Category: General

Greece’s ruling conservatives led by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis have scored a major victory in the national elections, but have fallen short of the majority needed to form a government. And unless a coalition is formed, a second round is now likely. Filio Kontrafouri reports from Athens.

Source: TRTworld.com

Despite winning a plurality in weekend elections, Greece’s premier on Monday returned the mandate to form a government, hoping instead to win a single-party mandate in fresh polls on June 25, Greek media reported.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose New Democracy party won nearly 41% of Sunday’s vote – twice the votes of its nearest challenger – returned to the president the mandate to form a government, reported public broadcaster ERT.

After phone calls with the leaders of the parties represented in the new parliament, Mitsotakis concluded he could not form a single-party government and so he will seek parliament’s dissolution and new elections on June 25, a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office said.

With 99.68% of the votes counted early Monday, following New Democracy’s 40.8%, SYRIZA came in second at about 20.1%, socialist PASOK third at 11.5%, the Greek Communist Party fourth with 7.2%, and the far-right, populist Greek Solution party fifth with 4.5%.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday denied that Russian forces have captured the strategic city of Bakhmut.

‘Today, they (the Ukrainian army) are performing a very important task. Today, they are in Bakhmut. At what points – I will not share. But this suggests that Bakhmut is not captured by the Russian Federation as of today. There are no two or three interpretations of this,’ Zelenskyy said during a press conference in Hiroshima.

His statement came a day after the head of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed his forces have taken complete control of the city.

The Ukrainian leader is currently in Japan, where he participated in the G-7 summit and met the leaders of the US, EU, UK, Canada, South Korea, France, India, Italy, Indonesia, Japan and Germany.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine was holding on and fighting ‘thanks to the courage of our people and our soldiers.’

‘We do not leave people to die. For us, people are a treasure. This is the most important thing we have. There are no misunderstandings. I clearly understand what is taking place in Bakhmut. And we all clearly understand why all this is happening,’ he said.

In response, Prigozhin said the Ukrainian president was either being ‘disingenuous’ or has no idea ‘what is happening on Earth.’

Zelenskyy was earlier reported to have acknowledged that Bakhmut had fallen, but his aide Serhii Nykyforov said that comment was down to a misunderstanding.

In a Facebook post, Nykyforov said Zelenskyy replied ‘I think no’ when he thought a reporter asked him if the Russians had taken the city.

‘In this way, the president denied the capture of Bakhmut,’ Nykyforov said.

The Ukrainian military also said early Sunday that the battle for Bakhmut continues.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The kings of Spain and the Netherlands have visited Wales to attend their daughters’ graduation ceremony.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain were at Atlantic College in Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan, with their daughter Infanta Sofía.

Princess Leonor, heir to the Spanish throne, began her £67,000 two-year course at the boarding school in 2021.

King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands attended to see Princess Alexia graduate.

Atlantic College has around 4,500 students and has a history of attracting overseas royals.

Spain’s Princess Leonor de Borbon, 17, is the eldest of the royal couple’s two daughters.

The Spanish royal couple personally paid for the tuition fees and their daughter applied for a place through the United World Colleges’ (UWC) Spanish committee.

The Dutch royal house posted a picture of the king and queen with Princess Alexia, also 17, with her graduation certificate outside the college.

Executive director of UWC International, Jens Waltermann, previously said the heir to the Spanish throne was joining “4,500 other students from 155 countries, and from a diverse range of backgrounds, who will be studying at one of our 18 schools”.

Atlantic College is a residential sixth form college for 15 to 19 year olds.

The college also teaches the International Baccalaureate combined with co-curricular community service activities to around 350 of its students.

Founded in 1962, the estate near Llantwit Major, Vale of Glamorgan includes the 12th Century St Donat’s Castle and was once the former home of American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

Queen Noor of Jordan is college president and one of her daughters graduated from the institution.

The college has also welcomed famous visitors in the past, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, the former Prince of Wales and the Emperor of Japan.

In 2013, the college once again gained the world’s attention when two Pakistani teenagers shot by the Taliban while travelling with their friend Malala Yousafzai – now a Nobel Prize laureate – were given scholarships to study there.

Source: BBC

Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir on Sunday entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem.

Ben-Gvir entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque’s Haram al-Sharif area early in the morning with special guards and under the protection of the Israeli forces.

In his video message from the courtyard of Al-Aqsa, he claimed Israel’s ownership of the complex and said threats from Hamas make no sense. “We own Jerusalem and all the land of Israel.”

This was the second time he entered the complex since taking office as national security minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last December.

Ben-Gvir previously entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jan. 3, days after he took office, and with this action, he became the first Israeli minister on duty to enter the mosque in five years.

He holds far-right views on the Palestinians and has called for their displacement. He has repeatedly joined Israeli settlers in storming the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in occupied East Jerusalem.

For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world’s third-holiest site. Jews call the area the Temple Mount, saying it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.

Last November, Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned in a leaked audio that “the whole world is worried” about Ben-Gvir’s far-right views.

Source: Anadolu Agency

A grandmother who went missing on holiday on a Greek island three weeks ago has been found dead in a remote area.

Susan Hart, 74, from Bath, was in Telendos with her husband, Ed, when she disappeared on 30 April.

Mrs Hart could not be found after her husband went rock climbing while she planned to read a book.

Her daughter Ruth Landale said she was identified by her stepfather and the family were heartbroken.

Ms Landale said they were now waiting for her body to be repatriated to Switzerland where she was living.

A post-mortem examination is expected to be carried out in Greece.

‘Distressing time’

Mrs Hart has three daughters who grew up in Bath but now live in Canada, Australia and London with their young families.

Ms Landale said her mother had been showing symptoms of dementia over the last few years, but had not yet received a diagnosis.

“It’s been a stressful and distressing time for the whole family,” she said.

A Foreign Office spokesman confirmed staff were providing consular assistance to the family and were in contact with local authorities.

Source: BBC

A total of nine Russian and foreign designers presented their collections Saturday during the “Modest Fashion Day” in Tatarstan’s capital city of Kazan.

The event was organized on the sidelines of the 14th International Economic Summit: “Russia-Islamic World: Kazan Forum 2023,”, to which Anadolu Agency is the global communications partner.

Designers include Abzaeva, Gapanovich, HADAMI, SAHARA, Su.Su, UMMAYA from Russia, Aida KaumeNOVA from Kazakhstan, SANET / Keewa from Indonesia and Senegal Fashion Show: Couleur Afrique, Touty, Kamal Raw, Edg.mery, Sidy Counda, Al Gueye.

‘Modest fashion’ refers to a trend in modest clothes due to women’s spiritual and stylistic preferences for reasons of faith, religion or personal beliefs.

Modest fashion presents economic opportunities around the globe for manufacturers, providing an alternative trend for populations of Muslim women and those that prefer modest clothes for various reasons.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, 74, is in the fight of his career.

He has mounted the strongest opposition challenge to Turkey’s most powerful man, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, since he took power more than 20 years ago, but still fell short of his rival in the first round.

His chances are looking slim in the 28 May run-off vote, but Turkey’s mild-mannered opposition leader has assured supporters they have victory in their grasp.

“The will for change in the society is higher than 50%,” he insisted.

The former civil servant is the very antithesis of Turkey’s grandstanding, powerful president.

His trademark gesture for the election was initially a heart-shape gesture with his hands. But ahead of the run-off vote he has adopted a more strident tone, banging his fists on the table and raising his voice.

Seeking to capture the nationalist vote, he has highlighted his pledge to send home 3.5 million Syrian refugees within two years and accused his rival of allowing 10 million refugees into Turkey.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu was perhaps not the most obvious candidate for six opposition parties to unite behind as their best chance of victory.

He has lost several elections since he took charge of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 2010, when his predecessor was forced out because of an extra-marital affair.

And yet Kemal Kilicdaroglu is a highly experienced politician. He was elected in 2002, the same year Mr Erdogan’s ruling AK Party came to power.

He has survived a string of violent attacks, earning the reputation of being one of Turkey’s most-targeted politicians, and wore a bullet-proof vest at his final rallies ahead of Sunday’s vote.

In his 13 years as leader, he has broadened his party’s appeal and “embraced all the different colours in the country”, as he puts it.

He posted on social media a series of videos from his modest kitchen, often addressing young voters on highly sensitive issues such as being a Kurd or a minority Alevi, as he is.

In a soft tone, he reached out to voters by saying that he would unite all of Turkey’s different strands of society.

The CHP charts its origins back to Turkey’s modern secular founder Kemal Ataturk.

It was long considered close to the military, which has overthrown the government four times since 1960, and was always seen as a hardline party on the issue of dividing church and state. After the military coup in 1980, for example, it supported the ban on headscarves at schools and public services.

Born in December 1948, Kemal Kilicdaroglu – pronounced Kilitch-daro-lu – was the fourth of seven children brought up by a housewife and civil servant in the eastern city of Tunceli. He comes from an Alevi family – a distinct Islamic sect, and religious minority in mostly-Sunni Turkey.

He was a star student at the many schools he attended as his family following his father’s job around Turkey and later studied economics at Ankara University.

He spent years as a civil servant in Turkey’s financial bodies and won a reputation for weeding out corruption as director of the overarching Social Security Institution.

After seven years in parliament, he was selected to run for one of Turkey’s most powerful and prestigious roles, the mayor of Istanbul. Although he lost the race, he won praise for his campaign and became a very credible runner-up for the CHP with 37% of the vote.

Within a year of that success, the leader of the CHP resigned after a secret video tape emerged of an affair – and Mr Kilicdaroglu unexpectedly found himself as prime candidate for the job.

Initially he refused to run for the leadership, not wishing to take advantage of a scandal. But his stance softened and he won the race by a landslide.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan was by now at the peak of his power, becoming Turkey’s most successful modern-era prime minister by winning almost half the vote for his Justice and Development or AK Party in 2011 elections.

The CHP came a distant second, but increased its vote by five percentage points. Its leader has since struggled to go beyond winning a quarter of the vote, engulfed in party politics.

But in his 13 years in charge he has led a quiet revolution within the party. He has tried to make peace with the Islamists through gestures like attending Iftar dinners to break the fast during Ramadan, and has erased the party’s old militaristic codes.

“When I first met him, I thought that he was not a revolutionary leader but an evolutionary one,” said former party colleague Melda Onur.

“He locks on to his target, sticks to it with incredible serenity, and by the end you’re convinced. He is very decisive when he thinks that is the right thing to do.”

That is why she believes it took him 13 years to reshape his party and secure its backing to run for the presidency.

True to his background, he has also maintained strict financial discipline. “He is very careful about not spending any extra for anything unnecessary,” said close associate Okan Konuralp.

In time he introduced religious figures, Kurdish activists and women’s rights activists to the party – to prove to Turkish society that the CHP has changed.

“The CHP has a very male dominant structure, he couldn’t pull down that wall completely but he likes to work with women,” said Ms Onur.

One party colleague told the BBC he never raised his voice.

“Sometimes things drive us crazy and we cannot help but scream. Even then, Kilicdaroglu keeps his calm,” he said.

The moment anyone enters the room, he stands up and shakes hands, never talks to people sitting behind the desk, and never interrupts anyone, his colleague said.

This soft-spoken nature coupled with a passing physical resemblance to the former Indian leader have even given rise to his nickname Gandhi Kemal.

As has his peaceful response to physical attack.

He was punched twice by a visitor in parliament in 2014 while about to give a speech to his party’s MPs. Despite suffering a bruised cheek and eye, he called on colleagues to keep calm: “The path to democracy is full of obstacles.”

In 2016, his convoy was attacked by a missile by the Kurdish militant group the PKK and then the following year he escaped an attempted bombing by the militant Islamic State group.

He survived an attempted lynching in 2019 at a soldier’s funeral. As he came under attack he was taken to a nearby house where a woman urged the crowd to burn it down.

When police ushered him to safety he said afterwards: “These attempts cannot stop us.”

But it was after the failed 2016 coup that Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s reputation spread beyond Turkey.

As President Erdogan cracked down on dissent, arresting and sacking thousands of Turks seen as linked to the coup plotters, the opposition leader launched a “March for Justice”, walking 450km (280 miles) from Ankara to Istanbul.

Despite the success of his march, he chose not to challenge for the presidency the following year, waiting another five years to seize his chance.

It then took him months to convince other opposition parties to back his bid. The CHP has better speakers, and arguably higher-profile figures who won the race for mayor in Istanbul and Ankara.

But with his main rival at his weakest, party colleagues felt this was their leader’s moment.

“I have never heard a word of hatred from his mouth. He could be angry with someone but keeps calm and then forgives that person easily,” said Okan Konuralp.

Source: BBC

Italy’s northern Emilia-Romagna region, hit by torrential rains earlier this week, is still on red alert for extreme weather as its struggling population tries to recover from the worst floods in about a century.

Heavy rainfall, which came after months of scorching drought, pushed more than 20 rivers out of their banks and caused up to 300 landslides in the highly-populated region, killing at least 14 people and leaving tens of thousands displaced.

Dozens of cities and small towns were pummeled by rivers of mud, forcing people to leave their homes as rescuers kept searching for the missing ones.

In the Ravenna area, a rescue helicopter crashed on Saturday during efforts to fix the local electric grid, wounding at least four people, according to reports.

The heavy death toll and devastation in the area, which includes damage worth billions of dollars in the agricultural and business sectors, has sparked a new political controversy around the response by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government.

The premier, who has called an emergency Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, is now expected to return earlier than planned from the ongoing G-7 meeting in Japan, where world leaders including US President Joe Biden expressed their solidarity and readiness to help Italy.

Over the past few days, environmental experts have highlighted how such extreme weather events are becoming more frequent in Italy, underlining the need for immediate actions.

Civil Protection Minister Nello Musumeci warned earlier this week that Italy has to dramatically rethink its flood protection measures nationwide, stressing that ‘everything must change’ and that the key going forward would be ‘prevention.’

Source: Anadolu Agency

A 21-year-old woman who died after being hit by a Garda (Irish police) patrol car in County Donegal was from Londonderry.

She has been named locally as Rebecca Browne from Galliagh.

The incident happened at 03:15 BST on Sunday at Ludden, near Buncrana.

No one else was injured in the collision.

Father Michael McCaughey from the Parish of the Three Patrons in Derry visited Rebecca’s family in their home on Sunday evening.

“I met Rebecca’s mother, father, brother and the wider family circle,” he said.

“They are heartbroken and acknowledged just how much Rebecca was loved.”

Donegal councillor Rena Donaghey told RTÉ she believed the young woman had been with a friend in Buncrana for the weekend.

A garda spokesperson said the collision has been referred to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

Gardaí are appealing to anyone with information about the incident to contact them.

Source: BBC