Word: westernizes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...There's a lesson there for other medium-sized powers. It is surely one that the rich nations of Western Europe, which at times carry themselves as if someone else will always look after their defense, could take more seriously. In the meantime, Rudd will continue with his multilingual diplomacy, trying to convince other world leaders that his pet idea of an Asia-Pacific Community won't just add to the alphabet soup of regional forums that litter the calendar with ineffectual meetings...
...worn by a tiny minority of Muslim women as "not welcome on French territory." Obama's speech in Cairo took a different tack. His concern was not the hijab - the Muslim woman's head covering - so much as a woman's right to wear it if she so chose. Western countries, Obama said, cannot dictate the dress of Muslim women. "We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism." (See pictures of the women of Cairo...
...clutch of Western countries have put curbs on burqas and niqabs, the full-face veils that leave only a slit for the eyes. The Irish have banned the burqa from classrooms, and in June, the Michigan Supreme Court gave judges the power to direct how witnesses dress for court, after a Muslim woman refused to take off her niqab while testifying. The French, however, have gone beyond practical arguments, saying that face veils don't just gum up processes in courts, surgeries and schools, but are an affront to the republic itself and its traditions of secularism. In 2004, France...
...Iran's women are determinedly political actors, claiming fundamental rights, and deserving our support when they do so. When they risk their lives to claim such rights, what they wear is irrelevant. With Muslim women showing such involvement in basic political struggles, is it too much to hope that Western male leaders will find something more worthwhile to comment on than their clothes...
...customers were peacekeepers, war correspondents and development workers. When fighting started again in 1999, the reporters returned, followed by mercenaries, and then - with the arrival of a second fragile peace after President Charles Taylor's defeat and exile in 2003 - a wild-eyed group of Western carpetbaggers after a quick buck. It was only when Harvard-educated Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won office as Africa's first elected woman head of state in 2005 and promised wholesale reform that the Mamba Point began to welcome what Bsaibes calls "respectables" - executives from multinationals eyeing Liberia for opportunities and, to Bsaibe's delight...