‘There is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence.’… Read the rest

It is estimated that as many as 74,000 women in the UK have had FGM and that every year a further 7,000 are at risk. … Read the rest

She was locked in a room for a year for refusing a forced marriage, spent five years living in shelters hiding from her family.… Read the rest

Faisal Joseph, a lawyer from the Canadian Islamic Congress who is representing the four students, argued that journalists can’t write just anything.… Read the rest

ICC prosecutor says the rebels are using the money they make to rearm.… Read the rest

She rose to prominence fighting for those most easily marginalised in Africa – poor women. … Read the rest

Paddy Doyle has a large collection saved.… Read the rest

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship.… Read the rest

Enlightenment 2.0 makes for a rather toothless, muddled kind of liberation. … Read the rest

Across rural India, it’s easy to find people who revere sati as the ultimate demonstration of womanly honour, devotion and piety. … Read the rest

Ben Goldacre asks: Where’s your ethics committee now, science boy?… Read the rest

Durban I degenerated into open expressions of intolerance and anti-Semitism that undermined the very goals the conference sought to achieve.… Read the rest

‘As long as I think of these as “texts,” they are dry and boring. But there is a key to making them exciting: to remember that they are not texts: they are people–people urgently trying to talk to me, to tell me something very important that they think I desperately need to know.’… Read the rest

Article 37 of Maryland’s constitution provides that “no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God”… Read the rest

Michael Foot, A C Grayling, Tom Paulin, Andrew Motion, Ian Mayes at ceremony to do that.… Read the rest

Is It Wrong Everywhere, Always, and for Anyone to Believe Anything on Insufficient Evidence?… Read the rest

Tahir Aslam Gora suggests an outline for the new Islam.… Read the rest

The use of cultural evidence risks a dangerous balkanization of the criminal law.… Read the rest

This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. … Read the rest

‘This is about women and elevating the status of women and making them equal human beings.’… Read the rest