Free Republic

MPs revolt over plan to put asylum seekers on an island By Nick Squires in Sydney (Filed: 11/08/2006) Australia's prime minister, John Howard, suffered the biggest parliamentary revolt of his decade in power yesterday over a proposal to send asylum seekers to remote island detention centres while their claims are processed. Three members of his Liberal Party voted against the Bill and one abstained. It was the worst breach of party loyalty confronted by Mr Howard since he won office from the Labour prime minister Paul Keating in 1996. John Howard shrugged off the party rebellion Despite the MPs' rebellion,...

Muslims and non-Muslims have a role to play in the reform of Islam, writes Irshad Manji. I am a Muslim refusenik. That doesn't mean I refuse to be a Muslim; it simply means I refuse to join an army of automatons in the name of Allah. I have not walked away from my faith and become a secular North American as so many of my fellow Muslims have done. But I remain a struggling Muslim because of the many human rights abuses in Islamist - note that I do not say Islamic - regions: the treatment of women, the Jew-bashing,...