In The News

Key Pakistani Is Said to Admit Atom Transfers

David Rohde February 2, 2004
Pakistan's official inquiry into the transfer of nuclear technology has yielded its most substantial finding yet. The founder of the country's nuclear weapons program, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted on Sunday that he had worked with Libya, North Korea, and Iran to help develop those countries' nuclear programs. The scientist said he had helped facilitate the transfer of designs...

Headscarf Ban Misses the Point

Shada Islam January 30, 2004
The debate that has raged in France for 15 years over the right of Muslim girls to wear religious headscarves to school has come to a head with a plan to ban the practice. The French ideal of strict separation of church and state has pushed the government to ban this "conspicuous" display of religious identity in state schools. Moreover, some feminists and government officials consider...

Turkish-German Integration Smooths Cultural Divisions

Peter Badenhop January 30, 2004
In an interview with Germany's F.A.Z. Weekly, the Turkish ambassador to Germany, Mehmet Ali Irtemcelik, discusses the importance of integrating German Muslims of Turkish descent, Germany's largest immigrant group, into mainstream German society. The erroneous perception of all Muslims as religious fundamentalists inhibits integration, he says, and it undermines their contribution to...

Headscarf Ban and Multi-Secularisms

Muhamad Ali January 20, 2004
In Jakarta, Muslim women protested France's headscarf ban at state schools in front of the French Embassy. To these Indonesian women, France's prohibition of religious symbols, including large crosses and Jewish skullcaps, violates the rights of French citizens. Headscarves, they maintain, are a religious obligation, not a cultural expression, and outlawing them interferes with a...

Why Not Let Them Work?

Mechthild Küpper January 9, 2004
Germany's one million illegal immigrants are hard to typify, says this article in the F.A.Z. Weekly. Unlike the Turkish immigrants who are in the country legally but have not acculturated themselves to Germany, the author writes, many illegal immigrants are integrating well by learning German and seeking steady work. Workers from Poland and Eastern Europe, many of whom enter on tourist or...

Bangladesh is Weak Link in War on Terror

Anand Kumar December 15, 2003
Bangladesh may be quickly becoming Islamic terrorists' favorite country. With no effective law and order, terrorists have little need to fear a crack down. Researcher Anand Kumar points to the recent surge in arrests of Bangladeshis in connection to questionable activities around the world as evidence of a growing presence for the nation within terrorist rings. Though Bangladesh remains a...

2003: France to Ban Pupils' Religious Dress

Jon Henley December 12, 2003
Muslim girls are the center of a debate that has been raging for 14 years in France; since 1989 (when "l'Affair de Foulard" occurred), the French government has tried to find a way to reconcile the Muslim headscarf with their conception of secularism, particularly within schools. Now, the Stasi Commission, after six months of deliberation and hearings, has ruled that all "...