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  • Erdoğan tapped anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist to fan xenophobia in Turkey

    Abdullah Bozkurt-nordicmonitor

    The government’s star witness in coup trials in Turkey has turned out to be a staunchly anti-Semitic, anti-Christian figure who claimed that Turkey had been ruled by evil powers, namely the United States, Israel and the West.

    Çetin Acar, a man who was spouting hatred toward non-Muslims and minorities, has been put forward by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as an expert in coup trials. According to a 200-page, conspiracy-laden report that was written by this man, a copy of which was obtained by Nordic Monitor, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government apparently aimed to fan xenophobia in Turkey, stigmatize minorities and stoke anti-Western sentiment by entertaining his far-fetched claims in a court of law.

    Acar’s report, which is full of unsubstantiated claims, conspiracies, lies and fabrications, was treated by prosecutors as an expert opinion and incorporated into investigation case files concerning a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Moreover, he has been called as a witness for the prosecution in high-profile trials. The allegations found in the report lack evidence, are based on rumors and hearsay and often have an anti-Semitic slant.

     

     

    Borrowing the narrative of Turkish President Erdoğan, Acar introduced his report by saying that the Turkish president’s “Higher Mind” (Üst Akıl in Turkish) is synonymous with his own term “Higher Structure” (Üst Yapi in Turkish), which he claimed holds the real power in the Turkish capital of Ankara. This higher entity established and promoted the Gülen movement, a civic group that is active in education and interfaith dialogue activities, Acar argued. He described this higher structure as both a Zionist and a Crusader organization that is directly controlled by a world Zionist center based in Washington. By extension, the Gülen movement is also a Zionist and Crusader entity, Acar wrote in his report, which was submitted to Turkish prosecutor Kemal Aksakal on February 14, 2017 and subsequently became part of investigation case file No. 2016/ 103566.

     

     

    The Americans had maintained a presence in Ottoman lands since the 1800s and took over control of Turkey from the British in the aftermath of World War II, Acar claimed in his report, adding that Jews and their blood brothers the Sabataycılar (crypto Jews, or a secret Jewish community that follows Sabbatai Sevi and pretends to be Muslim), other minorities and some Muslim collaborators have been waiting to take on an assignment from the United States. Most of these Jews and crypto Jews are businesspeople who are enemies of Muslims and Turks, according to this conspiracy spinning, so-called expert.

     

    “Jews and Zionists, who are the number one enemy of the Islamic world and Turks, were made to be forgotten and camouflaged under the pretext of the Iranian, or Persian, threat,” Acar wrote in the report. Israel and the West lost its major ally when Mohammad Reza Shah, the last shah of Iran, was toppled, and now they want to use US-based Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen in order to pit Sunni Turkey against Shiite Iran, he noted, stressing that the Gülen movement has been staunchly anti-Iran judging from the editorial line of its affiliated media.

     

     

    According to this conspiracy theorist, Jews took over the Ottoman palace, while crypto Jews controlled the state’s finance, executive, judiciary and military branches. After destroying the Ottoman Empire, Jews founded Turkey to ensure the security of Israel, which was to be established later, he noted. Just like Jews, the Gülen movement also tried to infiltrate the army and state bureaucracy, Acar concluded, accusing the Jews and Americans of being behind the failed coup attempt in 2016 as well as all terrorist organizations including the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Scapegoating Jews for all the major problems in Turkey, Acar tried to whitewash the Erdoğan government’s failures in governance and absolve it from any responsibility or accountability.

     

     

    He continues to appear in the pro-government media spewing the same hatred and conspiracy theories in his books and court statements. The fact that Turkish prosecutors took this conspiracy theorist as serious, accepted his report full of hate speech and baseless allegations as part of the evidentiary file and allowed him to testify against government critics who were persecuted by the Erdoğan regime tells the tale of today’s Turkey.

     

  • Turkish banker who served time in US for evading sanctions welcomed by Minister Albayrak

    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.

  • Terrified elderly woman finds a three-and-a-half metre snake banging its head on her window before slithering into her kitchen

    A three-and-a-half metre snake has been caught trying to slither into a family home through a kitchen window.

    Snake catcher David Walton was called to the property in Brinsmead, Cairns, on Thursday after a terrified elderly woman reported the bizarre incident.

    The experienced reptile removalist was shocked at the size of the Amethystine python, which was sprawled up across the wall at 11am.

    ‘Because the window was glass, the snake couldn’t understand what it was,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

    A three-and-a-half metre snake has been caught trying to slither into a family home through a kitchen window

    A snake catcher was called to the property in Brinsmead, Cairns, on Thursday after a terrified elderly woman reported the bizarre incident

    ‘It was banging its nose against the wall trying to get in. The low of 20C is quite low for Cairns… It was just trying to get inside to get warm.’

    ‘The owner is quite paranoid. In the past many snake skins had been found although the snake could never be located,’ he said.

  • Boochani wins Australian biography prize

    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

  • US delegation in Turkey for work on center to oversee Syria safe zone

    A US delegation has arrived in Turkey’s southern province of Şanlıurfa to start work on the establishment of a joint operations center to coordinate a planned safe zone in neighboring Syria, Reuters reported on Monday, citing Turkish authorities.

    The two NATO allies agreed in talks last week to establish the center that would manage the zone in northern Syria, though no agreement has been announced on key details of the zone, including the size of the area in question and the command structure of joint patrols that would be conducted there.

    There has been cautious progress on the center despite other disputes straining bilateral relations, including Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense system as well as trials of local US consulate employees in Turkey on terrorism charges.

    Work to establish the center has begun, and it is expected to become active in the coming days, the Turkish Defense Ministry said on Twitter. “Within this context, a six-person US delegation has arrived in Şanlıurfa with the purpose of preliminary preparation,” it said.

    The allies have been discussing a safe zone near the Turkish frontier that would be kept free of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants and heavy weapons, but Turkey wants it to extend more than twice as far into Syrian territory as the United States has proposed.

    Turkey has suggested it will act militarily if the United States fails to agree to a solution that will safeguard the border.

    Turkey says the YPG is an extension in Syria of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s.

  • Dozens of flights grounded in wild weather

    Dozens of flights have been grounded in Melbourne and Sydney as wild winds lash Australia’s south-east.

    Thirty-one domestic flights have so far been cancelled out of Melbourne, mostly because of the weather. No international flights have been affected at this stage.

    Airlines were warning passengers to check their flight status on Friday.

    Jetstar said strong winds in Sydney had caused cancellations and delays to domestic flights.

    “We thank customers travelling to or from Sydney for their patience and advise them to check the current status of their flight,” a Jetstar statement said.

    “We appreciate delays are frustrating, however safety is our highest priority.”

    Jetstar passengers will be contacted by SMS.theage.

  • BOM weather warning for Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia as winds and snow hit

    A woman has died and a child is in a critical condition after destructive winds in Australia’s south-east sent a tree falling onto a car on the Black Spur, north-east of Melbourne.

    Police believe the vehicle was travelling along Maroondah Highway at Fernshaw, about 80 km north-east of Melbourne, when a gum tree fell on it just after 9:30am.The woman, who was in the front passenger seat, died at the scene. Two children and the male driver were freed from the car.

    One child with life-threatening injuries was flown to the Royal Children’s Hospital in a critical condition, while another child was taken by road to the hospital in a stable condition.

    A man with serious injuries was flown to Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital, but was in a stable condition by mid–afternoon, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

    Police said the woman was yet to be formally identified.

    Yarra Ranges Highway Patrol were investigating and will prepare a report for the coroner.

    The Black Spur stretch of the highway — a popular scenic drive running through the Yarra Ranges — was re-opened between Healesville and Narbethong by late afternoon.

    A number of road closures remain in place around the Yarra Ranges and Alpine areas due to the severe weather.

    Emergency services said no-one was injured and alternative accommodation was being sought for residents as the roof’s wreckage was removed.

    Parts of Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales were experiencing the dangerous winds as a deep polar low moved across the region, seeing flights cancelled and prompting warnings of traffic chaos and blizzards.

    “This is the coldest outbreak the south-east has seen this year,” Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) duty forecaster Rohan Smyth said.

    Motorists were urged to take extra caution during peak hour traffic and the SES issued a road weather alert for “dangerous” driving conditions.

    The winds lashing Victoria also destroyed part of the Frankston Pier, in Melbourne’s south-east, sending the end of the structure loose into Port Phillip Bay.

    The State Emergency Service (SES) said part of the pier in the densely populated suburb had become detached.

    Frankston worker Chris Ransom saw the piece of the pier floating away from his office building and told the ABC it appeared it was heading north across the bay.

    “It’s not something you see every day,” he said.

    Jack Kearney, who works at a restaurant along the foreshore, told ABC Radio Melbourne the part of the pier was “probably the size of a small bus”.

    The area experienced wind gusts of more than 110 kilometres per hour on Friday morning and the BOM said there were “abnormally high tides” across the Victorian coast.

    The outer south-eastern suburbs near Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula bore the full force of the winds, but the CBD and northern suburbs escaped the worst of the weather.

    Cape Otway, south-west of Melbourne, experienced wind gusts of up to 115 kph early Friday morning.

    Speed limits were dropped down to 60 kph on Melbourne’s busy Bolte and West Gate bridges due to the strong and gusty winds.

    Victoria’s SES said it had received more than 475 calls for help between 8:00pm and 10:00am, mostly due to fallen trees and some building damage.

    Domestic and international flights at Sydney Airport were affected by the weather, with multiple cancellations on services this morning.

    Melbourne Airport said more than 30 domestic flights had been cancelled and that number was expected to rise into Friday night.

    Both airports urged travellers to check directly with their airlines to see if their travel would be affected.

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    South Australia felt the brunt of the low through Thursday night and early Friday morning, with conditions easing throughout the morning.

    Widespread areas of dust were reported over parts of SA’s Mid North, Riverland and Murraylands districts.

    SA SES state duty officer Tony Costello said the state’s emergency service had received about 340 calls for assistance in a “fairly hectic” 24 hours.

    The high winds and poor visibility made it difficult for emergency services to reach the scene of a fatal truck collision on the Stuart Highway near South Australia’s Barossa Valley region.

    The “worst of the cold air” was expected to reach NSW on Saturday, Mr Smyth said.

    In NSW, most of the state’s east coast was issued a damaging wind warning for more than 90 kph on Friday.

    A blizzard warning for Victoria and NSW’s alpine areas remained in place, with winds peaking at 120 kph.

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    VIDEO: NSW’s snow fields experienced heavy snowfall this morning. (ABC News)

    “This dump of snow will increase the risk of avalanche, so skiers outside of resort areas should assess the avalanche risk,” Mr Smyth said.

    The Great Alpine Road in Victoria was closed between Harrietville and Mount Hotham due to heavy snow.

    Just before 5:30am, the apparent temperature at Thredbo top station was -22 degrees Celsius.

    It was forecast to snow at altitudes as low as 500 metres in Victoria, including near the Dandenong Ranges, just east of Melbourne’s suburban fringe, and near the central town of Ballarat.

    The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service recommended backcountry travel be postponed until conditions improve.

  • Ancient giant parrot discovered in New Zealand

    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 attack Syrian protest in İstanbul: report

    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.

  • Babacan clearly signals establishment of rival party to Erdoğan’s AKP

    Turkey’s former deputy prime minister Ali Babacan released a statement on Thursday overtly signaling his intention to establish a new political party to rival President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Deutsche Welle Turkish service reported.

    In his message delivered on the occasion of the upcoming Eid religious holiday, Babacan said he is working with colleagues to bring together a staff that is strongly representative and inclusive, underlining the need for new strategies and plans required to overcome the problems the country is facing.

    A founding member of the AKP, Babacan recently announced his resignation from the ruling party, which he said has moved away from its founding principles.

    Erdoğan accused him of abandoning the Islamist cause. “Those who betray will pay a heavy price,” he said, referring to Babacan and former prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu who has also been expressing his intention to establish a new party.

    While keeping Davutoğlu out of the picture, Babacan is accepting support from former President Abdullah Gül, who has long been critical of Erdoğan.