Dozens of exotic animals seized at Turkish border

Dozens of exotic animals seized at Turkish border
All the animals survived and will be delivered to the Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks. (File/Reuters)
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Updated 31 August 2024
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Dozens of exotic animals seized at Turkish border

Dozens of exotic animals seized at Turkish border
  • Mid-sized sedan with Greek license plates was carrying three kangaroos, three alpacas and one Patagonian mara in the trunk
  • Photos from the scene show the larger animals bound and squeezed together in tight confinement

ISTANBUL: Turkish customs officials in the northwestern city of Edirne discovered dozens of exotic animals being smuggled into Turkiye from Greece.
State-run Anadolu Agency reported that the mid-sized sedan with Greek license plates was carrying three kangaroos, three alpacas and one Patagonian mara in the trunk, and 12 parrots and 23 flying squirrels inside the vehicle. Many of the animals are juveniles.
Photos from the scene show the larger animals bound and squeezed together in tight confinement, while the smaller ones were crowded in cages.
The private Demiroren News Agency identified the driver of the vehicle as Yuksel D., who was subsequently detained by authorities.
All the animals survived and will be delivered to the Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks.


With nearly 700 killed in a week, Lebanon fears Gaza-level violence

With nearly 700 killed in a week, Lebanon fears Gaza-level violence
Updated 24 sec ago
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With nearly 700 killed in a week, Lebanon fears Gaza-level violence

With nearly 700 killed in a week, Lebanon fears Gaza-level violence
Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders.
Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, raising fears that Israel’s actions in Gaza since Oct. 7 would be repeated in Lebanon.
The International Organization for Migration estimated Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time.
The United States, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the country welcomed the ceasefire efforts, and decried Israel’s “systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages.”
Israeli military vehicles were seen transporting tanks and armored vehicles toward the country’s northern border with Lebanon, and commanders have issued a call-up of reservists. Netanyahu says Israel is striking Hezbollah “with full force” and won’t stop until its goals are achieved.
UN: More than 30,000 people crossed from Lebanon into Syria in 3 days
The UN refugee agency says “well over 30,000” people have crossed from Lebanon into neighboring Syria over the last 72 hours in the wake of fighting between the militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the representative for refugee agency UNHCR in Syria, said roughly half of the people who have fled were children and adolescents.
He said about 80 percent were Syrians returning to their home country and the rest were Lebanese.
“Now these, of course, are people who are fleeing bombs and who are crossing into a country that has been suffering from its own crisis and violence for 13 years now,” he told reporters in Geneva by video from the Lebanon-Syria border. Syria is facing “economic collapse,” he said.
“I think that this just illustrates the kind of extremely difficult choices both Syrians and Lebanese are having to make,” he said.
Israeli military reports more strikes from Lebanon
Incoming fire from Lebanon into Israel continued Friday, with one man suffering wounds from shrapnel.
The Israeli military said four drones came across the border Friday, all of which were intercepted. Earlier Friday, the Israeli military said another 10 projectiles came into Israel from Lebanon, with some intercepted and others falling into open fields. It said it later targeted launchers in Lebanon behind the missile attacks.
Hezbollah claimed it had targeted the Israeli city of Tiberias with missiles.
Israeli strike in Syria kills 5 soldiers
An overnight Israeli airstrike on a military site in the area of Kfar Yabous in Syria near the border with Lebanon killed five Syrian army soldiers and injured another, Syrian state news agency SANA reported Friday, citing an unidentified military official.
Israel’s military did not immediately acknowledge the strike. Israel regularly targets military sites in Syria and facilities linked to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah but rarely acknowledges them.
Those strikes have become more frequent as Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israeli forces for the past 11 months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hamas — a Hezbollah ally — in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians have fled across the border from Lebanon into Syria since the beginning of the week under intense Israeli bombardment that Israel says is targeting Hezbollah militants and weapons. The week’s strikes have killed an estimated 700 people, including at least 150 women and children.

Beirut soup kitchen struggles to keep up as Israeli strikes intensify

Beirut soup kitchen struggles to keep up as Israeli strikes intensify
Updated 37 min 49 sec ago
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Beirut soup kitchen struggles to keep up as Israeli strikes intensify

Beirut soup kitchen struggles to keep up as Israeli strikes intensify
  • Beirut soup kitchen struggles with demand from displaced people
  • Nation Station kitchen working at maximum capacity, founder says

BEIRUT: Chains of volunteers spoon rice and vegetables into meal containers while others stir huge pots of boiling rice, as a soup kitchen in Beirut struggles to keep up with demand from displaced people escaping Israeli strikes.
Josephine Abu Abdo, a chef and one of the founders of Nation Station, said the kitchen is serving 700 meals a day and is at maximum capacity, but she then hears 1,000 meals are needed.
“The challenge is that we can’t keep up. We feel like we are just a drop in the ocean,” Abu Abdo said, while a team of volunteers of different ages from all over Lebanon hurriedly packaged up food.
Nation Station was founded to help victims of the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion, growing from a team of five to a hundred over time. It serves some traditional Lebanese dishes, such as zucchini stuffed with rice and meat, bulgur and tomato, vegetable soup and cabbage salad.
When the Israeli strikes across Lebanon intensified on Monday, forcing around 40,000 into shelters within days, the volunteers cooked more food without any funding, distributing it as an emergency response to the centers housing the displaced.
“We worked from the small savings that we had for the first three days. Then, many people started donating,” Abu Abdo said.
“The donation that we receive will cover us for two or three days. We will see, one day at a time and we will make a decision,” she added.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have fled their homes and Israel has declared the safe return of its residents as one of its war aims.
“We are all trying our hardest to make a little bit of a difference and to help out. It’s like the least we can do and unfortunately we are used to this,” May Ayash, a professional chef who volunteers at the kitchen said.


Tunisia assembly votes on electoral bill nine days before poll, opposition calls protest

Tunisia assembly votes on electoral bill nine days before poll, opposition calls protest
Updated 52 min 30 sec ago
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Tunisia assembly votes on electoral bill nine days before poll, opposition calls protest

Tunisia assembly votes on electoral bill nine days before poll, opposition calls protest
  • Bill strips Administrative Court of authority over electoral disputes
  • Opposition and civil society groups call for protests near parliament

TUNIS: Tunisia’s parliament was set to vote on a major amendment to the electoral law on Friday, nine days before a presidential election that opposition groups fear will cement President Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule. The bill strips the Administrative Court of its authority to adjudicate electoral disputes. It is likely to pass in an assembly elected in 2022 on an 11 percent turnout after Saied dissolved the previous one and prompted an opposition boycott.
Political opposition and civil society groups called for protests against the bill near parliament.
The Administrative Court is widely seen as the last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022. The court this month ordered the electoral commission to reinstate disqualified presidential candidates, saying the legitimacy of the Oct. 6 election was in question. But the commission defied the court and has allowed only two candidates to run against Saied.
Lawmakers said they had proposed the bill because they believed the Administrative Court was no longer neutral and could annul the election and plunge Tunisia into chaos and a constitutional vacuum.
Critics argue that Saied is using the electoral commission and the judiciary to secure victory by stifling competition and intimidating rivals. He for his part says he is fighting traitors, mercenaries and corruption.
Saied was democratically elected in 2019, but then tightened his grip on power and began ruling by decree in 2021 in a move the opposition has described as a coup. Presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was sentenced last week to 20 months in prison on charges of falsifying popular endorsements, and to a further six months on Wednesday on charges of falsifying documents.
Abir Moussi, leader of the Free Constitutional Party, has been imprisoned since last year on charges of harming public security. Another prominent politician, Lotfi Mraihi, was jailed this year on charges of vote-buying in 2019.
Both had said they would run in October, but were prevented from submitting their applications from jail.
Another court jailed four other potential candidates in August and gave them lifetime bans from running for office.


Over 30,000 crossed into Syria from Lebanon in past days, says UN

Over 30,000 crossed into Syria from Lebanon in past days, says UN
Updated 27 September 2024
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Over 30,000 crossed into Syria from Lebanon in past days, says UN

Over 30,000 crossed into Syria from Lebanon in past days, says UN
  • About 80 percent of those crossings are Syrians and about 20 percent are Lebanese
BERLIN: Well over 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours, the UN refugee agency said on Friday, amid an escalating conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah that has killed hundreds of people in Lebanon.
About 80 percent of those crossings are Syrians and about 20 percent are Lebanese, said the UNHCR representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, adding that about half are children and adolescents, and that men are making the crossing in smaller numbers than women.
“They are crossing from a country at war to one that has faced a crisis conflict for 13 years,” an extremely difficult choice, he told a news conference.
“We will have to see over the next few days how many more do so,” added the representative.

Unions file ILO complaint over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian workers since Gaza war

Unions file ILO complaint over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian workers since Gaza war
Updated 27 September 2024
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Unions file ILO complaint over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian workers since Gaza war

Unions file ILO complaint over Israel’s treatment of Palestinian workers since Gaza war
  • Complaint addresses exclusion of 200,000 Palestinian workers
  • Unions claim unpaid wages and compensation at ILO

GENEVA: A group of 10 global trade unions filed a complaint on Friday against Israel with the International Labour Organization, alleging that its treatment of Palestinian workers since the Gaza war began had breached a global treaty.
Criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinian workers, under scrutiny for decades, has increased at the Geneva-based UN labor body since the war started on Oct. 7.
The complaint summarised in a statement sent to journalists focuses on Israel’s exclusion of some 200,000 Palestinian migrant workers, which Israel justifies on security grounds. It claims unpaid wages and other compensation for them and other Palestinian workers which the unions say could amount to billions of dollars.
“The sudden unemployment of Palestinians working in Israel has left hundreds of thousands destitute,” said Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the London-based International Transport Workers’ Federation, one of the unions that signed the complaint.
“Israel must comply with its international legal obligations and ensure these workers receive their owed wages immediately,” Cotton said.
Israel has blamed its treatment of Palestinian workers from Israel on Hamas, saying the militant group had targeted commuter routes on and after the Oct. 7 attacks in which 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis.
The trade unions who filed the complaint say they represent some 207 million workers in over 160 countries across a range of sectors including catering, agriculture and industry.
Other trade union groups signing onto the complaint include Education International and the Building and Wood Workers’ International.
The groups allege violations of the 1949 Protection of Wages Convention which Israel has ratified along with around 100 other countries, according to the UN agency’s website.
Under ILO rules, the body can set up a so-called tripartite committee composed of government and employers’ and workers’ groups to examine alleged violations of the convention. This could eventually lead to an investigation and even sanctions, as occurred in Myanmar in the 1990s.