Word: parliament
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There are no longer any Hizballah fighters surrounding the grand red sandstone Beirut town house belonging to Walid Jumblatt, a member of Parliament and one of the leaders of Lebanon's governing coalition. Still, Jumblatt, a top American ally, is under virtual house arrest. After the lightning speed with which opposition Hizballah fighters defeated government supporters in a six-hour battle on Thursday - only to vanish a few hours later - it became clear that it is pointless to resist the Iranian and Syrian-backed militia, which could return at any time. "I am a hostage now in my home...
...hours of full-on fighting, Hizballah militants were openly in control of pro-government areas of West Beirut, making for some incongruous scenes. Bearded men with rifles and rocket launchers secured lingerie shops and a Starbucks in the commercial Hamra district, surrounded the houses of ministers and members of parliament, and watched buses evacuate students from the American University of Beirut. "It was like a field trip for us," said one Hizballah fighter standing on the Corniche, the city's seaside promenade. "Some of them were begging us not to kill them. They were literally pissing in their pants...
...name evokes a heavyweight political bruiser just by its sound, but Biffo is also an acronym: it stands for Big Ignorant F*** From Offaly, the county in the Irish midlands where Cowen was born and which he still represents in the country's parliament. The moniker isn't meant to suggest the new Irish Prime Minister is stupid, because his allies and enemies know that he isn't. Ignorant is rather taken in an Irish sense of the word: ill-mannered, rough, in your face...
...Shukria Barakzai, one of the few parliamentarians who voted against the ban, sees it as a sign of government impotence in the face of real issues. "There is poverty, there is corruption and there is a lack of security. What bill is the parliament providing for that?" she asks. "Why are you stopping TV shows when you can't stop rape cases across the country? Why are you stopping women dancing on TV when you can't stop young boys dancing for the men who sexually abuse them? They do this because they have no other ideas...
...Indeed, some members of parliament recently proposed a ban on loud music, video games, billiards, playing with pigeons and public mingling between men and women - prohibitions familiar from the Taliban era. In January a university student was sentenced to death for an Internet posting questioning Islam's treatment of women. A few months earlier, a prominent journalist was jailed for translating the Koran into Dari, a local language. The trend worries Barakzai, prompting her to ask, "Why are we even bothering to fight the Taliban...