LastSuperpower

Today all of Turkey is on tenterhooks over the expected European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling on complaints made by terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan. A decision to retry Ocalan would be a milestone for Turkey.

• Posted by anita
• Published: 2005-05-12

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• Posted by anita
• Published: 2005-05-12

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Although it was Easter Sunday, the main festival in the Orthodox Church calendar, protesters from across the political spectrum took to the streets all over Russia in a sign of escalating civil unrest. The rallies began in the eastern port of Vladivostok - where demonstrators carried a poster saying "Oh, if only comrade Stalin were here now" - before spreading to the Siberian cities of Omsk and Krasnoyarsk

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-05-03

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Don't agitate, celebrate...........The Hallmarkization of Earth Day aptly symbolizes the predicament of 21st century ideological environmentalism. Unfortunately for green activists, the public now recognizes that their relentless predictions of imminent environmental apocalypse are a bunch of hooey.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-30

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The role of the United States, they said, was important, but it would have to change its profile in order to defuse deep tensions that had developed between the Americans and the Iraqi people.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-26

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We undertake to rebuild a shattered country scarred by decades of tyranny. With unwavering resolve we support plurality, egalitarianism, and the political process.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-26

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There are things to dislike about Tony Blair. His rather sickly piety is one, and his liberal authoritarianism, on matters such as smoking and fox-hunting, is another. I can't forgive him for calling Diana Spencer "the People's Princess," or for seeking the approval of the Fleet Street rags, and he is one of those politicians who seems to think that staying "on message" is an achievement in itself. Nonetheless, he took a bold stand against the establishment and against a sullen public opinion and did so on a major issue of principle. It is absolutely necessary that his right-wing and clerical enemies be humiliated at the polls.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-26

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Iraqi trade unionist MAHDY ALI LAFTA talks about the huge challenge of renewing education in his country. Teachers and lecturers have been frequent targets for attacks by Iraq's insurgency.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-26

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Frustrated by poorly-performing American companies, the US government is to concentrate on aiding local efforts to rebuild Iraq.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-24

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Much-criticised programme in which suspected militants are interrogated is turning the public against the insurgency.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-24

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President Talabani says he is against capital punishment and would not back an execution.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-20

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Reporters Without Borders wrote to Cairo criminal court president Almohamady Qonsoah today calling on his court to quash the one-year prison sentence and heavy fines passed yesterday on three journalist with the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm. "In view of President Hosni Mubarak's promise to journalists in February 2004 to abolish prison sentences for 'publishing offences,' we appeal to the common sense of the Egyptian courts," the organization said.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-19

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One morning last week, three dozen women in Western-style business suits crowded into the office of the man who would soon be Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Most were members of the newly elected National Assembly, and they had a list of demands............Hours later, another group of women who are assembly members arrived in Dr. Jaafari's office. They wore black abayas, the garments that cover a woman's body from head to foot, and they had another agenda

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-15

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Television talk-show host Matilda Farjallah shifts forward in her chair and looks the white-bearded Sunni sheikh sitting across the table directly in the eyes. "Tahzeeb al-mara ["instructing the woman"] is discussed in the Koran. Does it allow instructing a woman by beating her?" she asks.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-15

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The choice of peace or war lies not with the Iraqis who ignored terrorism and intimidation to vote in their millions, the Iraqis to whom I am accountable. No, that decision lies with the terrorist minority that despises freedom and spurns every offered opportunity to enter the political process. The attacks on election officials, the suicide bombings of voters, and the cowardly attacks on brave Iraqis waiting in line to join our fledgling security forces are not the tactics of "resistance" or "freedom fighters" but of murderers and criminals.

• Posted by keza
• Published: 2005-04-15

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