By: Abdul Aziz Bari

The legal basis of a caretaker government has to be argued in light of the nature of a government in a parliamentary system like ours. Of course, given its role and function, there is room to argue that a caretaker government is not something that is absolutely necessary. For one thing it is just for a short period and that it merely carries out routine administration.

This is plausible given that the civil service – which includes the armed forces and the police force – are still around. Indeed, the system which includes the judiciary – except the government of the day – still exists and is operational. On top of that, the ultimate guardian of the constitution – the Yang di Pertuan Agong - is still there symbolising the nation.

By Peter Dyer, Middle East Online. Posted January 29, 2008.

Iran is not run by saints, but it has never threatened the U.S. or invaded another country.

"Iran is a threat to world peace." Iran is "the world's leading sponsor of terror." So declared President Bush in his recent trip to the Middle East. Iran, he said, is seeking to "intimidate its neighbors with ballistic missiles and bellicose rhetoric."

By now most of us are familiar with the President's feelings and rhetoric concerning Iran. They have a familiar ring. They sound a lot like the buildup to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  Recently the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit investigative reporting institution, published a report: "Iraq: the War Card." The report documented 935 false statements made by President Bush and seven top administration officials in the two years following September 11, 2001 concerning the national security threat posed by Iraq to the US.

A bill to allow women in universities to wear headscarves has been presented to Turkey's parliament   The governing Justice and Development (AK) party and the opposition Nationalist Movement (MHP) party said students would be allowed to wear headscarves as long as they tied them under the chin, leaving their faces exposed.

Presented on Tuesday, the bill will lift a decades-old ban on women wearing head scarves at universities.  Legislators are likely to vote on the bill as early as next week.

The move has worried secularists, who fear the government is raising the profile of Islam in this Muslim but secular country.

Deniz Baykal, leader of the pro-secular Republican People's Party, called the attempt to lift the ban a "threat against the republic."

The headscarf is a highly sensitive issue in Turkey which is secular but predominantly Muslim.

Much of the country's establishment, including the army, views it as a symbol of political Islam and a threat to the separation of state and religion.

Helena Smith
Monday January 28, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

Ataturk

The academic, who is teaching in Britain and did not attend the trial, heard he would be monitored for the next two years to ensure he did not reoffend.