Sunday, May 14, 2023

Six In The Morning Sunday 14 May 2023

 

Polls close in tough electoral challenge for Turkey's Erdogan


By Eliza Mackintosh, Nadeen Ebrahim and Tamara Qiblawi, CNN

Updated 11:37 a.m. ET, May 14, 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed gratitude for the democratic voting process on Sunday and said his government will "continue to protect the will" of Turkey until all the votes are counted.

“The voting process was completed in a way that befits our democracy, thank God. Now, as always, it's time to hold tight to the ballot boxes. Until the results are final, we continue to protect the will of our nation!” he wrote on his official Twitter account.

Polls closed at 17:00 local time. The Turkish leader, who has held his post for 20 years, cast his ballot in Istanbul and told reporters, “We pray to God for a better future for our country, our nation, and Turkish democracy."



Imran Khan accuses Pakistan’s military of ordering his arrest

Exclusive: Former PM claims after release from custody that army chief has ‘personal grudge’ and is behind crackdown on party

Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has escalated his criticism of the country’s powerful military, accusing the head of the army of harbouring a “personal grudge” against him and ordering his arrest and a crackdown on his party.

“It is personal. It’s got nothing to do with national interest,” Khan told the Guardian in an interview at his home in Lahore, after a dramatic week in which he was arrested at Islamabad’s high court by almost 100 paramilitary officers on Tuesday and held in police custody, in connection with a land corruption case.


Operation CounterstrikeWhat Might the Approaching Ukrainian Offensive Achieve?

Ukraine will likely unleash its counteroffensive soon with tanks, drones and fresh troops. Kyiv badly needs some kind of success. The troops aren't only fighting the Russians – they also need to prove to the West that they are still worthy of support.


The Ukrainian officer sets up a Google Meet call just five minutes ahead of our interview, sending the link from quarters located somewhere in the southwestern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia. He declines to say exactly where.

The lieutenant-colonel and the reconnaissance unit he commands were sent to this part of the front back in late February. Since then, they have been scouting the front lines and mapping the trenches dug by the Russian troops. Drones, satellite imagery, frontline reconnaissance missions: The Ukrainian unit has been deploying all the tools at its disposal.


Cyclone Mocha makes landfall in Bangladesh, Myanmar


Deaths were reported in Myanmar after the storm tore down homes, trees and blew the roofs of shelters. Mocha is the most powerful cyclone to hit the region since 2007.


Cyclone Mocha slammed into coastal areas of southeastern Bangladesh and Myanmar on Sunday, flooding the Burmese port city of Sittwe.

Several deaths were reported in Myanmar after the most powerful cyclone to hit the region in more than 15 years lashed their townships.

Packing winds of up to 210 kilometers per hour (130 miles), equivalent to a category 5 hurricane, the cyclone forced authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people to shelters.

"It is now crossing Cox's Bazar-North Myanmar coast. It (is) likely to move north-northeasterly direction and complete crossing Cox's Bazar-North Myanmar coast near Sittwe by afternoon," the Bangladesh meteorological department said.


As French mayors are targeted in violent attacks, many feel abandoned


Less than two months after losing his home in an arson attack, the mayor of a town in western France resigned this week, citing, among other things, a “lack of support from the state”. Amid an increasingly tense political environment, attacks against mayors in France are multiplying. And some say they have been left to fend for themselves.  

At the break of dawn on March 22, Mayor Yannick Morez of Saint-Brévin in western France woke up to find his house in flames.

“We could have died,” Morez wrote in the resignation letter he submitted on Tuesday. Neither he nor his family were injured, but the fire destroyed his home and two cars parked outside. The fire was a deliberate, targeted attack.

Almost two months later, the case is still being investigated. But Morez has already decided to seek a fresh start, with plans to leave the town he has called home for 32 years by the end of June.  



Kenya cult: Children targeted to die first, pastor says

Children were targeted as the first to be starved to death in the final days of a Christian doomsday cult in Kenya, according to fresh accounts emerging.

Police investigating an apparent mass suicide have so far exhumed 201 bodies in a forest in the nation's southeast.

A former deputy preacher of the cult told the New York Times that children were killed first, ordered "to fast in the sun so they would die faster."

Women and men were next to follow the suicide plan, Titus Katana said.








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