President Abdullah Gul of Turkey

An Islamist in Disguise

The election of Abdullah Gul as President of Turkey on 28 August 2007 is controversial because of his Islamic background. Now that both the Prime Minister and President have religious backgrounds, his election is widely viewed as a threat to the secular ethos of the Turkish State.

Although Mr Gul, in his accession speech, pledged allegiance to the secular constitution and the legacy of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, there are many who view such commitments as cosmetic.

Mr Gull entered parliament in 1991 as a member of the Welfare Party. This was a pro Islamic party which ruled in 1996, until it was forced out of power by the military. The reason for the intervention of the army was that the party was failing to respect the secular values enshrined in the constitution. Leaders of the party were banned from political office for several years.

Mr Gul reappeared in 1999 as a member of the Virtue Party. This party was also closed down in 2001, for the same reason. However, there was not a disqualification order and Mr Gul was instrumental in founding the Justice and Development Party (AKP). This party won a significant electoral victory in 2002, and has remained in power since then.

The fact that Mrs Gul wears a headscarf in public may seem a barely relevant point to many international observers, but it is deeply significant in Turkey. This is because Turkish women are forbidden to wear headscarves at school, university and in government. Women lawyers are also forbidden to wear headscarves in Court.

This is the legacy of Ataturk who considered Islam part of the Ottoman tradition which he and his followers were dedicated to eradicating from Turkish society. The secular nature of the Turkish state is safeguarded by the Constitution of 1982.

The Turkish establishment, including the military, are deeply committed to the secular ethos. However, they are perceived by many ordinary Turks as out of step with contemporary trends such as economic liberalism and social mobility within Turkish society.

The AKP party reflects the growing aspirations of many Turks for improved standards of living and a pro EU stance, and they compare Turkey's economic performance in recent years with the periods of stagnation and inflation of the post war period.

Mr Gul became president at his second attempt, the first being blocked by the military in May which forced a general election. The AKP were returned to power with an increased majority and the military have not, as yet, intervened.

The newly appointed president's wife, Mrs Gul, was notable by her absence at the Victory Day festivities which celebrate the victory of Dumlupinar, the final battle in the Turkish War of Independence of 1922, as she was not invited by the military. The military have a longstanding practice of not inviting the wives of AKP politicians who wear headscarves to civic events.

It is important to recognise the fragility of democracy in Turkey. The military have ousted four governments since 1960, and their complaints should not be taken lightly.

Mr Gul and the AKP need to tread very carefully during the early months of his presidency, due to the risk of military intervention. One way he could defuse the tension between the government and the army would be to accede to the military's desire to take a harder line against the Kurdish Peoples Party (PKK) insurgents in eastern Turkey and to allow the military to strike at their bases in Northern Iraq.

Kurds have been flocking into Kirkuk in anticipation of a referendum which could grant a measure of devolved power to a relatively autonomous Kurdistan. In addition to the dimension of terrorism, the area is rich in oil and therefore has major strategic importance.

Mr Gul's avowal of secular values is considered a sham by many commentators who point to his Islamic political past. However, it should be noted that many politicians modify their views during the course of their careers.

In the UK, the transformation of the Labour party from an organisation committed to state ownership of major industries and pacifism to a liberal, market oriented economy party is astounding. The fact that the party leaders embraced a bellicose foreign policy with respect to Afghanistan and Iraq provides an example of how politicians can radically change their policies.

Although opportunist politicians change their policies in response to public opinion, and the UK Labour Party is a prime example of this, one can question whether such an analysis holds in respect of religious beliefs. Contemporary events in the middle east indicate that Islam is a matter of deep conviction and not simply political convenience.

On this view, one could argue that it is only a matter of time before the AKP and President Gul adopt a more Islamic tone. This would have significant implications for NATO, of which Turkey is a member, and for Turkey's relations with Israel, which are currently cordial. It would not bode well for Turkey's accession into the EU.

After 49 yrs in power, Castro resigns as Prez

Fidel Castro stepped down on Tuesday morning as the President of Cuba after a long illness, ending one of the most all-powerful communist heads of state in the world, according to Granma, the official publication of the Cuban Communist Party,

Keisha Castle-Hughes could make a move in politics

It is a hectic life for Keisha Castle-Hughes. Not even 18 and she has already ridden whales, had an Oscar nomination, a baby and now a return to the movies, with her latest role a headstrong teenager named Sunni.

Certainly a busy life for someone not even old enough to vote. But what does her future hold?

At a recent interview, Keisha revealed that acting was not necessarily going to be her long-term career and she might switch to politics.

Politicians and political commentators like discuss how they feel Keisha would do in her potential new career.

Women to march ahead in politics

The Political Parties Law stipulates that 30 percent of the House of Representatives and the People's Representative Council should be female. But the reality is that only 11.27 percent of the House's 550 members are women.

In the regions, women face challenges in becoming legislative candidates and sometimes have difficulties voting independently.

"Patriarchy is like a plague in our pesantren (Islamic boarding school). Many female voters are forced to vote for the candidates whom their teachers, who mostly are males, have instructed them to. If they vote otherwise, the teachers won't acknowledge them as students and this scares the voters," said Rukayah Maksum, a member of the Indonesian Women's Coalition for Justice and Democracy (KPI) in the East Java town Bondowoso.

"To make things worse, political parties usually take turns at pesantren during the election campaign while exploiting the culture for their own political gains," she said during the KPI's national political consolidation assembly here Wednesday.

Sri Wahyuningsih, an academic and KPI member from Malang, East Java, lamented the general apathy of women in her province, particularly toward getting involved in politics.

"It's really not easy asking around for women who would be interested in becoming legislative candidates. There is a great deal of shyness and second-guessing among the women, not to mention funding concerns," she said.

Another KPI member, Alfianda, who hails from Cirebon, West Java, said many male members of local political parties denied the applicability of the 2008 Political Parties Law in provinces, regencies and municipalities.

"They claimed the 30 percent quota was only applicable on the national scale. Whereas in the provinces and regencies, proportional representation is still the rule of the game," she said. "Obviously, politicians and legislatures in the regions feel threatened by the possible increase of women's participation in politics."

A central figure in the drafting of the law, Tyas Indyah Iskandar of Golkar Party, said the main opposition she received when lobbying for the 30 percent quota to apply across the board was that party executives in the capital and regions alike had in fact come from small and local political parties.

"There were representatives who literally begged us to compromise by limiting the application of the article so as to not hurt the performance of local parties," she said.

Pak channel airs photos of two suspects

A Pakistani TV news channel today aired photographs of two men, which it said were involved in the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto after an election rally in Rawalpindi on Thursday.
One of the two grainy photos – which Dawn News channel said were clicked by an amateur photographer – showed a youth wearing sunglasses aiming a pistol at Bhutto’s back while she waved through the sun-roof of her bulletproof vehicle to her supporters.
The other picture, apparently taken before the shooting, showed the same youth standing next to another man, who had a white cloth wrapped around his face. Dawn News described the second man as the “suspected suicide bomber”

Sharif meets Zardari, pays tributes to Bhutto

Former Pakistan premier Nawaz Sharif today visited the grave of slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and offered condolences to her husband Asif Ali Zardari and son Bilawal.
Sharif, who was accompanied by a 40-member delegation of his PML-N party, laid a floral wreath at Bhutto’s grave at her family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Baksh in the southern Sindh province.

Shaukat Aziz not to contest elections

Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Saturday that he would not contest next elections due on January 8.
“I will stay in politics as an ordinary member of the PML and serve the country,” Aziz told reporters. He said though he had received offers to contest from party leaders of eight constituencies, he opted to stay out of the fray.

Us says it has right to kidnap British citizens

The United States has told Britain that it has the right to “kidnap” British citizens if they are suspected of crimes in America – and this can be done without using formal extradition procedures.

A senior lawyer for the US Government has told the Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under the US law as the country’s Supreme Court has sanctioned it, The Sunday Times reported.

“It’s acceptable under the American law to kidnap people if they’re wanted for offences in America. The US does have a view about procuring people to its own shores which is not shared….If you kidnap a person outside the United States and you bring him there, the court has no jurisdiction to refuse – it goes back to bounty hunting days in the 1860’s” Alun Jones told the UK court.

The statement came when one of the Court of Appeal judges asked Jones, representing the US government about its treatment of the nephew of Stanley Tollman, a former director of Chelsea football club.

Gavin Tollman became the subject of an attempted abduction during a visit to Canada in 2005. The Tollmans are wanted in America for bank fraud and tax evasion.

In 2005, Gavin Tollman, the head of Trafalgar Tours, a holiday company, had arrived in Toronto by plane when he was arrested by Canadian immigration authorities.

An American prosecutor, who had tried and failed to extradite him from Britain, persuaded the Canadian officials to detain him. Tollman was escorted in handcuffs from the aircraft in Toronto, taken to prison and held for 10 days.

Hand-picked SC clears Mush election

A supreme court hand-picked by General Pervez Musharraf swiftly dismissed legal challenges to his continued rule on Monday, paving the way for him to serve another five-year term – this time solely as a civilian president. Welcoming the ruling, a Musharraf aide said it kept the General on track to quit the army by the end of November.

Labour sweeps general election in Australia

Promising a major policy change on Iraq and climate issues, the Labour party today swept to power in Australia, beating the coalition led by conservative Prime Minister John Howard, which had ruled the country for 11 years.

“A few minutes ago I telephoned Rudd and congratulated him and the Australian Labour Party on a very emphatic victory,” Howard said in a nationally televised concession speech.

:”I accept full responsibility for the Liberal party campaign, and I therefore accept full responsibility for the coalition’s defeat in this election campaign the leader said.

Voters turned to Labour party leader Kevin Rudd’s pitch of fresh leadership and new ideas over Howard’s record of economic management and unprecedented years of growth under his government.

The historic victory has put Rudd into the company of Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke as Labour’s only modern leaders to take government from opposition.

Exit polls has consistently put the Labour party ahead since Rudd took the reins from Kim Beazley last December.

US plan to restructure aid to Pak

The Bush administration is in the final stages of a plan to restructure assistance to Pakistan in the face of intense pressure from several quarters to cut aid to the country following imposition of emergency, officials said here.
The plan is also looking at ways in which the assistance to Pakistan is further controlled or made subject to additional oversight, without actually reducing the aid, media reports said. Ever since Musharraf clamped emergency, the administration has been saying that its aid package is under tight scrutiny but at the same time senor officials have been emphasizing on the importance of Islamabad and Musharraf in the US-led war on terror.

N-deal: China is supportive, Wen Jiabao tells Manmohan Singh

As AEC chairman Anil Kakodhar opened talks with IAEA chief Mohammed ElBradel in Vienna for an India-specific safeguards agreement to operationalise the nuclear deal, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that his country was “forthcoming and supportive” of international civil nuclear energy cooperation with India.

Imran Khan On Hunger Strike

Imran Khan began a hunger strike on Monday in the prison, where he was sent last week for protesting against emergency rule, said his spokesman. He said Khan, who now heads his own opposition party, wanted a restoration of the Constitution and reinstatement of judges sacked when President Pervez Musharraf imposed the emergency just over two years ago.

Cj’s daughter not allowed to take exam

The daughter of sacked Pakistan Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, currently under house arrest, was not allowed to step out of the house to take her A-level examinations. Policeman guarding the house of Chaudhary, who was detained shortly after the imposition of emergency by President Musharraf on November 3, did not allow his daughter Ifra Iftikhar to step out of the house to write her A-level tests her yesterday. When her pleas fell flat on the guards ears, she turned to the British Council for help.

Elections in Jan : Mush

President Pervez Musharraf on Sunday announced that the elections would be held in the first week of January, but declined to give date for ending emergency saying he needs it to combat terrorism.

He reiterated to reporters here that he would relinquish army post after the Supreme Court vacates embargo on the notification of the elections. He said a caretaker government would be installed on Nov 15 when the National Assembly’s five year term expires. The provisional assemblies would be dissolved on November 20, he added.

The four things were highlighted by Bush:

1. Emergency required to tackle terrorism.
2. Caretaker government on Nov 15.
3. Provisional assemblies to be dissolved on Nov 20.
4. Defends arrest of political leaders.

Bomb suspects flee Maldives for Pak, say police

Colombo: Ten men whom police suspect of involvement in a bombing that wounded 12 foreign tourists in the Maldives fled to Pakistan before officers could arrest them, police said on Thursday. Officers managed to round up six of 16 local men suspected of involvement in the planning of the attack and assembling of the bomb, but the other 10 escaped to Pakistan, Maldives police said.

Bush cracks the whip

President George W Bush on Wednesday personally informed Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf that he must fulfill his promise to hold parliamentary elections and give up the post as army chief.

“You can’t be the President and the head of the military at the same time.” Bush said he told General Musharraf in a telephonic conversation. “I had a very frank discussion with him.”

The White House has come under fire for treating General Musharraf, an ally in the U.S.-led war on terror, with kid gloves Bush was asked by a reporter why he had come down hard on the military junta in Burma and had not yet given a pass to General Musharraf.

Addressing reporters along side French President Nicolas Sarkozy at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Virginia’s, Bush said he had spoken to General Musharraf earlier in the day. “And my message was that we believe strongly in elections, and that you ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform,” he said.

Bush said his “objective is the same in Burma as it is in Pakistan, and that is to promote democracy.” But he added: “There is a difference, however. Pakistan has been on the path to democracy; Burma hadn’t been on the path to democracy. And it requires different tactics to achieve the common objective.

Far-reaching repercussions for world if Pak implodes: Bhutto

Former Pakistan Premier Benazir Bhutto has warned that if her country “implodes” it will have far-reaching repercussions for the world community.

“God forbid, if Pakistan implodes? It will have far-reaching repercussions not just on our region but the wider world community,” Bhutto said in an interview published in the last issue of Hello magazine.

Bhutto also spoke about her dream of eliminating militant groups to usher stability in crisis-ridden Pakistan and her desire to work with India and Pakistan.

India more important than Pak, says US

The US has said broad-based partnerships between America and India are critical and more important as compared to Pakistan, as New Delhi is growing as a potential power with global influence.
“The US-India strategic potential is very, very profound,” deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and South-East Asia James Clad told online journalists and bloggers during a conference call from the Pentagon.
While India’s sometimes contentious neighbour, Pakistan, continues to search for Osama bin Laden and help wage the global war on terror on terrorism, Clad explained, the US-Indian relationship was more important in the long run.
“India simply must, as a long-term consideration. matter more for us than Pakistan,” Clad has been quoted as saying in the American Forces Press Services.
“India is seen as potentially a power with global reach,” Clad said.
“It’s been slow in coming – I think it would be slow in coming future – but it is steady. The trend lines are unmistakable,” he said.

India, China not rivals: Sonia

Acknowledging that India and China have different prospectives on both bilateral and global issues, Congress president Sonia Gandhi today said “pragmatism and mutual interest” offer a sound basis for the future development of the relationship.

She also expressed confidence that outstanding issues between the two countries could be “sorted out” through dialogue.

In her address to the School of Public Policy and Management of Tsunghua University organized by the ruling Communist Party of China, Gandhi sought to dispel apprehension about India and China being rivals.

“The world is big enough to accommodate the growth and aspirations of both our countries. We can must work and prosper together”.

Gandhi, who is on a five-day visit to China, said both India and China seek an open and inclusive world order based on the principles of “Panchsheel” that were founded together by Zhou Enlai and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954.

“Pragmatism and mutual self-interest offer a sound basis for the future development of our relationship,” she stressed.

Earlier this week, China had for the first time publicly said “mutual concessions and adjustments” were must to reach an early deal on the vexed boundary issue with India.