There are 2024 articles

  • Uyghur woman faces forced abortion ordered by China

    An ethnic Uyghur woman faces an imminent abortion of her third child, Radio Free Asia reported. The report said "Arzigul Tursun, six months pregnant with her third child, is under guard in a hospital in East Turkistan region, scheduled to undergo an abortion against her will because authorities say she is entitled to only two children.".. More

  • Uighurs fear Islamic practices will disappear under China's rule

    Uighur Muslims, who could not study freely Islamic teachings under the China's long-year restrictions, fear Islamic practices will be forgotten and disappear. "I wanted to study teachings like the Hadith," the man, 25-year-old Muslim, who identified himself only as Hussein, told San Francisco Chronicle, referring to a collection of the.. More

  • Iraqi doctors wary of carrying guns

    Iraq's medical professionals have reacted with caution to a government waiver that doctors be allowed to carry arms for self-defense purposes. The Baghdad government is hoping the arms initiative will improve security conditions to lure doctors who now reside in Syria, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf back to the country. Nadhim Abd al-Hamid, the.. More

  • A new Middle East under Obama?

    Even though Barack Obama has been elected the 44th president of the United States, there are some in the Middle East who believe his policies towards the region will differ little from those of his defeated Republican rival, John McCain. Al Jazeera asked a number of people in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, whether Obama would bring.. More

  • Asian tsunami 'not the first'

    The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated large parts of Asia was not the first and will likely not be the last, two separate geological studies have found. Geologists analyzing rocks in coastal marshes in the region found that a massive wave struck the same area about 700 years ago, the British science magazine Nature reported in its latest.. More

  • Warning on 'dire' Iraq conditions

    The Red Cross is warning that despite some improvements in security in Iraq, the condition of the country's infrastructure remains dire. In a statement issued from their headquarters in Geneva, the Red Cross said it was particularly concerned about poor water supplies. It estimates that over 40% of Iraq's civilian population still has no access.. More

  • Will next US president rethink Afghanistan?

    Ravaged by war and in the grip of a terrible drought, the people of Afghanistan are in desperate need of foreign help. The BBC's Damian Grammaticas travels to the central highlands to assess the situation and asks whether the next US president will need to rethink America's strategy against al-Qaeda and the Taleban. In the hospital in Bamiyan a.. More

  • The American crescent

    In a special two-part film Rageh Omaar traveled across the US exploring the roots and influence of Islam in America. Abdi says he would sacrifice his life for the country he calls home. The taxi driver taking me to the airport in Minneapolis is not referring to his birthplace, Somalia, but to the US – the place where he has lived for the.. More

  • High food costs 'a global burden'

    Almost two-thirds of people - 60% - in 26 countries say higher food and energy prices this year have affected them "a great deal", a BBC report has found. The BBC World Service global study said that while all nations had felt the burden of the higher costs, the problem was most acute in poorer countries. The Philippines was one of.. More

  • 'Replace capitalism with Islamic system’

    Board members of the Al Quds (Jerusalem) International Institution including Attallah (second from left), Mishal (fourth from left) and Qaradawi (third from right Doha-based Islamic scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has urged Muslim countries to take advantage of the global financial crisis and build a new fiscal system which is compatible with Islamic.. More

  • 'Toxic waste' behind Somali piracy

    Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste. The ransom demand is a means of "reacting to the toxic waste that has been continually dumped on the shores of our country.. More

  • Secrets of Iraq's Death Chamber

    Prisoners are being summarily executed in the government's high-security detention centre in Baghdad. Like all wars, the dark, untold stories of the Iraqi conflict drain from its shattered landscape like the filthy waters of the Tigris. And still the revelations come. The Independent has learnt that secret executions are being carried out in the.. More

  • Tunnels feed besieged Gaza

    Hundreds of tunnels under the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt are keeping many of the Palestinian territory's 1.5 million impoverished residents supplied with food and fuel. On Saturday, Egyptian authorities found the entrances of three tunnels and confiscated a large amount of fuel about to be smuggled into the territory. Sources say.. More

  • Israel stocks up local cluster bombs instead of heeding calls for ban

    Israel has cut purchases of U.S.-made cluster bombs, defense officials said on Tuesday, stocking up on supplies from a state-owned Israeli company rather than heeding calls for an outright ban. More than 100 countries have banned the bombs because they can kill indiscriminately. Cluster bombs have a relatively high failure rate compared.. More

  • Casualties of another war

    The deadly blast in Islamabad was a revenge attack for what has been going on over the past few weeks in the badlands of the North-West Frontier. It highlighted the crisis confronting the new government in the wake of intensified US strikes in the tribal areas on the Afghan border. Hellfire missiles, drones, special operation raids inside Pakistan.. More