Yemen's Huthis seize Sanaa state offices

2014-12-18

SANAA - Shiite Huthi militiamen have stormed government installations in the Yemeni capital, tightening their grip on power in the city they overran in September, witnesses said Wednesday.

Gunmen from the Ansarullah movement occupied the headquarters of the state-owned Safer oil and gas company and barred employees from entering the premises, company sources said.

The movement appointed a new chief for Safer, the country's largest producer of natural gas and second-largest oil producer, the sources said.

In another show of force, militiamen stormed the headquarters of state television and radio, according to sources at both media.

They have said the move is part of their fight against alleged corruption.

The Huthis, who fought authorities for a decade in their northern stronghold, overran Sanaa on September 21 and have since expanded to coastal areas and southern regions, where they faced Sunni tribes backed by Al-Qaeda militants.

Huthi gunmen have also blocked the entrance to Hudaida port on the Red Sea, and prevented its chief Mohammed Ishaq from reaching his office, witnesses said.

On Tuesday, a group of Shiite militiamen broke into the offices of Ath-Thawra newspaper demanding the dismissal of its board chairman, Faisal Makram, a source at the official daily said.

They said they were following orders from their leader, Abdelmalek al-Huthi, "to end corruption in all state institutions".

Armed Huthis also surrounded the defense ministry in Sanaa after having been denied access, a military source said.

In another sign of its weakness, the government of Khaled Bahah lost a parliamentary vote of confidence on Tuesday.

Loyalists of ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh derailed the vote by leaving the assembly.

Saleh remains influential in Yemen nearly three years after he was forced to step aside following a bloody year-long crackdown on Arab Spring-inspired protests against his iron-fisted rule.

He has been accused of backing the Huthis.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69334.

Sudan postpones April elections by 11 days

21 December 2014 Sunday

Nationwide elections slated for April 2 will now be held on April 13, the head of Sudan's elections committee said on Saturday, in a move seen as preventing legal confusion over a constitutional amendment.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir proposed a constitutional change on Nov. 3 to make state governors appointed positions rather than elected ones, but the alteration only becomes legally valid 60 days from that date.

Postponing the election allows for the state governor positions to be removed from the forthcoming poll before the new nomination period starts on Jan. 11.

Mokhtar al-Assam, the elections head, did not mention the constitutional issue in comments to Reuters, but said: "The postponement came for very important reasons that we will announce tomorrow."

Sudan's ruling National Congress party last month chose Bashir as its candidate for the presidential vote, making it almost certain that he will extend his rule after 25 years in power.

The opposition Popular Congress party has said it will boycott the election because of what it sees as a restrictive political climate.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/151296/sudan-postpones-april-elections-by-11-days.

5 dead in al-Shabab raid on AU base

Thu Dec 25, 2014

At least five al-Shabab militants have reportedly been killed after attacking a military base belonging to the African Union (AU) mission in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Colonel Ali Aden Houmed, spokesman for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), said on Thursday that the militants launched an attack on the Halane military base, Somalia’s largest base for AU troops, in Mogadishu.

The AU official said at least eight militants stormed the base, adding that three of them were shot dead, while two others detonated their explosives and died near a fuel depot.

Three others were also believed to have fled the scene of the attack.

The al-Shabab militant group has claimed responsibility for the assault, saying it was targeting a Christmas party at the base near the capital’s airport, which also houses UN offices.

Witnesses said the attack prompted a heavy exchange of fire between the AU forces and the militants.

The Somali government and the African Union forces have stepped up safety measures in an effort to prevent assaults by al-Shabab, which was pushed out of Mogadishu by the African Union troops in 2011.

However, the group still holds several smaller towns and areas in the center and south of the country.

Somalia has been the scene of clashes between government forces and al-Shabab since 1991.

The country did not have an effective central government until September 2012, when lawmakers elected Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as the new president.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/391808.html.

Somalia appoints new PM after bitter infighting

2014-12-17

MOGADISHU - Somalia's president on Wednesday appointed a new prime minister, 11 days after the war-torn nation's previous premier was ousted amid bitter infighting.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said he had appointed political heavyweight Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, 54, who becomes the first person to hold the post twice.

"I'm very happy that I have picked Omar Abdirashid Ali as the new prime minister of the country. I expect him to fulfill his commandments," the president said at Villa Somalia, the fortified compound and seat of the country's fragile internationally backed government.

Sharmarke, a dual Canadian and Somali national, replaces sacked prime minster Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, ousted by parliament after just over a year in the post.

The United Nations, United States and European Union have all warned that power struggles in the Villa Somalia were a damaging distraction for the country as it tries to battle Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab rebels.

United Nations special envoy Nicholas Kay also said the tensions put at risk political goals including a referendum on a new constitution due to take place next year, ahead of elections in 2016.

The new prime minister told reporters he would "continue working on the efforts to bring about stability" and "taking the country the way forward to free elections".

- Son of former president -

The economist was previously prime minister during the transitional government from 2009-2010, when he resigned after falling out with the then president.

Most recently, he became in July the first Somali ambassador to the United States in over two decades, and has previously worked for the United Nations as political adviser, including in Sudan.

Sharmarke's father was also a former prime minister and was president between 1967 and 1969. He was assassinated by his own bodyguard, paving the way for the takeover by Siad Barre.

Hardliner Barre ruled Somalia until he himself was toppled in 1991 as the country descended into the civil war that still continues.

Like previous prime ministers, he faces a giant task to rein in corruption, quash Shebab insurgents battling to topple the central government, and rebuild the troubled Horn of Africa nation.

Sharmarke was born in the capital Mogadishu but comes from the northeastern Puntland region, from the Majeerteen clan.

In Somalia's complex clan politics, each community expects to be represented in the corridors of power.

The Somali government, which took power in August 2012, was the first to be given global recognition since the collapse of Siad Barre's hardline regime in 1991.

Billions in foreign aid has been poured in, including funding for the UN-mandated 22,000-strong African Union force, which has done much of the heavy fighting against Shebab rebels.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69333.

SOMALIA: Rape – The Hidden Side of the Famine Crisis

By Isaiah Esipisu

DADAAB, Kenya, Oct 5 2011 (IPS) - When Aisha Diis and her five children fled their home in Somalia seeking aid from the famine devastating the region, she could not have known the dangers of the journey, or even fathom that she would be raped along the way.

Diis left her village of Kismayu, southwest of the Somali capital of Mogadishu, for the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya’s North Eastern Province in April.

“I was in a group of many women and children, but four of us had come from the same village, hence, we related (to each other) as one family. Along the way, we stopped to make some strong tea since the children were feeling very tired and hungry. One woman remained behind with the children and the three of us went to search for firewood,” Diis told IPS through a translator.

“We were ambushed by a group of five men who stripped us naked and raped us repeatedly,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks. “It is something I have not been able to forget. But I wouldn’t like my children to know about it.”

But the trauma Diis and the other two women had to undergo is not an isolated incident.

As hundreds of tired, weak and malnourished women and children stream into Dadaab from famine-hit Somalia daily, the journey, for many of the women, would have been a harrowing one.

Tired and dusty, most women carry their babies tied to their backs. For many this precious cargo is the only possession they have managed to save from their homes in Somalia. Some, however, are slightly more fortunate and come with their children and what few belongings they have packed onto donkey carts.

They rarely talk about what has happened to them on the way here, when they arrive.

Instead, most register as refugees and undergo medical screening with their children. Then they are allocated a tent and basic household equipment.

The tents have no lockable doors, no windows, and no furniture, not even a bed. But all the same this is a place that the refugees can call home – for now, and perhaps for many years to come. (Some of the refugees were born here in 1991 when the camp was first established, and have not known any other home.)

But even after the women have settled in, many do not come forward to speak about the violence they experienced on their way to the camp.

“Gender-based violence is a hidden side of the famine crisis,” said Sinead Murray, the gender-based violence (GBV) program manager for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) at Dadaab.

“As per the rapid assessment done on GBV in Dadaab released by the IRC in July, rape and sexual violence were mentioned as the most pressing concerns for women and girls while fleeing Somalia and as an ongoing, though lesser concern, in the camps,” Murray told IPS.

“Some women interviewed during (the IRC) survey said they witnessed women and girls being raped in front of their husbands and parents, at the insistence of perpetrators described as ‘men with guns.’ Others were forced to strip down naked, and in the event they were raped by multiple perpetrators,” said Murray.

But Diis, and the two women who were raped with her, are some of the few Somali women who reported the violence they have been subjected to on their journey to Dadaab. In Diis’ case, she was brave enough to do so because she is a widow, and does not fear recrimination from her family as other women do.

“I did not fear to disclose my case to the medical officer because I did not have a husband,” said the widow whose husband was gunned down in Somalia by unknown assailants seven months ago.

“Many women are assaulted on their way to the refugee camp by unknown armed men, especially when travelling in a group without men,” said Ann Burton, a senior public health officer at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) at Dadaab.

“However, most of them are reluctant to report such cases since they fear that their families will blame them, communities will reject them or simply because they feel ashamed to talk about it.”

Diis was given post exposure prophylaxis, a short-term antiretroviral treatment used to reduce the likelihood of HIV infection, after she reported her rape.

“After I reported my case I was given some medicine, and I was monitored for three months after which I was informed that I had not contracted HIV. That was one of my biggest concerns,” said Diis. She also received counselling.

The other two women who were raped with Diis were also counselled and received post exposure prophylaxis.

Diis said that she is aware of other women who were raped before their immediate family members and did not report it to the medical staff at the camp.

Not reporting the rape just adds to the suffering of the women. Burton said: “Survivors often do not get critical life-saving care because of keeping it a secret.”

So far, only 30 cases of rape were reported between January and July 2011 according to the UNHCR at Dadaab. But medical experts at the camp say that this is a small fraction of a huge problem faced by women.

Once they arrive at Dadaab some women continue to experience gender-based violence from their intimate partners. Murray said this includes early marriages and survival sex – where women are forced to exchange sex for access to basic needs.

Though such GBV incidents are said to be less frequent within the camps, some women told IPS that they feel insecure and scared at night while sleeping in the makeshift shelters.

“The camps do not have fences and at the same time we are not able to lock our shelters throughout the night. Anything can happen in the dark hours,” said Amina Muhammad who lives in Dadaab.

The biggest risk at the camp, according to the women IPS spoke to, is when they travel long distances in search of firewood.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/10/somalia-rape-the-hidden-side-of-the-famine-crisis/.

Pakistan to set up military courts for terrorism

December 24, 2014

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's prime minister announced Thursday the country will set up special trial courts under the supervision of military officers to prosecute terrorism cases in the wake of the Taliban school massacre.

Nawaz Sharif spoke in a nationally televised address after a marathon meeting with all political parties and the country's military leadership to hash out new counter-terrorism policies in the wake of the horrific attack.

"The Peshawar attack has shocked the nation. We will not let the blood of our children go in vain," said Sharif. In the wake of the Pakistani Taliban attack on Dec. 16 that killed 149 people the government has scrambled to show that it is getting tough on militancy.

The military has stepped up operations in the tribal areas, and the government has reinstated the death penalty. Already six people have been executed. The military-run courts were the most controversial of 25 measures announced by Sharif after the daylong meeting earlier Wednesday in the capital. He gave few details about how the courts would function, except to say they would operate for the next two years and that changes to the current laws would be needed.

In the wake of the Taliban attack on a school in the frontier city of Peshawar, the government has been discussing numerous options for battling militancy, including ways to make it easier to detain and prosecute suspected terrorists.

Suspected terrorists are rarely convicted in Pakistan's troubled legal system due to shoddy police investigations and intimidation of witnesses and judges. Court cases can also drag on for months and years with little resolution, so the military courts are seen as a way to speed up the system.

But courts supervised by the country's powerful military raise questions of whether there will be enough or any civilian oversight or media access and how much rights suspects will have. Critics contend that quick-fix measures such as military courts or reinstating the death penalty do little to improve the legal process and the police in the long run. The new courts would also greatly strengthen the role of the military in a country where the army has already taken power in three coups and still wields enormous power behind the scenes.

Some of the other issues Sharif mentioned in his speech were the need to cut off funding for terrorists, preventing banned militant groups from simply changing their names so they can freely operate and stopping the media from glorifying militants or their statements.

Burying the dead after Pakistan's school massacre

December 20, 2014

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — One of the gravediggers at Peshawar's largest graveyard has a rule. He says he never cries when he buries the dead. He's a professional, he says.

But as the dead bodies — mostly children — started coming in from a school massacre this week that killed 148 people, he began to weep. "I have buried bodies of the deceased of different ages, sizes, and weights," Taj Muhammad told The Associated Press. "Those small bodies I've been burying since yesterday felt much heavier than any of the big ones I've buried before."

Muhammad spoke during a break from the digging, as he drank green tea with one of his colleagues and his two sons who work with him in the Rahman Baba graveyard, named after a beloved Sufi poet, in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

Wearing a faded shalwar kameez, a traditional dress of baggy pants and a long tunic, the 43-year-old Muhammad was covered in dust from a freshly dug grave. The school massacre on Tuesday horrified Pakistanis across the country. The militants, wearing suicide vests, climbed over the fence into a military-run school, burst into an auditorium filled with students and opened fire. The bloodshed went on for several hours until security forces finally were able to kill the attackers. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

For hours after, the dead, wrapped in white sheets, were brought to the cemetery. In Islam, the dead are generally buried quickly, so most funerals were held Tuesday and Wednesday. This was the worst terrorist attack in years but it was hardly the first in Peshawar, a city near the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan where militants have their strongholds.

Muhammad has buried some of the dead from those past attacks as well, like the Mina Bazaar bombing in 2009 that killed 105 people, and the Khyber Bazaar bombing, also in 2009, that killed nearly 50. But Tuesday's bodies were hard to take.

For the first time "I couldn't control my tears. I cannot explain but I wept. I know it was against the rules of our profession but it was the moment to break the rules," the father of eight children said.

Muhammed said he usually charges 2,000 to 5,000 rupees — about $20 to $50 — to dig a grave. And it is money he needs. In the past six or seven months, his income has dropped with fewer bodies to bury, a sign of the lull in violence in the city until this week.

But he didn't charge anyone to bury the victims of Tuesday's attack. It was like burying his own children, he said. "How could I ask or receive money for making the grave of my own child?"

Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

Iraq seeks Turkish support in fight against IS

December 25, 2014

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Iraq and Turkey on Thursday discussed cooperation in countering the threat posed by the Islamic State group, including an Iraqi request for intelligence sharing and the possible delivery of Turkish arms to Iraqi forces, Iraq's prime minister said.

Haider al-Abadi told reporters during a visit to the Turkish capital that he had provided "lists" of things Iraq was requesting from Turkey that included military cooperation, training and delivering weapons to fighters.

"(Islamic State group) is not only a threat to Iraq and Turkey, but is it a threat to the whole region. Therefore, there is a need for cooperation. That's what we expect of Turkey," al-Abadi said. "Whether it is military, intelligence sharing, training or even arms — these were talked about," al-Abadi said.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey was ready to provide Iraq the assistance it needed but didn't elaborate. He said the countries' defense ministries were holding discussions. "On the issue of support, we are ready to provide training... We have provided support to the Peshmerga forces that are battling Daesh in northern Iraq," Davutoglu said, using the Arabic acronym for IS. "We are open to all kinds of opinions concerning the support to be provided."

Turkey has declared it is willing to train and equip forces fighting IS and has also allowed about 150 Peshmerga fighters to cross into Syria from its territory, but has been reluctant to provide greater support to the U.S.-led coalition. Turkey insists that the coalition must also aim to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom it regards as the source of the crisis in Syria.

Al-Abadi said the campaign against IS had been successful in weakening the group and driving it out of some regions but said the militants continued to pose a threat. Turkey has been accused of facilitating the transit of militants through its territory into Syria — a charge the country strongly denies.

Davutoglu said Turkey opposes the presence of all foreign fighters both in Syria and in Iraq.

Women excised from public life, abused by IS

December 23, 2014

BEIRUT (AP) — The gunmen came to the all-girls' elementary school in the Iraqi city of Fallujah at midday with a special delivery: piles of long black robes with gloves and face veils, now required dress code for females in areas ruled by the Islamic State group.

"These are the winter version. Make sure every student gets one," one of the men told a supervisor at the school earlier this month. Extremists are working to excise women from public life across the territory controlled by the Islamic State group, stretching hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the outskirts of the Syrian city of Aleppo in the west to the edges of the Iraqi capital in the east.

The group has been most notorious for its atrocities, including the horrors it inflicted on women and girls from Iraq's minority Yazidi community when its fighters overran their towns this year. Hundreds of Yazidi women and girls were abducted and given to extremists as slaves. A report by Amnesty International released Tuesday said the captives — including girls as young as 10-12 — endured torture, rape and sexual slavery, and that several abducted girls committed suicide.

In day-to-day life, the group has also dramatically hemmed in women's lives across the Sunni Muslim heartland that makes up the bulk of Islamic State group territory, activists and residents say. Their movements are restricted and their opportunity for work has shrunk.

In Iraq's Mosul, the biggest city in the group's self-declared caliphate, "life for women has taken a 180-degree turn," said Hanaa Edwer, a prominent Iraqi human rights activist. "They are forbidding them from learning, forbidding them from moving around freely. The appearance of a woman is being forcefully altered."

At least eight women have been stoned to death for alleged adultery in IS-controlled areas in northern Syria, activists say. At least 10 women in Mosul have been killed for speaking out against the group, Edwer said. In August, IS detained and beheaded a female dentist in Deir el-Zour who had continued to treat patients of both sexes, the U.N. said.

Relatives of women considered improperly dressed or found in the company of males who are not relatives are lashed or imprisoned. In the IS-controlled town of al-Bab in Syria's northern Aleppo province, an activist described seeing armed militants walking with a stick in hand, gently whacking or jabbing at women deemed inappropriately dressed.

"Sometimes they follow the woman home and detain her father, or they confiscate her ID and tell her to come back with her father to pick it up," said Bari Abdelatif, now based in Turkey. Enforcement varies from one place to the other, much of it depending on the whims of the Hisba, or vice police enforcing those rules. Most of the areas taken over by IS were already deeply conservative places where women had a subordinate role in society, but the extremists have sharply exacerbated the restrictions.

Abdelatif said women in al-Bab are harassed for venturing outside their home without a "mahram," or male guardian. In the Syrian city of Raqqa, the militants' de facto capital, activists said women were allowed to leave their homes on their own, but needed a male companion or permission of a male relative to leave the city.

An IS all-female brigade, called al-Khansa, patrols the streets in some areas to enforce clothing restrictions. Across the territory, women now have to wear the "khimar," a tent-like robe that covers the head, shoulders and chest. The khimar leaves the face exposed but very often the militants go ahead and force women to put a niqab veil over their faces as well, leaving only the eyes visible.

In the Iraqi city of Fallujah, an elementary school teacher said militants recently dropped by the school to deliver the niqab, robes and gloves for the students to wear. "I used to wear make-up on occasion but I don't anymore," she said, speaking by phone on strict condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The militants have segregated schools and changed the curriculum. In some cases they shut schools down, summoning teachers to take a course in their hard-line version of Islamic Shariah law before reopening them. In many instances in both Iraq and Syria, parents have opted not to send their children to school to avoid IS brainwashing them.

Hospitals have also been segregated. A woman has to be seen by a female doctor, but there are very few women doctors left. Early marriage is on the rise because parents want to find husbands for their daughters quickly for fear they will be forced to marry Islamic State fighters, according to the U.N.

"The psychological and physical harm caused by ISIS's treatment of women, the onerous instructions imposed on their dress code, and restrictions on their freedom of movement demonstrate discriminatory treatment on the basis of gender," a United Nations panel investigating war crimes in the Syrian conflict said last month.

It said the killings and acts of sexual violence perpetrated by IS constitute crimes against humanity. While the Islamic State group imposes its extremist vision of Islamic law on Sunni Muslim women under its rule, it went further when it overran the Iraqi villages of the Yazidi minority in early August. The extremists consider followers of the Yazidi faith as infidels — and thus permissible to enslave.

Amnesty International interviewed more than 40 former captives who escaped the militants and described being abducted, raped and being "sold" or given as "gifts" to Islamic State fighters or supporters.

One girl told how a 19-year-old among them named Jilan committed suicide, fearing rape. In the bathroom, "she cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful," the girl quoted in the report said. "I think she knew she was going to be taken away by a man."

Associated Press writer Vivian Salama contributed to this report from Baghdad.

Kurdish fighters face resistance from IS in Iraq

December 22, 2014

MOUNT SINJAR, Iraq (AP) — Kurdish fighters in Iraq pushed deeper Monday into the town of Sinjar, held by the Islamic State group, but are facing stiff resistance from the Sunni militants who captured it in August.

One of the fighters, Bakhil Elias, said clashes since late last night have been "fierce" and that IS militants are using snipers. At least two Kurdish peshmerga fighters have been killed by snipers and 25 were wounded in the latest fighting.

Large plumes of black smoke are billowing into the sky from inside the town. The Kurdish forces say the militants are burning tires and oil to create a smoke screen of thick dark clouds to obstruct airstrikes against their positions by the U.S-led coalition.

Last week, the Kurdish peshmerga fighters launched the operation to retake Sinjar and were able to reach thousands of Yazidis who were trapped on Mount Sinjar. Peshmerga fighters opened up a corridor to the mountain and are regularly bringing truckloads of aid and food to the area.

In neighboring Syria, Kurdish fighters pushed into an IS-held neighborhood in the northern town of Kobani, capturing a cultural center that they had besieged on Saturday. "The center is very important morally and militarily," said Kobani-based activist Mustafa Bali, referring to the site, located on a hill that overlooks several neighborhoods east and southeast of the town.

"This will change the military rhythm in the coming days," Bali said, adding that the aim of Kurdish fighters in Syria is to evict IS militants from Kobani and nearby villages. Kurdish fighters have been slowly advancing in Kobani over the past weeks backed by Iraqi peshmerga fighters who came to help, and airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition.

The IS group began its Kobani offensive in mid-September, capturing parts of the town as well as dozens of nearby villages. Hundreds of fighters on both sides have been killed since. Idriss Nassan, a Kobani local official, said that over the past days the Syrian Kurdish force known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, "has taken the initiative" and advanced in IS-held neighborhoods.

Nassan said peshmerga fighters usually bombard IS positions in the town while YPG fighters carry out the ground attack with the help of airstrikes that target militant positions.

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

Azerbaijan's station raided by police

December 26, 2014

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — A radio station funded by the U.S. government says its office in Azerbaijan's capital of Baku has been raided by prosecutors who claim to have a court decision to shut it down.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty quoted the director of its Azerbaijani service saying that the office has been locked down since early Friday morning by prosecutors and armed police. Two RFE journalists could not be contacted by The Associated Press.

The Prosecutor General's Office told the AP the search was conducted to investigate a "grave crime" but would not elaborate. The station's top reporter Khadija Ismayilova was jailed earlier this month pending a trial on charges of driving a man to suicide, which critics dismissed as an attempt to gag an influential journalist.

Turkish teen accused of insulting Erdogan freed from custody

December 26, 2014

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A high school student who was jailed for allegedly insulting Turkey's leader was released from custody on Friday after his arrest caused uproar and intensified fears that Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is lurching toward more authoritarian rule.

The 16-year-old boy was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly calling Erdogan a thief, a day after he took part in a small left-wing student rally commemorating the death of a pro-secular army officer slain by Islamists 84 years ago.

His arrest at his Meram Technical and Vocational high school in Konya, central Turkey, sparked an outcry, with opposition parties denouncing it as the latest example of the government's descent toward authoritarianism and its crackdown on free speech and dissent.

It is a crime in Turkey to insult the president and others have been arrested on such charges before, but it was the first time a minor has been detained. Dozens of lawyers volunteered to defend the teen and petitioned for his release. At least three students were briefly detained during a protest on Wednesday to denounce his detention, Cumhuriyet newspaper reported.

It wasn't clear if the boy's early release was connected to the huge publicity of the case. Officials insist Turkey's judiciary is independent of the state and it is not uncommon for Turkish detainees to be released from custody quickly.

Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for the past decade as prime minister and as president since his election in August, was long regarded as a champion of democratic reforms. More recently, the Turkish leader has been accused of steering Turkey away from democracy by cracking down on protests, suppressing media freedoms and increasing police powers.

Earlier this month, police raided media outlets close to a movement led by a U.S.-based Muslim cleric — who is Erdogan's strongest critic — and detained journalists and TV producers, a move that sparked U.S. and EU criticism.

"It is extremely difficult to speak of democracy, pluralism or say that the regime is a republic in a country where children are arrested for their speech," the Ankara Bar Association said in a statement.

The boy, who can only be identified by his initials M.E.A. because of Turkish laws that protect the identity of minors, made a speech during the rally in which he said the students didn't regard Erdogan as the president, but as the "thieving owner of the illegal palace," according to court papers seen by The Associated Press.

His words referred to a vast government corruption scandal that has implicated members of Erdogan's family, as well as a controversial 1,150-room presidential palace in the capital, Ankara, which Erdogan inaugurated in October. Erdogan has depicted the scandal, which forced four government ministers to step down, as a "coup" orchestrated by the followers of the U.S.-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen.

The boy walked through the gates of a detention center in Konya after a court there agreed to free him from police custody on Friday. The boy could still face up to four years in prison if he is charged and convicted. The Justice Ministry would however, need to give its consent for proceedings on insulting the president to go ahead.

The student denied during questioning that his words were intended as an insult to Erdogan, according to the court papers. Video footage showed the boy being embraced by his mother as he emerged from custody. Dozens of his supporters sang and beat a drum in celebration of his release.

"We are not terrorists," the boy said after his release. "When we took this path, we made a promise not to turn back. We shall not yield to the fascist, unprogressive pressure." Erdogan hasn't specifically commented on the boy's case, but asserted Friday that media in Turkey was "more free" than the rest of the world because of the amount of "insults" that were being leveled at him or his family.

"Insults that would not be allowed in democratic countries are being made, that's how free it is. I am experiencing this personally and with my family," Erdogan said. "The insults are limitless." Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had defended the boy's detention on Thursday, saying: "The presidential office needs to be shown respect, no matter who he is."

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the opposition Republican People's Party, welcomed his release saying it was "wrong for a child to be kept in custody even for a minute." "A child's place is not prison," the teenager's mother, Nazmiye Gok, told reporters and supporters who gathered outside the detention center. "They need to be in school, sitting at their desks."

"I am not ashamed of my child. I am proud of him," she said.

Berza Simsek in Istanbul contributed.

Ukraine, pro-Russia rebels swap war prisoners

December 26, 2014

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian authorities and pro-Russia rebels exchanged nearly 370 prisoners Friday, a major step toward easing hostilities in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine handed over 222 prisoners and the rebels released 145 people, according to Russia's state RIA Novosti news agency — the biggest one-time prisoners swap since the pro-Russian insurgency flared up in eastern Ukraine in April.

The Interfax news agency quoted Svyatoslav Tsegolko, a spokesman for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, saying that 146 Ukrainian prisoners were released Friday and another four will be freed on Saturday. The figures corresponded to an earlier Ukrainian official statement, which said that 150 Ukrainian prisoners were to be released.

Hundreds of others were released during previous months. Numbers of those to be released varied Friday and tensions were flying high as buses carrying the prisoners arrived at a site north of the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

At some point during the exchange, separatist rights ombudsman Darya Morozova was quoted by Tass news agency as saying that the exchange was pushed back until Saturday. Russia's state television showed Ukrainian war prisoners boarding buses in the main rebel stronghold of Donetsk before being driven to a location north of the city where the exchange took place.

On the site where the swap was conducted, prisoners were called up by groups of 10 with officials from both sides verifying their identities. The exchange had been tentatively planned for earlier this week, and the failure to conduct it pushed back another round of Ukraine peace talks in the Belorussian capital, Minsk, which was set for Friday but was adjourned indefinitely.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces, volunteer battalions and pro-Russia separatists has claimed more than 4,700 lives since last spring. Previous rounds of talks in September produced a cease-fire and an agreement to pull back heavy weapons, but both sides have failed to agree on a line of division and fighting continued.

Hostilities have diminished in the past weeks amid renewed peace efforts, but mutual suspicions and distrust have stymied progress. Ukraine's parliament vote earlier this week to abandon the country's non-aligned status, a first step toward a possible bid for NATO membership which is an anathema to Moscow, also has hampered talks.

Amid the tensions, Ukraine on Friday suspended train and bus services to the Russia-annexed Crimean Peninsula, citing security concerns. Crimea, which depends on Ukraine for supplies of electricity and water, has faced frequent power cutoffs, most recently on Friday.

Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula in March following the ouster of Ukraine's former Moscow-friendly president after months of protests. Adding to the residents' problems, Visa and MasterCard announced Friday that they halted card services in Crimea in line with the latest U.S. sanctions.

Warsaw's lost architecture portrayed in miniature

December 24, 2014

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Many splendid pieces of Warsaw's architecture are gone or disfigured forever — victims of war and communism. But now some can be appreciated again — in miniature.

The fate of some of Warsaw's architectural gems reflects the tragic story of a city that went through years of war, then decades of communism in which buildings were torn down or neglected. Generations of residents have grown up unaware of the past splendor of the city once called the "Paris of the North."

Rafal Kunach, an economist-turned-builder with a childhood passion for city models, wants to change all that. "I wanted to show the Warsaw that is no more," Kunach said. By 2018, he hopes to have 50 miniature replicas of Warsaw's lost buildings, including railway stations, a synagogue and houses from the once-thriving Jewish district that was demolished by the Nazis. So far his team of historians, architects and builders has created 10 miniature reconstructions of the lost buildings at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kunach's "Old Warsaw Miniatures" can be viewed in the basement gallery of a downtown mall but Warsaw authorities have promised a larger space for them next year. Historian Jaroslaw Zielinski, a member of Kunach's team, said in September 1939 alone — the first month of World War II — some 20 percent of Warsaw's buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged by German bombs.

"In 1939, it seemed that the world had ended," Zielinski said. "A lot of precious pieces of old architecture burned down. ... The intention was to break the spirit of the city's defenders." After the war, the empty spaces were filled with mostly cheap and simple buildings.

Tourists now often visit the downtown Tomb of the Unknown Soldier — a broken arcade topped with broken columns in a vast square bordering a park. Although pretty, it's only a sad remnant of a massive 18th century Saxon palace built as a royal residence, one of the lost buildings that Kunach has recreated in miniature.

Before World War II, the palace housed the Polish army command and the office of cryptologists working to crack the code of the German Enigma cipher machine, which they did in 1932. The occupying Germans blew up the palace in December 1944. Recent attempts to rebuild it were scrapped after the existing foundations proved too weak and the costs too high.

Kronenberg Palace, the impressive late 19th-century residence of Jewish banker Leopold Kronenberg, stood next to the Saxon palace before the war. Its roof, painted ceilings and exquisite white marble staircase burned down in German bombing raids at the start of the war but its sturdy walls remained. What was left of the building was torn down in 1962, because the communist authorities found no money to restore a symbol of despised capitalist-era wealth. The drab Hotel Victoria was built on the site in 1976.

"It's quite something to be able to see these gone buildings, Kunach said. " And in our times it's there is an additional point in educating people about the costs of a war."

Snow, ice sweep Europe, stranding drivers

December 27, 2014

LONDON (AP) — Snow and icy weather swept through parts of Europe on Saturday, stranding drivers overnight and leaving thousands of homes without power in Britain.

Snow also covered parts of Switzerland and southwestern Germany, and more than 20 centimeters (nearly eight inches) of snow has fallen in higher parts of Germany's Black Forest. Many motorists in Britain were forced to abandon their cars or were trapped in vehicles for hours after becoming snowed in. Dozens of people traveling from Sheffield to London spent the night in a church after their bus became stuck.

Parts of northern England saw 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) of snow. Western Power Distribution said 36,000 customers were without power, and another 69,000 had short interruptions to supplies. Staff worked through the night to reconnect customers, but thousands in the East Midlands region were still affected.

Liverpool's John Lennon Airport and Leeds Bradford International closed late Friday as workers cleared snow from the runways. The airports have reopened. British weather forecasts predict more snow showers, mainly in the north, though the main threat would be ice on roads.

The snow was welcomed in the French Alps, which have seen hardly any since the start of the ski season. But with up to 60 centimeters (2 feet) predicted this weekend above 2,000 meters (yards) altitude, one of the busiest vacation weeks of the year looked more promising — if drivers could reach the mountains.

Traffic jams snarled many of France's major highways on Saturday, with more than three-quarters of the country under severe weather watch. Only 7,000 drivers of 36,000 expected were able to reach their destination in Savoie, one of the Alps regions, according to the Interior Ministry. Emergency shelters have been set up along the way for potentially thousands who are going to be forced to stay on the road overnight.

In the north, the port of Calais closed because of wind gusts. Snow and ice led to a roughly 20-kilometer (12.5 mile) traffic jam on the A8 highway near Stuttgart in southern Germany. Parts of Germany's south and west saw more than 10 centimeters (4 inches) of fresh snow, helping some ski areas which had been struggling.

Belarus replaces prime minister, central bank head

December 27, 2014

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Belarus' authoritarian president on Saturday replaced his prime minister, the head of the national bank and an array of other top officials as the country weathers economic troubles.

The economics and industry ministers also were replaced by President Alexander Lukashenko on Saturday. He appointed his former chief of staff, Andrei Kobyakov, as the new premier. Belarus has retained a Soviet-style command economy to a large degree and concerns are rising that it will suffer from a spillover of the economic crisis in neighboring Russia. Earlier this month, Belarus imposed a 30-percent fee on currency exchanges in a move to stave off panic.

The Belorussian ruble suffered a 65-percent decline in value in 2011. In 2015, the country owes about $4 billion in debt payments, roughly two-thirds of its current foreign currency reserves. Lukashenko, in power since 1994, is expected to seek another term next year. Analysts suggested the Cabinet reshuffle was aimed at assigning blame before the election.

"The economic situation is catastrophic, store shelves are empty," said Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent analyst in Minsk. "Lukashenko found people to blame for the crisis and is transferring all responsibility to them."

Iraqi Kurds push into contested northern town

December 21, 2014

MOUNT SINJAR, Iraq (AP) — With coalition warplanes circling overhead, Kurdish fighters pushed into the contested northern Iraqi town of Sinjar on Sunday, touching off heavy clashes with Islamic State militants who have controlled the area for months.

The battle for Sinjar and the surrounding areas has become the latest focus in the campaign to take back territory lost to the Islamic State group during the militants' summer blitz that captured much of northern and western Iraq. IS also controls a large chunk of neighboring Syria.

Last week, Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters launched the operation to retake Sinjar. So far, they've managed to open up a passageway to Mount Sinjar, a long, rugged mountain that overlooks the town. That push allowed some of the thousands of Yazidis trapped on the mountain since the town's fall in August to evacuate.

On Sunday, pershmerga fighters said they advanced into Sinjar itself. Loud explosions and intense gunbattles could be heard echoing from inside the town as U.S.-led coalition warplanes bombed Islamic State militants from the sky.

"We were fighting inside Sinjar. There were snipers everywhere inside," said 28-year-old Kurdish fighter Nabil Mohammed. "One of them fired a rocket-propelled grenade at us. I ran into a house and I was hit by a sniper's bullet in my thigh."

Mohammed spoke in a field hospital on Mount Sinjar, where he and many of the 20 wounded Kurdish fighters were brought for treatment. Ambulances rushed the wounded to the clinic. Inside, fighters wept as the body of one man killed by a sniper's bullet was placed into a body bag.

Earlier Sunday, the president of the self-ruled northern Kurdish region, Masoud Bazani, toured Kurdish positions on Mount Sinjar, where he vowed to defeat the Islamic State group. "Most of the districts are under our control," Barzani told peshmerga troops. "We will crush the Islamic State."

At least 15 Kurdish fighters wounded in Sunday's clashes were brought from the front-lines to a makeshift clinic on the mountain. The spokesman for the Kurdish forces, Jabbar Yawar, said the fighters were still facing resistance from pockets of Islamic State militants still inside the town and that it is "far from cleared." He declined to provide more details on the ongoing operation.

Meanwhile, Iraqi counter-terrorism forces launched an offensive Saturday to retake the military airport near the town of Tal Afar from the IS group, said a Baghdad official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

Tal Afar is a mixed Shiite-Sunni city of some 200,000 located strategically near the Syrian border to the east of Sinjar. In Syria, meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition carried out at least a dozen airstrikes against IS-controlled towns in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The group monitors the conflict through a network of activists on the ground.

The Local Coordination Committees also reported the strikes near the town of Dabiq. There was no word on casualties. Mainstream rebels as well as al-Qaida-linked fighters have been battling IS northeast of the city of Aleppo for months, while also trying to fend off an advance by Syrian government forces to encircle the opposition-held areas of the city.

In Baghdad, police said roadside bombs hit four busy commercial areas, killing 11 people and wounding 30.

Associated Press writer Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report from Baghdad.

Iraq's peshmerga 'break' Mount Sinjar siege

2014-12-19

By Abdelhamid Zebari
Nahyat al-Ayadhiya

Iraqi Kurds claimed Thursday to have broken a siege on a mountain where Yazidi civilians and fighters have long been trapped as the US said air strikes killed several Islamic State leaders in recent weeks.

Officials said the twin successes dealt heavy blows to IS's command and control as well as their supply lines, and were the latest in a string of apparent setbacks for the group in recent weeks.

The Kurdish advances came during a two-day blitz into the Sinjar region involving 8,000 peshmerga fighters and some of the heaviest air strikes since a US-led coalition started an air campaign four months ago.

Masrour Barzani, the son of the Kurdish president and the intelligence chief for the Iraqi autonomous region, said the peshmerga advance had broken the siege on Mount Sinjar.

"Peshmerga forces have reached Mount Sinjar, the siege on the mountain has been lifted," he told reporters from an operations center near the border with Syria.

The peshmerga said they recaptured eight villages on the way and killed about 80 IS fighters in the initial phase of the offensive launched from Rabia on the Syria border and Zumar on the shores of Mosul dam lake.

They also lost seven men on Wednesday in Qasreej village when they failed to stop a suicide attacker who rammed an explosives-laden armored vehicle into their convoy, officers at the scene said.

"This operation represents the single biggest military offensive against IS and the most successful," a statement from Barzani's office said.

A devastating IS attack on the Yazidi minority's Sinjar heartland in August displaced tens of thousands of people and was one of the reasons put forward by US President Barack Obama for launching a campaign of air strikes in September.

Amid fears of a genocide against the small Kurdish-speaking minority, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled to the mountain and remained trapped there in the searing summer heat with no supplies.

Kurdish fighters, mostly Syrian, broke that first siege but remaining anti-IS forces were subsequently unable to hold positions in the plains and retreated back to the mountain in late September.

- Breaking the siege -

The peshmerga commander for the area said troops had reached the mountain and secured a road that would enable people to leave, effectively breaking the siege. Several thousand are still thought to be trapped there.

"Tomorrow most of the people will come down from the mountain," Mohamed Kojar said, explaining the offensive had secured a corridor northeast of the mountain.

A Yazidi leader atop the mountain, however, said he could see no sign of a military deployment. A peshmerga commander explained that any evacuation would only begin on Friday.

Kurdish officials said the operation had dealt the jihadists a blow by cutting their supply lines and forcing them to retreat to urban bastions such as Tal Afar and Mosul, their main hub.

Jihadists still control the town of Sinjar, on the southern side of the mountain, and many of the surrounding villages.

In Washington, meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that three top IS leaders in Iraq had been killed in US air strikes in recent weeks.

"I can confirm that since mid-November, targeted coalition air strikes successfully killed multiple senior and mid-level leaders" in the IS, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.

"We believe that the loss of these key leaders degrades ISIL's ability to command and control current operations," he added.

The most significant figure was identified as Haji Mutazz, better known as Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, who was deputy to the group's chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

There was no hint that Turkmani had been killed on the jihadist social media accounts and forums that usually relay such information.

The jihadist group proclaimed a "caliphate" over parts of Iraq and Syria nearly six months ago after sweeping through Iraq's Sunni heartland and throwing the country into chaos.

A second wave of attacks in August against Sinjar and towards the borders of Kurdistan triggered a US intervention that has now grown into a 60-nation anti-IS coalition.

The strikes were extended into Syria on September 23.

The military fightback appears to have gradually turned the tide on the jihadists, who have suffered a string of setbacks in Iraq in recent weeks.

Battle lines are more static in Syria, where the West is not coordinating its air campaign with the regime.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69345.

Protests to continue: Egypt Brotherhood

Fri Dec 26, 2014

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement says it will not negotiate with military-backed rulers in the country and will continue to organize its peaceful anti-government demonstrations, Press TV reports.

The outlawed Egyptian group made the remarks in a statement published on its official website.

The Muslim Brotherhood said it would not adhere to regional and international efforts aimed at finding a compromise until those responsible for the deaths of revolutionaries were brought to justice.

It added that the Brotherhood and its supporters would defeat what it called domestic and international sponsors of the military coup last year, referencing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

This came a day after supporters of ousted Muslim Brotherhood-backed President Mohamed Morsi held anti-government protests in Cairo and the city of Fayoum.

Similar protests have been held across the country in recent months.

Egypt has witnessed regular protest rallies since the July 2013 ouster of Morsi, who was the country’s first president democratically elected after the overthrow of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

According to rights groups, the army’s crackdown on pro-Morsi demonstrations has led to the deaths of over 1,400 people and the arrest of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.

Morsi and his aides are currently on trial in several cases and could face the death penalty if convicted.  They are standing trial for what the military-backed court calls the destabilization of Egypt through collaborating with such groups as Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and Lebanese movement Hezbollah and leaking confidential information to foreign countries.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/391855.html.

Al-Jazeera shuts down its Egypt channel

December 22, 2014

CAIRO (AP) — The Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera news network on Monday shut down its Egypt channel, quieting a major source of tension between the two countries at a time when regional efforts are underway to reconcile between the two countries over the Gulf nation's support for Islamists.

Qatar has been the main supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and was a powerful backer of Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's Islamist president who was ousted last year by the military. Egypt has accused Al-Jazeera in general — and its Egypt affiliate, Al-Jazeera Mubasher Misr, in particular — of doing Doha's bidding by serving as Islamists' mouthpiece at a time of a ferocious crackdown on their ranks. The station denies any bias, saying it is simply covering Islamist protests.

The most dramatic manifestation of the tensions has been the arrest, trial and prison sentences for three journalists from Al-Jazeera's English channel on terrorism-related charges for allegedly helping the Brotherhood.

Al-Jazeera said Monday it will incorporate Mubasher Misr into a new region-wide station. It said the Egyptian station will only resume its work when it can get proper licenses in Egypt "in coordination with Egyptian authorities."

The decision Monday came only two days after a Qatari envoy met with Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the first such meeting since he was elected in June. El-Sissi's office said Egypt hoped the meeting, which was attended by a Saudi royal envoy, was the beginning of a "new era" that puts the past disagreements between the two countries behind.

Last month, Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, reached a reconciliation agreement with Qatar aimed at easing regional tensions linked to Doha's support for Islamist groups throughout the region.

Tensions with Egypt were the most public manifestation of the disagreements with Doha. Egyptian authorities have cracked down on the Brotherhood, arresting thousands of its members, and putting them on trial, including Morsi. Many senior figures in the Brotherhood, which Egypt declared a terrorist organization, found refuge in Qatar, though some have since left.

The crackdown extended to Al-Jazeera. A local court declared Mubasher Misr a threat to national security and ordered it shut down soon after Morsi's ouster. The channel, whose name means "Egypt Live" in Arabic, has broadcast ever since from studios in the Qatari capital.

In December last year, Egyptian authorities arrested and swiftly tried the three Al-Jazeera English journalists, accusing them of providing a platform for the Brotherhood. Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohammed Fahmy, and Egyptian Mohammed Baher, were sentenced to at least seven years in prison on terrorism related charges. A half dozen other Al-Jazeera English journalists were sentenced in absentia in the trial, which was described as a sham by rights groups.

Fahmy said he and his colleagues were "victims of a real ongoing cold war between Egypt and Qatar," in the letter published earlier this month by Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper. Egyptian TV on Monday hailed the shutting down of Al-Jazeera's local branch as the first sign of restoring good relations with Qatar.

"This is a translation of the Saudi initiative to restore warmth to Egyptian-Qatari relations," a broadcaster on the private Egyptian CBC station said. An Al-Jazeera station employee denied it has succumbed to political pressure, saying the station makes its decisions based on its editorial policies. The employee said the decision to stop broadcasting was because of the "challenges" the channel faced in operating out of Egypt. The employee spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Liberals end poll pact with Brotherhood

Friday 7 October 2011

CAIRO: Egypt’s leading liberal party Wafd has scrapped an electoral alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest political force, because it wants to field more candidates than the tie-up would have allowed, said a senior Wafd official.

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Brotherhood’s political wing, and Wafd led an alliance of 34 parties from across the political spectrum that planned to coordinate on lists of candidates for the first elections since President Hosni Mubarak was ousted from office in a popular uprising.

“The party’s higher committee unanimously decided to contest elections in a separate list and member parties of the alliance should choose to join either (the FJP or Wafd) lists,” Essam Sheha, member of Wafd’s higher committee, told Reuters.

Egyptian politics were dominated for decades by Mubarak’s now defunct National Democratic Party which was widely accused of ballot stuffing, vote buying and intimidation.

The well-organized Brotherhood was banned from formal politics but fielded candidates as independents.

Fourteen Liberal and Leftist groups have formed a coalition called the “Egyptian Bloc” calling for a civil state in which the principles of Shariah are the main source of legislation.

Sheha denied that the decision to quit the electoral alliance was based on an ideological dispute. “We withdrew from the electoral alliance because we had a lot of candidates and the available places in the list weren’t enough,” he said.

Cooperation with the Brotherhood would continue in other areas, he said, and a meeting of the alliance would take place on Saturday.

Egypt’s military ruler, meanwhile, said the country is going through a critical period, particularly on the security and economic fronts, and urges unity to achieve a democratic state under civilian rule.

Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi said in a televised speech Thursday disagreements and mistrust have plagued the period following the uprising that forced former President Hosni Mubarak to step down in February.

Source: Arab News.
Link: http://www.arabnews.com/node/393720.

Syrian refugees cause businesses boom in Turkey

21 December 2014 Sunday

"We are struggling to put bread on the table. We put Turkish and Arabic signs in our workplace. I'm happy that I am able to continue my business here” says 32-year-old Mamun Fakri from Idlib, Syria.

For the past two years, Fakri has been running his business in Turkey's southern city of Mersin nearly 300 kilometers from Syrian border. He is one of the more than 300 Syrians who own their businesses in the Mediterranean port city where the number of Syrian-owned business increased from 33 in 2011.

More than twenty-six percent of the new companies started up in Turkey by foreigners in the first 11 months of this year were set up by Syrians or partnered by Syrians, according to data from the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey.

According to the data, of the more than 53,329 new companies or associations started up in Turkey within first eleven months of this year, 4,249 foreign-partnered.

- Some 1,122 -- over 26 percent of total -- of foreign-partnered companies were founded directly by Syrians or as partners with local businessmen.

Out of the total number of foreign-funded companies in November, 118 were funded from Syria, 36 were Iranian-funded, and 23 were financed from Iraq.

Germans followed their Syrian counterparts, investing in 281 newly-established companies in Turkey, while Iraq-based firms ranked third with 248 start-up investments.

Muhammed Shreem, from Aleppo, is only one of thousands of Syrians who have fled their war-torn country.

Shreem has been trying to adapt to business life in Turkey, which currently hosts around 1.6 million Syrians, according to UN figures.

"We had a family company on import and export in Aleppo. We have opened a new company in Mersin, where our family harbored. We export construction materials and stationery from Turkey to Alleppo, one of the largest city in Syria and Idlib province in northwestern Syria," says 43-year-old Syrian Shreem who has been in business in Mersin for two years now.

However, local business owners complain about unfair competition.

"Syrians who escape from the civil war and took refuge in Turkey should obey the rules of law in the country," Talat Dincer from Mersin Tradesmen's and Artisans' Association said.

"Our goal is not to oppress them. We have some rules in business world here and we want everyone to obey them. We do not want a confrontation. We just do not want to see unfair competition and conflicts here," Dincer said.

"The situation has gotten so worse that local shopkeepers cannot endure it anymore."

Serafettin Asut, the president of Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Syrian firms are in every sector from logistics to real estate.

"Mersin’s exports to Syria increased by 331 percent in last year thanks to the contribution by Syrian funded companies, their owners know local factors in Syria."

Turkey has adopted an open-door policy, welcoming Syrians since the beginning of the civil war in March 2011. As the number of Syrians in Turkey reaches 1.6 million, the government considers crucial long-term plans to ease the effects of hosting so many Syrians in the country.

Turkey has spent more than $5 billion for Syrian refugees thus far, according to the country’s Finance Ministry.

The Turkish Ministry of Labor and Social Security has recently confirmed that work permits would be granted to Syrians on Turkish soil.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/151305/syrian-refugees-cause-businesses-boom-in-turkey.

Father of pilot captured by IS pleads for release

December 26, 2014

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — The father of a Jordanian pilot captured by the Islamic State group in Syria pleaded for his son's release on Thursday, asking the group to treat him well in captivity as a fellow Muslim.

So far, there has been silence from the extremists about the fate of their captive, 1st Lt. Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh, since gunmen from the group dragged him away following his crash Wednesday morning. Al-Kaseasbeh was carrying out air strikes against the militants when his warplane crashed near the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital. The group has executed captured Iraqi and Syrian Muslim soldiers in the past — it follows an extremist version of Islam that considers rivals, even some Sunni Muslims, as apostates. Still, the group may want to negotiate a prisoner swap or other concessions from Jordan.

The pilot's father, Safi Yousef al-Kaseasbeh, made his plea while speaking to journalists in the Jordanian capital, Amman. "I direct a message to our generous brothers of the Islamic State in Syria: to host my son, the pilot Mu'ath, with generous hospitality," he said. "I ask God that their hearts are gathered together with love, and that he is returned to his family, wife and mother."

"We are all Muslims," he added. The pilot is the first known military member to be captured from the international coalition that has been waging a bombing campaign against the Islamic State group for months, trying to break its control over territory stretching across Syria and Iraq.

After the crash, al-Kaseasbeh was pulled by gunmen from a body of water and hustled away, according to photos published by the Raqqa Media Center, which operates in areas under IS control. He appeared to be able to walk and the only visible injury was what appeared to be a spot of blood at his mouth.

The capture — and the potential hostage situation — presents a nightmare scenario for Jordan, which vowed to continue its fight against the group that has overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq and beheaded foreign captives and local rivals.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The U.S. military said Wednesday that evidence "clearly indicates" that the militants did not shoot down al-Kaseasbeh's F-16. But the pilot's uncle told journalists that the family had been told by the Jordanian government that his warplane was downed by a missile.

Speaking at a gathering of the al-Kaseasbeh family and extended tribe in the southern Jordanian town of Karak, Younes al-Kaseasbeh said that the family was told that his nephew was flying at a height of 400 feet on a bombing mission when the militants hit him with a heat-seeking missile and his plane went down in the Euphrates River.

He said three other warplanes in the same sortie had wanted to rescue him, but were wary of striking militants in the area for fear of killing al-Kaseasbeh and so were ordered to return home. The United States and several Arab allies have been striking the Islamic State in Syria since Sept. 23, and U.S. and other international warplanes have been waging an air campaign against the extremists in Iraq for even longer. The campaign aims to push back the jihadi organization after it took over much of Iraq and Syria and declared a "caliphate."

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are participating in the Syria airstrikes, with logistical support from Qatar. Jordan in particular has come under heavy criticism from militants for its participation.

Also Thursday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that government airstrikes in another Syrian stronghold of the Islamic State group killed over 21 people — including children.

The Observatory said Syrian military aircraft struck two locations in the northern town of Qabassen, including a market, causing the casualties. The death toll was likely to rise because people were still digging through the rubble to find bodies. The strike was also reported by another Syrian monitoring group.

Hadid reported from Beirut.

Islamic State extremists capture Jordanian pilot

December 24, 2014

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Islamic State militants captured a Jordanian pilot after his warplane crashed in Syria while carrying out airstrikes Wednesday, making him the first foreign military member to fall into the extremists' hands since an international coalition launched its bombing campaign against the group months ago.

Images of the pilot being pulled out of a lake and hustled away by masked jihadis underscored the risks for the U.S. and its Arab and European allies in the air campaign. The capture — and the potential hostage situation — presented a nightmare scenario for Jordan, which vowed to continue its fight against the group that has overrun large parts of Syria and Iraq and beheaded foreign captives.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, but the U.S. military insisted the plane was not shot down. "Evidence clearly indicates that ISIL did not down the aircraft as the terrorist organization is claiming," Central Command said in a statement.

U.S. Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who is overseeing all coalition military operations in Iraq and Syria, condemned the pilot's capture, saying in a statement: "We will support efforts to ensure his safe recovery and will not tolerate ISIL's attempts to misrepresent or exploit this unfortunate aircraft crash for their own purposes."

A coalition official, who was not authorized to discuss the episode publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the pilot was in an F-16 fighter and was able to eject. Jordanian Information Minister Mohammad Momani earlier told the AP that the plane was believed to have been shot down.

"It is our expectation that the plane went down because of fire from the ground, but it is difficult to confirm that, with the little information we have," he said. The Islamic State group is known to have Russian-made Igla anti-aircraft missiles. The shoulder-fired weapon has long been in the Syrian and Iraqi government arsenals; it was used during the 1991 Gulf War by Iraqi forces to bring down a British Tornado jet, for example. More recently, militants in Chechnya have used them to down Russian helicopters.

The warplane went down near the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto IS capital. Images showed the pilot — in a white shirt, naked from the waist down and sopping wet — being pulled by gunmen out of what appeared to be a lake. Another picture showed him surrounded by more than a dozen fighters, some of them masked. The images were published by the Raqqa Media Center, a monitoring group that operates in areas under the extremists' rule with the group's consent.

The plane's glass canopy was taken by militants and put on display in the main square of Raqqa, according to the media center. Jordan identified the pilot as 1st Lt. Mu'ath Safi al-Kaseasbeh. His cousin Marwan al-Kaseasbeh confirmed to the AP that the photos were of Mu'ath.

The United States and several Arab allies have been striking the Islamic State in Syria since Sept. 23, and U.S. and other international warplanes have been waging an air campaign against the extremists in Iraq for even longer. The campaign aims to push back the jihadi organization after it took over much of Iraq and Syria and declared a "caliphate."

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates are participating in the Syria airstrikes, with logistical support from Qatar. Jordan in particular has come under heavy criticism from militants for its participation.

IS has beheaded dozens of Syrian soldiers it captured around the country. The group has also beheaded three Americans and two Britons. In Iraq, it has shot down at least one Iraqi military helicopter, and the pilots died in the crash.

Moman, the information minister, vowed: "The war on terrorism will continue." He praised the pilot as an "example of heroism." Apparently seeking to blunt criticism of the country's participation in the air campaign, Jordanian media published reports of al-Kaseasbeh's family expressing support for Jordan's King Abdullah.

Jordan's military said that the pilot was taken hostage by IS and that the group and those who support it will be held responsible for his safety. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had confirmation from activists on the ground that the aircraft was shot down, either by a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile or by heavy machine-gun fire.

Activists say IS is widely known to have Igla missile systems, either captured or bought from rival Syrian rebels, who obtained them from international patrons or bought them on the international market. State arsenals in both Iraq and Syria have been looted, so that could also be a source of Iglas circulating among rebels.

IS is likely to try to target other planes, said military analyst Hisham Jaber, a retired brigadier general in the Lebanese military. "Inevitably, they will take down more," Jaber said. He said that the anti-aircraft weapons require little training or expertise to employ and that aircraft flown by Arab countries are easier targets since they have less technology to avoid guided missiles.

Also Wednesday, a suicide bomber infiltrated a group of pro-government Sunni militiamen at a military base south of Baghdad as they gathered to collect their paychecks. The bomber detonated his explosives, killing at least 24 militiamen and soldiers and wounding 55 others, police said.

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Josh Lederman in Washington and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

Hadid reported from Beirut.

Tunisia president-elect to quit his party

December 24, 2014

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The winner of Tunisia's presidential election says he will resign from the leadership of his political party to focus on his new job.

Beji Caid Essebsi, who won 55 percent of the vote in a runoff election Sunday, distanced himself from the party he created and led to victory so that he can be "the president of all Tunisians." A well-organized Islamist party won elections in 2011 following Tunisia's revolution, prompting Essebsi to form his party Nida Tunis (Tunisia Calls) to oppose the winners.

In October, voters gave Nida Tunis the most votes in legislative elections, and the party must now form a ruling coalition and nominate a prime minister. Essebsi said Wednesday he will work with Nida Tunis to form a new government backed by a large consensus.

Ukraine peace talks conclude for night in Minsk

December 24, 2014

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Talks aimed at reaching a stable cease-fire in Ukraine between its government forces and pro-Russian armed groups ended Wednesday after more than five hours, with no indication of progress and questions about when the next round might take place.

The opening session occurred in the Belorussian capital, one day after Ukraine's decision to drop its non-aligned status, which added a new element of tension to the attempts to resolve the violent crisis in the country.

The talks were to discuss how to improve an often-violated cease-fire that was declared in September, to pull back heavy weapons and to exchange of war prisoners. The negotiators included representatives of Ukraine, Russia, pro-Russia rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

News media were not allowed access to the meeting and the participants left the session without comment. Another round had been tentatively set for Friday, but the Belorussian Foreign Ministry said after the session's conclusion that it was unclear if that would take place.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces, volunteer battalions and pro-Russia separatists has claimed more than 4,700 lives since it began this spring. Previous rounds of talks in September produced a cease-fire and an agreement to pull back heavy weapons, but both sides have failed to agree on a line of division and fighting continued.

Hostilities have diminished in the past month amid renewed peace efforts. But new tensions hover over the renewed talks. A day earlier, the Ukrainian parliament voted to abandon the country's non-aligned status, a first step toward a possible bid for NATO membership. Ukraine's joining the Western military alliance would be anathema to Moscow.

The insurgency in the Donetsk and the Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine erupted in April following Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, which was partly rooted in Russian fears that NATO could establish bases in the same area that is home to the Russian navy's Black Sea Fleet.

Valeriy Chalyi, a deputy chief of staff of the Ukrainian president, emphasized Wednesday that the Ukrainian parliament vote doesn't mean that the bid to join the alliance is on the immediate agenda. He added that Ukraine should focus on reforms to meet membership criteria.

Despite that, Moscow strongly protested the Ukrainian move. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Wednesday that unidentified NATO members had pushed Ukraine to make the move in a bid to turn it into a "forward line for confronting Russia."

"Under the slogan of a 'Russian threat,' NATO is expanding its military potential in the Baltics, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania," Antonov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies. It was not immediately clear if Ukraine's possible NATO aspirations could be used in the Minsk negotiations to pressure Russia, which Kiev and the West allege has backed the eastern insurgency with soldiers, tanks and artillery.

Tensions over Crimea persisted Wednesday when Ukraine cut electricity supplies to the peninsula for several hours in the afternoon, then reportedly resumed the cut in the evening. Crimea relies on mainland Ukraine for about 80 percent of its power.

Ukraine's energy system in turn has been undermined by the fighting in the east, which supplied much of the power system's coal. Ukrainian Energy Minister Vladimir Demchishin said the daytime cutoff was due to Crimea exceeding limits on its power demands.

Russia, meanwhile, remains under hard economic pressure partly due to sanctions imposed on it by the West for the Crimea annexation and Moscow's support of the eastern rebels. With inflation showing clear signs of picking up, Russia's central bank said Wednesday it will look to help companies with their foreign debts — a move it hopes will ease the pressure on the national currency, which had lost more than 40 percent of its value against the dollar this year.

Vladimir Isachenkov, Nataliya Vasilyeva and Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.

President praises Germans on refugees amid rallies

December 24, 2014

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's president on Wednesday praised his compatriots' willingness to take in refugees and said he is glad that most people don't want to "seal Germany off," a message that comes as growing anti-Islam demonstrations in an eastern city have worried many.

President Joachim Gauck's Christmas message didn't mention directly the rallies in Dresden organized by a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA. But he said society "needs its citizens to respect each other and to heed each other, day in, day out."

PEGIDA organizers insist they are protesting only against extremism and not against immigrants or Islam itself, but the demonstrations have received support from far-right groups, prompting concerns that anti-foreigner sentiment might be rising.

Mainstream German politicians have been divided between outright condemnation of the rallies and saying that demonstrators' concerns should be taken seriously. Immigration has emerged as a contentious topic lately in Germany, partly due to a sharp rise in asylum applications, particularly from Syrians.

Gauck said he wanted to tell those "worried by developments in the world" not to be afraid. "Taking fears seriously does not mean giving in to them," he said. He praised Germans' "great willingness ... to take in refugees" and said it was encouraging "that the vast majority of us do not share the views of those who want to seal Germany off."

PEGIDA's demonstrations in Dresden, a region that has few immigrants or Muslims, have swelled from a few hundred in October to some 17,500 on Monday. Similar groups elsewhere haven't mobilized anywhere near as many people, and there have also been large protests against them.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned Germans against being duped by far-right rhetoric, while the head of Germany's main industry lobby group has said immigration is needed to secure prosperity.

Israel's ultra-Orthodox mull bigger role for women

December 26, 2014

JERUSALEM (AP) — A struggle for women's rights is brewing within Israel's deeply conservative ultra-Orthodox community, where women, largely shut out of politics, are beginning to demand greater representation in the country's parliament.

More than 20 percent of Israeli lawmakers are female, but not one woman serves from the country's two ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, parties. In haredi communities, women are expected to manage a home, raise children and provide an income for the family, often while the husband studies Torah.

Those beliefs remain firmly entrenched, but in the run-up to the March 17 elections, traditional views of the role of women in haredi politics are being challenged in mainstream and ultra-Orthodox media — a shift that activists say marks a major stride toward more equitable representation.

The two haredi parties in the Knesset, Shas and United Torah Judaism, have long been central players in Israeli coalition governments, often figuring as kingmakers. Each party represents observant Jews who tend to vote based on their rabbis' instructions, and who largely oppose having women as lawmakers because it would be considered immodest.

Only a few haredi women have served in parliament, but never as members of ultra-Orthodox parties, and those who have served usually faced a backlash from their communities. Women do serve in the Jewish Home party, which mainly represents less conservative Modern Orthodox Jews.

Secular women, in contrast, serve at all levels of government and society. Israel is one of the few nations to have elected a female head of government. Golda Meir served as prime minister from 1969 to 1974.

Some haredi women are now demanding change. A group called "No Voice, No Vote" has pledged to boycott haredi parties that don't include female lawmakers. "There is an absurd situation in Israel where women cannot run for two political parties," said group leader Esty Shushan, a 37-year-old haredi woman who runs a communications business. "We are saying, 'Don't give your vote to a party that doesn't think you're qualified to run.'"

The group was established before the last elections in 2013, but Shushan said it has stepped up its efforts ahead of these polls. The group has spread its message through social media, and supporters of the cause have plastered religious neighborhoods with posters calling for women's inclusion in politics. In response, haredi newspapers and radio stations are devoting column inches and airtime to debating the issue.

The group counts dozens of members, but it's impossible to know how broad its support is because many in the community conceal such opinions for fear of being ostracized. It has nearly 5,000 likes on Facebook, but not all of those are necessarily from ultra-Orthodox users.

Shushan said reactions in the community are mixed, with some hostile and others more accepting. But she said what's important is that a discussion has begun that could spur greater change. A central player is Adina Bar-Shalom, the high-profile daughter of Shas' late spiritual leader Ovadia Yosef. Bar-Shalom is the founding chairwoman of a haredi college in Jerusalem and the recipient of the Israel Prize, the country's top honor, for lifetime achievement. She made waves recently when she said she was considering offers to run for parliament for a party other than her father's.

She dropped her bid, opting instead to create change "from the inside." But the rebellion prompted Shas to create a women's advisory council, appointing Bar-Shalom co-chair and granting her responsibilities "just like a member of parliament," said Yakov Betzalel, the party's spokesman.

He said the council's creation was part of a process of change in the haredi community that could one day lead to women in the Knesset. Bar-Shalom and her co-chair will be the link between the party and its female constituents.

"I believe that a day will come, and it is not far away, that we will hold the same positions our leaders do," Bar-Shalom recently told Israel Radio. But opposition to including women in politics is still vehement across much of the ultra-Orthodox population, including its spiritual leadership.

An influential rabbi recently rejected the inclusion of a female legislator in a proposed merger between defectors from both Shas and the Jewish Home party. Until the rabbis are swayed, female inclusion is likely to remain a distant dream.

"There is nothing in Jewish law that says you can't have a woman as a Knesset member," Eli Yishai, a former Shas leader who recently formed his own party, told Israel Radio. "But our rabbis decide what they decide on every subject and the same goes for this."

Russia's Putin scraps New Year's holidays for ministers

December 25, 2014

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday scrapped New Year's holidays for government ministers because of the unfolding economic crisis.

Russian company employees throughout the country are entitled to holiday from Jan. 1 to Jan. 12 when Russians celebrate the New Year, the main holiday in Russia, as well as Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7.

Putin told a televised government session on Thursday that Cabinet ministers should not take this time off. "For the government, for your agencies we cannot afford this long holiday, at least this year - you know what I mean," he said.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told Cabinet ministers on Thursday he expects them to keep the situation in check even during the holiday lull "from the first days of the year." Russia's economy, battered by low oil prices and Western sanctions, is set to enter recession next year for the first time in six years, while the ruble is now worth less than half of its value.

The ruble staged a modest rally last week and was trading 2 percent higher at 52 rubles per dollar Thursday, up from 80 rubles earlier this month. The Russian Central Bank announced on Thursday that the country's currency reserve has dropped below $400 billion for the first time since August 2009, as the government has been selling the currency on the market to support the ruble.

Stabilizing the ruble, which is one of the world's worst-performing currencies this year following the slide in oil prices and the sanctions imposed on Russia, is a priority for the country's monetary authorities. The Central Bank in past weeks raised its key interest rate to 17 percent and said it will offer dollar and euro loans to banks so they can help major exporters that need foreign currencies to finance operations.

Many Russian companies have been locked out of Western capital markets following the sanctions imposed on the country for its involvement in Ukraine.

Snowstorm in Moscow delays over 150 flights

December 25, 2014

MOSCOW (AP) — A massive snowstorm in Moscow on Thursday caused delays to more than 150 flights and brought traffic to a standstill.

None of Moscow's three airports have been closed, but all three were hit with severe delays, including more than a hundred flights being delayed from Domodedovo south of the city. The snowstorm began early Thursday morning and the Russian Meteorological Office said it expects up to 4 inches of snow to fall in Moscow in a single day.

The Yandex traffic monitoring service said the congestion in Moscow reached the record-high 10 points in the early afternoon, which normally happens only occasionally every year during rush hour. The congestion was so bad on Thursday that several Cabinet ministers got stuck in traffic and came late for the last session of the government this year, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Unlike in some Western European capitals, snowstorms in Moscow hardly ever disrupt public transport or shut down air traffic.

Major ancient artifacts back in Iran

Fri Dec 26, 2014

The biggest-ever collection of historic artifacts is finally restituted to Iran from Belgium.

The plane carrying the precious collection, boarded from Brussels at 2:00 p.m. local time (1030 GMT), and arrived in the Iranian capital, Tehran, Thursday evening.

A ceremony was held in Tehran’s International Mehrabad Airport for the customs clearance of the collection.

Massoud Soltanifar, who serves as the vice-president and head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handcraft and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), also attended the ceremony.

He said that Iranian authorities moved the collection from the Museum of Brussels University to Iran’s Embassy after a court issued a verdict approving Iran’s right for restitution of the collection to Tehran. Then the ICHTO chartered a special flight to transfer the collection, he said.

On December 22, the appellate court in Liège passed the final verdict in favor of the restitution of the Iranian heritage.

Soltanifar said the collection will be transferred to Iran’s national museum. He added that two other legal cases are being pursued in the United States and in Europe for restitution of historic artifacts to Iran.

The historic collection contains nine boxes of precious ancient artifacts and a bronze pin stolen from an exhibition.

Yolande Wolfcarius-Maleki, a French national who acquired Iranian nationality by marriage in 1965, illegally moved the collection to Belgium over the years.

The antiquities were reportedly excavated from a 3,000-year-old ancient site near the village of Khorvin, situated 80 kilometers (49 miles) northeast of Tehran.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/391860.html.

Turkey acquits sociologist over 1998 explosion

2014-12-19

ANKARA - A Turkish court on Friday acquitted Turkish dissident sociologist Pinar Selek, who has taken refuge in France, over a 1998 explosion that killed seven people, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

The ruling -- delivered by a high criminal court in Istanbul -- came at a hearing on Selek's retrial, after a life sentence for her alleged involvement in the deadly explosion was overturned this year, according to Anatolia.

The 43-year-old Selek, known for her critical studies of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey and her work with street children, was accused of bombing a spice market popular among tourists in Istanbul.

Selek, then 27, was arrested and jailed on charges of involvement in the explosion after she refused to give police the names of rebels she had met during her research.

"After 16 years of judicial obstinacy, today's trial allowed Pinar Selek's lawyers to emphasize all day the absurdity and arbitrariness of the procedure," her supporters said in a statement from France.

"One by one, they pointed out the false evidence that allowed the creation of a fictitious history of the blast to silence Pinar Selek and prevent her from continuing her sociological work among oppressed social groups," they added.

Selek was freed in 2000 after the publication of a report blaming the explosion on a gas leak.

The latest verdict marked her fourth acquittal by Turkish courts. The previous acquittals were based on the primary witness's retraction of his testimony and a lack of evidence that the blast was a bomb attack.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=69353.

Report: Turkey orders warrant for US-based cleric's arrest

December 19, 2014

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish court has ordered an arrest warrant for U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen — a former ally-turned-foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's state-run media reported Friday.

A court in Istanbul ruled there was "sufficient tangible evidence" against Gulen and agreed to issue the warrant, the Anadolu Agency said. The move could be a prelude to a formal request for Gulen's extradition from the United States, where he is living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania.

Erdogan's government has accused Gulen's movement of orchestrating a plot to try to bring it down. It says Gulen's followers in the police and judiciary are behind corruption allegations that forced four ministers to resign and targeted Erdogan's family.

The U.S. and Turkey do have an extradition treaty and Erdogan has said he wants Gulen extradited, but it was not clear if the evidence would meet U.S. criteria for his extradition. Earlier Friday, the court ordered the arrest of four people and released eight others detained in raids on a newspaper and television station affiliated with Gulen's movement, state-run media said. Those released included Ekrem Dumanli, editor-in-chief of one of the country's biggest newspapers, Zaman. The court banned Dumanli and the others from traveling abroad, pending possible charges.

The suspects were among more than two dozen people detained in raids this month that targeted Zaman and its sister television station, Samanyolu TV. "I reject the accusations that I am a member of a terror organization and return the accusations to those who have made them," Dumanli told supporters Friday outside the Istanbul courthouse. "The media cannot be silenced, the media cannot be intimated. Zaman is not afraid."

The investigation has been condemned worldwide as a blow against Turkey's free press. Erdogan has rejected the criticism, saying the investigation is a national security issue.  Authorities say those detained in the raids were suspected of making false accusations and of fabricating evidence that led to a police crackdown on a rival Islamic group on charges of links to al-Qaida in 2010. The Gulen movement has denied the claims.