The human 'mules' of Morocco
The hundreds of Moroccan women behind him appear like a mirage in the early morning as they wait to strap massive packages of household goods to their backs. Bent over at the waist because of the weight, the women will carry the loads across the border that separates an autonomous Spanish enclave on the African continent from neighboring Morocco. The women delivers these massive packages to shopkeepers in the Moroccan souks. Known in Spain as 'porteadoras' or female porters, these impoverished women are the 'mules' of a lucrative trade.
For the two autonomous Spanish cities on the African continent, Ceuta and Melilla, this cross-border commerce brings in about $1.5 billion a year, representing nearly a third of those cities’ economies. In Morocco, as many as 45,000 people live off of this trade, with an additional 400,000 profiting indirectly.
This irregular but legal trade comes with a serious human cost. The porteadoras take home next to nothing for the physically grueling work of carrying packages that may weigh more than 200 pounds the length of two football fields through the Spanish-Moroccan border checkpoint.
Source: Mashable
The growing Middle Eastern food market in Chicago
This week, another major grocery retailer entered the battle for the growing Middle Eastern food market in Chicagoland offering a wide range of Arab food products. The past half century has seen Arab food migrate from the shelves of small ethnic neighborhood food stores to the premium shelves of the largest national chains. Chicagoland has been no exception, just a late entry to the market
Over the past few years, several grocery chains started to add Middle East food products to their inventories including in the Southwest suburban area where most of Chicagoland’s 450,000 American Arabs live.
Grocery shopping is fun, and for most ethnic immigrants, its really an experience that symbolizes the freedom that we didn’t have living in oppressive homelands in the Middle East. Grocery stores symbolize our new freedom as Americans. We don’t have to struggle to get the foods we want. Now, finding a job is a different story, of course, and lately in today’s deteriorating economy, it’s not easy.
Source: The Arab Daily News
The Shia question for Pakistani Hajj applicants
Imagine that while filling in an application form you come across a question with a YES/NO tick box which asks "Are you black?" or "Are you a Jew?" You would be right to view the question as offensive and assume it had probably been included for discriminatory purposes.
The same can be said of the form presented to Pakistanis wishing to travel to Saudi Arabia for this year's hajj, which asks: "Are you Shia?"
It's a particularly sensitive question at a time when Saudi Arabia has been whipping up anti-Shia sentiment for political reasons, and some Muslims also feel it's inappropriate considering that the hajj is supposed to be open to all believers regardless of sect.
- See more at: http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2015/may/hajj-shia-question.htm#sthash.BPQBT…Imagine that while filling in an application form you come across a question with a YES/NO tick box which asks "Are you black?" or "Are you a Jew?" You would be right to view the question as offensive and assume it had probably been included for discriminatory purposes.
The same can be said of the form presented to Pakistanis wishing to travel to Saudi Arabia for this year's hajj, which asks: "Are you Shia?"
It's a particularly sensitive question at a time when Saudi Arabia has been whipping up anti-Shia sentiment for political reasons, and some Muslims also feel it's inappropriate considering that the hajj is supposed to be open to all believers regardless of sect.
The same can be said of the form presented to Pakistanis wishing to travel to Saudi Arabia for this year's hajj, which asks: "Are you Shia?"
It's a particularly sensitive question at a time when Saudi Arabia has been whipping up anti-Shia sentiment for political reasons, and some Muslims also feel it's inappropriate considering that the hajj is supposed to be open to all believers regardless of sect.
- See more at: http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2015/may/hajj-shia-question.htm#sthash.BPQBT…The same can be said of the form presented to Pakistanis wishing to travel to Saudi Arabia for this year's hajj, which asks: "Are you Shia?"
It's a particularly sensitive question at a time when Saudi Arabia has been whipping up anti-Shia sentiment for political reasons, and some Muslims also feel it's inappropriate considering that the hajj is supposed to be open to all believers regardless of sect.
- See more at: http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2015/may/hajj-shia-question.htm#sthash.BPQBT…Imagine that while filling in an application form you come across a question with a YES/NO tick box which asks "Are you black?" or "Are you a Jew?" You would be right to view the question as offensive and assume it had probably been included for discriminatory purposes.
The same can be said of the form presented to Pakistanis wishing to travel to Saudi Arabia for this year's hajj, which asks: "Are you Shia?"
It's a particularly sensitive question at a time when Saudi Arabia has been whipping up anti-Shia sentiment for political reasons, and some Muslims also feel it's inappropriate considering that the hajj is supposed to be open to all believers regardless of sect.
- See more at: http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2015/may/hajj-shia-question.htm#sthash.BPQBT…Source: Al Bab
