Tag: InternationalNews

{In an interview with Al Jazeera, the Turkish president says the country’s democracy is not under threat.}

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted the Turkish democracy is not under threat, but said there could be more arrests in the wake of last week’s failed coup attempt, in a wide-ranging interview with Al Jazeera.

“We will remain inside a democratic parliamentary system, we will never step back from it,” he told Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, speaking through a translator, from inside the presidential palace in Ankara.

“However, whatever is necessary for the nation’s peace and stability will be done,” Erdogan said, expressing doubts, however, that the coup attempt was entirely over.

“I don’t think we have come to the end of it yet.”

Erdogan’s comments came moments ahead of announcing a three-month state of emergency in response to the failed coup.

“I would like to underline that the declaration of the state of emergency has the sole purpose of taking the necessary measures, in the face of the terrorist threat that our country is facing,” he said in a televised address, vowing that the “virus in the military will be cleansed”.

{{‘Crime against Turkish state’}}

In his interview with Al Jazeera, Erdogan described the attempted coup as “a crime against the Turkish state”, adding that the government was making sure “every step is taken within the law”.

The Turkish government’s purge of state institutions following Friday night’s failed coup has already cleared out about 60,000 people.

This has led rights organisations and Turkey’s allies to voice some concern about the direction the country is taking after the coup attempt, with some claiming that the president was using the weekend’s events to legitimise the crackdown of any kind of opposition.

Erdogan responded to criticisms about the high number of arrests that followed the coup attempt by giving examples from other countries that faced security threats in the recent past, claiming the Turkish government’s reaction was not any different.

“For example, in the face of terrorist acts, France took numerous steps and certain stands,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Did they not detain people en masse? Did they not arrest people in very high numbers? We can not deny those situations.

“Three months ago they had an emergency state, initially it was three months, then it was prolonged.”

The Turkish president also repeated his claim that US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his movement was behind the coup attempt and said it would be a big mistake if the US decided not to extradite him. Gulen, who lives in exile in the US state of Pennsylvania, has denied any involvement.

But, Erdogan also emphasised that he did not want to strain Turkey’s relations with the US as a result of the extradition request.

“We need to be more sensitive,” he said. “Relations between our countries are based on interests, not feelings. We are strategic partners.”

The Turkish president said he believed foreign countries might have been involved in the failed coup attempt, though he declined to name any.

Erdogan also reiterated Turkey would consider reinstating the death penalty after the failed attempt to overthrow his government.

“I will approve capital punishment if it’s passed by parliament,” he said.

Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 under reforms aimed at obtaining European Union membership.

Reinstatement would create further issues between the EU and Ankara in the already stalled membership talks.

But, Erdogan insisted that Turkey’s decision on the capital punishment should not affect its relations with the EU.

“If the EU respects democracy it will accept people’s will,” he said. “The world is not simply the European Union. Do you have capital punishment in the US, Russia, China and in many other countries? Yes.”

Highlighted excerpts from Erdogan’s interview below:

On how he found out about the coup attempt: “It was my brother-in-law who gave me first the news. Initially my reaction was disbelief … I had a conversation with the head of the national intelligence agency, I was already with the minister of energy on site and we decided to take a number of steps. One of the first steps involved my family and me taking a helicopter from where we were to Dalaman, and from Dalaman to come to Istanbul by plane.

On arriving in Istanbul: “When we arrived in Istanbul, of course there were some difficult moments there as well … We had F-16 jets flying in low altitude, faster than the speed of sound; that was of course an effort to instill fear in the hearts of tens of thousands of people who were assembled there, and then we sat down with a number of colleagues in positions of authority and we planned the aftermath, what was going to follow.”

On potential foreign involvement in the failed coup: “There might be other countries involved as well; the Gulenist terror organisation also has another superior mind, if you will, and a time will come when those connections will be deciphered. We have to be patient … But I don’t think it will take long. The judiciary is acting and I think all of those connections will come to the light of day.”

On critics accusing him of a media crackdown: “I have never been against media; there have been numerous insults and libels against me and my family and those outlets are still broadcasting. But in this incident even they said they were on the side of the president, because [a pro-coup] direction would doom them and be the end of them.”

On reinstating the death penalty: “If parliament makes that decision, then the duty of the authorities in power is to pave the way for this punishment to be reintroduced. The people have voiced this demand. They took to the streets and kept saying ‘capital punishment, capital punishment, capital punishment.’”

{US officials allege $1bn siphoned from Malaysia state fund and used as “personal bank account” to buy luxury assets.}

A Malaysian opposition party leader has called on Prime Minister Najib Razak to step down following the lawsuit filed by the US Justice Department to seize $1bn in assets linked to the country’s scandal-plagued 1MDB state investment fund.

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that the assets were “associated with an international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated” from 1MDB, and included lavish real estate in Beverly Hills and New York, artwork by Monet and Van Gogh, and a business jet.

“I believe the Malaysian people want Dato’ Sri Najib to go on leave as prime minister so as not to create the perception of abuse of power or process to halt or hinder a full and transparent investigation on this very serious issue,” Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, president of the People’s Justice Party (PKR), said in a statement on Thursday.

Malaysia’s government should allow an independent commission investigate corruption claims outlined by the Justice Department, said Wan Azizah, who is the wife of jailed Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

The lawsuit alleges a complex money laundering scheme that the Justice Department said was intended to enrich top-level officials of 1MDB.

In a press conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the 1MDB funds were used as a “personal bank account”.

Swiss say $4bn may be missing from Malaysia state fund

The fund is owned by the Malaysian government, but none of the lawsuits named Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

However, the case named Riza Aziz, the prime minister’s step-son, as a “relevant individual” in the case.

The lawsuits also named Najib’s friend, Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, and Abu Dhabi government officials Khadem al-Qubaisi and Mohamed Ahmed Badawy Al-Husseiny.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent Sohail Rahman, speaking from Kuala Lumpur, said the prime minister’s office issued a statement overnight in response to the allegations.

As the prime minister holds the financial portfolio under which 1MDB operates, and many of his critics say he should have known what was going on “and many actually accuse him of being involved in this whole scenario,” Rahman said.

Ordinary Malaysians will likely be shocked by this US investigation, as the Malaysian government’s own probe of 1MDB has already ended, he said.

“The case in theory has been closed since October when the attorney general here in Malaysia said that there was no wrongdoing, and ordered the Malaysian anti-corruption commission to close the case.”

“However, this re-opens it from, certainly, across the Pacific, where the US now will go forward to try and investigate how these assets were bought,” Rahman said.

In the statement, the prime minister’s office said it would “fully cooperate with any lawful investigation of Malaysian companies or citizens, in accordance with international protocols, as the prime minister has always maintained, if any wrongdoing is proven, the law will be enforced without exception,” he added.

{{‘Money-laundering scheme’}}

The 1MDB fund was created in 2009 by the Malaysian government with the goal of promoting economic development projects in the Asian nation.

Instead, officials at the fund diverted more than $3.5bn over the next four years through a web of shell companies and bank accounts in Singapore, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the US, according to the justice department complaint.

Federal officials said more than $1bn was laundered into the US for the personal benefit of 1MDB officials and their associates.

The funds were used to pay for luxury real estate in the US and Europe; gambling expenses in Las Vegas casinos; a London interior designer; more than $200m artwork by artists, including Van Gogh and Monet; and for the production of films, including the 2013 Oscar-nominated movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

The complaint said that among those who profited from the scheme was the prime minister’s step-son Aziz, who co-founded Red Granite Pictures, a movie production studio whose films include “The Wolf of Wall Street”.

According to the complaint, 11 wire transfers totaling $64m were used to fund the studio’s operations, including the production of the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Leslie Caldwell, US assistant attorney general, said at the news conference on Wednesday that neither 1MDB nor the Malaysia people saw “a penny of profit from that film,” or the other assets that were purchased with fund siphoned from 1MDB.

Red Granite said on Wednesday that none of the funding it received four years ago was illegitimate and nothing the company or Riza did was wrong.

Authorities in neighbouring Singapore also announced on Thursday that they seized assets worth $240m in their own investigation of 1MDB-related fund for possible money laundering.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, as well as the city state’s Attorney-General’s Chambers and the Commercial Affairs Department said their investigation of the funds found “deficiencies” at several major banks, including “undue delay in detecting and reporting suspicious transactions.”

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington DC Kimberly Halkett said the investigation is likely to strain US relations with Malaysia, which President Obama had personally tried to cultivate, having played a round of golf with Najib during a visit to the country in 2014.

{Apart from immigration reform, Trump and conservative Indiana governor Pence do not see eye to eye on many issues.}

Cleveland, Ohio – It was supposed to be Mike Pence’s night, his Republican national convention debut as running mate to presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Republicans voiced hopes earlier that his speech on Wednesday night would unite the party following a tense start to the gathering, but these hopes were dashed when former presidential candidate Ted Cruz encouraged Americans to “vote their conscience”.

Earlier today, senior campaign manager Paul Manafort called the Indiana governor “dogged,” and “a man after Trump’s own heart,” saying his introduction to the American people tonight would “help us to accelerate the unification of the party in a real, meaningful way”.

Instead, Pence’s speech was overshadowed by Cruz, who, having refused to endorse the celebrity business tycoon, was booed by delegates on the third night of the convention in Cleveland.

Pence was not Trump’s first choice. Many pundits believe that the socially conservative governor was chosen in the hopes that he may be able to get the Republican bigwigs to support this unlikely nominee. But apart from immigration reform, the two don’t see eye to eye on much: on social security and Medicare, on trade agreements, and the war on Iraq.

“Pence is arguably about the best Trump could do,” said Michael Tomasky, editor of Democracy, a quarterly liberal journal.

“Conservatives love him, and he at least represents some kind of tie to the Republican Party establishment. But the two of them come from such completely different worlds and don’t have much chemistry.”

While Pence – a former congressman – does add a layer of legislative prowess to a campaign that lacks it, his history has also been mired in controversy.

“Pence needs to demonstrate that he brings knowledge, measured judgement and gravitas to the ticket,” said Frederick Clarkson, senior fellow at Political Research Associates, a social-justice think-tank.

“As a former six term member of Congress and current governor of a state, we can believe that Pence will do that. But then the question becomes, what is the substance that he brings?”

The man, who described himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican,” came under fire for signing the “Religious Freedom” bill in 2015 that some said allowed businesses to deny services to gays by invoking religious reasons.

“Although abortion rights and marriage equality are part of the unambiguous law of the land, Pence represents the politics of permanent reaction and rollback, seeking to use the tools of government to undermine access to these rights wherever he can,” Clarkson told Al Jazeera.

Pence, also a former private attorney and a talk-radio show host, compared a Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act to the 9/11 attacks. As governor, he attempted to forbid Syrian refugees from settling in Indiana, and opposed amnesty to millions of immigrants without legal status.

The Clinton campaign has already accused him of opposing a federal minimum wage hike and signing a law that could allow for Indiana skilled workers to be paid less.

Trump has chosen “an incredibly divisive and unpopular running mate known for supporting discriminatory politics and failed economic policies that favour millionaires and corporations over working families,” said John Podesta, chair of Hillary for America.

While Pence has distanced himself from the anti-Muslim rhetoric that has become a hallmark of Trumps’ campaign (he described Trump’s proposed Muslim ban as “offensive and unconstitutional”) some liberals believe that his views do not bode well for American freedoms.

“Mr. Pence brings a distinctly conservative Christian theocratic strain to government and politics, and in that way poses an ongoing threat to the civil and religious rights of all Americans, win or lose in November,” Clarkson said.

{At least 50 people wounded following night of violent clashes over four-day hostage crisis, health ministry says.}

At least 50 people, including 25 police officers, were wounded in Armenia after a night of clashes between police and protesters over a four-day hostage standoff, the country’s health ministry said.

Wednesday’s violence in capital Yerevan also saw the arrest of dozens of protesters.

Demonstators throwing stones reportedly attacked police deployed outside a station where gunmen have been holding four officers hostage since Sunday morning.

The hostages include Armenia’s deputy police chief General Major Vardan Egiazaryan and Yerevan deputy police chief Colonel Valeri Osipyan.

Demonstrations continued into the early hours of Thursday as some 2,000 protesters built barricades in front of the cordons of riot police, who responded with beatings and arresting scores of demonstrators.

Gunmen seized a police regiment building in Yerevan’s Erebuni district on Sunday, killing one officer and taking several captive.

Armenian news agencies reported that the armed men were demanding the release of Jirair Sefilian, an opposition leader and former military commander, who was arrested in June.

The gunmen have demanded the resignation of President Serzh Sarkisian and the release of Sefilian, according to AFP news agency.

They freed four hostages on Sunday and Monday but were still holding four others as of Wednesday night.

Sefilian, the leader of small opposition group named the New Armenia Public Salvation Front, and six of his supporters were arrested in June after authorities said they were preparing to seize government buildings and telecoms facilities.

An ethnic-Armenian, he was born in Lebanon where he fought in the civil war in the 1980s, defending Beirut’s Armenian Quarters.

He then moved to Armenia to take part in the 1990s war with neighbouring Azerbaijan for control of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an area in Azerbaijan but holds an ethnic Armenian majority.

{In response to failed coup, Turkish president says state of emergency will last for three months.}

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the country will be placed under a “state of emergency” for three months, in response to the failed coup.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Erdogan said the decision was made following a meeting with members of the national security council.

The state of emergency was needed “in order to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organisation involved in the coup attempt,” he said at the presidential palace in Ankara.

READ MORE: The lessons to be learned from Turkey’s failed coup

“I would like to underline that the declaration of the state of emergency has the sole purpose of taking the necessary measures, in the face of the terrorist threat that our country is facing,” he said, vowing that the “virus in the military will be cleansed”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera earlier on Wednesday, Erdogan has expressed doubts the coup attempt was entirely over.

“I don’t think we have come to the end of it,” he said.

Presidential power

Turkey has accused the group of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of being behind the coup.

Gulen has strongly denied links to the coup.

According to the Turkish constitution, a state of emergency is allowed up to six months.

Article 120 of the constitution allows a state of emergency to be imposed “at a time of serious deterioration of public order because of acts of violence”.

Turkey had in 2002 lifted its last state of emergency, which had been imposed in provinces in the southeast for the fight against Kurdish armed groups in 1987.

Under a state of emergency in Turkey, the president can largely rule by decree.

Curfews could be enforced, and gatherings and protests could be banned without official consent, under the declaration.

Media could also be restricted, while security personnel could conduct searches of persons, vehicles or properties and confiscate potential evidence.

But the interior ministry said that the order “will not affect civilians”, according to Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, who was reporting from Ankara.

In his televised address, Erdogan also tried to reassure the public that military powers will not be expanded, adding that Turkey would emerge as a “stronger nation” following the coup attempt.

{Billionaire businessman wins party nomination for US presidency after months of acrimonious campaigning.}

Donald Trump has secured the nomination of the Republican Party to become the next US president after months of controversial campaigning that has divided the American right of the political spectrum.

The billionaire businessman had been expected to cruise past the 1,237 delegates needed on Tuesday to seal the deal on the first ballot. Trump was put over the top by his home state of New York.

“It is something I’ll never ever forget,” Trump said on a video feed from New York. “Together we have achieved historic results with the largest vote total in the history of the Republican Party.This is a movement, but we have to go all the way.”

Anti-Trump forces on the floor held out for a final miracle on Tuesday after seeking to convince delegates that their votes were not bound and that they could vote their conscience, but it never came to fruition.

Many Americans oppose Trump’s ascension in US politics, lambasting his controversial campaign statements, including calling Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers whom he would deport if elected president. He has also called for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States.

It has been a stunning rise for a man most thought would never make it this far.

“After all the predications that he could never do it – the public wouldn’t want someone with no legislative experience, no government experience – they’ve opted for a man who has made his name first of all in business and latterly as a reality TV show host,” reported Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher from the convention in Cleveland.

“He will now be on top of the Republican ticket come November.”

The real estate mogul won a thumping victory in a series of state-wide party elections, garnering more than 13 million votes – the most of any Republican nominee ever.

The conventions are designed to champion the party candidate, rally the grassroots, and propel the party towards November’s presidential election. Trump will go against Democratic party nominee Hillary Clinton.

Clinton under attack

Republican delegates savaged Clinton at the convention, breaking into angry chants of “lock her up” and “guilty” as New Jersey Governor Chris Christie accused her of wrongdoing and numerous foreign policy failures, including on Libya, Syria, the Iran nuclear deal, and Boko Haram in Nigeria.

“Let’s do something fun tonight,” Christie, himself a former federal prosecutor, told the convention as he laid out a case against Clinton and “her selfish, awful judgment.”

“We are going to present the facts to you. You, tonight, sitting as a jury of her peers in this hall and in your living rooms around our nation,” he said.

Outlining what he called “the facts”, Christie slated Clinton’s record as US secretary of state, accusing her of being responsible for chaos and violence engulfing the Middle East and elsewhere, and asking whether she is “guilty or not guilty?”

“In Syria, imagine this, imagine this: she called President Assad ‘a reformer.’ She called Assad ‘a different kind of leader’. There are now 400,000 dead. Think about that: 400,000 dead. At the hands of the man that Hillary defended. So we must ask this question: As an awful judge of the character of a dictator and butcher in the Middle East, is she guilty or not guilty?”

“Guilty,” the crowd chanted in reply.

“America and the world are measurably less safe because of the Iran deal Hillary helped cut. An inept negotiator of the worst nuclear arms deal in American history, guilty or not guilty?” he bellowed.

“Guilty,” the crowd replied.

Trump’s campaign hoped the formal nomination would both end the discord surging through the Republican Party and overshadow the convention’s chaotic kickoff, including accusations of plagiarism involving his wife, Melania Trump, during her speech on opening night.

Two passages from Melania Trump’s address – each 30 words or longer – matched a 2008 Democratic convention address by Michelle Obama – wife of US President Barack Obama – nearly word-for-word.

Trump’s campaign insisted there was no evidence of plagiarism, while offering no explanation for how the strikingly similar passages wound up in his wife’s speech.

Clinton pounced on the tumult. “When you pull back the curtain, it was just Donald Trump with nothing to offer to the American people,” she said during a speech in Las Vegas.

This week’s four-day convention is Trump’s highest-profile opportunity to convince voters that he’s better suited for the presidency than Clinton, who will be officially nominated at next week’s Democratic gathering.

{Supreme leader Kim Jong-un personally supervised Tuesday’s firing of three ballistic missiles, North’s state media says.}

North Korea said Wednesday its latest ballistic missile tests were personally ordered and monitored by supreme leader Kim Jong-un and simulated nuclear strikes on US bases in South Korea.

The three missiles launched on Tuesday were a dry run for attacks on South Korean ports and airfields hosting US military “hardware”, the North’s official KCNA news agency said.

The tests “examined the operational features of the detonating devices of nuclear warheads mounted on the ballistic rockets at the designated altitude over the target area”, it said.

North Korea fired three ballistic missiles that flew between 500km and 600km into the sea off its east coast, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of provocative moves by the isolated country.

The US military said it believed two of the missiles were Scuds and the other a Rodong, a home-grown missile based on Soviet-era Scud technology.

North Korea is believed to be developing nuclear warheads and trying to miniaturise them to mount on ballistic missiles, but some experts say it may be a few years away from mastering the technology.

But Tuesday’s missile launches were seen as a show of force rather than a test to improve missile capabilities, a week after South Korea and the United States chose a site in the South to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter threats from the North.

China has objected to the decision saying it would destabilise the security balance in the region. North Korea has threatened a “physical response” to the move.

South Korea said it was again in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions that ban the North’s use of ballistic missile technology.

North Korea came under the latest UN Security Council resolution after conducting its fourth nuclear test in January, and launching a long-range rocket the next month.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said the tests were “deeply troubling” and undermined efforts to reduce tension on the Korean peninsula.

{WikiLeaks publishes trove of nearly 300,000 emails allegedly belonging to Turkish President Erdogan’s ruling party.}

WikiLeaks has published 294,546 emails along with thousands of attached files from 762 mail boxes that allegedly belong to the primary email domain of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The most recent email in the trove released by the whistle-blowing organisation on Tuesday was sent on July 6, 2016. The oldest dates back to 2010.

“It should be noted that emails associated with the domain are mostly used for dealing with the world, as opposed to the most sensitive internal matters,” WikiLeaks said on its official website.

WikiLeaks said it obtained the emails a week before Friday’s attempted coup.

“WikiLeaks has moved forward its publication schedule in response to the government’s post-coup purges.

We have verified the material and the source, who is not connected, in any way, to the elements behind the attempted coup, or to a rival political party or state,” the organisation said.

WikiLeaks previously claimed that the Turkish government would attempt to censor the distribution of the documents, and urged the Turkish public to be ready to bypass any government attempts at blocking access to the material.

“Turks will likely be censored to prevent them reading our pending release of 100k+ docs on politics leading up to the coup,” the organisation said on Monday via Twitter.

“We ask that Turks are ready with censorship bypassing systems such as TorBrowser and uTorrent. And that everyone else is ready to help them bypass censorship and push our links through the censorship to come.”

WikiLeaks later claimed that its infrastructre was “under sustained attack,” following its announcement of the imminent publication of the AKP emails.

“We are unsure of the true origin of the attack. The timing suggests a Turkish state power faction or its allies. We will prevail & publish,” WikiLeaks said on Twitter.