World in brief: Plan to let people pick leader OK’d
Turkey’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a key constitutional amendment Thursday that would allow the people – rather than legislators – to elect the president.
The Islamic-rooted government pushed for the amendment after opposition legislators boycotted a process to elect a new president over fears that the candidate, chosen by the governing party, might increase the influence of religion in Turkish politics.
The political deadlock has forced the government to declare early general elections July 22.
TOKYO
Unwanted babies can be left in box
A Japanese hospital opened the country’s only anonymous drop box for unwanted infants Thursday despite government admonitions against abandoning babies.
The baby drop-off, called “Crane’s Cradle,” was opened by the Catholic-run Jikei Hospital in the southern city of Kumamoto as a way to discourage abortions and the abandonment of infants in unsafe public places.
A small hatch on the side of the hospital allows people to drop off babies in an incubator 24 hours a day, while an alarm will notify hospital staff of the new arrival. The infants will initially be cared for by the hospital and then put up for adoption.
Similar baby drops exist in Germany and South Africa. Some U.S. states, such as Alabama and Minnesota, also have programs protecting identities of women who give up their babies.
VIENNA, Austria
U.N. office urges more drug testing
Ordinary drivers and workers who operate heavy equipment or do other hazardous jobs should be subject to random drug tests similar to the spot checks police in some countries now conduct for alcohol, the head of the U.N. drug office said Thursday.
“Road testing works for alcohol – it will work for drugs,” Antonio Maria Costa, head of the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told an international mayors’ conference in Istanbul, Turkey.
In the U.S., the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requires commercial truck drivers to pass alcohol and drug tests before they can obtain or renew a license. Some states, such as Oregon, conduct periodic random drug tests on truckers.