Adam Taylor (World Vision): “We know this is a very tough financial time for Europe and for the United States, but we believe those leaders can still maintain those commitments and even increase them even in tough economic times, and it’s the right thing to do, it’s the moral thing to do.”

On Friday (May 18), prior to leaving for Camp David, President Obama announced a new international alliance to promote secure access to food and nutrition. The alliance will include public and private investments. The president called promoting food security “a moral imperative.” Also this weekend, Obama prepares to join international leaders at a NATO meeting in Chicago. On the agenda: allied troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

ICC Note:

Although a brief sum-up of recent harassment against Christians, this article touches on numerous human rights violations in Uzbekistan.

5/17/2012 Uzbekistan (VOM)- Police in Uzbekistan raided a home where Christians were meeting in the search for an alleged bomb, which was never found. Christian books and a laptop were confiscated, however, and 14 members of the church gathering in the home were fined for holding an “unsanctioned meeting in a private home.” Natalya Kim, who was hosting the meeting, received a fine equivalent to 60 times the minimum monthly salary in Uzbekistan.

In another incident, three Christians were fined for not declaring their personal Bibles while crossing the border from Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan, and the Bibles were confiscated.

All religious literature in Uzbekistan is under tight, state censorship, and courts frequently order the destruction of religious literature. Some churches are standing against the unjust laws, and churches belonging to the Baptist Council of Churches refuse to register their churches with the state, since requiring registration is a violation of the international human rights agreements Uzbekistan has formally promised to implement.

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Dean Montgomery, members of the faculty, family, friends, and graduates: it’s an honor to be with you this morning. And let me start with some well-earned congratulations. Last weekend, on Mother’s Day, I was at the University of Kansas when my younger son received his Masters degree. So I know the hard work and effort that got you here today.

ICC Note:

When the “Arab Spring” began to touch Egypt we shouted loudly in press releases that this was a disaster for the Christians. The Brotherhood has money (from the Saudi’s et. al.), power, a national footprint, organization, and generally has their head screwed on tight politically. Given that, it was a forgone conclusion that  when they were  unleashed that they would  grab power. This article gives you a taste of their real motives (they’ve never changed) and just how dangerous they are. 

"We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi," the cleric, Safwat Hegazy, blared from his podium.

"The capital of the Caliphate and the United Arab States is Jerusalem, God willing," he added, as thousands cheered and waved the Brotherhood's green flag, chanting, "The people want to implement God's law."

On the campaign trail for the presidential election, now only nine days away, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken a sharp turn rightward, becoming bolder in saying it wants to bring a state where religion and Islamic law play a major role -- and insisting that it has the right to rule.

As a result, it has moved away from the more moderate face that it promoted since even before the fall of Hosni Mubarak 15 months ago. During campaigning for parliament elections late last year, the Brotherhood insisted that implementing Islamic law was not its immediate priority, instead speaking vaguely of an "Islamic background" to government. It also sought to assuage fears that it seeks to take over the country by promising to work with other, liberal factions.

Critics and former Brotherhood members say the greater assertiveness represents the 82-year-old group's true face, brought by hard-liners who over the past decades have squeezed out moderates and taken control of its leadership. Those hard-liners, the former members say, are more confrontational, more determined to impose Islamic strictures and less likely to share power with others.

Former members believe the group's turn comes out of frustration that the political power they have long dreamed of is slipping away from them. The Brotherhood emerged from the parliament elections as the biggest party in the legislature, a victory it touted as proof of its right to push through its agenda. But it has discovered that the parliament is largely powerless in the face of the ruling military's control.

Its initial candidate for president, Brotherhood deputy leader Khairat el-Shater, was disqualified from the race because of a Mubarak-era conviction. That forced them to turn to Morsi, seen as a weaker candidate. Morsi has struggled to rally religious voters behind him in the face of competition by Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, a more moderate Islamist, who has gained support from some of the ultraconservatives known as Salafis.

Morsi has lagged in polls, generally in fourth place in a field of 13 candidates for the May 23-24 first round of elections -- behind two former regime candidates and Abolfotoh. The poor showing is so surprising given the Brotherhood's electoral strength that many question the polls' accuracy.

Whatever the reasons, the group no longer tap-dances around questions of implementing Islamic Shariah law.

"We will not accept any alternative to Shariah ... The Quran is our constitution and it will always be so," Morsi told a crowd of supporters at a Cairo University rally.

In an interview with The Associated Press, el-Shater -- who appears alongside Morsi on the campaign trail so often that critics say he would be shadow president -- said laws must conform with Shariah. He said the Brotherhood would stipulate that officials tasked with reforming Egypt's economy, politics, media and other sectors also have religious expertise.

A string of recent moves by the Brotherhood to flex its power alienated moderates, even among its supporters, who felt it was going too far.

The group demanded the military allow it to form a government, even going so far as to freeze parliament for several days in protest when the generals refused. The Brotherhood and other Islamists tried to pack a panel tasked with writing the next constitution with their own followers -- only to have liberals on the panel revolt. A court disbanded the Islamist-dominated panel.

Tarek el-Bishri, a prominent former judge seen as sympathetic to the Brotherhood, washed his hands of the group in an article Friday.

"It is using its legislative power not to serve the national interest, but to serve the party and a handful of individuals' interests," el-Bishri wrote. "As a former judge, I am screaming and ask others to scream against this behavior, to clear my conscious before God."

Several former Brotherhood members say the harder line reflects the mindset of the el-Shater and the core leadership, which came to the fore in the past two decades and pushed out moderates. Around 70 prominent moderates have left the group in recent years, including Abolfotoh.

Most of the current leaders believe the Brothers are the only "surviving group that can bring back Egyptians to Islam," said Abdel-Sattar el-Meligi, who was once a senior figure in charge of Brotherhood finances until he fell out with the group.

Though the Brotherhood long included more moderate strains, el-Shater and the current leadership were more influenced by the more intolerant Wahhabi interpretation prevalent in Saudi Arabia, where some sought refuge from regime repression in the 1960s and 70s. They also come from a more secretive wing of the group that has long been working underground, the defectors say.

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