Word: meccas
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...Fear and Loathing Many Uighurs complain that they have become second-class citizens in their own homeland. Government authorities limit the numbers of Muslim Uighurs allowed to go on pilgrimage to Mecca and handpick clerics to deliver politically approved sermons at Friday prayers. Teaching of the Uighur language, which is written in the Arabic script, has been curbed so that Uighurs can more easily assimilate into the wider Chinese society. Yet Uighurs say that they are discriminated against by Chinese companies that operate in Xinjiang. They face restrictions on their travel abroad and even within China itself; repeated stories...
Many Uighurs complain that they have become second-class citizens in their own homeland. Government authorities limit the number allowed to go on pilgrimage to Mecca. Teaching of the Uighur language, written in the Arabic script, has been curbed, and Uighurs face restrictions on their travel. "The Uighurs are the very bottom of the heap economically in China," says Dru Gladney, an expert on Xinjiang at Pomona College in California...
...Then I would go to the city center and walk through the beautiful stores on the Rue Antoine Dansaert. It's fashion-slave heaven, with boutiques crammed into every available space. I would definitely go to Stijl at No. 74, tel: (32-2) 512 0313. This is the mecca of contemporary Belgian haute couture. I'd also visit Icon, tel: (32-2) 502 7151, to see their new trends. Later, for dinner, I would go to Le Macon, tel: (32-2) 346 4652. It's roomy, not too pricey, and has a great wine cellar and an uncomplicated menu...
...that some have, in recent years, been lured by a more fundamentalist form of Islam. Many analysts believe this development has been a reaction to the strict controls imposed by the communist authorities who have restricted religious freedoms: The numbers of Uighurs permitted to make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca has been limited; Uighur government employees are forbidden from fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan; the political authorities appoint the Imams at every mosque, and often dictate the sermons preached during Friday prayers...
...California could become the only state in the First World without subsistence benefits for poor children," says Frank Mecca, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association of California. If California ends CalWORKs, the state's welfare-to-work program, it would save $1.3 billion but lose three times that amount in federal money. (Since President Bill Clinton's reform, welfare has been run by the states, which receive block grants from the Federal Government that they spend as they wish. Mecca says no other state has ever said no to the federal money, nor has one proposed a flat...