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Rosaria spoke for 35 minutes and then fielded questions from the audience for another hour and a half. While she received many challenging questions from opposing viewpoints, the audience was mostly very respectful of her and her time. In short, the Gospel was clearly proclaimed both in her lecture and during Q&A. Even several from USF’s administration told how thankful they were for her lecture and for how smoothly the whole event ran. As I reflect on the events of the past week, especially the past 48 hours, it is difficult to express all that the Lord has done through...

Islamic SocialismFrom the CIA factbook: Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI began to espouse his own political system, the Third Universal Theory. The system was a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and was supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy.[1] The "Green Book" - Arabism, Islam & socialism, with Islam the main line Author John L. Esposito: Under Qaddafi three interrelated ideas were woven into Libya's ideological identity: Pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islam. Qaddafi's appeals to Islam were influenced by his...

The rampages of the Revolutionary United Forces (RUF) militia in Sierra Leone in the late 1990s involved the widespread brainwashing of child soldiers,

Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers. Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. And the fact that all three governments support the Revolutionary Armed...

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Russian dubbed the "Merchant of Death" for allegedly supplying weapons to Africa's bloody conflicts over power and diamonds was arrested Thursday in Thailand on suspicion of conspiring to smuggle guns to Colombia's leftist rebels. Viktor Bout, 41, whose dealings reportedly inspired a 2005 movie about the illicit arms trade, was arrested at U.S. request in his hotel room in Bangkok, said police Lt. Gen. Pongpat Chayapan. Bout had eluded arrest for years and was finally seized after a four-month sting organized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In New York, federal authorities unsealed a criminal complaint...

“An entire nation condemned one of the biggest major sports figures of the modern era for abusing and killing dogs in a dogfighting ring, and he was eventually sent to jail, putting his future livelihood in jeopardy. Yet when an unborn child is aborted, the cries of protest are limited to a few brave souls”

The president of the Reformed University Fellowship says the university wasn't specific about why the group was suspended in the first place. PROVIDENCE -- Brown University yesterday offered an olive branch to an evangelical religious group that had been banned from advertising or meeting on campus, saying the Reformed University Fellowship can be reinstated as an official campus religious group by following a set of rules laid down for other campus organizations. "Brown University has a long tradition of respecting the right of every student to practice his or her faith," Michael Chapman, university vice president for public affairs, said...

Leaders of a conservative Christian student fellowship suspended from using campus resources at Brown University are wondering whether they were singled out for their beliefs and are pressing school officials to explain the punishment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Leaders of a conservative Christian student fellowship suspended from using campus resources at Brown University are wondering whether they were singled out for their beliefs and are pressing school officials to explain the punishment. Brown University has not publicly explained why it suspended the Reformed University Fellowship, which is allied with the conservative Presbyterian Church in America, as an official student...

The US is stepping up its anti-terrorist efforts in west Africa amid continuing controversy over alleged links between al-Qaeda and the smuggling of Sierra Leonean diamonds through Liberia. Washington has begun looking more closely at terrorist financing in a region where the US military is increasingly active in efforts to disrupt terrorist networks, according to government officials and a leading Congressman. A US Congressional panel on the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks concluded this month there was "no persuasive evidence" that al-Qaeda funded itself through trafficking in diamonds from African states experiencing civil wars. But a US government official covering...

Angry Sierra Leoneans jeer Sankoh's body August 02, 2003, 09:27 PM Hundreds of angry Sierra Leoneans turned out in the capital Freetown today to jeer the body of former rebel leader Foday Sankoh, a man reviled for launching one of Africa's most horrific wars. "Take his body to hell or give it to us, the crowd, to burn his body to ashes," shouted Dowu Johnson, a woman in the crowd. The former warlord, who had been indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed court investigating atrocities during the West African nation's decade-long civil war, died in hospital on Tuesday. His...

Editor's note: Readers may be interested in two related stories: "Invested in Terrorism" and "BBC: U.S. Damned if it does and damned if it doesn't". -ALJ Douglas Farah uncovered the story of al-Qaeda's involvement in West Africa's diamond smuggling while reporting on Africa for the Washington Post, which he described in Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror (New York: Broadway, 2004). Mr. Farah, now a consultant, freelance writer on terror finance and national security matters, and a senior fellow at the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence, addressed the Middle East Forum in New York City on...

Name the following despot: In 1991, he invaded a neighboring country, where his men committed wholesale looting and massive atrocities. In 1998, he personally met with a senior Al Qaeda operative now listed as one of the FBI's 25 "Most Wanted" terrorists. He is the single greatest threat to the stability of one of the most important oil-producing regions in the world. Saddam Hussein? No, Charles Taylor of Liberia. If the Bush administration decides to send a peacekeeping force to Liberia, in other words, it will be safeguarding not only humanitarian concerns but national security ones as well. Yet, even...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Arrest of Kenyan Exposes Massive Global Arms Trade The East African Africa News February 25, 2002 Monday Kenya L AST WEEKEND'S arrest of Kenyan-born Sanjivan Ruprah, who is alleged to be a part of a major arms smuggling operation to Africa, has brought into the open the extent of the multi-million dollar illegal business. The whereabouts of Bout remain unknown. Some media reports say he is in Moscow, while others say he is in the Congo or the United Arab Emirates. An international ...