Word: secularism
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...appear to be eight years into another of those long, secular bear markets like the one from 1965 to 1982, or 1929 to 1949. If you're looking for a bottom, an end to the pain, you're very likely to be disappointed. "Bear markets behave rather like Lucy in the Peanuts cartoon strip," Phil Coggan writes in this week's Economist. "Just when Charlie Brown is persuaded to attempt to kick the football, she snatches it away...
...halt in proceedings and prompting a judge to be removed from the case. The defendants--including retired generals, journalists and lawyers--are charged with belonging to a secret group called Ergenekon, which prosecutors say planned a campaign of violence to oust a leadership it saw as threatening Turkey's secular constitution...
...This lost opportunity stems from the government's battle with its political opponents in the army and the judiciary, who have been enraged by Erdogan's attacks on Turkey's secular traditions - including his attempt to lift a ban on women wearing head scarves at university. Erdogan easily returned to power in a snap election he called in July 2007 in response to a possible coup threat by the army. This July, the AKP won a court case brought by the nation's chief prosecutor, who sought to outlaw the party on the grounds that it was antisecular. But these...
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is the question of whether using God, even symbolically, as a political tool within the courts is appropriate for a secular legal system. Though the case was summarily dismissed, the very fact that the complaint was heard at all involved an implicit state acknowledgement of the existence of God. Given cases like the 2005 Supreme Court decision banning a public display of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky (although a similar decision allowed a monument in Texas on historical grounds), we may call the introduction of the (specifically Christian) divine into American jurisprudence a clear...
...Eisenach, Germany Great historic forces once spread from Eisenach, where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German to drive the Reformation. Today, this town of 40,000 is notable for the more prosaic fact that it's at the receiving end of a chilling secular influence: slowing demand for automobiles. Opel, a European subsidiary of the beleaguered American giant General Motors, is the town's biggest employer - and when Opel's in trouble, so is Eisenach...