Religion

BOOKS-IRAQ: Kurdish Jews Recall a Paradise Lost

By IPS Correspondents
It's become popular, when talking about ongoing violence in U.S.-occupied Iraq, for officials in Washington and the media to paint the Iraqi people as savages who can't help but keep killing each other.

CUBA: Churches Reject US Report on Religious Freedom

By Patricia Grogg
Pastors and representatives of Protestant churches expressed their disagreement with a report from the United States that describes Cuba as one of the countries that restrict the practice of religion and said that, on the contrary, they have absolute freedom to practise their faith.

DEATH PENALTY-PAKISTAN: Reason For Hope on World Day

By Zofeen Ebrahim
As rights groups mark the Sixth World Day Against the Death Penalty with an appeal for an end to executions in Asia, Pakistan pulled one man back from the gallows and hinted that it will soon honour pledges to commute the sentences of over 7,000 death row inmates.

POLITICS-US: Right-Wing Magnate Takes Up Anti-Abortion Banner

By IPS Correspondents
As the U.S. presidential race winds down and attack ads against Sen. Barack Obama intensify, Raymond Ruddy, a multi-millionaire conservative Catholic who over the years has been more comfortable operating in the backrooms of conservative philanthropy, appears to be coming out of the closet.

RIGHTS-US: Judge Orders Release of Uighurs at Guantanamo

By IPS Correspondents
U.S. human rights and civil rights groups lauded a federal court decision Tuesday that orders the release of 17 Muslim minority Chinese men who have been held without charges for seven years at the infamous U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Civil Society United Against 'Honour' Killings

By IPS Correspondents
The current campaign against "honour" killings in Pakistan led by anti-death penalty NGOs has support from lawmakers and lawyers pressing for modifications of Islamic law to prevent perpetrators from evading justice.

IRAQ: Is Kurdish-Arab “Honeymoon” Over?

By IPS Correspondents
Tensions between Kurds and the Iraqi government over disputed territory have heightened recently, raising fears that they might lead to ethnic clashes between Kurds and Arabs at a time when the war-torn country is slowly recovering from years of sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni Arabs.
An injured man being helped after the bombing at the Ain el-Helweh camp. Credit: Mona Alami

LEBANON: At the Palestinian Camp, Bombing Is a Way of Life

By Mona Alami
A bomb blast at the Ain el-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp as this IPS correspondent was visiting, comes as yet another reminder of the precarious peace in these places.

RELIGION: Atheists Take to the Streets

By IPS Correspondents
Atheists who have built up a virtual community over the last decade will hold the "First Global Atheist March for a Secular Society" on Sunday, with the aim of defending their views and protesting that they are misinterpreted and in some cases discriminated against.

POLITICS: Neo-cons, Ex-Israeli Diplomats Push Islamophobic Video

By Eli Clifton
A group of hard-line U.S. neo-conservatives and former Israeli diplomats, among others, are behind the mass distribution, ahead of the November U.S. presidential election, of a controversial DVD that critics have denounced as Islamophobic.

RIGHTS-BURMA: Monks Jailed, Disrobed For Challenging Junta

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
In military-ruled Burma the jails are filling up with Buddhist monks. Currently, 136 members of the clergy are behind bars, most of them in the notorious Insein Prison in Rangoon, the former capital.
Fruit boxes pile up in Srinagar as a result of the Jammu-Kashmir trade boycott. Credit: Athar Parvaiz Bhat/IPS

POLITICS-INDIA: Polls Uncertain With Jammu Divided From Kashmir

By Athar Parvaiz
Plans by the central government to conduct elections in Jammu and Kashmir, due originally in November, remain uncertain because of the serious regional and religious differences that have cropped up between the two main regions that make up the composite territory.

POLITICS-US: Anti-Islam Film Targets “Swing State” Voters

By IPS Correspondents
Millions of voters in U.S. states crucial to this fall's presidential election received DVD copies of a controversial documentary film as advertising inserts in their morning newspapers over the past week, with more expected to be sent out over the upcoming weekend.

RIGHTS: Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia on the Rise in Europe

By Jim Lobe
Both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia have risen in Europe over the last four years, according to a survey conducted earlier this year and released here Thursday by the Pew Research Centre.
Protests against live burials at the Karachi press club. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Live Burial of Women – Activists Demand Action

By Zofeen Ebrahim
Prominent civil rights activists are demanding that the government act against those responsible for the burial alive of five women in Balochistan, in July, that politicians from the province have defended as an age-old custom.
Kano State government officials have burned books they say promote immorality Credit: Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino/IPS

CULTURE-NIGERIA: Writers, Film-makers Defy Censors

By IPS Correspondents
"I don't sell cocaine," says the video vendor in Kano's Rimi market when I ask for Adam Zango's music video CD Bahaushiya. He is not referring to the white powder, but instead a new illegal substance - Hausa films that have not passed through the Kano State Censors Board.

POLITICS: Slow Sunni Integration Could Derail Iraq Successes

By IPS Correspondents
Amid reports that the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has launched a campaign to disband the so-called Awakening Movement, or Sahwa, concerns among analysts and policy makers here is growing that such an effort could result in a resumption of sectarian violence, if not civil war.
The rubble in front is all that remains of a Palestinian house destroyed by Israelis. Credit: Mel Frykberg

MIDEAST: Israel Moves to Judaise East Jerusalem

By Mel Frykberg
The Israeli government is attempting to Judaise Palestinian East Jerusalem, and maintain a Jewish majority against the demographic threat of a higher Palestinian birth rate.

AUSTRALIA: Winning ‘Hearts and Minds’ in Afghanistan?

By Stephen de Tarczynski
Responses by defence officials in the wake of a recent inquiry into claims that Australian soldiers mistreated detainees in Afghanistan undermine efforts to win the battle for hearts and minds in that war-ravaged country.
Military outpost on the Atrato river in Chocó. Credit: Jesús Abad Colorado/IPS.

COLOMBIA: Oil Palms, Right Abuses Hand in Hand in Northwest

By Constanza Vieira
As of this week, there is one less human rights defender in the northwestern Colombian region of Bajo Atrato. Jimmy Jansasoy of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission was forced to flee the area, where oil palm plantations have encroached on the collectively-owned jungle territories of traditional black communities.
Ingrid Betancourt with Nicola Zingaretti, president of the Rome province. Credit: Sabina Zaccaro

RIGHTS: Betancourt Wants Political Niche for Guerrillas

By Sabina Zaccaro
Resolution of the conflict in Colombia can only come through "dialogue and openness," says Ingrid Betancourt, the former presidential candidate held hostage by leftist guerrillas for more than six years before being rescued by the Colombian military in July.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*