Turkey warns it may use army to end protest unrest

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynXvwZuxxg0QUDkSvkjj9I8VlLGjSN54Te9TvBL-4kBrslelt8ai6z65RhkWg923MHa-O0ltAnh9Zj2D7NW5WyzVioleID2Ji6cDl29NQ6pWgWpULl9a_MjZKHUeqez0P9eyE7ZFGyCs/s1600/51bfccd19668c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynXvwZuxxg0QUDkSvkjj9I8VlLGjSN54Te9TvBL-4kBrslelt8ai6z65RhkWg923MHa-O0ltAnh9Zj2D7NW5WyzVioleID2Ji6cDl29NQ6pWgWpULl9a_MjZKHUeqez0P9eyE7ZFGyCs/s1600/51bfccd19668c.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>ISTANBUL: Turkey warned on Monday it may bring in the army to help quell nearly three weeks of nationwide anti-government protests as two major union federations went on strike over police violence against demonstrators.</b><br /><br />The government raised the threat of putting soldiers on the streets after a weekend of violent clashes sparked by the eviction of campers occupying Istanbul's Gezi Park, the epicentre of the protest movement.<br /><br />Police “will use all their powers” to end the unrest, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said in a televised interview. “If this is not enough, we can even utilise the Turkish armed forces in cities.”The deployment of the military, the self-described guardian of the secular state, would mark an escalation of a crisis posing the biggest challenge yet to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government.<br /><br />But after losing their focal protest site, with Gezi Park and the adjoining Taksim Square still guarded by police on Monday, the demos appeared to lose some of their intensity.<br /><br />Groups of hundreds of striking workers from the KESK and DISK union federations took to the streets in Istanbul, Ankara and the western city of Izmir calling for the police violence against protesters to end immediately and chanting “Erdogan, resign!”.<br /><br />Their progress was at times blocked by officers backed by water cannon trucks but there were no reports of fresh clashes. The unions' turnout was smaller than when they marched in support of the demonstrators on June 5.<br /><br />After the members dispersed in Istanbul in the evening, some 300 youngsters clashed briefly with police who fired tear gas, water and rubber bullets.<br /><br />Turkey's crisis began when a sit-in to save Gezi's 600 trees from being razed in a redevelopment project prompted a brutal police response on May 31, spiralling into countrywide demonstrations against Erdogan, seen as increasingly authoritarian.<br /><br />So far four people have been killed and nearly 7,500 people injured, according to the Turkish Medical Association (TBB).<br /><br />A survey by Metropoll, published in the Zaman daily, found that the AKP would still come first if elections were held now, with 35.3 percent of the vote.<br /><br />That the government has said it may call in the pro-secular army — which has been steadily sidelined during Erdogan's decade-long rule — shows it wants to end the current turmoil “at any cost”, said professor Ilter Turan, a political scientist at Istanbul's Bilgi University.</div>

Turkey warns it may use army to end protest unrest

ISTANBUL: Turkey warned on Monday it may bring in the army to help quell nearly three weeks of nationwide anti-government protests as two major union federations went on strike over police violence against demonstrators.The government raised the thre…

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September 11 plotters back in court

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTN237Eq2kLW5wDfaKVmEj2J-vMZIaHqV9iPcG6FPe0TYzkyC5CWnOAlpDszVJrjI-g_EYt_wIXozS5WBhIqHN4HQ47tw9ZLwZpwtJz8UZlLuCqozCX7sbJBZHfWZpH-Lpscpx4z1rxyk/s1600/51bfd205a97b3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTN237Eq2kLW5wDfaKVmEj2J-vMZIaHqV9iPcG6FPe0TYzkyC5CWnOAlpDszVJrjI-g_EYt_wIXozS5WBhIqHN4HQ47tw9ZLwZpwtJz8UZlLuCqozCX7sbJBZHfWZpH-Lpscpx4z1rxyk/s1600/51bfd205a97b3.jpg" width="640" /></a> <b>FORT MEADE, Maryland: The men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks returned Friday to a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, although their trial may still be more than a year away.</b><br /><br />The preliminary hearing, focused on rules over monitoring interactions between attorneys and their clients, marked the first time the five had been in court since February.<br /><br />The co-defendants sat calmly with none of the outbursts that marked previous sessions.<br /><br />Self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wore a camouflage jacket and white turban, with his thick beard died a reddish orange.<br /><br />The preliminary hearings, set to last through Friday, come amid a widespread hunger strike that has lasted more than four months by nearly two thirds of the 166 terror suspects still held at Guantanamo.<br /><br />A total of 104 detainees are now refusing food, with 44 of them being force-fed through a nasal tube into the esophagus, according to prison spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House.<br /><br />It is unclear whether the accused plotters are participating in the strike, and they did not appear thinner at the hearing.<br /><br />Defence lawyer Commander Walter Ruiz earlier told AFP his client Mustafa al-Hawsawi had at one point refused food in solidarity with his fellow prisoners.<br /><br />MacDonald, speaking via teleconference from the northwestern US state of Washington, said he had asked to record and tap all telephone conversations between the five men and their lawyers.<br /><br />The defence lawyers also highlighted MacDonald's lack of experience with capital punishment cases, and criticized him for only giving them two months to build their case ahead of the first preliminary hearing in May 2012.<br /><br />MacDonald defended the delay as “sufficient.”The lawyers are demanding that prosecutors abandon the charges due to “unlawful command influence.”The five defendants' trial is not set to begin until late 2014.</div>

September 11 plotters back in court

FORT MEADE, Maryland: The men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks returned Friday to a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, although their trial may still be more than a year away.The preliminary hearing, focused on rules over moni…

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US must recognise Iran's nuclear rights: Rowhani

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-CVsiaxhAahiQ4u2ZlBOFLTravTXq15RSplzfCa68ooIPF8undUaSndRABCkN1CbPmxarQ2NNT9bugJQtOb1OIv7AxfSPPko09mU6SuFPje5XlOjx0ehRX9VF2i1EVDyIB0kbFfjPres/s1600/51bf217440c4d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-CVsiaxhAahiQ4u2ZlBOFLTravTXq15RSplzfCa68ooIPF8undUaSndRABCkN1CbPmxarQ2NNT9bugJQtOb1OIv7AxfSPPko09mU6SuFPje5XlOjx0ehRX9VF2i1EVDyIB0kbFfjPres/s1600/51bf217440c4d.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>TEHRAN: Hassan Rowhani on Monday said the United States must recognise all the rights of the Islamic republic, including its nuclear rights, in his first press conference since being elected Iran's new president.</b><br /><br />“Any dialogue with the United States must be based on equality and mutual respect and on conditions. The US should not interfere in our internal affairs, recognise the rights of Iran including nuclear rights and stop its unilateral policies and pressure,” the cleric said.<br /><br />“The next (Iranian) government will not give up the legitimate rights of the country.”<br /><br />The United States, Israel and the West suspect Iran's nuclear programme is aimed at developing weapons, while Iran insists it is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity and producing medical isotopes.<br /><br />The White House on Saturday said Washington is prepared to engage Iran directly over its nuclear programme with a view to reach a “diplomatic solution” to the controversy.<br /><br />Diplomatic ties between Iran and the United States have been cut since the 1979 Islamic revolution when Iranian students took over the US embassy.<br /><br />Rowhani was on Saturday declared winner of Iran's presidential election, ending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's eight-year term during which relations between Washington and Tehran deteriorated further.</div>

US must recognise Iran's nuclear rights: Rowhani

TEHRAN: Hassan Rowhani on Monday said the United States must recognise all the rights of the Islamic republic, including its nuclear rights, in his first press conference since being elected Iran's new president.“Any dialogue with the United States m…

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French govt humiliated in poll for disgraced minister's seat

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPkMqEis6fwStFE1nt66hLs7k57bsV-_x4SntKjPdiZBDGgoN__ZQhucp73Kl0PjStWYJvMV8XqFSM_0ajkl9D5JQBao5D3nvP68eg4M4c_dkuzzSCkXW9sHUyV0ixPZbXPPS1CB5V-vU/s1600/51bebac487079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPkMqEis6fwStFE1nt66hLs7k57bsV-_x4SntKjPdiZBDGgoN__ZQhucp73Kl0PjStWYJvMV8XqFSM_0ajkl9D5JQBao5D3nvP68eg4M4c_dkuzzSCkXW9sHUyV0ixPZbXPPS1CB5V-vU/s1600/51bebac487079.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>PARIS: France's socialist government suffered the indignity of a first-round exit in a parliamentary by-election to replace a disgraced minister forced out over a tax-dodging scandal.</b><br /><br />Former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, who is facing charges of tax fraud, stepped down from his parliamentary seat in April.<br /><br />In Sunday's by-election for his seat in Lot-et-Garonne, southwest France, the socialist candidate was pushed into third place – and thus eliminated.<br /><br />The vote was marked by a turn-out significantly lower than in the 2012 general election: only 46 percent of the 75,000 voters eligible to have their say bothered to do so.<br /><br />President Francois Hollande acknowledged that the result was fall-out from the scandal around Cahuzac, whose ministerial portfolio had included the fight against tax evasion.<br /><br />For UMP president Jean-Francois Cope, the result was another “scathing repudiation of Francois Hollande and his policies”.<br /><br />Socialist party leader Harlem Desir called on voters to ensure the FN candidate did not win the second-round run-off vote.<br /><br />Sunday's result was another slap in the face for the ruling Socialists after defeats last weekend in two other by-elections.<br /><br />The party now has 292 deputies in the National Assembly: just three seats more than the 289 seats that ensure an absolute majority.<br /><br />Through to the second round are the UMP's Jean-Louis Costes, who came first with 28.7 per cent of the vote; and the FN candidate, 23-year-old Etienne Bousquet-Cassagne, who polled 26 per cent.<br /><br />Socialist candidate Bernard Barral came third with 23.7 per cent.</div>

French govt humiliated in poll for disgraced minister's seat

PARIS: France's socialist government suffered the indignity of a first-round exit in a parliamentary by-election to replace a disgraced minister forced out over a tax-dodging scandal.Former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, who is facing charges of tax…

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