A popular icon of Chinese history helps shape attitudes towards the role of justice in 21st Century China.

His Highness Sheikh Saud of Ras al-Khaimah has a grandiose dream — a brand new capital for the United Arab Emirates.

In the summer of 2006, a bus full of Iranian pilgrims left Tehran on a journey to the holy city of Karbala, deep inside a shattered Iraq.

Link to more information on Sunnia and Shia Islam.

Globally, the Shia account for an estimated 10 or 15 percent of the Muslim population, but in the Middle East their numbers are much higher: they dominate the population of Iran, compose a majority in Iraq, and are significant minorities in other nations.

The Shia rejected the authority of the Umayyad dynasty, claiming that the Umayyads were usurpers and demanding that leadership go to the direct descendants of the Prophet. The Shia rose in the city of al-Kufah (south of Karbala, in present-day Iraq) and, in 680 A.D., invited Ali's son Hussein to join them and be their leader.

Modern Islam is divided into two main branches: the Sunni and the Shia. These sects share the core beliefs of Islam, but the schism between the two was cemented by the politics of the early Muslim world, and by differing interpretations of the Islamic scripture.