Word: parliament
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...military presence in the mainly Kurdish southeast remains strong and the only Kurdish party in parliament constantly worries it will be forced to disband. But in other ways, change is happening. After years under a ban, the Kurdish language is flowering, the result of European Union-mandated reforms introduced in 2006. In Silopi, the same store that once secretly sold bootleg Kurdish tapes is now plastered with pictures of budding Kurdish stars. Language courses in the unofficial regional capital Diyarbakir are packed, writers' groups have sprouted and at the local theater, young actors are staging the city's first ever...
...carrot of E.U. membership is one way of scaling back the military's influence. "A chief condition of joining the E.U. is that the military is transparent and accountable to parliament," says Kardas. But that process has largely stalled, with European leaders divided over Turkey's future membership. New hope has arrived in the shape of U.S. President Barack Obama, who will visit Turkey next week and whose administration is keen to have Turkey - Muslim yet officially secular and democratic - play a larger role in the region...
...manmade disasters like the March 27 dam collapse can be prevented. "The country is taking the right steps but the speed will depend on changes in the regulatory framework," predicts Adnan Tan, head of sales and trading at CLSA Indonesia. "It is sometimes hard to get things through parliament because of competing interests...
...Sahwa are insurgent spies. A senior source in the Interior Ministry who requested anonymity does not deny the infiltration but puts the figure at closer to 20%. The Interior Ministry source says intelligence agencies are reviewing the Sahwa files. Abdel-Karim Samarraie, the deputy leader of the parliament's defense and security committee and a senior member of the Tawafuk, the largest Sunni bloc, says al-Qaeda moles represent a small minority of Sahwa but should be weeded out. "The Interior Ministry fired 62,000 of its employees because there were legal accusations against them," he says. "The same thing...
Khaled al-Asadi, a member of parliament's committee on civil society organizations, says that although Saddam's dictatorial regime was toppled, some of its habits linger. "Certain groups within government want to put their fingerprints all over the work of NGOs and the law governing them," he says. "They still think in terms of control and surveillance. The Iraqi people were raised on this mind-set. It's not easily or quickly erased...