Category: General

Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s party won the early parliamentary election with 53.92% of the votes, according to preliminary results on Monday.

Unofficial results announced by the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia showed that Pashinyan’s the Civil Contract Party came first in the election held on Sunday.

Former President Robert Kocharian’s party the Armenian Alliance came second with 21.1% of the votes.

The voter turnout in the election was 49.4%, according to the commission.

Twenty-six political movements competed in the election for the office vacated after Pashinyan’s resignation from premiership on April 25.

A total of 22 political parties, along with four alliances, participated in the election to receive votes from over 2.58 million people.

Pashinyan’s resignation came after last year’s defeat in Karabakh region, where a six-week long war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended with a Russian-brokered truce on Nov. 10.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.​​​​​​​

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkey is exploring additional cooperation opportunities with Rwanda in the financial sector as it displays great efforts to become a financial hub for Africa, with the Kigali International Financial Centre (KIFC), according to a Turkish diplomat.

KIFC is an initiative seeking to position Rwanda as a preferred financial hub for investments on the continent and create alternatives for mobilizing capital.

“Turkey’s Aktif Bank is opening a Representation Office in Kigali to cover East Africa pending the final clearance from the Rwanda National Bank,” Burcu Cevik told Anadolu Agency.

Cevik said that DEİK, Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board and Rwanda Finance Ltd — a company that promotes KIFC — took an important step to organize a webinar on June 2 to discuss various cooperation possibilities.

The diplomat said despite Rwanda being a small landlocked country, it is party to all regional and continental free trade schemes that also allow potential investors to use Rwanda as a base to reach wider markets in the region.

“Rwanda’s business-friendly environment, political stability, its adherence to the rule of law principle and existence of strong institutions has attracted more interest from Turkey in recent years,” she noted.

Cevik said Rwanda is the second easiest country to do business in Africa according to the World Bank Index. “It is ranked first in East Africa. With respect to fighting against corruption, Rwanda is in fourth place in Africa. Rwanda is also among the most secure countries in Africa,” she said, noting it is worthy of investment.

– Trade relations flourish

Cevik revealed that trade relations between Turkey and Rwanda have grown rapidly despite the coronavirus pandemic.

“In 2020 total trade volume between Turkey-Rwanda doubled compared to the previous year, reaching $81.4 million,” she said, adding that Turkey offers a good and reliable supply market for goods and materials for Rwanda.

“Turkey is showing more interest in buying minerals and coffee from Rwanda, whereas Rwanda buys mainly all kinds of consumption materials, including iron and steel products, food items, electronics, medical equipment, construction materials and textiles, among others,” said Cevik.

– Turkish investments

The diplomat said Turkey’s investments in Rwanda have concentrated mainly around energy, construction, education, health, manufacturing and hospitality.

“The biggest Turkish investment in Rwanda is the Peat Power Plant investment with 80 MGW [megawatt] capacity,” said Cevik.“It is the single biggest foreign investment in Rwanda so far.”

Once construction is complete, the plant in southern Rwanda will be a major input for meeting the country’s energy requirements and targets.​​​​​​​

Source: Anadolu Agency

Russia on Monday said there is no reason to remove the US from its list of unfriendly states.

Speaking at a virtual news conference, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the situation could change if the agreements between the Russian and US presidents reached at a meeting in Geneva last Wednesday are implemented.

Peskov said such meetings are necessary to understand “where it is useless to talk, where it is necessary, where the parties do not agree categorically with each other, and where they can fully act in unison.”

The next step is practical implementation of the agreements, which could be sabotaged at the working level, Peskov said.

“Until this implementation at the working level has not taken an effective character, and until we see the results of this implementation, there is no reason for changes [removing the US from the list of unfriendly states],” Peskov said.

Asked about a new round of US sanctions announced earlier in Washington, Peskov said Moscow understands that the US will continue its “policy of containment.”

“We are aware of possible upcoming sanctions that are codified [formalized into law]. The fact is that some sanctions are codified. Their introduction does not even depend on the will of the US president,” he said.

However, although the introduction of sanctions does not depend on the US president’s will, he can decide what measures will be chosen, he said.

“What sanctions can be imposed – we certainly analyze the situation and calculate different options,” he said.

On Saturday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington is preparing new sanctions against Russia connected to the situation of opposition figure Alexey Navalny and construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline.

– Russian ambassador will have ‘difficult job’ in Washington

Asked about the return of the Russian and US ambassadors to their respective posts, Peskov said Anatoly Antonov will have a “difficult enough job” upon his return.

In a separate statement, Deputy Foreign Minister Evgeny Ivanov said Russia and the US will soon start working on the issue of restoring the work of embassies and issuing visas.

After Moscow and the US mutually expelled diplomats in recent years, the US Embassy in Moscow stopped issuing visas due to a lack of personnel.

Source: Anadolu Agency

In video interviews, foreign expats who have long lived in Turkey voiced their admiration for Turkey’s healthcare system and its COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

In videos called Bu Topraklara Asik (In Love with These Lands) posted online by Turkey’s Communications Directorate, Italian, German, British, and Greek nationals who settled down in coastal provinces of Balikesir, Izmir, Mugla, and Antalya compared Turkey’s healthcare system favorably with that of their home countries.

“We are grateful to all our public officials, especially our healthcare professionals, who do their work in an effort that would set an example for the world in the fight against coronavirus,” Fahrettin Altun, the directorate head, said on Twitter.

Since it launched a mass inoculation drive in mid-January, Turkey has administered over 42.5 million doses of vaccines.

– Healthcare system better in Turkey

Turkish society is very careful about measures for the pandemic. People maintain social distance, and masks are worn everywhere. “Here they look after old people who can’t go shopping,” said German national Michael Wigant, who lives in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya.

“What the government has done here during the shutdown period is much better than what was done in Germany,” he said, adding that medical support is better.

“Unlike Germany, vaccination is done better, based on your age. We feel safer here than in Germany. And that’s one of the reasons why we haven’t been to Germany, even if it’s just for two weeks, and we’re staying here,” he said.

Stressing the advantages of the Turkish healthcare system, he said: “In Germany I wait two months for X-rays, but only 20 minutes here.”

“I don’t know why the situation in Germany is so stressed, but in my opinion, the healthcare system in Turkey is better than in Germany,” he underlined.

He went on to say: “We hear that the number of intensive care beds here is always enough. In Germany, the healthcare system collapsed.”

Italian national Carlo Brivio, who now lives in Izmir on the Aegean, said he had thought about going back to Italy to be vaccinated, but that when he spoke with his friends, the vaccination situation there sounded uncertain.

His wife called a local Turkish doctor to learn more about the vaccinations, and the doctor invited them both to come get their shots, Brivio said, adding: “I couldn’t believe it.”

His wife quickly got vaccinated, he said, adding: “I booked my vaccination for one week later. And after three weeks, we got our second vaccinations. We had no problems.”

– Simple appointment system

Stressing how easy it was to get a vaccination appointment, Tudor Hughes, a Welshman who came to coastal Mugla with his wife Barbara, said: “The vaccination process was really quite simple.”

You can use the telephone or computer to make your own appointment, he said, adding: “It was really quite simple to use.”

Yiannis Yiatilis, a Greek national who settled down in Turkey’s western province of Balikesir, said: “It was very easy to get an appointment. When my day came, we went to the hospital, and everything was done perfectly.”

“Everything was quite clean and nice. We didn’t have to wait for even two minutes. It was done very quickly, very efficiently. I’m very happy about it.”

Touching on his enjoyment living in Turkey, he said: “As a Greek, I find many things to connect me, and apart from food and music, I feel at home.”

Source: Anadolu Agency

Ethiopia extended by three hours the voting deadline in its ongoing sixth general elections on Monday, which were to end at 6 p.m. while people in the capital still lining up to cast their ballots.

The National Electoral Board of Ethiopia announced in a statement that voting would continue until 9 p.m.

Solyana Shimeles, the board’s communication director said that ballot-counting would begin right away and that every polling station would post their respective results.

Earlier, the board said voting had been largely successful. However, election officials had to close a polling station in the town of Ambo, 112 kilometers (70 miles) west of Addis Ababa, claiming they had received threats, with a ruling pending on the incident.

Ethiopian authorities used improved ballot boxes in these elections compared to previous polls in terms of transparency. Nearly 38 million voters have registered to elect 547 federal parliament members on Monday.

As many as 9,175 candidates have been listed by 47 political parties, while 125 are running as independents in the polls being conducted at more than 49,407 polling stations across the Horn of Africa country.

But, voters in 78 of 547 constituencies will have to wait until Sept. 6 due to logistical, security and administrative hurdles.

Source: Anadolu Agency

– Turkish entrepreneurs’ foreign investments amounted to $43.9 billion last year, according to a research conducted by the Turkish Trade Ministry.

In 2020, Turkish entrepreneurs made 2,118 investments in 124 countries, Trade Minister Mehmet Mus said Monday.

Turkish investments provided employment for around 158,000 people in 2020, according to the ministry’s statement.

“Our exports through Turkish investments abroad amounted to $6.4 billion in 2020, the turnover of investments reached $35 billion,” the minister said.

Turkey’s companies have become global actors with their investments abroad, increasing their competitiveness in the world markets, he added.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Turkey will use oxygenation technology to protect the Sea of Marmara from mucilage, also known as sea snot, as part of the country’s clean-up campaign launched earlier this month, said the environment minister on Monday.

“On Tuesday, June 22, we will deliver oxygen to the depth of 30 meters of the Sea of Marmara from 4 points in Korfez, Kocaeli, and another area in Pendik Marina,” Murat Kurum announced on Twitter.

He went on to say that the aim is to increase the dissolved oxygen in the depths of the Sea of Marmara with advanced oxygenation devices.

“With the pilot scheme, we will carry out a study like the cases abroad,” Kurum added.

Mucilage is an overgrowth of microscopic algae called phytoplankton caused by rising seawater temperatures due to global warming, stagnant water, and pollution.

This year, mucilage or “sea snot” was detected in January and then intensified and expanded in April, resulting in a serious problem contrary to previous examples, which usually disappeared in a month or 45 days.

As it continued to increase in its intensity in May and June, the Turkish authorities announced a comprehensive action plan to clean up the Sea of Marmara on June 6.

As of Sunday, Turkish sea-cleaning teams have collected a total of 4,555 cubic meters (160,858 cubic feet) of mucilage from the Sea of Marmara.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya al-Sinwar, on Monday warned Israel against continuing its years-long blockade on the Palestinian territory.

Sinwar held a meeting on Monday with UN Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland at his office in Gaza City.

“Israel is still continuing its policies against our people and prisoners, and there is no sign of solving the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Sinwar said. “Israel is blackmailing the resistance on easing (the blockade) on Gaza.”

Sinwar said Hamas has informed the UN envoy of its rejection of the Israeli blackmail. “We told the United Nations delegation of our intention to hold a meeting with the leaders of the national and Islamic factions in Gaza to study the next step,” he said.

The Hamas leader continued, “the current situation requires the practice of popular resistance in a clear way in order to put pressure on the occupation again.”

Earlier on Monday, Wennesland arrived in Gaza through the Israeli Erez terminal as part of efforts to solidify a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel and ease the Gaza siege.

On Sunday, a well-informed Palestinian source revealed to Anadolu Agency that Palestinian resistance leaders decided to give Arab and international efforts an opportunity to “make achievements on the issue of the blockade imposed on Gaza and end the suffering of its residents”.

The source said that the coming days will witness “more movements and diplomatic efforts to achieve this.”

An Egyptian-brokered truce came into force on May 21, ending 11 days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Several French soldiers were injured in an attack on France’s force Operation Barkhane in central Mali on Monday morning, French media reported.

“The French forces of Operation Barkhane were struck, Monday, June 21 in the morning, by a car bomb attack in the district of Kaigourou, in Gossi (central Mali),” France 24 reported.

According to local sources, the large explosion left several people injured. Witnesses said several helicopters were dispatched to the area from Gao.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

The attack comes over a week after French President Emmanuel Macron announced the end of Operation Barkhane, France’s flagship military operation in the Sahel, and the formation of an international “anti-terrorism” alliance to combat extremist groups.

Operation Barkhane was launched in 2014 to conduct military operations against extremist armed groups and train and support military forces of the G5 countries. Some 5,100 French military personnel are deployed in the Sahel region as part of the operation.

Source: Anadolu Agency