This must surely be an April fools joke:

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7321964.stm wrote:

BBC News[/url]]

Turkish leaders face court case

Turkey's constitutional court has decided unanimously that it can hear a case aimed at closing down the country's governing AK Party.

The chief prosecutor earlier filed a petition calling for the party to be banned for "anti-secular activities".

He also wants 71 AKP officials, including the prime minister and president, to be banned from politics.

The case revives a battle between Turkey's secularist establishment and the AK Party of devout Muslims...

Apparently not.

A little bit of recent history... a whole lot of perspective

I think it is about time I got back to my driving lessons... after a hiatus of erm... 7 years? (which was a single lesson after my previous hiatus of a year when I had taken three... The first time the Driving instructors uncle died, I never bothered with a replacement, the second time the (different) instructor never bothered to turn up for the second lesson. I never bothered to rearrange.)

So first things first, I Googled (is it still capitals when used as a verb?) for "driving lessons oldham". Got me some good hits. It seems lessons are around £20+ these days.

This is an excellent song, listen to the whole thing first, before you make your mind up.
">http://youtube.com/watch?v=zKv3Vi46Fac]

I came across this wonderful story.

This image of Ali & jamal was used in Issue 10. Issue 9 also has a very similar image.

Crisis? When is Iraq not in crisis?

Well the current surge in violence is a little different.

You see the "Iraqi security forces" (read: Badr Brigades belonging to the SIIC, supported to some degree by both the US and Iran) are trying to root out violent criminals (read the Mahdy Army of one Mr Sadr. Which has been on ceasefire since last summer - something which has been attributed with the recent reduction in violence) out of Basra.

This is being handled personally by Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. His game? Well, I will leave it to another article:

Ever since I started my LPC, everyone and I mean everyone on the stupid course is on Facebook. Even some of the lecturers (altho thats a whole other can of go-se). So what was I gonna do? When in Rome... do the Roman. I joined facebook... yes there i said. And i dont care what you think.

Bug anniversary day today. No not that other one, but the fifth anniversary of the US led invasion of Iraq.

Watched a little Sky News today, and was sort of chuckling when they brought on a Fox News ("Fair and balanced(TM)") correspondent in Baghdad. Surprised me a little though. A tacit admittance that while the current violence levels in Baghdad were down compared with 2005/2006, not only was this much worse than under Saddam, even though he was a dictator, but the bigger surprise was that she mentioned it might NOT be to do with "the surge", but more about certain militia's observing a ceasefire.

Don't know about you, but under the previous Fox News terms, that reporter probably committed treason by saying that.