The father is an integral part of the family. Traditional family values have always maintained this and few would doubt that a father figure is a positive thing for children. Experts say that within the next decade, the number of unconventional families will outnumber "traditional" ones. More and more, research shows that we may be heading in a bad direction.

Children growing up without the stability of a two-parent home are much more at risk than their peers. Needless to say, there are always exceptions, but certainly life without Daddy stacks the odds against the kids. Drug abuse, emotional and health problems, academic troubles and anger - children growing up without their father are increasingly susceptible to all these and more. Following are research results pointing out the pitfalls of households with inattentive or absent fathers:

When John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard published a report highlighting the efficacy of the Israeli lobby in molding US domestic and foreign policy, charges of malpractice and academic dishonesty were leveled at the authors.

Their paper, "The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy," cited the organizational prowess of pro-Israel groups in marrying the media, think tanks, and numerous politicians into a unified front that muzzles criticism of the Jewish State.

However, in the vitriol exchanged by supporters and detractors of the paper, an illuminating section is overlooked.

Mearsheimer and Walt, in comparing the existence of the Israeli lobby to the likelihood of the existence of a similar Muslim or Arab grouping, say "pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israeli lobby's task even easier."

Although there is no national consensus data on the number of Muslims in the United States, estimates put the figure between six and seven million, equal to the number of Jews in the country. Each religious group accounts for two percent of the US population. While the global population of Jews is some 15 million, there are nearly 1.2 billion Muslims in the world.

by Suhaib Webb
Assalamu `alaykum,

Today, we received news that Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi was removed from his position at the NGO that funds IslamOnline (IOL). For those of you who have not heard, IslamOnline is a website that is world-renowned for tackling issues in a moderate, balanced way, and is a forum for diverse views. In the [...]

Mixed messages, plenty of innuendo and a secret conspiracy ending in a bloody coupe...and I’m not even close to talking about a Shakespearean play. Rather I’m talking about a street-style shakedown over at Islam Online (IOL), gangsta’ style, which has sent the most popular Islamic website in the world into a tailspin of uncertainty...a similar kind of treachery that left Julius Caesar lying in a bloody clump on the floor.

LAGOS – Nigeria had long been plagued by problems associated ethno-religious and political backgrounds going centuries before its British colonizers brought the Hausa-speaking people of the North into a union with the equally diverse peoples of the South through the 1914 Amalgamation.

KANDAHAR – A series of coordinated Taliban attacks in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that killed dozens are a message to the US-led foreign troops before a planned NATO offensive in the city.

Denying military help to the Somali government against militants, the Obama administration has said it has no intention to “Americanize” the conflict in the Horn of African country...

LASHKAR GAH — Mohammad Khan and his family left their home in Marjah, in the southern Helmand province, because of the military onslaught against Taliban fighters reportedly hiding in the area.

The widely read and influential Islamic news website Islam Online was on the brink of collapse yesterday after a mass walkout and strike in its Cairo-based newsroom.

More than 300 employees of the site, which is run by a Qatar-based religious non-governmental organization, were negotiating a severance deal that could gut the website’s staff.

“By Sunday there probably won’t be an Islam Online. It will be an empty building,” a striking employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

CAIRO – Al-Hasan Muhtaseb, 13, and his brother Amir,10, were returning from their aunt’s house in the West Bank town of Al-Khalil (Hebron) when they were stopped by Israeli occupation force on 27 February.