‘China cancels US credit card'

China, wary of the troubled US economy, has already "cancelled America's credit card" by cutting down purchases of debt, a US congressman said last week. China has the world's largest foreign reserves, believed to be mostly in dollars, along with around 800 billion dollars in US Treasury bonds, more than any other country. But Treasury Department data shows that investors in China have sharply curtailed their purchases of bonds in January and February. Representative Mark Kirk, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and co-chair of a group of lawmakers promoting relations with Beijing, said China had "very legitimate" concerns about its investments. "It would appear, quietly and with deference and politeness, that China has cancelled America's credit card," Kirk told the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American group. "I'm not sure too many people on Capitol Hill realize that this is now happening," he said.

UK police search powers alienate Muslims

Police use of anti-terror stop and search powers trebled last year, prompting fears that the policy is alienating London's Muslim communities. Officers in England and Wales used Terrorism Act powers to search 124,687 people in 2007/8, up from 41,924 in 2006/7, figures released yesterday showed. But only around 1 per cent of those searches ended in an arrest. There were 1,271 arrests in total but only 73 of those were for terror offences. Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "People will be highly suspicious about the scale of stop and search under terror laws. This will reinforce the view that anti-terror powers are used for unrelated purposes." UK Ministry of Justice statistics showed "stop and account" powers were used on 2,353,918 occasions in 2006/7, up a quarter from 1,601,196 in 2006/7. There were twice as many stops and searches of Asian people per head of population than of white people, a similar rate to the previous year. Black people were almost three-and-a-half times more likely than white people to be stopped on the street and questioned.

US crusaders engaged in spreading Christianity in Afghanistan

New video evidence has surfaced showing that U.S. military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military's top chaplain in the country to "hunt people for Jesus" as they spread Christianity to the overwhelmingly Muslim population. Soldiers also have imported bibles translated into Pashto and Dari, the two dominant languages of Afghanistan. What's more, the center of this evangelical operation is at the huge U.S. base at Bagram, one of the main sites used by the U.S. military to torture and indefinitely detain prisoners. In a video obtained by Al Jazeera and broadcast Monday, Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Hensley, the chief of the U.S. military chaplains in Afghanistan, is seen telling soldiers that as followers of Jesus Christ, they all have a responsibility "to be witnesses for him.""The special forces guys -- they hunt men basically. We do the same things as Christians, we hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down...Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the kingdom. That's what we do, that's our business", he says. The video footage was shot about a year ago by documentary filmmaker Brian Hughes, who is also a former U.S. soldier.

Taleban pull out of the peace deal

On 4/5/2009 a Taliban spokesman blamed the government and military for provoking the violence saying it had sabotaged the peace process to appease the United States. Muslim Khan, said that the controversial peace deal "practically stands dissolved". "This is not our army, this is not our government. They're worse enemies of Muslims than the Americans," he said. "They're US stooges and now it's clear that either we'll be martyred (killed) or we'll march forward," he added. The collapse of the peace deal was expected, as successive Pakistan governments have used such peace deals to deceive the people of Swat into believing that the government was going to institute shariah law.

Modi the butcher of Gujrat speaks out against Congress Muslim voters

"Congress, SP and BSP have always deceived Muslims. After exploiting Muslims, the parties kick them like a football," Modi said at an election rally in Aligarh district. Accusing the Congress of appeasing Muslims to get political mileage, Modi said: "The Sachar committee (set up to look into the social, economic and educational status of Muslims) was constituted by the Congress-led central government only to misguide Muslims." The chief minister, who was the primary culprit behind the slaughter of Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat riots, also had the nerve to say that the condition of Muslims in Gujarat was better than that in other states. The truth of the matter is that neither BJP nor Congress is concerned about improving the lives of the Muslims of India. Indian Muslims can only enjoy justice and security if they abandon Indian politics and re-establish the Khilafah "Caliphate".

Hasina and US launch campaign to uproot Islam in Bangladesh under the pretext of fighting terror

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said last week that her government was working to uproot Islamic militancy to strengthen democracy in the country. "We will not allow extremists to repeat the carnage (of people) in the name of religion any more," Hasina told a May Day rally organised by the labour wing of her Awami League party. "Unlike the previous government, we have started uprooting religious militancy to strengthen democracy in the country." Later U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh James Moriarty said," We do have disturbing indications. There continues to be a threat in Bangladesh and my government does believe that there is a threat," he said at a press conference held here at office of Dhaka Reporters Unity, an association of working reporters. Moriarty said attacks in India, Pakistan and other countries around the globe suggest that the world has a long way to go before getting rid of the scourge of terrorism. The ambassador appreciated the Bangladeshi Parliament's passage of the Money Laundering Prevention Ordinance and the Anti-Terrorism Ordinance which will give law enforcement agencies new tools to ensure that terrorists cannot use Bangladesh as a haven. Moriarty said the U.S. continues to work closely with Bangladesh in training programs for law enforcement organizations.