Day: April 2, 2023

At least four PKK terrorists who escaped from a terror camp in northern Iraq have surrendered to Turkish security forces, the country’s National Defense Ministry announced.

The terrorists laid down their arms at a Turkish frontier control post in southeastern Sirnak province, a statement said on Saturday.

The only way out for the terrorists is to surrender to justice, it added.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK — listed as a terrorist organisation by Türkiye, the US and EU — has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

PKK terrorists have hideouts in northern Iraq, across the Turkish border, which they use to plot attacks on Türkiye.

Türkiye has carried out a series of offensives to clear the region of terrorists.

Source: TRTworld.com

Finland is likely to get a new prime minister as the liberal-conservative National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) won the parliamentary elections on Sunday by a narrow margin with nearly 99% of the votes having been counted.

According to public broadcaster YLE, the party, led by senior politician Antti Petteri Orpo, secured 48 seats, 10 more than it won in the 2019 elections, of the country's 200-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote.

The right-wing populist The Finns Party (PS) received 20.1% of the votes and gained 46 seats, up from 39 in 2019.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sanna Marin's Social Democratic Party( SDP) finished in third place and secured 43 seats with 19.9%.

The agrarian Centre Party suffered a major defeat and lost eight of its 31 seats with 11.4%, while The Left Alliance lost five of its 11 seats with 7.1%.

The Green Party received 7% of the votes and gained 13 seats, down from 20 in the 2019 elections.

Source: Anadolu Agency

At least two children were killed in a mortar mine explosion in eastern Afghanistan, an official said on Sunday.

The incident, which is the third of its kind in less than a week, took place in the Sayedabad district of eastern Afghanistan's Wardak province on Saturday when the ill-fated children found a mortar mine left over from past wars and started playing with it, police spokesman Yusuf Israr told reporters.

The mortar mine, Israr added, went off, killing both children.

War-torn Afghanistan is one of the most mine-contaminated countries in the world. Dozens of people, mostly children, are killed or maimed every month in explosions caused by unexploded devices left over from the past four decades of wars and civil conflict.

A similar blast killed two children and injured another four in the northern Jawzjan province on Tuesday, while another child lost his life and three others were injured as a live mine exploded in southern Zabul province on Friday, according to the local media.

Source: Anadolu Agency

An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 struck New Guinea, Papua New Guinea region early Monday, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The US agency said the quake struck about 62 kilometers below the surface at around 3.04 a.m. local time (1704 GMT).

No tsunami alert was issued following the quake and authorities have not yet reported any damage or casualties.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Tornadoes that ravaged the US have killed at least 26 people, injuring dozens across southern and midwestern parts of the country, according to officials on Sunday.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said over 60 tornadoes have been reported in the past 24 hours in a wide area covering eight states, including Arkansas, Mississippi, Iowa, Tennessee, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

While the tornadoes claimed nine lives in Tennessee, five in Arkansas, three in Indiana, and four in Illinois, other deaths from the storms were reported in Alabama and Mississippi.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency amid severe storm warnings on Saturday.

Houses and workplaces were heavily damaged and thousands were left without power in regions hit by tornadoes and storms.

The NWS also confirmed that the tornado that hit Arkansas state's capital Little Rock was a 'high-end' EF3 with maximum winds estimated at 164 miles per hour (265 kilometers per hour).

It has issued storm warnings for Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

Around 530,000 households were left without power in parts of the US, including more than 200,000 in the state of Ohio, according to PowerOutage.us, a website that tracks power outages.

The latest round of severe weather came one week after a series of deadly storms ripped through the southeast with one tornado killing at least 26 people in Rolling Fork, Mississippi.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The Israeli government on Sunday approved a 1.5% cut in ministries' budgets to fund the National Guard, an armed force under far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

A cabinet session held Sunday witnessed a verbal exchange between Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel and Ben-Gvir, according to The Jerusalem Post newspaper.

'You want everything fast and it comes at our expense,' Gamliel of the right-wing Likud Party told Ben-Gvir.

Former Prime Minister and opposition leader Yair Lapid strongly criticized the government's decision.

'The government approved horizontal cuts to fund Ben-Gvir's private militia,' Lapid said in a tweet.

'They will cut health, education, security, all to finance a private army of thugs for the TikTok clown and the pitas,' he said, referring to Ben-Gvir.

'The priorities of this government are ridiculous and despicable. The only thing that keeps her busy is running over democracy and promoting extreme fantasies of delusional people,' he added.

According to The Jerusalem Post, several ministers in the Cabinet expressed opposition to the 1.5% cut in the budgets of all ministries, which would hand Ben-Gvir's ministry around NIS 1 billion ($278 million).

On Monday, Netanyahu gave the National Guard to Ben-Gvir in exchange for his support for a decision to temporarily suspend plans for judicial overhaul, which triggered mass protests in Israel over the past three months.

Source: Anadolu Agency

At least six people were killed and eight injured on Sunday in a missile strike on the city of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office said.

Andriy Yermak said on Telegram: "... eight people were injured - shrapnel wounds. All are provided with medical care. Six people died."

Yermak said 16 apartment buildings, eight private houses, a children's preschool, the building of the Kostiantynivka State Tax Inspectorate, gas pipes, and three cars were damaged in the attack.

"The enemy made two hits (by S-300) and fired four volleys (by Uragan multiple rocket launcher)," Yermak further said.

According to initial information by Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, three people were killed and six were injured by the shelling.

'The Russians shelled the central part of the city this morning. High-rise buildings and private residential buildings suffered numerous damages,' Kyrylenko said in a Telegram message.

The victims of the shelling are being provided with assistance, he said, adding that rescuers and the police are on the scene.

'Information on the scale of the destruction and the number of victims will be updated as it becomes available,' Kyrylenko added.

Now in its second year, the war between Russia and Ukraine has so far killed 8,401 civilians and wounded 14,023 others, according to the latest UN figures.

Source: Anadolu Agency

The National Coalition Party leads in Finland's parliamentary elections by a narrow margin on Sunday, state media said.

The liberal-conservative party has received 20.8% of the votes, while Prime Minister Sanna Marin's Social Democratic Party (SPD) is following with 20.7%, according to public broadcaster YLE.

Meanwhile, right-wing populist The Finns Party (PS) got 18.6% of the votes.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Police in India's southern Telangana state busted a gang involved in the "theft, procurement, holding, and selling" of personal and confidential data of 669 million individuals and organizations, a senior police official said on Sunday.

Kalmeshwar Shingenavar, a senior police official in the state, told Anadolu over the phone that police have so far arrested 10 people from three Indian states.

'The data was used mostly for marketing, advertisements, and cybercrimes. It is, apparently, the biggest data theft busted in the country so far,' he said.

He noted that the investigation is now focused on how the accused got access to this huge data. Shingenavar also said that they are approaching several companies to find out how the data was leaked from their databases.

According to Cyberabad police in Telangana state, the gang is involved in the data theft of 669 million individuals and organizations across 24 states and eight metropolitan cities.

It said the accused possessed data from various sources, including India's largest ed-tech company Byjus, online tutoring platform Vedantu, cab users, salaried employees, Amazon, Netflix, India's largest mobile payment providers like Paytm, and Phonepe, as well as defense employees.

'The accused had been holding data from 135 categories containing sensitive information of government, private organizations, and individuals, and the police also seized two mobile phones, two laptops, and the data during the arrest,' said a statement by police.

It also said the main accused was "operating through a website called 'InspireWebz' based in Faridabad, Haryana, and was selling the database to clients through cloud drive links."

In the recent past, a number of data breach cases have come to the fore.

In December last year, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, to a question about "Rising Incidence of Data Breaches," told the Indian parliament that "the policies of the government are aimed at ensuring an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet for its users."

'With the expansion of the Internet, more and more Indians coming online and increase in the volume of data generated, stored and processed, instances of data breaches have also grown,' the ministry said.

Source: Anadolu Agency