Day: May 19, 2023

Protesters held banners saying “you are not welcome” at Tbilisi airport in Georgia, as the first direct flight for almost four years arrived from Russia.

Scuffles broke out as police barred them from standing outside the airport arrivals hall.

The Azimuth Airlines plane arrived at 13:20 local time (09:20 BST), days after getting the green light from Georgia’s civil aviation authority.

Georgia’s government has welcomed the return of direct flights from Russia.

“The beneficiaries are our citizens who have to take a detour at triple the cost,” said Irakli Kobakhidze, the chairman of the governing Georgian Dream party.

The government argues a million ethnic Georgian citizens living in Russia stand to benefit, although Russian figures suggest the number is closer to 114,000.

But most Georgians oppose the government’s move to allow flights and more than 100 Georgian organisations says it is a “direct sabotage” of their country’s aspirations to join the EU. Georgia is hoping for Brussels to approve its bid to become a candidate later this year.

On board the first flight was a delegation of pro-Russian Georgian NGOs and businesses, according to Russia’s state news agency. Georgian Airways is also planning daily flights to Moscow.

The apparent thaw in relations comes after President Vladimir Putin signed a decree ending Moscow’s unilateral ban on direct flights imposed in response to mass anti-Russia protests in Tbilisi in 2019.

Russia has also lifted 20-year-old entry restrictions on Georgian citizens, allowing them to visit for up to 90 days without a visa.

And yet the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

Russia and Georgia fought a war in 2008 and 20% of Georgia’s internationally recognised territory remains under Russian occupation.

Georgia’s pro-European President Salome Zurabishvili denounced “another Russian provocation”.

And both the EU and the US have expressed disappointment at the latest developments.

US Ambassador to Georgia Kelly Degnan questioned the decision to accept “a gift” from what she called an aggressor country.

“I think the important question is why, why now? Why is Putin now making these concessions, these offers to Georgia. What is the price that Georgia is going to have to pay?

“We all know that Putin does not give anything without extracting a price,” she said.

The EU’s spokesperson for foreign affairs, Peter Stano, said earlier this week that the decision raised doubts about Georgia’s commitment to align itself with the 27-member union.

“We and our partners do not allow flights from Russia, flights to Russia and flights over Russia,” he pointed out.

Georgia’s opposition has roundly condemned the return of direct flights as a “reward” to the ruling Georgian Dream for “good behaviour” towards Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.

Georgia did not impose sanctions against Russia and has allowed tens of thousands of Russian citizens to relocate here, many of them escaping mobilisation.

Levan Khabeishvili, who leads the largest opposition party United National Movement, said that President Putin was trying to turn Georgia into a “Russian province”.

But he added that “the will of the Georgian people is unshakeable! We choose Europe, not Russia!”.

Source: BBC

More than 20 rivers have burst their banks in Italy, leaving 13 people dead and forcing thousands from their homes after six months’ rainfall fell in a day and a half.

More bodies were found on Thursday after almost every river flooded between Bologna and the north-east coast 115km (70 miles) away.

Some 280 landslides have taken place.

The mayor of Ravenna, a city badly affected by flooding, told the BBC it was the worst disaster in a century.

Michele de Pascale described the damage caused by the floods as catastrophic, costing people in his city and the wider region their homes, possessions and for some, their lives.

“It was a very bad 48 hours. Water and mud took over our whole village,” said Roberta Lazzarini, 71.

Her home of Botteghino di Zocca, south of Bologna, was hit by a torrent on Wednesday. Streets, houses and gardens were inundated and Roberta said she was still scared.

“I’ve never seen anything like that here. We were stuck and didn’t know what to do. I just hope it doesn’t happen again.”

Firefighters helped residents flee their houses, including a 97-year-old woman who had to leave her bedroom in a rubber dinghy.

“Our community is broken,” said Roberta’s daughter, Ines, who runs the local cafe in the central square. “We felt completely cut out, isolated, some of us were truly terrified.”

“We’ve had floods before, but it has never been this bad as far as I can remember,” said Lamieri, 74, as he removed mud from his basement, where his son stores products to sell at the souvenir shop he runs in central Bologna.

“The street turned into river. We lost all of our stuff which was stored down here. We estimate thousands of euros in damage.”

This is one of many villages and towns flooded in the province of Emilia-Romagna, not just from rivers, but overflowing canals too.

More evacuations took place west of Ravenna on Thursday and more bodies were found, including a couple in a flat in the village of Russi, which was flooded hours before.

Many are warning that Italy needs a national plan to respond to the effects of climate change.

Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci said tropical conditions had already reached Italy, with 20cm of rain falling in 36 hours, and in some areas up to 50cm.

“Soils that remain dry for a long time end up becoming cemented, drastically limiting their capacity to absorb water,” he said.

No regional dams had been built for 40 years, he said, and a new approach to hydraulic engineering was needed.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has called a crisis meeting next Tuesday.

The leader of Italy’s opposition Democratic Party told the BBC the whole political system was to blame for the disaster and politicians had not done enough to address challenges posed by climate change.

Elly Schlein, who was formerly vice-president of Emilia-Romagna, said successive governments had consistently failed to address Italy’s vulnerability to flooding and other extreme water events like droughts.

Many factors contribute to flooding, but a warming atmosphere caused by climate change makes extreme rainfall more likely. Already, the world has warmed about 1.1C since the industrial era began, and temperatures will continue to rise unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

Antonio Francesco Rizzuto, a 55-year-old lawyer who lives by the river with his wife, was forced to leave on Tuesday night and is now living at his daughter’s in a nearby village.

“It was something no-one was expecting in these proportions,” he said. “Before we left our house, the water level was getting higher by the minute. When we got back yesterday… our living room was completely submerged. We will have to throw away most of our furniture.”

Stefano Bonaccini, regional president of the Emilia-Romagna region, said the damage costs ran into billions of euros.

Overnight, evacuations were ordered in towns to the west of Ravenna. Residents in Villanova were ordered to seek shelter on upper floors, a day after floodwater cascaded through the historic centre of Lugo.

Lugo was flooded again on Thursday, as was Cervi, on the coast.

This weekend’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola was called off because of the risk of the nearby Santerno river flooding. Many of the areas around the track used for parking and watching the race were deluged on Tuesday.

As well as the 23 rivers that burst their banks, the Zena stream turned into a raging torrent in Botteghino di Zocca.

Lino Lenzi, 80, was standing in what used to be his daughter’s garden, which was now overflowing with mud, his grandchildren’s toys submerged.

“I’ve lived here for 70 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said, “the water is everywhere.”

The house has belonged to the family for generations and his daughter had just finished renovating it.

Inside his kitchen, the water is is up to our ankles. The day before, it was more than 2m (6.5ft) high.

“We’ve had to get rid of the water with everything we’ve got: buckets, pots and pans.”

Lino complained the local rivers had not been dredged for years.

“No-one has showed up to help. We’ve received zero help from the government or local authority,”

Rescue operations have proved difficult because so many roads have been flooded and many towns have gone without electricity.

The only help Lino had was from a teenage boy who lives near by. “He walked past and saw that we needed help. He helped us move our furniture.”

Source: BBC

A project to convert a bus into an emergency field hospital to be used in the Russia-Ukraine war has almost been completed.

Its seats have been replaced with three hospital beds, and the vehicle’s been fitted with water and power.

Swindon’s Bus Company gave the vehicle to the Swindon Humanitarian Aid Partnership (SHAP) – which was formed to help those in the war-torn country.

Mike Bowden, SHAP’s chair said the bus will go to Ukraine later this month.

The vehicle previously travelled more than 500,000 miles (804,672km) carrying passengers in Dorset and Wiltshire.

Mr Bowden said the whole of the bus has been rewired with fusing so no one can hurt themselves.

“It looks a bit hospitally. Is it perfect? Of course it’s not, but will people’s lives be improved and possibly saved in here? Yes.”

Natalia, who is from Ukraine and works for the bus company, said everyone back home would be grateful for the help.

‘Close to our hearts’

“It will be very good for them. I think it’s very needed,” she said.

Andrew Wickham, managing director of Swindon’s Bus Company, said many of his employees are from Ukraine.

“This is very close to a lot of our employees’ hearts,” he said.

“I think everybody is very proud to say that they’re able top do something to help the efforts out there.”

Source: BBC

“When you go to bed you see it; the comrades I lost, how I pulled them out with no limbs, how they died in my arms.

“This will stay with us for the rest of our lives.”

There is a darkness etched across Dmytro’s eyes – the eyes of a soldier recently returned from the front line.

After 15 months of fighting in the Donetsk region, Dmytro tightly holds his wife Tetiana’s hand in a recovery centre in north-eastern Ukraine.

She travelled 600 miles (966km) to this innocuous collection of buildings in the Kharkiv region after Dmytro was granted a week off.

Last year, around 2,000 troops came here for counselling and physiotherapy. Organisers admit this is just respite, not rehabilitation. Most head back to the front.

Staff at the centre say Ukraine is trying to keep its soldiers well enough to “stand until the end”.

“We’ll suffer the consequences for the rest of our lives,” says Dmytro as his eyes moisten.

Dmytro has promised to not shave his beard until the war is over. Its length reflects the 400-plus days since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Tetiana thinks her husband is different beyond his appearance, too.

“He has changed a lot,” she says. “He has proved he’s capable of many things; protecting us and standing up for Ukraine. He’s shown he can do a lot.”

We chat to Pavlo, who is taking a break from being a drone pilot, in the leafy gardens. He struggles to sleep.

“Sometimes, you don’t know what to talk about with old friends because old interests change,” he says. “I don’t want to share all that I’ve seen with them.

“I am no longer interested in things we used to have in common. Something has changed, even snapped.”

Pavlo’s role means he is a target, and exposed to horrors most don’t have to witness.

It’s left him in a psychological no man’s land.

“Every day that I’m on the front line, I want to go home,” he says. “But when I come home, I get this strange feeling of wanting to go back to my comrades.

“It’s a very strange feeling, of being out of place.”

Managers at this recovery centre believe it will take up to 20 years to mentally rehabilitate Ukraine’s population after this war.

Yana Ukrayinska, from the country’s health ministry, is trying to get ahead of such forecasts by planning to provide mental health support for “every one in two citizens”.

“We’re preparing our system to provide quality psychological aid for about 15 million people,” she tells us. “We hope it will not be needed, but we’re convinced we should be ready.”

This is, after all, a Russian invasion which affects every Ukrainian. Millions have been forced from their homes and separated from loved ones, suffering violence and losing all their belongings.

Experts say the most common mental illnesses are stress or anxiety disorders, but it’s thought post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will take a real hold in the coming years.

Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska recently launched a nationwide mental health programme, but there is still a shortage of therapists. It’s why the government’s emphasis is on self-care.

For a class of six in Kharkiv, that means body therapy. They take part in a session where they sit and share feelings, before exploring touch and movement with each other.

Inna comes here to take care of her own mental health, so she can help others as a therapist.

“It’s really important for me to stay in shape to have a resource that I can give to people,” she says.

Inna can also see how people have changed in her city since the start of the war.

“Nowadays, people live more in the present, they don’t postpone life for the future, and these are good changes, in my opinion.

“But there are also a lot of traumatic experiences, PTSD, and depression, which require the help of psychiatrists.”

A reminder of how the weight of this conflict isn’t contained to the trenches. People are connected to the war in countless ways, regardless of their location.

Source: BBC

The Irish Army has carried out a controlled explosion on a ‘historical’ mortar bomb in County Monaghan.

The device was discovered at Bragan Bog where searches have been continuing to find one of the disappeared, Columba McVeigh.

Mr McVeigh, from Donaghmore, County Tyrone, was kidnapped on 1 November 1975.

He was one of 16 murder victims known as the Disappeared, who were killed and secretly buried by the IRA.

The latest search is the sixth attempt to locate the body of the 19 year-old.

His family has strongly rejected the IRA claim that he was an informer.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) had paused its search for Mr McVeigh in October due to winter weather, with work resuming at the site last month, as spring brought more favourable conditions.

The mortar, which the Irish Army described as “historical”, was made safe by controlled explosion.

Source: BBC

A mountaineer who wears a colostomy bag has made the first ascent of a landmark sea stack with a friend.

Mick Fowler, 67, and Chris Harle, 65, both from Derbyshire, scaled the 120ft (36m) Devil’s Castle in the Atlantic Ocean off County Kerry, Ireland.

Mr Fowler, who underwent cancer treatment in 2017, described the sea stack as “resembling a magnificent Jenga tower”.

He said he planned to do more sea cliff climbing in the future.

Mr Fowler, from Matlock, who began climbing with his dad at the age of six and has been scaling mountains in the Himalayas since 1987, had an ostomy, a procedure to redirect the bowel to an exit through an opening in the abdomen wall, after his cancer diagnosis.

After regaining his fitness, he returned to climbing and started seeking out new challenges in the UK and abroad.

He is known for completing first ascents of routes on technically challenging peaks between 6,000m and 7,000m (19,685-23,000ft) and said the colostomy bag did not make a difference on climbs like the sea stack.

He and Mr Harle travelled to the Devil’s Castle to begin their challenge on 8 May.

They travelled out to the stack, off the Bromore Cliffs, near Ballybunion, on an inflatable boat, supported by two friends.

Mr Fowler said he had spent time climbing sea cliffs in Ireland more than 30 years ago, but did not get to the Devil’s Castle and it had weighed on his mind ever since.

“Close up, the stack showed itself to be vertical all round and of a blocky structure, resembling a magnificent Jenga tower,” he said.

“It did not look easy and success was not guaranteed.”

The whole challenge took six hours, of which two-and-a-half were spent climbing up the stack before abseiling down.

“The climbing involved carefully judging which of the little blocks was the most secure and always pulling or pushing straight down,” he said.

“It’s a careful, judgemental style which I find most rewarding.

“The summit was as a summit should be, small but perfectly formed. It was spectacular.”

Mr Fowler is preparing for his next major expedition, scaling an unclimbed face of a 6,000m (19,685ft) peak in Tajikistan. in July.

Source: BBC

A new TikTok star has recently emerged in Trkiye but this one stands out from the rest. Mustafa Sarigul, the former mayor of Istanbul’s Sisli district, gained attention on the platform for his videos where he occasionally slaps youngsters going to Starbucks and criticizes America’s tobacco quotas by pounding tobacco packs. These videos have become hugely popular, especially among young people who enjoy irony and entertainment, amassing millions of views. Sarigul, who ran as a candidate for a parliamentary seat in the Turkish elections on May 14, 2023, successfully secured a place in the parliament. While his TikTok videos were the face of his election campaign, the true secret to his success was the personal connection he established with voters on the street. The Sarigul example challenges the notion of social media’s influence on voting behavior and highlights the importance of face-to-face communication on the streets and in the markets.

Turkish public’s interest in the elections

The first round of the Turkish Presidential elections, which were dubbed the most significant elections of 2023, concluded on May 14. Throughout this process, there has been a lot of discussion about the role of social media. It remains uncertain how exactly social media influences voting behavior. However, what is clear is that in today’s new communication landscape, where social media plays a crucial role, voters must determine their voting behavior within this influential platform.

Trkiye has always had a vibrant and engaged public opinion. Whether it is on the streets or on social media, election campaigns have always carried an atmosphere of democratic celebration. During this period, streets and squares are adorned with political party flags, while social media users actively participate in discussions within their own online platforms. For instance, just a week before the May 14 elections, social media users expressed their support for political alliances through the use of emojis. Supporters of the “Nation Alliance” took inspiration from Kemal Kilicdaroglu and used heart symbols, while backers of the “People’s Alliance” opted for the Turkish flag to emphasize their nationalist stance. This expression style is significant as it demonstrates the importance of political campaigns to Turkish voters and their active involvement in shaping them.

Consolidating supporters

Three months before the 2023 elections, public surveys indicated that young and undecided voters would play a decisive role in the election. As a result, candidates focused on attracting these voters to their side through social media campaigns. Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the Nation Alliance, placed special importance on his social media campaign and produced short videos under specific themes. Particularly, videos shot in his modest-looking kitchen caught the attention of a particular segment of voters. From this kitchen, he criticized the government’s economic program and presented his own solutions. Compared to Kilicdaroglu, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the candidate of the People’s Alliance, focused on rallies in different cities. As an experienced leader, Erdogan’s greatest strength lay in his communication with people on the ground. As a result, the People’s Alliance did not officially prioritize their social media campaign. However, the social media campaign was predominantly driven by user-generated content which was produced by the supporters.

Kilicdaroglu aimed to portray himself as an embracing, innovative, and solution-oriented leader in his social media campaign, seeking to prove that he was the better candidate. However, his stance on issues like terrorism, security, and foreign policy became his weak points. Users on social media criticized the inconsistencies in Kilicdaroglu’s statements through user-generated content such as captions, memes, and remixes. User-generated content played a crucial role in consolidating voters and boosting their motivation to cast their votes in these elections.

Deep fake videos and withdrawal of a candidate

In the final week of the election campaigns, the issue of deep fake videos entered the political scene. Muharrem Ince who was running for the presidency, faced a backlash on social media as certain trolls and partisan users targeted him based on the spread of these manipulated videos. It is worth noting that Ince had previously been the presidential candidate for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 2018, where he didn’t achieve success, garnering only 26% of the votes. Following internal disputes within the party, he eventually parted ways and formed the Homeland Party.

Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the Nation Alliance and the head of the CHP, constantly urged Ince to join the Nation Alliance after surveys revealed that Ince could potentially play a crucial role in the outcome of the 2023 elections. However, Ince, with his Kemalist and nationalist stance, leveled serious criticisms against the Nation Alliance, ultimately choosing not to join the coalition. Ince held a press conference where he announced his withdrawal from the race with just 3 days remaining until the elections. He cited the orchestrated deep fake video campaign by social media accounts associated with the FETO terrorist organization as the reason behind his decision, highlighting how opposition voters had subsequently turned against him. Ince indirectly criticized Kilicdaroglu.

The role of echo chambers and the great disappointment

Social media echo chambers are known to create a false sense of reality, where users craft their own unique narratives. The political and emotional polarization during Trkiye’s election campaigns has led voters to view their chosen candidate as flawless and unbeatable. Especially opposition voters fell into a larger illusion, considering the events leading up to and on the election night. Numerous pre-election polls were confidently predicting Kilicdaroglu’s victory in the first round, and the opposition campaign on social media further fueled this sentiment, reaching its peak on election day. However, when unofficial initial results were displayed on TV screens that night, Erdogan appeared to be in the lead. Nonetheless, members of Kilicdaroglu’s team, including the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu and the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas, made press announcements throughout the night, declaring Kilicdaroglu’s lead and imminent victory. This inconsistency in the data caused confusion among voters. By morning, it became evident that Kilicdaroglu had not won.

As a result, social media users who had been manipulated by weeks and months of fake polling data and caught in the echo chambers of social media were misguided with inaccurate information on election night, fostering a sense of hope. This ultimately resulted in great disappointment for Kilicdaroglu’s supporters. As we now move towards the second round, it will be a challenging task to reconsolidate the opposition voters and motivate them to cast their votes.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu.

Source: Anadolu Agency