As-Sa ' iqa ( also transliterated as al-Saika, Saeqa, etc., from Arabic: الصاعقة meaning storm or thunderbolt ; also known as the Vanguard for the Popular Liberation War ) is a Palestinian Baathist political and military faction created and controlled by Syria.

As-Sa ' iqa is led by a Secretary-General, presently Farhan Abu Al-Hayja ( since 2007 ).

* As-Sa ' iqa – Syrian-controlled Ba ' athist faction

As-Sa ' iqa was formed as an organization by the Syrian-led Ba ' ath Party in September 1966, but first activated in December 1968, when Syria tried to build up an alternative to Yasser Arafat, then emerging with his Fatah faction as the primary Palestinian fedayeen leader and politician.

As-Sa ' iqa was also used in the Ba ' thist power struggle then in play in Syria, by President Salah Jadid to counter the ambitions of Defence Minister Hafez al-Assad.

As-Sa ' iqa was initially the second-largest group within the PLO, after Fatah.

This left Amal to do the work of dislodging the Arafat loyalists, with some help from Syria's anti-Arafat Palestinian allies, such as As-Sa ' iqa, PFLP-GC and Col. Abu Musa's Fatah al-Intifada.

This led to as-Sa ' iqa's expulsion from the PLO in 1976, but it was readmitted in December the same year, after the situation had cooled down, and after Syria named this as a condition for further support for the PLO.

The school has been highly influential in setting the agenda for historiography in France and numerous other countries, especially regarding the use of social scientific methods by historians, emphasizing social rather than political or diplomatic themes, and for being generally hostile to the class analysis of Marxist historiography.

Like many ancient historians, Ammianus had a strong political and religious agenda to pursue, however, and he contrasted Constantius II with Julian to the former's constant disadvantage ; like all ancient writers he was skilled in rhetoric, and this shows in his work.

* New Alliance ( Nuova Alleanza ), formerly called Right and Freedom ( Destra e Libertà ), headed by Altero Matteoli and Adolfo Urso, was formed by the staunchest supporters of Gianfranco Fini within the party and supported a liberal political agenda.

The two main sections also mirror the first two antagonist characters, Nehor ( religious agenda ) and Amlici ( political agenda ).

Enosis remained an ideological goal, despite being pushed significantly further down the political agenda.

These skills often assist in building political power through the formation of large social groups working for a common agenda.

Because his vision of personal and social perfections was framed as a revival of the ordered society of earlier times, Confucius is often considered a great proponent of conservatism, but a closer look at what he proposes often shows that he used ( and perhaps twisted ) past institutions and rites to push a new political agenda of his own: a revival of a unified royal state, whose rulers would succeed to power on the basis of their moral merits instead of lineage. These would be rulers devoted to their people, striving for personal and social perfection, and such a ruler would spread his own virtues to the people instead of imposing proper behavior with laws and rules.

However, a political crisis relating to large-scale contributions from drug traffickers to Samper's presidential campaign diverted attention from governance programs, thus slowing, and in many cases, halting progress on the nation's domestic reform agenda.

Consuls were responsible for the city's political agenda, commanded large-scale armies and controlled important provinces.

Also forbidden are political parties supporting militia formations or having an agenda that is contradictory to the constitution and its principles, or threatening the country's stability such as national unity between Muslim Egyptians and Christian Egyptians.

In addition to the formal structure of the ELDR Party, there are convened at least two Political Leaders ' Meetings a year in order to exchange views on the items on the agenda of the European Council and more general views on the European political situation.

Fascism sought to accommodate Italian conservatives by making major alterations to its political agenda ;– abandoning its previous populism, republicanism, and anticlericalism, adopting policies in support of free enterprise, and accepting the Roman Catholic Church and the monarchy as institutions in Italy.

Though unable to directly write policies or carry them through to the government, Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote her political agenda.

For non-executive heads of state there is often a degree of censorship by the politically responsible government ( such as the head of government ), discreetly approving agenda and speeches, especially where the constitution ( or customary law ) assumes all political responsibility by granting the crown inviolability ( in fact also imposing political emasculation ) as in the Kingdom of Belgium from its very beginning ; in a monarchy this may even be extended to some degree to other members of the dynasty, especially the heir to the throne.

Gelling as social activism and political rhetoric in many nations put it high on the world agenda.

Because of the ambiguity surrounding Louis Napoleon's political positions, his agenda as president was very much in doubt.

Further, Islamic Jihadist-of which Al Qaeda in Iraq is a member-continued to use terror and extreme acts of violence against collaborationist populations to advance their religious and political agenda ( s ).

Once its major ecological objective was achieved, Nevada-Semipalatinsk made various attempts to broaden into a more general political movement ; it has not pursued a broad ecological or " green " agenda.

# Comparisons of the agenda of the news and entertainment media with agendas of political candidates or other activists.

* Figuratively and with negative connotations to indicate the role of a spokesperson or mass media venue that is used to perpetuate the views or agenda of another, as in " the newspaper became a mouthpiece for its owner's political views.

The Islamic Party of Malaysia ( PAS ) promotes a more Islamist political agenda, while the Democratic Action Party ( DAP ) promotes a more democratic socialist economic policy.

The position of the breakaway republic of Transnistria, relations with Romania, and integration into the EU dominate the political agenda.

Ratified in the Republican Party victory in 1952, the Positive State is now evidenced by political campaigns being waged not on whether but on how much social legislation there should be.

Recognizing that the Rule of Law is `` a dynamic concept which should be employed not only to safeguard the civil and political rights of the individual in a free society '', the Congress asserted that it also included the responsibility `` to establish social, economic, educational and cultural conditions under which his legitimate aspirations and dignity may be realized ''.

) The concept of nationalism is the political principle that epitomizes and glorifies the territorial state as the characteristic type of socal structure.

Complementing the political principle of nationalism is the legal principle of sovereignty.

In any event, whether society may have cancer, or merely a virus infection, the `` disease '', we shall find, is political, economical, social, and even medical.

Assuredly in our political campaigns there is freedom to think, to examine any and all issues, and to speak without restraint.

At the national and international level, then, what is the highest kind of morality for the private citizen represents an instance of political immorality.

But it is also the climax to one of the absorbing chapters in our current political history.

In the incessant struggle with recalcitrant political fact he learns to focus the essence of a problem in the significant detail, and to articulate the distinctions which clarify the detail as significant, with what is sometimes astounding rapidity.

To this end political authority is called upon to exercise its negative and coercive powers.

Steele's purpose is to present a general defense of his political writing and a resume of the themes which had occupied him in the Englishman ; ;

His point is simply that the Tories have showered him with personal satire, despite the fact that as a private subject he has a right to speak on political matters without affronting the prerogative of the Sovereign.

During moments of intense crisis the responsibility of political leaders is overwhelming.

Some historians have found his point of view not to their taste, others have complained that he makes the Tory tradition appear `` contemptible rather than intelligible '', while a sympathetic critic has remarked that the `` intricate interplay of social dynamics and political activity of which, at times, politicians are the ignorant marionettes is not a field for the exercise of his talents ''.

Britain in the nineteenth century is a textbook designed `` to give the sense of continuous growth, to show how economic led to social, and social to political change, how the political events reacted on the economic and social, and how new thoughts and new ideals accompanied or directed the whole complicated process ''.

In the field of political values, it is certainly true that students are not radical, not rebels against their parents or their peers.

That fact is very clearly illustrated in the case of the many present-day intellectuals who were Communists or near-Communists in their youth and are now so extremely conservative ( or reactionary, as many would say ) that they can define no important political conviction that does not seem so far from even a centrist position as to make the distinction between Mr. Nixon and Mr. Khrushchev for them hardly worth noting.

But in ways more fundamental than specific political opinions they are still what they always were: passionate, sure without a shadow of doubt of whatever it is that they are sure of, capable of seeing black and white only and, therefore, committed to the logical extreme of whatever it is they are temporarily committed to.

When I first came across Samuel Johnson's pronouncement, `` the remedy for the ills of life is palliative rather than radical '', it seemed to me to sum up the profoundest of political and social truths.

This magnificent but greatly underestimated book, which bodies forth the very form and pressure of its time as no other comparable creation, has suffered severely from having been written about an historical event -- the Spanish Civil War -- that is still capable of fanning the smoldering fires of old political feuds.

The whole purpose of Man's Hope is to portray the tragic dialectic between means and ends inherent in all organized political violence -- and even when such violence is a necessary and legitimate self-defense of liberty, justice and human dignity.

and Vincent Berger learns that political ambition is more apt to hide than to reveal the truth about men.