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Good news? From the Islamic world?

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Robin Lustig | 14:41 UK time, Sunday, 4 January 2009

I know it may seem perverse of me to draw your attention to this, given everything that's going on in Gaza at the moment, but if we take a step back from the daily headline horrors, there does seem to be some good news to take note of from the Islamic world.

According to the Middle East scholar Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, the good news over the past year includes: the election of a secularist government in Pakistan at the beginning of 2008; the "near strategic defeat" of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia; a political settlement in Lebanon; a consolidation of the transition to democracy in the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia; and the avoiding of a major political crisis in Turkey when the constitutional court declined to find the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) guilty of undermining the official ideology of secularism.

His full list is here.

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  • 1. At 10:58pm on 04 Jan 2009, evenmorelovely wrote:

    Great news, Robin. Couldn't agree more. Nice to read something positive.
    Isn't it hard making something positive actually sound interesting?

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  • 2. At 01:47am on 05 Jan 2009, mehaul1 wrote:

    I think that this is just the beginning and I think within the next 10-20 years the entire middle east will be more cooperative with the rest of the world. Hopefully we can see peace in our lifetime.

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  • 3. At 4:43pm on 10 Oct 2009, jane_banks44 wrote:

    Agreed, nice to see something positive in the news for a change. Thanks Robin

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Welcome to my blog - I'm Robin Lustig, and I present The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4 and Newshour on BBC World Service.

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