Religion

Indian Gays Prepare to Fight Again

By Ranjita Biswas
Human rights have taken a step back in India, activists say after the Supreme Court overturned a ruling of the High Court that had earlier lifted the ban on gay sex.

Drone Killings Show Numbers, Not Bodies

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
More than 300 U.S. drone attacks have killed 2,160 militants and 67 civilians in Pakistan since 2008, according to Pakistani defence ministry data. But people living in the affected areas are now questioning these figures, asking why they never get to know the names of the militants or see the bodies.

U.N. Stays on Sidelines of Central African Chaos

By Samuel Oakford
The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to authorise the deployment of thousands of French and African Union troops in the Central African Republic but stopped short of approving a full U.N. peacekeeping force in the country.

Aiming at NATO, Hitting Afghans

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
A blockade of NATO supplies to Afghanistan by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s party has ended up hitting Pakistan’s legal trade with its neighbour, say local traders and truckers.

‘Business Is Business, Moses Is Moses’

By Pierre Klochendler
As civil war paralyses Syria’s transit routes and political flux in Egypt may affect security at the Suez Canal, Israel is busy repositioning itself as a transhipment hub and trade gateway to the Middle East.

Calls Mount for U.N. Force in Central African Republic

By Samuel Oakford
France has said it will circulate a Security Council draft resolution Monday night that would create a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic, as violence in its former colony threatens to morph into an ethnic conflict.

Lebanon’s Splintered Law Wrecks Lives

By Rebecca Murray
Married women in Lebanon who suffer abuse at home remain at the mercy of the country’s multitude of religious courts, because the hard-fought civil law against domestic violence has been stalled for a vote in parliament since the summer.

Fears Rise of ‘Taliban-Style’ Justice in Syria

By Shelly Kittleson
Concerns are rising that courts run by Islamic clerics in many of Syria’s rebel-held areas may serve as a prelude to Taliban-style justice in what was long a violently repressive but secular state.

Poor Paths Lead to Madrassas

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Mustafa Khan, who sells cigarettes by the roadside in a Pakistani village, has a simple reason for sending two of his sons to a madrassa, an Islamic seminary, and not to a proper school. “We cannot afford it,” he says.

Libya’s Fragile Peace Cracks

By Karlos Zurutuza
Car accident in Omar Mokhtar Avenue in downtown Tripoli. Nobody was injured but there’s a bumper hanging off the back of a car. In just a few seconds, a group gathers around.

Treating the Injured Leaves its Wounds

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Ajab Gul is haunted by bloody scenes. He hears women crying and children screaming. “I can’t sleep,” says the 25-year-old health worker at a well-known Pakistani hospital in the frontier city that tends to terror victims.

U.S. Labels Boko Haram, Ansaru as Terror Groups

By Ramy Srour
The U.S. government has designated the Nigeria-based militant groups Boko Haram and Ansaru as terrorist organisations, prohibiting U.S. citizens from interacting or aiding the groups.

Christians Queue to Join Israeli Army

By Pierre Klochendler
In the municipal sports hall with an army officer to his side, Father Gabriel Nadaf, a Greek Orthodox Arab priest in full regalia, briefs Arab Christian twelfth-graders on the merits of serving in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). “It’s only natural that the country which protects us deserves that we contribute to its defence,” he tells them.

New Law Threatens to Choke Freedom in Egypt

By Hisham Allam
Demonstrations have been at the heart of historic upheavals in Egypt since January 2011. But a newly proposed law that seeks to regulate protests could imperil one of the biggest gains of the Arab Spring revolution here: freedom of expression.

Cracks Widen in U.S.-Saudi Alliance

By Jim Lobe
While Monday’s meeting between Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi King Abdullah may have helped calm the waters, the latest anxieties and anger expressed by Riyadh toward the United States has reignited debate here about the value of the two countries’ long-standing alliance.

For Kurdish Women, It’s a Double Revolution

By Karlos Zurutuza
"I got married when I was 14 and I already had four children at 20," recalls Nafia Brahim. In her fifties now, she is working hard so that no other woman loses control of her life.

Drone Attack Kills More Than Taliban Chief

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
The drone attack that killed Tehreek Taliban Pakistan chief Hakimullah Mahsud this week seems also to have killed hopes that drone attacks will end.

Iraq Retakes Washington Centre-Stage, Briefly

By Jim Lobe
Ten and a half years after invading U.S. troops ousted President Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, Iraq re-emerged here this week, if only briefly, as a major foreign policy agenda item.

OP-ED: How Women’s Rights Are Linked to U.S.-Iran Negotiations

By Fariba Parsa
While U.S. and Iranian negotiators prepare for another round of nuclear talks in Geneva next month, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been silent about another matter that could be even more indicative of his willingness to take on hardline conservatives.

Thai Women Don Monks’ Robes

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
Thai women were among the first women in Asia granted voting rights, in 1932. However, when it comes to religion, women in Thailand continue to struggle for equality and social acceptance.

Fragile Peace Holds on a Syrian Island

By Karlos Zurutuza
"The whole region is under control but be careful in the city centre," says a Kurdish militiaman at the eastern gate of Qamishli, 600 km northeast of capital Damascus, confirming rumours about breaches in Syria’s relatively stable northeast.
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