The path from the holy city of Mecca to the Mina desert turned a sea of white Wednesday as throngs of Muslims began the annual pilgrimage known as the Hajj.
Forget stampedes, fires and terrorist attacks. The big fear this year concerning the Hajj, the annual millions-strong pilgrimage to Mecca, is swine flu.
Energetic, infectious and combative, the music of Nigerian musician Femi Kuti has moved audiences around the world. But the man is just as passionate about getting people to change their world as much as move their feet.
There is a shiny addition among the Ottoman mosques and palaces that make up Istanbul's stunning skyline: the metallic, mirrored dome of the new Sakirin Mosque, a Muslim place of worship built with a woman's touch.
The path from the holy city of Mecca to the Mina desert turned a sea of white Wednesday as throngs of Muslims began the annual pilgrimage known as the Hajj.
Forget stampedes, fires and terrorist attacks. The big fear this year concerning the Hajj, the annual millions-strong pilgrimage to Mecca, is swine flu.
Energetic, infectious and combative, the music of Nigerian musician Femi Kuti has moved audiences around the world. But the man is just as passionate about getting people to change their world as much as move their feet.
There is a shiny addition among the Ottoman mosques and palaces that make up Istanbul's stunning skyline: the metallic, mirrored dome of the new Sakirin Mosque, a Muslim place of worship built with a woman's touch.
A Turkish television show is offering contestants what it claims is the "biggest prize ever" -- the chance for atheists to convert to one of the world's major religions.
LAS VEGAS -- With the American economy at a crossroads, a cross-section of America still converges here every summer. It's as if money grows on palm trees in the middle of The Strip, because, even with recessionary dollars harder to come by, bigger crowds keep coming to the World Series of Poker.
Police in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca Wednesday arrested a woman for violating the country's ban on women driving, according to the Saudi English-language daily Arab News.
Two young Iranian parents smiled at me, showing mock desperation as their little boy and girl eagerly dragged them into a shop famous for its pistachio ice cream sandwiches. Around the corner, filling the side of a 15-story building, a government-sponsored propaganda mural showed a perverted American flag, with skulls for stars and falling bombs for stripes.
The 1 to 2 million people expected to pour into downtown Washington for inaugural festivities will pose major challenges for the city, for law enforcement, and for the attendees themselves.
In summer, I flew from Istanbul's Ataturk Airport to Tehran's Khomeini Airport to film a public television show on Iran. For an American, it was eye-opening from the first moment. When the pilot said, "We're taking this plane to Tehran," nobody was alarmed.
The pilgrimage that brings more than 2 million Muslims to Mecca every year tends to make them more religiously observant and also more tolerant, a huge study of Pakistani pilgrims suggests.
Israel has dropped 20 names from a list of Palestinian prisoners set for release this week, the Israeli government announced Sunday, bringing the number down to 230.
Since Afghan officials met with former Taliban leaders in Mecca, Saudi Arabia a month ago the drum beat of hammering out a political deal with the Taliban rather than smashing them militarily has been growing steadily.
In a groundbreaking meeting, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently hosted talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group, according to a source familiar with the talks.
Among the who's-who of American running, jumping, throwing and vaulting that has descended on America's one true track Mecca -- Eugene, Ore. -- for the Olympic Track and Field Trials, one athlete who has been entirely absent from the new polyurethane at Hayward Field has nonetheless been much on the minds of many competing for Beijing berths.
It produced a blast hundreds of times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb, was seen hundreds of miles away and narrowly missed obliterating an entire city -- but 100 years to the week after the mysterious explosion in Siberia, no one is any closer to understanding what caused it.
The mass migration of investors to Omaha for Warren Buffett's annual shareholder meeting, which kicks off Saturday morning, is the biggest pilgrimage this side of Mecca. More than 25,000 other people from every state in the Union and dozens of foreign countries go to soak up the wisdom of Buffett and his business partner, Charlie Munger, who sit for hours and answer questions from all comers. Their answers are often so educational and entertaining that any investor can take them to heart and learn from them.
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