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An air unit formed in the days when pilots were considered knights and gentlemanly combat ruled the sky has been stripped of its historical nickname after fears it could be offensive to Muslim communities. The Royal Air Force’s 14 Squadron was forced to drop the “Crusader” title after an official complaint was filed against the unit. According to a news report, a single complaint sparked a campaign against the nickname. Aviators and crewmen were told to remove all instances of the name around their hangars. “We have to take down every mention of Crusaders from our base,” one aviator told...

The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts announced its decision Saturday about whether to keep Crusader as its mascot and nickname or ditch it so as not to offend Muslims.

The College of the Holy Cross is mulling whether to shed its century-old sports symbol the "Crusader" out of concerns the image of a Christian warrior might be offensive to Muslims.

Just after last week’s terrorist attack in Barcelona, a pro-Islamic State website posted video from the scene along with a message in Arabic saying, “Terror is filling the hearts of the Crusader in the Land of Andalusia.” Let’s unpack that. “Crusader” is a term jihadists use, pejoratively, for Christians. More specifically, of course, it refers to the Christian soldiers who fought a series of wars, beginning in 1095, to recover Jerusalem and other parts of the Holy Land from the Muslim armies that had burst out of Arabia four centuries earlier. Andalusia indicates the territories of the Iberian Peninsula that...

A man suspected of gunning down an imam and his friend as they left a New York City mosque was arrested and charged with murder late Monday night, police said. Police have yet to release a motive behind the killings. ADVERTISEMENT Oscar Morel, 35, was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the Saturday afternoon executions of Imam Maulana Alauddin Akonjee and Thara Uddin near the Al-Fuquan Jame Masjid mosque in the Ozone Park neighborhood of Queens. Morel was taken into custody late Sunday night outside a Brooklyn apartment as...

AR-15 comes with Bible verse and Knight's Templar Cross etching; Council on American-Islamic Relations of Florida condemns the rifle. A Florida gun maker has created an "ISIS-proof" assault rifle that has raised the ire of Muslim groups. Designed so Islamic State militants "could not touch it," the AR-15, made by Spike's Tactical in Apopka, is inscribed with the biblical verse, “Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle" (Pslams 144:1). It is also etched with a Knight's Templar Long Cross - a Christian Crusader symbol. The rifle's safety selector has three settings:...

A gun manufacturer in Florida has designed an assault rifle featuring Christian symbols - in the hope it will never be used by 'Muslim terrorists'. Muslim groups have condemned the divisive gun, which they suggest will be bought by 'Christian terrorists'.

Heidi Mund, an atheist-turned-Christian, has gained global notoriety for standing up to Islam's creeping influence in her homeland, Germany. Now she's revealing why.

Much of America is excited about the MLK movie titled “Selma”; however, there is discussion, debate, and some say distortion, if not dishonesty, about the role Lyndon Johnson played in some of King’s activities, especially the 54-mile march from Selma to the Alabama capital of Montgomery that led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Let me state clearly that I have little to no respect for Johnson or King and I’ve made that judgment based on their lives, not because Johnson was a Democrat and King was a Black. One’s political party or one’s race is...

A huge building which during the Crusader period was the largest hospital in the Middle East has been discovered in the heart of Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced on Monday. Located in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, the 1,000-year-old hospital was identified following a decade-long reconstruction operation. “Until a decade or so ago the building served as a bustling and crowded fruit and vegetable market. Since then it stood there desolate,” the IAA said in a statement. According to Renee Forestany and Amit Re’em, the IAA excavation directors, the structure, only a small part...

With tensions at an all time high in Afghanistan following the Koran burnings, the urination video, and the killing of 16 civilians attention is now falling on a long line of "Infidel" apparel and gear. Exhausted from how they feel they're being perceived, troops have taken to wearing patches and carrying items that label themselves infidels and offer translation in local dialect. In the Muslim world an infidel means literally "one without faith" who rejects the central teachings of Islam. Military.com tracked down Clayton Montgomery at Mil-Spec Monkey, a large online seller of infidel gear, who says his most popular...

Riyadh, 2 April (AKI) - Swiss football referee Massimo Busacca vowed he would wear a whistle with the Swiss Cross symbol on it during of the Saudi championship on Wednesday, despite anger voiced in the Kingdom at the 'crusader' item. "I have respect for all religions, including Islam, but I don't see anything offensive in this and am optimistic. I will not give up my 'crusader' whistle," he told pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat. Many in Saudi Arabia had called for Busacca to sport a different whistle to avoid offending Muslims. He has previously refereed several soccer matches in the Kingdom....

Afghan Taliban militants have branded the reprinting of a satirical cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers and a film on the Koran by a Dutch politician as part of a "Crusader war" against Muslims. The Islamic movement, which is leading an insurgency in Afghanistan against Afghan and foreign troops led by NATO and the United States, also called for aid for the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel. "We see the publication of cartoons and insult of the Holy Koran as part of the Crusaders' war," the Taliban said in a statement posted on the group's Web site....

HARACTER COUNTS; some- times it counts in the count. In Florida, Arizona Sen. John McCain yesterday won the Republican primary, overcoming big disadvantages favoring former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. What disadvantages? Let us, well, count. Mr. Romney built a huge campaign apparatus in Florida over the last year, while Mr. McCain, since his campaign nearly expired last summer, was able to do very little organizationally in the Sunshine State. Many Floridians voted early--before Mr. McCain picked up the endorsements of Florida U.S. Sen. Mel Marinez and the state's governor, John Crist (to say nothing of Sly Stallone). The number of...

From Kengor,p.205 During his first three years in office and particularly since the spring of 1983, Ronald Reagan had pushed a plan to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs), also known as Pershing II's , in Western Europe. His goal was to prompt the Soviets to remove their medium-range nuclear missiles from Eastern Europe. He told Yuri Andropov that if the Kremlin removed its missiles, there would be no need for the United States to deploy INFs. Reagan called this the zero-zero option: he wanted both sides to slash INFs to zero levels. If Andropov would not agree to do this,...

According to the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia, the Spanish football club Barcelona is altering its famous badge in some Arab countries in order to avoid offending Muslims. The badge is especially altered in Saudi Arabia or Algeria, where the Barcelona shirts are being sold without the red cross of Saint George, the patron saint of the Catalan region which Barca claims to represent, the La Vanguardia newspaper found in a private investigation. The badge, which was created in 1906, features a single vertical red line in Saudi Arabia and Algeria, due to the fact that there, the red cross represents...

Turkey is unlikely to join the EU for at least 15 years Turkey finally began talks on joining the European Union in October 2005, more than 40 years after it first began to woo the emerging bloc. Now it seems that things are already going wrong. What are the main problems? More generally, what are the main arguments for and against Turkish membership of the EU, and how does the accession process work? Why is Turkey's EU membership bid in trouble? There are two issues. TURKISH MARATHON 1959 - Turkey applies for associate membership of EEC 1963 - Association...

NEW DELHI (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI's attack on Islam has stirred anger in India with the head of the National Commission for Minorities saying he sounded like a medieval crusader. Pope Benedict provoked worldwide outcry with comments Tuesday during a visit to his native Germany in which he talked about the "issue of jihad, holy war", a term used by Islamic extremists to justify acts of terror. "The language used by the pope sounds like that of his 12th-century counterpart who ordered the crusades," said Hamid Ansari, chairman of the influential National Commission for Minorities. The commission's role includes...

PARIS (Reuters) - Deputy al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has urged a militant Algerian Islamist group to punish "Crusader nation" France, even though it vehemently opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, a newspaper said on Thursday. The Le Figaro daily cited a security expert who had reviewed the entire tape, released on Monday, in which Zawahiri called on the Algerian GSPC group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders". He also urged the GSPC -- the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat -- to sow fear "in the hearts of the traitors and the apostate...

Nationally known anti-tax crusader George Henry "Nick" Jesson will serve 27 months in prison for tax fraud, a judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson on Monday also ordered Jesson, 55, to pay $215,454 in restitution to the federal government. The Fountain Valley resident, who ran for California governor in 2002, was taken into custody after his sentencing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra Brown said she believes the sentence was "wholly appropriate" and would deter others from considering anti-tax protests. Jesson's wife, Trina Thi Vu, declined to comment after the sentencing, as did her attorney, citing pending state tax charges...