US President Obama will be addressing the nation and the world very shortly.

As per CNN, his body is identified and a DNA Check confirms his identity. Osama Bin Laden, per CNN, he is dead.

In 2009, Egyptian entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Haiba launched the world’s first-ever Islamic music channel. Based in Cairo, 4Shbab branded itself as “Islam’s Own MTV”. In its first few months on air, the channel shocked thousands of viewers and enthralled thousands more.

Pop goes Islam can be seen from Wednesday, April 13, at the following times GMT: Wednesday: 2000; Thursday: 1200; Friday: 0100; Saturday: 0600; Sunday: 2000; Monday: 1200; Tuesday: 0100; Wednesday: 0600

a huffingtonpost.com article

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday to block a new amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution that would prohibit state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.

U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange handed down the order after an Oklahoma man filed a lawsuit claiming the amendment stigmatized his religion and would invalidate his will, which he said is partially based on Islamic Law, also known as Sharia Law.

“My constitutional rights are being violated through the condemnation of my faith,” said Muneer Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma. “Islam was the target of this amendment. This amendment does not have a secular purpose.”

The measure, State Question 755, was approved with 70 percent of the vote in the Nov. 2 general election. The judge’s order prevents the state Election Board from certifying the results of that vote, which it had planned to do Tuesday afternoon.

The order will remain in effect until a Nov. 22 hearing on a preliminary injunction.
Awad, a law school graduate who has not been admitted to practice in Oklahoma, was congratulated by Muslims and other supporters following Miles-Lagrange’s ruling. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Muslims live in the state.

“We’re confident in the case. We’re confident in the claims we are making,” said Awad, who filed the lawsuit Thursday. “Today’s ruling is a reminder of the strength of our nation’s legal system and the protections it grants to religious minorities.”

The measure’s author, Rep. Rex Duncan, R-Sand Springs, attended the brief court hearing and said afterward he was surprised by Miles-Lagrange’s decision.

“It thwarts the will of the people,” said Duncan, an attorney who was elected district attorney in the northern Oklahoma counties of Osage and Pawnee in the general election.

Duncan has said the constitutional amendment was not intended as an attack on Muslims but an effort to prevent activist judges from relying on international law or Islamic law when ruling on legal cases.

In 2007, Duncan rejected a Quran as a gift from a council created by Gov. Brad Henry, explaining that “most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in the name of ideology.”

The constitutional amendment was one of several on Oklahoma’s ballot that critics said pandered to conservatives and would move the state further to the right.

Among other things, Awad’s lawsuit alleges the measure transforms Oklahoma’s Constitution
into “an enduring condemnation” of Islam by singling it out and barring courts from referring to Islamic law. It also alleges it violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against laws regarding the establishment of religion.

Legal experts also have questioned the measure. Joseph Thai, a professor at the University of Oklahoma’s College of Law, said the ballot measure is “an answer in search of a problem” and that there is no danger of international law or Sharia law overtaking the American legal system.

a huffingtonpost.com article

Article from Jpost.com
Report: Blair’s sister-in-law converts to Islam

Lauren Booth, employee of Iranian Press TV awarded diplomatic status by Hamas, wishes to educate former UK prime minister on true Islam.Talkbacks (47) The sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair has reportedly converted to Islam after “a holy experience” while on a visit to Iran.

Anti-Israel activist and journalist Lauren Booth said she took the decision after visiting the Fatima al-Masumeh Shrine in Qom, the second most holy city in Shi’ite Iran after Mashhad, leading her to convert immediately on returning to the UK.

“It was a Tuesday evening and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy,” she told The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

The 43-year-old activist, a presenter for the Iranian news channel Press TV who was given a Palestinian diplomatic status by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in 2008, said she now covers her head with a hijab when she leaves the house and prays five times daily. She also refused to rule out wearing a burka.

“Now I don’t eat pork and I read the Koran every day, I’m on page 60,” she claimed.

Booth also said she visits her local mosque when she can and has given up drinking.

“I also haven’t had a drink in 45 days, the longest period in 25 years. The strange thing is that since I decided to convert I haven’t wanted to touch alcohol, and I was someone who craved a glass of wine or two at the end of a day,” Booth told the Mail.

Booth also said that she had always been “sympathetic” to Islam.

“I was always impressed with the strength and comfort it gave,” she said.

The activist said she hoped her conversion would have an impact on Blair helping him to change his presumptions about Islam.

On a visit to Gaza in 2008, Booth compared Gaza to a “concentration camp” and a “humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur.”

Speaking on Press TV after her visit, Booth dismissed descriptions of Gaza as a prison.

“I want to say thank you for using the word concentration camp because the word prison has been applied in the last few years and that’s a lie. In a prison you get three meals a day, a nourishing diet, visits from outsiders and some hobbies and rehabilitation and a date for your release,” she said.

A few days before the interview, the Agence France Presse agency released a picture of Booth shopping in a well stocked grocery store in Gaza.

In August, Britain’s media regulator ruled a Press TV program on the Gaza flotilla incident presented by Booth breached broadcasting code rules on impartiality.

According to the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries, known as Ofcom, the program began with a pro-Palestinian song and anti-Israel images, featured an array of recorded and live interviews with similar views and included descriptions of the incident such as “barbaric” and “massacre.”

Presenting a program titled “Remember Palestine” on the Iranian channel Booth said: “Israeli commandos committed a massacre of innocent civilians sailing aid ships to the besieged Gaza Strip…This was obviously a barbarous attack on civilians… As Turkey buries its murdered citizens… the brave men and women on the ships in one move have shifted world opinion against Israeli apartheid.”

Ofcom ruled that the program was one-sided and failed to offer alternative views.

In 2003, British journalist Yvonne Ridley converted to Islam following her kidnap at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

Also an anti-Israel activist and Press TV presenter, the 51-year-old Respect party member declared the party “Zionist- free” in 2006 and described Israel as “that disgusting little watchdog of America that is festering in the Middle East.”

“If there was any Zionists in the Respect Party they would be hunted down and kicked out. We have no time for Zionists,” Ridley said.

In 2008, Press TV was accused of Holocaust denial after it published an article on its website claiming the massacre of Jewish people during the Holocaust was “scientifically impossible.”

Article from Jpost.com