Category: World

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called a European Union deal on a post-pandemic recovery fund a “national success” that would allocate Greece around 72 billion euros ($82.38 billion) to help deal with the fallout of COVID-19.

European Union leaders agreed after four days of talks to a 750 billion euro recovery fund to help members’ economies blighted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mitsotakis said the fund gave all EU members an important financial tool.“Today we have managed a very ambitious response, a response which responds to the symmetrical shock which the pandemic has triggered in all economies,” Mitsotakis said.

He said the funds would be disbursed carefully in Greece and with meticulous planning.“We have no intention of spreading the money around with the carefree attitude of the nouveau-riche,” Mitsotakis said.“We have no intention of wasting this significant European capital now at our disposal. We will invest it to the benefit of all Greeks.”ATHENS (Reuters)

Libya’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord has released to Turkey two Russian nationals, Maksim Shugalei and Samer Hasan Ali Sueifan, employees of the Russian non-profit organization Foundation for National Values Protection, who were detained in 2019, the TASS news agency reported, citing local sources.

According to the Dubai-based Al-Hadath, the Russian nationals arrived in İstanbul on Saturday. No further details were given.

Shigalei and Sueifan were detained in Libya in May 2019. The Tripoli-based Attorney General’s Office has accused them of meddling in Libya’s domestic affairs and elections and of conducting public activities in the country without permission from local authorities and security agencies.

Moreover, the Attorney General’s Office claims that the Russian men had gone to locations they were barred from visiting.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday that Russia had received written guarantees of the Libyan Government of National Accord that the issues of the Russian nationals’ release would soon be resolved.

Turkey and Russia agreed during talks in Ankara to continue joint efforts to create conditions for a lasting and sustainable ceasefire in Libya and are considering the creation of a joint working group, a joint statement said on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

The statement, published by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said Ankara and Moscow also agreed in the talks to facilitate the advancement of intra-Libyan political dialogue and called upon the parties to take measures ensuring safe humanitarian access and delivery of urgent assistance to those in need.

The countries agreed on facilitating “the advancement of the intra-Libyan political dialogue in line with the conclusions of the Berlin Conference on Libya (19 January 2020) and in coordination with the UN,” the statement said.

Yasemin Baltacı, 29, a mother of two, was detained again on Monday in Turkey’s Tekirdağ province as part of an investigation into the faith-based Gülen movement.

She was previously jailed for 25 days, when she was pregnant, and gave birth to her daughter, now 9 months old, during her incarceration.

Baltacı wanted to keep her daughter with her today, but a prosecutor reportedly told police officers to “put the child into social services,” according to Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a deputy for the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Her husband was later called to their home to take care of the children.

Turkish law requires postponement of the arrest of pregnant women until they give birth and the infant reaches the age of six months; however, dozens of pregnant women have been arrested as part of a large-scale crackdown targeting followers of the movement.

Turkey accuses the Gülen movement of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt, although it strongly denies any involvement. Since then, more than a million people were targeted by the post-coup crackdown.

In the previous case against her, Baltacı received seven years, nine months in prison for membership in the movement.

The case is still pending at the regional appeals court, and if it’s be upheld, she will return to prison.

New Zealand finally has a date for when it will achieve its lofty goal of elimination of COVID-19: June 15.

After weeks of urging by public health experts and government wrangling, the country’s Health Department has settled on a definition of elimination of the deadly virus.

New Zealand has followed an elimination policy path since the arrival of the virus, eschewing lighter approaches by countries including Australia.

The Kiwi approach, including a seven-week lockdown, is paying dividends.

On Thursday, health officials announced they had found no new cases of the virus for the 13th straight day, from thousands of tests.

Just one person in New Zealand has COVID-19, an Aucklander currently isolating who is due to be asymptomatic this week, should the virus follow a normal course.

Australia currently has 491 active cases.

However, the final Kiwi case is irrelevant to whether New Zealand has eliminated the disease.

The Ministry of Health now says elimination can be declared 28 days after the last case from a “locally acquired unknown source”, or community transmission, has completed their treatment and tested negative.

According to the Ministry, New Zealand’s last case of community transmission tested positive on 29 April, and was in isolation until 18 May.

“As per the definition of elimination, the 28 day period would be counted from that person’s exit from isolation,” a department spokeswoman told AAP.

That means when Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield holds his regular daily briefing on 15 June – 28 days from 18 May – he will be able to say New Zealand has eliminated COVID-19.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is due to speak as world leaders convene for the second day of the alliance’s 70th-anniversary summit after a tense opening on Tuesday.

NATO leaders are expected to tell US President Donald Trump on Wednesday they are spending billions more dollars on their militaries in the hope that he pares back his attacks on the Western alliance.

In formal talks following a Buckingham Palace reception on Tuesday to celebrate 70 years of NATO, European leaders led by Germany and France aim to tell Trump they will not be treated as junior partners as they confront global conflicts.

Despite Trump’s accusations on Tuesday that allies were “delinquent” in their failure to spend as much as the United States on their armed forces, Europe, Turkey and Canada will use the gathering at a luxury golf club north of London to argue they will spend $400 billion (€360 billion) collectively on defence by 2024.

“If we invest money and risk our soldiers’ lives… we should be clear on NATO’s fundamentals,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter, adding that on Wednesday he would “defend the interests of France and Europe.”

That is likely to include a push to broaden NATO politically to consider a bigger role for the alliance in the Middle East and possibly Africa, although Berlin and Paris must first seek NATO support for a “wise persons” group to draw up reform plans.

In a final communique, NATO allies will recommit to their pledge to defend each other, while Britain is also expected to put six warships, two fighter squadrons and thousands of troops at NATO’s disposal to meet a US demand for European armies to be more combat-ready.

NATO will also warn China for the first time that it is monitoring Beijing’s growing military might, agreeing to gradually prepare the alliance to defend against any possible future hostilities, in arenas ranging from the Arctic to computer networks.

But the debate is unlikely to be easy.

Tuesday’s gathering in London was marked by testy exchanges between Trump and Macron over the future of transatlantic ties, while the US leader reiterated his criticism of Germany for not spending enough on defence, seemingly unaware of Berlin’s new defence plans to reach a NATO spending target by 2031.

“I’m a politician, and I’m used to being criticised for good rhetoric but bad substance. In the case of NATO it is the opposite. We have had bad rhetoric but extremely good substance,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told diplomats and experts at an event in London on Tuesday.

Macron also accused Turkey of working with Islamic State proxies in Syria, although Canada’s leader played down tensions.

“NATO has survived because we’ve always had frank conversations,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.euronews

Çetin Çiftçi, a journalist incarcerated in Ankara’s Sincan Prison, reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 and was sent back to the prison on May 27 after he had been taken to a hospital, the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported.

His family has not heard from him for three weeks.

Çiftçi’s suffering reveals the plight of incarcerated journalists left to the mercy of the coronavirus pandemic in the aftermath of Turkey’s post-coup purge.

Çiftçi, arrested on Sept. 30, 2019 and sentenced to six years, three months’ imprisonment, served as a parliamentary correspondent for the Bugün newspaper, seized by the government on Oct. 24, 2015 due to its critical stance against the government.

He was convicted for his alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement, a group led by US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has designated as a terrorist organization.

He was sentenced to six years, three months in prison in February 2020 in a speedy trial. His family, in dire straits, had to leave Ankara and moved to the family home in Malatya, an eastern Anatolian city.

Çiftçi, who has a heart condition, renal failure and high blood pressure, was taken to the prison infirmary after feeling unwell. When his health worsened, he was referred to a hospital in Ankara, where he tested positive for COVID-19.

His wife Selda was denied access to her husband in the hospital and was not informed by the hospital or prison authorities of his health. She was not even allowed to speak on the phone with him. Çiftçi was sent back to prison without his family being informed.

Like tens of thousands of other political prisoners, Çiftçi was unable to benefit from a release bill enacted in mid-April to mitigate the pandemic’s spread in the country’s overcrowded prisons.

Providing the possibility of early parole or house arrest to inmates, the bill explicitly excluded tens of thousands of political prisoners such as politicians, journalists, lawyers, academics and human rights defenders convicted under the country’s controversial and broadly interpreted counterterrorism laws.

Çiftçi earlier suffered heart attacks and spasms in the prison, resulting in three hospitalizations. He also had renal failure and high blood pressure, for which he had started to receive treatment.

On top of that, he later tested positive for COVID-19, a situation withheld from his family by the authorities.

Neither his health conditions nor his infection with COVID-19 persuaded the authorities to release him on early parole or put him under house arrest, amenities granted to many offenders convicted of non-political crimes.

His wife learned of his hospitalization thanks to her diligent efforts. Yet, intimidated by the prison guards, she was unable to contact her husband from May 4 onwards, when he was hospitalized after testing positive.

He was sent back to the prison on May 27 without his family being informed. His wife was kept in the dark by authorities as to the state of his health.

According to the Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) recently published 2020 World Press Freedom Index in which Turkey was ranked 154th among 180 countries in terms of press freedom, Turkey is the world’s biggest jailer of professional journalists.

A New York City-based foundation established by two Turkish government-linked foundations has purchased an 81-acre estate belonging the late boxer Muhammad Ali and his wife, the Chicago Tribune reported.

The Turken Foundation , which was founded by Turkey’s educational foundations TÜRGEV and Ensar, made the purchase of the estate on the St. Joseph River in southwest Michigan for $2.5 million, it said.

The boxing legend’s wife Lonnie Ali first listed the estate in June of 2018 for $2,895,037, as a nod to Ali’s 37 knockouts in his career, it said.

The Turken Foundation, a nonprofit educational foundation established in 2014, beat a large number of hopefuls in acquiring the property, including a car collector in Barrington and possible buyers from Indonesia and Dubai, according to the newspaper.

The property includes a mile of river frontage, a full-sport basketball court, and an outdoor kitchen with appliances and grills under a barreled rooftop, a pergola, a gazebo, a fire pit, gardens and a waterfall rock garden, the Chicago Tribune said.

Turkish President Erdoğan’s son Bilal Erdoğan is among several family members and close friends on the board of TÜRGEV.

The Ensar Foundation, embroiled in a major child abuse scandal in March of 2016, has been criticized for its deals with the Turkish government in the field of education.

The murder of a 20-year-old Kurdish man in Ankara has launched a wave of accusations of discrimination in Turkey over the mistreatment of the ethnic minority, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

Barış Çakan was visiting a park with a friend in Ankara’s Etimesgut neighborhood on Sunday night when he asked three men to turn down the volume of the music playing from their car during the evening call to prayer. The friend told police that an argument ensued and Çakan was stabbed in the heart and killed, according to a statement from the Ankara Governor’s Office on Monday. Three suspects were arrested.

Initial news reports quoted a family member as saying that Çakan had been attacked because he had been listening to Kurdish-language music. While Çakan’s father said in later interviews that the assault was not triggered by Kurdish music, the racial overtones of the killing have led to an outpouring of anger on social media, particularly after a friend and another relative stepped forward on Tuesday to say the family had been pressured to cover up the reason for the fight.

Hundreds of messages of solidarity have appeared under the hashtag #BarisCakan, as well as comparisons with the killing of African American George Floyd at the hands of US police, which sparked the protests currently raging across the US over institutional racism.

“Those who plant the seeds of hatred and enmity in the public and those who ban even the discourse on peace, this is the result,” pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) official Meral Danış Beştaş said in a tweet, referring to the policies of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Comments from Interior Ministry spokesperson İsmail Çataklı, who said the crime was not racially motivated and that focusing on the racial dynamic is the work of “provocateurs,” have also led to allegations of state hypocrisy over the treatment of Turkey’s Kurdish population.

An İstanbul court has requested the extradition of a Turkish journalist living in exile in Sweden for allegedly insulting two officers of the court in 2018, the Nordic Monitor news website announced on Monday.

Levent Kenez, an editor for Nordic Monitor, is accused of libeling a prosecutor and a judge at an İstanbul court in an article published on the Turkish-language news website TR724 in February 2018

The piece was published after the court had handed down aggravated life sentences to six journalists and media workers on charges of attempting to destroy the constitutional order. It included comments about the prosecutor of the case, Can Tuncay, as well as judge Kemal Selçuk Yalçın.

The court did not request a Red Notice for Kenez from Interpol, despite a Ministry of Justice suggestion. Nordic Monitor claimed it was due to the political nature of the prosecution, which is against Interpol’s constitution.

“I was not surprised,” Kenez told Nordic Monitor, adding, “It’s no secret that the government of [President] Erdoğan has engaged in a campaign of going after its vocal critics in any way possible.”

“Turkey is not a free country where one can enjoy the right to due process, and the judiciary is not independent. Tens of thousands of people from all walks of life, not only journalists, are behind bars on fake and trumped-up terror charges,” Kenez said.

Turkey is ranked 154th out of 180 countries in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a media freedom watchdog that describes Turkey as “the world’s biggest jailer of professional journalists.”