Dick Cheney, the US vice president, has said that Washington will not pressure Israel to take steps that will threaten its security and expressed hope for a "new beginning" for the Palestinian people in their own state.

Now hold your horses, this is all quite unnecessary, and just let me try to pacify you, as the morbid saying goes…..once upon a time.....there was a TV box in a Muslim house, and the TV box was very beautiful, that displayed images of splendor, in fact it was rather ordinary, a common box, but such a powerful box, that no one could deny its power to spellbind and transfix whoever dared to stare at it long enough).

In just ten days The Muslims Writers Awards are coming to Birmingham. With guests from all over the world and writers of all calibre on the judging panel, this is no small event. The Muslim Writers Project originated in April 2006 to encourage Muslims to write more. This is a unique opportunity for Muslims to put their views across and write about what’s important to them. It is too easy to let Muslim MPs and mosque leaders talk for you. Be your own spokesperson.

It has been a war of lies from the start. All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since the First World War. The outcome has been an official picture of Iraq akin to fantasy and an inability to learn from mistakes because of a refusal to admit that any occurred. Yet the war began with just such a mistake. Five years ago, on the evening of 19 March 2003, President George Bush appeared on American television to say that military action had started against Iraq.

"War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." This was a summation verdict issued at The International Tribunal at Nuremburg that convicted the leaders of the Third Reich for their crimes committed during the Second World War. 60 years on and these words still apply.

OXFORD, England - Famous for its university and quintessentially English "dreaming spires," the city of Oxford is in a controversy over the sound of Muslim call to prayer from a local mosque. Those church spires have been joined by a minaret, with a loudspeaker on top which has triggered protests from some of the locals concerned about the influx of a foreign culture.

Former No 10 chief says Irish peace process showed link to enemy needed. Western governments must talk to terror groups including al-Qaida and the Taliban if they hope to secure a long-term halt to their campaigns of violence, according to the man who for more than a decade was Tony Blair's most influential aide and adviser.

Jason Leopold examines the case of a United States Navy chaplain, Lieutenant Commander Brian K. Waite, who has been accused of abusing his position to promote right-wing evangelical Christianity within the US military: "Waite is the author of Islam Uncovered, which holds that the Muslim faith is itself culpable for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Military.com reported. 'Undoubtedly our world will experience additional terrorist attempts or strikes all in the name of Allah.

Israeli fighter jets have hit targets in the northern Gaza Strip after a dozen rockets were fired towards southern Israel, the Israeli military says. Thursday's developments effectively ended a tacit truce respected by both sides since March 8, and came a day after the deaths of several Palestinian fighters at the hands of Israeli forces. Despite the fact, that on Wednseday the former PM Ismail Haniya called for an end to Israeli military operations in Gaza and the re-opening of its borders in return for halting rocket attacks.