the Top Ten Stories of 2007

Faith and ethics

The Top Ten Stories of 2007 try to list events that significantly shape the worldwide bible
believers world.

• The uprising of burma buddist? a tragedy of the opposition to a totalitariam regime.
• Anglican church worldwide trouble.
• Homegrown terrorism (UK, Canada,US)?
• A possible peace in Ireland?
• Turkey's identity .
• Europe and Islam.
• Religious accomodation in society at large
• Christian persecution around the World
• Women in Islam
• Hamas Vs Fatah

The uprising of burma buddist? a tragedy of the opposition to a totalitariam regime.
The nation of Myanmar (called Burma until the military government changed the name to Myanmar in 1989), has been in a state of civil war since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948. Most of the historical fighting has involved ethnic rebellions and communist uprisings in the countryside, but in 1988, a pro-democracy movement challenged the military dictatorship and was crushed violently by the army. This is now called the "Four Eights" or 8888 Uprising. In late 2007, a new, so-far peaceful anti-government uprising led by Buddhist monks has been met with violence from government security forces. The military junta which rules Myanmar/Burma calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
On August 19, 2007, about 400 people marched in protest. The police arrested dozens, but protests continued in several cities. Keep in mind that the last major public protests, in 1988, resulted in the military crushing the protests, with nearly 3,000 dead and thousands more arrested or driven into exile.
The government also cut off the country's internet connections, making it difficult, though not
impossible, for citizens to send pictures and video of the violence to the world.
During the crisis, Aung San Suu Kyi emerged as a national icon. she is a pro-democracy activist and
leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma), and a noted prisoner of conscience
and advocate of nonviolent resistance. She is currently under detention, with the Myanmar
government repeatedly extending her detention. According to the results of the 1990 general
election, Suu Kyi earned the right to be Prime Minister, as leader of the winning National League
for Democracy party, but her detention by the military junta prevented her from assuming that role.

Anglican church worldwide trouble
The Anglican Community has been in crisis since 2003 when the Episcopal Church, as Anglicanism is
known in the United States, named the openly gay Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.
Increasing support for same-sex marriage blessings in the U.S. and Canada has widened the rift
between theological liberals and conservatives, pushing the church toward schism.
A February meeting of church leaders from around the world ended with the U.S. church being told to
recant support for gay rights or risk expulsion from the communion. In response, the U.S. House of
Bishops pledged earlier in september to "exercise restraint" on consecrating gay bishops and to hold
off on same-sex blessings until a wider consensus is reached.
Conservative Anglicans in Canada and the U.S. plan to break away from their increasingly liberal
national churches within 15 months, setting up a parallel continental church along orthodox
theological lines.
and there are growing serious divisions between the UK and the US over those same questions. And
meanwhile there are bishops in Africa who are positioning themselves politically to be the new
leaders of the Anglican worldwide community.
Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan said the current dispute, which has already seen dozens of parishes in
the U.S. realign with more conservative churches in Africa and Latin America, goes far beyond gay
rights. "The Christian church in the West has succumbed to modernism," he said.

Homegrown terrorism (UK, Canada,US)?

UK
The subsequent Madrid and London transit bombings and the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van
Gogh by a Dutch-born Muslim stand as examples of the extreme. But many Europeans - even those who
generally support immigration - have begun talking more bluntly about cultural differences,
specifically about Muslims' deep religious beliefs and social values, which are far more
conservative than those of most Europeans on issues like women's rights and homosexuality.Resentment and fear arrests in alleged U.K. terror plot brought to surface divisions in east London.
The revelations surrounding the UK terror plot targeting U.S. bound airliners once again focused
attention on the phenomenon of "homegrown terrorism." As with last year's 7/7 "Underground Bombers,"
the Heathrow suspects are virtually all British residents, with most UK citizens and many second-
generation Pakistani immigrants. And just as in the aftermath of last November's street riots in
France, a flood of analysis seeks to explain the threat of radical Islamic extremism in Europe and
its relative absence in the United States.
The combination of colonialism, racism, economic disadvantage and political powerlessness is an
explosive one. Unless European societies find the will and the means to act soon, the meltdown of
Lebanon's consociational model in the 1970's and the ensuing civil war offers one particularly dark
vision of the future.
The impact of colonialism's legacy, economic disadvantage and steep barriers to social mobility are
clear in the attitudes of Muslims in Europe. "If you ask a second-generation American Muslim," says
Robert Leiken, author of Bearers of Global Jihad: Immigration and National Security After 9/11, "he
will say, 'I'm an American and a Muslim.' A second-generation Turk in Germany is a Turk, and a
French Moroccan doesn't know what he is." 27 year-old Moussa Abdel Aziz, one of 10 children of
Moroccan factory workers outside of Antwerp, described his plight, "We are born with this stamp on
our forehead that says 'foreigner' that will never go away. People are less surprised seeing E.T.
than seeing us. We are the true aliens."
USA
None of the world news is to suggest that the United States will be immune from homegrown terrorism
within its Muslim communities. Nor it is to suggest that the innate justice or fairness of American
society will save the United States from plots hatched by American residents on its own soil. But
the circumstances and history of Muslims in America are clearly different than in Europe.
Economic opportunity, political oppression and religious freedom helped create different Muslim
diasporas across the U.S. While the largest group of American Muslim immigrants from the South Asia
(India, Pakistan and Bangladesh), the United States is also home to 600,000 Arabs and 300,000
Iranians, as well as African-American Muslims.
Muslim community came to the U.S. primarily to pursue economic opportunity and escape political
oppression, across the Continent the legacy of European colonialism has helped produce large,
monolithic and increasingly restive Islamic populations with a multi-generational sense of
grievance. Those different motivations and distinct histories, and not the supposed goodness or
badness of America or Europe, explain today's gulf in domestic terror threats on either side of the
Atlantic.
Notwithstanding terror-related arrests in Florida, New York, Michigan and California, former
National Security Council official Daniel Benjamin believes American Muslims "have been our first
line of defense" and "pretty much immune to the jihadist virus." According to Mark Sageman, "The
patriotism of the American Muslim community has been grossly underreported."
Sadly, that patriotism may be under assault. An August 2006 Gallop poll finds that almost four in 10
Americans believe Muslims should carry a special ID card. 22% said they would not want to have a
Muslim as a neighbor. 34% of respondents felt that American Muslims were sympathetic to Al Qaeda
while only 49% thought they were loyal to the United States.
Perhaps Americans aren't so different from Europeans after all.

Canada
FOR THOSE who have been following the evolution of Al Qaeda over the last few years, the news that
Toronto could be the home of radical extremists bent on mass destruction is certainly disturbing,
but not surprising.
Since the attacks in London last summer, increasing attention has been paid to the issue of home-
grown terrorism -- what produces it and what can be done to stop it. The threat of seemingly well-
integrated youths plotting to kill large numbers of their fellow citizens for reasons of religious
zeal first became real for Londoners last July. Now it is Toronto's turn.
Of course, many Canadians, and Americans for that matter, are shocked to learn that a nearly
operational jihadist ``cell" had been developing in the cosmopolitan and tolerant city of Toronto.
Such a revelation will undoubtedly lead to a great deal of debate over immigration, integration,
policies promoting multiculturalism, as well as a whole host of security issues. In the United
States it is already causing alarm; Toronto is barely an hour from the border, after all.
The Toronto plot calls attention to the essence of this ideology -- a transnational package of
beliefs that resonates strongly and dangerously with a small minority of the Muslim Diaspora in the
West.
What has touched Toronto is an inherently global phenomenon, already well underway in Europe and
elsewhere. Understanding why these indigenous jihadist cells emerge and how they operate now appears
to be the face of the next chapter of the global war on terrorism.
A possible peace in Ireland?
After three centuries of violence, two years of negotiations, and thousands killed, there is a new
hope for peace in Northern Ireland; delegates to the peace talks announced on April 10 that they
have reached a deal to bring a political peace to the country.
Turkey's identity ( let's see where it stand their constitutional secularism or islamic future)Self-Perception and Identity in Contemporary Turkey. Now it's Turks vs. Turks. The "nation state" is
at stake, and a future Turkish civil war is possible. The unrest could incite religious fighting
among Muslim Turks, and could impact European countries with Muslim populations
Three apparently unconnected events last year or 2007 brought to the fore Turkey's crisis of
identity and highlighted the tortuous path of the country's bid for European Union membership.
The tangled relationship between Turkey and the European Union played out in three separate capitals
on October 12. In Stockholm the Swedish Academy announced that Orhan Pamuk became the first Turkish
writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
In Paris the French parliament approved 106 to 19 legislation making it a crime to deny that Ottoman
Turkey committed genocide against Armenians during and after World War I. The same day, at a solemn
ceremony in the Turkish capital of Ankara, some 260 soldiers wearing blue helmets set out for
Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission.
The nature and constituencies of Turkish nationalism have changed over time. Serving the cause of
state-building in the early part of the twentieth century, it has gradually transformed as an
instrument of state power, but is also subject to other social forces.
Most people in Turkey have achieved a better understanding of the root causes of their society's
problems. It is clear that the country's underdevelopment and prevailing traditionalism is not the
result of Western imperialism as once claimed by the Left. Also, religion is not a barrier for
candidacy to the European Union, as claimed by religious fundamentalists and secular skeptics. The
effect of politicized religion, however, may be detrimental to political liberty and stability
Further, ethnic separatism only reinforces militarism and delays further democratization, as the
leader of the PKK has admitted during his trial.
It remains to be seen if Turkey perpetuates its anti-democratic secularist policy, or decides to
create a new democratic constitution where traditional groups with religious sensitivities, as well
as citizens with other ethnic backgrounds, can feel included. If the official policy of laicism has
failed to secularize society because it has not been supported by commercialization,
industrialization, modern education and urbanization, then religious affairs should be taken from
state control and left to civil society. Only then can. the sociological process of secularization
proceed.
The above paragraphs suggests that the hegemonic political system is no longer capable of leading a
socially and culturally diverse Turkish society that has a parliamentary tradition dating to the
19th century. With a population of 65 million and growing, sufficient agricultural land and water
and a dynamic private sector, Turkey so far has realized a minuscule part of its potential. Because
of its self-imposed limitations, Turkey cannot yet play its rightful role, afforded to it by both
history and geography 14 Turkey sits at the crossroads of the Balkan-Caucasus axis with a door to Central Asia, as well as the Black Sea-Middle-East axis. If Turkey can rid itself of its structural fetters, it can easily become a model for other nations.

Europe and Islam
Is this the end of democracy in Europe? European experiencing some tensions.
The concerns about veils are emblematic of larger concerns about Muslims in British society. After the terrorist attacks of 2005, the foiled plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006, and the unsuccessful car bombings in June, there has been an increasing backlash against British Muslims The continued threat of terrorism may be part of what is making Europeans reluctant to embrace the Muslim community, but as USA Today notes, Muslims are essential to combating terrorism and securing global peace. Europe and the rest of the world cannot afford to continue to alienate this segment of the community.

This 'discrimination' is not confined to fringe parties in Europe. The accession of Turkey, a
majority Muslim country, to the European Union has become an issue of major contention among European leaders and the public. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Christian Democratic Union to which German Chancellor Angela Merkel belongs both oppose full membership for Turkey. Majorities of citizens in Austria, Germany, and France, along with 12 other countries, are also wary of Turkish accession to the EU not only because of the country’s human rights record but also, according to the
Council on Foreign Relations, due to its demographics—it is “huge, poor, and Islamic.”
At the heart of growing Muslim exclusionism in Europe is a concern that immigrants want to create a segregated, parallel world—one that rejects and threatens the values of the host country and replaces those values with its own alien beliefs.
Ironically, viewpoints like these have played a significant role in creating a separate, parallel
world of Muslim immigrants.

Religious accomodation in society at large.( but mostly canadian!)
“Reasonable accommodation” has become a phrase of common parlance, as residents of Canada,
particularly Québec as the province debate how much they are willing to give, how flexible they are willing to be in the accommodation of difference—cultural, religious and linguistic—in the
collective culture or society at large.
Are we secular? Or "religious seculars"? What does it mean to be secular while still embracing the symbols and traditions of Catholicism in the public sphere and institutions? Why this fear of
minority practices in a state/province where the vast majority's claims to political and cultural
difference has been secured and ingrained in most institutions?
For years, Christians have filed complaints about working on Sundays and Jews about Saturday shifts. . . Now the other kind of case . . . is Muslim employees who need to go to prayer on Friday. They may . . . need . . . a two- to three-hour period in the middle of the day. . .
Federal law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for workers’ religious needs, unless it imposes an undue hardship on the company. Most cases that end up in court involve disputes over what constitutes an undue hardship . . .

Some experts predict that workforce conflicts over religion will grow. “This is a problem that is
going to get bigger and bigger because it’s demographically driven,”
Changing immigration patterns are boosting the number of people from parts of the world with less familiar religious beliefs and practices, she says. . . The workforce also is aging. The older
people get, the more important religion becomes to them.

Another factor . . . is political: “With religion having been thrust into the public arena in a way
that it hadn’t been before, that is emboldening people to assert their religious rights in a way
they might not have done if religion had not been so politicized.”

Earlier this year, the rural Québec town of Hérouxville become a household name in Canada when the town adopted a controversial code of conduct designed to inform immigrants of appropriate and expected behaviour and there have been other news.
While these incidents in Québec* are, in many ways, unique to the specific history and political
culture of that province and need to be addressed from within that context, they also belong to a
larger national discussion of a concept that many Canadians see as a definitive notion of what makes us Canadian—i.e. multiculturalism. Immigration enriches a culture by bringing in different foods, colours, languages, thoughts, ideals and ways of doing things. For sure this isn't always good – and as an immigrant, I want to stress the importance of upholding human (and animal) rights above all religious considerations. Religion or tradition must never be valid justifications for oppression or abuse; and this certainly raises many questions to which there are few absolute answers ...

Is it possible to have a French Catholic-minded state that not only coexist or "tolerate" religious
and cultural difference, but that would also embrace it and cherish it? I think that when talking
about the Révolution tranquille, and especially about the "obscurantisme" and the intolerance of pre-Quiet-Revolution Québec, it becomes easy to see this moment as a kind of hermetic barrier that separates us from the spectres of intolerance. As if intolerance was a thing of the past, in our liberal and modern society. I think your article was very useful in giving us background material to frame these important issues with some critical distance, and to engage in a debate that acknowledges the past, while pointing towards a future that is yet to be imagined.

I think we need to remember in this debate is that we are all (apart from First Nations people)
immigrants to Canada and to Quebec. Seen in this light it is absurd not to accommodate the religious practices of other immigrants arriving or who have lived here just as long as we have, whether they are in the majority or minority.

Christian persecution
The persecution of Christians is religious persecution that Christians sometimes undergo as a
consequence of professing their faith, both historically and in the current era. In the two thousand years of the Christian faith, about 70 million believers have been killed for their faith, of whom 45.5 million or 65% were in the twentieth century according to "The New Persecuted" ("I Nuovi Perseguitati").[1] Currently, persecution of Christians is most severe in North Korea. [2]Please check out the legacy of Christian persecution and martyrdom, as this is spectacular.Why is this spectacular, when many throughout history have died martyred deaths for a religious belief? Because people don't die for a lie. Look at human nature throughout history. No conspiracy can be maintained when life or liberty is at stake. Dying for a belief is one thing, but numerous eye-witnesses dying for a known lie is quite another.
Christian persecution didn't slow the growth of the Christian faith during the first few centuries
after Jesus. Even as its early leaders died horrible deaths, Christianity flourished throughout the
Roman Empire. How can this historical record of martyrdom be viewed as anything but powerful evidence for the truth of the Christian faith - a faith grounded in historical events and eye-witness testimonies?

A partial list of countries not already mentioned above where significant recent persecution of
Christians exists includes North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Sri Lanka[80], Bhutan, Maldives, Serbia
(Kosovo), Afghanistan, Thailand, China, Lebanon, Syria, the Sudan (Darfur), Cambodia, Egypt, and Turkey[81]. Persecuted Christians in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are supported by the

Women in Islam
The complex relationship between women and Islam is defined by both Islamic texts and the history and culture of the Muslim world.[1] Sharia (Islamic law) provides for differences between women's and men's roles, rights, and obligations. Many Muslim-majority countries give women varying degrees of rights with regards to marriage, divorce, civil rights, legal status, dress code, and education. Even where these differences are acknowledged, scholars and other commentators vary as to whether they are unjust and whether they are a correct interpretation of religious imperatives. Conservatives argue that differences between men and women are due to different status and responsibilities,[2] while liberal Muslims, Muslim feminists, and others argue that more progressive interpretations of the role of women are more just.

The news about the brutal beating of Saudi Arabian television host Rania al-Baz by her husband last month serves as a wake-up call to all Arab and Muslim women in the Middle East and the West.Baz was married for six years to an abusive husband. In her husband's last violent tirade, she says that he told her he'd kill her, and he forced her to recite the last rites. And he did almost kill her -- her pretty face, loved by so many who watched her morning show daily, was pounded almost beyond recognition.
After days in the hospital and multiple operations, Baz has recovered enough to tell her story and denounce violence against women in her country.
Her case is significant because open debate about such issues is rare in the Middle East, especially in conservative Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi kingdom is known for its harsh treatment of women, who are prohibited from driving or leaving their homes without their husbands, fathers or brothers. In public, they are forced to wear suffocating black veils that cover them from head to toe, turning them into shadows of the men they walk behind. Baz wore a head scarf on her show, not a veil covering her face.
While violence toward women is not the norm in the Middle East, it does exist, and there is strong bias against women. it accurately depicts the dehumanizing theology, brutal abuse, and degredation that comprise the daily lives of millions of women in the fascist portions of the Islamic world.
if you are a Muslim, leave the horrors of Islam and join the rest of humanity to advocate real
peace. Please visit WWW.FAITHFREEDOM.ORG, a site maintained by ex-muslims who have worked hard to expose Islam.

Hamas Vs Fatah
For the first time in the history of the Palestinians’ fight for nationhood, there seemed a real
possibility that two Palestines rather than one might emerge — one in Gaza, dominated by Hamas, the other in the West Bank, led by Fatah.
Is there going to be a Palestinian civil war? Probably not. But there is a major struggle going on
that could be described as the biggest internal Palestinian conflict in memory, perhaps in history. On one level, the battle is between Hamas and Fatah, between Islamism and nationalism. It is also a struggle between two groups each wanting the fruits of leadership: power, prestige, and money. International sanctions against giving money to the Hamas regime also hurt the Islamists. Yet the European Union had earlier stopped aid to the PA because of its financial irresponsibility. This kind of thing should be remembered in the face of a strong temptation to declare Fatah, as opposed
to Hamas, the "good guys" or at least the lesser of two evils.
While Fatah is somewhat less horrible than Hamas--and of course there are some different views within the organization--it is Fatah's past incitement, terrorism, and refusal to make real peace that are at the root of the current situation. There is no reason to believe it would do better in future if restored to power.
It's the Wild West in Gaza, with Fatah "security forces" going on a rampage against the Hamas-led government:
Gaza, which has suffered the most economically in the past few years, has become increasingly
conservative and increasingly religious, largely due to the growing influence of Hamas.
Women in Gaza are more likely to be wear full Islamic dress and much less likely to work outside the
home than their counterparts in the West Bank. Even in Gaza’s large garment factories, the vast
majority of the workers sitting behind the sewing machines are men.
Gaza’s cultural life tends to center on the local mosque, and its small anemic economy consists
almost entirely of small-scale businesses and jobs provided by the Palestinian Authority.
The West Bank, meanwhile, has a far richer economic life that includes industry, farming and a
service sector. Its cities even have a few cinemas, art exhibitions, decent restaurants and a few
night clubs. In some ways, the current conflict is a local dispute specific to Gaza.
And of course some pro-arab wants to hold Israel for this conflict too, which is typical of the
misleading lies Arab propaganda has been continuously feeding the world and its own population.
They might have a war but the one thing that unites Iran and the Arab countries, regardless of their
differences and mutual mistrust, is their common desire to end the state of Israel.
The common goal to eradicate Israel from the Middle East supercedes any temporary damage resulting
from in-fighting. One sees Sunnis, Shia, Arabs, Persians, Syria, Iran, Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, and
al Quaeda... despite many differences, united when it comes to destroying Israel, as well as
opposing The "West" so it comes to surface the Arab-Israel conflict too.
The Arab-Israel conflict started with the barefaced lie that the Arabs residing in Palestine were
"Palestinians" .
In fact Romans gave the name Palestina to the defeated Judeans (Jews) when Arabs did not even exist.
Arabs resident in Palestine believed that they lived in GREATER SYRIA till Arab propaganda began
feeding them the Palestine lie.
There is not enough room to mention here the endless lies Arab animosity has fed its people and to
the guillible world for fifity years. The world and the Arabs forget even the fact that it was not
the Jews who rejected an additional Arab slice of the LAND OF ISRAEL in 1947 at the UN (The whole
Kingdom of Jordan is part of that Palestine sliced to bits.) The Arab states in unison refused to
recognize a new Arab Palestine. The world conveniently fogets that Hamasrestated only recently its refusal to recognize Israel or to make peace wih Israel. The world and
the Arabs are deaf not just to the Arab suicidal maniacs who blow up people in Israel they are
suddenly suffering of Alzheimers when the wannabe Hitler Ahmedinajad of Iran threatens to wipe
Israel off the map.
Israel does not need conflict between Hamas and PLO or anyone else. Arabs never endured eachother
and they believe that opinions may be changed by murder. This is not their racial or ethnic defect.
This is the result of the lack of education Arab leaders prefer.
The time has come that instead of lies and nonsense Muslims and Arabs learn facts and truth,
understanding and love of life instead of destructive negativism, rejectionism and death.Life has been created to be lived.Wars are barbarian but if Arabs declare them, they must fear that the enemy will fight too.
"Palestine", never was an independent country but part of the Ottoman Empire. It was taken by
Britain in 1917, in 1922, 78 per cent was given by Winston Churchill to creat the Arab Kingdom of
Jordan.Jews, refugees from persecution in Eastern Europe had been buying land in Palastine from the Ottoman
owners since the late 1880s.In 1947, the UN voted to give Israel 12 per cent of the original land mass of Palestine. Israel
accepted it, The Arab nations did not.In May 1948, Israel declared independence and offered the Arab nations the `hand of friendship and
peaceful co-existence`. Within hours, six Arab armies attacked Israel to `drive the jews into the
sea`. A number of Jewish refugees from surrounding Arab nations were created as Jewish people lost
homes money and property and were forced to leave, without compensation or the right to return. Fron
the late 1940s into the early 1950s, Israel took in the vast majority, when it had no resources of
its own. Arab refugees have never been offered similar help from the Arab nations but used as a
political pawns by their own leaders. Mention of Dei-Yasin should also record the retaliatory attack
on the Jewish Haddasah Hospital on Mount Scopus, and the continued murderous attacks against Jewish
settlements from the 1920s right up to the present, and the Hammas call for the destruction of
Israel. It shoud be remebered that Israel is the Biblical and historical land of the Jews, not the
Palastinians

Things to watch for in Canada and the world
Quebec minorities
Horn of Africa troubles
China and freedom
Elections and religion
Islamic movements