The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Turkey

  • Three NICO workers for youth summer school in Turkey

    Three employees of National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) attending the first edition of the YunusEmre Institute 2018 Summer School for Youths in Turkey are in high spirit on how to foster cultural diplomacy with other participants and Turkey. They are Gbemisola Ajibade, who is at Edirne, Miss Njideka Dimgba at Bursa, while Mr. Safiyanu Abdulrahaman is at Izmir. The leader of the delegation to Turkey, Miss Ajibade, who is a Senior Research Officer at the NICO Headquarters, Abuja, said there are so many activities to learn from the Yunus Emre Institute 2018 Summer School.

    “I think we are going to have more than enough opportunities to learn about the culture of the Turkish people, including their history, language, hospitality and even cuisines. Look at the arrangement made by the organisers and the prompt response to welcome participants on arrival at the airport. This is very nice,” she said.

    On arrival at Istanbul, the participants were taken to different locations for the training. While Miss Ajibade is in Edirne, Miss Njideka Dimgba is in Bursa while Mr. Safiyanu Abdulrahaman is in Izmir where they will participate in the 27 days programme scheduled to end on August 10.

    No fewer than 21 students from Bangladesh, Kagygstan, Austria, Italy, Paraguay, Mexico, Egypt, Ghana. United Kingdom, Singapore, France, Nigeria, Cameroon, Malaysia, Peru, Rome, Pakistan, United States, the Philippines and Burkina Faso, among others, are participating in the first edition of Youth Summer School tagged: TukceYaz Okulu 2018.

    The introductory lecture, which held simultaneously in all the universities where the YunusEmre Institute 2018 Youth  Summer School was taking place saw students being handed over their  customised summer school bags, T-shirts, writing materials, text-books, workbooks, mugs and towels with their names boldly crested on the bags.

     

  • FIFA reduces number of officials for final phase of World Cup

    The FIFA Referees’ Committee (FRC) on Monday said it has reduced the number of match officials earlier slated for the final phase of the 2018 World Cup.
    Pierluigi Collina, the chairman of the committee, told reporters in Moscow, that 12 referees, 26 assistant referees and 10 Video Assistant Referees (VARs) have now been selected for the final phase.
    The News men that the phase, which include semi-finals, third-place and final stage matches, begin with the semi-finals on Tuesday in St. Petersburg.
    “Given the fact that there are only four games left to play, the number of referees has been reduced again.
    “Five referees and 11 assistant referees have been removed from the list we gave out after the second round.
    “But the VARs, which are 10 in number, still remain as earlier selected for the final phase,’’ Collina said.
    The News men reports that the committee had last Wednesday selected 17 referees, 37 assistant referees and 10 Video Assistant Referees (VARs) for the final phase of the tournament.
    Collina however did not explain why the action was taken.
    “I can only say it was all due to the number of matches remaining in the competition,’’ he said.

    Read Also: 10 candidates for football’s 2018 best player award – FIFA

    Collina added: “But at this point in time, the committee will like to thank all match officials who have been involved in the 2018 World Cup so far for their commitment and professionalism.’’
    The News men reports that the semi-final matches will see France take on Belgium on Tuesday in St Petersburg, while Croatia will face England on Wednesday in Moscow.

    The third-place match is slated for Saturday in St Petersburg, while the final match is billed for Sunday at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
    The new list of referees, from where match officials who would handle the final match of Sunday would be picked, has Alireza Faghani of Iran, Malang Diedhiou of Senegal, Mark Geiger of the U.S.
    Others are Cesar Palazuelos of Mexico, Andres Cunha of Uruguay, Nestor Pitana of Argentina, Sandro Ricci of Brazil and Matthew Conger of New Zealand, Cuneyt Cakir of Turkey, Bjorn Kuipers of the Netherlands, Milorad Mazic of Serbia and Gianluca Rocchi of Italy.
    Thirty six referees and 63 assistant referees were selected in March for the competition, alongside 13 VARs.
    They were picked from the 53 groups of three referees placed under FIFA’s watch for the competition since September 2014.

  • Does margarine kill turkey?

    For months now my mail has been inundated with all kinds of frightening messages concerning the negative health implication of consuming margarine. I ignored all of them but the recent one which even stated that margarine can actually kill turkey amongst other claims prompted me into action. Fortunately I stumbled on an article by Laurie Neverman, a nutrition scientist. She actually responded to the issues raised in the same post which I recently received. Her article is reproduced below:

    Misinformation never dies on the internet it just gets turned into another Facebook meme that gets shared over a million times. Today’s case in point–margarine myths. I am not a fan of margarine. I think it is a sad excuse for butter, and always has been. That said, the unverified information and fear mongering being shared on the internet is just plain silly. If you are going to avoid bad food, do it for legitimate reasons. There are plenty of them.

    In this publication we will present some margarine myths/facts and the real problems with margarine. We shall also share some facts about butter.

    Margarine myth-margarine kills turkeys

    Here is the internet margarine myth:

    Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.

    This is False: Margarine was invented in France by Hippolyte Mege-Mouriez as a cheap butter alternative to feed Emperor Napoleon III’s troops back in 1869. The original formula was based on beef tallow and milk in combination with margaric acid, and was called oleo-margarine. Current margarine products are made with vegetable oil blends.

    To the best of my knowledge, no turkeys have been directly killed by margarine, however, consuming large amounts of margarine may reduce turkey lifespans and overall health. Alternatively, if a case of margarine landed on a turkey,that might lead to the turkey’s demise.

    Here’s the internet margarine myth:

    Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC… and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT.

    These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

    Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

    * no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

    * it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.

    Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

    False: well, not just false, more like completely nonsensical. It is like saying apples are one fruit away from an orange because they both grow on trees.

    As for the paint comment, which margarine and which paint? Ingredients can be used for more than one purpose. I may mix up a batch of weed killer out of concentrated vinegar that gets rid of weeds in the sidewalk cracks, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use the same vinegar to make a batch of pickles.

    What is the difference between butter and margarine?

    Both margarine and plastic contain hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are organic compounds that are made of only hydrogen and carbon atoms. Common hydrocarbons include oil and gas. That doesn’t mean that foods with hydrogen and carbon atoms are dangerous.

    It’s all about how the atoms within the molecule are arranged. You wouldn’t guzzle down a jug of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), but water (H2O) makes a refreshing beverage.

    Butter is a saturated fat. This means all its carbon bonds are filled, mostly with hydrogen. While previously villainized as evil, saturated fats have been cleared of wrong doing and are essential to good health.

    Margarine is made out of poly-unsaturated fats, which means that some of the carbon atoms are initially double bonded. To make these vegetable oils thick and spreadable (like butter), they use some processed food chemical magic to add more hydrogen.  This is called hydrogenation.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that hydrogenated oils (also known as transfats) are not good for you.

    I don’t agree with their push for veggie oil at the end, since many vegetable oils are now genetically modified and/or heavily processed, but it takes a while for the mainstream to accept new info. Personally, I recommend good quality fats (pastured animal products when you can get them and responsibly raised coconut and palm oils and olive oil) as part of a healthy diet. If I can’t get grass-fed (or it isn’t in the budget), I go for the least processed option available.

    As for the part about the flies and fruit flies won’t eat margarine…

    Fruit flies are attracted to fruit, not oil. Of course they don’t bother margarine. I haven’t tested margarine, but a while back we did a little homeschooling test with non-dairy whipped topping and real raw whipped cream. They both sat in my north window from March to October, virtually unchanged. The raw cream did attract one bug, the whipped topping attracted none.

     

     

     

     

  • Earthquake injures 39 in central Turkey

    A 5.1 magnitude earthquake in central Turkey has left 39 people injured and caused damage to homes, however, no one was hospitalised in serious condition, the country’s health minister reported on Tuesday.

    The quake in Adiyaman province, about 530 kilometres south-east of the capital Ankara, struck in the middle of the night.

    Footage released by the local Dogan news agency showed livestock, including goats, being rescued from beneath the rubble in the early morning hours as heavy machinery was brought in to demolish homes that had been badly damaged and risked collapse.

    Ahmet Demircan, Turkey’s Health Minister, was quoted by the state-run Anadolu news agency, as saying 35 people remained in hospital, but none faced life-threatening injuries.

    Turkey sits across major geographic fault lines and has suffered devastating earthquakes in the past, including one near Istanbul in 1999, that left more than 17,000 people dead.

    dpa/NAN

  • U.S. pastor denies allegations of coup links as Turkey trial begins

    A U.S. pastor on Monday denied allegations of links to a group accused of orchestrating a failed military coup in Turkey, as he went on trial in a case that has fuelled strains in relations between Ankara and Washington.

    Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina living in Turkey for 23 years, was been indicted on charges of helping the group that Turkey holds responsible for the failed 2016 coup against President Tayyip Erdogan.

    “I’ve never done something against Turkey. I love Turkey. I’ve been praying for Turkey for 25 years.

    “I want truth to come out,” Andrew Brunson told the court in the western Turkish town of Aliaga, north of the Aegean city of Izmir.

    “I do not accept the charges mentioned in the indictment. I was never involved in any illegal activities,” said Brunson, making his defence in Turkish.

    Read Also: Leah’s absence a blow to our church, says Pastor

    His wife was in the courtroom, as were North Carolina senator Thom Tillis and U.S. envoy for religious freedom Sam Brownback.

    Brunson’s trial is one of several legal cases which have hurt ties between Turkey and the U.S.
    The two countries are also at odds over Washington’s support for a Kurdish militia in northern Syria that Turkey considers a terrorist organisation.

    Washington has called for Brunson’s release while Erdogan suggested in 2017 the pastor’s fate could be linked to that of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose extradition Ankara has repeatedly sought to face charges over the coup attempt.

    NAN

  • ‘Al-Assad cannot be part of Syria solution’

    Syrian crisis needs a negotiated solution involving all powers in the region, German foreign minister Heiko Maas said on Monday, adding he could not imagine anyone who had used chemical weapons against his own people to be part of that process, Maas was asked whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could be part of a solution to the crisis in Syria.

    “There will be a solution involving everyone who has influence on the region,” he told reporters on arrival to a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

    “Nobody can imagine someone who uses chemical weapons against his own people to be part of this solution.”

    The news men reports that the U. S., Britain and France fired more than 100 missiles at Syria on Friday in a “one-time shot”
    the Pentagon said followed evidence that Al-Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack using at least chlorine gas.

    Read Also:U.S ‘will press’ Russia to ditch Al-Assad

    While Turkey is cooperating with both Russia and Iran to wind down some of the violence in Syria, Ankara has long demanded that President Al-Assad must go and has backed rebels against him. Assad’s main supporters are Moscow and Tehran.

    Turkey has also been at loggerheads with Washington over U.S. support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist organisation linked to Kurdish militants waging a decades-long insurgency in Turkish soil.

    Turkey supported the air strikes by U.S., British and French forces, saying the move sent a message to Al-Assad.

    NAN

  • Seismic Impact

    Seismic Impact

    Nearly two decades ago, an earthquake jolted Selma Demirelli into action—and she hasn’t stopped since.

     

    It took only 45 seconds. In the early hours of August 17, 1999, an earthquake struck Turkey’s Marmara region, killing tens of thousands of people, including Selma Demirelli’s husband. Like the millions of other survivors, her life would never be the same.

    After getting through the initial shock, Demirelli found salvation in helping others, signing up to work as a field coordinator for an NGO, the Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work. She soon witnessed the many and varied problems earthquake survivors endure; she also learned that while traumas caused by natural disasters are in theory gender neutral, they often affect women, children and the handicapped more than others.

    She was lucky to have been an exception. A few days after her husband’s funeral, his relatives asked her for the deed to her house, which was flattened by the earthquake. Turkey has equal rights of inheritance, but there are still certain patriarchal legal practices that work against women. A widow without a child, for instance, becomes obliged to share her husband’s property with his relatives. And in marriages where the husband is the only income provider, the property is registered under the name of the husband.

    As it turned out, Demirelli was legally entitled to keep her house, but the realization that not everyone was so lucky prompted her to found the country’s first women’s housing cooperative to empower women as property owners.

    “The amount of money we started with was so small that when I took it to the bank, the manager made fun of me,” she recounted. “‘Why are you wasting your time?’ he said. ‘You are a beautiful woman, find a man and remarry.’”

    His comment left her in tears, but it also strengthened her resolve. She made countless trips to the capital city of Ankara to secure the allotment of real estate, then enlisted NGOs and institutions such as Istanbul Technical University to help with aspects such as housing design.

    Meanwhile, she became involved in another housing project. When a local charity group composed of businessmen offered to provide a yearlong supply of food to earthquake survivors, she explained that it would be better to help with a more long-term solution: She convinced them to construct houses for 200 families instead.

    It was typical of Demirelli, who has become known for her efforts to make assistance sustainable. Her work in camps built for earthquake survivors, for example, involved gathering women to talk and to provide them training. Soon however she realized that many of them were not able to participate because there was no place to leave their children.

    That prompted her to found the Water Lily Women’s Cooperative—once again, she made numerous trips to the capital to secure the allotment of a real estate for a center to provide day care for children up to the age of six. It took years of persistent efforts; national and local government bureaucracies hoped to wear her down, but the opposite happened. When they realized she would not give up, they gave up. She got the real estate for the center, beating out rival groups who wanted it for a commercial project or gas station.

    Today the activities of the Water Lily Women’s Cooperative are not limited to childcare. Mothers use the free time they now have to attend training programs—in finance, business development, entrepreneurship—that enable them to join the work force.

    Most recently, Demirelli has turned her focus to projects to end violence against women, which has reached alarming levels in Turkey. In addition to raising awareness, she is seeking new approaches to combat this problem. “I’m not against shelters where women who are victims of violence can seek refuge,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it deprives them of their freedom. Why should women have to leave their homes? We also need to address the men who use violence against women.”

    That 1999 earthquake may have destroyed much of Demirelli’s world, but it did not destroy her. Instead, she used that tragedy as a springboard to help build better lives for so many others.

  • Turkey detains 666 over social media criticism of Afrin operation

    Turkey detains 666 over social media criticism of Afrin operation

    Turkey Ministry of Interior on Monday said that since the country launched its operation in Syria’s Afrin district, police have detained 666 people, over social media posts opposing the military campaign.

    “Since the start of Operation Olive Branch, 666 people have been detained over the terrorist propaganda in social media,” the ministry said in a statement.

    Harlem Dessir, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation ( OSCE ) Representative on Freedom of the Media, denounced the detention of hundreds of people in Turkey over their public criticism of the operation.

    Desir urged Ankara to reverse its hard-line policy and release the dissenters.

    Read More: Turkey seeks arrest of ex-CIA officer over coup plot

    The Turkish Armed Forces, on Jan. 20, launched Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish forces in Afrin, an area controlled by the U.S.-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units ( YPG ).

    The operation has been conducted jointly with the Free Syrian Army forces.

    Damascus has firmly condemned the operation as an assault on Syria’s sovereignty and urged all the parties to exercise restraint and called for respect of Syria’s territorial integrity.

    NAN

  • Turkey warns citizens traveling to U. S. of arbitrary arrest

    Turkey warns citizens traveling to U. S. of arbitrary arrest

    Turkey on Friday warned its citizens against travel to the U.S., saying Turks face the risk of arbitrary arrest and should take precautions if they do decide to travel.

    The comments from the Turkish Foreign Ministry come after the U.S. Department of State this week made a similar warning to its citizens, saying Americans planning to visit Turkey should reconsider plans due to “terrorism and arbitrary detentions”.

    Ties between Ankara and Washington, both NATO allies and members of the coalition against Islamic State, have been strained by the U.S. arrest and conviction of a Turkish banker in an Iran sanctions-busting case, a trial Turkey has dismissed as politically motivated.

    “Turkish citizens traveling to the United States may be subjected to arbitrary detentions based on testimonies of unrespected sources,” the ministry said in a statement.

    Read also: Turkey detains 201 IS members planning New Year attacks

    Ankara has said that the case against the banker was based on false evidence and supported by the network of the cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it blames for orchestrating a failed coup in 2016.

    Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the U.S. since 1999, has denied the charges and condemned the coup.

    The travel warning updates come after the U.S. and Turkey lifted all visa restrictions against each other in late December, ending a months-long visa dispute that began when Washington suspended visa services at its Turkish missions after two local employees of the U.S. consulate were detained on suspicion of links to the coup.

    NAN

  • Turkey detains 201 IS members planning New Year attacks

    Turkey detains 201 IS members planning New Year attacks

    Turkish authorities have detained 201 suspected members of the Islamic State extremist group over the past 48 hours accused of planning attacks on New Year’s Eve celebrations.

    State-run Anadolu news agency reported that the police carried simultaneous raids in 14 separate provinces, netting 124 suspects with alleged ties to the Sunni extremist group on Thursday and another 77 on Friday.

    According to the news agency, the suspects included foreign nationals.

    Police seized documents and digital material that revealed plans for separate attacks on New Year’s Eve.

    The raids came nearly a year after an Islamic State gunman attacked the Reina nightclub in Istanbul as revellers were celebrating New Year’s Eve, killing 39 people.

    Read also: How Buhari doused tension between Nigeria, Turkey

    The Reina shooting preceded a wave of smaller attacks by Islamic State and hardliner Kurdish nationalists in Turkey in 2015 and 2016.

    The news agency reported on Wednesday, security forces in Istanbul cited security concerns in issuing a ban on New Year’s Eve celebrations in three central districts, including the iconic Taksim Square.

    Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, set aside January 1 as a public holiday.

    Trees and ornaments appear in public displays to mark the occasion, but Islamists have pushed back against them as symbols of Christmas.

    (dpa/NAN)