In 2008, gunmen killed four staff members of another international aid agency. Charities and international aid organisations are under constant threat in Pakistan, particularly in the NWFP, yet a group of women continue their humanitarian efforts in the region, despite the risks.

This fatwa might actually have an impact. It is comprehensive, direct and does not dodge any of the issues.

A Muslim Kosovan, her eventful life story recalls the hit English film Bend it like Beckham, in which a girl footballer strikes out against ethnic prejudices and her family's reservations.

The scholar developed his fatwa last year as a response to the increase in bombings across Pakistan by militants. It has now been brought to Britain in the backdrop of the Government's Prevention of Violent Extremism efforts to counter extremism and radicalisation on British soil.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an independent development and social research charity, found that British Muslims are less upwardly mobile than their Hindu, Christian and Jewish counterparts.

The prominent cleric, Abd al-Rahman al-Barrak, who is highly reputed within the Saudi religious establishment, issued the fatwa in Arabic on his website.

According to Survival International, the attacks took place in the Sajek region, where tensions have been rising since Bengali settlers, supported by the army, have been expanding their settlements on Jumma land.

This time, the victim was the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose controversial caricature of the Prophet Muhammad had sparked a worldwide storm five years ago. A 28-year-old man of Somali origin broke into the cartoonist's home a few weeks ago, wielding an axe and a knife.

The North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, where I reside, has been particularly volatile recently, and people are increasingly appalled by the convoluted logic used by suicide bombers to kill our families, friends and neighbours.

As a Muslim who knows that the core of her religion is about justice and mercy, I asked myself how the perpetrators of these acts could have strayed so far from the Muslim faith and from basic humane principles.

It is important to remember, however, that this vote in no way changes the fundamental affirmation in the Swiss constitution that "the freedom of religion and philosophy is guaranteed. All persons have the right to choose their religion or philosophical convictions freely, and to profess them alone or in community with others."

The Rihla, one of the greatest travel journals ever recorded, has been greatly responsible for passing on the tales of the 14th century explorer who followed the sun and stars to reach Mecca.

This is partly because Muslim extremists themselves often (mis)use Quranic verses to justify acts of violence against non-Muslims.

In less than 40 years, Cairo has gone from a city of Western fashion to a city in which the majority of women wear the hijab, or headscarf, and even niqab, an outfit that covers the female body, face and hands.

Believed to be the first event of its kind, this cultural festival provides the literary traditions of India and Ireland an opportunity to build on the shared history of excellence in poetry from W.B. Yeats and Rabindranath Tagore to today’s finest writers and critics including Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.

The campaign is being lead by international child rights organisation Plan which announced that more than 40 million people across 32 countries, most of them children, have been ‘found’ and registered during a five year campaign.

Although Pakistan's civilian government and military establishment are closely allied with the United States in efforts to stop Al Qaeda, relations between the two countries are fraught with a lack of confidence and miscommunication, creating major obstacles to achieving shared goals.

Induced abortion is legal under very limited circumstances in the country, yet it is commonly performed, according to a new report, Abortion in Pakistan, released today in Karachi by the National Committee for Maternal and Neonatal Health (NCMNH) and the Guttmacher Institute.

The country was ranked 134 in the world, lower than Rwanda and Libya, in the 2008 annual Corruption Perception Index released by Transparency International.

In fact, one reason some communities in the North West Frontier Province cautiously welcomed the Taliban was the promise of a more efficient, less corrupt justice system.

The study, conducted over 18 months and released in September 2009, aims to give voice to young Muslims who are often analysed by researchers, but rarely heard from.

The scholars and practitioners who contributed to the report, published by Cambridge University, sought to answer a deceptively simple question: What does it mean to live faithfully as a Muslim in Britain today?

The International Development Agency and the Action on Disability and Development (ADD) have been actively involved in arrangements for the convention.

Muslims in New York are South Asian, Middle Eastern, African, East Asian, European and African-American, speak an array of languages and practice Islam in their own culturally nuanced ways.

The video, of two men holding down a teenage girl while another beat her, sent by a friend from Pakistan, prompted Ahmad to fly to Pakistan from New York, his adopted home, to find the answer to the question that was tormenting him: "Which was the real Pakistan?"