Word: referendum
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...elected, Piñera faces heavy pressure from conservatives, especially in the military, to move Chile far back to the right. The recent exhumations indicate how nervous many Chileans are that the rightward shift will enervate the robust human-rights apparatus established since Pinochet stepped down after a 1988 referendum rejected his continued rule. Piñera himself opposed Pinochet in that plebiscite. But last month he told a gathering of retired military and police officials who served under Pinochet that he'll work to rein in the trials - "proceedings that go on ad eternum," he remarked - that have convicted...
...Massachusetts voters head to the polls on Jan. 19 in the special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat, some GOP analysts are painting the race as a referendum on one of the most divisive political issues around. The fact that Republican candidate Scott Brown has pulled into a virtual dead heat with Democratic nominee Martha Coakley - prompting President Obama to stump with her this week - is, they say, an indictment of the pending congressional health care overhaul. Much is at stake in the balloting. Coakley would provide Democrats with a critical 60th aye vote, preserving...
...European societies anti-Islam? That's a question more people are asking in the wake of Switzerland's referendum to ban the building of minarets in the Alpine country. Almost 6 out of 10 Swiss voters supported the ban - charges of racism be damned. France passed a law in 2004 that bans young women from wearing Islamic headscarves in public schools, and has now joined the Netherlands in debating a ban on full-body coverings like a burqa. And Muslims in multicultural Britain have also repeatedly accused officials there of talking down to them with urges to drop clothes that...
...Tamil and Muslim populations with powerful leverage. (Those who have been displaced during Sri Lanka's long conflict are overwhelmingly Tamil and Muslim.) President Rajapaksa's supporters have already begun their election work in the north, and the opposition is likely to follow suit. The vote will be a referendum, not just on who gets credit for winning Sri Lanka's war, but who is more likely to bring a real and lasting peace...
...construction of minarets won’t stop harmful practices like genital cutting—the connection between the two is tenuous to say the least. The use of minarets is not even limited to fundamentalist Islamic groups. Therefore, the results of the referendum serve no purpose other than needlessly alienating and insulting the Muslim community...