News updates

Early this year it was reported that Kifaya Ifthikar, a social worker, who met Rizana in prison, said the maid looked sick and that the doctors had advised her to undergo surgery for hernia. Prolonging the anxiety and worry of an innocent, poor house-maid is abominable. It was indeed heatening a couple of years ago to see the concern for …

December 08, 2009 “The Guardian” — President Evo Morales won a stunning victory in Bolivia yesterday, taking 63% of the popular vote and guiding his party to win control of congress. Bolivia’s first indigenous president has won the biggest popular mandate in recent memory, destroying three political parties that rotated the presidency between them for the last two decades. In …

Prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi yesterday criticised the public celebrations of Christmas in Qatar, saying that such celebrations would “undermine” the country’s Islamic identity. In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Qaradawi called the current practice of displaying Christmas trees and other Christmas-related decorations by local stores “un-Islamic”. “This is not the image of the Muslim capital city of Doha,” Sheikh …

Washington, DC – With almost 58 per cent of Swiss voters recently delivering an electoral surprise by casting ballots in favour of a referendum to ban construction of minarets in their country, it remains to be seen whether the result of the referendum will be good for Switzerland, or even for Europe as a whole. This may seem odd to …

A black futureIn a tunnel outside Geneva, the Large Hadron Collider will smash protons so energetically that tiny black holes might be produced in the process. Maximilien Brice/CERN Shortly after the first of the year (if not already), the Large Hadron Collider — the most powerful particle accelerator ever built — will smash protons together at record energies. If the …

If Noam Chomsky’s critics have a common refrain, it is pointing to his habit of being far too hard on America’s motives and too easy on its opponents. The former, of course, is his métier. The latter criticism has limited (though a few important) instances. In fact, Chomsky’s central question is how do you punish the crook who owns the …