Wahhabi and Salafist ideas are spread globally through online fatwas, conferences, lectures, cheap booklets.
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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Chilean Pharmacies Warned
Government tells pharmacies refusing to sell morning-after pill they could face stiff fines or closure.
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Pope Tells Pharmacists to Refuse
Says pharmacists have a right to refuse to dispense emergency contraception or euthanasia drugs.
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Material Urging Hatred Found in Mosques
Researchers uncovered propaganda calling for homosexuals to be murdered and women to be subjugated.
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Fisking King Abdullah
Kim Howells said we ‘share values’ with the Saudis. And what values precisely would they be?
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Howells Cites ‘Shared Values’ With Saudis
AI yesterday issued a dossier on executions, detention of critics, discrimination against women.
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Amnesty Int. Annual Report on Saudi Arabia
Political prisoners, censorship, women’s rights, forced removal, migrant workers, torture, execution.
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Sepia Mutiny on News Blackout in Gujarat
State government blocked all three news channels that were going to show footage from Tehelka’s report.
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Sentenced to Death Again
Soghra, sent to work as a maid at age 9, spent 18 years in prison. Then things got bad.
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Protests at Saudi King’s State Visit to UK
Saudi human rights record less than stellar.
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An Exciting History of German Romanticism
Surpassing of religion through release of the powers of imagination, which re-invented the world.
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Andrew Brown Ponders a Stupidfilter
An application of spam-fighting algorithms to the problem of stupidity.
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The Exposé of a Gujarati Massacre
Sunny Hundal notes lack of media coverage in both India and the UK.
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Tehelka Magazine on the Gujarat Riots
A collection of articles.
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Normblog Ponders Science and Wonder
The desire to understand is every bit as much a human given as is our wonder at the world.
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Hinduism Still State Religion in ‘Secular’ Nepal
The state spends over Rs.50 million annually on Hindu rituals, including slaughter of birds and animals.
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Srebrenica Revisited
The Srebrenica massacre cast a shadow on the viability of international law and organizations.
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Nick Cohen on the Dangers of Alt Med
The Society of Homeopaths promises to provide ‘fascinating insights’ for World Aids Day.
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Vatican ‘Beatifies’ Spanish Civil War Dead
Franco side only, of course; cites ‘reconciliation.’
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Mark Vernon Urges Preservation of Ignorance
Scientific knowledge must be limited or else it will ‘erode the capacity for contemplative wonder.’