The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has strongly condemned the US Senate plan to split Iraq along ethnic and religious lines. OIC secretary-general Prof Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said such a move would only result in more disunity in Iraq and further exacerbation of social strife. It could also create sectarian warfare among the people of the same nation, he said in a statement issued in Jeddah. He stressed that no one has the right to decide the destiny of a country except the citize...

Muslim and Jewish faith groups in the United States were up in arms after Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain has expressed discomfort about a non-Christian in the White House. In an interview Senator McCain the 72-year-old Republican told Beliefnet, a multi-denominational Web site that covers religion and spirituality, that he preferred the next US president to be Christian. He said being a Christian is one of the main qualifications for the president of the United States. Mc...

A new TV comedy that hits the airwaves in US touches on deeply rooted misconceptions about Muslims and their faith in post 9/11 America through the story of a Pakistani kid coming to live with an American family. “Aliens in America” features a middle-class Wisconsin family that decides to take a foreign exchange student into their home, hoping that his company would help their socially-awkward teenage son, Justin. They get an observant Muslim teen clad in his native garb. The boy ...

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas were to join their newly formed teams after holding their fourth round of talks in less than two months. Olmert and Abbas decided to form the negotiating teams at their last meeting in ...

The poll, the third of its kind taken by Uppsala University to measure Swedes’ views of diversity, shows a rising number of people supporting a headscarf ban. In 2005, 43 percent wanted a ban on Islamic female head coverings. This year, 49.8 percent of the 1,065 people asked supported a ban. Hardening attitudes on the headscarf quest...