Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq, women working in the public and government sectors were entitled to receive a year's maternity leave under family laws enforced by the former Saddam Hussein leadership. In the seven years since the US-led invasion which ousted Saddam, however, maternity leave has been cut to six months.Since the Personal Status Law was enacted on July 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women have enjoyed many of the rights that Western women do. But the statutes governing the status of women since 1958 have been replaced with Article 2 of the new Iraqi Constitution, which states that "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation."
Sub-head A says "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam." Under this Article the interpretation of women's rights is left to religious leaders. Yanar Mohammed, a women's rights campaigner in Iraq, believes that the US has "let go of women's rights" in the war-ravaged country.
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So media power and political power achieve an ever greater degree of merger, just as in Italy, but let us be quite clear that Murdoch's primary interest is commercial, as it has been ever since he bought into the News of the World 41 years ago. Already we see the pressures that the Murdoch family will bring to bear on David Cameron if he becomes prime minister. On Friday the Times, which now barely disguises its pro-Sky agenda, ran an editorial on the BBC's cuts, accusing its websites of "dumping free content on to markets where its rivals have no public subsidy". The phrase bears an uncanny resemblance to James Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture in Edinburgh last year when he talked about the BBC "dumping free, state-sponsored news on the market." The editorial read as if the Times editor James Harding had been taking dictation.
The federal judge overseeing litigation between the city and workers at ground zero on Friday rejected a settlement reached by the two sides, telling lawyers that it did not provide enough compensation to plaintiffs and needed to be renegotiated under his supervision.
Medical experts will be watching closely Monday when a scientist who says she has been intermittently paralyzed by a virus designed at the Pfizer laboratory where she worked in Groton opens a much anticipated trial that could raise questions about safety practices in the dynamic field of genetic engineering.
The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit charging that former Attorney General John Ashcroft is personally responsible for the wrongful detention of an innocent American, Abdullah al-Kidd, can go forward, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled today. The ruling denies Ashcroft's request that his appeal be heard by the entire court and upheld the court's September 2009 decision that the federal material witness law cannot be used to detain or investigate suspects where no probable cause exists for criminal charges. The ruling also held that Ashcroft does not have immunity in this case and can be held personally liable for the wrongful detention of al-Kidd.
The new transcripts, published in Italy for the first time yesterday, suggest that Mr Berlusconi telephoned a commissioner on the country's independent broadcast regulator, Agcom, after he learned that a show examining corruption cases against him was due to go out on state broadcaster Rai.
More than nine out of 10 scientists who backed a drug at the centre of a safety scare had financial links to the pharmaceutical industry, a study has found.
Four men accused of trying to bomb synagogues and shoot down planes in New York last spring did little more than go along with a fake plot proposed, directed and funded by the federal government, defense lawyers claim in asking the court to dismiss the case.
What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion.
