Word: bans
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...promised Dutch ban is only the most recent and bizarre in a spate of assaults by European democracies that appear to be targeting the veil as a proxy for what they see as a dangerous spread of Islamic culture in Western Europe. In Britain, former Foreign Minister Jack Straw last month groused that the niqab created unnecessary barriers between people, and prevented communication because meaningful exchange "requires that both sides see each other's face". Prime Minister Tony Blair later added that it created a divisive "mark of separation." Wearing the hijab in schools is against the law in certain...
...controversial film-maker Theo van Gogh by a Islamist radical. That killing and the subsequent arrests of extremists plotting terror attacks have understandably raised Dutch concerns over violence committed in the name of Islam, but they don't justify the over-kill and subtle bigotry behind the promised ban. Opponents of the move note that only a few score women wear a burqa or niqab in the Netherlands, and that such high-profile measures directed at a statistically irrelevant minority are really a message to all Muslims to start acting more Dutch (whatever that means) and less Muslim...
...weaker grip and apparently more fractured flock than the pontiff. Since his 2003 appointment, the Archbishop has struggled to keep his church from splintering over the ordination of gay and women clergy. He was even grilled by the media on Friday over a controversy related to a British Airways ban on employees wearing crucifixes on planes. Meanwhile Benedict, though certainly facing dissent both inside and outside his own Church, faces no real challenges to his authority. "Whatever you can say about the Catholic Church," notes one Vatican official, "at least you know where to go to when a decision must...
Beirut is boiling, as a Lebanese friend called to tell me. Over the weekend, Hizballah announced it would defy a government ban and hold mass, open-ended demonstrations until the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora resigns - a slow-rolling coup d'etat, if you like. Then on Tuesday, the anti-Syrian minister Pierre Gemayel was assassinated. His father, Amin Gemayel, is the pro-American former president, his grandfather was the founder of the Christian Phalange party, and you can count on his assassination having momentous political consequences for Lebanon. I asked my friend what happens if the government doesn...
...Healy in response to an Oct. 16 formal inquiry by the council, Karen Hacker, interim chief public health officer at the city’s Department of Public Health, encouraged the council to institute policies to curb the use of trans fats in Cambridge but discouraged a legislative ban...