"Secular" angst
Columnists in the moderate Turkish daily Zaman are incredulous at the motivations of "secular nationalists" who recently took to the streets to protest against government plans to ease restrictions on the wearing of headscarves in universities. Particularly bizarre for one commentator, Mustafa Ünal, is the leading role played by liberal civil society in the agitation. "It is impossible to not be baffled," he says. "Their goal is to block headscarf-wearing girls from having access to the environment of freedom. Are we really seeing such behavior in 2008's Turkey?"
In the southeast of Turkey, ancient predominantly Kurdish towns like the 5,000 year old Hasankeyf risk disintegration and abandonment as a result of the ongoing fighting between the central Turkish government and Kurdish insurgents. Keep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.
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The toD verdict: This writer was in Turkey last year during the great nationalist demonstrations against the possibility of Abdullah Gul becoming president (Gul subsequently rose to the presidency after a comprehensive electoral victory for his AK party). Millions of people marched through the streets of Istanbul, Izmir and other major and minor cities, lamenting the threat posed by the ruling AK party to Turkey's long-established secular traditions. Even the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali weighed in, slamming the AK party for eroding Turkish secularism and placing the country's future in the hands of Islamists.
The "Islamist threat" in Turkey is exaggerated both by many outside observers and by the "secular nationalists". It is the AK party, after all, that most wants to push Turkey forward into the European Union. The headscarf remains in Turkey - as in France and elsewhere in Europe - a powerful symbolic issue that doubtlessly demands delicate consideration and an even more delicate politics. But does the mere permitting of the head-scarf signal the demise of secularism? Shouldn't secularism be built on rights and liberties, and not denials and bans?
Thai torture?
Seven students arrested by special forces in the south of Thailand claim to have been tortured while in custody. According to representatives of a student federation in Yala, the heartland of the Muslim separatist insurgency in the restive south, the detainees were beaten and forced to eat in the rain and stand in the midday sun. Army officials dismiss allegations of mistreatment, insisting that the arrested students have links to the militant group Runda Kumpulan Kecil and were in possession of a bomb-making device.
White House will have to show its cards
A US court has refused to revise a ruling that forces the government to reveal its evidence on detainees in Guantanamo Bay. In the past, military officials have refused to reveal all the evidence against detainees when Guantanamo prisoners bring a court challenge to their amorphous status as "enemy combatants". However, the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC ruled in July that the military could not selectively screen the evidence available to judges. The White House asked the full court to reconsider the ruling, which it views as dangerous to "national security".
"Collateral damage"
American forces in Iraq killed nine civilians and wounded three in the town of Iskandariya, twenty five miles from Baghdad. At a time when local groups tied to the American counter-insurgency are being increasingly targeted by al-Qaida, the incident will do little to abet American initiatives in the so-called Sunni heartland of Iraq.
An air-strike in southwest Afghanistan killed seven civilians, missing its Taliban target. It is thought that many of the dead were relatives of a Taliban leader.
The toD verdict: Even if the civilians killed in Afghanistan's Farah province were related to a Taliban fighter, it does not make them acceptable casualties. The US and NATO campaign in Afghanistan has been blighted by the killing of civilians in air strikes and ground assaults. Faulty, roughshod intelligence is often to blame. But at the heart of the failure lies the bluntness of the counter-insurgency against a movement that relies, in large part, on popular support. Minimising civilian casualties should be a priority, not an inconvenience. Of course, the Taliban and its allies are happy to sanction the loss of innocent life. That many Afghans feel more threatened by their government and the west than by the Taliban is not simply a propaganda disaster, it is a tactical calamity.
Civil war in Chad
Sudan-backed rebels have stormed into N'Djamena, the capital city of Chad. Spokesmen of the United Front for Democratic Change, a rebel alliance of groups drawn from the country's predominantly Muslim northern and eastern regions, claimed to have penned Idriss Deby, Chad's president, in his palace. It is thought that the rebels occupy the west of the city, while government forces hold the east. Chad has long blamed violence - and poisonous intentions - in neighbouring Sudan for instability within its own borders. EU envoys were scheduled to fly to Chad in a bid to relieve the plight of refugees from the Sudanese region of Darfur.
