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Turkey Officially Changes Name At UN

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Turkey has told the United Nations that, at the behest of its president, it wishes from now on to be called “Turkiye” in all languages, the UN announced Thursday.

“The change is immediate,” Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief’s spokesperson, told AFP by email.

He noted that Ankara’s official letter requesting the change had been received at the UN’s New York headquarters on Wednesday.

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The day before, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavasoglu had tweeted a photo of himself signing the letter, addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

With the letter I sent to the UN Secretary General today, we are registering our country’s name in foreign languages at the UN as ‘Turkiye,’” he wrote, including an umlaut over the “u”.

He added that the change would bring to an end the process of “increasing the brand value of our country,” an initiative started by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led the country for almost two decades.

Over the past few years, the country has sought to change the branding on its products from “made in Turkey” to “made in Turkiye.”

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In addition to making the UN’s nomenclature match how the nation is spelled in Turkish, the update would also help distinguish the country from the bird of the same name in English.

“The name change may seem silly to some but it puts Erdogan in the role of protector, of safeguarding international respect for the country,” Georgetown University professor Mustafa Aksakal was quoted as saying in The New York Times.

The newspaper also noted that the move comes ahead of next year’s presidential election as well as the centenary of the nation’s founding after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

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Iran Gets Interim President After Raisi’s Death

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Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber to assume interim duties after the death of president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash a day earlier.

“In accordance with Article 131 of the constitution, Mokhber is in charge of leading the executive branch,” said Khamenei in a statement, adding that Mokhber will be required to work with the heads of legislative and judicial branches to prepare for presidential elections “within a maximum period of 50 days”.

Recall that President Raisi was confirmed dead on Monday after his helicopter crashed in a mountainous region of the country.

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Raisi was travelling with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian who also died in the accident.

Rescue teams had been scouring the area since Sunday afternoon after a helicopter carrying Raisi, the foreign minister and other officials had gone missing.

Early Monday, relief workers located the missing helicopter, with state TV saying the president had died.

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The servant of Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi has achieved the highest level of martyrdom whilst serving the people,” state television said Monday, with Mehr news agency also saying he was dead.

State television broadcast photos of Raisi, with the voice of a man reciting the Koran playing in the background.

READ ALSO: Iran Declares 5 Days Of Mourning Over President Raisi’s Death

Iran’s vice president for executive affairs Mohsen Mansouri posted on X a Koranic verse used to express condolences.

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Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has announced a five days of mourning for President Raisi.

“I announce five days of public mourning and offer my condolences to the dear people of Iran,” said Khamenei in an official statement a day after the death of Raisi and other officials in the crash in East Azerbaijan province.

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UK Threatens To Deport Physically-challenged Nigerian After 38 Years

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The United Kingdom has threatened to deport a physically-challenged Nigerian man, Anthony Olubunmi George, over an alleged forged entry stamp in his passport.

George who has lived in the UK for 38 years, after he left Nigeria at the age of 24 in 1986, according to the Guardian UK.

The 61-year-old Nigerian has no criminal convictions and made several applications for leave to remain in the UK, which the Home Office has rejected, most recently on 7 May.

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George’s case became the second African facing a huge disappointment with the UK Home Office after spending several years in Britain.

READ ALSO: US Sets Deadline For Troop Withdrawal From Niger

Vanguard reported last week that a 74-year-old Ghanaian Nelson Shardey, who has resided in the UK since 1977, was refused indefinite leave to remain despite being in the country for most of his adult life.

As the case of the Nigerian, he has never left the UK and has no criminal convictions, with the reports of having two strokes, which left him with problems with speech and mobility in 2019.

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When George arrived, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and Rishi Sunak is the ninth to hold office since George has lived in the UK.

He has endured many periods of homelessness and disclosed he has lost count of the number of friends who have given him shelter over the years, adding that he no longer has any close family in Nigeria.

READ ALSO:Step-by-step Guide To Applying For 2024 MTN Scholarship

The Guardian UK said in 2005, his previous solicitors submitted a forged entry stamp in his passport and have subsequently been reported to the police and the legal regulatory bodies.

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George told the Guardian he knew nothing about the passport stamp until many years later. His current lawyer, Naga Kandiah of MTC Solicitors, cited his poor previous legal representation as the reason for George’s problems.

In his most recent refusal, Home Office officials said: “Unfortunately this is not something that is considered an exceptional circumstance.”

READ ALSO: List Of Persons On Board Iranian President’s Missing Helicopter

Kandiah has lodged an appeal against the latest refusal.

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A previous Home Office rejection of his case states: “It’s open to your family and friends to visit you in Nigeria.”

George said, “I don’t know how many different sofas I’ve slept on – too many to count. I don’t have my life, living the way I’m living now. My health problems since I had my stroke are my biggest worry. All I’m asking for is some kindness from the Home Office.”

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JUST IN: ICC Prosecutor Seeks Arrest Warrants For Netanyahu, Hamas Leaders

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The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas’s leader in Gaza for war crimes.

According to BBC, Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to believe that both men bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity from at least 7 October 2023.

The ICC, based in The Hague, has been investigating Israel’s actions in the occupied territories for the past three years – and more recently the actions of Hamas as well.

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READ ALSO: Iran Declares 5 Days Of Mourning Over President Raisi’s Death

Mr Netanyahu recently called the prospect of senior Israel figures joining the ICC’s wanted list “an outrage of historic proportions”.

Last week, 13 Western countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Japan and others cautioned Israel over its resolve to launch a full-scale operation in Rafah.

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