19
October 2013
Turkey lifts 90-year
ban on Islamic veils
in the workplace
For the first time in 90 years, women in Turkey
are now allowed to wear the Islamic head scarf
in the workplace or at university.
Although wearing the veil on the streets was
allowed, it had been outlawed in all public
institutions since 1925.
The founder of the secular Turkish republic,
Mustafa Ataturk, passed the decree banishing
overt symbols of religious affiliation for civil
servants.
Many women, particularly Kurds, had been
unable to study or join the workforce.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the
new law would bring greater democracy: “The
old regulation included restrictions on women
Global
and men’s appearances and this was a violation
and discrimination against the freedom of
religion and consciousness, it was
discriminatory,” Erdogan said.
The prime minister’s critics see the move as
evidence of a “secret Islamic agenda” that his
AK party is trying to push through.
The change is part of a package of reforms
including greater freedom for Kurdish
minorities and the lifting of a ban on using
letters such as “q”, “w” and “x”, part of minority
languages, but not in the official Turkish
alphabet. There will also be an end to Turkish
primary school children having to recite a vow
of national allegiance each week.Source Yahoo
News.
Royal Mail: More Than
100,000 Seek Shares
Well over 100,000 members of the
public applied to buy shares inRoyal
Mail ahead of last night's deadline,
confirming the status of the £3.3bn
sell-off as the biggest privatisation
for decades.
Sky News understands that tens of
thousands of people applied within
the 48 hours prior to the cut-off
point alone, encouraged by City
speculation that the postal operator's
shares could soar in the aftermath of
its historic flotation.
One source said the final number of
retail applicants could be as high as
200,000, although orders were still
being counted on Wednesday morning ahead of ministers' decisions
about the allocation of shares
The final number of retail applicants
is expected to be confirmed on Friday but one source said the figure
would be "well into six figures".
Even 150,000 retail applicants
would mean that the distribution of
Royal Mail shares was far narrower
than some of the mega-privatisations
of the 1980s, such as British Gas and
BT, which saw stock sold to 1.5m
and 750,000 small shareholders re-
spectively.
Michael Fallon, the Business Minister overseeing the privatisation, has
pledged that retail investors will receive their "fair share" of Royal Mail
shares..
The political row over Royal Mail's
privatisation has escalated in recent
days, with Vince Cable, the Business
Secretary, accusing his Labour
shadow, Chuka Umunna, of
"irresponsibility" for claiming that the shares will be
significantly undervalued
when they start trading next
week.
Around 150,000 Royal
Mail staff will receive
about £2,200 of free shares
as part of the flotation, although they will have to
hold onto them for up to
five years to avoid triggering a tax liability on the
sale.
BIS declined to comment
on the number of applications it had received for
shares from members of the
public. By Mark Kleinman,
City Editor | Sky News