Page 50 - Tehelka Issue 13 - July 15, 2018

around the w rLd

Saudi women finally win hard-fought

battle to get the basic right of driving

Saudi arabia finally as opposed to what
allowed its women to he claims to be the
drive by revoking the Democrats’ “open border
government’s ban on policy”. Trump’s current
women drivers. For the plan could see children
first time in its history, detained indefinitely
women have been able with their parents, and
to drive themselves there are concerns
legally through the ultra- about the lack of plans
conservative kingdom’s in place to reunite the
streets. The landmark step 2,300 children currently
is the culmination of years in detention with their
of activism and appeals both from inside and outside parents.
the Gulf nation. The move comes as part of a series of
sweeping social and economic reforms known as Vision
2030 initiated over the past two years and spearheaded
by Saudi Arabia’s 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed turkiSh PreSident Recep Tayyip Erdogan
bin Salman. The lifting of the driving ban comes 28 years strengthened his 15-year-old grip on power as the
after Saudi women first took to the streets of the capital, country’s voters, in a decisive victory in the national
Riyadh, to protest for the right to drive. elections, granted him vastly expanded authority over
the legislature and judiciary. Erdogan will also have
a pliant Parliament, with his conservative party and
its allies having won about 53 percent of the vote in
uS PreSident Donald Trump received immense legislative elections, the first to be held since Turkish
criticism within as well as outside his country after voters narrowly approved a referendum last year to give
hundreds of children, including infants and toddlers, the president — once a
were separated from their immigrant parents and put largely ceremonial role
in ‘cages’ in child care facilities. After days of public — sweeping executive
outcry over Trump’s “zero-tolerance” but ill thought-out powers. Erdogan has
policy towards illegal immigration, the US president overseen a crackdown
signed an executive order putting a stop to the policy on lawyers, judges,
of separating children and parents at the US-Mexico civil servants and
border. He, however, said the public outrage at the policy journalists under a state
was drummed up by Democrats to distract from the of emergency declared
FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton, and he reiterated after a failed coup two
that he would maintain a tough stance on immigration, years ago. His critics

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