YANGON and MANDALAY, Myanmar — To untrained eyes, the symbol that has suddenly appeared on shop windows across Myanmar appears benign: a patchwork of pastel hues overlaid with the numerals 969.

But to Muslims living in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar, the emblem can carry a chilling message: stay out of my store and don’t send any sneaky Buddhists in here to shop on your behalf.

In the aftermath of central Myanmar’s recent anti-Muslim riots — a killing and arson spree that left blackened corpses in the streets — authorities have vowed to track down and punish instigators.

Myanmar’s ‘969’ crusade breeds anti-Muslim malice

Photo by Getty Images

DAKUK, Iraq — In the rugged landscape of northern Iraq where biblical tradition holds that Cain killed Abel, the ancient fault lines of sectarian and ethnic conflict are laid bare.

There is no map that points to where the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve’s first-born son killing his brother might have taken place. The Bible says only that it lays ‘East of Eden.’ But 13^th century historian Yacout al-Hamawi places it in the shadow of the Hamreen Mountains near this ancient town that would have been on the road from Babylon to Nineveh.

Today, in this same troubled land, the divisions that have wracked the region for centuries are coming to the surface. On the tenth anniversary of the US-led war in Iraq, the struggle for power is playing out not just in the halls of government and parliament but in the car-bomb factories and bank accounts that fuel sectarian attacks.

Sunni and Shia divided in Iraq, the land of Cain and Abel

Photos by Franco Pagetti/VII

In one documented case, a Saudi judge encouraged young anti-government protesters to fight in Syria rather than face punishment at home. Twenty-two year old Mohammed al-Talq was arrested and found guilty of participating in a demonstration in the north-central Saudi city of Buraidah.

After giving 19 young men suspended sentences, the judge called the defendants into his private chambers and gave them a long lecture about the need to fight Shia Muslims in Syria, according to Mohammed’s father, Abdurrahman al-Talq.

“You should save all your energy and fight against the real enemy, the Shia, and not fight inside Saudi Arabia,” said the father, quoting the judge. “The judge gave them a reason to go to Syria.”

Within weeks, 11 of the 19 protesters left to join the rebels. In December 2012, Mohammed al-Talq was killed in Syria. His father filed a formal complaint against the judge late last year, but said he has received no response.

Saudi youth fighting against Assad regime in Syria

Photo by AFP/Getty Images

PARIS, France — The Louvre doesn’t do things on a small scale. When the world’s most famous and most popular museum — it hosts more than nine million visitors a year — decided to add a new Islamic art wing, it took $125 million and a decade to build.

Opened earlier this year, its 18,000 works of art have drawn eager crowds. But it remains to be seen whether it will do anything to help bridge the growing divide between most French and the country’s 4 million Muslim residents during an especially tense time.

Designed by Milanese architect Mario Bellini and his French colleague Rudy Ricciotti, the new addition’s wave-like, gold-colored rooftop strikes a sharp contrast to the austere glass pyramid designed by I.M. Pei 23 years ago to serve as the museum’s main entrance.

“More like an enormous veil that undulates as if suspended in the wind,” Bellini described, “almost touching the ground of the courtyard at one point, but without totally encumbering it or contaminating the historic facades.”

Inside, masterpieces representing the Islamic world’s wide cultural reach from Spain to India and spanning the 7th to the 19th centuries fill 30,000 square feet and two floors of galleries.

“There is a zest for Islamic art that I think is fairly new,” Louvre president and director Henri Loyrette said before the wing’s opening in September. “Our task is to reveal the face of this radiant civilization.”

Read the entire story at GlobalPost

GlobalPost’s Erin Cunningham on location in protest in Jordan. For her live updates click here.

Islamist militants are trashing the ancient treasures of Timbuktu, Mali’s fabled desert city, destroying shrines to Islamic saints and attacking a mosque.

The militants today broke down the door of Sidi Yahia, a 15th-century mosque, the BBC reported. Sidi Yahia is one of Timbuktu’s three great mosques, and the door had previously been sealed for centuries as it led to the sacred tomb of saints.

The Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) militant group has seized control of Timbuktu, at the edge of the Sahara Desert, and is on a campaign to destroy historic mausoleums that it says are outside its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Ansar Dine, said to have links to Al Qaeda, has already destroyed seven shrines by smashing them with pick-axes, Agence France-Presse reported.

AFP said some Timbuktu residents sobbed as the militants broke down the Sidi Yahia mosque’s sacred door.

More from GlobalPost: Mali Islamists announce plans to keep destroying Timbuktu

A spokesman for Ansar Dine told the BBC that the group hopes to “destroy every mausoleum in the city — all of them, without exception.”

UNESCO, the UN’s heritage agency, has placed Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger, and has spoken out against the violence.

International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Sunday warned that the destruction of religious buildings could amount to war crimes.

Timbuktu, with its centuries-old mud mosques and ancient manuscripts held in the town’s libraries, was until recently a tourist hotspot. Many visitors would come for a famous festival of Malian music, the Festival in the Desert.

But visitors have been deterred by tourist kidnappings by the North African branch of Al Qaeda.

More from GlobalPost: Timbuktu preserves historic manuscripts

The Dutch government today promised to ban face coverings, including burqas or niqabs, by next year. 

Anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller is warning Americans to be on the lookout for “stealth halal turkeys” this Thanksgiving.

Geller decided to incite some festive hate with this post on Monday, in which she repeats her accusations that the US meat industry does not separate halal from non-halal meat, and accuses popular turkey supplier Butterball of sneaking birds prepared according to Muslim requirements onto non-Muslim tables.

Geller claims halal slaughter methods are “torturous and painful” for the turkeys, and an assault on everyone else’s freedom to have them killed in whichever way they choose.

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(Photo by Justin Sullivan /AFP/Getty Images)