TURKEY: Government Survives Shakily

Turkey has barely managed to avoid a 'judicial coup' to overthrow its elected government, but others may be in the offing.

LEBANON: Maronites Bring Home a Political Message

Bkerke towers atop the northern Lebanese city of Jounieh, a white mansion that serves as the refuge of the Maronite patriarch. The century-old construction seems to shine amid the shrubbery, contrasting against the pristine blue sky. Its story is as ancient as Lebanon's, and reflective of its diverse past.

MALAYSIA: Make or Break Election for Ibrahim, Reforms

Undaunted by serious new charges of sodomy, which he says is a frame-up, opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim is making a bid to return to parliament in a by-election that he calls the final battle for a "New Malaysia" sans racial discrimination.

POLITICS-US: Marketing Obama to Evangelicals

For the past three decades, the religious right has dominated the religio- political dialogue in the United States. The right’s growth, and its agenda - which revolved around so-called traditional family values issues including, but not limited to, opposition to abortion and full equality for gays and lesbians - was pursued on two tracks: they built multi-million dollar political and media enterprises, and they made themselves an indispensable force within the Republican Party.

POLITICS-US: Faith in a Time of War

From Republican contender John McCain's Jul. 25 meeting with the Dalai Lama in Aspen, Colorado to Democratic candidate Barack Obama's visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall the same day, the intersection of religion, politics and the "war on terror" has been a recurrent theme in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

PHILIPPINES: ‘Church Ban on Contraceptives Adding to Poverty’

A growing and heated debate in this predominantly Catholic country revolves around the church’s uncompromising stance against the use of contraceptive devices that is said to be contributing to poverty and affecting the quality of life for many Filipinos.

PAKISTAN/US: Gilani Can Expect Grilling Over Spy Agency’s Role

By attempting to place Pakistan's shadowy Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) under civilian control, ahead of a trip to the United States, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has revealed eagerness to deflect mounting criticism over the agency’s role in the failing 'war on terror' in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Q&A: Iran’s Islamic Revolution Had Western Blessing

In his new book on the covert history of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, award-winning journalist Roozbeh Mirebrahimi says that Western powers, including the United States, accelerated events by recognising and supporting religious revolutionary forces, forcing the shah to leave the country and averting a coup by Iran's army.

POLITICS-US: Iran in the Spotlight at Christian Zionist Confab

The controversial Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee and thousands of supporters filled a convention centre in downtown Washington this week for his Christians United for Israel (CUFI) organisation's Washington-Israel Summit, where the "Iranian threat" was a recurrent theme.

UAE: US-Iran Detente Viewed With Caution

The turnaround in Washington-Tehran ties is being viewed with relief on the one hand and anxiety and anger on the other by various quarters within the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bloc.

POLITICS-MALAYSIA: Malay-Muslim Call Shakes Opposition Unity

A key constituent of the opposition People’s Alliance coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim has opened secret talks with the ruling United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) party of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in a move that threatens the stability of the fragile five-month-old opposition alliance.

SRI LANKA: No Lessons Learnt From 'Black July' of 1983

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka there are few signs that any positive lessons have been learnt from the gory events that changed this island nation’s history and sent a once booming economy into a downward trajectory.

POPULATION-PHILIPPINES: Catholic Church Damns The Pill

As World Population Day was being marked on Jul. 11, Tess and Andy were attending a family planning seminar as a requirement for their forthcoming wedding. It turned out to be window into one of the major problems besetting the Philippine population programme.

RELIGION: UN Invited to Create Interfaith Council

The participants at the World Conference on Dialogue in Madrid have proposed that the United Nations create an interreligious council.

THAILAND/CAMBODIA: Row Over Ancient Temple May Sour ASEAN Spirit

Amornchai Sirisai has been a regular visitor to the Thai-Cambodian border close to where a 10th century Hindu temple sits atop a steep cliff. But it is not tourism that takes the Thai national to the ancient site.

AUSTRALIA: Court Upholds Free Speech at Major Catholic Event

While young Catholics from around the world have converged on Sydney to rejoice in their faith during this year’s World Youth Day, others are celebrating the removal of a controversial regulation which would have made protesting during the event a risky venture.

POLITICS-US: McCain Gets Religion

Over the course of the past few months, Senator John McCain, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, accepted and then rejected the endorsements of the controversial pastors Rod Parsley and John Hagee, after media reports about Parsley's vitriol toward Islam and Hagee's views that the Holocaust was part of God's biblical plan for the Jews to move to Israel.

POLITICS-US: Doves Outnumber Hawks in Jewish Community

A new poll suggests that U.S. Jews hold views about the Middle East that are considerably more dovish than frequently acknowledged, with large majorities favouring diplomacy with Iran, supporting a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine, and advocating U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

RIGHTS: Uygurs Jailed From Guantanamo to Beijing

As a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. military improperly labeled a Chinese Muslim held at Guantanamo Bay an "enemy combatant" and ordered that he be released, transferred or granted a new hearing, an influential Congressional committee delivered a scathing criticism of China's closed trial of 15 men on terrorism charges - resulting in the immediate execution of two defendants, three suspended death sentences, and 10 sentences of life imprisonment.

BOOKS: Muqtada – One Man’s Meat, Another Man’s Poison

"He is an American spy," the militiamen shouted at Patrick Cockburn four years ago in Kufa, south of Baghdad. He could have hardly imagined that he would live to write a book on the very people who kidnapped him.

LEBANON: Radical Islam Comes to Town

In the centre of one of Tripoli's squares in north Lebanon, a large statue has been erected inscribed with the word 'Allah' in Arabesque calligraphy. The statue reflects the city's reality, especially in light of the recent rise in Salafism, a radical form of Islam.