Category: General

It was a “nightmare scenario” when Cyclone Mocha hit such “vulnerable, already distraught areas” in Rakhine State, affecting an estimated 5.4 million people in its path, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar said on Tuesday. Speaking at a UN press briefing via video link from Myanmar, Ramanathan Balakrishnan said the cyclone struck Rakhine State with “brutal force” on Sunday. “It had been a truly terrifying experience for those in the path of the cyclone, who were now facing a massive cleanup and reconstruction effort,” Balakrishnan said, adding that 5.4 million people are estimated to have been in the path of the cyclone, with 3.9 million of those considered most vulnerable. After hitting the coast, he explained, the storm moved inward, causing flooding in areas where millions of people had already been displaced by conflict. According to him, as many as 17 million people in Myanmar are in need of humanitarian assistance, which is “as many as in Ukraine.” Olga Sarrado of the UN refugee agency, for her part, described the situation in Bangladesh and the severely affected Rohingya refugee camps. Over 21,000 Rohingya and more than 4,000 households had been affected in the camps, Sarrado said, adding that no casualties had been reported. The cyclone hit at a particularly difficult time for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, she said. According to post-disaster assessments of humanitarian workers, the top needs were shelter, clean drinking water, sanitation, and medical supplies, she said. Sarrado noted that only 16% of the funding appeal was funded currently. On Sunday, Cyclone Mocha ripped through the coast between Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh and Kyaukpyu township in Myanmar, reportedly killing at least nine people in both countries.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Education is one of the major issues affecting approximately 150,000 ethnic Turkish minority in Greece, said a parliament candidate associated with the main opposition party, who blamed the incumbent government for some decisions that exacerbated the situation. Ozgur Ferhat, a parliament member candidate from the main opposition SYRIZA party, told Anadolu in an interview that the majority of the country’s ethnic Turkish minority live in Western Thrace – Bulgaria to the north, Trkiye to the east, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Greek region of Macedonia to the west – where the quality of education in schools for minorities does not meet modern standards. Ferhat, who is running in the May 21 parliamentary elections in the Rhodope province, has pledged that his party will improve the education level and update it according to contemporary needs. “During the SYRIZA government, bilingual kindergartens were introduced. However, this government denied minority children a comfortable education in their native language by reversing that policy,” he said, blaming the ruling New Democracy government for the poor education system in the Western Thrace. He also criticized a mufti law in Western Thrace governing the appointment of Muslim clerics (muftis), claiming that the government did not consult the minority before enacting it last year. Many articles of the law were not accepted by the country’s Turkish minority, he said. Underlining that the government should take decisions by communicating with the minority on important issues, Ferhat accused the Greek government of also violating the freedom of association in the 2007 and 2008 rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding the minority associations that were closed due to the word “Turkish” in their names. This should be corrected, and the minority associations that pose no threat to the country should be allowed to operate freely, he emphasized. He also slammed the government’s economic policies, claiming that they accelerated people’s migration to other European countries. Their region is already one of the poorest in Greece, Ferhat said, pledging that SYRIZA would create more jobs and bring prosperity to Western Thrace, which is critical for the peaceful coexistence of minorities in the region. The Western Thrace region near the border with Trkiye is home to a substantial, long-established Muslim Turkish minority of approximately 150,000 people. The rights of Turks are guaranteed by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, but the situation has deteriorated significantly in recent decades, with Greece refusing to implement ECHR rulings. Despite a 2008 ECHR ruling against Greece, associations with the word “Turkish” in their names are still banned in Western Thrace.

Source: Anadolu Agency

At least seven people were killed and three others injured after an illegal mining pit collapsed Monday in Ghana’s eastern region, National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) confirmed Tuesday. Douglas Adomako, NADMO’s deputy director for the Birim district, told local media that about 18 miners were working in the mine at the Korley Teye site when it collapsed Monday morning, leading to seven deaths. The Korley Teye site is a bustling location where many local youths engage in small-scale illegal mining activities. Rescue efforts are underway to rescue the trapped miners. An eyewitness, Frank Owusu Amoah, who promptly rushed to the scene, said local people tried to rescue the trapped miners, using whatever tools were available. However, with darkness descending upon the area and rain, the rescue efforts became increasingly challenging. By late afternoon, no official rescue team had arrived at the scene, leaving the miners and locals to rely solely on their own resources, he added.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Women’s representation in the Turkish parliament will be the highest level in history after Sunday’s parliamentary elections. According to the unofficial results, 121 women secured seats in the 600-member parliament. The female representation rate, which was 17.1% in the previous elections, rose to 20.1% this year. The Green Left Party has the highest female representation rate with 30 women out of 61 lawmakers in parliament. This was followed by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Good Party (Iyi Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). A total of 50 female deputies from the AK Party, 30 from the CHP and the Green Left Party, six from the Iyi Party, four from the MHP, and one from the Turkish Workers’ Party, entered the parliament. The youngest members of the new parliament were also two women. Zehranur Aydemir, 25, became the AK Party Ankara Deputy and Rumeysa Kadak, 27, became AK Party Istanbul Deputy. Millions of Turkish voters went to polls on Sunday to elect the country’s next president and members of parliament. The first round of voting ended with no candidate able to clear the required 50% threshold, but incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took the lead, said Ahmet Yener, head of the Supreme Election Council, citing unofficial results. Voter turnout in Sunday’s elections was 88.92%, with turnout from Turkish citizens abroad at 52.69%, Yener said. Erdogan’s People’s Alliance won a majority in parliament, while the presidential race is headed to a second-round runoff on May 28.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The Greek Cypriot administration is canceling “golden passports” for Russians who obtained them by paying exorbitant sums, as a result of pressure from the EU, according to media reports Tuesday. About 40 golden passports given to Russians, who were included in the EU’s sanctions list due to the Ukraine-Russia War, were canceled, said Southern Cyprus media. The EU Commission has frequently objected to Southern Cyprus giving passports to Russian citizens since 2020, providing them with a commercial shield and free movement in Europe. The accounts of nearly 10,000 Russians were frozen by banks in the Greek Cypriot administration as a result of the sanctions. ‘Golden passports’ Passports obtained by citizens of non-EU countries by giving money to benefit from the bloc’s free trade, customs facilities and free movement rights are called “golden passports.” The “Golden Passport” application was stopped in 2020 because it also caused corruption allegations in the Greek Cypriot Administration. Some 6,000 people, including nearly 3,000 Russians, received passports from Greek Cypriots. The Greek Cypriot administration and Malta are criticized and warned by the EU for converting the “Golden Passport” practice into systematic income and providing passports to troubled business people. Last year, Malta suspended the residency and citizenship program for Russian and Belarusian citizens until further notice. A foreigner applying for an amount of approximately pound 1 million ($1.09 million) could obtain a Maltese passport, thus becoming an EU citizen.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Nearly 80,700 irregular border crossings were detected at EU external borders in the first four months of the year, up nearly 30% from the same period last year, according to the Frontex border agency. The preliminary calculations showed that the figure was the highest for the January-April period since 2016, a Frontex statement said on Monday. Even though entries on all other major routes decreased compared to last year, the number of irregular border crossings into the EU through the Central Mediterranean route quadrupled from the same period a year earlier, reaching the highest level since Frontex started collecting data in 2009, it said. “Detections reported by national authorities on the Central Mediterranean route increased to almost 42,200 in January-April 2023,” the agency said. It added that there were 25,200 detections of unauthorized border crossings in April alone, up 25% from the previous year. “Criminal smuggling groups are increasingly using makeshift metal boats hastily assembled within hours of departure. Oftentimes fishing boats tow these metal boats closer to the Italian island of Lampedusa, their main destination,” the agency added. It said the number of people entering the EU through the top seven other migration routes saw declines ranging from 7% to 47%.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Ahead of the three-day G-7 summit beginning Thursday, Japan has stressed on the need for a “nuclear-free world.” To achieve this target, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called for ‘concrete efforts.” “Publicizing nuclear strike realities is key for disarmament,” Kishida told a news conference. The G-7, an informal grouping of seven of the world’s advanced economies, comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US as well as the European Union. Referring to China’s expanding influence in the Pacific and Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Kishida stated that the G-7 will issue a ‘solid message’ against attempts to forcefully change the status quo. ‘The summit, addressing topics ranging from energy and food security to climate change, should underscore global collaboration,’ he said. In addition to the G7 countries, Australia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Vietnam were invited as guests to the summit. The summit will be held in Hiroshima, a provincial-level city on Japan’s main island Honshu. Kishida said he will host visiting leaders at the Peace Memorial Park, a site dedicated to honoring the victims of the 1945 atomic bomb. The US dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima – the site of the world’s first atomic bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, and then Nagasaki, which resulted in the deaths of at least 140,000 people by the end of that year. The dead include more than 20,000 Koreans. Kishida who has been elected from Hiroshima, his hometown, drew attention by choosing the city as a meeting place for the G-7 summit. – China urges Japan against being ‘complicit in economic coercion’ Meanwhile, China has asked the G-7 members to urge the US to “stop raising the debt ceiling to avoid default, correct aggressive monetary policies, and prevent transferring domestic risks globally.” Reminding Japan of Plaza Accord from the 1980s, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “the US has been pressuring certain nations to detach their economies from China, imposing technological and scientific barriers, and suppressing Chinese companies.” “These actions go beyond fair competition and constitute a significant infringement upon market principles and World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations,” Wang told reporters in Beijing on Monday. The Plaza Accord was a 1985 agreement among the G-5 nations of France, Germany, the UK, the US, and Japan. The goal of the Plaza Accord was to weaken the US dollar in order to reduce the mounting US trade deficit. “If the G-7 countries genuinely prioritize economic security, they must swiftly identify the parties responsible for the Nord Stream pipeline explosion and ensure they are held accountable. This action would serve to protect crucial transnational infrastructure and maintain its security,” he added. Wang urged “all members of the club of the rich, the US, Japan, and other G-7 countries, not to harm the interests of the many for the selfish interests of the few in the world of nations.”

Source: Anadolu Agency

Russian lawmakers have approved Moscow’s withdrawal from the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), the head of State Duma announced on Tuesday. ‘Washington and Brussels, obsessed with the idea of building a unipolar world, by moving NATO to the east, destroyed the global security system,’ Vyacheslav Volodin said in a message on Telegram. Volodin said NATO members declared the alliance was being created solely for defensive purposes during its inception, but that the bloc turned out to be ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’? ‘It only attacked and advanced, brought suffering to people, destroyed states: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria,’ Volodin said, adding that Washington’s transfer of weapons to Ukraine ‘destabilizes the situation in the world.’ He claimed that the US took these actions in order to maintain its hegemony and that this provokes a ‘global catastrophe.’ Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also commented on the parliament’s decision, saying that the document lost its relevance for Moscow back in 2007. Medvedev further said nothing now prevents Russia from placing weapons ‘where it wants’ in order to protect its national interests, also saying Moscow will ‘maximize’ the production of weapons, military and special equipment. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last Wednesday terminating the CFE treaty. The CFE was a landmark post-Cold War arms control agreement signed on Nov. 19, 1990, in Paris between two military blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, imposing limits on tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopters, and combat aircraft, in addition to mandating the destruction of excess weaponry. In 1999, an updated CFE treaty was drafted and approved in Istanbul, Trkiye, taking into account new realities such as the Warsaw Pact’s dissolution and NATO’s expansion.? Because NATO countries did not ratify the agreement, Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the CFE treaty in 2007.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The head of an artificial intelligence company said Tuesday that the role of government regulations is critical in managing the risks associated with the growing capabilities of models in artificial intelligence. “We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said at a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and The Law. “For example, the US government might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for developing and releasing AI models above a threshold of capabilities,” he said. Altman acknowledged that while it is an exciting time to work on artificial intelligence, he understands that people are worried about the potential effects of the technology on their lives, and OpenAI shares those concerns. He noted that OpenAI can partner with governments to ensure that the most powerful AI models adhere to a set of safety requirements, facilitate processes to develop and update safety measures, and examine opportunities for global coordination. “I believe that we will be able to mitigate the risks in front of us and really capitalize on technology’s potential to grow the US economy and the world’s,” Altman added. His remarks came amid the widespread popularity of ChatGPT, a chatbot tool developed by OpenAI, which has reignited competition in the field of artificial intelligence and raised concerns about the potential risks of this technology. Altman said his company believes artificial intelligence has the potential to “improve nearly every aspect of our lives.” “We are working to build tools that one day can help us make new discoveries that address some of humanity’s biggest challenges, like climate change, and curing cancer. Our current systems aren’t yet capable of doing these things,” he said.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Japan will soon benefit from its decision to retain stakes in Russian oil and gas projects despite joining Western sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian consul general in the city of Sapporo told RIA Novosti news agency on Tuesday.

Sergey Marin said Tokyo may gain an additional 2 million tons of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year once the Arctic LNG 2 project in Russia’s Far East is launched. While Japanese firms froze new investment in March 2022 as part of sanctions, they have not withdrawn from the venture.

“A consortium made up of Mitsui and Co. and Japan’s national oil and metals company JOGMEC has retained a 10% stake in Novatek’s Arctic LNG 2 project… The project is working, but has not yet started production of LNG. The first production line should be launched by the end of this year, and the second and third in 2024 and 2026. If everything goes according to plan, Japan will add about 2 million more tons of LNG per year to the share it now receives from Russia,” Marin said.

The diplomat noted that Tokyo has also retained stakes in another oil and gas project in Russia’s Far East, Sakhalin-2, which passed to a new domestic operator last year. He added that a number of Japanese energy providers have so also signed contracts with the new operator, Sakhalin Energy. The project provides Japan with about 9% of its total LNG imports and 3% of its power supply.

Japan’s Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co (SODECO) also owns a 30% stake in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 offshore oil and gas project.

Tokyo has joined Western sanctions on Moscow since the start of the conflict in Ukraine last year, including enforcement of a price ceiling on Russian oil imports. However, Japan received an exemption from Washington, excluding supplies from Sakhalin-2 from the cap, and kept stakes in its joint energy projects in Russia, arguing that they are crucial for the country’s energy security.

Source: Russia Today