Radical events

Today I could write about the withdrawal of the Turkish troops from northern Iraq. About how here in the newspapers it’s stated that everybody already knew about the withdrawal, except prime minister Erdogan – at an occcasion where he would speak to a group of journalists, Erdogan’s speech had already been distributed and the speech still spoke of ‘the continuing action’ in Iraq… About how singer Bülent Ersoy still receives criticism about her comments that if she had a son she would never send him to the army – but here and there she gets support too. About whether it was American pressure that made the troops withdraw in such a hurry, or not – everybody thinks it was, only army chief Büyükanit still denies it. But with this, I have said enough about it. The offensive in Iraq lasted eight days, and in these eight days, according to most of the newspapers, nothing else seemed to happen in the country. Which of course is not the case. A topic that in my eyes deserves more attention, are the radical events at Tekel, the state company that holds a sizeable share of the national tobacco market. Tekel has been sold to British American Tobacco, and Tekel employees protested in the streets of several cities. They fear closure of one or more of the six cigarette factories and an enormous loss of jobs. Maybe next week there will be more attention paid to them in the papers – at least if the headscarf issue, which is still not solved, doesn’t immediately take over the front pages again…