Leader of secular party is Moroccan PM
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Abbas El Fassi, a longtime government minister and the leader of a secular political party in Morocco, has been named prime minister in the North African kingdom, officials said Wednesday.
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ISTANBUL, Feb 4 (IPS) - Turkey's Islamic-rooted governing party is  moving ahead with hotly contested constitutional amendments that  would lift the ban on headscarves at universities. Opponents see  it as a danger-laden step undermining the currently rigid secular  regime by introducing Islamic principles that may extend far  beyond higher learning.
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Opposition Islamists could emerge as the largest single party in Moroccan parliamentary polls on Friday, helped by the support of poor voters disenchanted with the 50-year rule of a modernizing elite.
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Moroccans vote in a general election on Friday that is expected to see the main Islamist party make gains that could throw up a new challenge for the reforming King Mohammed VI.
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PARIS -- In a new book seen as a prelude to a presidential bid, France's finance minister is taking up the thorny question of how to reach out to an increasingly assertive Muslim minority and integrate it into a largely secular society.
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State funding for mosques to counter attempts by extremists to indoctrinate young people on Muslim-dominated areas is urged today by France's most talked-about politician, the finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
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Turkey's re-elected leader says he will continue reforms, but vows to respect the country's secular tradition.
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Morocco's conservative Istiqlal party, a member of the kingdom's ruling coalition, won most seats in parliamentary elections that opposition Islamists said were skewed by vote buying.
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Opposition Moroccan Islamists running on an anti-corruption ticket said they were on target on Saturday to become the largest party in parliament after elections marked by a record low turnout.
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ANKARA, Turkey -- A devout Muslim with a background in political Islam won the Turkish presidency on Tuesday, in a major triumph for the Islamic-rooted government after months of confrontation with the secular establishment.
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He's a devout Muslim whose wife wears an Islamic headscarf in a nation where religious attire is banned from government buildings. He is also a champion of reforms needed for Turkey to qualify for European Union membership.
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Somalia&#39;s new prime minister is Ali Mohamed Ghedi, a Member of Parliament from the capital, Mogadishu. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed announced the appointment at a news conference in Nairobi.
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DOUAR ESCUELA, Morocco  - Neighbors of a Moroccan suspected suicide bomber portray him as a religious man who tried in vain to lift his family out of poverty after his release from a prison term for membership of a militant group.
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Polls opened in Morocco on Friday in parliamentary elections expected to show gains for opposition Islamists pushing an anti-corruption message that has drawn wide support in the north African kingdom.
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This could have been the election that ousted Morocco's secular ruling class from power, giving Islamists unprecedented power in a country where Muslim women in T-shirts sip wine on the streets alongside veiled women drinking tea.
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CAIRO, Aug. 28 -- Beaming as the votes were counted, a veteran government figure with roots in political Islam won a parliamentary vote to become Turkey's president Tuesday, in defiance of the country's strongly secular military. Abdullah Gul's triumph presented Turkey's generals with a choice:...
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RABAT - Moroccan King Mohammed pardoned or reduced the sentences of 1,183 people to mark the Eid al-Fitr feast, which comes at the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, state media said on Saturday.