Turkish politicians now smile more for votes
ANKARA: Turkish politicians arc donning T-shirts and smiling more tn a bid lo woo voters in the October 20 general election, reports Reuter.
Advertising professionals have been called in lo help politicians shed their traditional image as said figures in black- suits — long seized on in newspaper caricatures.
Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz now smiles out from thousands of posters in a pose which Turkey's press says makes him look like Scan Connery in an old James Bond film.
"People vote for personalities not for ideologies," said French publicist Jacques Scgucla. who chose the poster for the ruling Motherland Parly. •
Yilmaz has also been filmed in T-shirts and photographed al the family breakfast table.
At 43. he is the youngest of the parly leaders. Motherland, trailing in third place in opinion polls while prices rise by an annual 67 per cent, hopes this will be a major asset.
Ollier leaders, photographed in thetr shirt sleeves among jostling crowds, arc also being presented to Turkey's 28 million voters with new images.
Former Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel, 67, of the opposition Centrist True Path Party has swapped his conservative suits for trendy tweeds.
Apartheid dying, proclaims Elizabeth
WINDHOEK: In a rare departure, Queen Elizabeth II on
Tuesday voiced her opinion in Windhoek on a political mat ter, saying "apartheid is dying" tn South Africa, reports AFP.
The queen told guests at a state banquet in honour of her first visit to Namibia, South Africa's northern neighbour, that "far too many African countries the past few decades have been unhappy ones."
'Drought, disease and war have exacted a heavy toll, and apartheid has sown bitterness and confronla-tion throughout the continent.
"But now, at last, there is real hope of change, apartheid is dying and South Africa is starting to plan future in which all its citizens will be equal partners." she added.
The queen and her husband, Prince Phillip, arrived in Namibia Tuesday afternoon on a three-day state visit.
Gods stir up row
WELLINGTON: Plans lo erect statues of two ancient Egyptian gods In a public garden have stirred up a religious row In Hamilton, north of here, the Waikato Times reported, says AFP.
Sobek and 1 locus, gods of water and life, arc to be installed at Hamilton gardens soon as a feature display, but local Mayor Margaret Evens said the plan had led lo protests from some Christian Church groups.
Cfly officials and a selection of worried churches plan lo meet this Friday to discuss the churches' concerns, with Anglican Bishop Roger Herft as an independent mediator.
New Life Centre Leaer Paslgr Grahman Ferry said the churches concerned were at the "charismatic end of the scale," and believed strongly In the biblical commandment against worshipping of other gods and the erection of "graven images."
The complaints, co-ordinated by the New Life Centre, have come from the Assembly of God. Baptist. Methodist, Salvation Army, Aposlulic.and other churches and org-inja^lfoua ,,,
Good news for convicts with life imprisonment
PARIS: French Jurislsxu decade after the abolition of -the death sentence, arc deep in debate over whether or not life imprisonment should go the Way of the guillotine. reports AFI’.
The reason, experts say. is that ever since Hie capital pun-ishment was abandoned on October 9. 1981. courts have been handing down n»rc and more Hie sentences.
Their number increased by nearly 56 per cent between 1981 and 1988. according to Justice Ministry figures, compared to an increase of just over seven per cent for the prwi-^ous seven-year period..