Turkiye ready to build Cyprus naval base ‘if necessary’: Erdogan

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a visit to Belgrade, Serbia September 7, 2022. (Reuters)

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Updated 21 July 2024

AFP

July 21, 2024 10:41

Turkiye ready to build Cyprus naval base ‘if necessary’: Erdogan

Updated 21 July 2024

AFP

July 21, 2024 10:41

ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that his country was ready to build a Cyprus naval base “if necessary,” 50 years after Turkish forces invaded the now-divided island.
“If necessary, we can construct a base and naval structures in the north” of the divided island, the official Anadolu news agency reported him as saying.
“We also have the sea,” Erdogan said he flew back to Turkiye after visiting northern Cyprus on Saturday to mark 50 years since Turkiye’s invasion.
He also accused rival Greece of wanting to establish a naval base of its own on Cyprus, on whose future both sides remain as divided as ever.
In 1983, Turkiye installed what it calls the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which no other country has recognized four decades after it was proclaimed by Turkish Cypriot leaders.
As Greek Cypriots mourned those killed and still missing since the 1974 convulsion of violence, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said Saturday that reunification was the only option.
Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 still divided after Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected a UN plan to end their differences with Turkish Cypriots.
But on the other side of the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separates the two communities, Erdogan on Saturday rejected the federal model championed by the United Nations, saying he saw no point in relaunching talks on such a plan.
“Frankly, we do not think it is possible to start a new negotiation process without establishing an equation whereby both parties sit down as equals and leave the table as equals,” Erdogan said.
The last round of UN-backed talks to reunify the island collapsed in 2017.
“We are constructing on the island the building of the presidency of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) and the parliament building. They are constructing a military base, we are building a political base,” Erdogan added.
He also hailed the “precious” presence during Saturday’s visit of the leader of Turkiye’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Ozgur Ozel, saying it demonstrated the “unity” of Turkiye’s population with regards to Cyprus.

Topics: Turkiye Cyprus

South Korea says North Korea has again launched suspected trash-carrying balloons across the border

Updated 23 sec ago

September 04, 2024 12:06

South Korea says North Korea has again launched suspected trash-carrying balloons across the border

Seoul government advises people to stay indoors and beware of objects dropping from the sky
The tit-for-tat Cold War-style campaigns are adding to the tensions in the Korean peninsula

Updated 23 sec ago

September 04, 2024 12:06

SEOUL: South Korea says it has detected suspected trash-carrying balloons launched by North Korea, in the latest round of a Cold War-style psychological warfare between the war-divided rivals.
The metropolitan government of Seoul, South Korea’s capital, issued text alerts Wednesday saying that objects likely to be North Korean balloons were spotted in regions north of the city. It advised people to stay indoors and beware of objects dropping from the sky.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the direction of winds suggested that the balloons could drift into the northern part of Gyeonggi Province, near Seoul. It advised people to report to the police or military if they see fallen balloons and not to touch them.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
North Korea in recent weeks has flown thousands of balloons toward the South to drop waste paper, cloth scraps and cigarette butts, in what it described as a retaliation against South Korean civilian activists flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border. North Korea is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of its authoritarian leadership and the third-generation ruler Kim Jong Un.
Trash carried by at least one North Korean balloon fell on the South Korean presidential compound in July, raising concerns about the vulnerability of key South Korean facilities. Officials said the balloon contained no dangerous material and no one was hurt.
South Korea, in response to the North Korean balloons, has activated its front-line loudspeakers to blast broadcasts of propaganda messages and K-pop songs.
The tit-for-tat Cold War-style campaigns are adding to the tensions fueled by North Korea’s growing nuclear ambitions and the South’s expansion of joint military exercises with the United States.

Ex-FM was aware UK risked complicity in Israeli war crimes

Updated 14 min 9 sec ago

Arab News

September 04, 2024 14:55

Ex-FM was aware UK risked complicity in Israeli war crimes

David Cameron received similar advice to new Labour govt, which banned 30 arms licenses this week
Ex-Foreign Office source: ‘The tragedy has to be considered: How many lives might have been saved?’

Updated 14 min 9 sec ago

Arab News

September 04, 2024 14:55

LONDON: Former UK Foreign Minister David Cameron was aware that Britain risked complicity in Israeli breaches of international law but refused to suspend weapons transfers to the country, The Guardian reported.

Cameron, who served as foreign minister in the previous Conservative government, was advised by Foreign Office officials in Israel and London that Tel Aviv was in clear breach of international humanitarian law, a former Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office adviser said.

It follows news that the UK’s new Labour government this week banned 30 of about 350 arms export licenses to Israel.

The government made the decision based on a memorandum released on Monday warning that British arms may have been used by Israel to breach international law.

But the FCDO source told The Guardian that the same advice was given to the previous government as early as February.

“The tragedy has to be considered: How many lives might have been saved if the arms export licenses had been stopped then and not in September, and what the potential ripple effect might have been on how other countries would have reacted in ceasing trade,” they said.

“The advice being sent through to the Foreign Office was clear that the breaches of international humanitarian law by Israel as the occupying power were so obvious that there was a danger of UK complicity if the licenses were not withdrawn.”

The FCDO source added: “Israel highlights vital lessons globally for arms companies and countries which grant export licenses as part of elaborate trade deals.

“The reality is that none of these licenses are granted in isolation of other business and political interests, and are enmeshed with other forms of trade technology exchanges and security equity.”

They said: “Companies also bear a responsibility to respect international humanitarian and criminal law, as do governments.

“Internally, the Foreign Office does not seem very cohesive, with disputes between humanitarian, legal and political teams, as well as with sections of the Ministry of Defence.”

A member of the previous Conservative government told The Guardian that though the legal advice it received was “in some respects similar” to that published by Labour, it never “said explicitly” that ministers must suspend arms sales.

Topics: War on Gaza UK Israel David Cameron

Filipino nurses advance careers, enhance skills in Saudi hospitals

Updated 18 min 7 sec ago

Elena Aben

September 04, 2024 14:48

Filipino nurses advance careers, enhance skills in Saudi hospitals

Updated 18 min 7 sec ago

Elena Aben

September 04, 2024 14:48

MANILA: Filipino nurses who have been advancing their careers in Saudi Arabia say the Kingdom has offered them not only professional development, but also ways to enhance their skills and education.

There are an estimated 130,000 nurses from the Philippines employed in Saudi Arabia. Many of them began working before passing board exams — a process which in their home country takes many years.

In the Kingdom, nursing jobs have allowed them to be professionally active and continue their education at the same time.

“I worked only as a volunteer nurse in the Philippines before coming to work here,” said Mashora Salwang, a native of Zamboanga Del Sur in the southern Philippines, who has been working in Riyadh since 2010.

“Saudi Arabia has given me more opportunities than working in the Philippines ... Saudi Arabia has also given me the opportunity to advance my knowledge. When I worked here at King Fahad Medical City, I had the chance to travel to attend conferences locally and internationally.”

Salwang was among the top performers in this year’s licensure examination conducted by the Philippine Board of Nursing for health professionals working abroad.

Philippine Embassy in Riyadh Chargé d'Affaires Rommel Romato meets the top notchers of this year's Philippine Board of Nursing exams in Riyadh on July 2, 2024. (Philipine Embassy in Saudi Arabia)

Others who took the exam — and passed with flying colors — also link their success to working in the Kingdom.

“Saudis admire the work ethics of Filipinos ... They gave me the opportunity to start my career here, and there are also opportunities for growth,” said Joan Abiera, a nurse from the Bicol region working in a dermatology clinic in Riyadh.

“I moved here in 2009, so I’ve been working in Saudi for almost 15 years now. Before that, I worked as a nursing assistant in my province.”

For Aileen Rodriguez from Nueva Ecija, also a top performer in June’s nursing board exams, working in Saudi Arabia has been a way to develop an international career.

“If you are aspiring to work as a nurse (abroad), first choice is Saudi Arabia because you can get a lot of career opportunities here,” she told Arab News.

“Some nurses also come to work for a few years to acquire experience and then transfer to another country.”

Rodriguez has been working in Riyadh for the past eight years as a private duty nurse.

“My patient is the one who cheers me (on) when I’m studying, she keeps pushing me to do my best,” she said.

“The family of my patient, they are very good to me. They are treating me as one of them ... Saudi is accommodating to Filipinos.”

There are about 1 million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia, the fourth-largest group of expats in the Kingdom. They are also a main source of remittances to the Philippines.

Michael Angelo Mendoza, from Roxas City in the western Capiz province, has been working in Saudi Arabia for the past 10 years.

He chose the Kingdom to reunite with his father, who moved to Saudi Arabia for work when he was a young boy, but it was the job opportunities that made him stay.

He is a nurse in the dental and dermatology department at a clinic in Riyadh. “I find Saudi Arabia a safe place for workers to build their career,” Mendoza said.

“Filipino nurses have already made a good impression worldwide as really good in delivering quality nursing or healthcare services. And here in Saudi Arabia, they offer good salary, good compensation, and Saudi is now open and there are a lot of Filipino communities here.”

The Kingdom has been the top choice for Filipino nurses working abroad since at least 2021, according to data from the Philippine Department of Health.

“Their hospitals have really advanced technology and it’s really a good opportunity for us nurses to experience the new technology that they are using here,” Mendoza said.

“It’s really a good opportunity for us to experience and assist in these cases to learn and earn more experience. Now I’m living my dream to be a professional nurse and I also want to impart my knowledge like the professors I have met here in Saudi Arabia.”

Topics: Saudi Arabia

Pope Francis highlights Indonesia’s ‘unifying’ diversity as Jakarta hosts third papal visit

Updated 38 min 26 sec ago

Sheany Yasuko Lai

September 04, 2024 14:00

Pope Francis highlights Indonesia’s ‘unifying’ diversity as Jakarta hosts third papal visit

Indonesia comprises over 1,300 ethnic groups, 700 languages, and 6 officially recognized religions
Jakarta is the first stop on the pope’s Asia tour, which also covers Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore

Updated 38 min 26 sec ago

Sheany Yasuko Lai

September 04, 2024 14:00

JAKARTA: Pope Francis highlighted the unifying role of Indonesia’s cultural, religious and ethnic diversity on Wednesday, as he met the country’s leadership during his first trip to the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, is home to over 1,300 ethnic groups and about 700 languages. It officially recognizes six religions: Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Catholicism and Protestantism.

Francis met with President Joko Widodo on Wednesday morning after arriving in Indonesia — the first stop on his four-nation tour of Asia — the previous day.

“Just as the ocean is the natural element uniting all Indonesian islands, the mutual respect for the specific cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious characteristics of all the groups present in Indonesia is the indispensable and unifying fabric that makes Indonesians a united and proud people,” the 87-year-old pontiff said in a speech at the presidential palace.

Addressing Indonesian officials and political leaders, he referred to Indonesia’s national motto “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika,” which means “unity in diversity,” and said that it reflected a “wise and delicate balance” that “must be continuously defended,” and particularly “in a special way by those in political life.”

Muslims make up around 87 percent of Indonesia’s 270 million population, while its Catholic community comprises around 3 percent.

Francis, who is also the first pope to have visited the Arabian Peninsula, said the Catholic Church wants to “increase interreligious dialogue” in order to eliminate prejudice and develop a climate of mutual respect and trust.

On Thursday, he will participate in an interfaith meeting at Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, with Indonesian religious leaders.

“This visit carries a strong message on the importance of celebrating differences, where Indonesia, as a diverse country … has always strived to preserve harmony within our diversity,” Widodo said.

“For Indonesia, differences are a gift … Indonesia and the Vatican want to continue to spread the spirit of peace and tolerance amid an increasingly turbulent world.”

Francis is the third pope to visit Indonesia, after Pope Paul VI in 1970 and Pope John Paul II in 1989.

His Asia tour — the longest during his papacy — also includes Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore.

Topics: Indonesia Pope Francis

Grenfell inferno ‘culmination of decades of failure’: UK inquiry

Updated 04 September 2024

AFP

September 04, 2024 10:36

Grenfell inferno ‘culmination of decades of failure’: UK inquiry

The fire in the early hours of June 14, 2017 spread rapidly through the 24-story block in west London
Started in a faulty freezer on the fourth floor, the blaze took barely half an hour to climb to the building’s top floor

Updated 04 September 2024

AFP

September 04, 2024 10:36

LONDON: The UK’s Grenfell Tower fire disaster that killed 72 people was the result of “decades of failure” by government and construction industry bodies and the “systematic dishonesty” of building material firms, a damning final report said on Wednesday.
The fire in the early hours of June 14, 2017 spread rapidly through the 24-story block in west London due to highly combustible cladding fixed to the exterior.
Started in a faulty freezer on the fourth floor, the blaze took barely half an hour to climb to the building’s top floor with catastrophic consequences.
The highly-critical report marks the end of a two-part independent inquiry led by retired judge Martin Moore-Bick into Britain’s worst residential fire since World War II.
Unveiling his findings, Moore-Bick said all the 72 deaths as a result of the fire were “all avoidable” and said the victims had been “badly failed.”
Some of those who played a part in the sowing the seeds of disaster had shown “incompetence,” as well as “dishonesty and greed,” he said.
The report makes scathing criticism of government and other influential bodies over a refurbishment of Grenfell that led to the cladding and other dangerous materials being installed.
In particular the report condemns firms involved in supplying rainscreen cladding panels and other insulation products.
Accusing them of “systematic dishonesty,” it said they “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market.”
Following the release of the report, Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged that his government would ensure a similar tragedy does not occur again.
“The Government will carefully consider the report and its recommendations, to ensure that such a tragedy cannot occur again,” he said in a written statement to parliament.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) also comes in for heavy criticism with senior officers described as “complacent.”
The service failed to ensure that the danger posed by the increasing use of cladding “was shared with the wider organization and reflected in training,” it said.
It also failed to learn the lessons of a previous fire in 2009 which “should have alerted the LFB to the shortcomings in its ability to fight fires in high-rise buildings.”
Residents who phoned the emergency services were told to remain in their flats and await rescue for nearly two hours after the fire broke out.
The “stay-put” advice, now considered to have cost lives, has since been revised.
It led to some of the men, women and children who died, including whole family groups, becoming trapped in their own homes.
Abdulaziz El-Wahabi, 52, and his wife Faouzia, 41, died on the 21st floor with their three children, the youngest of whom, Mehdi, was eight years old.
Mehdi’s teacher recalled his ability to “make us laugh and smile” and “lighten our mood.”
Abdulaziz was described as a “loyal family man” who would always “help neighbors with their bags and open doors.”
Faouzia was “lively and friendly.”
The tragedy’s youngest victims were a still-born child and a six-month-old baby, Leena Belkadi, found with her mother in a stairwell between the 19th and 20th floors.
The disaster has left many people living in buildings covered in similar cladding permanently fearful of a repeat tragedy.
Those who owned their own homes also faced financial problems as their apartments became unsaleable.
The UK’s then Conservative government announced in 2022 that developers would be required to contribute more to the cost of the removal, with those in buildings over 11 meters high not having to pay at all.
But a fire in Dagenham, east London, just over a week ago illustrated the ongoing risks.
Over 80 people had to be evacuated in the middle of the night after waking to smoke and flames in a block where work to remove “non-compliant” cladding was part-completed.
London fire commissioner Andy Roe said there were still around 1,300 buildings in London alone where urgent “remediation” work still needed to be done.
Bereaved relatives and survivors said ahead of the report they hoped it would bring them what they say is the “truth we deserve.”
For some that means jail for those who “made decisions putting profit above people’s safety.”
“For me there’s no justice without people going behind bars,” said Sandra Ruiz, whose 12-year-old niece Jessica Urbano Ramirez died.
London’s Metropolitan Police, however, has said its investigators will need until the end of 2025 to finalize its own investigation.
Prosecutors will then need a year to decide whether anyone will face charges.
For former Grenfell Tower resident Edward Daffarn, however, a delay that long is unacceptable.
“We are not prepared to wait for much longer, and this report needs to be the catalyst for significant movement forward from the Met Police in bringing charges against people who perpetrated the deaths of 72 people,” he said.

Turkiye ready to build Cyprus naval base ‘if necessary’: Erdogan

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Grenfell inferno ‘culmination of decades of failure’: UK inquiry

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Turkiye ready to build Cyprus naval base ‘if necessary’: Erdogan

Turkiye ready to build Cyprus naval base ‘if necessary’: Erdogan

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