Qat habit might ruin Sana’a
BBC NEWS – From Our Own Correspondent: Yemen’s khat habit soaks up water This is a BBC report about the qat (or khat) habit, which uses 40% of Yemen’s scarce water supply and is...
Category: Muslim world
Anna Politkovskaya: an audience with Ramzan Kadyrov
The Guardian have been serialising extracts from the last book written by the assassinated Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya ([1], [2]). In today's G2 supplement, there is an account of her meeting with Ramzan Kadyrov,...
News picks
Further to UZ's post linking a NYT article on fighting email spam, the Guardian's technology supplement today printed an article on a new front in the malware wars: programs which cripple your computer while...
Hindu bigots desecrate Muslim scholar’s grave
The Grave of Hakimul Ummah Desecrated – Contemplating Chishti Some disturbing reports from the Pakistani press about the desecration, suspected to be by fanatical Hindus in northern India, of the grave of Maulana Ashraf...
No ‘Somali Taliban’
Did anyone see the Channel 4 documentary on the Islamists' takeover of southern Somalia yesterday evening (Unreported World, 7:30pm)? The documentary made repeated comparisons to the Taliban and alleged that the Islamic Courts Union...
Zeyno Baran ‘fabricating exclusivity’
There's a letter in this week's Newsweek refuting the claim by Zeyno Baran in last week's edition that there is a 50-50 likelihood of a coup in Turkey in the coming year (see this...
Zeyno Baran: new treason threat to Turkey
More on the situation in Turkey: Zeyno Baran of the "Hudson Institute" has an article in the current edition of Newsweek alleging that there is a 50% chance of the Turkish military staging a...
Is Douglas Murray making up facts?
The Social Affairs Unit – Douglas Murray argues that the Papacy has been degraded by Pope Benedict's U-turn on Turkey's entry to the EU Douglas Murray, author of the author of the Social Affairs...
Craig Murray sees himself in BBC drama
That's Me on Screen! (free registration required) Craig Murray (former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who resigned after exposing the human rights abuses carried out by "Islam Karimov" and then stood against Jack Straw) on...
Why Muslims weren’t out in force on Sunday
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown wrote an opinion piece in the Independent yesterday (available here if you care to pay the fee) demanding to know why Muslims did not join demonstrations like the Day for Darfur last...
Why Bombay is still Bombay here
While listening to the discussion of the dreadful bombings in Bombay yesterday, I could not help noticing the BBC falling over themselves to make sure they called the city by its "real name" of...
Dubai: High life and hypocrisy
Brian Whitaker at Comment is Free on the recent case of the R&B producer Dallas Austin, who was busted in Dubai with some cocaine he’d picked up back home. He got a four-year prison term, but returned to the USA today after being pardonned by the ruler of Dubai, Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. As is noted, there are at least three laws in force there: one for locals, one for rich westerners and one for poor foreigners:
Qays Arthur: are they really Sunnis?
Qays Arthur on the recent rise of the Islamic Courts in Somalia, which prompted him to find out if the people behind them are really practising traditional Sunni jurisprudence or something else – the...
Some good news from Somalia
Richard Dowden (of the Royal African Society) in today's Independent argues that the Islamic Courts militia which recently seized power in Mogadishu (and may take control of other areas) is not a new Taliban,...
Most Turks oppose hijab ban
IslamOnline reports that a recent poll in Turkey reveals that most people oppose the country's ban on hijab in the civil service and universities (see also this report from the Washington Post, thanks UZ)....
Asim Siddiqui on Muna Fuzai
Comment is free: Crescent Muna Asim Siddiqui (chairman of the City Circle) presents the ideas of Muna al-Fuzai, a Kuwaiti businesswoman and journalist "who is on a mission to not only project a better...
Communists for freedom at Conway Hall
Yesterday evening there was a meeting held by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, at which Peter Tatchell (OutRage), Ali Hilli (OutRage’s Middle East spokesman) and Houzan Mahmoud of the so-called Organisation of Women’s Freedom of Iraq spoke.
Guardian: Mubarak’s thugs’ abuse of women
From today's Guardian, Simon Tisdall on how Hosni Mubarak's thugs sexually molest female demonstrators both in police custody and in the street: "They drove me to Sayyida Zeinab police station. I screamed and resisted...
Tamil Tigers funded by worldwide extortion
The BBC reports that "Tamil people around the world are being intimidated and threatened into giving money to Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels, according to a new report" from Human Rights Watch. The extortion...
Moroccans love their king, don’t they?
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...