Word: civilizations
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Justice Department •reluctance of to give the Obama transition team access to classified legal opinions that were used by the CIA and the National Security Agency to justify, among other breaches of civil liberties, warrantless spying, indefinite detention and, of course, the use of torture...
...gone the reformers' way. The two begums, as Hasina and Zia are known, still command huge swathes of support - and, after ceaseless political pressure from their cadres, both are now free from detention and contesting the upcoming polls. Initially, the caretaker government attempted to encourage prominent figures from civil society to form a "third way" to break from the country's two-party system. That project failed, as did efforts to weaken the begums' networks of patronage that assured their grip on power. After two years out in the cold, Hasina or Zia could very well snatch the reins again...
...cooperativeness of the nation's military, which has a long history of interrupting democracy in the country, has been a pleasant surprise. Just half a year ago, the international community and Dhaka's civil society looked at the armed forces, including army chief Gen. Moeen Uddin Ahmed, with a degree of apprehension. During emergency rule, dissidents were arrested, journalists muzzled and political assembly was banned. A wing of the military intelligence was accused by prominent human rights groups of torturing activists. Moeen himself made troubling statements about the efficacy of democratic rule in a country as turbulent as Bangladesh...
Corruption, impunity, the backdrop of violence since the country's brutal civil war that stretched from the 1960s into the '90s and a well-entrenched organized crime network make Guatemala fertile ground for the narcotics business. A series of weak, infiltrated governments have been unable or unwilling to reverse the tide. "People perceive a breakdown of authority and really the authorities are the traffickers," says ambassador McFarland. In areas of high drug activity, the population has little choice but to align itself with the traffickers, says Godoy, the former Guatemalan Interior Ministry official. Plus, in a country where some...
...Developed a reputation for tenacity and creativity, once using a Civil War-era sedition statute to win his case against Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. (Afterward, Abdel-Rahman and his attorney were caught on tape discussing how "evil" Fitzgerald...