Kiwi journalist Glen Johnson is in Egypt and has been talking to locals about what will motivate them to vote in their first free elections for decades.

Once a dusty desert town, Mecca now soars above its surroundings with a glittering array of skyscrapers and luxury hotels.

But how do you punish such a heinous crime as Anders Breivik's? Paul Holmes says there is nothing that could be good enough.

he time is right to engage economically with Islamic finance, writes Zain Ali, head of the Islamic studies research unit at the University of Auckland.

A Muslim women's group is publicly opposing the wearing of the burqa, but Herald readers are divided on whether they should be allowed in New Zealand society.

John Lindh travelled to Afghanistan to help the ruling Taleban fight against Russian-backed insurgents. Then 9/11 happened. US troops tortured him, tried him as a terrorist and jailed him for 20 years.

If there is a day that a 'war on terror' can end, it might have been yesterday.

Pauline Hanson has failed in her bid to be elected to the upper house of the NSW parliament.

In the ancient city of Samarkand stands a monument to the grandiose vision of a brutal warlord. Jim Eagles writes.

There is a current of anti-Muslim feeling in Australia that suggests an entrenched hostility often related to overseas events.

Sydney lawyer and author of Once Were Radicals: My Years as a Teenage Islamo-facist writes that republican-steered terrorism hearings entirely off the mark.