Powell optimistic on Sudan | Secretary of State sits in on peace talks. He says he sees a final agreement within reach and urges the two sides to sign an accord by the year's end (Los Angeles Times)
Powell tries to nudge Sudan toward peace | Secretary of State Colin L. Powell suggested that the U.S. would lift sanctions if Sudan reached a peace accord and acted further against terrorism (The New York Times)
Religious freedom:
China Christian church activist detained | Liu Fenggang, 43, was detained on Oct. 13 in the city of Hangzhou while visiting with leaders of the destroyed churches who had just been released from almost two months in detention (Associated Press)
Congress concerned over religious freedoms in Iraq | Conservative Republican lawmakers in Congress worry that the Muslim-dominated country will shed its secular history and officially turn into an Islamic state, complete with a constitution that says Islam is its national religion (Knight Ridder)
All they wanted was a simple cross | The structure occupies a portion of St Anthony's Street and is on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's hitlist of illegal religious shrines to be demolished following a recent Bombay High Court order. (New Indian Press)
Pledge of Allegiance:
Case involving pledge should be easy for justices to decide | Scalia's recusal likely means that the court's interest in the standing question will wane and that the justices will reach the substantive question of whether having students recite the pledge is unconstitutional (Terry Eastland, The Dallas Morning News)
"Under God" | The history of a phrase (James Piereson, The Weekly Standard)
One atheist, underwhelmed | Overturning the pledge seems certain to make atheists even less popular than they already are, while distracting attention from the far more troubling entanglements of church and state that have emerged under the Bush administration. (by Chris Mooney, Washington Post)
High court must not be pressured | The Supreme Court should affirm the 9th Circuit's decision and hold that it is not for the government to encourage students to express a religious belief. (Erwin Chemerinsky, Hampshire Gazette, Mass.)
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