Turkish government and opposition agree to ease scarf ban
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Turkey's Islamist-rooted ruling AK Party and a key opposition party agreed on Thursday to cooperate to lift a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in universities, a move sure to anger the secular elite.
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A bill that would lift a decades-old ban on women wearing head scarves at universities was submitted to parliament on Tuesday, worrying secular Turks who fear the government is raising the profile of Islam.
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PARIS - Millions of French students returned to school Thursday as a new law that bans Islamic head scarves from classrooms went into effect amid demands by Islamic radicals holding two French hostages in Iraq that the law be scrapped.    Muslim leaders in France, who had largely opposed the law, urged calm for the return to class...
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The Indian cabinet agrees to repeal a controversial anti-terrorism law which it says has been misused.
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Turkey must lift a ban on headscarves at  university as part of democratic reforms aimed at European  Union accession, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said on Saturday.
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Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Friday he backed the Islamist-rooted government's proposal to lift a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in universities, a move opposed by the secular elite.
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Some 125,000 Turks, mostly women, denounced the government on Saturday over its plans to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarves at universities in the mainly Muslim but secular nation.
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Turkey's prime minister on Wednesday challenged a ban on women wearing head scarves in universities and public offices, saying there is no need to wait for a constitutional change to remove the ban, state-run media said.
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The opposition in Turkey says the government has reversed plans to criminalise adultery.
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Lawmakers voted early Thursday to approve a constitutional amendment allowing female students to enter universities wearing Islamic head scarves Â a move some Turks see as a threat to the traditional separation of church and state.
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The European Union and Turkey struck  an historic deal on Friday to start talks next year on  admitting the vast Muslim nation to the bloc after last-minute  haggling over Ankara's relationship with EU member Cyprus.
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ISTANBUL -- It's the head scarf, stupid. If it weren't for a three-foot-square piece of fabric, sometimes black and stark but more often fancy or lacy, rosy pink or flowery, Turkey's 42 million voters wouldn't be going to the polls Sunday.
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The bitter feud between Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and the opposition appeared to be easing Monday as the government agreed to soften tough security and media laws ahead of next year's elections.
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Turkey's Islamist-rooted ruling party, thanks to a deal with the nationalist opposition, on Tuesday submitted to parliament a draft amendment to allow the Islamic headscarf in universities, making good on a six-year-old electoral promise.
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Bosnia's Muslim, Croat and Serb  political leaders on Sunday reached an agreement to get the  stalled police reform back on track to fulfill a key condition  for closer ties with the European Union.
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Turkey and Iraq have agreed to sign a counterterrorism deal cracking down on separatist Kurdish rebels holed up in bases in northern Iraq, officials said Wednesday.
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Turkey's ruling party and a key opposition party agree to work to  lift a ban on headscarves in universities.