Government agencies and Muslim relief organizations in Pakistan have been denying aid to thousands of Christians left homeless by the recent monsoon floods, say Christian sources in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation.

Aid agencies have been delivering food, clothing, building supplies and hygiene kits in an effort to prevent outbreaks of water-borne disease as the flood waters begin to recede.

But the Pakistan Christian Congress says the afflicted Punjab region is a “hotbed” of Islamic extremist organizations that view Christians as infidels, and local officials who fear the extremists have been barring Christians from tent camps set up for flood victims.

Christians comprise about 2 percent of Pakistan’s 175 million people and have come under attack in the past from extremists who accuse them of blasphemy, CNSNews reported.

Open Doors USA President Carl Moeller, whose organization has been working in Pakistan, said: “The only place with aid for many is their local mosque, which places Christians in an extremely vulnerable situation. Some are flatly denied assistance while others are told to vacate the region or convert to Islam. Imagine giving up your faith in order to feed your starving children.”

Anglican Bishop Humphrey Peters of Peshawar in Pakistan said: “We are sure that some countries will come forward with aid packages, but hardly anything will reach the minority Christians.”

Christian organizations are urging Christians around the world to send aid to groups that will help Christians or at least ensure that they are not left out of aid distribution.

Pakistan Christian Congress President Nazir Bhatti said governments and organizations can distribute some of their aid to Christians through groups such as the Catholic aid agency Caritas or the Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Bishop Peters’ diocese has already set up four relief camps for hundreds of flood-stricken Christians and members of the Hindu minority, according to CNSNews.

Meanwhile criticism of aid efforts is coming from non-Christian sources as well. The Lahore-based Daily Times said in a recent editorial: “Reports about systematic discrimination in aid distribution are utterly disgraceful. If we want to progress as a nation, we need to close the doors on our prejudices. For far too long we have let religious bigots call the shots.”

Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the planned mosque near New York’s ground zero comes the disclosure that American taxpayers are funding the construction and renovation of mosques around the world.

The State Department’s U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) is spending millions of dollars on at least 29 mosque-related projects in 18 countries, including Pakistan, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, and Albania.

State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson told The Daily Caller website that the AFCP is a type of “diplomatic effort and outreach.”

She said: “It is helping to preserve our cultural heritage. It is not just to preserve religious structures. It is not to preserve a religion. It is to help us as global inhabitants preserve cultures.”

The State Department recently provided Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, Ranking Republican on the Committee on Foreign Relations, with a document explaining that the funding of mosques was given a green light in 2003. At that time the Justice Department said the Constitution did not bar using federal funds to preserve religious structures if they had cultural significance.

But Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, told The Daily Caller that funding mosque renovation and rehabilitation is “disastrously wrongheaded and unconstitutional. They are not going to win hearts and minds. It is not as if they are going to say, ‘the Americans built this mosque for us so we shouldn’t wage jihad on them.’”

He added: “A mosque is a mosque is a mosque. It is where prayers happen. That is a religious installation.”

And Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, said: “We have always felt this type of outreach is completely ineffective and that ultimately we have to approach it like the Cold War where we are fighting an ideology.

“If we are going to have this long war of ideas we cannot fund these religious institutions. We can fund anti-Islamist institutions based in liberty.”

Editor’s Note:

• 12 Fruits and Vegetables With High Levels of Pesticides

Legislation outlawing ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the European Union has produced an unexpected wave of panicked buying as the ban takes effect.

And that could be a harbinger of things to come in the United States, which has also passed a law that will ban Thomas Edison’s trusty old invention.

Last year 100-watt incandescent bulbs were banned in the E.U., and on Sept. 1 it also became illegal to import or manufacture 75-watt bulbs. The move is intended to force Europeans to switch mostly to compact fluorescent lights (CPLs), which use less electricity.

In the United States, President George W. Bush in 2007 signed into law a bill ordering the phase-out of incandescent light bulbs beginning with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and ending with the 40-watt light in 2014.

While CFLs do use about 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and last far longer, they cost significantly more and some users claim they give off a “sickly light,” according to The Telegraph in Britain.

They also take longer to turn on, can flicker, and have even been blamed for giving people headaches and skin rashes.

And CFLs contain small amounts of highly toxic mercury, which creates problems for users when they break or need to be disposed of after they burn out.

So sales of CFLs have been disappointing — while demand for the incandescent bulbs has been soaring.

Packages of 75-watt bulbs have been flying off the shelves in Finland as “customers filled their closets, garages and attics with lighting supplies for the long term,” The Washington Times reported in an article headlined “Europe’s light-bulb socialism.”

“London’s Daily Mail gave away 25,000 100-watt bulbs as a prize in a January 2009 contest. Der Spiegel reported that German customers left hardware stores with carts jammed with enough incandescent bulbs to last 20 years.”

The Telegraph reported: “The panic buying of light bulbs is expected to get worse when 60-watt bulbs are banned next year and all incandescent bulbs are phased out by 2012.”

But there is hope yet for those who oppose the ban, The Times disclosed. Two years ago, the minority party in New Zealand made canceling a planned ban a campaign issue. The party won national office, and overturned the ban.