Day: June 13, 2021

The US will send troops to Kenya in a bid to aid East African countries in the war against al-Shabaab terrorists, local media reported Sunday.

Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab terrorists have plagued East African countries since 2006, leaving a trail of death, injuries, and suffering in their wake.

In a letter to the US Congress, “President Biden said that he had approved sending special operations troops to Kenya, which are expected to collaborate with the Kenyan military in combating Al-Shabaab. The number of troops is not indicated,” Kenya’s Nation daily reported.

Last year the US Defense Department said in a statement that then-President Donald Trump ordered the Pentagon and US AFRICOM “to reposition the majority of personnel and assets out of Somalia by early 2021,” referring to the country east and northeast of Kenya where al-Shabaab is based.

Before the withdrawal, the US had 650-800 troops in Somalia which helped the African nation fight al-Shabaab.

In 2015, al-Shabaab terrorists killed more than 148 people in an attack on a university in Northern Kenya. Most of the victims were students.

Al-Shabaab was behind a 2017 truck bomb attack in the Somali capital Mogadishu that took some 600 lives, the worst attack in the Horn of Africa country’s history.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Only 30% of voters turned out in Algeria’s parliamentary elections on Saturday, according to the country’s election commission.

“Voter turnout in the polls reached 30.2%,” Mohamed Chorfi, chairman of the National Independent Election Authority, told state television.

More than 24 million voters were eligible to cast ballot in Saturday’s vote, the first since the departure of longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April 2019 after mass protests against his 20-year rule.

Voter turnout reached 37.09% in the 2017 parliamentary elections and 42.9% in 2012.

On Saturday, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune downplayed the importance of turnout in the polls.

“What is important is the legitimacy that will result from the vote and the legitimacy of the parliamentarians who will represent the parliamentary authority,” Tebboune said after casting his ballot.

Tebboune also said he respects the decision of those who boycotted the vote “as long as they don’t impose their opinion on other”.

The vote was held amid the boycott of a number of parties, including the Socialist Forces Front, the Rally for Culture and Democracy, and the leftist Workers Party.

The election saw the adoption for the first time of an open list system for selecting candidates under the new election law. The open list system allows voters to arrange the candidates within the same list according to his/her preference. On the contrary, the closed list forced voters to choose the list based on the arrangement set by the party.

In March, Tebboune issued a decree calling for an early parliamentary elections on June 12, less than a month after dissolving the People’s National Assembly, the lower house of parliament.

*Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara

Source: Anadolu Agency

Bosnia and Herzegovina held a ceremony Saturday to commemorate the more than 3,000 Bosniaks who were massacred during the war between 1992 and 1995.

The ceremony in Visegrad was held on the historic Drina bridge with the participation of victims’ relatives.

Mirsada Tabakovic lost 17 relatives in the massacre and said her memories of the war are still very fresh.

“When I hear the sound of the bucket, I go back to that moment. They were loading the bodies of the victims into trucks and throwing them into the river. When we saw the buckets following the truck, we knew they would bury the bodies,” said Tabakovic.

During the ceremony, 3,000 roses were into the Drina River in memory of the victims, and prayers were read.

Some victims were burned to death in Adem Omeragic’s house on Pionirska Street on June 14, 1992. Some were burned alive in Meho Aljic’s house in Bikavac on June 27.

More than 140 civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, were killed in the massacre, which the International Criminal Court describes as “the greatest destruction of humanity in the Bosnian war.”

Source: Anadolu Agency

Agnes Humure has been forced to battle with albinism since the day she was born, when her mother was kicked out of her matrimonial home by her husband after giving birth to a child with the genetic condition.

But now, at the age of 41, she has had to contend with HIV, a decade after her husband, who infected her, passed away.

Residing in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, with her three daughters, all school-going, yet all HIV positive after they were conceived already infected with the disease, Humure has to bear the burden of ensuring their well-being even as she contends with discrimination, first over her albinism and secondly over her HIV status.

Humure said that since her husband succumbed to AIDS in February 2011, not a single person has visited her or her daughters and her husband’s relatives have prohibited her and the children from telling anyone about their HIV status.

Besides the discrimination many like Humure face owing to their albinism, her positive HIV status has added to her dilemma, worsened by the burden of having three HIV positive daughters.

But Humure said her husband did not have albinism.

Albinism is a rare group of genetic disorders that causes the skin, hair or eyes to have little or no color.

Discriminated at first for her albinism and secondly for having HIV, now Humure said the clinic she visits with her daughters to fetch their antiretroviral treatment drugs has become the only source of comfort for them.

“At the clinic is where we only meet very kind nurses and counselling officers who give us warmth. At home, sadly, nobody visits, with my own parents having died long back,” she told Anadolu Agency.

– Government overlooking albinos in AIDS war

Humure is one of many HIV positive Zimbabweans battling albinism, although the government has no specific records of people with her condition suffering from HIV.

“We have no special statistics on HIV cases set aside for people with albinism. All Zimbabwe has are over 1.4 million people living with HIV, and obviously these also include people with albinism who may have the disease as well,” a health official at Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity as he was unauthorized to speak to the media.

While the government has apparently overlooked the HIV/AIDS plight of people with albinism, other women with albinism like 19-year-old Jane Ndamba claim they had narrowly escaped contracting the disease.

– Raped due to albinism

“I was raped by my sister’s husband when I was 14 years old, and he kept raping me until the age of 17, when I became pregnant. He would beat me and hide me so that nobody would see me. I was recently tested for HIV and was found negative, and I am not sure if I would get the same results on going back for retests,” Ndamba told Anadolu Agency.

But the situation is even worse for some women with albinism who have in fact been raped by HIV positive men, in the process falling sick with AIDS and subsequently losing their lives.

Such are the testimonies from many Zimbabweans with albinism like Gwen Mushonga, the director of the Alive Albinism Initiative, an albinism charity organization in this southern African nation.

“It’s quite a tricky situation when it comes to women with albinism and how they can protect themselves from diseases such as HIV and AIDS. We have cases of women. I know of one who has passed away. She was brave enough to come out in the open and she told us like this is what happened to her. The husband knew he was HIV positive and he did not disclose his status to this woman with albinism, and in the end, the obvious happened — she tested HIV positive. It’s a sad story,” said Mushonga.

– Myths fueling AIDS infections among albinos

Traditional myths here have also placed people with albinism at crossroads as superstitious people have long regarded them as having healing properties for HIV and AIDS.

As such, women with albinism have often been raped and infected with HIV by men desperate to fend off the disease.

“The most challenging thing about albinism is that there is that myth where men in Africa and especially in Zimbabwe believe that if they have sex with an albino woman, they can be cured of diseases like HIV and AIDS, which is a shame and which is a lie, and this is putting a lot of our women with albinism at risk,” said Mushonga.

This, Mushonga said, comes from traditional healers who lie to HIV positive men that if they have sexual intercourse with albino women, their HIV condition would be healed.

Sadly, mired in solitude due to segregation, Mushonga said most people with albinism only get to find out about their HIV/AIDS status after they seriously fall ill, meaning some of them just die before getting treatment.

For Mushonga, HIV positive people with albinism in fact have to contend with a double tragedy — segregation because of albinism and discrimination due to their HIV status.

“You know it’s difficult for people with albinism who are HIV positive to come out in the open, given that they have this condition of albinism where they face a stigma. So having a condition of albinism and HIV is not easy, meaning such people would face double discrimination, meaning it’s not really easy for people with albinism to come out in the open about their HIV positive status,” she said.

Now Mushonga, living with albinism herself, said for women like herself, even finding true love nowadays has turned into a nightmare as they no longer trust the intentions of men dating them.

“We are not sure now when men come to us women with albinism, like are they really after love, are they genuinely in love with us, or are they are just trying to get rid of their HIV sickness? It’s quite a tricky situation when it comes to women with albinism and how they can protect themselves from diseases such as HIV,” she said.

– Not easy for albinos to disclose AIDS status

Loveness Mainato, a mother of four children, two of whom have albinism, and the founder and director of the Albino Charity Organization of Zimbabwe, said it is not easy for people with albinism to disclose their HIV status.

“It’s because of the stigmatization they already have from birth that makes them fear to disclose their HIV status. It’s not that people with albinism are not infected or affected with HIV and AIDS,” Mainato told Anadolu Agency.

In her charity organization, Mainato said that so far, most death rates of people with albinism are a result of the dual ailments of cancer and HIV.

“We have lost seven people with albinism from our organization owing to cancer and HIV-related illnesses in the past three years,” she added.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Anadolu Agency is here with a rundown of the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic and other news in Turkey and around the world.

– Coronavirus and other developments in Turkey

Turkey has administered more than 33 million coronavirus vaccine doses since it launched a mass vaccination campaign in January, according to the Health Ministry.

More than 19.59 million people have received their first dose, while an excess of 13.64 million have been fully vaccinated, ministry data shows.

Turkey reported 6,076 new cases, including 503 symptomatic patients, in the last 24 hours. The number of new infections on Friday was 6,261.

Turkey condemned an attack by the YPG/PKK terror group on a hospital in Afrin, Syria, which killed at least 13 patients and injured dozens.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry “strongly” condemned the attack and its perpetrators, including one of the YPG/PKK’s aliases, the so-called SDF.

The Governor’s Office in Hatay, just across the border, said a grad missile and artillery shells fired by the YPG/PKK from the Assad regime-controlled Tal Rifat region hit the emergency department of the private Shifa Hospital in the center of the Afrin district.

Turkish forces “neutralized” three more PKK terrorists in northern Iraq, according to the National Defense Ministry.

Turkish teams have collected more than 1,197 cubic meters (42,271 cubic feet) of mucilage from the Sea of Marmara in the past four days, said the Environment and Urbanization Minister.

A high-level delegation from Turkey visited Libya upon instructions by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of Monday’s NATO summit.

The delegation led by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, included National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, Chief of General Staff Yasar Guler, spy chief Hakan Fidan, communications director Fahrettin Altun and presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin.

– COVID-19 updates worldwide

Saudi Arabia will accept 60,000 citizens and residents to perform Hajj pilgrimage, shutting the doors to pilgrims from abroad, the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah said in a statement.

It added that those who do not have chronic diseases, between 18 and 65 years old and have been vaccinated will be allowed to perform the religious duty.

Moscow announced that next week will be a non-working week due to a surge in coronavirus cases.

More than 2.33 billion coronavirus vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, figures compiled by Our World in Data, a tracking website, shows.

– Other global developments

The leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies met in Cornwall, England, for a G7 summit hosted by the UK.

It is the first face-to-face G7 summit since 2019 and will last three days.

Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 95th birthday with scaled back ceremonies for the second straight year due to coronavirus restrictions.

The Trooping the Colour, a traditional ceremony on the queen’s birthday, was held at Windsor Castle with a reduced parade instead of central London.


Finland beat Denmark 1-0 in a EURO 2020 match that was interrupted with shock when Danish midfielder Christian Eriksen’s collapsed near the end of the first half. After leaving the pitch on a stretcher, Eriksen, 29, was reported to be “stabilized” and conscious in the hospital.

Thousands turn out in Canada for the funeral of a Muslim family. Four family members were killed in an Islamophobic attack last week, which left a 9-year-old orphan.

A day after Canadian lawmakers passed a motion to convene an emergency summit on Islamophobia, the Ontario government echoed the move by condemning Islamophobia.

Three civilians were injured by Russian airstrikes in Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province, near the Turkish border, according to civil defense sources.

Czech Republic’s Barbora Krejcikova won the 2021 French Open title in women’s title, her first major singles championship.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Portugal defender Joao Cancelo on Sunday was removed from the national team squad over a positive coronavirus test result, the Portuguese football body said.

“Diogo Dalot replaces Joao Cancelo. The AC Milan player will replace Joao Cancelo, who tested positive for Covid-19 following a rapid antigen test carried out this Saturday by the FPF Health and Performance Unit,” the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) said in a statement.

Manchester City’s Cancelo was taken into isolation and was said to be “doing well”.

Meanwhile, all players and national team members except Cancelo tested negative on Saturday.

Dalot will make his senior debut if he plays for Portugal during the ongoing EURO 2020 tournament.

The 22-year-old, who was loaned from Manchester United, spent the 2020-21 season in Italy’s Milan.

He played in 33 matches for Milan to score two goals.

EURO 2016 champions Portugal will respectively face Hungary, Germany and France in the Group F.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The third and final face-off between Iran’s presidential candidates, six days before the vote, was an animated contest of competing manifestos intertwined with acerbic attacks.

Centered around “people’s issues,” the debate saw five conservative and two reformist hopefuls pitching ambitious plans, targeting the incumbent government and wrestling with each other.

Taking up where they left off, candidates held Hassan Rouhani’s reformist government responsible for myriad problems facing the country, from rising inflation, turbulence in the forex market, the coronavirus crisis, economic corruption and a lack of transparency to sanctions.

Even a reformist candidate, Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh, criticized the incumbent government’s “interference in the stock market,” saying it should be “left in the hands of investors.”

Conservative candidate Ghazizadeh-Hashemi blamed the government for the “unfair distribution of resources among people” and challenged him to a live debate.

Alireza Zakani, a conservative, termed a sharp rise in inflation a “catastrophe,” pledging to bring it down. He said the government was banking “on the pockets of people.”

Former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp chief and conservative candidate Mohsen Rezaei said the country needs a “big surgery,” indicting the present government for failing to get sanctions lifted.

Fellow conservative Saeed Jalili said sanctions must be “neutralized,” questioning the “negotiating strategy” of the government and describing the 2015 nuclear deal as faulty.

Ebrahim Raeisi, who has been leading in opinion polls, said the bureaucratic system “needs to be rectified,” including fighting corruption and red tape.

Former top banker and reformist candidate AbdolNaser Hemmati, in defense of the government, blamed “sanctions” for the country’s economic woes.

He also took digs at conservatives, saying they want the country to remain isolated from the rest of the world by paving the way for sanctions.

Candidates also fired acerbic salvos at each other, in particular, Hemmati hitting out at Raeisi and Zakani taking on Hemmati.

Hemmati urged Raeisi to issue orders, as the judiciary chief, for lifting social media filters, while Zakani flashed a letter showing Hemmati endorsing the decision of fuel price hike in 2019, which led to unrest and killings.

Iran goes to polls June 18 with speculation that the disqualification of key reformist figures could affect the turnout.

According to opinion polls, top conservative figure Raeisi is leading the race by a huge margin.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Two flights of Bangladesh’s national flag carrier reached the capital Dhaka Sunday evening with 600,000 doses of Chinese Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine donated in a sign of friendship, according to official sources.

A top foreign investor in Bangladesh, China on May 12 gave Dhaka 500,000 doses.

Bangladesh received the second shipment at a time when the country is going through a critical phase of its nationwide inoculation campaign due to a vaccine shortage.

Hualong Yan, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka, Sunday morning confirmed on social media that the second shipment is on its way to Bangladesh.

In a statement, Bangladesh’s military’s mouthpiece, Inter Services Public Relations, also confirmed receiving the Chinese vaccines.

The South Asian delta nation of 165 million people started its nationwide vaccination program on Feb. 7 with the Covishield and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.

But on April 25, the government had to suspend the vaccination campaign a day after India stopped exporting the vaccine due to an unprecedented surge in cases and deaths there.

Though Bangladesh signed a deal with India on Dec. 13, 2020 to purchase 30 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in installments, the country received just 7 million doses in two installments. However, India gave Bangladesh 3.2 million doses.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Sunday recorded 47 deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day toll in a month, taking the COVID-19 casualties to 13,118.

With 2,436 new infections, the number of total cases surged to 826,922.

Bangladesh has so far inoculated over 10 million people.

Meanwhile, the country extended the ongoing border lockdown with India for another two weeks, Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen told Anadolu Agency after an inter-ministerial meeting.

Bangladesh shut its border with its closest neighbor on April 26 and later extended the shutdown several times.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Rwanda have banned with immediate effect all flights from Uganda due to reports of rising COVID-19 cases in the East African country.

Uganda Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Viany Lugya said: “The United Arab Emirates has stopped flights from Uganda after learning that the number of COVID-19 cases in Uganda has gone up. Rwanda has also done the same.”

This came after reports that COVID-19 cases and deaths have gone up in Uganda. Over 1,000 new cases are being reported daily over the past five days.

Last week, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni imposed strict measures, restricting movement of people from one district to another and closing all schools and institutions of higher learning.

According to the Health Ministry, Uganda on Saturday registered 15 fatalities and 1,735 new virus infections, bringing the total number of deaths to 423 and infections to 60,250.

The total number of recoveries in the country stands at 48,160, according to the ministry.

Source: Anadolu Agency