Word: parliament
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Australia's Griffith University. There is evidence that Burma's rulers are concerned about retribution. Just look at the military-drafted constitution. "Approved" by a sham referendum in the wake of last year's Cyclone Nargis, it reserves for the military a quarter of seats in the new parliament after elections scheduled to be held next year. Tellingly, it also grants junta officials immunity from prosecution. "This clause won't protect them from international prosecution," says Mark Farmaner, director of the advocacy group Burma Campaign U.K., "but it shows they're worried about...
...human-rights abuses against gay people, and its members sued to overturn Nepal's law criminalizing homosexuality. In December 2007, Nepal's Supreme Court ruled in their favor. Four months later, Pant, who was the main petitioner in the case, became South Asia's first openly gay member of parliament. By the end of 2008, the Supreme Court issued its full judgment, which not only nullified the old law but also established a "third gender" category for government documents. A newly formed government advisory committee is studying the possibility of legalizing gay marriage. In less than a decade, Nepal...
...Road Less Traveled Pant's journey from rural Nepal to Kathmandu's parliament - with detours through a college campus in Belarus and the nightclubs of Tokyo - reveals how one gay man and his community came to terms. By leaving Nepal as a young college graduate, he experienced for the first time both homophobia and acceptance. In 1992, he went to Belarusian State Polytechnic Academy in Minsk to get his master's degree in computer science. The newly independent country, which had been part of the Soviet Union, welcomed students from the developing world, but he arrived at a time...
...newfound role of renegade seems to suit Karroubi, the 72-year-old cleric who once enjoyed impeccable credentials within the Islamic Republic. Indeed, Karroubi is a battle-hardened revolutionary, having served time in prison during the Shah's reign, studied under Ayatullah Khomeini and served as speaker of parliament until 2004. In 2005, he placed third in the first round of presidential elections, losing out to then mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a race that Karroubi later alleged was rigged. After his defeat in 2005, he remained on the offensive, forming a political party and newspaper to challenge Ahmadinejad...
...That's likely to be bad news for Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis' already embattled center-right government, which is clinging to a slender single-vote majority in parliament. Already opposition parties on the right and left, as well as the national media, have begun accusing the country's leaders of neglect and incompetence. "Disorganization, indifference, criminal negligence give the final blow to Attica," declared the headline in the leftist daily Eleftherotypia, over the image of a blazing hillside...