Holy Cow! Prime Minister’s meat comment angers French Muslim and Jewish leaders

The French Prime Minister Francois has said that in a modern world, halal and kosher dietary laws should be reconsidered. What's the opinion of Parisians who sell and eat halal or kosher meat?

Pakistan's 'Blaspheming' Christians: Suicidal, Insane or Merely Framed?

Pakistani Christians frequently come under the international media spotlight when the minority group bears the brunt of Pakistan’s infamous blasphemy law. But it’s politically blasphemous to expect a reform of the blasphemy law.

The Election Is Over, Come Together – But How?

So Election Day passed in the usual flood of contradictory assessments. What else do you expect in a country as complicated and dangerous as Afghanistan?

 


But I’m not about to discuss whether the elections were a success or failure here. We’ll leave that for another time.

 


I do however want to talk about a bout of post-election blues. Serious post-election blues.

 

In the course of covering Afghanistan for many, many years, I’ve made some extremely dear friends – so dear, I consider them my extended Afghan “family”.

 


So when I get an alarming message from an Afghan “family” member – and from one as imperturbable as Manizha Naderi – it’s disturbing to say the least.

 


In the interest of full disclosure: Manizha is an old friend from New York days, before she moved to Kabul as executive director of WAW (Women for Afghan Women), an organization that runs women’s shelters in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad and Kunduz – among a host of other things.

Making an Easy Million: The Razzmatazz of Afghanistan’s Islamic Banking

When I interviewed him last week for a piece on the Kabul Bank crisis, Javed Babak, an Afghan freelance journalist, told me he planned to go to the bank after the Friday weekly holiday to withdraw his money. (Click here for France 24’s piece on Kabul Bank: Where business and political ties bind)
 

For the record, Babak has still not managed to withdraw his money from his Kabul Bank account, but not from lack of trying.

 

On Saturday, he went to four Kabul Bank branches on his way to work. “There were huge crowds. It was chaos. They were collecting bank cards and calling out the names of people when their turn came,” said Babak. “It was hard for me to give up my card and wait for so long.”