activist who heckled John Reid while he was home secretary was found guilty yesterday of fundraising for terrorists and inciting terrorism overseas. Abu Izzadeen was convicted at Kingston crown court after a 3½-month trial.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/17/catholicism.usa1

The Vatican said today that Pope Benedict XVI has met privately with victims of clergy sex abuse during his trip to the United States.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/alternative_medicine/article3760857.ece

The Prince of Wales is being challenged today to withdraw two guides promoting alternative medicine, by scientists who say that they make misleading and inaccurate claims about its benefits. The documents, published by the Prince and his Foundation for Integrated Health, misrepresent scientific evidence about therapies such as homoeopathy, acupuncture and reflexology, say the authors of a new evaluation of alternative treatments.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/17/wpope417.xml

The Pope last night criticised American church leaders for their handling of sex abuse scandals but said that an increasingly secular society needed to shoulder some of the blame. "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?" he asked at a prayer service attended by hundreds of US bishops.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/17/nschool117.xml

A village school is to scrap its historic witch logo because of fears that it drives away pupils and teachers. Warboys Community Primary School has used the emblem of a witch riding a broomstick on its uniforms for more than 60 years. The unusual badge, which also adorns the clocktower and kits of sports teams, marks the fact that the Cambridgeshire village was the last place in England to hang witches. A statement from the school claimed: "The school is aware that some parents choose not to send their children to Warboys and cite the witch as one of the reasons why. "It is also known that some potential teachers and head teachers have cited the witch logo as a reason not to apply for posts." (Idiots)

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2273939,00.html

A closed meeting called by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) about Islamic studies will take place today amid fears that Saudi and Muslim organisations exert too much influence over UK universities as a result of donations that dwarf government funding.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7350830.stm

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has described the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York as a "suspect event" and queried the death toll. (Unsurprising nonsense from the Poison Dwarf - he denies the Holocaust as well.)

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/81772/

There is nothing so dangerous for a child as an insular, patriarchal religious organization, and the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, whose compound in El Dorado, Texas, is now under control of the Texas authorities, is one of the scariest examples. It took the extraordinary bravery of a 16-year-old girl to set in motion a chain of events that should have happened long ago.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/16/america/16pope.php

Pope Benedict XVI chose to address bluntly the sex scandal that has torn at the church here even before he landed Tuesday on his first official visit to the United States, saying he was "deeply ashamed" by the actions of pedophile priests. His comments aboard his plane, in answer to a written question submitted by a reporter and selected by the Vatican, appeared to soothe many Catholics but left others demanding more action than words.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/16/wbardot116.xml

A Paris prosecutor yesterday called for French film legend Brigitte Bardot to receive a two-month suspended prison sentence and a £12,000 fine for inciting racial hatred in a letter. In December 2006, Miss Bardot, 73, now an animal rights activist, wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, then the interior minister, criticising the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep without first stunning them. (Yet another story that confuses condemnation of Muslim practices with racial hatred.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/16/nbishop116.xml

A senior bishop in the Church of England has said people who vote for the British National Party do so because they are "disaffected" with mainstream politics.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/16/nimam116.xml

Moderate Muslim clerics are to be brought in from Pakistan in an effort to combat extremism in British mosques, the Home Secretary will announce today.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/matthew_harwood/2008/04/a_prayer_for_the_prey.html

Over the centuries many dubious miracles have been claimed on behalf of the power of prayer. But Pope Benedict XVI, who arrived in the United States today for his inaugural visit, is expecting more than a miracle if he thinks that prayer can remove the ugly stain of priestly paedophilia from the Catholic Church in America.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402652.html (reg rqd)

During a private meeting in the White House living quarters last year with the Roman Catholic bishop of Hong Kong, President Bush expressed passionate appreciation for the church's defense of human life on abortion and other issues. (Although he didn't mention capital punishment or pre-emptive wars in which human life isn't quite so sacred)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041403244.html (reg rqd)

In an era saturated with entertainment and politics, a key question looms as Pope Benedict XVI leaves here Tuesday for Washington: Is his style too dense to get Americans' attention?

http://www.zenit.org/article-22284?l=english

U.S. President George Bush said that when he looks into Benedict XVI's eyes, he sees God. The president made this affirmation Friday when he answered the last question posed him during an interview with Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) anchor Raymond Arroyo.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3746953.ece

This week Gordon Brown will find himself in the familiar position of being upstaged by a globetrotting statesman of some charisma who also happens to be a prominent member of the Roman Catholic Church.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/15/wsect115.xml

Members of the polygamist sect raided by Texan authorities earlier this month have denied their children were ever abused and compared the actions of officials to those of "Nazi Germany". In interviews with Utah paper the Deseret News, members of the sect still living at the Eldorado ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints defended their way of life and said their children should be allowed home.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/adam_rutherford/2008/04/devoid_of_intelligence.html

Why won't intelligent design just go away? This week sees the US release of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a documentary film that attacks the theory of evolution. As suggested by its subtitle it berates the rejection by the scientific community of intelligent design - the mock-science creationism that was banished from US science classrooms in 2005 and in the UK last year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/15/prisonsandprobation.uksecurity

Inadequately trained staff inside Belmarsh high security prison are failing to challenge extremism and are in danger of feeding radicalisation by alienating Muslim inmates, the chief inspector of prisons warns. Anne Owers says staff at the London jail, which holds nearly 200 Muslims, face a danger of fuelling anti-western attitudes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/15/somalia.islam

A British headteacher who was shot dead in Somalia by Islamist insurgents may have been targeted because he was a Christian convert, his wife said yesterday. Daud Hassan Ali, 64, was killed outside the Hiran community education project English school in Beledweyne in central Somalia late on Sunday night, along with Rehana Ahmed, 33, a fellow British Somali teacher. She was reported to have been shot in the head.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7346133.stm

A halo around the sun startled people in Ethiopia during Sunday's local elections, with many seeing it as a miracle or a sign from God. The ring of light caused by sunlight refracted by ice crystals hung in the sky for almost an hour before it finally faded and disappeared. Some Ethiopians say it last appeared in 1991 before a military regime fell.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7345960.stm

Reports from Kenya say police have shot dead at least 12 people amid protests across the country. Members of the illegal Mungiki sect were protesting after the discovery of the beheaded body of the wife of the sect's leader at the weekend.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-unholy-rows-808657.html

The more their congregations shrink, the more turbulent the lives the clergy of the Established Church, or so it seems. Recently, we had the so-called "spitting vicar" who was forced to deny intimidating his parishioners. Now we hear the boot is more often on the other foot and that parishioners are "bullying" and attacking priests. According to the trade union, Unite, vicars routinely experience abuse from the laity.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/union-accuses-bishops-of-failing-to-help-bullied-vicars-808637.html

Bishops are failing to support Church of England priests who are increasingly being bullied by powerful parishioners, according to a trade union.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3740147.ece

There are, undoubtedly, myriad benefits to be reaped from the ancient Chinese martial art of tai chi. Increased milk production is not usually regarded as one of them. But every morning for the past six months, in his blue overalls and Wellington boots, Rob Taverner, a dairy farmer from Devon, has been practicing tai chi in front of his herd of cows.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/14/wpope214.xml

You don't have to be Catholic to live in Ave Maria. But it helps. Inside the town's only coffee shop a large flat-screen television is broadcasting Mass on the Catholic station EWTN. A notice politely asks customers not to change the channel. If they want something else to look at, they can gaze at walls lined with pictures and photos of popes, past and present.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2273469,00.html

Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art. (This whole piece boils down to one sentence, "It has served us well this myth of Christ". Condescending and cynical)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/14/catholicism.religion

Traffic chaos, armed police lining streets, security screens at church entrances, scuba divers in New York's East River, back-packs banned for pedestrians, no-flight zones - it is business as usual as the US prepares to welcome Pope Benedict XVI tomorrow at the start of his American visit.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080411/tsc-uk-usa-politics-religion-011ccfa.html

Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will court the "faith vote" at a forum this weekend, seeking support from a sizable constituency with a major influence on U.S. politics.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080408.wcult08/BNStory/International/home

A radical rabbi once linked to a plot to fire a missile at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, is hiding in Canada, Israeli police said Monday, announcing that he is wanted for his alleged role in a series of ghastly abuses of his followers' children. Israeli officials have issued an international warrant for the arrest of Rabbi Elior Chen, and were planning to ask Canada to extradite him. Mr. Chen, who is in his late 20s, hasn't yet been charged but he has been described as the “spiritual mentor” of a group involved in the systematic abuse of children, allegedly using his status as a rabbi to convince a mother of eight that her children's shortcomings could be beaten and burned out of them.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3734671.ece

The 7/7 survivor Rachel Northtalks to two brothers held in Belmarsh for terrorism about how to change the minds of Islamist fanatics

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3721675.ece

It’s a Buddhist temple that cares for dying Aids patients. It’s also a hugely successful money-making operation, attracting thousands of tourists with its displays of mummified corpses. So where does all that money go

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/13/wpope113.xml

A battle between God and Mammon has erupted over the Pope's visit to America this week, with Roman Catholic leaders and unauthorised souvenir salesmen vying to cash in. A frenzy of selling has erupted in New York and Washington, where Pope Benedict XVI is due to hold open-air Masses, and on the internet and the nation's airwaves. Church authorities are fighting to retain a monopoly on what one newspaper last week aptly called the "Mass marketing" of the Pope's visit, the first by a pontiff to the United States for nine years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/13/nislam113.xml

Extremist ideas are being spread by Islamic study centres linked to British universities and backed by multi-million-pound donations from Saudi Arabia and Muslim organisations, a new report claims. Eight universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than £233.5 million from Saudi and Muslim sources since 1995, with much of the money going to Islamic study centres, according to the report. The total sum, revealed by Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University's Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, amounts to the largest source of external funding to UK universities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/13/nembryo113.xml

Deaf couples could be allowed to use embryo-screening technology and choose to have a deaf child, after a climb-down by the Government in the face of campaigning. (This is contemptible - why deny a child the beauty of music, birdsong, waves breaking on a shore, a babbling brook? Parents should want the best for their children. When a child learns that its parents deliberately chose deafness how are they going to feel? This government takes spinelessness to another level)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/13/wsect113.xml

They have escaped from a bizarre world of polygamous sex - but the girls of the West Texan sect may soon wish they could return to it, writes Tim Guest, who spent his own childhood in a notorious religious commune himself Last Tuesday in West Texas, 416 shell-shocked children were ushered by police on to a row of yellow school buses. The kids - the girls with identical plaited hair and long, hand-sewn pastel dresses - were driven through a blue farm gate to temporary shelter 40 miles away. For many, it was the first time they had passed through those gates into the outside world.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=558478&in_page_id=1811

A Bosnian man whose home has been hit an incredible five times by meteorites believes he is being targeted by aliens. Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that all the rocks Radivoje Lajic has handed over were meteorites

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/13/religion.london

They came, they shouted, they handed out cake. And then they played Rick Astley's Eighties hit 'Never Gonna Give You Up'. More than 300 members of the secret internet-based organisation Anonymous, which campaigns against the Church of Scientology, protested outside the latter's headquarters in the City of London yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/13/catholicism.religion

American Roman Catholics, angered and demoralised by priest sex abuse scandals, say one man can help revitalise the Church: Pope Benedict XVI, who visits the US this week. The Pope's trip to Washington and New York marks the first US visit by a pontiff since a wave of sex abuse scandals began in 2002, provoking lawsuits that have forced dioceses to pay more than $2bn in settlements. Some advocates for the victims want the Pope to apologise; others want him to ban child molesters from the priesthood or publicly identify them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/12/wmuslim112.xml

A Saudi man has created a riposte to films criticising Islam in a video which portrays Christianity as a religion of violence. The film, entitled Schism, was made by Raed al-Saeed. It splices together Bible verses and Iraq war images - including British soldiers beating civilians. Other images show Christian extremists in America apparently encouraging children to fight a "war" for Jesus. (With these bloody religionists it always pots and kettles)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/12/wpope112.xml

The Pope will pray for the redemption of Islamic terrorists when he visits the site of the September 11 attacks in New York next week. The pontiff will call for terrorists to convert to Christianity, saying: "Turn to Your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred. (Half-wit. It was supernatural hocus-pocus that inspired the murderers in the first place)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/apr/12/health.children

The doctor at the centre of the MMR vaccine row had limited experience of the medical ethics surrounding paediatrics, a disciplinary hearing heard yesterday. Dr Andrew Wakefield had "no training and extremely limited experience" in requesting parental consent for samples taken from children, General Medical Council lawyers said.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080411/tod-russia-occult-offbeat-29c21d8.html

Russian deputies are to consider a law that would turn up the heat on advertising by witches and healers enjoying a meteoric growth in demand, the Gazeta daily reported on Friday.

http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/20080407.html

The Muslim Canadian Congress has expressed shock and disappointment at the move by Islamic countries to bulldoze the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) into approving a resolution curtailing freedom of speech under the guise of protecting religion. The resolution approved at the UNHRC and initiated by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is disingenuously titled "Combating Defamation of Religion.” However, the fact is that the OIC resolution is nothing more than a cover to silence opponents of Islamist oppression inside Muslim countries, as well as in the West.

http://www.latimes.com/features/religion/la-ed-religion8apr08,1,2718355.story

When the Supreme Court ruled 46 years ago that official prayers in public schools violated the 1st Amendment, it infuriated those who claimed that public institutions should reflect the fact that this is "one nation, under God" -- the God of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, that is. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear another Ten Commandments-related case. A federal appeals court ruled that Pleasant Grove, Utah, which displays a privately donated Ten Commandments monument at a city park (on a patch of land ceded to a private party), must also make room for the Seven Aphorisms of Summum, the principles of a faith that was founded by a former Mormon and is headquartered in Utah.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amis-he-owes-it-all-to-hitchens-says-critic-807790.html

Martin Amis, the novelist turned socio-political ponderer, is well accustomed to the occasional beating in his native Britain, particularly regarding his regular denunciations of Islam in the years since the 9/11 terror attacks. But the anti-Amis brigade is suddenly attracting new recruits across the Atlantic.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3694643.ece

Science is advancing while some religious groups are retreating into their version of moral truth

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/10/wsect110.xml

Investigators searching the compound of a polygamous sect in Texas say they have discovered a bed inside its temple building that was reserved for men to have sex for the first time with their underage “wives”. Girls as young as 13 were “spiritually married” - a process that has no legal binding - to middle-aged members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the Yearn For Zion ranch temple in Eldorado, according to officials who raided the site on April 3.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ali_eteraz/2008/04/protecting_pakistans_hindus.html

Hindus in Pakistan have suffered grievously since the founding of the nation in 1947. Recently, in the southern province of Sindh, a Hindu man was accused of blasphemy and beaten to death by his co-workers. This comes at the heels of the abduction and dismemberment of a Hindu engineer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/11/uksecurity.ukcrime

Three British Muslims took part in a "hostile" reconnaissance mission of potential targets in London with two men who went on to bomb the city's transport system on July 7, a court was told yesterday.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/apr/11/anglicanism.religion

A Church of England vicar accused of spitting at a churchwarden and using the pulpit to settle personal scores was ordered to leave his parish yesterday. The Bishop of Ely decided to remove the Rev Tom Ambrose from the church of St Mary and St Michael in Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, after a rare ecclesiastical tribunal heard "evidence of the arrogant, aggressive, rude, bullying, highhanded, disorganised and at times petty behaviour of Dr Ambrose".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=557946&in_page_id=1774&ico=Homepage&icl=TabModule&icc=picbox&ct=5

http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/best-mind/My_Argument_with_God.shtml

I loved Jesus. He was my hero. More than pop stars. More than footballers. More than God. God was by definition omnipotent and perfect. Jesus was a man. He had to work at it. He had temptation but defeated sin. He had integrity and courage. But He was my hero because He was kind. And He was kind to everyone. He didn’t bow to peer pressure or tyranny or cruelty. He didn’t care who you were. He loved you. What a guy. I wanted to be just like Him. (Ricky Gervaise on how he became god-free)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article3685289.ece

http://www.stophonourkillings.com/?name=News&file=article&sid=2511

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3704990.ece

As John Paul II moves closer to sainthood three years after his death Polish bishops have launched an initiative to have his heart transferred to Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, Poland's national shrine. Since his death the body of the Polish-born John Paul has been buried in the crypt of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, where it is venerated by thousands daily. The Vatican is said to be considering moving the tomb into the Basilica itself, where the late pontiff's remains may be displayed in a glass casket when he is beatified, the step before canonisation. (A bizarre and grisly medieval business)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3716308.ece

A 12th-century iron key to the Ka’ba in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam, was sold for £9.2 million at Sotheby’s in London yesterday. Its existence was previously unknown and prompted a bidding battle that took the price to more than 18 times the £400,000-£500,000 estimate in an auction of Islamic art, whose 405 lots sold for a total of £21.5 million.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3716791.ece

The battle for public support over the creation of human-animal embryos has been won by scientists who want to use the controversial experiments to tackle diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. A poll for The Times reveals today that the contentious medical research enjoys broad public approval, with 50 per cent backing new laws that would permit it and only 30 per cent opposed. The findings undermine claims by critics of the experiments that they enjoy little public support and they will bolster the Government’s attempts to pass the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, which begins its passage in the House of Commons next month. MPs of all parties will have a free vote on its provisions for human-animal embryos.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3713142.ece

Two members of the Russian doomsday cult that have been hiding in a cave to wait for the end of the world have reportedly died, the first fatalities since the group went underground five months ago. One member of the religious sect, Vitaly Nedogon, who left the cave last week said that both were women and that one had died from cancer and another had starved herself to death.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/10/njerusalem110.xml

Jerusalem, one of the country's best-loved hymns and the favourite of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has been banned from services at one of Britain's foremost churches. The verses, which were written by William Blake more than two centuries ago, cannot be sung by choirs or congregations at Southwark Cathedral because the words do not praise God and are too nationalistic, according to senior clergy. (Blake did not have a good view of the Christian god. Although a self-admitted Christian his was a Christianity that differed greatly from that of the established church)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/10/nschool110.xml

New evidence has emerged to undermine Government claims that faith schools are effectively barring children from poorer backgrounds by illicitly charging parents for admission. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, caused controversy earlier this month by attacking faith schools and claiming that they insisted on parents filling in standing orders for "voluntary fees" running into hundreds of pounds when sending back application forms.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/10/thefarright.race

The far right British National party is trying to shed its antisemitic past as part of a drive to pick up votes among London's Jewish community. The party, which could get its first seat on the London assembly if voter turnout is low next month, is campaigning in Jewish areas across the capital and attempting to play on what it sees as historical enmity between the Jewish and Muslim communities. (Unbelievable - the Toytown Nazis courting the Jewish vote)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/10/1

The radical tide sweeping Latin America is moving into the obscurer creeks and backwaters of the continent. The isolated and unnoticed country of Paraguay is about to elect a red bishop as president, bringing to an end the rule of the Colorado party and its six decades of dictatorship and corruption. Fernando Lugo, the bishop of the northern town of San Pedro, is well ahead in the opinion polls and should remain so on polling day, April 20. He abandoned the priesthood last year, at 57, to forge a progressive opposition movement - the Patriotic Alliance for Change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/10/islam.religion

At the time of this writing, the dissemination on the worldwide web of the deliberately provocative anti-Islam film Fitna, made by the Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders, has not provoked violent protest on the scale of the Rushdie affair or the Danish cartoons. If things remain this way, that is progress of a kind

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080409/sc_livescience/texassectearnscultstatus;_ylt=Aths5Zknr3PAeC_pjxyPqvb737YB

The allegedly polygamous group whose compound was raided this week in Texas is either a religious sect or a full-blown cult, depending on whom you ask. While the media and some sociologists call the group a religious sect, other experts see it as a clear-cut cult, defined by charismatic leadership and abuse. According to news accounts of the FLDS, pubescent girls were forced into "spiritual marriages" to older men. Inside the compound's walls, researchers say, a new reality was born, with members indoctrinated so fully they had no concept of reality outside the walls. (interesting piece examines the difference, if any, between a cult and a religious sect)

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/scientists-attack-breakthrough-cancer-drugs-806319.html

Exaggerated claims are being made for new cancer treatments that are not justified by the evidence, scientists warned yesterday. Drugs hailed as breakthrough treatments for cancer, Britain's biggest cause of death, may be less effective and cause more harm than suspected, they said. A sharp increase in the number of trials being halted prematurely to deliver rapid results is undermining confidence in the drugs.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3708850.ece

Muslims convicted of sex offences could opt out of treatment programmes intended to stop them offending because open discussion of their crimes is against their religion. Ahtsham Ali, the prison service’s Muslim adviser, said that there was a “legitimate Islamic position” that criminals should not discuss their crimes with others. The move could result in Muslim sex offenders being able to avoid sex offender treatment programmes run by the prison service, which involve group discussion of crimes.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/04/the-absurd-prin.html

The absurd Princess Diana conspiracy theories have now had their day in court and been dismissed. So here are a number of other preposterous conspiracy theories. Can you work out what it is that connects these ridiculous allegations?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3709067.ece

Hundreds of children taken by the authorities from the compound of a polygamist sect in Texas had their first glimpse yesterday of the outside world — which they have been taught to view as evil and whose food they cannot eat. The children, in 19th-century dresses, were bussed out of the Yearn For Zion (YFZ) ranch after a raid on the breakaway Mormon sect of Warren Jeffs, the jailed polygamist leader. “They are like aliens — or we are like aliens to them,” Helen Pfluger, a volunteer at a local Baptist church who helped to care for the children, told The Times. “They know nothing of the outside world. The children and their mothers did not know what to do with crayons. Our food makes them sick because they are not used to processed food.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/09/ngoogle109.xml

A pro-life charity is suing Google over the internet company’s refusal to display its anti-abortion advert. The Christian Institute wanted to pay Google so that when the word “abortion” was typed into the search engine, a link to a web page on its views popped up on the right hand side of the screen.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080408/tc_nm/indonesia_youtube_dc_1

At least four Indonesian firms providing Internet services have blocked access to the YouTube Web site for carrying a Dutch lawmaker's film that accuses the Koran of inciting violence, an information ministry official said on Tuesday.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/church_of_scientology_contacts_wikileaks/

The Church of Scientology has acknowledged that Wikileaks is offering the world quick and easy access to the church's top-secret "bibles". Or should that be formerly top-secret? On March 24, the swashbuckling truth-seekers at Wikileaks.org published what they referred to as "the collected secret 'bibles' of Scientology," and three days later, church-friendly lawyers threatened the site with legal action if the documents weren't taken down. Calling them "Advanced Technology of the Scientology religion," the lawyers pointed out that the documents are copyrighted works registered to the Religious Technology Center (RIC), a church-related holding company. Wikileaks did not remove the documents. But it did tell the world their veracity has been verified.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/sadr-will-disband-his-militia-if-religious-leaders-ask-805762.html

The Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will have talks with senior religious leaders and will disband his powerful Mehdi Army militia if they ask him to do so, one of his aides said yesterday.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3701941.ece

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article3699397.ece

A new religion is spreading to Britain - its central sacrament the consumption of a hallucinogenic Class A drug. Here's a report from the faith's heartland in the rainforests of the Amazon. Santo Daime groups believe that ayahuasca, or Daime, as they call it, is a manifestation of Jesus Christ that brings them closer to God. Their visions, sometimes terrifying, sometimes blissful, help them to make sense of themselves, their universe and their god. Theirs is a young church - less than 80 years old - but in recent times it has spread throughout South America to the US and Canada, the Far East and Australasia, across mainland Europe and on to the UK.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/08/do0801.xml

Islamophobia is one of the big questions of our day, and one, perhaps more than most, which causes each of us to dig in to our entrenched positions. The problem is answered most often with ignorance or with common hysteria, and almost never with fresh thinking. What is the nature of the feeling in our communities and in our courts against Islam, and how can we put an end to it? Are we not hurting our own society and our own security by making a monster where it shouldn't exist, a monster made from the mania of our own fear? (This writer manages to conflate an understandable concern over militant Islam with Islamophobia (a nonsensical neologism) and the disgusting desecration of the graves of French Muslim servicemen. Quite why he does so is not clear)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/07/waustria107.xml

Pictures depicting Jesus being fondled and the Apostles groping each other have caused outrage after they were displayed in a museum attached to Vienna's Roman Catholic Cathedral. The museum has been forced to remove the most controversial picture, in which the Apostles engage in what the artist describes as a "homosexual orgy". The exhibition, entitled "Religion, Flesh and Power" featured works from sculptor and artist Alfred Hrdlicka, who turned 80 this year and is widely feted in his native Austria. It quickly be