Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
In the past week the Taliban, who seized back control of Afghanistan from the corrupt and ineffectual US-backed government last year, issued a decree banning women from the country’s universities, after already having shut...
Last weekend, the Taliban completed its takeover of Afghanistan (well, it took the capital; it’s possible that pockets of resistance remain) after the Americans and British withdrew their troops which had been propping up...
One of the signs that you’re getting older is that you start to become aware that there are adults who weren’t even born when you became an adult, or at least don’t remember the...
So, today Tony Blair finally admitted in an interview on CNN (more here) that his action in following the Americans into war in Iraq in 2003 may have helped allow the rise of ISIS,...
Ten years on, the case for invading Iraq is still valid | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer Ten years ago I participated in the demonstrations in London against the invasion...
Blair blocked Cabinet from hearing legal advice on Iraq – UK Politics – UK – The Independent The recently published diaries of Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former “spin doctor” who had been at his...
Last night, BBC’s Newsnight interviewed Babar Ahmad, the man wanted for extradition to the USA on the grounds of receiving classified information and assisting mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan and Chechnya through his website, Azzam...
Raising hope for women in Afghanistan | World news | The Guardian This article, by Samira Ahmed, is about how the war in Afghanistan has been framed as a “feminist experiment” and the plight...
CIA organised fake vaccination drive to get Osama bin Laden’s family DNA | World news | The Guardian The Guardian today reported that an investigation by the paper had uncovered a fake vaccine programme...
Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers — George Monbiot, The Guardian (the version with references is on Mobiot’s website [here](http://www.monbiot.com/2011/06/13/naming-the-genocide-deniers/).) This is about a tendency among the...
Osama bin Laden did not deserve an Islamic burial | Stephen Suleyman Schwartz | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk Stephen Schwartz wrote this article for Comment is Free (run by the Guardian) on the...
Since I heard the news about Osama bin Laden’s alleged killing in Pakistan, a few things have not seemed right about the official story. They have offered absolutely no proof that the job has...
This image, by Willie Vass shows Celtic fans displaying a slogan insulting the poppy appeal and British troops over the centuries. While British troops have actually done a lot of bad things in Ireland,...
Following on from my earlier post about being under pressure to give money to charity, another row has broken out about the decision of a British news presenter, Jon Snow, not to wear a...
Fareena Alam flagged up this article — Afghanistan’s dirty little secret — which is about the Pashtun custom known as bacha bazi, in which boys dress as girls and dance for grown men who...
From the New York Times: Blood tests have confirmed that a mysterious series of cases of mass sickness at girls’ schools across the country over the last two years were caused by a powerful...
There is a letter in the Observer today in response to an article from last week’s paper from Nick Cohen, who said that the Chilcot inquiry won’t declare Blair a war criminal and disputed...
Ben Goldacre on a hilarious, but tragic, example of obvious bogus science and how the Iraqi police were taken in, to the tune of £19m ($32m): >A British company called ATSC is selling a...
Out of Afghanistan, into a police state | Henry Porter | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk Kim Howells had an article published in the Guardian today, in which he recommends that British forces are...
A guy called Shaaz Mahboob, one of the founder members of the so-called British Muslims for Secular Democracy (along with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Taj Hargey), has written a guest post on Pickled Politics accusing...