By Daniel Howden, (The Guardian)

When violence erupted two weeks ago in the world’s youngest country, one of the first voices to speak out, before the US president or the head of the United Nations, was that of the Hollywood actor George Clooney.

This is the headline to an article in the Daily Mail reporting claims that Israel has destroyed a Sudanese weapons factory in a bombing raid. The article itself suggests that “the raid acted as a ‘dry run’ for a forthcoming strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities”.

For a couple of centuries now, we have had to make due with Samuel Johnson’s famous phrase: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Thanks to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, we can now revise this phrase for the twenty-first century. Tthe last last refuge of a scoundrel, it appears, lies in taking up the battle against something called “Christophobia.”

On Sunday, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Yorba Linda Community Center. They were there to protest a fundraiser for a New York bases Muslim charity called the Islamic Circle of North America Relief USA.

Infamous for regional atrocities including brutal massacres of innocent civilians, four African nations in conjunction with the African Union are now moving to reclassify this group, currently considered a rebellion, to the status of terrorist insurgents in an effort to bolster greater international support and cooperation.