Free Republic

The bright blue veil of the burqa is one of the most iconic and widely worn pieces of women’s clothing in Afghanistan. Since the fall of the Taliban, fewer women wear the burqa in Kabul, but elsewhere, in the provinces, the burqa is as ubiquitous as ever. The Zamarai family, shown in the video, have been tailors and burqa-makers for three generations. But recently there’s a new player in the Kabul burqa market: China, which mass-produces a style of burqa that many women here find more fashionable than the Zamarais’ traditional hand-assembled garments. The Chinese-made burqas’ tightly-crimped folds and machine-produced...

AFTER offending the Muslim world by linking their religion with violence, Pope Benedict XVI, in an exceptional gesture, turned towards Mecca in an attitude of Muslim prayer at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul today, Turkish state television showed. Benedict XVI, who became the second Pope in history - after John Paul II in Damascus in 2001 - to set foot in a Muslim house of worship, made the gesture at the suggestion of Istanbul Mufti Mustafa Cagrici, his guide for the occasion. The Pope's spokesman, Federico Lombardi, was quick to point out to journalists afterwards that the Pope had not...

I'm not sure when this started, but a crucifix cross* appears to have become a regular part of Hillary Clinton's wardrobe. She wore a gold one July 20, for a speech criticizing advertising directed at children. No picture available.) And she wore the diamond-studded one pictured above to the News last week. A Google Images search doesn't seem to turn up any others, though whenever you think you've noticed something new about Clinton, her aides usually produce rock-solid evidence that it has always been thus. Clinton's Christianity, while never exactly lapsed, has rarely been forefront; noticing the jewelry doesn't strike...