Source: The Nation

Muslim women are fighting for their rights from within Islamic tradition, rather than against it.

Throughout the Muslim world, a groundswell of feminist sentiment is growing among women who are seeking to reclaim Islam and the Koran for themselves. For decades, many women believed they had to choose between their Muslim identity and their belief in gender equality. It was an impossible choice—one that involved betraying either their faith or their feminist consciousness. Four years ago, a global movement called Musawah—“equality” in Arabic—began to make the case that women can fight for justice and equality from within Islamic tradition. For many Muslim women, this came as a revelation. read more

The trouble with trying to tell the story of Occupy Wall Street was that it was always a million things at once. You could go to one meeting, or one action, which might have seemed especially important, but there would be something else going on meanwhile that could just as easily be the next big thing. Each sub-thread of the story, each concurrent reality, made some kind of claim to be a genuine article, an authentic manifestation of what this movement was or should be all about. You needed a lot of eyes to see it all. You needed, perhaps, a social-scientific study. read more

Source: BBC News

Uruguay has become the first country in the world to make it legal to grow, sell and consume marijuana.

After nearly 12 hours of debate, senators gave the government-sponsored bill their historic final approval.

The law allowing registered Uruguayans over 18 to buy up to 40g (1,4oz) of the drug a month is not expected to come into force before April.

The government hopes it will help tackle drug cartels, but critics say it will expose more people to drugs.

Dozens of supporters of the bill proposed by the left-wing President Jose Mujica gathered outside the Congress in Montevideo to follow the vote. read more