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Erdogan declared winner of Turkey presidential polls

Agencies
June 25, 2018

Istanbul, Jun 25: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won tightly-contested presidential polls, the election authority said Monday, extending his 15-year grip on power as the opposition complained bitterly about the conduct of the vote count.

Turkish voters had for the first time cast ballots for both president and parliament in the snap elections, with Erdogan looking for a first round knockout and an overall majority for his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The stakes were particularly high as the new president will be the first to enjoy enhanced powers, without even a prime minister, under a new constitution agreed in an April 2017 referendum strongly backed by Erdogan but which opponents say grants autocratic powers.

Erdogan defeated his nearest rival Muharrem Ince with an "absolute majority" of more than half the vote without needing a second round, said the chief of Turkey's election authority, Sadi Guven.

"I have been entrusted by the nation with the task and duties of the presidency," Erdogan said in a victory address at his Istanbul residence, vowing that the new presidential system would be implemented "rapidly".

"Turkey has given a lesson in democracy to the entire world," he added, pointing to an 88 percent turnout.

Erdogan won 52.5 percent in the presidential poll while Ince, of the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), was on 31.5 percent, state-run Anadolu news agency said, based on a 99 percent vote count.

If confirmed, the figures would show Erdogan polling on a similar rating or even stronger than his 2014 election victory where he won his first mandate after over a decade as prime minister.

Celebrations erupted outside Erdogan's residence in Istanbul and AKP headquarters in Ankara, with crowds of flag-waving supporters, news agency correspondents said.

Erdogan flew in triumph to Ankara where he held his traditional victory speech from the balcony of AKP headquarters at 3:00 am (midnight GMT). "The winner of this election is each and every individual among my 81 million citizens," he declared.

The usually loquacious Ince however remained silent, tweeting only that he would make a statement at 0900 GMT on Monday.

Trailing were Selahattin Demirtas of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) with over eight percent in third and Meral Aksener of the nationalist (Iyi) Good Party with over seven percent.

Erdogan also declared victory in the parliamentary election saying that the alliance led by the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) had won the majority in parliament.

A count of 99 percent of the votes showed that Erdogan's AKP and the MHP would win 293 and 50 seats respectively, enough for an easy majority in the 600-member chamber.

The HDP was polling 11.5 percent, well over the 10 percent minimum threshold needed, to win 67 seats which would make the party the second largest opposition faction in the new chamber.

Celebrations erupted in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir, with people letting off fireworks into the sky, AFP correspondents said.

Its success is all the more remarkable given the HDP's Demirtas has campaigned from a jail cell after his November 2016 arrest on charges of links to outlawed Kurdish militants.

Erdogan had faced an energetic campaign by Ince, who has rivalled the incumbent's charisma and crowd-pulling on the campaign trail, as well as a strong opposition alliance in the legislative poll.

But the CHP expressed unease over the conduct of the count, accusing Anadolu of being over hasty in publishing results that favoured Erdogan.

Its spokesman Bulent Tezcan said Anadolu had published a count of over 90 percent of votes while in fact short of 40 percent had been counted.

Several world leaders supportive of Erdogan, including Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, called to congratulate him on his "victory", the presidency said.

Erdogan also warned anyone against casting doubt on the results: "I hope nobody will harm our country's democracy by casting a shadow on the election system and its results in order to disguise their failure."

Erdogan has overseen historic change in Turkey since his Islamic-rooted ruling party first came to power in 2002 after years of secular domination. But critics accuse the Turkish strongman, 64, of trampling on civil liberties and autocratic behaviour.

The president has for the last two years ruled under a state of emergency imposed in the wake of the 2016 failed coup, with tens of thousands arrested in an unprecedented crackdown which cranked up tensions with the West.

Erdogan has also campaigned against the backdrop of increasing economic woes including high inflation and a currency that has sometimes been in freefall.

And although Erdogan dominated airtime on a pliant mainstream media, Ince finished his campaign with eye-catching mass rallies, including a mega meeting in Istanbul on Saturday, that gave hope to the opposition.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
August 1,2020

New Delhi, July 1: In a terrific incident with chilling echoes of the 2015 Dadri mob lynching, a Muslim man, who was carrying meat, was savagely attacked by a mob belonging to a saffron outfit in the presence of in BJP ruled Haryana on the eve of Eid al-Adha. 

The incident occurred at around 9 a.m. on Friday, July 31 at Badshahpur village in Haryana’s Gurgaon, when Lukman was transporting meat in a pic-kup truck. 

The attack was captured on mobile phones by onlookers and the video clips of the incident are now spreading on social media. 

A group of saffronite cow vigilantes chased the truck for about 8 km managed waylay it. Lukman, who was driving the truck was pulled out and brutally assaulted on the suspicion that he was transporting cow meat.

Just like Dadri, the police were faster at sending the meat to a lab for testing than catching any one of the suspects. One of the assailants - Pradeep Yadav- has been arrested. 

After being beating to an inch of his life, Lukman was bundled into the pick-up truck and taken back to Gurgaon's Badshahpur village where the goons started thrashing him again.

This is when the police stepped in and stopped them - only to find the assailants fearless enough to even take on them.

Lukman was taken to a hospital and the police filed a case against "unidentified individuals" even though the video of the incident recorded by witnesses shows the faces of the assailants.

The owner of the vehicles said that the meat was buffalo and he has been in the business for 50 years.

The police have so far refused to give a statement on record on the incident and explain their inaction as seen on video.

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Agencies
July 22,2020

Houston, Jul 22: China said on Wednesday that the US has ordered it to close its consulate in Houston in what an official called an outrageous and unjustified move that will sabotage China-US relations.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin condemned the action, which comes as tensions rise between the world's two largest economies. He warned of firm countermeasures if the US does not reverse its decision.

The unilateral closure of China's consulate general in Houston within a short period of time is an unprecedented escalation of its recent actions against China, Wang said at a daily news briefing.

There was no immediate confirmation or explanation from the U.S. side.

Media reports in Houston said that authorities had responded to reports of a fire at the consulate. Witnesses said that people were burning paper in what appeared to be trash cans, the Houston Chronicle reported, citing police.

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News Network
May 20,2020

Kensington (United States), May 20: The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17% at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found.

But with life and heat-trapping gas levels inching back toward normal, the brief pollution break will likely be “a drop in the ocean" when it comes to climate change, scientists said.

In their study of carbon dioxide emissions during the coronavirus pandemic, an international team of scientists calculated that pollution levels are heading back up — and for the year will end up between 4% and 7% lower than 2019 levels.

That's still the biggest annual drop in carbon emissions since World War II.

It'll be 7% if the strictest lockdown rules remain all year long across much of the globe, 4% if they are lifted soon.

For a week in April, the United States cut its carbon dioxide levels by about one-third.

China, the world's biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases, sliced its carbon pollution by nearly a quarter in February, according to a study Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change. India and Europe cut emissions by 26% and 27% respectively.

The biggest global drop was from April 4 through 9 when the world was spewing 18.7 million tons (17 million metric tons) of carbon pollution a day less than it was doing on New Year's Day.

Such low global emission levels haven't been recorded since 2006. But if the world returns to its slowly increasing pollution levels next year, the temporary reduction amounts to ''a drop in the ocean," said study lead author Corinne LeQuere, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia.

“It's like you have a bath filled with water and you're turning off the tap for 10 seconds," she said.

By April 30, the world carbon pollution levels had grown by 3.3 million tons (3 million metric tons) a day from its low point earlier in the month. Carbon dioxide stays in the air for about a century.

Outside experts praised the study as the most comprehensive yet, saying it shows how much effort is needed to prevent dangerous levels of further global warming.

“That underscores a simple truth: Individual behavior alone ... won't get us there,” Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn't part of the study, said in an email.

“We need fundamental structural change.”

If the world could keep up annual emission cuts like this without a pandemic for a couple decades, there's a decent chance Earth can avoid warming another 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) of warming from now, study authors said. But getting the type of yearly cuts to reach that international goal is unlikely, they said.

If next year returns to 2019 pollution levels, it means the world has only bought about a year's delay in hitting the extra 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) of warming that leaders are trying to avoid, LeQuere said. That level could still occur anywhere from 2050 to 2070, the authors said.

The study was carried out by Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international scientists that produces the authoritative annual estimate of carbon dioxide emissions. They looked at 450 databases showing daily energy use and introduced a measurement scale for pandemic-related societal “confinement” in its estimates.

Nearly half the emission reductions came from less transportation pollution, mostly involving cars and trucks, the authors said. By contrast, the study found that drastic reductions in air travel only accounted for 10% of the overall pollution drop.

In the US, the biggest pollution declines were seen in California and Washington with plunges of more than 40%.

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