THIS Didn't Take Long

It was just Monday when the government of Indonesia and rebels from Aceh province signed a peace agreement in Helsinki, Finland, ending 30 years of conflict. Among other terms, the fundamentalist Muslim province was given permission to establish Sharia law. Indonesia runs a secular government -- the most corrupt in the world, but secular. And here we go. Aceh, with the stroke of a pen, was transported back to the seventh century.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Aug 19 (AFP) - An Islamic sharia court in Indonesia's staunchly-Muslim Aceh province on Friday ordered four women to be flogged for petty gambling offences. The public lashing was the second since the Indonesian government allowed the western province to implement religious law as part of broader autonomy granted in 2001 to curb a separatist Islamist insurgency. The four women were found guilty of gambling by the court on Thursday and flogged on a covered podium erected next to a mosque in Takengon, Central Aceh, after Friday noon prayers.