Russia Recognizes Palestine

President Medvedev said that Russia would continue to support a Palestinian state, the same as the Soviet Union did in 1988.  Israeli is downplaying the matter.  Medvedev met with the king of Jordan after trying to visit Israel.  Also, apparently Lebanon put a resolution condemning Israeli settlements before the UN Security Council.  And since the US is trying to support Hariri, they may have a hard time vetoing it.  Will Spain be the next country to recognize Palestine?

Spanish Burkas

Wow - the Spaniards beat me to it. I was going to post about the possible Burka Ban in Spain, but then their parliament went ahead and rejected it. Yay! It does bother me that more and more European countries seem to be considering banning burkas and niqabs.

I have discovered something about myself during all of these Burka Ban controversies: it does not bother me as much, if the banning country is Muslim. For instance, Syria is banning veils at university. That doesn't bother me too much, because even though they are technically a secular country, their background is Muslim. It's similar to the US: our background is Christian, but we have a separation of church and state. So it's okay in my book if the government decides to stop prayers in public schools. It's when the government decides to ban something from another religion that I have a problem. I would have the same problem if Syria decided to ban crucifixes, or something like that.