Culture
The agreement to permit short prayer breaks and accommodate rules against handling pork could set a precedent.
By CHRIS SERRES, Star Tribune

By Faiza Saleh Ambah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 3, 2008; A17
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- A Turkish soap opera featuring an independent fashion designer and her amazingly supportive and attractive husband is emptying the streets whenever it's on and has more than doubled the number of Saudis visiting Turkey this summer.
LA VERRIÈRE, France — When Faiza Silmi applied for French citizenship, she worried that her French was not quite good enough or that her Moroccan upbringing would pose a problem.
When Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, suggested that the British public consider "some accommodation" to Islamic law, and that such an accommodation ultimately was "unavoidable", the response was one of outrage. Yet in most cases, Williams's words were wildly misinterpreted, writes Stephen Jones. When even the most progressive writers about Islam do not denounce the concept of Sharia, would it not be more productive to ask how a symbol that stands for all that is good comes to be used to justify oppression? Could it be that unwillingness to countenance references to the Sharia betrays a reluctance to examine the ethical and moral bases of legal norms in the West?
The Somalia town of Galkayo is known as a refuge from the violence to the south. But girls and women who are separated from their clans know little safety: An 8-year-old was raped and her mother must keep working with the man who did it.



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