President Erdogan paves way for greener Turkey

13.06.2018

A new era in Turkey's urban planning is set to begin with the transformation of old stadiums and airports into “People’s Garden”.

Amid the opening of Istanbul’s new airport, the Ataturk Airport in the western part of the port city will be transformed into a 12-million square meter garden, the Turkish president has announced.

Speaking at a televised interview Tuesday night, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “Instead of a 12 million square meters Ataturk Airport, there will be ‘People’s Garden’.

This is equal to four times of Central Park… We plan to implement this project in all our provinces.

We will also transform the racetrack in Ankara into a people’s garden.”

Erdogan in another interview also said the current airport terminal building could be used as a fairground and/or a museum, adding: “Projects will be shaped according to our needs.”

With the new giant garden in place of Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, the Turkish president argues families will, at last, get a chance to spend time in nature.

According to World Cities Culture Forum’s data from 2015, the percentage of green public spaces in Istanbul was 2.2. In 2016, the Istanbul Governor's Office announced that Istanbul has 45.25 percent forestlands.

The government remains determined to continue efforts to create a greener Turkey; Forestry and Water Minister Veysel Eroglu in September 2017 said: “We will complete this year by planting 350 million trees. The total number of trees we planted last year [2016] was 3 billion and 750 million.

We will make a record this year by planting a total of 4 billion trees.”

Turkish president said the People’s Garden in Ataturk Airport will be much larger than the Central Park in New York and Hyde Park in London.

Erdogan said apart from the Ataturk Airport, Istanbul’s Basaksehir, Maslak, Pendik and Bakirkoy areas will also be transformed into a greener space along with Ankara’s Ataturk Cultural Center.

“We have made a new stadium for Eskisehir as you know, and the old stadium is now being transformed into a People’s Garden.

Again in Bursa, the old stadium is being transformed into a People’s Garden.

Similarly in Trabzon as well… We have almost done all of them,” he added.

Erdogan earlier said relevant institutions are working on the project and aim to further develop it.

Source: Anadolu Agency.
Link: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/president-erdogan-paves-way-for-greener-turkey/1173476.

Erdogan slams Austria for shutting mosques

09.06.2018

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday criticized Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz for its government's decision to shut down seven mosques and expel 40 imams.

"I am afraid that the steps taken by the Austrian prime minister would bring the world closer to a crusader-crescent war," said Erdogan during an iftar dinner organized in Istanbul.

Erdogan said Turkey would respond to the decision of expelling imams as well.

During a news conference with Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and EU Affairs Minister Gernot Blumel, Kurz said the move came as part of a crackdown on "political Islam".

Kurz said that the investigation on several mosques and associations conducted by the Ministry of Interior and Office of Religious Affairs had been concluded and that the activities of seven mosques were found to be forbidden -- one of them belonging to the Turkish-Islamic Cultural Associations (ATIB).

The Austrian chancellor added that the imams would be deported on grounds of being foreign funded.

In 2015 when Kurz was Austria's minister for Europe, integration and foreign affairs he backed Austria’s “law on Islam” (Islamgesetz) -- legislation that, among other things, banned the foreign funding of mosques and imams in Austria. The controversial law, which eventually passed through parliament, was intended to develop an Islam of “European character”, according to Kurz.

“We act decisively and actively against undesirable developments and the formation of #parallelsocieties -- and will continue to do so if there are violations of the #law on Islam,” Kurz wrote on his Twitter account.

Crackdown on terrorism

Erdogan also promised to eliminate terrorism completely.

The president said being Kurd and being terrorist were "completely different things".

Erdogan said that while the government was trying to involve Kurdish people in society, terrorists continued to occupying neighborhoods.

"When guns are fired, words fail. That is why our fight against terrorism will continue until the last terrorist is neutralized," he said.

Erdogan then recalled the murder of Kurdish teen Yasin Boru.

"Was not Yasin Boru a Kurdish teen? 15-16 years old. What was he doing? Delivering aid to Kurdish people in need. They killed him viciously. Who were they? So-called Kurds. They were not. They were terrorists," he said.

On Oct. 5, 2014, 16-year-old Yasin Boru and his friends, Ahmet Dakak, Riyat Gunes and Hasan Gokguz, who were distributing food aid to Syrian refugees, were chased down and lynched by alleged pro-PKK supporters on the second day of Eid al-Adha.

Source: Anadolu Agency.
Link: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/erdogan-slams-austria-for-shutting-mosques/1170536.

Germany, EU call on Albania to continue reform progress

September 19, 2018

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Germany's foreign minister has called on Albania to work hard on its reforms so as to convince all European Union members to launch membership negotiations next year. Heiko Maas, visiting Albania's capital on Wednesday, said that the EU members "have made it clear that June 2019 does not mean the talks will start automatically."

In June this year the bloc's member states agreed to open membership talks with Albania and Macedonia next year if the two nations continue with reform progress. Maas said that the bloc should see concrete results in the consolidation of the rule of law and independence of the justice system.

His Albanian counterpart, Ditmir Bushati, said the country already has started the screening process with Brussels and added that he considers Germany's assistance as "precious, irreplaceable."

Rights group criticizes US-led coalition for Raqqa deaths

October 12, 2018

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S.-led coalition's failure to adequately acknowledge and investigate civilian deaths in the Syrian city of Raqqa is "a slap in the face for survivors" trying to rebuild their lives a year after the offensive to oust the Islamic State group, a prominent rights group said Friday.

At a news conference in the Lebanese capital, Amnesty International said 2,521 bodies from the battle for Raqqa have been recovered in the city, the majority killed by coalition airstrikes. It cited a small unit known as the Early Recovery Team working with U.S.-backed predominantly Kurdish forces to recover bodies and bury them. They expect to recover at least 3,000 more bodies.

There are "more bodies underneath the ground than living souls," said Anna Neistat, Amnesty International's senior director of global research, who in 2017 with the coalition playing a supporting role recently returned from Syria.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Sean Ryan said the fighting to liberate the citizens of Raqqa from the grip of the Islamic State group "was often house to house against an enemy with no regard for human life" using explosives and booby traps every step of the way. He added that the coalition is aware of the discrepancies of other reports and that the Coalition has based its figures on "supportable evidence and facts."

Ryan said that liberating the citizens was the goal and "the other choice would be to let ISIS continue to murder, torture, rape and pillage the citizens of Raqqa, and that is unacceptable," using a different acronym for IS. He added the Coalition could concede a high counts after we checking them against their existing records.

The battle for Raqqa, once a city of 200,000 people, played out over four months as the Kurdish-led Syrian forces fought street by street. The coalition unleashed wave after wave of airstrikes and shell fire until the city was cleared of militants in October 2017.

Amnesty has accused the coalition before of underreporting civilian deaths in the campaign to liberate Raqqa. On Monday, Neistat said most of the bodies recovered so far are believed to be civilians. The U.S.-led coalition said in July that 77 civilians died as a result of its airstrikes on Raqqa between June and October last year. The U.S. and its coalition partners launched their campaign against the Islamic State group in 2014, driving out the militants from their self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa three years later.

Neistat also said the "clock is ticking" for Idlib province, the last opposition stronghold in northwestern Syria. A demilitarized zone negotiated between Turkey and Russia to protect civilians from a government offensive on the northwestern province should be ready by Oct. 15.

Turkish and Russian officials have said that Syrian rebels completed withdrawing their heavy weapons from the front lines in implementation of the deal that's expected to demilitarize a stretch of 15-20 kilometers (9-12 miles) along the front lines by Oct. 15.

Neistat said the zone is not adequate to protect all the civilians in Idlib province and expressed concern the agreement may not last. She said she fears massive civilian deaths, destruction, displacement, arrests and disappearances, citing previous government offensives in cities like Aleppo.

Neistat called on Russia to pressure the Syrian government to do more to protect the civilian population, highlighting Moscow's influence on Damascus. "It may not be too late to stop it," she said. Meanwhile on Friday, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested that his military could soon launch a new operation across the border into northern Syria in zones held by Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Erdogan's statement renews a threat to expand Turkey's military operations into areas east of the Euphrates River held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds. Ankara considers the Syrian Kurdish militia to be terrorists and part of a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.

"God willing, very soon ... we will leave the terror nests east of the Euphrates in disarray," he said. He spoke on Friday at a military ceremony honoring Turkish commandos. Turkey launched two incursions into Syria, in 2016 and 2018, into areas west of the Euphrates, pushing Islamic State militants as well as Syrian Kurdish fighters from its border.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey have no US ambassadors amid crisis

October 13, 2018

WASHINGTON (AP) — The disappearance of journalist and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi after visiting a Saudi consulate in Turkey has thrown the large number of diplomatic vacancies under President Donald Trump into the spotlight — notably in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It's a gap the administration says it has been trying to fix but with limited success.

Khashoggi's case and the fact that there are no American ambassadors in either Ankara or Riyadh have prompted concerns about dozens of unfilled senior State Department positions almost two years into Trump's presidency. And, those concerns have sparked an increasingly bitter battle with Congress over who is to blame.

Aside from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Trump has yet to nominate candidates for ambassadorial posts in 20 nations, including Australia, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, Singapore and Sweden. At the same time, 46 ambassadorial nominees are still awaiting Senate confirmation, prompting angry complaints from the administration and pushback from Democratic lawmakers.

A number of ambassador positions to international organizations also remain unfilled as do 13 senior positions at the State Department headquarters, for which five have no nominee. It's unclear if high-profile issues like Khashoggi's disappearance suffer from neglect in the absence of an ambassador. Indeed, Turkey freed American pastor Andrew Brunson on Friday after repeated complaints and sanctions from Washington. But the management of day-to-day diplomatic relations can languish without a personal representative of the president present.

The difference between having an ambassador in country or having only a charge d'affaires running an embassy is a matter of degree but can be substantial, according to Ronald Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Non-ambassadors can have trouble getting access to senior officials and may not be viewed as the legitimate voice of the president or his administration.

"It's a lot harder when you're not the presidential appointee and you don't have Senate confirmation," he said. "An ambassador is the personal representative of the president. A charge is the representative of the State Department."

In addition to problems with access, some countries may resent not having an ambassador posted to their capital, Neumann said. "Countries may get grouchy without an ambassador and that may affect relations," he said. "Without an ambassador, there is a greater chance of misunderstanding and greater chance you aren't able to persuade them to do something we want."

"There are real, direct impacts of not having these people confirmed," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month, making the case for the Senate to act quickly. Those remarks set off a war of words with Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who was singled out by Pompeo for blame.

"I want every single American to know that what Sen. Menendez and members of the Senate are doing to hold back American diplomacy rests squarely on their shoulders," Pompeo said. He later maintained that Senate Democrats are blocking more than a dozen nominees "because of politics" and are "putting our nation at risk."

Menendez fired back, accusing Pompeo of politicizing the process and blaming confirmation delays on the unsuitability of candidates for certain posts and the Republican leadership for not calling votes on the others. He also slammed the administration for failing to nominate candidates for critical posts.

"We cannot confirm nominees who have not been nominated," he noted wryly, adding that some nominees had been or are currently being blocked by Republicans. Two cases in point: The nominee for the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, a career foreign service officer, was forced to withdraw earlier this year after Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said he would do everything in his power to stop the nomination. The career diplomat nominated to be ambassador to Colombia is being blocked by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

Pompeo responded by again blaming Menendez for holding up more than 60 nominees and using them as a "political football." ''We need our team on the field to conduct America's foreign policy," he said.

Perhaps as a result of the sparring, the Senate late Thursday did vote to confirm several ambassadorial nominees, including those to Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Suriname and Somalia.

Israeli fire kills 6 Palestinians at Gaza protest

October 13, 2018

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian health officials say Israeli forces have shot dead six Palestinians, four of them in a single incident, in one of the deadliest days in months of mass protests along the security fence separating Gaza and Israel.

Gaza's Health Ministry said Friday that four were killed in one location, where the Israeli military said it opened fire on a crowed of Palestinians who breached the fence and approached an army post. No Israeli troops were harmed, the army added.

Two other Palestinians were killed in other protest locations, the ministry said, adding that at least 140 Palestinians were wounded by live bullets. Since March, Hamas has orchestrated near-weekly protests along the fence.

The Israeli military said 14,000 Palestinians thronged the border fence areas Friday.

In Syria's Sweida, young men take up arms to defend villages

October 05, 2018

SWEIDA, Syria (AP) — Maysoun Saab's eyes filled with tears as she recalled finding her parents bleeding to death on the ground outside their home, minutes after they were shot by Islamic State militants on a killing spree across once tranquil villages they infiltrated in a southeastern corner of Syria.

Within an hour, she had lost her mother, father, brother and 34 other members of her extended family. Overall, more than 200 people were killed and 30 hostages abducted in the coordinated July 25 attacks across Sweida province.

It was one of the biggest single massacres of the Syrian civil war and the worst bloodshed to hit the province since the conflict began in 2011, underscoring the persistent threat posed by the Islamic State group, which has been largely vanquished but retains pockets of territory in southern and eastern Syria.

More than two months after the attack, tensions over the missing hostages — all women and children — are boiling over in Sweida, a mountainous area which is a center for the Druze religious minority. Anger is building up, and young men are taking up arms. This week, the militants shot dead one of the women, 25-year-old Tharwat Abu Ammar, triggering protests and a sit-in outside the Sweida governorate building by relatives enraged at the lack of progress in negotiations to free them.

It's a stark change for a usually peaceful province that has managed to stay largely on the sidelines of the seven-year Syrian war, and where most villagers work grazing livestock over the surrounding hills.

"We still haven't really absorbed what happened to us. It's like a dream or a nightmare that you don't wake up from," said Saab, a slender woman with a long braid showing underneath a loose white scarf covering her hair.

During a rare visit to the Sweida countryside by an Associated Press team, armed young men and teens, some as young as 14, patrolled the streets. Some wore military uniforms, others the traditional black baggy pants and white caps worn by Druze villagers. They said the Syrian army had provided them with weapons to form civilian patrols to defend their towns and villages.

Residents recalled a summer day of pure terror that began with gunfire and cries of "Allahu Akbar!" that rang out at 4 a.m. Militants who had slipped into the villages under the cover of darkness knocked on doors, sometimes calling out residents' names to trick them into opening. Those who did were gunned down. Others were shot in their beds. Women and children were dragged screaming from their homes.

Word of the attack spread in the villages of Shbiki, Shreihi and Rami as neighbors called one another to warn of the militant rampage. A series of suicide bombings unfolded simultaneously in the nearby provincial capital of Sweida.

In Shreihi, a small agricultural village of cement houses, Saab and her husband were asleep in one room, their children, 16-year-old Bayar and 13-year-old Habib, in another when she heard the first burst of gunfire. From her window, she saw the silhouette of her neighbor, Lotfi Saab, and his wife in their house. Then she saw armed men push open the door, point a rifle at them and shoot. Saab screamed, her voice reverberating through the open window. The militants threw a grenade in her direction.

Her husband climbed onto the roof of their home and aimed a hunting rifle at the men, while she hunkered downstairs with the children. At least two of the men blew themselves up nearby. At the crack of dawn, Saab heard another neighbor screaming, "Abu Khaled has been shot!" — referring to Saab's father. Ignoring her husband's orders to stay indoors, Saab ran over the rocky path to her parent's house, and spotted her father's bloodied body on the ground near the front porch. She screamed for her mother and found her lying nearby, shot in her leg, blood everywhere.

"There is no greater tragedy than to see your parents like this, strewn on the ground before your eyes. We were together just the night before, staying up late together and talking. ... They took them away from us," she said, choking back tears.

Saab's brother, Khaled, meanwhile, was trapped with his wife and daughter in their home, fearfully watching the IS fighters from their shuttered window. Another brother, who rushed to their aid, was killed outside Khaled's home.

Less than an hour later, Saab called to tell Khaled that both their parents were dead. When he was able to leave his house, Khaled said he and other neighbors fought and killed as many IS militants as they could. He suffered two gunshot wounds in his thigh. But there was no time to grieve.

"We didn't have the chance to cry or feel anything, even if our father, mother, neighbors, friends, all of these people had died. But at the time there wasn't a moment to cry for anyone," said the 42-year-old truck driver.

Residents said the village men fought with whatever weapons they could lay their hands on — hunting rifles, pistols, even sticks — against the far superior IS guns. The Islamic State group, which once held large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, has been mostly vanquished. Its de facto capital of Raqqa, in eastern Syria, fell a year ago this month. But the group fights on in eastern pockets like Deir el-Zour and Sweida province.

Some here fear that as the militants flee the advancing Syrian government forces, they will try to regroup in remote pockets of territory like this once quiet corner of Syria. They fear another raid or more trouble because of the brewing tensions over the hostages IS still holds.

On Tuesday, a video posted on the internet purported to show IS militants shoot Abu Ammar in the back of her head as they threatened to kill more hostages if the Syrian government and its Russian allies do not meet their demands, which include freeing IS fighters and their family members elsewhere in Syria.

In the village of Rami, where 20 civilians from the Maqlad family were killed in the July assault, Nathem Maqlad points to bullet holes and blood stains on the ground from the battle with IS. "I stand ready and alert to defend our land and dignity all over again if I have to," he said, walking with a group of young men with rifles slung over their shoulders.

Turkey reinforcements enter Syria's Idlib

Tuesday 25/09/2018

SARAQIB - Turkish troop reinforcements entered Syria's rebel bastion of Idlib on Tuesday, an AFP correspondent reported, a week after a deal between Ankara and Moscow averted a government offensive.

Around 35 military vehicles traveled south down the main highway near the town of Saraqib after midnight.

The convoy was accompanied by pro-Ankara rebels of the National Liberation Front (NLF), who control part of the enclave on the Turkish border.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the forces deployed to several Turkish positions around the northwestern province.

Since last year, Turkish troops have manned 12 monitoring positions in the rebel zone under a de-escalation agreement between Turkey, Russia and fellow regime ally Iran.

Last week, Ankara and Moscow announced a new agreement for a demilitarized zone along the horse-shoe shaped front line between the rebels and government troops.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadist alliance led by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate, controls more than half of the rebel zone, while NLF fighters hold sway over most of the rest.

The agreement gives Turkey the responsibility to ensure that all fighters in the planned demilitarized zone hand over their heavy weapons by October 10 and that the more radical among them withdraw by October 15.

The agreement also provides for Turkish and Russian troops patrol the buffer zone.

Last week, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would have to send reinforcements to provide the numbers needed to conduct the patrols.

The Syrian civil war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since it erupted with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: https://middle-east-online.com/en/turkey-reinforcements-enter-syrias-idlib.

Tunisia president ends alliance with Ennahda

Tuesday 25/09/2018

TUNIS - Efforts to rescue Tunisia's ailing economy face the prospect of fresh turmoil after the president declared his alliance with moderate Islamists at an end, deepening divisions in a fragile coalition managing the country's transition from autocracy.

Political analysts say Monday evening's announcement by President Beji Caid Essebsi could make it difficult for the government to enact tough economic reforms sought by international lenders.

"There will be no real risk of toppling the government in parliament, but the problem is that division will deepen, social tension will rise and reforms are threatened under a fragile government coalition," Nizar Makni, a journalist and analyst said.

"Reforms need broad consensus and the lack of compromise may lead to mass protests in the streets, especially that powerful unions rejected all proposed reforms", he added.

Although struggling with high unemployment and inflation, the coalition of moderate Islamists and secular forces has been running what has been hailed as the Arab Spring's only democratic success, avoiding the upheaval seen in Egypt, Libya or Syria.

The Ennahda Islamist party and secular Nidaa Tounes agreed in 2014 on a constitution granting far-reaching political rights, limiting the role of religion and holding free elections, which stands out in a region often run by autocrats.

But Tunisia fell into a political crisis again this year after Essebsi's son, who is the leader of Nidaa Tounes, called for the dismissal of prime minister Youssef Chahed because of his government's failure to revive the economy.

His demand was supported by the powerful UGTT union, which rejected economic reforms proposed by Chahed.

Austerity

But Ennahda came to Chahed's defense, saying the departure of the prime minister would hit stability at a time when the country needed economic reforms.

In his more than two years in office, Chahed has pushed through austerity measures and structural reforms, such as cutting fuel subsidies that have helped to underpin a $2.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other financial support.

The president raised the stakes on Monday evening.

"The consensus and relationship between me and Ennahha has ended, after they chose to form another relationship with Youssef Chahed," Essebsi, the founder of Nidaa Tounes, said in a televised interview.

Analysts said the president's announcement would probably not lead to the overthrow of the government, which still has the support of at least 110 of a total 217 lawmakers in parliament.

But Chahed could find it difficult to enact tough reforms in the face of a strong opposition front including the unions, the president and Nidaa Tounes party.

Last week the UGTT labor union called a public sector strike for Oct. 24 to protest at Chahed's privatization plans.

"The president's comments will deepen the crisis," senior Ennahda official Lotfi Zitoun told Reuters.

"Ennahda seeks stability and a dialogue that includes all partners to get out of the crisis."

By surviving for more than two years, Chahed has become the longest-serving of Tunisia's nine prime ministers since its Arab Spring democratic revolution in 2011.

Chahed has gathered enough support in parliament to stave off a possible vote of no confidence by working with Ennahda and a number of other lawmakers including 10 Nidaa Tounes rebels.

Since 2011 uprising, nine cabinets have failed to resolve Tunisia's economic problems, which include high inflation and unemployment, and impatience is rising among lenders such as the IMF, which have kept the country afloat.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: https://middle-east-online.com/en/tunisia-president-ends-alliance-ennahda.

Court: Doctor in Spain abducted newborn 49 years ago

October 08, 2018

MADRID (AP) — A Spanish court ruled Monday that a doctor stole a newborn child nearly five decades ago, one of the many abducted during Spain's 20th-century dictatorship, but cleared him because the statute of limitations had expired.

The Madrid court said 85-year-old gynecologist Eduardo Vela could not be punished because one of those who were stolen, plaintiff Ines Madrigal, did not make her complaint until 2012, more than a decade after the gravest crime had taken place.

The court did find, however, that Vela was responsible for abducting Madrigal in 1969, faking her birth by her adoptive parents and forging official documents. Monday's verdict is Spain's first in relation to the wide-scale child trafficking that took place from the onset of the country's Civil War in 1936 to the death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975.

The right-wing regime waged a campaign to take away the children of poor families, prisoners or political enemies, sometimes stripping women of their newborns by lying and saying they had died during labor. The children were then given to pro-Franco families or the church, who educated the children on the regime's ideology and on Roman Catholicism.

Vela, the director of a Madrid clinic considered to be at the epicenter of the scandal, denied the accusations during this year's trial. Madrigal, who learned at 18 that she wasn't living with her biological parents, argued that she couldn't have lodged her complaint earlier because she only learned about the scheme in 2010, when her adopting mother, who died three years later, disclosed the details of what had happened at Vela's clinic.

DNA tests confirmed the account, but Madrigal's biological parents were never found. Madrigal, now 49, said she considered the provincial court's verdict to be "bittersweet" and announced she would be appealing it to the country's Supreme Court.

"I'm happy because the judges are acknowledging that there was theft, that I was taken away from my mother, but I didn't think they would stop short of convicting him," she told reporters, adding that "the judges should had been brave."

Madrigal's was the only case of "stolen babies" — as they are known in Spain — that has made it to the trial stage. Most lawsuits have been rejected in the past by courts for coming after the statute of limitations expired.

Spain only started investigating the "stolen babies" cases a decade ago, when National Court magistrate Baltasar Garzon opened a probe on the more than 30,000 children that were under the care of the regime.

Brazil leans toward unsparing vision of far-right Bolsonaro

October 09, 2018

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The far-right former army captain who looks likely to become Brazil's next president promised nothing short of a complete overhaul of Latin America's largest nation, vowing Monday to combat the evils of corruption by gutting government ministries and privatizing state companies. He also pledged to promote traditional values that would roll back the rights of gays and other minorities.

With his pledge of "Brazil above all," Jair Bolsonaro has catapulted from the fringes of Congress, where he served as a member of marginal parties for 27 years, to a stone's throw from the presidency. A rabble rouser who has reminisced fondly about dictatorship and promised an all-out war on drugs and crime, he just missed outright victory in Sunday's vote and will face former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad of the leftist Workers' Party in an Oct. 28 runoff.

Bolsonaro only needs a few more points to secure victory, and Haddad's supporters vowed Monday to launch a tough fight to make up ground after their candidate finished a distant second. The election was a seismic shift for this nation of more than 200 million people, where the left has won the past four elections but deep divisions have opened in the wake of a massive corruption scandal and the 2016 impeachment of then-President Dilma Rousseff. Brazil's move fits into a global trend among voters — in the United States and Europe, among other places — who are choosing anti-establishment and often far-right or populist candidates who target minorities and promise a return to "traditional values."

"The evils and damages of corruption hurt the people in many ways. It's they who don't have a bed in the hospital, who don't have security in the streets or money in their pockets," Bolsonaro tweeted Monday. "A corrupt government encourages crime in all spheres."

His solution? "Reduce the number of ministries, get rid of and privatize state companies, fight fraud in (a popular social welfare program for low-income families) ... decentralize power giving more economic force to the states and municipalities," he said on Twitter, one of his favorite forms of communicating.

Bolsonaro's Social and Liberal Party was a tiny, fringe group until the candidate began surging in the polls through his use of social media and carefully orchestrated rallies. Bolsonaro has often praised Donald Trump, and his campaign took many pages from the U.S. president's playbook, from his echoing of Trump's "America First" slogan, to bashing the mainstream media to using the candidate's adult children as proxies.

Bolsonaro's party took a whopping 52 seats in the lower house of Congress — up from just one in the last election — giving it 10 percent of that house and making it the second-largest party after the Workers' Party, with 56.

If elected, Bolsonaro has promised a total overhaul of Brazil's government. The proposals that have attracted the most attention — and criticism — focus on how he would slash rising crime rates. Brazil has long been the world leader in homicides, with a record 63,880 people slain last year, according the Brazilian Public Security Forum, an independent think tank.

To this thorny problem, Bolsonaro has proposed simple solutions: Give police more freedom to shoot first and give ordinary people freer access to guns. Critics have expressed concern that police violence, already a major contributor to the high homicide rate, will only worsen if police are given carte blanche.

"Bolsonaro is very good at picking a one-sentence summary of the issue and a one-sentence solution to the issue and then one name to resolve it," said Matthew Taylor, an associate professor of Latin American politics at American University.

While Brazilians say that deteriorating security is one of their major concerns, crime — and efforts to crack down on it — have become almost a metaphor in Bolsonaro's campaign. He has painted a Brazil not only at war with criminals but, in many ways, with itself.

Bolsonaro often uses crime as a lens through which to sketch out a broad indictment of the left: What he calls its coddling policies toward the poor, marginalized and criminal and its push to protect the rights of minorities at what he says is the expense of the majority.

He has vowed to end the designation of indigenous lands, saying such reserves impede development and give special privilege to native peoples that others don't get. His education policy calls for removing "premature sexualization" from schools, a nod to criticism from the right that "leftist ideas" like sex education have taken hold in the curriculum and morality is absent.

In an interview Monday with a friendly radio station, Bolsonaro indicated he would not change his hard-line views on issues like gay marriage. The constitution "recognizes the stable union between a man and a woman," he said, adding: "We can't think that gays can have super powers" to influence laws.

Many are concerned that his veneration of the armed forces, including his praise of the country's 1964-1985 dictatorship, signal that he will erode democratic values and rule with an authoritarian hand. He has said he will surround himself with former military officers, like his running mate who is a retired general.

In an interview late Monday with Brazil's most watched TV news program, Bolsonaro pledged to be "a slave of the constitution." "My administration will have authority, not authoritarianism," he said. While Bolsonaro was expected to come out in front Sunday, he far outperformed predictions, blazing past competitors who had more financing, the institutional backing of traditional parties and much more free air time on television. His first-place finish with 46 percent of the vote — just short of the 50 percent-plus needed for an outright win — came after an unpredictable campaign in which the front-runner, former President Luiz Inacio da Silva, was barred from running after being jailed on a corruption conviction.

Bolsonaro himself was stabbed and forced to campaign from a hospital bed for several weeks. But the attack allowed him to pick and choose his media appearances and largely speak to his supporters through social media. He will likely face much tougher scrutiny and questioning by reporters over the next three weeks.

Supporters of Haddad, who got 29 percent of the vote, promised a tough fight Monday that included forcing Bolsonaro to engage in policy debates. Brazilians have a lot to be angry about. Since 2014, they've watched slack-jawed as prosecutors detailed how many in government manipulated public contracts and promised favors in exchange for billions of dollars in kickbacks and bribes. Much of that focused on the Workers' Party, and many voters cited a desire to root out corruption in their choice of Bolsonaro.

Brazil has also just emerged from a protracted recession, unemployment is high and crime is rising. Haddad has leaned on a narrative of returning to better times: He promises to bring back the boom times Brazil experienced under his mentor, da Silva, and has portrayed an unequal society hijacked by an elite that can't bear to see the lives of poor people improve. He has promised to fight those inequalities, invest more in education and improve state services.

"Public security is a public service, to give guns to the population is to exempt the state from protecting citizens," Haddad told reporters Monday after he visited da Silva in jail.

DiLorenzo reported from Sao Paulo. Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Romanians vote on putting gay marriage ban in constitution

October 06, 2018

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Two days of voting on a constitutional amendment that would make it harder to legalize same-sex marriage have gotten started in Romania. A conservative group initiated the referendum being held on Saturday and Sunday, and the influential Romanian Orthodox Church is backing it.

The proposed amendment would revise the definition of family in the Constitution of Romania to make marriage "a union between a man and a woman" instead of "a union between spouses." Romanian law already prohibits same-sex marriages. Opponents say the new constitutional language is a mean-spirited attempt to make LGBT people feel more like second-class citizens and also could marginalize households led by single parents or unmarried couples raising children.

The referendum requires a 30 percent turnout of registered voters to be valid. The proposed change would prevent any attempt to legalize same-sex marriage through legislation. The vote came about after the Coalition for Family submitted a petition with 3 million signatures proposing for the constitution to be amended. The group said it was concerned young Romanians were learning about so-called "non-traditional" family arrangements in school.

Gay rights groups say the constitutional revision could encourage homophobia by further promoting the view that only opposite-sex marriages are legitimate and same-sex relationships are unworthy of recognition or protection.

At a rally this week in southern Romania, Orthodox Bishop Sebastian Pascanu told believers that homosexuality was an "abnormality that first appeared in Western countries." "This abnormality needs therapy, treatment rather than special laws like the ones that have different sexual orientations would like to have."

But others, like Marcel Badea, an electrician who lives in a southern Romanian village on the River Danube, said he'd boycott the vote. "I am (already) a husband, a father and grandfather, I have nothing to vote for," he said. "I don't need this referendum. Even if I vote 'no,' I will help the referendum get the turnout it needs."

Italy's PM visits Ethiopia and soon Eritrea to support peace

October 11, 2018

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Italy's prime minister is visiting Ethiopia and is awaited in Eritrea after the neighbors and once-bitter rivals made surprising peace earlier this year. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says this is the first visit by a Western leader since the peace accord that ended years of deadly border tensions.

Conte is expected to discuss migration, a sensitive topic in Italy, as well as investment opportunities in Ethiopia, one of Africa's fastest-growing economies. He was met at the airport by Ethiopia's reformist new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and is expected to meet with members of the Italian community.

Eritrea's information minister says Conte on Friday will discuss bilateral cooperation and "international matters of mutual interest" with longtime President Isaias Afwerki during his visit. Eritrea is a major source of migrants.

Dutch king and queen to travel to Britain for state visit

October 08, 2018

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will travel to London later this month on a state visit that the Dutch government says will take them from Buckingham Palace to Brixton.

The government said Monday that the first state visit to Britain by a sitting Dutch monarch since Queen Beatrix in 1982 "re-affirms the excellent ties between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom as 'North Sea neighbors' based on shared values in the past, present and future."

The announcement comes as Britain is negotiating its divorce terms from the European Union, of which the Netherlands is a founding member. The Oct. 23-24 visit that will take the royals to appointments including a speech in Parliament, a banquet at Buckingham Palace and visit to the London neighborhood of Brixton.

Migrants seeking winter shelter overwhelm northern Greece

October 08, 2018

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Several hundred asylum-seekers camped outside a police station Monday in northern Greece, lining up to be arrested and formally processed as a surge in illegal migration overwhelmed authorities in the region.

After sleeping on benches and patches of grass in a central square in Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city, the migrants formed a line outside the police station, seeking a place at a migrant camp before the winter.

Karzan Hassan, a 22-year-old Iraqi Kurd, crossed into Greece last week and has slept outside the police station for the last two nights. He says he's hoping to reach Britain with his two brothers after abandoning a plan to travel to Italy.

"We don't want to stay in Greece. We want to get our papers, so that we can stay somewhere to clean up and rest," he told the Associated Press. Hassan said he paid a smuggler in Istanbul $2,500 for the trip to Greece.

Authorities later Monday moved the migrants in police buses to a nearby refugee camp, but it was unclear whether there was sufficient space at the overcrowded site to give them shelter. The migrants organized a cleanup of the square before boarding the buses.

"The number of arrivals is high in Thessaloniki and that's created a bottleneck," Nikos Ragos, the Migration Ministry's regional coordinator for northern Greece, told the AP. "So we are supporting the police until (migrants) can be documented."

Greece is struggling to cope with a high number of asylum-seekers due to other European Union nations' resistance to settling refugees and ongoing migrant arrivals from neighboring Turkey. Police said 35 smuggling suspects were arrested last month in Thessaloniki, accused of transporting 1,821 migrants to the city — a 60 percent increase from the previous month.

Last week, Amnesty International Secretary-General Kumi Naidoo visited an overcrowded migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos that has been heavily criticized by rights groups. He described conditions there as "appalling " and called for an emergency winter evacuation of migrants to the Greek mainland.

France's Le Pen distances herself from Bannon's Movement

October 08, 2018

ROME (AP) — French far-right leader Marine Le Pen distanced herself Monday from former White House strategist Steve Bannon, saying only Europeans will save the continent from getting orders from the EU, not Americans.

Le Pen said Monday, at a meeting in Rome, that she wanted to clarify "lots of conjecture" about Bannon's plans to set up a foundation, called The Movement, to boost far-right parties in Europe. Speaking with right-wing Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini by her side, Le Pen said Bannon is not European, but rather an American who wants to create a think tank to offer research to nationalist parties in Europe.

"But we, and we alone, are the ones who will shape the political force that is born from the European elections," she said, as Salvini applauded. "Because we are attached to our liberty, attached to our sovereignty and we together, the representatives of the different peoples of Europe, are the ones who will shape the political forces that aim specifically to save Europe."

She added: "So that things are extremely clear on this subject." Le Pen's distancing was significant given Bannon has been making the rounds in Europe of late as part of his push for a trans-national, anti-European Union movement. Le Pen was in Rome to join Salvini at a union conference where they showed a united front before the European Parliament election in May.

Last month, Bannon appeared at a rally in Rome organized by a small far-right Italian opposition party, Brothers of Italy, where he heaped praise on Italy's populist, 5-Star-League government, and he was in Rome for the March 4 election that brought them to power.

While he didn't appear with Salvini, who spoke at the rally earlier in the day, the two have met and Salvini has purportedly signed onto The Movement, according to one of its proponents, Belgian politician Mischaël Modrikamen.

In March, Bannon spoke at Le Pen's National Front party congress, which had been aimed at remaking the far-right party's image after it suffered a crushing defeat to the pro-globalization forces that brought Emmanuel Macron to the French presidency. As part of the makeover, Le Pen changed the party name to National Rally.

Some in France had warned that Bannon's support could threaten Le Pen's efforts to cleanse the party of its racist stigma. Bannon had praised the extreme version of the National Front embodied by Le Pen's more hard-line niece and rival, calling her one of the most important people in the world.

Another royal wedding for Britain as Princess Eugenie weds

October 12, 2018

LONDON (AP) — Britain will have its second royal wedding of the year when Princess Eugenie weds a tequila brand ambassador in a gala ceremony on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank are to marry Friday at St. George's Chapel, which is part of the castle complex.

The nuptials will draw most senior members of the royal family, including Eugenie's grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. The couple will marry in the same venue used in May by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who is now known as the Duchess of Sussex.

Eugenie, 28, is ninth in line to the British throne. She works in the art world. Her sister, Princess Beatrice, will be maid of honor. They are the daughters of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.

Party catering to Russian minority comes 1st in Latvian vote

October 07, 2018

HELSINKI (AP) — An opposition party catering to the Latvia's large ethnic Russian minority is poised to win the Baltic nation's parliamentary election but it's expected to face difficulties in forming a coalition government.

Voters in Latvia, which is a member of the European Union and NATO, chose Saturday from more than 1,400 candidates and 16 parties to fill the country's 100-seat parliament. With over 95 percent of votes counted, preliminary results Sunday from Latvia's electoral committee showed the left-wing Harmony party was leading with 20 percent support.

The populist KPV party and the anti-corruption New Conservative Party were in second and third place with 14.1 percent and 13.6 percent of the votes respectively. Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis' centrist Union of Greens and Farmers was in the sixth place with 10 percent support.

Navy announces names for next two LCS vessels

OCT. 10, 2018
By Stephen Feller

Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer has announced the names of the next two littoral combat ships, one each from the Freedom and Independence variants of the vessel.

The next Freedom-variant LCS will be named USS Beloit and the next Independence-variant LCS will be USS Santa Barbara, Spencer said on Tuesday.

"From building engines for freedom-variant LCSs to manufacturing components for the Ford-class aircraft carriers, the contributions of Beloit citizens make our Navy stronger, more capable and more lethal," Spencer said, in a statement, of selecting the name for the next Freedom-variant ship.

The USS Beloit, LCS 29, will be built by Lockheed Martin and Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisc. The ship will be 387 feet long, with a beam of 57.4 feet and be capable of traveling at speeds up to and above 40 knots.

On the Santa Barbara, Spencer said "this city's innovative workforce and longstanding support of our Navy and Marine Corps team, whether active duty, reserve force, civilian or veterans, the support from this community strengthens our Navy and nation."

The USS Santa Barbara, LCS 32, the third ship to be named for the California city, will be 421 feet long and have a beam length of 103.7 feet, in addition to moving at speeds above 40 knots. The Santa Barbara will be built by Austal USA in Mobile, Ala.

The LCS, which has been plagued by criticism over design issues and concerns about its firepower, among other worries, is designed to be modular in order to carry various mission-specific packages.

While the Navy has already requested designs for a new class of guided-missile frigates to replace the LCS, the Navy ordered the two newly-named ships, as well as LCS 34, in mid-September -- and said at the time that more may be ordered in 2019 as well.

In August, Lockheed delivered the USS Sioux City and USS Wichita to the Navy -- the 14th and 15th LCS vessels the branch has received -- with their commissionings expected in November and sometime in early 2019.

The Navy also christened the USS Kansas City, the 11th Independence-class LCS, in Mobile., Ala., in mid-September.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2018/10/10/Navy-announces-names-for-next-two-LCS-vessels/5391539184582/.

Cameroon votes as separatists pose threat; Biya win likely

October 07, 2018

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — Polls opened Sunday in Cameroon as Africa's oldest leader is widely expected to win another term even as English-speaking separatists threaten to disrupt the election and many who have fled the unrest are unable to vote.

President Paul Biya has held office since 1982 and vows to end a crisis that has killed more than 400 people in the Central African nation's Southwest and Northwest territories in the past year. The fractured opposition has been unable to rally behind a strong challenger to the 85-year-old leader.

A victory likely would come with a weakened mandate for Biya as many residents of the troubled English-speaking Southwest and Northwest regions have fled elsewhere. By law, voters can only cast a ballot in the community where they are registered.

Voting day has already been marked by violence. The military killed two armed men in the English-speaking northwest town of Bamenda, according to Governor Deben Tchoffo of the Northwest region. "We shall not allow terrorists to disrupt the election," he said. "I salute the maturity of people who are braving the threats and carrying out their civic duties. We are informed that armed men are shooting indiscriminately to frighten voters, we shall not allow such a thing to happen."

Gun fighting between the military and separatists began Saturday in at least six towns and villages including Nkambe, Mamfe and Kumbo. Several buildings have been burned, including residences where voting material is thought to have been stored.

"The wave of attacks will not deter us from doing our job," said Enow Abrams Egbe, chairman of ELECAM, the election commission. Security has been increased and people should not be scared to vote, said Cameroon territorial administration minister Paul Atanga Nji.

All voters in the English-speaking regions go through screening, present voter's cards and identity cards before they are able to cast a ballot. Numbers were low at the start of the vote Sunday. In the French-speaking regions, however, hundreds lined up early eager to vote.

"I have performed my civic duty. It indicates I am a true Cameroonian. I voted for Biya because he is the one who promised to improve the health care system," said Julienne Ngono, a voter at the Bastos primary school polling center where president Biya will vote.

Cyril Bayam also said he'd vote in favor of Biya. "I registered to vote where Biya is voting to support him," he said. "I know many people who registered to vote here are his ministers." More than 6.6 million people across Cameroon are registered to vote.

On Friday, opposition candidate Akere Muna withdrew from the race to support Maurice Kamto. However, despite attempts to remove his ballot papers the electoral chairman Egbe said: "We were informed late and we cannot withdraw them since we do not have the material means."

Campaign materials were also meant to be taken down before the vote, but posters of Biya still cover neighborhoods. The Election Commission and government say they will make provisions for displaced voters, but many say they will not be able to vote amid threats by separatists. Cameroon also battles with Boko Haram extremists in its Far North, where more than more than 230,000 people have been displaced.

More than 200,000 people have been displaced because of violence by both separatists and the military in the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions, with many towns simply abandoned. The ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement attempted to campaign normally in the affected regions, holding several rallies, but Biya did not appear. The party says at least eight of its officials have been abducted and some supporters attacked.

Election observers, including the African Union, have said they will not be carrying out their work in the troubled southwest and northwest because of the crisis. What began as protests two years ago by teachers and lawyers in the English-speaking regions against what they called their marginalization by majority French speakers turned deadly after a government crackdown. The separatists emerged, cheered on by some in Cameroon's diaspora, including the United States.

Then fringe groups became violent, clashing with security forces that have been a close ally of the U.S. in regional counterterror efforts but face accusations of human rights abuses. Panicked civilians are caught in the middle.

AP reporter Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.

Russia's launch failures affect manned, unmanned spacecraft

October 11, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — The booster rocket failure that forced an emergency landing for two astronauts headed to the International Space Station was the first launch accident for Russia's manned-space program in 35 years. But several launches of unmanned Progress cargo ships have not gone as planned in the past decade.

The astronauts, a Russian and an American, were reported safe, but the failed launch Thursday throws off the schedule for sending crew to the International Space Station. Russia's Soyuz capsules currently are the only way for humans to reach the orbiting laboratory.

The next manned launch was planned for December. Russia has suspended manned flights pending an investigation of the latest failure.

A look at past failures of Russian space launches:

Dec. 1, 2016: A Progress ship carrying food, fuel, air, water and other supplies failed to reach orbit after launching from Russia's space complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. It separated from the third stage of the rocket early and fell to Earth in Russia's Tuva region.

April 28, 2015: A Progress ship reached low Earth orbit, but it was spinning and could not be controlled. It burned up while re-entering the Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean on May 8.

Aug. 24, 2011: An onboard computer terminated a Soyuz flight about five minutes into the launch after detecting an engine failure, resulting in the loss of a Progress ship. Russia's space agency Roscosmos said a blocked fuel duct was at fault.

Sept. 27, 1983: A Soyuz rocket that was to carry Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov to a Salyut space station caught fire in the final seconds of the countdown at Baikonur. A "launch escape system" — a rocket mounted above the capsule — pulled the capsule away from the rocket seconds before an explosion. Titov and Strekalov landed several kilometers away, apparently uninjured despite being subjected to intense G forces.

April 5, 1975: Oleg Makarov and Vasily Lazarev were about four minutes into their flight to a Salyut space station when the second and third stages of the booster rocket failed to separate correctly. The space capsule landed near the Chinese border in deep snow about 20 minutes after launch.