Turkiye commemorates its worst disaster of modern times

Turkiye commemorates its worst disaster of modern times
An aerial view shows new residential buildings being constructed for people left homeless after last year's devastating earthquake in Hatay province, Turkey, February 2, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 04 February 2024
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Turkiye commemorates its worst disaster of modern times

Turkiye commemorates its worst disaster of modern times

ISTANBUL: Turkiye on Tuesday holds pre-dawn vigils for the loss of more than 50,000 people — and parts of entire cities — in the earthquake-prone country’s deadliest disaster of modern times.
Grieving Turks are still coming to terms with how a 7.8-magnitude tremor could upturn the lives of millions of people in a matter of seconds while they were still asleep.
An updated toll released Friday showed that 53,537 people had died across 11 southeastern provinces officially designated as the disaster zone.
The confirmed loss of 5,951 more lives in neighboring Syria makes last year’s February 6 earthquake one of the 10 deadliest in the world in the past 100 years.
Ancient cities such as Antakya have been effectively wiped off the map.
Others have gaping holes in place of apartment towers that toppled like houses of cards when the ground began to move at 4:17 am.
Shellshocked survivors stood outside in the freezing cold in their pyjamas and listened to those trapped under concrete slabs of debris scream in agonizing pain.
“It’s been a year, but it doesn’t leave our minds,” housewife Cagla Demirel told AFP in one of the container camps set up for hundreds of thousands of survivors in Antakya.
“Life has lost its spark,” the 31-year-old said. “I have no family left to visit, no door to knock on, no pleasant place to be. Nothing remains.”

DISASTER ZONE 
Antakya’s remaining residents plan to gather on Tuesday at 4:17 am for a vigil that will see everyone cry out: “Can you hear us?“
The call became ubiquitous across the disaster zone as people searched for loved ones in the rubble.
But it also appears to be a nuanced reminder for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government that many in the quake zone feel left behind.
Analysts at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkiye (TEPAV) point out that the disaster struck an area already weighted down by unemployment and underinvestment.
“Some districts in the region have the highest poverty rate in Turkiye,” TEPAV said in a report.
Erdogan pushed back hard against complaints that government rescuers were unprepared and slow to respond.
He has branded the quake “the catastrophe of the century” that no nation could have averted or quickly overcome.
He crisscrossed the nation in the first weeks of the disaster and promised to deliver 650,000 new housing units within a year.
He began to hand out keys in Antakya on Saturday for the first 7,000 apartments of the 46,000 ready to be delivered across the quake zone this month.
He said up to 20,000 units would be delivered monthly and 200,000 by the end of the year — short of his initial promise but still impressive for a region hit by post-quake chaos.
“Of course, we cannot bring back the lives we lost, but we can compensate all the other losses,” Erdogan told Antakya residents on Saturday.
“We made promises to do so.”
But Erdogan’s words offer little solace to people such as ice cream vendor Kadir Yeniceli.
The 70-year-old native of Kahramanmaras — a hard-hit city where Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted party enjoys overwhelming support — said people feel “confused” about what happens next.
“There has been no return to normal,” Yeniceli told AFP. “It remains the same, there is no progress. There is a lack of employment, there is a lack of money, there is a lack of income.”
Erdogan’s housing pledges came in the runup to a May 2023 general election that turned into the toughest of his two-decade rule.
He prevailed in a runoff presidential ballot thanks to consistent support across much of the disaster zone.
Many voters expressed a lack of trust in the opposition and thought Erdogan’s government was doing the best anyone could do under the circumstances.
But many voters and analysts point out that Turkiye is no better prepared for another big shake than it was one year ago.
The country straddles two of the world’s most active fault lines and is rattled almost daily by more minor quakes.
And hundreds of contractors are currently facing prosecution for allegedly skirting the building safety standards already in place.
“The country urgently needs to transition from crisis management to risk management,” said Istanbul Technical University disaster management professor Mikdat Kadioglu.
“There is still much to be done.”


Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy

Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy
Updated 09 November 2024
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Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy

Iran urges Trump to change ‘maximum pressure’ policy
  • Nuclear deal of 2015 torpedoed in 2018 after US unilaterally withdrew under Trump
  • Tehran repeatedly denied Western countries’ accusations it is seeking to develop nuclear weapon

TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday urged US President-elect Donald Trump to reconsider the “maximum pressure” policy he pursued against Tehran during his first term.
“Trump must show that he is not following the wrong policies of the past,” Iranian Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif told reporters on Saturday.
Zarif, a veteran diplomat who previously served as Iran’s foreign minister, helped seal the 2015 nuclear accord between Tehran and Western powers, including the US.
The deal however was torpedoed in 2018 after the US unilaterally withdrew from it under Trump, who later reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
In response, Iran rolled back its obligations under the deal and has since enriched uranium up to 60 percent, just 30 percent lower than nuclear-grade.
Tehran has repeatedly denied Western countries’ accusations that it is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon.
Zarif also said on Saturday that Trump’s political approach toward Iran led to the surge in enrichment levels.
“He must have realized that the maximum pressure policy that he initiated caused Iran’s enrichment to reach 60 percent from 3.5 percent,” he said.
“As a man of calculation, he should do the math and see what the advantages and disadvantages of this policy have been and whether he wants to continue or change this harmful policy,” Zarif added.
During his first term, Trump also ordered the killing of revered Iranian commander, Qasem Soleimani, who led the Revolutionary Guards’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force.
Soleimani was killed in a drone strike while he was in the Iraqi capital Baghdad in January 2020.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Thursday said he hoped the president-elect’s return to the White House would allow Washington to “revise the wrong approaches of the past” — however stopping short of mentioning Trump’s name.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters he was “not looking to do damage to Iran.”
“My terms are very easy. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I’d like them to be a very successful country,” he said after he cast his ballot.
Trump’s victory comes as Iran has exchanged direct attacks with its arch-nemesis, Israel, raising fears of further regional spillover of the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.


Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza

Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza
Updated 09 November 2024
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Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza

Israeli rejects ‘biased’ warning of famine in Gaza
  • “Unfortunately, the researchers continue to rely on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests,” the military said
  • Israel’s military said it had increased aid efforts including opening an additional crossing on Friday

JERUSALEM: Israel rejected on Saturday a group of global food security experts’ warning of famine in parts of northern Gaza where it is waging war against Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“Unfortunately, the researchers continue to rely on partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests,” the military said in a statement.
The independent Famine Review Committee (FRC) said on Friday in a rare alert that there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in parts of north Gaza with immediate action required from the warring parties to ease a catastrophic situation.
Israel’s military said it had increased aid efforts including opening an additional crossing on Friday.
In the last two months, 39,000 trucks carrying more than 840,000 tons of food have entered Gaza, it said, and meetings were taking place daily with the UN which had 700 trucks of aid awaiting pickup and distribution.
With some critics decrying a starvation tactic in north Gaza, Israel’s main ally the US has set a deadline within days for it to improve the humanitarian situation or face potential restrictions on military cooperation.


Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building

Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building
Updated 09 November 2024
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Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building

Electrical generator explosion at Beirut’s Hamra district torches cars, building
  • Video footage showed some parked cars engulfed in flames as the blaze intensified

CAIRO: A large explosion on Beirut’s Hamra district on Saturday sparked a fire that engulfed several cars at a parking lot and caused smoke to spread massively across the area, local media reported.
Video footage showed some parked cars engulfed in flames as the blaze, which resulted from the electrical generator explosion, intensified.
The fire also spread to a nearby building, the Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) said. 
The incident triggered panic as firefighting teams rushed to the scene, battling the blaze that remained out of control. 
Civil defense teams were working to extinguish the blaze and evacuate adjacent buildings, NNA added.


Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report

Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report
Updated 38 min 38 sec ago
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Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report

Famine looming in north Gaza: UN-backed report
  • UN projects the number of people in Gaza facing ‘catastrophic’ food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000
  • Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault

ROME: Famine is looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid, a UN-backed assessment said Saturday.
The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”
“Famine thresholds may have already been crossed or else will be in the near future,” said the alert.
On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing “catastrophic” food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report classified that as IPC Phase 5 — a situation when “starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident.”
Since that report, conditions have worsened in the north of Gaza, with a collapse of food systems, a drop in humanitarian aid and critical water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, the committee said.
“It can therefore be assumed that starvation, malnutrition, and excess mortality due to malnutrition and disease, are rapidly increasing in these areas,” it read.
Vast areas of the Gaza Strip have been devastated by Israel’s retaliatory assault launched after the October 7 attack last year by Hamas.
Israeli forces have intensified their operations in large swathes of the Gaza Strip’s north since early October, where evacuation orders are in place.
Aid shipments allowed to enter the Gaza Strip were now lower than at any time since October 2023, said the report.
Access to food continues to deteriorate, with prices of essentials on the black market soaring. Cooking gas rose by 2,612 percent, diesel by 1,315 percent and wood by 250 percent, it said.
“Concurrent with the extremely high and increasing prices of essential items has been the total collapse of livelihoods to be able to purchase or barter for food and other basic needs,” said the alert.
The body expressed concern over Israel’s cutting ties last month with the UN aid agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), warning of “extremely serious consequences for humanitarian operations” in Gaza.


Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes

Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes
Updated 09 November 2024
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Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes

Gaza rescuers say 14 killed in Israeli strikes

GAZA STRIP: Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Saturday that Israeli air strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians overnight, including women and children.
An air strike hit tents housing displaced Palestinians in the southern area of Khan Yunis, killing at least nine people, including children and women, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also confirmed the toll, saying 11 others were wounded in the strike and were taken to Nasser Hospital.
A second air strike killed five people, including children, and injured about 22 when “Israeli warplanes hit Fahad Al-Sabah school,” which had been turned into a shelter for “thousands of displaced people” in the Al-Tuffah district of Gaza City, Bassal said.
The dead and injured were taken to Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, he added.

In recent months, the military has struck several schools-turned-shelters where Israel has said Palestinian militants are operating.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its troops killed “dozens of terrorists” in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza, where it has been conducting a sweeping air and ground operation for more than a month to prevent Hamas from regrouping.
Israeli forces also killed several militants in the area of Rafah in the territory’s south, the military added.
The military is currently engaged in a two-front war, with troops fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
“Over the past day, the IAF (air force) struck over 50 terror targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip,” the military said in a statement.
“Among the targets struck were military structures, weapons storage facilities and launchers,” it added.
Israel’s war in Gaza broke out after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people on Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which included those who died and were killed in captivity.
During the attack, militants abducted 251 people, 97 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 43,508 people, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers to be reliable.