A Muslim girl in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia cannot skip co-ed swimming lessons because of religious prohibitions against wearing formfitting clothing, a German court ruled on Wednesday. The administrative court in Düsseldorf ruled that the state’s responsibility to educate the girl outweighed the potential infringement on her religious freedom. The 12-year-old girl’s parents... 

Faced with an alarming incidence of HIV/AIDS among African Americans and Latinos, the nation urgently needs to begin a domestic program to curb the spread of the disease, according to a nationally recognized AIDS policy expert. “It’s not on the radar screen. There are not enough voices being raised,” said Dr. Beny J. Primm, executive director of the Addiction Research and Treatment... 

BRUSSELS , May 5: The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, underlined here Monday that Islam is part and parcel of Europe and he also condemned the concept of clash of civilisations. “Islam today is part of Europe. It is important to understand this.One should not see Islam as outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims among our citizens,”... 

The new mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, a former fascist, has launched a campaign to promote Italian films at the expense of those featuring Hollywood stars such as Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio, who are to be blacklisted. American actors who flocked to Rome for its film festival will no longer be invited, on the orders of Alemanno, 50, of the National Alliance party, who last week became the... 

Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday. The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as... 

  Hispanics now account for more than 15% of the U.S. population, and their surge is largely the result of births among people already in the country, according to new Census Bureau data. In an annual report, the Census said there are 45.5 million Hispanics in the U.S., up from 35.7 million in 2000, when they made up 12.6% of the population. It said growth among Hispanics was responsible for... 

SHANGHAI — China said Wednesday that it had broken up a child labor ring that forced children from poor, inland areas to work in booming coastal cities, acknowledging that severe labor abuses extended into the heart of its export economy. Authorities in southern China’s Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, said they had made several arrests and had already “rescued” more than 100 children from... 

Teenager beaten-up in park A mother has condemned young thugs who robbed and beat her teenage son and left him naked in a park. David Procter, 16, was forced to strip and hand over jewellery and his mobile phone, before being viciously punched and kicked in the head and body. His three attackers also set two dogs on him and he was bitten on the ear. The youngster, who suffers from asthma, was... 

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft. Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts... 

An Iraqi man granted asylum in Denmark after working as an interpreter for Danish troops has been told he must choose between the two wives he brought with him. “We gave him until May 26 to divorce one of his two wives, otherwise we will take the necessary measures to put an end to this situation of bigamy, which is illegal in Denmark,” Malene Vestergaard of the Justice Ministry’s... 

  A father has described his anger after he and his son were refused entry to their local swimming pool because they weren’t Muslims. David Toube and Harry, five, were turned away by staff from the men-only session. The council has now admitted that workers at Clissold Leisure Centre in Hackney, north London, made a mistake and offered the family an apology.   Mr Toube, 39, a lawyer,... 

The U.S. State Dept.’s Office of Global Anti-Semitism now says the New Testament is a book of conspiracy theory! Yes, our government now rules that the Biblical record that Jews had Christ crucified is not only anti-Semitic; it’s conspiracy junk. This step toward criminalization of Christian beliefs directly threatens believers. It is also an act of blatant hypocrisy: While the New Testament... 

For those of you who may have missed it we were informed yesterday that a St. George’s Day parade in Bradford has been effectively banned. The official reason given is to do with “health and safety” and the ”cost of policing” – the real reason is obvious to all from reading media reports. One of which begins: “A St George’s Day parade through an inner-city area hit by race riots has... 

In Germany, Islam is often equated with fundamentalism and fanaticism, a perception that imposes a heavy burden on the country’s 3 million Muslims. Their relationship to Western society is divided between integration and sometimes self-imposed exclusion. Friday prayers: Hamburg’s central mosque in the St. Georg neighborhood is the most important gathering place for the city’s estimated... 

Islam teacher Suhayb Salam from Tilburg, taught his students to hate infidels, according ot journalist Patrick Pouw in his book “Salaam! Een jaar onder orthodoxe moslims” (Salam! A year among orthodox Muslims). Suhayb is the son of Tilburg imam Ahmed Salam, who had in the past refused to shake minister Verdonk’s hand. For a year Pouw learned by the ultra-orthodox Salafist Salam,...