The scale of Turkey’s crackdown on alleged government opponents following last year’s attempted coup was confirmed by a top official, as the nation prepares to mark the anniversary of the failed putsch amid deepening concern over the rule of law.
Authorities have fired 103,824 state employees and suspended 33,483 more since the July 15 bid to seize power by a section of the military, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said in an interview. The purge of suspected followers of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by the government of orchestrating the coup attempt, is necessary to ensure national security, he said.
Justice Ministry data showed 50,546 suspected members of Gulen’s organization were in prison on July 3, and that arrest warrants had been issued for 8,000 others. The preacher denies involvement in the takeover attempt.
“There might be crypto members of Feto who walk on the snow without leaving tracks,” Kurtulmus said, using an abbreviation of Gulen’s first name that officials have adopted since the defeated military power grab to refer to his movement. “Related agencies are carefully conducting their work against this possibility.”
Over the past year, authorities have shut 110 media outlets for alleged links to Gulen’s network, according to data from the Directorate of the Press, part of the prime minister’s office, while 20 others were temporarily shuttered but allowed to resume reporting after they were cleared. The press accreditation of 715 journalists has been revoked.
Around 34,000 state employees suspended or made redundant in the crackdown have been reinstated after evidence of their innocence emerged, Kurtulmus said. The sackings and suspensions were carried out using decrees, which the state of emergency imposed right after the coup allows cabinet ministers to issue without parliamentary oversight, he said.
China has deployed troops to the country's first overseas military base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, as China's rapidly modernizing military extends its global reach. Beijing says the "support base" will be used for logistical purposes, such as resupplying ships taking part in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions off the coasts of Yemen and Somalia however concerns are growing about China's rising geopolitical influence especially at such a key strategic location.
Djibouti, which is about the size of Wales, is situated at the southern entrance to the Red Sea on the route to the Suez Canal. The tiny, barren nation sandwiched between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia also hosts U.S., Japanese and French bases. As we reported last year, China raised many eyebrows when it began construction of the Djibouti logistical base last year. Located nearly 5,000 miles from the Chinese capital, Djibouti is located at a highly strategic, if dangerous part of the world. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the planet’s most important oil chokepoints and, like the Suez Canal, there are numerous nations that have an interest in keeping it open and secure. Additionally, Djibouti’s location on the horn of Africa makes it an attractive base from which to conduct "anti-terror", or any other military operations in both Africa and the Mid-East.
While it did not say when operations would begin at the base, Xinhua stated that the base will also assist with overseas tasks including military cooperation and joint exercises, as well as jointly maintaining security of international strategic waterways. The decision to build the base in Djibouti came after “friendly negotiations” between the two nations, according to the PLA Navy.
Djibouti is home to some 887,000 people and is favored for its strategic location at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, on the route to the Suez Canal. The nation is also home to US, French and Japanese military compounds.
A growing majority of Israelis no longer sees the presence of Jews or the Israeli military in the so-called "West Bank" as an occupation.
Many do see it as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
That wasn't what the researchers behind a recent survey hoped to find.
Under the banner "Save Israel. Stop the Occupation," Tel Aviv University professors Dr. Nimrod Rosler and Daniel Bar-Tal set out to reveal what most Israelis think about the biblical heartlands of Judea and Samaria and the Jewish settlements there.
According to the survey, as reported by Israel National News, a mere 30 percent of Israelis today view this as "occupation."
That is down from 51 percent who said in 2004 that Israel was occupying the West Bank.
The drop in the number of Israelis who see the situation in Judea and Samaria as an occupation has corresponded to a drastic reduction in those who support the land-for-peace process leading to a "two state solution."
The military situation in Syria took a significant step for the worse on 19 June 2017 when an American fighter jet shot down a Syrian fighter jet carrying out operations against ISIS. That was the latest in a series of foolhardy moves by the Americans which have included the bombing of Syrian army forces in south eastern Syria causing more than 100 casualties, and the shooting down of an Iranian drone in the same region.
The Russian Defence Ministry immediately announced it was suspending cooperation with US forces, and that henceforth all kinds of airborne vehicles, including aircraft and UAVs of the international coalition detected to the west of the Euphrates River will be tracked by the Russian SAM systems as air targets.”. The obvious inference is that they will at risk of being shot down. David Wroe, defence correspondent for the Fairfax media wrote (SMH 21 June 2017) that the shoot down “triggered a belligerent response from Russia.” His article was entitled “RAAF halts air strikes after Russian threat.”
The absurdity of the US led coalition’s position is further seen in the US claim that they were defending a self declared “deconfliction zone” in south eastern Syria at the confluence of the Jordan, Syria and Iraq borders.
Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran had in fact agreed upon the establishment of deconfliction zones within Syria, which the US has failed to acknowledge or even participate in the negotiations. They are now citing a wholly illegitimate zone of their own as theirs to defend while they train the so-called moderate terrorists. That they neither sought nor obtained the consent of the Syrian government to these activities is simply ignored by the western media. That the Americans should attack Syrian forces that are themselves attacking terrorists is beyond irony. The profound hypocrisy of the US and Australian position was never more obvious than in south-eastern Syria.
The shooting down of a Syrian fighter in this context clearly marked a red line for the Russians. Quite simply, they have had enough and their announcement of tracking and potentially shooting down Coalition planes was the least that could be expected. If one were the apply Wroe’s terminology of a “bellicose reaction” to the Syrian situation then the US and its loyal acolyte Australia are much stronger contenders.
In a shocking video from Venezuela, we learn that it takes approximately 5 years for society to break down into a full-on Mad Max scenario. Watch below as a group of motorcyclists attacks a truck carrying sugar by surrounding the vehicle and tossing grenades in front of it. This could easily be a scene from practically any post-apocalyptic movie made by Hollywood, minus the fancy camera angles.
Notice how only one vehicle turned around and left, and the others stopped so the motorists could get their own bags of sugar? Add “driving a truck” to the list of The Most Dangerous Jobs in Venezuela.
For anyone who believes the disaster myth narrative that no one panics, loots, or becomes violent, and thinks that society would just carry on, but be a little more broke after an economic collapse, this should clearly illustrate that people will devolve.
Throughout history, it has always ended up the same. At first, it’s great and everyone is happy. But then, things go downhill and it’s too late to fix it. And it turns into this because people have become hungry and desperate.
When people are disarmed, when agriculture is centralized, and when supplies are rationed, things change. The scene above could be a scene from any Mad Max movie in the past 30 years, but it’s happening for real, right now.
This was for bags of sugar. Sugar is now worth risking your life for in Venezuela.
Oh Brother!!! Anybody else watch the Venezuela video of the Mad Max fire bomb attack and consumption of the sugar carrying truck on the highway.
ReplyDeleteThis is sobering, at least to me. Dozens of lessons to be learned from this short video. Wow!