Turkish Airlines bans bright lipstick on hostesses

Turkish Airlines defended the ban, saying in a statement Tuesday that "simple make-up, immaculate and in pastel colors, is preferred for staff working in the service sector." (Image courtesy: Turkish Airlines)

Turkish Airlines has banned air hostesses from wearing brightly-colored lipsticks such as red or pink, a move which has sparked fierce debate as the government is accused of trying to Islamize the country, local media reported Wednesday.

Numerous women posted pictures of themselves wearing bright red lipstick on social media websites to protest at the measure, part of a new aesthetics code for stewardesses working for Turkey's main airline.

The lipstick ban is the latest in a string of conservative measures adopted by the airline, which have sparked the ire of fiercely secular Turks.

"This measure is an act of perversion. How else could you describe it?" said Gursel Tekin, vice-president of the main opposition party CHP.

Turkish Airlines defended the ban, saying in a statement Tuesday that "simple make-up, immaculate and in pastel colors, is preferred for staff working in the service sector."

In recent months the booming airline - 49 percent state-owned - has also stopped serving alcohol on internal flights.

In February, images of proposed new uniforms for flight attendants bringing in ankle-length dresses and Ottoman-style fez caps were criticized as too conservative. The skirts of Turkish Airlines stewardesses once came in far above the knee.

However the more conservative new uniforms have not been adopted.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyin Erdogan's Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, in power for over a decade, is often accused of creeping efforts to coerce the country to be more conservative and pious.

Turkey is a fiercely secular state, despite being a majority Muslim country. Under Erdogan's rule headscarves - banned in public institutions - have become more visible in public places and alcohol bans are more widespread.

01 May, 2013

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Source: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/05/01/Turkish-airlines-bans-bright-lipstick-on-hostesses.html
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Taliban kill senior peace envoy in south Afghanistan

The attack came a day after three British soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Helmand. (Reuters)

Taliban fighters killed a senior member of Afghanistan's peace council on Wednesday, officials said, dealing another blow to nascent peace efforts with the insurgency.

President Hamid Karzai formed a 70-member High Peace Council in 2010 in a bid to reach a peace settlement with the insurgents, but little has been achieved, with the Taliban saying they will not talk with the Afghan government.

Malim Shahwali, the council's chief in the southern province of Helmand, was traveling to the violence-plagued Gereshk district when insurgents ambushed his convoy, said the provincial governor's spokesman, Omar Zwak.

"First an explosion hit his convoy and then the Taliban gunmen opened fire, killing Malim Shahwali and two bodyguards," Zwak told Reuters.

Three policemen and an Afghan soldier were wounded, Zwak said.

The attack came a day after three British soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Helmand.

In 2011, a suicide bomber disguised as a peace envoy killed the then chairman of the peace council, former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani.

In May last year, gunmen in Kabul assassinated Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban minister turned peace negotiator.

Helmand, which is the largest producer of opium in Afghanistan, has been the scene of the some of the fiercest fighting between NATO-led foreign forces and their Afghan government allies and the Taliban.

Fear is mounting that Afghanistan could be engulfed in turmoil after the pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014. A presidential election is also due that year

01 May, 2013

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Source: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/asia/2013/05/01/Taliban-kill-senior-peace-envoy-in-south-Afghanistan.html
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Israel PM: root of Palestinian conflict ‘not territorial’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said the root of the conflict with the Palestinians was not about territory. (Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said the root of the conflict with the Palestinians was not about territory but about their refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish state.

"The root of the conflict is not territorial. It started a long time before 1967," Netanyahu said in a meeting with foreign ministry officials.

"The Palestinians' lack of will to recognize the state of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people is the root of the conflict," he said.

His remarks, which were communicated by a senior government source, appeared to be a reference to moves by the Arab League to revive and modify its 2002 peace initiative.

They came after Gilad Erdan, a minister in the security cabinet and considered close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke to a public radio.

"If Israel agrees to come to the negotiating table while accepting in advance that talks would be held on the basis of the 1967 lines, there wouldn't be very much to negotiate about.

"We cannot start negotiations after agreeing in advance to give up everything," he added.

The proposal

The Saudi-led proposal, which offers full diplomatic ties with the Arab world in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from land occupied during the 1967 Six-Day War, now includes a reference to the principle of mutually agreed land swaps, in a move hailed by Washington as "a very big step forward."

The step was welcomed by Israel's chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni, but Netanyahu said an Israeli withdrawal would not solve the conflict, which was not about land but about "the very existence of a Jewish state," the source said.

"You saw what happened when we left the Gaza Strip [in 2005]. We evacuated the last settler and what did we get? Rockets," Netanyahu told the diplomats, urging them to drive home the message.

"If we reach a peace agreement I want to know that the conflict will not continue. That there won't be any more Palestinian claims afterwards," he said.

"The root of the conflict is Acre, Jaffa and Ashkelon and you need to say it. You don't need to apologize. You need to say the truth," he told them.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is currently engaged in efforts to re-launch stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, believes the Arab Peace Initiative could provide a framework for a future peace deal.

But Netanyahu has ruled out any Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, saying they would be "indefensible."

01 May, 2013

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Source: http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2013/05/01/Israel-PM-root-of-Palestinian-conflict-not-territorial-.html
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