Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
Saracen has blogged at length about an article I was going to briefly link to: Madeleine Bunting in today's Guardian on how the "cheerleaders" for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have produced...
Today was St Patrick’s Day, which means lots of Irish flags about, Irish shows in both Trafalgar and Leicester Squares, the sound of fiddles playing Irish dance tunes, and everything else stereotypically Irish. I...
The Sunday Telegraph reports that a long-standing member of the SAS (Special Air Service, an élite British armed service) has quit because he is no longer willing to serve alongside US forces because of...
The BBC's From Our Own Correspondent has a feature on the country's king, and the "respect" supposedly lavished on him in his country: When Moulay turned up with the tea I asked him about...
And some good news to finish the week off: the ironically named Slobodan (meaning freedom) Milosevic is dead. From Gene at Harry's Place: "Let the conspiracy-mongering begin" To paraphrase a headline from the Sun,...
Rachel from North London, a clergyman’s daughter (not sure which church) who was injured in last July’s bombings, writes about how her father met the Home Secretary (and her father’s local MP) Charles Clarke...
In today's Guardian, Jonathan Steele explains why Alexander Lukashenko, despite his notoriously repressive record, might well expect to win the coming election even if he doesn't rig it (which he probably will): Would you...
Via Pickled Politics, London Student reports that the Mail on Sunday attempted to induce students at London universities to spy on meetings of Muslim student organisations. The offer came in an email from Sophie...
The BBC is reporting that a blind British man, who was extradited to the USA on child cruelty charges, which were later dropped after he had spent six months in jail, is taking up...
Douglas Murray, author of the Social Affairs Unit’s Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, recently made a speech at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Lecture on the topic “What Are We To Do About Islam?”. This...
This is a link over to an article I’ve just published at *The Sharpener* in reply to a speech by Douglas Murray, author of the [Social Affairs Unit](http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/)’s pamphlet [Neoconservatism: Why We Need It](http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/pub/000676.php)....
In the style of the "Donald Rumsfeld soundbite of the week" the BBC's Broadcasting House programme used to have on a Sunday, in which the public was left to laugh at Dumbsfeld tripping over...
Some of them may have been fighting to get rid of this sort of thing, but as a brother on Deenport pointed out, this is where a number of the Taliban who were killed...
Gary Younge in today's Guardian takes issue with people who call it brave to defend popular orthodoxies and make statements of bigotry just because liberals might attack them, with particular reference to the "Larry...
The Sunday Telegraph today published a letter from Abdul-Haqq Bewley (eighth letter down, "Most Muslims in Britain have conservative values") regarding the remarks Patrick Sookhdeo made regarding his and his wife's translation of the...
Anyone who's been reading the London news the last couple of days will have heard that cyclists are getting a bit of bad publicity because of the tendency of some to pass lights at...
Via the Planet SUSE RSS feed, I got this article on Why Windows Vista will suck by Ziff Davis Internet senior editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. The piece is in reaction to an earlier article...
Yesterday I came across an article at Harry's Place relating an incident in which a pro-Iranian London lecturer, Elaheh Rostami, addressed a Stop the War meeting along with Haifa Zangana (an Iraqi author whose...
On the *Guardian*’s website (but not in the print edition), [Brian Whitaker reports](http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1720032,00.html) on the prisons the Libyan state has set up for so-called fallen women – some of them rape victims, some of...
Melanie Phillips [reproduces](http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001609.html) a press release from the [International Sephardic Leadership Council](http://www.sephardiccouncil.org/) regarding the [destruction of the only functioning synagogue](http://www.sephardiccouncil.org/press-taj2.html) in Tajikistan by the government. The régime is supposedly a progressive (most likely this...