Battle for Mosul sparks Iraq-Turkey rivalry

October 25, 2016

Oct 25: A dispute between Iraq and Turkey has emerged as a dramatic geopolitical sideshow to the complicated military campaign to retake Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, from Islamic State (IS).

mosulPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has insisted on a role in the battle for Mosul, trying to ramp up an involvement in Iraq that has already alarmed the Iraqi government.

“We have a historical responsibility in the region,” Erdogan said in a recent speech, drawing on his country's history of empire and defeat, from Ottoman rule of the Middle East to its loss in World War I. “If we want to be both at the table and in the field, there is a reason.”

In response, the normally mild-mannered Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, warned last week of a military confrontation between Turkey and Iraq. If Turkish forces intervene in Mosul, he said, they will not “be in a picnic.” “We are ready for them,” al-Abadi said. “This is not a threat or a warning. This is about Iraqi dignity.”

The rift between Turkey and Iraq is no mere diplomatic row; it is a stark example of the complete breakdown in sovereignty of not just Iraq but Syria as well. IS has erased the borders between the two countries, while Turkey has stationed troops in both countries without the permission of either government.

Turkey has angered the Iraqi government by keeping a unit of troops at a base in Bashiqa, an area of northern Iraq near Mosul and surrounded by IS territory. For more than a year, the Turks have also been training Kurdish peshmerga forces and Sunni Arab fighters in Iraq, including a militia led by a former governor of Mosul, Atheel al-Nujaifi.

The Turkish military deployment, even just to train local forces, has been bitterly opposed by the Iraqi government, and al-Abadi has demanded that the troops leave.

Now that the battle for Mosul has started, Erdogan has given a number of incendiary speeches in which he has seemed to suggest that he is itching for the Turkish military to become directly involved in the fighting.

The battle for Mosul began last week with a push by Kurdish and Iraqi forces, backed by US advisers and US airstrikes, to take back dozens of villages outside the city. For the US, Turkey, a Nato ally, has again proven itself a difficult partner in the fight against IS.

As it has in Syria, where Turkey has opposed, and sometimes bombed, Syrian Kurdish allies that are working with the US to fight the IS, Turkey has undermined US goals in Iraq by insisting on playing a role in the fight for Mosul.

For almost a year, US diplomats have sought to contain the crisis. They have encouraged the Turks to respect Iraq's sovereignty and aid the fight against the IS by carrying out activities under the umbrella of the US-led coalition.

But Turkey has kept its troops in Bashiqa, a deployment the Iraqi government says it never approved. According to a US State Department official, Turkey has about 600 to 800 troops at Bashiqa, equipped with tanks and artillery, and has sometimes fired on IS positions from there. Turkish troops did so on Sunday in support of Kurdish peshmerga fighters, officials said.

Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, warned in a recent article in The National Interest that Turkey and Iraq may be heading for war. He wrote that there was a “danger of a war within a war that could damage the prospects for retaking and stabilising Mosul.”

Those fears seem extreme, if only because the Iraqis have their hands full with the IS. But defusing the tension has become another challenge for US diplomats.

The United States is trying to broker a compromise in which the Turks would not directly participate in the Mosul offensive but stick to training and perhaps medical and humanitarian support. In a visit to Turkey in recent days, US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said there was an agreement “in principle” between Turkey and Iraq, which the Iraqi government immediately denied. Iraq appears to want a commitment from the Turks that they will leave after Mosul is retaken.

Carter said the US is trying to balance “our respect for the sovereignty of Iraq” and “our respect also for Turkey's historic role in the region.”

Turkey has a number of strategic reasons for maintaining a military presence in northern Iraq. It wants a bulwark against the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which is waging an insurgency in southeast Turkey and keeps bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. The PKK fought in the battle for Sinjar, in northern Iraq, last year.

Ottoman glory

Turkey, a Sunni power, also says it wants to protect ethnic Turkmen and Sunni Arabs in northern Iraq and counter the presence of Shiite Iran, which is dominant in Iraq and controls several well-equipped militias. More broadly, and in keeping with Erdogan's vision of reclaiming Ottoman glory, Turkey wants to project influence around the region, in Iraq but also in Syria, where in August the Turkish military intervened to push IS out of the city of Jarabulus.

At times, Erdogan has seized on the issue of Mosul to highlight, for his own public, century-old grievances that linger from the end of World War I, when Western powers divided the former Ottoman lands of the Middle East. “We did not voluntarily accept the borders of our country,” he said. He has also referred to a manifesto from the last Ottoman parliament, as the empire crumbled, claiming Mosul as part of Turkey. “Our most important task is to teach this to a new generation,” he said recently.

Mensur Akgun, director of the Global Political Trends Centre in Turkey, said that for Turks, “there is also an emotional side to the issue.” Referring to Mosul, Akgun said: “A century ago, that place was Turkey. A big geography was Turkey. It is committed in the memories that British and French imperialism was responsible.”

Erdogan has said he is worried about the presence in Iraq of Iranian-backed militias, which have been accused of abuses against Sunni civilians. At the same time, Turkey's presence has inflamed sectarian passions within Iraq.

In the run-up to the Mosul battle, the US worked closely with Iraqis to put together a force that included the Iraqi army, Kurdish forces and Sunni tribal fighters but not Shiite militias. But because of Turkey's insistence on playing a role, Shiite militia leaders now say they, too, might join the battle.

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News Network
May 28,2020

New Delhi, May 28: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today reinforced his stance on pointing out "incorrect or disputed information about elections globally", a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to shutter social media over Twitter's actions on his posts.

Mr Dorsey appealed to "leave our employees out of this" as the face-off with Mr Trump is likely to escalate.

"Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make," Mr Dorsey tweeted.

"This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," said the Twitter CEO.

Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.

— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020

"Per our Civic Integrity policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-policy), the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don't need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We're updating the link on

@realDonaldTrump tweet to make this more clear," Mr Dorsey tweeted.

Twitter had tagged two of Mr Trump's tweets in which he claimed that more mail-in voting would lead to what he called a "rigged election" this November. There is no evidence that attempts are being made to rig the election, and under the tweets Twitter posted a link which read: "Get the facts about mail-in ballots."

Five states in the US already conduct elections primarily by mail-in vote: Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon.

For years, Twitter has been accused of ignoring the US President's violation of platform rules with his daily, often hourly barrages of personal insults and inaccurate information sent to more than 80 million followers, news agency AFP reported.

But Twitter's slap on the wrist was enough to drive Mr Trump into a tirade - on Twitter - in which "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.

He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.

"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.

"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.

 he claimed that the political right in the US is being censored.

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.

He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.

"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.

"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.

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News Network
May 20,2020

London, May 20: The current physical distancing guidelines of 6 feet may be insufficient to prevent COVID-19 transmission, according to a study which says a mild cough in low wind speeds can propel saliva droplets by as much as 18 feet.

Researchers, including those from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, said a good baseline for studying the airborne transmission of viruses, like the one behind the COVID-19 pandemic, is a deeper understanding of how particles travel through the air when people cough.

In the study, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, they said even with a slight breeze of about four kilometres per hour (kph), saliva travels 18 feet in 5 seconds.

"The droplet cloud will affect both adults and children of different heights," said study co-author Dimitris Drikakis from the University of Nicosia.

According to the scientists, shorter adults and children could be at higher risk if they are located within the trajectory of the saliva droplets.

They said saliva is a complex fluid, which travels suspended in a bulk of surrounding air released by a cough, adding that many factors affect how saliva droplets travel in the air.

These factors, the study noted, include the size and number of droplets, how they interact with one another and the surrounding air as they disperse and evaporate, how heat and mass are transferred, and the humidity and temperature of the surrounding air.

In the study, the scientists created a computer simulation to examine the state of every saliva droplet moving through the air in front of a coughing person.

The model considered the effects of humidity, dispersion force, interactions of molecules of saliva and air, and how the droplets change from liquid to vapour and evaporate, along with a grid representing the space in front of a coughing person.

Each grid, the scientists said, holds information about variables like pressure, fluid velocity, temperature, droplet mass, and droplet position.

The study analysed the fates of nearly 1,008 simulated saliva droplets, and solved as many as 3.7 million equations.

"The purpose of the mathematical modelling and simulation is to take into account all the real coupling or interaction mechanisms that may take place between the main bulk fluid flow and the saliva droplets, and between the saliva droplets themselves," explained Talib Dbouk, another co-author of the study.

However, the researchers added that further studies are needed to determine the effect of ground surface temperature on the behaviour of saliva in air.

They also believe that indoor environments, especially ones with air conditioning, may significantly affect the particle movement through air.

This work is important since it concerns safety distance guidelines, and advances the understanding of the transmission of airborne diseases, Drikakis said.

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News Network
April 30,2020

Los Angeles, Apr 30: Los Angeles will begin offering coronavirus">coronavirus testing for free to all citizens regardless of whether they have symptoms, Mayor Eric Garcetti said on Wednesday, adding that LA is the first major US city to take such an initiative.

During the press conference, Garcetti announced that all county residents can now get free coronavirus">coronavirus testing. 

He said the announcement will only apply to city residents for now, but that a similar plan is in development for Los Angeles County,
Garcetti also took to Twitter to announce the same. "Announcing that L.A. is now the first major city in America to offer free COVID-19 testing to all residents. 

While priority will still be given to those with symptoms, individuals without symptoms can also be tested. Sign up at Coronavirus.LACity.org/Testing," he said
Under the new guidelines, priority for the same- or next-day testing will still be given to people with symptoms, such as a fever, cough, and shortness of breath. The free testing will also be prioritized for certain critical frontline workers who interact with the public.

Until now, only residents with symptoms as well as essential workers and those in institutional settings like nursing homes could be tested.

On Wednesday, the LA County reported 1,541 new cases, bringing the total to 22,485 - a seven per cent increase since yesterday.

This includes a backlog of cases that were processed. In the city, there were 683 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 10,380 -- a 7 percent increase since yesterday.

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