Category Archives: Turkey

Turkey struck by ‘sea snot’ because of global heating

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Increasing blanket of mucus-like substance in water threatens coral and fishing industry

When seen from above, it looks like a brush of beige swirled across the dark blue waters of the Sea of Marmara. Up close, it resembles a creamy, gelatinous blanket of quicksand. Now scientists are warning that the substance, known as sea snot, is on the rise as a result of global heating.

The gloopy, mucus-like substance had not been recorded in Turkish waters before 2007. It is created as a result of prolonged warm temperatures and calm weather and in areas with abundant nutrients in the water.

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Turkey to ban plastic waste imports

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Greenpeace investigation revealed British recycling left to burn on beaches and roadsides

Turkey is banning the import of most plastic waste after an investigation revealed British recycling was left to burn or be dumped on beaches and roadsides.

Greenpeace visited 10 sites in the southern city of Adana in March. Investigators found waste including British supermarket packaging in waterways, on beaches and in illegal waste mountains.

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Violence against women ‘a pandemic’, warns UN envoy

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A decade after Istanbul convention was drawn up to end gender-based violence, activists report decline in women’s rights and safety

A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners.

This week marked 10 years since the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.

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Libya’s first female foreign minister pressed to quit

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Najla El-Mangoush subjected to personal abuse after demanding withdrawal of Turkish troops and mercenaries

Libya’s first female foreign minister has come under pressure to resign and been subjected to personal abuse seven weeks into the job, after she called for Turkish troops and mercenaries to leave her country.

Najla El-Mangoush, a lawyer and human rights activist, was appointed foreign minister by the country’s interim prime minister, Abdelhamid Dbeibah, after he faced a backlash for backtracking on promises that 30% of ministerial posts would go to women.

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Refugees and the Armenian genocide: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China

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Revealed: 2,000 refugee deaths linked to illegal EU pushbacks

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A Guardian analysis finds EU countries used brutal tactics to stop nearly 40,000 asylum seekers crossing borders

EU member states have used illegal operations to push back at least 40,000 asylum seekers from Europe’s borders during the pandemic, methods being linked to the death of more than 2,000 people, the Guardian can reveal.

In one of the biggest mass expulsions in decades, European countries, supported by EU’s border agency Frontex, has systematically pushed back refugees, including children fleeing from wars, in their thousands, using illegal tactics ranging from assault to brutality during detention or transportation.

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Covid ‘vaccination persuasion’ teams reap rewards in Turkey

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Door-to-door initiative targeting elderly people reluctant to have jab to be rolled out after local success

A coronavirus “vaccination persuasion” initiative targeting elderly people who have declined invitations to get vaccinated is gearing up to be rolled out across Turkey after proving a resounding success in a district in the country’s south-east.

Since February, doctors and healthcare workers in the mainly Kurdish city of Adıyaman, or Semsûr‎, have been calling people in age groups already eligible for the vaccine to ask why they have not come to clinics for appointments.

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Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders to hold talks on resuming peace process

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UN-led meeting in Geneva aims to re-energise efforts to end dispute four years after talks collapsed

Leaders from either side of Cyprus’s ethnic divide have flown to Geneva for a UN-led summit aimed at exploring whether the time is ripe to resume the peace process four years after the collapse of talks to reunify the island.

The foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Britain – Cyprus’s three guarantor powers – will join Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot teams in the hope of re-energising efforts to end the west’s longest-running dispute.

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Biden becomes first US president to recognise Armenian genocide

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President called Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday to inform him US would make designation on 106th anniversary of the genocide

Joe Biden has become the first US president declare formal recognition of the Armenian genocide, more than a century after the mass killings by Ottoman troops and opening a rift between the new US administration and Ankara.

Related: Biden vows US will work with Russia on climate

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Yemen, Myanmar and George Floyd: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Peru

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‘I was alone, I had nothing’: from child refugee to student nurse in Athens

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Ahtisham Khan arrived in Greece, aged 16, after leaving Pakistan. A new initiative is helping children like him find a safe home where they can start to rebuild their lives

At some point in his journey to a freer place, Ahtisham Khan came to a fork in the road. Fifty days of travel from his native Pakistan to the plains of northern Greece had been unexpectedly frightening and exhausting.

“We had a lot of dreams,” he says, recalling why he and his brother, Zeeshan, left their village close to the city of Haripur in Pakistan. “We were teenagers … we didn’t know what we were embarking on. We did what we had to do to survive.”

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Iranian activists at increasing risk in former haven Turkey

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Five Iranians are in Turkish detention, the latest in an apparent wave of arrests and deportation orders

Iranian dissidents in Turkey are unsure whether the country is still a refuge after what appears to be a new wave of arrests and deportation orders targeting asylum seekers from the Islamic Republic.

Afshin Sohrabzadeh, 31, a Kurdish political activist, faced torture and solitary confinement during seven years in prison in Iran before he managed to escape during a hospital visit and flee across the border to Turkey in 2016, followed by his wife the following year.

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‘Kill the bill’ and trans visibility: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China

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Italian PM calls Erdoğan ‘a dictator’ after Ursula von der Leyen chair snub

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Diplomatic spat erupts as Mario Draghi accuses Turkish president of humiliating European commision president

A diplomatic spat has erupted between Turkey and Italy, after prime minister Mario Draghi accused president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of humiliating European commission president Ursula von der Leyen, and described him as a “dictator”.

Von der Leyen – the commission’s first female president – was left without a chair during a meeting on Tuesday with Erdoğan and the European council president Charles Michel met Erdoğan. The commission chief was clearly taken aback when the two men sat on the only two chairs prepared, relegating her to an adjacent sofa.

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Ursula von der Leyen snubbed in chair gaffe at EU-Erdoğan talks

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Awkward moment as EC chief consigned to sofa at meeting where women’s rights was on agenda

Ursula von der Leyen, the European commission’s first female president, was “surprised” after being left without a chair during a meeting of the EU’s two presidents and Turkey’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and has demanded such a snub is never repeated.

The German head of the commission was left visibly irritated at the start of the talks in Ankara with her two male counterparts, Erdoğan and Charles Michel, the former Belgian prime minister who is president of the European council.

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Ursula von der Leyen left without a seat at Erdoğan meeting – video

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The president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, was momentarily left without a seat as she met with the European council president, Charles Michel and Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in Ankara on Tuesday - triggering an avalanche of criticism.

With only two chairs available, Von der Leyen, the sole attending female leader, sat on the sofa as Erdoğan and Michel sat on the chairs. “Ehm,” she muttered, with a small gesticulation directed at the occupied seats. Michel, who had appeared to make a bee-line for the top spot next to Erdoğan as the party entered, offered little evidence of regret.

A spokesperson for Von der Leyen said: "The important thing is that the president should have been seated in exactly the same manner as the President of the European Council and the Turkish President. But ... she decided to proceed nevertheless prioritising substance over protocol."

The awkward scene was played out ahead of a three-hour meeting with Erdoğan where one of the issues raised by the EU leaders was women’s rights in light of Turkey’s withdrawal from a convention on gender-based violence.

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Turkish ex-admirals arrested over criticism of Erdoğan’s ‘crazy’ canal scheme

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Officials interpret criticism of plans for new Istanbul waterway as direct challenge to civilian government

Turkey has detained 10 retired admirals over their public criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “crazy” Istanbul canal project, which will create a new waterway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean in addition to the existing Bosphorus strait.

The arrest warrants issued on Monday came a day after a group of 104 former senior navy officials signed an open letter warning that the proposed canal could harm Turkish security by invalidating an 85-year-old international treaty designed to prevent militarisation of the Black Sea.

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Kurds in ‘mountain prison’ cower as Turkey fights PKK with drones in Iraq

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As decades-old battle intensifies, civilians count cost in lives and livelihoods

It took 10 days to find Muhsin Speri’s body. The 64-year-old had left his town in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan along with friends Hassan Sadiq and Safar Sini on a dry, windy day in December last year to fish and forage for wild honey and mushrooms.

Life in the Amedi region of the Zagros mountains is hard and physical, but the area has been home to Kurdish and Assyrian communities in sync with the rhythms of the mountains for thousands of years. Many locals like to roam and camp for several days at a time, but after Speri’s family failed to reach him by phone for more than a week, a search party was launched.

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Turkish economy in turmoil following sacking of central bank head

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Lira plunged by 15% on Monday after Erdoğan replaced governor with party loyalist

Turkey’s economy has been thrown into renewed turmoil after the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, sacked the head of the country’s central bank days after raising interest rates to tackle soaring inflation.

The Turkish lira plunged by almost 15% on Monday, while the Istanbul stock exchange shed a 10th of its value after the president shocked global investors by replacing Naci Ağbal with a party loyalist.

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