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Afghanistan: Our armed forces will eventually get rid of Bin Laden’s bunch and the “student government” in Kabul, something we really need to do because of a prophesy of Muhammad. He said “If you see the black (meaning war) flags coming from Khurasan (Afghanistan), join that army even if you have to crawl over ice, for this is the army of Imam al-Mahdi and no one can stop that army until it reaches Jerusalem.” That prophesy is why Bin Laden is in Afghanistan. He needs to be stopped there before radical Muslims all over the world “crawl over ice” to join him. Randy Barker

Sudan: In Africa’s largest country, ransacked by one of the continent’s longest civil wars, America is doing the right thing for once (or so it seems). With minimal fanfare, US officials have been working for a peace settlement in Sudan. Their effort may soon be crowned with “unexpected” success, oil. Oil is the main factor that has prompted a Republican administration to take a deeper interest in Sudan than Bill Clinton did. The country is rich in reserves — and, with the Middle East looking increasingly unstable and potentially anti-western, the big oil companies see Africa as offering better assurance for future supply. Without peace, Sudan’s huge oil fields will remain untapped or burn up in the flames of war. Strapped for cash to finance the fighting, the government made a poor deal with oil companies for exploration and development. Oil companies say they were taking huge risks. With peace, Sudan should get more equitable terms. At that point, America’s oil links may place it on the opposite side.

Saudi Arabia: A briefing given to a top Pentagon advisory board described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and recommended that US officials give it an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the US. “The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader,” stated the explosive briefing. Laurent Murawiec said in his briefing that US should demand that Riyadh stop funding fundamentalist Islamic outlets around the world, stop all anti-US and anti-Israeli statements in the country, and prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain, including the Saudi intelligence services. The report concludes by linking regime change in Iraq to altering Saudi behaviour. This view, popular among some neo-conservative thinkers, is that once a US invasion has removed Hussein from power, a friendly successor regime would become a major exporter of oil to the West. That oil would diminish US dependence on Saudi energy exports, and so — in this view — permit the US government finally to confront the House of Saud for supporting terrorism. Robert Oaklet, a former US ambassador to Pakistan said the best approach isn’t to confront Saudi Arabia but to support its reform efforts. “Our best hope is change through reform, and that can only come from within,” he said.

Rwanda: Almost a decade after a horrific genocide left 800,000 Rwandans dead and shook the faith of this predominantly Christian nation, Islam, once seen as a fringe religion, has surged in popularity. Mosques and Islamic schools are overflowing with students. About 14 percent of Rwandans consider themselves Muslim, up from about 7 percent before the genocide. Muslim families for the most part succeeded in hiding Tutsis from the Hutu mobs, who feared entering the country’s insular Muslim communities. “We were helped by people we didn’t even know,” the 27-year-old remembers, still impressed.

Amsterdam: A poll conducted in Netherlands shows that among all the religions practiced by Amsterdam residents, Islam is the most popular. Christianity (Catholics and Protestants), Judaism and other religions mentioned in the poll, follow after Islam, as the Internet edition <Islam For All> reported.

According to the statistics published in Dutch daily newspaper Metro, 13 percent of the population of the country are Muslims, less than 10 percent are Catholics, 5 percent Protestants, and about 1 percent are Jews. Followers of other religions comprise 12 percent altogether.

Muslims are now the largest religious community that number 88 thousand members out of the population of 600 thousand in Amsterdam.

59 percent of Amsterdam’s residents do not belong to any religion at all.

Islamabad: Hassan Rasheed, a printer from the city of Lahore, has spent five years developing a software program to capture the original calligraphy of the Quran.

He has managed to turn the ancient script into a unique font that can reproduce an error-free Quran at a fraction of the time it took the masters in the past.

About 70 percent of the software was developed in Pakistan where a team of 15 people turned Quran artistry into 3,000 unique ligatures, or combination of characters that make up a word.

The software (called Qur’an Publishing System) allows anyone to copy chunks of Quranic text, but the system will not allow tampering with the sacred verses. Editing is not allowed. He is constantly updating the security in the software to keep hackers at bay.