It’s the latest prescription for extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who shun contact with the opposite sex: Glasses that blur their vision, so they don’t have to see women they consider to be immodestly dressed.

In an effort to maintain their strictly devout lifestyle, the ultra-Orthodox have separated the sexes on buses, sidewalks and other public spaces in their neighborhoods. Their interpretation of Jewish law forbids contact between men and women who are not married.

Walls in their neighborhoods feature signs exhorting women to wear closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts. Extremists have accosted women they consider to have flouted the code.

Now they’re trying to keep them out of clear sight altogether.

The ultra-Orthodox community’s unofficial “modesty patrols” are selling glasses with special blur-inducing stickers on their lenses. The glasses provide clear vision for up to a few meters so as not to impede movement, but anything beyond that gets blurry — including women. It’s not known how many have been sold.

In Israel, new modesty glasses for Orthodox Jewish men blur women out of their line of sight – NY Daily News

Islamists in control of a town in northern Mali stoned a couple to death after accusing them of having children outside of marriage, a local official who was one of several hundred witnesses to the killings said Monday.

The official said the bearded Islamists, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, brought the couple into the center of the town of Aguelhok from about 12 miles away in the countryside. The young man and woman were forced into holes about four feet deep, with their heads protruding, and then stoned to death at about 5 a.m. Sunday, the official said.

“They put them into the holes, and then they started throwing big rocks, until they were dead,” the official said, speaking by satellite phone from the remote desert town near the Algerian border.

“It was horrible,” he said, noting that the woman had moaned and cried out and that her partner had yelled something indistinct during the attack. “It was inhuman. They killed them like they were animals.”

Islamists in North Mali Stone Couple to Death – NYTimes.com

Abdi Jeylani Malaq Marshale, a comedian known for mocking Al-Qaeda linked Shebab insurgents in Mogadishu, was killed just after leaving Kulmiye radio station.

He was considered a leader of the Somali comedy scene and assisted in programs which sought to prevent young Somalis from joining the insurgents.

Marshale was known for airing dramas making fun of the extremist Shebab and for participating in youth advocacy programmes aimed at preventing young Somalis from joining the insurgents.

So far in 2012, at least one Somali journalist has been killed each month.

Somali comedian who poked fun at Islamists shot dead