Over the last week, a number of stories related to the beauty industry have hit the headlines, including the publishing of a book entitled "The Vogue Factor" by former editor-in chief of Vogue, Kirstie Clements where she describes the extreme measures that models take to maintain the ideal body size expected by the beauty and fashion industry. She stated that the pressure for models to stay thin was so intense that some ate tissues to starve off hunger pangs, others avoided solid food to reduce down two dress-sizes resulting in hospitalization, whilst others did not eat for days such that they could barely stand. This war waged by models on their bodies has made a grievous casualty of their health with fatal consequences at times, all in the pursuit of an irrational Western template of beauty set by a handful of designers and personalities in the beauty, fashion, and entertainment industries who have dictated to women their whimsical view of the perfect physical ideal that women should embrace. However, this unrealistic manufactured template of beauty and this "Anorexia-induced obsession with size-zero models" as one UK Independent journalist describes it, has also had a disastrous impact on ordinary girls and women within Western societies who are constantly bombarded with images of the so-called "perfect" face, body-size and shape on their TV screens, billboards, and the pages of magazines. In the US and UK there are 7 million and 1 million starving women respectively. These are not victims of famine but primarily victims of fashion. They are women with eating disorders who starve themselves to fit this oppressive template of body-size to feel valued, the result of which can be organ failure, heart failure, and death. They have been influenced by the highly destructive messages drilled into their minds by the liberal society in which they live of what beauty constitutes, that fitting this restrictive mould of beauty equates to success, and that the value of the woman is measured by her face and figure.

This phenomenon of risking death in the pursuit of beauty is not isolated to the West. It is sadly a significant and growing trend amongst women in the Muslim world who have also been affected by Western-influenced images of beauty that saturates entertainment, magazines, shopping malls, and mass media within their societies - images that assign great importance to acquiring this "ideal" look to achieve self-worth. This week Al-Jazeera ran a report about Nigeria as the country that has the world's highest percentage of women using skin lightening agents because lighter skin is considered more beautiful by many within the society. According to the World Health Organisation, 77% of women in Nigeria use these creams or bleaches, many of which can cause kidney failure, leukaemia, and cancer of the liver and kidneys. Similar skin-lightening products are used by women in other Muslim countries. Furthermore, earlier this year, the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons reported that there has been a notable rise in demand for cosmetic surgery in Turkey and Saudi Arabia who both rank in the top 25 countries worldwide with the highest rates of cosmetic procedures. These procedures of course carry health and sometimes mortality risks.
And all this has been driven by the merciless capitalist system that has made women's physical insecurities a marketing tool for profit. As the figures of women are squeezed down, the profit margins of the multibillion beauty, fashion, and diet industries are ever-expanding through their perpetual promotion of this unreachable illusionary beauty ideal that is based upon constantly trying to persuade women - "you're not quite good enough". The UK population spends over £11 billion each year on weight loss products. In the US, it's between $40-100 billion. The Economist magazine reports that skin-bleaching products are expected to be a $10 billion industry by 2015. One Western feminist Kat Banyard writes, "As long as the beauty ideal remains, business will keep on picking the scab and then selling us a plaster". The disastrous impact of perpetuating this beauty myth on the self-esteem and lives of women including fuelling eating disorders is of irrelevance to the heartless and conscienceless capitalist ideology whose morals are defined by money. Any right-minded individual would consider the starvation, mutilation, or grievous bodily harm against women a form of abuse but capitalism has managed to market it for the sake of financial gain as empowerment, liberation, and beauty. But what kind of empowerment is it when a woman feels she needs to starve herself to feel valued or mutilate her body through painful, life-threatening surgery to fit an irrational template of beauty? What kind of liberation is it when a woman depends on the gaze of others to feel a sense of self-worth, or is duped into spending thousands to engage in this never-ending beauty quest scam. No! This is physical, psychological, and emotional oppression!

Islam in contrast liberates women from this crippling obsession with their face, figure, and skin tone for it does not value a woman based on her looks but her piety, character and conduct. Allah (swt) says,

‌((إِنَّ أَڪۡرَمَكُمۡ عِندَ ٱللَّهِ أَتۡقَٮٰكُمۡ))

"The most honourable of you with Allah is the one who has more piety (more obedience to Allah)." [TMQ Al-Hujraat:13]

And Islam liberates women from insecurities and low-self-esteem associated with their appearance for it does not set superficial, man-made, irrational, and unrealistic expectations of beauty. Rather, it prescribes a simple, realistic dress-code for the woman in public life that is within the reach of every woman - the khimar and the jilbab - which focuses society's attention to her personality, intelligence, abilities, and contribution to her community rather than her waist-size and weight, as well as conveying a message that her beauty is not up for public discussion or dissection. This is the view towards women that will be promoted within the Khilafah "Caliphate" system. Is this not what women's empowerment is all about?

Dr. Nazreen Nawaz
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

Headlines:

• The Tunnel People that Live under the Streets of America
• US Navy to Deploy Lasers on Ships in 2014
• Assad Sending Syrian Guerrillas to Train In Iran
• US Drone War Deal 'in Return for Killing Pakistani Militant in CIA Missile Strike'
• Russia Putin Warns Korean Crisis could be Worse than Chernobyl

Details:

The Tunnel People that Live under the Streets of America:

Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities? It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City. As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely exploding and so is homelessness. In addition to the thousands of "tunnel people" living under the streets of America, there are also thousands that are living in tent cities, there are tens of thousands that are living in their vehicles and there are more than a million public school children that do not have a home to go back to at night. The federal government tells us that the recession "is over" and that "things are getting better", and yet poverty and homelessness in this country continue to rise with no end in sight. So what in the world are things going to look like when the next economic crisis hits? But perhaps the saddest part of this is the massive number of children that are suffering night after night. For the first time ever, more than a million public school children in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year. So if things are really "getting better" then why does the US have more than a million public school children without homes? The middle class continues to shrink and poverty continues to grow with each passing year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty. And if you throw in those that are considered to be "near poverty", that number becomes much larger. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either "poor" or "low income".

US Navy to Deploy Lasers on Ships in 2014:

The Pentagon has plans to deploy its first ever ship-mounted laser next year, a disruptive, cutting-edge weapon capable of obliterating small boats and unmanned aerial vehicles with a blast of infrared energy. Navy officials announced Monday that in early 2014, a solid-state laser prototype will be mounted to the fantail of the USS Ponce and sent to the 5th fleet region in the Middle East for real-world experience. Video released by the Navy shows the laser lock onto a slow-moving target, in this case an unmanned drone, which bursts aflame in mid-flight. The drone soon catches fire and crashes into the sea below. "It operates much like a blowtorch ... with an unlimited magazine," one official said. There are potential targets for the laser in the 5th fleet region, which includes the Persian Gulf, where Iran operates small surveillance drones and is known for swarming and harassing U.S. Navy ships with small, armored speed boats. One of its major advantages, the Navy said, is its relatively low cost to operate. "Its weapon round costs about $1 to shoot," said Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, Chief of Naval Research. Although the unit cost is higher -- at around $32 million to produce.

Assad Sending Syrian Guerrillas to Train in Iran:

The Syrian government is sending members of its irregular militias for guerrilla combat training at a secret base in Iran, in a move to bolster its armed forces drained by two years of fighting and defections, according to fighters and activists. The discreet programme has been described as an open secret in some areas loyal to president Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush a revolt against his family's four-decade hold on power. The fighters appear to come largely from minority groups that have supported Mr. Assad against the mostly Sunni Muslim-led uprising. Such a move could exacerbate the dangerous sectarian dimensions of a conflict that has turned into a civil war that has cost the lives of more than 70,000 people. Iran, a Shi'ite rival to Sunni countries in the Gulf that support the rebels, sees Syria as the lynchpin of its regional influence. "It was an urban warfare course that lasted 15 days. The trainers said it's the same course Hezbollah operatives normally do," said Samer, a Christian member of a pro-Assad militia fighting in rural parts of Homs province. "The course teaches you the important elements of guerrilla warfare, like several different ways to carry a rifle and shoot, and the best methods to prepare against surprise attacks." According to fighters interviewed in Homs, most men sent to undergo the training are from the Alawite sect, the heterodox strain of Shi'ite Islam of which Mr Assad is a member. A smaller number were Druze and Christians, whose communities are divided but largely support Mr. Assad due to their fears of rising Islamist rhetoric among the opposition.

US Drone War Deal 'in Return for Killing Pakistani Militant in CIA Missile Strike':

The US assassinated a Pakistani tribal rebel with an armed Predator drone to win support from the country's government to launch the war from the skies with drones in 2004, according to US reports. The back-room deal, although not publicly confirmed, was detailed in several interviews with officials in the US and Pakistan for a New York Times investigation.  The bargain was crucial in allowing the Central Intelligence Agency dramatically to escalate its use of unmanned drones to target suspected terrorists in Pakistan's border areas in what the then Bush administration called the "war on terror".  President Barack Obama has intensified America's covert drone operations, expanding their role in Yemen and East Africa, as he has tried to reduce US boots on the ground in combat missions.  John Brennan, the new CIA director, was the architect of Mr Obama's "targeted killing" programme as the president's chief counterterrorism adviser in the first term. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, drone strikes killed between 474 and 881 civilians - including 176 children - in Pakistan between 2004 and last year.

Russia Putin Warns Korean Crisis Could Be Worse than Chernobyl:

Russian President Vladimir Putin appealed on Monday for calm on the Korean Peninsula, warning that the escalation of tension in the region could lead to a nuclear disaster far worse than the Chernobyl incident. "We are concerned about the escalation on the Korean Peninsula because we are neighbors and because if, God forbid, anything should happen there, Chernobyl, of which we are all only too aware, would seem like mere child's play in comparison," Putin said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "I would like to call on everybody to calm down and to sit down at the negotiating table and calmly resolve the issues that have been accumulating there for many years," he said.

Abu Hashim

The report delivered by the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir / Wilayah Egypt regarding the advocacy campaign organized by Hizb ut Tahrir to identify the Fardh of the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate" which took place in the city of Maghagha, Port Province.

Friday 17 Jumada I 1434, corresponding to 29 March 2013

Campaign: Defining the Fardh of the Khilafah "Caliphate"

Friday Khutba delivered by Sheikh Mohammed Abdelqawi
In the Great Mosque, Maghagha, Port Province
Friday, 17 Jumada I 1434 AH, corresponding to 29 March 2013

Campaign: Defining the Fardh of the Khilafah "Caliphate"

Speech after the Asr prayer by Sheikh Mohammed Abdelqawi
"Straight Path towards the establishment of the Khilafah "Caliphate""
Mosque Center Maghagha Maghagha, Port Province
Friday, 17 Jumada I 1434 AH, corresponding to 29 March 2013

Campaign: Defining the Fardh of the Khilafah "Caliphate"

Seminar by Sheikh Mohammed Abdelqawi
"The correct understanding of Islam using the Prophet's Seerah"
In the Great Mosque, Hamida al-Jundi, Maghagha, Port Province

Video excerpts from the first day of the protest "Liberation" against foreign dependence

organized by Hizb ut Tahrir / Tunisia

Before the Constituent Assembly in Tunisia

Wednesday, 29 Jumada I 1434 AH, corresponding to 10 April 2013