Turkey to mark anniversary of coup attempt
Events will be held in Turkey later to mark the first anniversary of a failed coup in which at least 260 people died and 2,196 were wounded.
A faction of the army tried to seize power from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but the attempt collapsed.
Since the coup, the government has dismissed more than 150,000 employees from state institutions in a purge that continued until the anniversary's eve.
It has rejected criticism, saying it had to root out coup supporters.
But the purge, as well as a wave of 50,000 arrests alongside it, have galvanised opposition.
Critics say Mr Erdogan is using the purges to stifle political dissent, and last week hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Istanbul at the end of a 450km (280-mile) "justice" march against the government.
'Quite odd': coral and fish thrive on Bikini Atoll 70 years after nuclear tests
Scientists say marine life has proved ‘remarkably resilient’ despite the Pacific island being declared a wasteland in the 1950s
The former island paradise of Bikini Atoll is slowing blooming back to life, 70 years after the United States dropped 23 nuclear bombs on it, including a device in 1954 that was 1,100-times larger than the Hiroshima atom bomb.
A team of scientists from Stanford University have been surprised to discover an abundance of marine life apparently thriving in the crater of Bikini Atoll, which was declared a nuclear wasteland after the bombings, with its 167 inhabitants relocated to other islands.
Steve Palumbi, a professor in marine sciences at the university, said the effects of radiation poisoning on ocean life have never been studied in-depth, and his team’s initial research suggests it is “remarkably resilient”.
Don’t underestimate Iraq’s historic victory against Isis – though the human cost was great
The crass response of the leaders of the US-led coalition who orchestrated the attack on west Mosul shows that we are back in the Vietnam era when American officers were happy to volunteer that they were destroying populated areas in order to save them
Northern Iraq is one of the most fought over places on earth. Ancient and modern fortifications are everywhere. Just outside Erbil is the site of the battle of Gaugamela where Alexander the Great defeated the Persian army in 331 BC. Saddam Hussein’s soldiers fought the Kurds here for decades. But the nine-month long struggle for Mosul between Iraqi government forces and Isis, which just ended, is probably the most important and decisive battle ever fought in this region.
It is ending with a victory of historic proportions for the Iraqi government which will go far to shape the political future of not just Iraq, but the region as a whole. Isis, which for three years had an army, administration and territory making it more powerful than many members of the UN, has been defeated. It will revert to guerrilla warfare, but it will no longer be in control of a state machine through which it exercised its monstrous rule.
Turkey's purges continue a year after failed coup
One year on, Turkey’s crackdown on suspected coup plotters shows no signs of ending - and has now reached human rights workers. Diego Cupolo reports from Ankara.
Mert's story is just one of many and typical of the current situation in Turkey. He had voiced concern in group meetings, as he always did, but instead of citing personal disagreements on the day he was laid off, he said his boss accused him of having links to a terrorist organization. Speaking under an alias to avoid repercussions, Mert, 37, said he was dismissed from his job at an Ankara government ministry last fall for questioning his superiors.
"He said I was a Gulenist," Mert told DW, referring to Fethullah Gulen, an exiled cleric who the Turkish government blames for plotting last year's failed coup. "To make such a claim is ridiculous because he knew it wasn't true. He just wanted to get rid of me."
Taiwanese or Chinese? An island state’s shifting identities
On the 30th anniversary of the lifting of martial rule in Taiwan, Asia Times examines the Republic's political tensions and horizons and asks inhabitants how they see themselves
JULY 15, 2017 2:36 PM
It is January 16, 2016, and 56-year-old Liu Tao-shan is sitting quietly in his living room in Taichung, Taiwan. The television in front of him is showing the results of Taiwan’s 14th presidential election. The Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen has beaten the Kuomintang’s Eric Chu and the People First Party’s James Soong with 6.89 million votes, marking the third time power has changed hands on the island since democratic elections were introduced in 1996.
“I feel very confused,” Liu confesses.
Liu’s father was a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek and retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after Chiang lost out to Mao Zedong’s Communist forces in the Chinese civil war. Growing up receiving a patriotic education, Liu has always believed that he is a Chinese national living temporarily on the island of Taiwan.Torrential rains in northern Kyushu 'out of the ordinary': JMA
(Mainichi Japan)Near the Fukuoka Prefecture city of Asakura, badly damaged by the recent torrential rains that hit northern Kyushu, some 1,000 millimeters of rain had been recorded in the 24-hour period ending on midnight of July 5, data analysis by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has revealed, attesting to how localized and concentrated the rainfall was in the latest disaster.
The heavy rainfall had been concentrated in southern Asakura including the Haki district, which suffered many casualties. The JMA analysis also shows that about 400 millimeters of rain fell in a three-hour period, far exceeding the amount recorded in 2014 when heavy rain (some 250 millimeters) caused mudslides in Hiroshima, and in the downpours seen in the Kanto and Tohoku regions in 2015 (some 200 millimeters).
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