Word: union
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...these days Icelanders are enduring an identity crisis. Almost bankrupted by the economic downturn - which they call the "Kreppa" - they are shedding age-old shibboleths about their sturdy self-sufficiency. On Thursday, they did what would have been unthinkable just one year ago: they reached out to the European Union for help. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...Part of the reason Turkey adopted the new legislation was to comply with requirements set out by the European Union, which the country is seeking to join. But the law also dovetails with the Islamic-rooted government's deep distaste for tobacco and alcohol. None of Erdogan's ministers smoke, and previous governments had been trying to introduce similar laws for years, only to be stymied by strong pressure from tobacco lobbyists. Turks spend almost $25 billion a year on cigarettes. (Read: "New Turkish Law Curbs Military's Power...
...Despite the prevalence of smoking in Turkish society, recent polls show overwhelming public support for the ban - around 90%. "There's been an amazingly quick cultural shift," says Sylviane Ratte, a tobacco control expert who monitors Turkey for the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (also known as The Union). "People see it as a health issue. The main concern is that the ban be equally enforced." To that end, the Health Ministry has trained a 5,000-person task force to patrol establishments and dole out fines to anyone caught lighting up. For now, smokers who defy...
...Peter Gumbel neatly portrayed events leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Key to this was the role of Mikhail Gorbachev at the helm of Soviet affairs. One wonders why a man of Gorbachev's stature fails perhaps to garner as much critical acclaim as his contemporaries in the West. It probably has to do with his complicated ideological position, as both the leader and the reformer of the Marxist Soviet state. Eclecticism was the hallmark of his thinking and politics. Today the world needs more leaders who bridge differences rather than...
...seems there's some truth to the saying "There is no sex in the Soviet Union." When Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan hit cinema screens in 2006, few were surprised that the real-world home of Borat, the idiot-innocent Kazak main character, decided to ban the film as a matter of pride. But now censors in Ukraine are giving his latest film, Brüno, the same no-show treatment, claiming morality - not hurt feelings - as the reason...