Category: World

A French inventor and entrepreneur celebrated Bastille Day by soaring above the Champs-Elysees on a turbine engine-powered “flyboard” in front of President Emmanuel Macron and other EU leaders.

Former jet-skiing champion Franky Zapata, grasping a rifle in a sign of the possible military uses of his device, took to the air in a futuristic showpiece of the annual parade to celebrate France’s national day.

French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly told France Inter radio ahead of the parade that the flyboard “can allow tests for different kinds of uses, for example as a flying logistical platform or, indeed, as an assault platform”.

Mr Zapata, who first developed his device flying above water, says that the flyboard has the power to take off and reach speeds up to 190kph and run for 10 minutes.

He is now eyeing a crossing of the English Channel, which would require a refuelling in mid-flight.

Mr Zapata aims to make the crossing on July 25, 110 years to the day after pioneering aviator Louis Bleriot made the first powered flight across the Channel, in a monoplane.AFP

The Turkish Embassy in New Zealand engaged in a campaign of intelligence gathering and profiling of critics and their organizations including a child care center, documents obtained by Nordic Monitor have revealed.

According to an official document, Auckland-based nonprofit organization Pearl of the Islands Foundation Inc. (PIF) was profiled by the Turkish Embassy in Wellington and reported on to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The document was later sent to the police department to build a case against critics of the Erdoğan regime.

The information collected by the embassy was used in a criminal indictment on dubious charges of terrorism against opponents, who have faced an unprecedented crackdown in recent years by the authoritarian government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Gulen movement, a civic group that is highly critical of the Erdoğan government, bears the brunt of the crackdown in terms of the right to dissent and freedom of expression.

Those who were listed in these embassy documents were targeted by a campaign of intimidation and harassment and denied consular services abroad, while their relatives and friends back in Turkey risked the possibility of jail time, asset seizure and prosecution on fabricated criminal charges.

PIF’s stated aim according to its website is “to celebrate diversity and advance social cohesion between cultures to contribute the educational, cultural and overall social well-being of our community through its established institutions, platforms, and activities.” It has promoted a moderate version of Islam against radical views and held seminars and lectures to that effect over the years. It has organized an Anzac study tour and cultural festival and offered Turkish language classes.

The Turkish Embassy document listed PIF’s interfaith community iftar dinner — held in May 2016 at Parliament House in Wellington and attended by members of Parliament, government officials, community leaders and scholars – as if it were a criminal activity and reported the event to headquarters.

 

In another shocking note, the embassy also surveilled the Little Pearls child care center with branches located in the Owairaka, Mt Roskill and Mt Albert/Puketapapa districts. The center was established in 2014 to provide care and educational services for children aged 3 months to 5 years. The report identified the teachers at the child care center and reported them back to Turkey as well.

Turkish Embassy officials were also concerned by the visit of Deakin University Professor Greg Barton, who was invited by PIF to deliver lectures on extremism, radicalism and a refugee crisis in September 2016. Barton, one of Australia’s leading scholars on terrorism and countering violent extremism, addressed several events as keynote speaker including gatherings held in Parliament and at Victoria University.

 

The collection of data, amounting to refugee spying or unlawful intelligence gathering by embassy and consulate officials, was done after requests from the Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Department of the Turkish National Police (Kaçakçılık ve Organize Suçlarla Mücadele Daire Başkanlığı, or KOM). According to Turkish law, KOM has no jurisdiction abroad and is not authorized to conduct espionage overseas. The information notes sent by the embassy were later incorporated into a report by KOM on Jan. 30, 2017 and were used in the criminal prosecution of government critics on terrorism charges.

 

 

A donation made to PIF by Kaynak Holding in 2014 that was declared by the company in its filings was considered to be criminal evidence by the Erdoğan government. Nordic Monitor has learned that PIF approached Kaynak as a corporate donor when it was trying to the launch child care centers. Company records listed a one-time funds transfer to PIF as a donation, with nothing illegal about it as it was recorded on the company accounting sheet as part of a corporate social responsibility contribution.

Yet, a report prepared by Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), an agency that was often used by the Erdoğan government to investigate critics and their companies on criminal pretexts, listed the legitimate transaction as criminal activity. The report was compiled by MASAK on May 13, 2015 under file No. 2015/MAR (62) after the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office tasked the agency with investigating Kaynak on Feb. 2, 2015 as part of investigation No. 2014/75025.

 

Hundreds of the people and dozens of firms were dragged into the investigation in what was seen as a crackdown on Turkey’s largest publisher and supplier of educational materials. Some 800 authors were victimized when the government cancelled book contracts after the seizure of Kaynak, and millions of textbooks including volumes on foreign language study were destroyed by authorities after the takeover.

Among those investigated in this case was Ekrem Dumanlı, former editor-in-chief of Zaman, Turkey’s largest national newspaper that was unlawfully seized by the government in March 2016 as part of a crackdown on the critical media. Dumanlı has been forced to live in exile along with 150 other journalists who had to flee to avoid wrongful imprisonment.

The Erdoğan government brands all its critics as terrorists, and there are 235 journalists currently locked up in Turkish jails on terrorism charges, making Turkey the world’s leading jailer of journalists. Over 30 percent of all Turkish diplomats, 60 percent of all senior police chiefs, half of all military generals and some 30 percent of all judges and prosecutors in Turkey were also declared terrorists overnight by the executive decisions of the Erdoğan government without any effective administrative investigation and certainly without any judicial proceedings.

In July 2017 German newspaper Die Zeit reported that Turkey had handed Germany a list of 68 companies and individuals suspected of links to terrorism due to alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement. It was also revealed that nearly 700 German firms including industry giants Daimler and BASF were being investigated for “financing terrorism” and lodged with Interpol by Turkey. After Germany reacted strongly against the witch-hunt and threatened economic sanctions, Turkey backed down and claimed that it was simply a miscommunication.

Nordic Monitor previously published a report disclosing how Turkish embassies and consular officials engaged in spying on government critics in 92 foreign countries as part of profiling and espionage activities that at times amounted to a systematic and deliberate campaign of refugee spying. A document found in papers released by the Ankara 4th High Criminal Court on Jan. 16, 2019 in case No. 2016/238 indicated that the Turkish Foreign Ministry had compiled a long list of foreign entities that were owned and/or operated by people who are seen as close to the movement.

Enis Evren Civelek, a jailed purge victim in Turkey who lost four family members in a traffic accident including his two little daughters while they were returning from a prison visit, has been handed down a jail sentence of 25 years, six months on terrorism charges, the Medya Bold news website reported on Thursday.

Civelek is one of the countless victims of Turkey’s massive purge of supporters of the faith-based Gülen movement, which is labeled as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government.

Civelek’s wife, two daughters aged 3 and 8, mother and father-in-law paid him a visit at Keskin Prison in Turkey’s central Kırklareli province in early December. In an auto accident on the way home to Düzce, his two children, mother and father-in-law died immediately, while his wife Hatice was hospitalized with broken ribs and other injuries.

Civelek was allowed to attend the funerals of his mother and daughters in Düzce province and also visit his wife in the hospital in Ankara. He was sent back to prison two days after the accident despite a report from a psychologist warning that the man could commit suicide in prison.

The last hearing in Civelek’s trial was held at the Ankara 13th High Criminal Court on Monday at the end of which he was given a jail sentence of 25 years, six months on charges of membership in a terrorist organization and leading a terrorist organization. The sentences were the upper limit for the crimes and were increased by half.

The Turkish government accuses the Gülen movement of masterminding a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016 and labels it a “terrorist organization,” although the movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

Civelek, a former Turkish language teacher, has been behind bars since June 2017. His wife Hatice, a primary school teacher, was one of the thousands of teachers who were removed from their jobs by a government decree issued in September 2016 due to alleged Gülen links.

In similar trials, courts handed down sentences to the defendants either on charges of membership in a terrorist organization or leading a terrorist organization. In Civelek’s case, the court sentenced him on both charges.

The charges against Civelek stem from the time he served as an administrator at a Gülen-linked dormitory in Ankara’s Beypazarı district 13 years ago.

US-based Turkish-Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.

Following the coup attempt, more than 150,000 people were removed from state jobs while in excess of 50,000 others were jailed and some 600,000 people have been investigated on allegations of terrorism due to alleged Gülen links.

Australia’s most powerful man has pulled off a gigantic feat of strength by pulling a 25-tonne truck. Jordan ‘Biggie’ Steffens,29, pulled the massive semi-trailer in the South Australian town of Mannum on Sunday. Mr Steffens celebrated his achievement by screaming at the top of his lungs and flexing his muscles as the truck honked its horn.

A Turkish bank executive who served a 32-month jail sentence in New York for helping evade US sanctions against Iran returned to Istanbul on Wednesday where he was welcomed by Turkey’s treasury and finance minister, Berat Albayrak, Reuters reported.

A US court sentenced Halkbank’s Mehmet Hakan Atilla in May 2018 in a case that strained ties between NATO allies Ankara and Washington. At the time of his sentencing, Atilla had spent more than a year in jail.

Atilla, who was greeted at the airport with flowers and a hug from Albayrak, son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has always denied the charges against him.

Halkbank denies any wrongdoing. It could still face US fines related to the case, though in recent months the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, has been silent on the issue.

Albayrak, Halkbank CEO Osman Arslan and Ziraat Bank CEO Huseyin Aydın greeted Atilla at İstanbul’s airport, along with the banker’s family, TV footage showed.

Atilla appeared teary-eyed but joyful as he hugged relatives.

Book by Manus Island refugee details harrowing journey from his native Iran to his detention at Manus Island.

Kurdish-Iranian writer and refugee Behrouz Boochani, who has been held in Australian migration detention on Manus Island since 2013, has won Australia’s National Biography Award for his memoir – No Friend But the Mountains.

Boochani won $17,000 with the award, which is Australia’s richest prize for biographical writing, organisers at the State Library of New South Wales said in a statement on Monday.

Boochani has already won several other prizes this year, including the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award, and non-fiction book of the year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.

In his memoir, Boochani details his journey after fleeing Iran due to persecution, arriving from Indonesia to Australia’s Christmas Island  on a boat, and being imprisoned by the Australian government on Manus – where he has been held for more than six years – with some shocking details of cruelty, humiliation and constant surveillance.

Boochani attempted to reach Australia by boat from Indonesia twice.

On the first attempt, the boat sank and Boochani was rescued by Indonesian fishermen.

In July 2013, his boat, which held 75 asylum seekers, was intercepted by the Australian Navy and he was transferred to the Manus Island detention centre.

Manus is a territory belonging to Papua New Guinea but has been used by Canberra since 2013 as a place to send asylum seekers who try to reach Australia.

The practice has been denounced as contravening the human rights of the refugees and migrants detained there.

Boochani wrote his book one text message at a time from Manus. It was translated from Persian into English by a friend.

The judges on Monday praised the book for “its poetic and epic writing”, calling it “profoundly important, an astonishing act of witness and testament to the lifesaving power of writing as resistance”.

Boochani, unable to accept the award in person, thanked the organisers and his supporters through a phone messaging app from Manus Island.

“I think history will judge this generation and will judge all of us in this hard and dark period of Australian history,” he said. Sourch: DPA NEWS AGENCY

The fossil of a giant parrot, which stood at one metre tall has been discovered in New Zealand.

Named Heracles inexpactatus -—signifying its Herculean size and the surprise of the discovery — the parrot is the largest-ever discovered.

It is twice the size of the critically endangered flightless New Zealand kakapo, which was previously the largest known parrot.

Heracles is believed to have had a massive beak that could crack open even the toughest sources of food, and scientists posit it may have been a cannibal, at times feasting on other parrots.

“New Zealand is well known for its giant birds,” says Flinders University Associate Professor Trevor Worthy. “Not only moa dominated avifaunas, but giant geese and adzebills shared the forest floor, while a giant eagle ruled the skies.

“But until now, no-one has ever found an extinct giant parrot – anywhere.”

Experts from Flinders University, UNSW Sydney and Canterbury Museum in New Zealand estimate Heracles to be 1 metre tall, weighing about 7kg.

The giant parrot was found in fossils which were up to 19 million years old, near St Bathans in Central Otago, New Zealand.

The area is well known for bird fossils from the Miocene period, which lasted from around 23 million to five million years ago.

“It was likely a flightless forager who ate abundantly on fruit and seeds but may have preyed on small animals that it could dig out of logs, or even snack on dead or dying moa – like kea still do with sheep,” said Associate Professor Worthy, from the Flinders University Palaeontology Lab.

“We have been excavating these fossil deposits for 20 years, and each year reveals new birds and other animals.

“While Heracles is one of the most spectacular birds we have found, no doubt there are many more unexpected species yet to be discovered in this most interesting deposit.”euronews

Nationalist groups attacked a demonstration held on Saturday by Syrian immigrants living in İstanbul who were protesting an order issued by the governor’s office, Turkish media reported.

In a statement on Monday the governor’s office said there are 1,069,860 foreigners registered in İstanbul, 547,479 of whom are Syrians who have temporary protection status, adding that those who do not leave İstanbul by Aug. 20, will be sent back to the cities where they are registered in line with an order from the Interior Ministry.

After a group of angry nationalists shouted and attacked the protestors, the police dispersed the crowd with pepper spray, detaining two people.

Among the protestors were Turkish human rights activists and advocacy groups who read out a statement saying that deportations would not serve peace in society.

“Using police force against immigration problems will not solve them but will make them worse,” the Lawyers Association statement said.

Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu recently announced that over 6,000 unregistered immigrants, including Syrians, were deported from İstanbul.

Turkey hosts nearly 3.6 million Syrians who emigrated after a civil war began in Syria in 2011.

Turkish journalist Arzu Yıldız, who had to flee Turkey in 2016 to avoid a still-ongoing persecution of journalists critical of the government, has been reunited with her daughter, who was seven months old when she left Turkey

Yıldız, an outspoken journalist, had to leave Turkey due to a number of cases filed against her concerning reports she wrote that apparently disturbed the Turkish government. In one case she was handed down a prison sentence of 20 months, in May 2016, due to a report about trucks allegedly belonging to the Turkish intelligence service that in 2014 transferred weapons to radical groups in Syria.

Yıldız was one of hundreds of journalists who decided to flee Turkey as the Turkish government launched a massive crackdown on critical journalists and media outlets in the aftermath of a failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

The journalist, who divorced her husband and left her two daughters in Turkey, wrote about her feelings and her daughter’s reaction when they met in Canada, where Yıldız is currently living in exile, three years after she left Turkey.

Yıldız wrote when she last saw her daughter before leaving the country, she was crawling and had a pacifier in her mouth, and that when they met three years later she still had a pacifier, was shy and behaved as if she was meeting a stranger.

The journalist said on their first night after being reunited, they slept together and that her daughter woke up in the middle of the night and began to kick her, saying she wanted her grandfather, who took care of her when she was in Turkey.

“During the three years I have spent here, I always wondered if I would be able to see my daughter again, who was seven months old when I left Turkey. A person should cling to life no matter what happens; I did not want to leave the story of a weak and ill mother as a legacy until the moment a pacifier I saw while walking on a bridge startled me. I cried on that bridge for hours holding that pacifier. It would have been easy to jump off the bridge. When a person has nothing to lose, they don’t get scared. But I don’t want to leave this world like a coward. What can a mother who gave in to such an impulse leave behind?” wrote Yıldız.

The journalist was able to reunite with her elder daughter two years after she left Turkey.

Yıldız said it has been 10 days since was reunited with her younger daughter, but she isn’t completely happy, thinking of other parents who were separated from their children.

There are in excess of 17,000 women in Turkish prisons, with some 800 children accompanying them. These women are among the more than 30,000 people who were jailed in Turkey on terrorism charges in the aftermath of the coup attempt due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement.

The Turkish government accuses the Gülen movement of masterminding the coup attempt and labels it a “terrorist organization,” although the movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.turkishminute

Amnesty International on Tuesday issued an urgent action document calling on human rights activists and concerned people to write letters urging Turkish authorities to investigate and explain the whereabouts of Gökhan Türkmen and Mustafa Yılmaz, who have been missing since February and were suspected to have been abducted by Turkish intelligence.

“The authorities have so far been denying that they are being held in official custody. On 29 July four men who had been missing since around the same time have resurfaced in detention,” the Amnesty document said.

The four men were arrested by a court on Friday evening over Gülen links.

Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu, a Turkish deputy and human rights activist, called the court ruling a “scandal,” reporting that the detainees did not even know the names of their attorneys, who according to officials they hired.

“The authorities must promptly investigate to determine the whereabouts of Gökhan Türkmen and Mustafa Yılmaz and urgently inform their families,” Amnesty International said.

Turkey accuses the Gülen movement of orchestrating a 2016 coup attempt, although it strongly denies any involvement.

Since 2016 at least 24 Gülen-linked individuals have gone missing.

Two of the abducted Gülen followers told Correctiv, a non-profit investigative newsroom in Europe, they had been subjected to torture and ill treatment by intelligence officers at a secret site in Ankara.