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Everywhere Muslims live in non-Muslim countries, there is conflict and agitation, the level of which is determined by their numbers. Thailand is at 5%. Deadly. Islamist rebels slaughter Buddhists in Thailand July 15, 2011 Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, notes that an Islamist terrorist insurgency has claimed 4,000 lives in southern Thailand since 2004. Recent victims include two beheaded boys; “they are all innocent victims, guilty only for not being Muslims,” according to a Fides source. “We will kill, burn, and destroy all Buddhists: you will never be able to live in peace...

A schoolboy was killed and two bystanders were injured when an unknown gunman shot the student before opening fire at people shopping at a market in Pattani yesterday morning. ... an attack by southern insurgents on a Buddhist religious day as the motive. Pattani Governor Nipon Narapitakkul said that he believed the attack was a result of the region's unrest, where insurgents harm Thai Buddhists to incite disunity and distrust between Thai Buddhists and Muslims in Panare district, which is made up of 60 per cent Buddhists and 40 per cent Muslims. More than 4,500 people have been killed and...

Thailand's army says suspected Islamic insurgents set off a roadside bomb in the country's restive south, killing two Buddhist monks. ... More than 4,200 people have been killed in predominantly Buddhist Thailand's three Muslim-dominated southern provinces since an Islamist insurgency erupted here in 2004.

Suspected Muslim separatists shot dead a Buddhist family of four in Thailand's deep south, police said on Tuesday, the latest attack in an escalation of violence in the region. The killings followed a bloody raid on an army camp and a big roadside bombing in the past 12 days that were believed to have been carried out by ethnic Malay Muslim rebels seeking autonomy from predominantly Buddhist Thailand. The bodies of the Buddhist couple, their daughter, 15, and 7-year-old son were found in a forest in Yala, one of three Muslim-dominated provinces bordering Malaysia where more than 4,300 people have...

Note: Photos included. SNIPPET: "Three explosions have ripped through Burma's former capital Rangoon, killing nine people and injuring dozens others. The blasts in Rangoon are the worst to have hit the city since 2005 The triple blast was reported alongside Kandawgyi Lake, where hundreds of people had gathered for the country's New Year celebrations. A fourth bomb was later found and defused, according to official sources. Witnesses said people fled and ambulances rushed to help casualties. One Red Cross official said: "I saw blood on many people. The rush to help the injured So far it is unclear who is...

Three Naropa University employees -- two of them top administrators -- have been fired after an investigation into embezzlement at the Buddhist-inspired school... An internal investigation after an FBI tip found that a finance department employee had embezzled roughly $450,000 from the Boulder liberal arts school over a two-year period. President Stuart Lord said agents from the FBI approached university officials about two weeks ago to tell them the agency had received a report of embezzlement and to ask Naropa to conduct an internal investigation.

• Keanu Reeves • k.d. lang • Richard Gere • Uma Thurman • Orlando Bloom • Kate Hudson • Tina Turner • Kate Bosworth • Herbie Hancock • Russell Simmons

Tiger Turns To Buddhism To Turn Life Around Apologetic golf star vows to use religion to bring ‘balance’ to his ways In the theater of American public apologies, it’s common for celebrities to invoke their faith. Disgraced golf superstar Tiger Woods did it Friday, in fact, with a twist. He cited the role of Buddhism in his life — and will look to it to help him recover from serial infidelity. “People probably don’t realize it, but I was raised a Buddhist, and I actively practiced my faith from childhood until I drifted away from it in recent years,” Woods...

CHEATING Tiger Woods promised to mend his ways yesterday - with the help of Buddhism. The golf superstar had tears in his eyes as he apologised for betraying wife Elin during flings with a string of women. In a 13½-minute speech, Tiger, 34, said fame and fortune had led him to act as though he lived by different rules from his millions of fans. He confessed: "I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated." Tiger will return to rehab today to continue the fight to rehabilitate himself and save his marriage. And he also revealed he is turning for support...

Archaeologists warn that the Taliban are destroying Pakistan's ancient Gandhara heritage and rich Buddhist legacy as pilgrimage and foreign research dries up in the country's northwest. "Militants are the enemies of culture," said Abdul Nasir Khan, curator of Taxila Museum, one of the premier archeological collections in Pakistan. "It is very clear that if the situation carries on like this, it will destroy our culture and will destroy our cultural heritage," he told AFP. Taxila, a small town around 20 kilometres south of Islamabad, is one of Pakistan's foremost archeological attractions given its history as a centre of Buddhist learning...

SNIPPET: "SUSPECTED Islamic insurgents shot and killed two people and wounded three others in a bomb blast in Thailand's troubled Muslim-majority south, police said. Gunmen broke into a house in Yala province and shot dead a 16-year-old Buddhist girl, also wounding her 29-year-old husband, they said.... More than 3900 people have died in shootings, bomb blasts, beheadings and crucifixions since a separatist insurgency erupted in Thailand's southern provinces bordering Malaysia in January 2004."

Like many former residents of Bangkok, I have been watching the country's slide into virtual civil war with a mixture of incredulity and tetchy disillusion. It is hard for us to think of one of the world's only truly Buddhist states descending into a chaotic thuggery that would, alas, be less remarkable elsewhere. But why? Is it because of misperceptions we have about Buddhism? Buddhist violence--or violence committed by Buddhists, more properly speaking--is a strained concept for us, to put it mildly. I can easily imagine being assaulted by an infuriated Christian or by a hysterically outraged jihadist, by a...

March 8, 2009 PATTANI, Thailand, March 7 (Reuters) - S SNIPPET: "Pattani and the neighbouring provinces of Narathiwat and Yala, abutting Malaysia, were a Muslim sultanate until annexed a century ago by predominantly Buddhist Thailand. Around 80 percent of people there are Muslim and speak a Malay dialect. The violence has ranged from drive-by shootings to bombings and beheadings and often targets Buddhists and Muslims associated with the Thai state, such as police, soldiers, government officials and teachers."

Suspected militants shot dead a Muslim and two Buddhists in two separate incidents in Thailand's far south, police said on Tuesday, the latest violence in a five-year separatist rebellion. The 24-year-old Muslim was shot dead and his mother was injured as they rode a motorcycle to a rubber plantation in Pattani, one of three southern provinces roiled by violence that has killed 3,200 people since 2004. In a nearby district, two Buddhist truck drivers were shot dead and mutilated by four unknown gunmen at a rubber factory, police said. The killers sped away on two motorcycles with one of the...

Slavery still stalks the American consciousness, its wounds yet festering in many hearts. If Barack Obama were to set his mind to it, he could heal much of the damage this peculiar institution wrought on our national soul. This great and tragic error that must be given justice. Obama is the best person in the world who can recognize, remember and honor the deaths of 125 million and the enslavement of tens of millions of people. His unique qualifications can be found in his names. Until he was 20 years old, he went by the first name Barry. Then he...

Thousands dead in the massacre of the monksLast updated at 01:05am on 1st October 2007 Comments Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed. The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: 'Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.' Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered...

The monks have vowed to continue their action Lorries with loudspeakers have been driving through Burma's main city of Rangoon warning residents to stop anti-government protests.The broadcasts threatened that "action will be taken against those who violate this order". But hundreds of monks and civilians defied the threats and began fresh protests at the Shwedagon pagoda. On Monday, there were protests in at least 25 towns, with tens of thousands of people marching in Rangoon. Several military trucks are now parked near Shwedagon pagoda, which has been the focus of the protests. Eyewitnesses said several hundred monks gathered at...

20,000 march against Myanmar government About 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks demonstrated against Myanmar's military junta Sunday, in what has quickly become the largest anti-government demonstrations since the failed democratic uprising in 1988. The 10,000 monks marched from Yangon's famous Shwedagon Pagoda to the nearby Sule Pagoda before passing the U.S. Embassy, witnesses said. Monks shouted support for detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while the crowd of 10,000 protected them by forming a human chain along the route. It was the sixth straight day monks have marched in Yangon, and came a day after they were allowed...

Rangoon - Around 20,000 people have taken to the streets of Burma's main city Rangoon in the biggest protests yet against the country's military junta. Around 10,000 Buddhist monks, who started the marches six days ago, were joined by an equal number of ordinary people. The monks have now started urging everyone to demonstrate against the country's military rulers. For the first time a number of nuns also turned out. On Saturday, the monks filed past the home of opposition leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest since 2003. Today the police did not allow them...

Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has greeted Buddhist monks protesting against the military junta. Apparently unable to hold her tears, Aung San Suu Kyi came out of the house she has been detained in since 2003 as the monks were let through a roadblock. At least 2,000 monks are staging a sixth day of protests through the streets of the main city of Rangoon. Up to 10,000 marched through Mandalay with protests also taking place in five townships across Burma. (snip) The area around University Avenue where Ms Suu Kyi's house is located has been closed to traffic...

10,000 protest against Myanmar gov't Myanmar police allowed a group of more than 500 Buddhist monks to march Saturday past the house where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is detained, witnesses said, on a day that saw some of the largest protests since 1988. A monk said in a speech later to anti-government protesters that Suu Kyi came to her gate to greet them. His account could not immediately be confirmed. Suu Kyi has been under detention continuously since May 2003 at her Yangon home, and for 11 of the past 18 years. The monks stopped briefly in front...

YANGON, Myanmar - About 10,000 Buddhist monks marched through Myanmar's central city of Mandalay on Saturday, witnesses said, in one of the largest demonstrations against the country's repressive military regime since a democratic uprising in 1988. Monks from various monasteries started their march in Mandalay — a hotbed for activist monks — while about 1,000 Buddhist monks began marching from Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda, the country's most revered shrine and a historic center for protest movements. From there, witnesses said, they planned to march to downtown Yangon, which is the nation's largest city. It was the fifth straight day the monks...

To be a "good" Muslim References -  'Palestinian' child abuse -  Evil 'Joy' -  'Blessing' Hitler -  Mourning the wicked -  Australia - Muslim land -  Jihad on all Buddhists -  Spain - Muslim land -  Europe - Muslim land -  Arabs DON'T care about 'Palestinians' -  72 virgins - Loyalty -  'Pallywood' -  (use of) Ambulances for terror -  (use of) Women for terror -  Human Shields -  Middle east background -  September 11 terror plot on London -  Myth on: 'Terrorists are desperate' -  Beheadings -  Ilan Halimi [an example of monsterous wild prolonged torture motivated by hate only] -  Muslims attacking Jews in France -  Ahmadinejad ' Islamic Hitler' -  Cutting -  'Honor killing' -  Jews & Christians as "Apes & Pigs"? - ...

PATTANI, Thailand (Reuters) - A bomb hidden under a bench in front of a food shop killed one person and wounded 10 others in Thailand's Muslim south on Saturday, police said. The remote-controlled device exploded while Buddhist Thais were waiting to give food to monks in the town of Pattani in one of three southernmost provinces where more than 2,500 people have been killed in violence since 2004, police said. Two civilians were seriously wounded while the shop owner was killed, police said. Monks and the soldiers escorting them were also among the wounded. Nobody claims responsibility for the daily...

PATERSON - A New York sect of Amitabha Buddhists bought hundreds of eels, frogs and turtles in Chinatown to set them free in the Passaic River, hoping they would not only survive but also realize their karmic potential. Saving the animals, though, did not do anything for the karma of the state Department of Environmental Protection. DEP pfficials say the Buddhists did not have a permit and may be subject to fines up to $1,000. Releasing critters into the wild takes a permit - and because of fears of harm being done by nonnative species, New Jersey is reluctant to...

In China he is a symbol of health and happiness. But tell that to the politically correct council officer who objected to a restaurant being called Fat Buddha...because it might offend Buddhists A Buddhist businessman who wants to call his Chinese restaurant Fat Buddha has angered council chiefs - who claim the name will upset Buddhists. Eddie Fung's £1.3million restaurant will open in Durham next month, creating 60 jobs. But the restaurateur was astonished when Tracey Ingle, the city council's head of cultural services, demanded he change the name because it was 'provocative'. Mr Fung, 39, said: "I cannot believe...

NARATHIWAT - An elderly Buddhist man was shot dead and his body set on fire Sunday in Thailand's restive south, police said, days after a similar incident provoked angry protests. The 70-year-old man was attacked by suspected Islamic militants as he drove his motorbike home from a market in Narathiwat, one of three Muslim-majority southern provinces beset by a separatist insurgency. The attackers shot the man three times in the head and torso, before setting his body on fire. Passers-by were able to rescue the corpse before it was badly burned, a local police officer said. A 26-year-old Buddhist woman...

Suspected Muslim insurgents opened fire on nine Buddhists who were riding in a commuter van in Thailand's restive south Wednesday, killing all of them execution-style... The attack prompted officials to step up security in the south, where a Muslim insurgency has claimed more than 2,000 lives since 2004. Suspected insurgents bombed the van as it slowed into a curve in the road, which they also had blocked with a large tree trunk, said police Lt. Kitti Mankhong, a duty officer in the Yaha district of Yala province, where the attack occurred. Armed with assault rifles, the attackers first shot at...

Five Buddhists have been killed in shootings throughout Thailand's Muslim-majority south, where Islamic separatists have battled the government for three years, police said Sunday. A Buddhist couple was killed late Saturday in a drive-by shooting as they returned home from market ... Some 2,000 people have been killed in restive south since the violence erupted in 2004 along this mainly Buddhist country's southern border with Malaysia. Violence has recently escalated in the region despite a raft of peace-building measures proposed by Thailand's military-backed government.

Islamic separatists could stage more "terrorist" attacks, Thailand has warned, after nine people were killed in overnight strikes as many Thais began celebrating the Lunar New Year. Thailand's army chief of staff said the insurgents, who have battled the government for three years in Muslim-majority provinces of southern Thailand, could try to stage new attacks during upcoming Buddhist holidays. "The violence may increase, and it will be the same kind of terrorist tactics," General Montri Sangkasap told reporters Monday after an emergency security meeting in Bangkok. Thailand's junta chief, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, and Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont had summoned military...

Wednesday morning saw an audacious bombing that appeared to target the beloved Crown Princess of Thailand, Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who is visiting Thailand’s restive southern provinces. The bomb was placed near her helicopter’s landing pad. A security patrol that was sweeping the area, discovered the cell-phone detonated IED... While Bangkok is still abuzz over whodunit over the New Year’s Eve bombings, the southern insurgency continues to escalate. The level of killing has gone up to over two people a day, minor by Iraqi standards, but still the most lethal conflict in Southeast Asia, bar none; and it has the potential...

You have a problem. It’s a problem shared by Jews in Hebron, Serbs in Kosovo, Hindus in the Kashmir, Catholics in Lebanon, and Americans walking the streets of New York. Consider the inter-connectedness of the following incidents, all of which took place in the past few months: In Indonesia, three Christian schoolgirls were beheaded. In Iraq, a Syrian Orthodox priest was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. In Somalia, a nun was shot to death as she left the hospital where she worked, tending the sick and dying. In Lebanon, just days ago, a cabinet minister was assassinated. In Britain, authorities uncovered...

Islamic militants today shot dead four Buddhists in two separate attacks in Thailand's mainly Muslim south, where an insurgency has raged for more than two years... In one attack, two teenagers in Islamic students' dress and riding a motorcycle, shot and killed three Buddhists in Yala... “The militants exploited the fact that the men were shopping at a grocery store and could not defend themselves, even though they had a gun,” police Colonel Somsak Wannawak said. Earlier a militant shot dead a Buddhist man in Pattani province while he was riding a bus... More than 1400 people have died in...

Somalia is officially an Islamic state and conversion is prohibited. The country has a population of approximately 8.3 million, nearly all of them Sunni Muslims. There is a small, extremely low-profile Christian community. According to the International Religious Freedom Report 2006 issued by the US State Department last Friday, proselytizing for any religion except Islam is prohibited in Puntland and Somaliland and effectively blocked by informal social consensus elsewhere in the country. Somalia has had no government since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991. The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which grew out of individual courts' efforts to establish...

WASHINGTON - The United States on Friday classified six Asian countries as religious freedom violators, aside from China, Myanmar, North Korea and Vietnam already blacklisted as worst offenders in the region. Afghanistan, Brunei, India, Laos, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were included in a ‘significant’ list of violators of religious freedom in the US State Department’s annual International Religious Freedom Report 2006. John Hanford, US envoy for international religious freedom, said there was a possibility that one or more from the six nations could be added to a blacklist of ‘countries of particular concern’ that includes China, Myanmar, North Korea and...

(JHR) Ted Kennedy and his fellow liberal socialists in Massachusetts must be breaking out their fat cigars as they hoot and holler over the absolute mockery that California Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his leftist Democrat wife, Maria Shriver, are making of the California GOP. What liberal Democrats could not accomplish through the failed leadership of ousted Democratic Governor Gray Davis, they have certainly accomplished through the great conservative betrayal of Team Shriver-Schwarzenegger. Both Shriver and Schwarzenegger have each hired homosexuals to be their respective chiefs of staff. Both have taken blood oaths to promote the radical elements of the...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (Reuters) -- A scuffle broke out Thursday between saffron-robed monks and anti-war demonstrators at peace rally in Sri Lankan capital. About six or seven monks from a right-wing Buddhist faction had stormed the stage during a peace rally attended by about 1,000 people in the capital, Colombo, shouting pro-war slogans, an AP reporter at the scene said. A member of Sri Lanka's parliament was addressing the crowd when the monks climbed on stage.

I am a retired university administrator and faculty member, a lifelong Methodist (now United Methodist), a clergy wife, a mother and a grandmother. At this age I had imagined that I would be happily treasuring traditional Christian views, following the well-worn path to the church, and participating in all the usual “keep-’em-busy-and-involved” church activities. Here I am at 78 raising more questions about the Christian faith than ever before. I am offended by the continued use of sexist language and bored by the endless rehearsal of our ancient doctrines. I can no longer think like a first century Christian, the...

Sri Lankan Sinhala soldiers who were removed from Muttur Town by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had launched bomb attacks on the St. Anthony's Church where more than 600 Tamils have taken refuge, local sources said. Three people were killed and the other hundreds escaped by a hairline, sources added. Buddhist Butchers had in the past bombed St. Peter's Church in Jaffna killing hundreds, massacred hundreds at the Holy Madhu Church and recently murdered five people at the island?s largest church located in Pesalai, Mannar.

It's been nearly a month since Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakahan blamed "Zionists and neo-cons" for "manipulating" President Bush into invading Iraq - before blasting "wicked Jews" in Hollywood for promoting "lesbianism [and] homosexuality." Yet, outside of a few newspapers in Chicago, the same press that showers positive coverage on Farrakhan's Million Man marches has yet to get around to covering his Feb. 26 Saviours Day speech. "These neo-cons and Zionists have manipulated Bush and the American government and our boys and girls are dying in Iraq and in Afghanistan for the cause of Israel, not for the cause...

Ladakhis are not used to this: religious tension, clamping of curfew and the army marching through the place better known for its Buddhist chants, prayer flags fluttering between mountains and the arid, pristine moonscape. Old timers say Ladakh has not seen communal tension since the 1970s when Buddhists and Muslims went for each other's throat over minor incidents. This time, as the world burns in the Prophet cartoon row, the division between the two communities happened over the reported desecration of the Holy Koran in Bodh Kharbu. The picturesque village, which is mainly populated by Buddhists, is located in the...

"We have mentioned previously that the contemporary world now consists of three camps: Judeoamerica (with Britain), the Muslim world, and the indifferent rest of the world which does not want to go to war over the Middle East. Culturally, Judeoamerica in fact includes most of Western Europe (and increasing numbers of Eastern Europeans). The culture of Judeoamerica since the 1960s has been shaped by hedonism and by the belief that wisdom (or its modern equivalent: “satisfaction”) derives solely from experience and from physical stimuli such as wealth, power, sex, the violation of traditional taboos, altered states of mind, etc. The...

Although I am interested in exemptions made for people of all faiths, I am particularly interested in exemptions that have been made for non-Christians.

An elderly Buddhist man has been beheaded and two other Buddhist men shot dead by suspected Islamic insurgents in separate attacks in Thailand's southern provinces, police said today. The grisly death of 66-year-old Song Fangpetch, whose headless body was found early this morning in Pattani province's Mayo district, brings to 15 the number of people decapitated in 21 months of unrest. Song was attacked while taking his cattle to a field in nearby Panare district and a note left on his body, police said. "He was slashed with a sharp knife probably at 6:00 am and people found his body...

KETCHUM, Idaho -- The symbolism of the Dalai Lama's Idaho trip was on display during a Monday address to 350 American business and political leaders: The spiritual guide for 20 million Tibetan Buddhists, perched on a stage 5,800 feet up in the Sawtooth Range, giving advice to a flock who'd traveled long distances looking for answers. In a distinctly Sun Valley twist on this "Going to the mountain to see the holy man" tale, some of them had parked their private jets - the pilgrimage vehicle of choice - at the airport in Hailey just south on State Highway 75....

In an apparent show of defiance against the insurgency in the deep South, Buddhist residents of Narathiwat yesterday evening participated in wian thian ceremonies at temples across the Muslim-majority province.Narathiwat Governor Pracha Tayrat said most Buddhist temples in the southern border province organised triple, clockwise circumambulations at 7pm to mark Asanha Puja Day yesterday. Earlier this year, locals in the deep South held two similar vigil walks - to commemorate Visakha Puja and Makha Puja days - in daylight for security reasons in the violence-plagued provinces, where random attacks routinely take the lives of civilians. Wat Khao Kong in Muang...

Bangkok - The bodies of a Buddhist couple were found shot and nearly decapitated on Friday in restive southern Thailand, adding to the five other beheadings in the past three weeks, police said. Jad Suwanchatree, 52, a defence volunteer in Muang district of Yala province, and his wife Serm, 51, were riding their motorcycle to tap rubber from a plantation when they were killed. "As Jad stopped his motorcycle to remove wood which blocked the road, he was shot and slashed in his neck, as was his wife," police in Yala said. "Their heads were not totally separated from their...

Beheadings 'aim to force out Thai Buddhists' By Sebastien Berger in Bangkok (Filed: 24/06/2005) Islamist militants in southern Thailand are trying to terrify Buddhist residents into fleeing, its prime minister said yesterday after a man was publicly beheaded. The murder of Lek Pongpla, 34, in Narathiwat province was the fifth beheading in a fortnight and the first to be carried out before a witness. Two men arrived on a motorcycle at the teashop in Cho-Ai-Rong, and one shot the victim in the back before decapitating him and putting the head into a fertiliser sack. The men fled and the sack...

Silly me. With so much to know about in the world, I didn't know that there are Moslems in Thailand, but there are, and some of them are busy (guess what?) capturing and beheading innocent Buddhists. The Koranic command to "strike off the heads of unbelievers, wherever you find them," remains potent and effective in the souls of Moslem believers 1,400 years after Muhammad wrote it down. So let's get serious. Not just the Western world, but the whole non-Moslem world must form a working alliance (not a civilizational or spiritual alliance, I'm not talking globaloney), renounce forever the easy...

Newsweek magazine published a scoop last week. Based on an unnamed source, Newsweek informed the world that American interrogators of suspected Islamic terrorists at Guantanamo Bay had flushed pages of the Koran down a toilet. If this were true, the interrogators would be both morally wrong and stupid. The words of the Koran and the pages on which they are written are considered intrinsically holy to Muslims. As it happens, it was not true. Like Dan Rather and CBS News, Newsweek put politics and craving a scoop ahead of truth, not to mention ahead of America's security. As I said...