Word: basic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...religion: the human imagination. At its best, religion is applied for the greater good, to regulate society and provide simple rules that benefit the majority. At other times, and less happily, it is hijacked to further the greedy, political or capricious aims of the few. Understanding this basic principle - and that we all have a fundamental choice between tolerance and belligerence - would be a much needed step towards eliminating religious conflict, and with it, human suffering. Rik Hofland, MUSCAT...
...which they were victimized. At the other end of the spectrum is Iran, where religious observance is declining in the generation that came of age under the Islamic Republic. The young there are in turn disillusioned with the state-sponsored religious identity that has failed to resolve their basic problems. It will be interesting to see if Bosnia's Muslims can strike the right balance between personal piety and secular solutions to temporal concerns. Shehzad Shah, Karachi...
...legal protection for the freedom to wear what it likes. Iran's women are determinedly political actors, claiming fundamental rights, and deserving our support when they do so. When they risk their lives to claim such rights, what they wear is irrelevant. With Muslim women showing such involvement in basic political struggles, is it too much to hope that Western male leaders will find something more worthwhile to comment on than their clothes...
...Liberia, Johnson Sirleaf is doing better. She set a three-year poverty-reduction strategy whose four pillars are peace and security, governance and the rule of law, infrastructure and basic services, and economic revitalization. A U.N. peacekeeping force and an embargo on arms are keeping conflict at bay. Schools and hospitals have reopened. Tax receipts are up. Bureaucracy is down. U.N. sanctions on diamond and timber exports have been lifted. Liberia is attracting foreign investment in iron ore, timber, palm oil and construction. Though steel giant Arcelor Mittal recently mothballed a $1.5 billion project to reopen an iron-ore mine...
...preserved and [government] transparency and accountability is respected. We're tackling infrastructure [and reactivating] our mines, forests and agriculture. We [got] all the U.N. sanctions lifted on our diamonds and forestry. We restructured the civil service and scaled down government. [We are working on] the restoration of basic services, such as schools and the improvement in conditions of our market people. If there's anything more important, we have restored hope of our people in the future. The challenges remain many. First and foremost unemployment. [Then] the fragility in our security situation [which] manifests itself in armed robberies...