This artist rendering shows Chief Justice John Roberts, center, speaking at the Supreme Court in Washington, Thursday, June 28, 2012. From left are, Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Elena Kagan.

The U.S. Supreme Court still has a conservative majority and an overall record of ruling in favor of businesses, police and prosecutors. But the 2011-12 term was mostly a good one for liberals.

Thursday's 5-4 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts upholding most of President Obama's far-reaching health insurance law ended a term that included other rulings celebrated by the court's usual critics.

One required police to get warrants before installing GPS tracking devices. Another entitled criminal defendants to competent legal representation in plea negotiations. A third struck down state laws requiring life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of murder.

Immigration ruling

The court's mixed ruling on Arizona's immigration law last week allowed the state to enforce a law requiring police to check the legal status of people they stop and suspect of being in the country unlawfully.

But the majority, including Roberts, made it clear that the "show me your papers" requirement was subject to future challenges for reasons including a claim of racial profiling. The court overturned three other provisions allowing arrests or state criminal prosecution of suspected illegal immigrants.

Some rulings swung in the other direction, including 5-4 decisions allowing jails to conduct strip searches of all new inmates and barring damage suits against states that deny sick leave to their employees. A five-justice majority also required California public employee unions to get the consent of nonmembers before assessing midyear fees for political purposes, a possible forerunner of future rulings weakening labor's electoral clout.

Year of surprises

But overall, this was not a typical term for the court under Roberts, chief justice since 2005. Best known for its January 2010 ruling that allowed unlimited election spending by corporations - a ruling it tersely reaffirmed last week - the Roberts court has also limited school integration efforts, restricted class actions by employees and consumers, and upheld a federal ban on a type of midterm abortion.

"We're not seeing a rebirth of the (Earl) Warren court," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal scholar and dean of the law school at UC Irvine. "But I can't think of another recent term where so many of the major cases came out in a way that progressives would favor."

Conservative myth?

Conservative scholar John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange County, said it's time to retire the myth of a conservative court under Roberts and his predecessor, the late William Rehnquist.

"Look at their refusal to defer to legislators when clearly acting within their powers," Eastman said, citing the recent decision overturning state laws that required life-without-parole sentences for juvenile murderers, and decade-old rulings striking down death sentences for juveniles and criminal penalties for gay sex.

Another conservative commentator, Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said the 2011-12 term showed that "Republican appointees - no matter how carefully selected - cannot be counted on to consistently uphold conservative principles."

The term was dominated by the health care case, perhaps the most significant government program to reach the court in a half century. For Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, usually the swing voter in close cases, it posed a conflict between two conservative principles: deference to lawmakers' policy decisions, and resistance to government interference in marketplaces, including an unprecedented provision requiring uninsured people to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty.

Kennedy sided with the dissenters and voted to overturn the law. Much of Roberts' majority opinion read like a conservative tract - questioning government power over private citizens' economic decisions, and condemning federal coercion of states to expand their Medicaid programs - but he chose the path of deference, saying the individual insurance mandate could be reasonably understood as a constitutionally authorized tax measure.

Momentous decisions

The ruling produced sighs of relief from the left, cries of betrayal from the right, and speculation on the outlook of a court that faces another set of momentous decisions in the term that starts in October.

The justices have already agreed to reconsider whether race can play any role in publiccollege admissions. It also could take up a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that allows the Justice Department to veto race-related changes in many states' election laws. This could also be the term for a ruling on same-sex marriage, with cases pending on California'sProposition 8 and the law banning federal marital benefits for same-sex couples.

Social issues

Social issues played a lesser role in the just-completed term. One case involved the federal law that allows state employees to take unpaid medical laves. The court had ruled earlier that an employee who is denied time off to care for a sick relative can sue for damages. But this term, the conservative majority denied damages to a state worker who applied for leave because of his own illness and was turned down.

In another case, the court unanimously allowed a religious school to classify one of its teachers as a minister, stripping her of the protections of discrimination laws that apply to other employees. Eastman said the ruling, based on freedom of religion, might aid Catholic bishops challenging the new health law's contraception coverage.

Criminal defendants won some significant cases, including rulings that required a warrant for GPS tracking, that allowed retroactive application of a new law reducing sentences for crack cocaine, and gave them the right to challenge ineffective legal representation in plea negotiations that are much more common than trials.

A 6-3 majority led by Kennedy invoked freedom of speech Thursday to overturn a federal law that made it a crime to lie about receiving combat medals. The justices sidestepped another free-speech case by declining to rule on the Federal Communications Commission's ban on one-time "fleeting expletives," saying instead that the FCC violated networks' rights by enforcing the ban without adequate advance disclosure.

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What they decided

Here are rulings in major cases made by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011-12. The author of each opinion is listed first.

Health

-- By a 5-4 vote, the court upheld the core of the law backed by President Obama to extend coverage to most uninsured Americans by subsidizing customers in state-regulated insurance exchanges, expanding the Medicaid program for the poor and requiring the uninsured to purchase insurance or pay a tax penalty. The court voted 7-2 to give states the option of rejecting the Medicaid expansion.

Majority: Chief Justice John Roberts, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan. Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented from the decision to make the Medicaid expansion optional.

Dissent, jointly written: Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito.

Immigration

-- By a 6-3 vote, the court overturned provisions of an Arizona law making it a crime for illegal immigrants to be present in the state or seek work, and allowing police to make arrests based on reasonable suspicion that the person had committed a deportable offense. The court allowed enforcement of a provision requiring police to determine the immigration status of anyone they detained and reasonably suspected was illegally present, but said the provision was subject to further legal challenges.

Majority: Kennedy, Roberts, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan.

Dissent: Scalia, Thomas and Alito, who voted to uphold the entire law.

Unions

-- By a 5-4 vote, the court required a public employee union in California to get advance permission from nonmembers in its workforce before assessing fees at midyear for political purposes.

Majority: Alito, Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas.

Dissent: Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan.

GPS

-- The court unanimously required police to obtain a warrant before using a global positioning system device to monitor someone's vehicle.

Majority: Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan.

Strip searches

-- By a 5-4 vote, the court allowed jails to conduct visual strip searches of all new inmates, regardless of the crime for which they were arrested.

Majority: Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito.

Dissent: Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan.

Pleas

-- By a 5-4 vote, the court said criminal defendants have a right to effective legal assistance when negotiating guilty pleas and can seek to overturn their convictions if they were represented incompetently.

Majority: Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan.

Dissent: Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, Alito.

Juveniles

-- By a 5-4 vote, the court overturned state laws requiring life-without-parole sentences for juveniles convicted of murder and said such sentences may be imposed only after a judge considers the defendant's youth and maturity and the circumstances of the crime.

Majority: Kagan, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor.

Dissent: Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito

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Mali Muslim saints' Historic tombs destroyed

Bamako, --

Mali - Islamist fighters with ties to al Qaeda have destroyed tombs classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site in Mali's historic city of Timbuktu, a resident and U.N. officials said Saturday.

Irina Bokova, who heads the U.N. Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization, cited in a statement Saturday reports the centuries-old Muslim mausoleums of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi, Moctar and Alpha Moya have been destroyed. Bokova called on "all parties engaged in the conflict to stop these terrible and irreversible acts."

Resident Ali Yattara said the Islamists began attacking the saints' tombs with shovels. He said they were responding to UNESCO's request Thursday that the sites be put on the organization's "in danger" list. Yattara said locals planned to fight back.

"The youth of Timbuktu is preparing to retaliate against the desecration of the graves of our saint," he said. "Against the Islamists' weapons, we will fight with sticks and stones."

He said the Islamists don't approve of residents' high regard for the saints' tombs.

Timbuktu was a center of Islamic learning as far back as the 12th century.

Islamist fighters from the Ansar Dine group have declared that they now control the northern half of Mali after driving out an ethnic Tuareg separatist group. The rebel groups took advantage of a power vacuum created by a March coup in the capital to seize ground in the north.

The Islamists' growing reach is more worrying news for the landlocked West African nation of 15.4 million, which was plunged into chaos after the coup.

(FILES) Residents of Timbuktu restore the City of 333 Saints' Great Mosque 10 April 2006 prior to the Maouloud festival, marking the birth of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. Ansar Dine, one of the hardline Islamist groups controlling northern Mali, threatened on June 30, 2012 to destroy all shrines of Muslim saints in the fabled city of Timbuktu, two days after the city was listed as an endangered world heritage site by UNESCO. The Djingareyber Mosque was built by the Sultan of Mali, Kankan Moussa, on his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1325.

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'Suu Kyi called Myanmar 'Burma' in her speeches'

Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has been told off by the country's electoral authorities for using the name 'Burma' to refer to the country. So, what really is in a name anyway?

In its rebuke, Myanmar's electoral commission began by referring to Suu Kyi by using the honorific prefix "Daw."

"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi called Myanmar 'Burma' in her speech to the World Economic Forum in Thailand on 1 June, 2012," it noted. "Again, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi called Myanmar 'Burma' in her speeches during her Europe tour."

The military government changed the name in 1989 as European place names across the Asian continent became ever scarcer. Three years earlier, the UN had started to use Chinese - resulting in a change from the Romanized Peking to Beijing.

Myanmar - said to be an ancient term referring to the central part of the country - was chosen to ostensibly better reflect the diversity of the nation's population - of which ethnic Burmans represent less than 70 percent. Some experts say this is false, and that the two terms have been used interchangeably for centuries.

Aung San Suu Kyi refers to her country as Burma

What's in a name?

The name of Burma's then capital, Rangoon, also became Myanmar's center of power, Yanyon - later usurped by a new capital, Naypyidaw, built at the behest of the generals.

However, Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy has taken exception to the renaming, saying that the regime had no mandate to make such a change.

"The dictatorship arbitrarily changed the name of the country and the democracy movement said they didn't have the right," director the Burma Campaign UK, Mark Farmaner, told DW.

"Personally, I am a little bemused by the amount of arguing that goes on about names when at the same time you have a country with such an appalling human rights record, but I have had people tell me that it really is important," said Farmaner, before adding that electoral authorities who criticized Suu Kyi did not have their priorities in order.

"The focus is all wrong. It should be cleaning up its own house and making sure that elections are free and fair, unlike the last two that took place there."

In his book, "Burma or Myanmar?: The Struggle for National Identity," Asia expert Lowell Dittmer from the University of California, Berkeley, explains that the "new" name Myanmar originates from a written, literary form.

Burma, on the other hand, was derived from the spoken form of the name in Bamar, the Burman ethnic language. It was adopted by the British during their colonial rule of the country between 1826 and 1948, and gained international usage. Burmese became the adjective for all the country's people, and is still widely used.

President Thein Sein's reforms have raised the question over the country's name once again

Dittmer defines countries that say Myanmar as "realists" who believe names can be used to exert pressure - and nominalists, who do not.

The argument runs that to use the name "Myanmar" is to sanction the denial of power to the country's opposition even after it won elections in 1990.

"Behind this apparently petty linguistic dispute, a battle has raged for national identity," said Dittmer.

"These two names have come to symbolize two quite different historical experiences and political trajectories, each upholding its claim to legitimacy."

Global confusion

Global leaders struggle with how to name the country, especially since reforms recently introduced by Prime Minister Thein Sein.

British Prime Minister David Cameron uses the name Burma, while recent speeches by US President Barack Obama also use the name.

But on a trip to the country late last year, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tended to dodge controversy by using the term "this country."

The name Burma continues to be used by many countries, including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, the United Nations uses Myanmar, as do the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, Germany, India, Norway and Japan.

Brussels has found its own way to neatly sidestep the issue, calling the country Burma/Myanmar.

"Some countries within the EU call it Burma while others call it Myanmar," said EU spokeswoman Susanne Kiefer. "Although we have had that name for it for a while, it's something that has only recently been confirmed."

Burma Campaign UK's Farmaner maintains that an across-the-board change to Myanmar might be possible after more democratic reform is achieved.

Less than 70 percent of people in the country are ethnic Burmans

"Maybe at a later date, a democratically elected government might also change but the opposition is not going to accept it from a government that seized power by the barrel of a gun."

Setting priorities

It's a debate that likely to take something of a back seat for Suu Kyi, who returned home from her historic trip to Europe to cheering crowds on Saturday.

Balancing the need for economic development against the maintenance of external pressure on the government is likely pose a more immediate challenge.

With only a tiny fraction of seats for the National League For Democracy in a parliament dominated by the successor party to the pro-military junta, changing the naming of the country - or keeping it the same - looks to be a long way down the line.

Author: Richard Connor
Editor: Sarah Berning

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Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi takes oath

Cairo --

Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's new Islamist president, took the oath of office Saturday before the country's top court, vowing to help build independent government institutions in a country still struggling to overcome its authoritarian past.

The 60-year-old Muslim Brotherhood politician became the country's fifth president - and its only head of state since the fall of the monarchy in 1952 who does not hail from the senior command of the armed forces.

"I will work to guarantee the independence of these powers and authorities," a solemn Morsi told the country's top jurists during a short ceremony inside the Supreme Constitutional Court.

The setting was the first concession Morsi has made since his election became official a week ago. The president had said he would only be sworn in before parliament, which the constitutional court dissolved earlier this month. But he backed down after delivering a rousing speech in Tahrir Square on Friday that was seen as a ceremonial oath before the people.

The swearing-in ceremony was held just a few blocks from a military hospital where ousted President Hosni Mubarak is reportedly receiving medical care.

Shortly after taking the oath, Morsi delivered a speech at Cairo University, during which he paid homage to the country's security forces. In contrast to the generals' marked absence from the oath ceremony, the head of the ruling council, Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, attended the speech and clapped at times.

"The SCAF has kept its word and fulfilled its promise," Morsi said of the council.

Morsi said Egypt would not seek to meddle in the affairs of other countries or attempt to export its revolution to other countries in the region. But he expressed support for Palestinian unity and for Syrians battling an autocratic government.

In this handout picture made available by the Egyptian presidency on June 30, 2012, military council chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi (L), presents the "shield of the Armed Forces" the Egyptian military's highest honor to President Mohamed Morsi (R) during a ceremony at a military base in of Cairo. Morsi was sworn in as Egypt's first freely elected civilian president on Saturday and formally received a transfer of power and pledge of support from the military, which has ruled since last year.

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Assad fate open World powers leave

GENEVA: International powers agreed yesterday that a transitional government should be set up in Syria to end the bloodshed there but left open the question of what part President Bashar Al Assad might play in the process.

Peace envoy Kofi Annan said after talks in Geneva that the government should include members of Assad's administration and the Syrian opposition to pave the way for free elections.

"It is for the people to come to a political agreement but time is running out," Annan said.

"We need rapid steps to reach agreement. The conflict must be resolved through peaceful dialogue and negotiations."

The Geneva talks had been billed as a last-ditch effort to halt the worsening violence in Syria but hit obstacles as Russia, Assad's most powerful ally, opposed Western and Arab insistence that he must quit the scene.

The final communiquŽ said the transitional government "could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent".

But in a victory for Russian diplomacy, it omitted language contained in a previous draft which explicitly said it "would exclude from government those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardise stability and reconciliation".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he was "delighted" with the result as it meant no foreign solution was being imposed on Syria.

But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it sent a clear message to Assad that he must step down. "Assad will still have to go," Clinton said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assad and his close associates could not lead any transition. Accountability for war crimes must be part of such a process, he said.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 56 people had been killed across the country yesterday.

Highlighting the deteriorating situation on the ground, Syrian government forces pushed their way into Douma on the outskirts of Damascus yesterday after weeks of siege and shelling.

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