World News: March 10, 2010

March 10, 2010

Reading: World News: March 10, 2010
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  • Government radio reports that Muslim militants slaughtered at least 500 people in a raid on three Christian villages near Jos, Nigeria. Many of the victims were hacked to death as they tried to flee. Houses were burned down, and Christian leaders said the authorities had done nothing to prevent the bloodshed. The Christian Elders Consultative Forum issued a statement saying, “We want the soldiers to explain reason for this deliberate delay which we consider part of the ploy. We want to state here that we no longer have any confidence in the Nigerian Army in the security of Plateau State because of their bias against Christians.” The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria also issued a statement calling the killing of innocent Christians similar to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the failed Christmas bombing in the U.S. Meanwhile, Mission Network News reports that several Christian families and a missionary in Bangladesh are homeless after anti-Christian extremists burned down their homes.
  • Numerous sources report that Haiti has released one of the last two U.S. Baptist missionaries imprisoned after the earthquake. Charisa Coulter left her cell Monday accompanied by staff of the U.S. Embassy. The Idaho woman was arrested Jan. 29 with nine other Americans while trying to leave Haiti with 33 children without the proper documents. The missionaries say they were only trying to help orphans after the earthquake. Still in custody is their leader, Laura Silsby.
  • ACORN employees who were caught on video reportedly offering advice on how to cheat on taxes and loan applications to a couple posing as a prostitute and a pimp are getting off the hook, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, reports Personal Liberty Digest. Republicans have long accused the controversial group of widespread corruption and voter registration fraud, and have charged that the organization has close ties with the current administration. Shortly after the investigation began, Congress voted by a wide margin to cut off federal funding to ACORN, although that decision is being currently disputed in court. In the meantime, several of the organization’s offices have disbanded and resumed operations under new names and with similar staffs, according to Fox News Reports.
  • Many Christians, along with the general public, are vitamin and food supplement users, and many are becoming concerned about the government’s high hand at regulating and outlawing products that are being used for people’s health. Personal Liberty Digest reports that at least five bills have been introduced in Congress in recent years that would limit or stop use of health supplements. Said Dr. Mark Wiley, “While these bills appear to protect the public, they actually make it easier for government agencies to control supplement use . . . or take them off the market completely!” Opponents of the bills say that the regulations would be “ripe for abuse, with minor, unrelated or trumped-up evidence of adverse effects leading to supplements being classified as drugs and pulled off shelves.” The news item reported that Vitamin E is currently “the target of a similar smear campaign.” In response to the danger of Congress, the Nutritional Health Alliance has activated the Save and Strengthen DSHEA campaign and has formed a website.
  • The North American Islamic Trust, custodian of most of the major mosques in America (300 of them), acts as a front for the radical Muslim Brotherhood of America and publishes Islamic literature that exhorts Muslims to “kill” any Westerners who get in the way of spreading Islam, reports WorldNetDaily. The NAIT has been blacklisted by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to funnel millions of dollars to Palestinian terrorists. The government also identified NAIT as a front for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in America. Hamas had murdered 17 Americans and injured hundreds of other U.S. citizens. Muslim groups have been protesting the FBI’s use of undercover informants in mosques and its recent seizure of several mosques in America. Meanwhile, a Hamas-linked group has been said to have “deep ties to the White House,” according to WorldNetDaily. Last week President Obama’s top advisor on counter-terrorism, John Brennan, came under fire for controversial remarks he made in a speech to Muslim law students at New York University. The event was sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America, known for its enforcement of Saudi-style Islam in mosques throughout the U.S. Also, WorldNetDaily reports that John Holdren, President Obama’s “science czar,” served on the board of editors of a magazine whose personnel were accused of providing vital nuclear information that helped the Soviet Union build an atom bomb. Holdren, according to the report, has also been a longtime climate-change alarmist who has advocated ideas such as enforcing limits to world population growth.
  • A District of Columbia appeals court unanimously rejected an attempt to stop the city from recognizing same-sex marriages beginning next month, reports the Washington Times. Ceremonies in the city are expected to be beginning already. Republicans in Congress say they lack the number of votes to successfully oppose the bill.
  • A New York high school has been sued for disbanding a Christian student club, according to Fox News. The Alliance Defense Fund claims that the Christian club, Ichthus, was cancelled without notice after operating for four years. “This is pure and simple a case of viewpoint discrimination against Christian students,” remarked David Cortman, ADF attorney. “This is a school that has 60 student clubs. They have, of course, a gay-straight alliance; they have a fashion club, which is important because we all have to look good; they have a future lawyers of America, which is obvious why they didn’t cancel their club.” The superintendent said the club was denied due to budgetary reasons and also said only a few students attended the club. But Cortman said the club had 30 students who attended regularly and with about 55 students on the roster.
  • Jim Fitzpatrick, a Labour Party minister, said his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an “Islamic social and political order” in Britain, according to Telegraph.
  • The Home School Legal Defense Association and the Alliance Defense Fund are jointly advising a Swedish family whose son was abducted last year by government agents because he was being homeschooled, reports WorldNetDaily. Options are being explored to reunite the family. The HSLDA is also helping homeschool parents of four children in New York who were recently arrested for allegedly not reporting to local school district officials.
  • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has ruled that the Walt Disney Company must recognize a resolution that adds ex-gays to company diversity programs and sexual orientation policy, reports Christianity Today. Ex-gays need to be allowed to express their views on homosexuality without facing sensitivity training.
  • Christianity Today also reports that Medi-Share, a Christian medical cost-sharing group of 40,000 members in 49 states, could be defined as health insurance in a case before the Kentucky Supreme Court. The Kentucky attorney general’s office is fighting to reverse two lower court decisions and have the group defined as an insurance program subject to regulation. But four other states have ruled that Medi-Share is not insurance.
  • Dr. Don Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association, has resigned as chairman of the board, according to onenewsnow.com. Wildmon plans to continue to work at the ministry but not in a leadership role. Tim, his son and current president of AFA, is expected to continue leading the ministry. The Wildmons have recently been recipients of two prestigious pro-family awards.
  • A liberal talk show network on radio, Air America Radio, has gone bankrupt. The network had prided itself in taking some credit for the Democratic takeover of Congress and the election of President Obama.
  • One of Pope Benedict’s ceremonial ushers and a member of an elite choir in St. Peter’s Basilica have been implicated in a gay prostitution ring, in the latest sex scandal to taint the Vatican, reports postchronicle.com.
  • For the second time in three years, a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman failed in the Indiana House last week, reports CitzenLink.com. Even though the votes were there, House Speaker Pat Bauer, a Democrat, blocked the amendment from getting a vote.
  • After a 10-year drop, alcohol and marijuana use among teens is on the rise, reports a study by The Partnership for a Drug-Free America. The use of alcohol among teens in grades nine through 12 has risen to 39 percent, an 11 percent increase from 2008. Marijuana is used by 25 percent of teens, compared with 19 percent in the same period.
  • Though the state’s high court ruled in 2007 that only the General Assembly could redefine marriage, Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler decided that the state would recognize out-of-state same-sex marriage. Charges of impeachment were likely to be filed against the attorney general, reports CitizenLink.com.
  • Fox News says that Congressman Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) warned the White House that at least 12 of 37 Democrats who had previously voted for Pelosi-care will now switch and vote against the Senate version of Obama-care due to its massive abortion funding increases.
  • Gov. Rick Perry’s resounding primary win last week is seen as a triumph of the Tea Party movement in the country, says Personal Liberty Digest. Perry’s main messages were “Quit spending all the money” and “Stop trying to take over our lives and our businesses.”
  • A huge battle is set to begin in the U.S. Supreme Court, as backers of traditional marriage hope to fend off a law that could make their names and addresses public, and thus make them prime targets for homosexual activists who would harass and bully them into silence. The case calls into question whether voters have protected free speech and anonymity rights in signing petitions and ballot initiatives or whether states must release signatories’ names and addresses as a matter of public record. Many cases of bullying have been recorded against signers of traditional marriage initiatives already, and homosexual activists have pledged to make lists public and searchable online. Churches also suffered the wrath of pro-gay forces. The American Center for Law and Justice says that “the right to secret ballot safeguards citizens from the historic evil of voter intimidation.”
  • A divorced German Lutheran bishop, Margot Kaessmann, elected to lead the 4 million Protestant members of the Evangelical Church in Germany, has resigned after she was apprehended for alleged drunk driving, according to the ELCA News Service.