South Asia

Pakistan: 68 lawyers charged with blasphemy

Police in the Pakistani province of Punjab filed charges of blasphemy against 68 Shi'ite lawyers after they staged a protest against the police beating of one of their colleagues.

Greater Middle East

Transfer of Homs: the beginning of the end?

Contrary to regime propaganda, the fall of Homs to government forces comes amid rebel gains elsewhere in Syria. With the jihadists in disarray, the FSA prepares to open a new front.

Southeast Asia

Sharia (in)justice in Aceh (not just Brunei)

A rape victim is sentenced to be flogged for "adultery" in Aceh—more grim evidence that local autonomy in the Indonesian region has been usurped by clerical reactionaries.

Africa

Conspiranoids descend on #BringBackOurGirls

As a team of US military advisors head for Nigeria, the Internet conspirosphere bristles with baseless theories about how Boko Haram is a CIA creation. Will you please shut up?

Southeast Asia

Philippines: Moro autonomy deal signed

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) officially ended four decades of armed struggle in the Philippines, when it formally signed a pact on regional autonomy.

North Africa

Mali: jihadis step up attacks on Tuaregs

The Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) was blamed for a massacre of some 30 Tuaregs in a road ambush near the desert city of Gao in northern Mali.

South Asia

Pakistan: jihadis step up attacks on Sufis

Gunmen attacked a Sufi religious gathering in Pakistan's port city of Karachi, leaving eight dead—the latest in a wave of such attacks by Deobandi fundamentalist militants.