Turkey President Faces Voter Fury After Earthquake

Published

1 year ago

February 10, 2023

Editor

Hakan Tanriverdi has a simple message for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan days after Turkey suffered its worst disaster in generations: “Don’t come here asking for votes.”

The earthquake that killed more than 21,000 people across Turkey and Syria came at one of the most politically sensitive moments of Erdogan’s two-decade rule.

The Turkish leader has proposed holding a crunch election on May 14 that could keep his Islamic-rooted government in power until 2028.

The date gives his splintered opposition little time to hammer out their differences and agree on a joint presidential candidate.

Whether that vote can now go ahead as planned remains to be seen.

Erdogan has declared a three-month state of emergency across 10 quake-hit provinces. The region is still digging out its dead and many are living on the streets or in their cars.

Campaigning here seems out of the question.

But there is also a political dimension that is deeply personal for Erdogan.

The earthquake struck just as he was gaining momentum and starting to lift his approval numbers from a low suffered during a dire economic crisis that exploded last year.

Tanriverdi’s bitterness is a bad sign for Erdogan in a province where he handily beat his secular opposition rival in the last election in 2018.

“We were deeply hurt that no one supported us,” Tanriverdi said of the government’s earthquake response.

– Erdogan fights back –
Tanriverdi’s grievances are common in Adiyaman province — one of the hardest-hit by the quake.

Locals complain that rescuers didn’t arrive in time to pull out people who survived the first critical hours. Some pointed to a lack of machinery to drill through slabs of concrete.

“I did not see anyone until 2:00 pm on the second day of the earthquake,” Adiyaman resident Mehmet Yildirim said.

“No government, no state, no police, no soldiers. Shame on you! You left us on our own.”

Erdogan admitted “shortcomings” in the government’s handling of the disaster on Wednesday.

But he is also fighting back. The 68-year-old led a rescue response meeting in Ankara on Tuesday and spent the following two days touring a series of devastated cities.

He is yet to visit Adiyaman.

That upsets Hediye Kalkan, a volunteer who travelled nearly 150 kilometres (95 miles) to help with the Adiyaman rescue and recovery effort.

“Why doesn’t the state show itself on a day like this?” she demanded.

“People are taking their relatives’ bodies out by their own means”.

– ‘Isn’t it a sin?’ –
The sheer scale and timing of the disaster — spanning a large and remote region in the middle of a winter storm — would make any rescue effort complicated.

Erdogan has received a largely warm reception from locals in carefully choreographed visits broadcast on national television.

One elderly Syria, Turkey Quake Toll Rises To 2,300 came out to hug Erdogan and shed tears on his shoulder.

Veysel Gultekin might not do the same if he had a chance to face the Turkish leader.

Teenager Jailed For Life For Murder Of 16-year-old Boy At House Party

Published

1 hour ago

May 4, 2024

Editor

A teenager who stabbed Mikey Roynon, 16, to death with a “zombie knife” has been jailed for life.

Shane Cunningham, 16, fatally stabbed Mikey Roynon in the neck with a large hunting-style knife during a 16th birthday house party in Bath, Somerset in June 2023.

Mr Justice Saini sentenced him to life in jail with a minimum sentence of 16 years before he could be released for parole after he was convicted of murder.

Teenager jailed for life for murder of boy, 16, at house party
Shane Cunningham

His co-accused – Cartel Bushnell and Leo Knight, both 16 – were convicted of manslaughter after being acquitted of the more serious charge.

A judge sentenced Bushnell to nine years of youth detention, while Knight was given nine-and-a-half years’ youth detention.

The judge ruled that all three could be identified despite their age after an application by the PA news agency.

Cunningham had claimed he was acting in self-defence, claiming during the trial that Mikey had swung a knife towards friends in the garden of the property. But the jury saw through his story following a trial at Bristol crown court.

Mikey collapsed on the driveway with heavy bleeding from a single knife wound to his neck.

Police, paramedics and doctors soon arrived at the scene in Weston, a north-west suburb of Bath, but Mikey died.

The defendants ran off and threw away their weapons, two of which were recovered by police.

Detective Inspector Mark Newbury said: “That three boys armed themselves with knives to go to a teenage girl’s 16th birthday party is utterly unconscionable.

“Mikey went to that party to socialise and to have a good time. Instead, he was attacked with a horrifying weapon, suffered a catastrophic injury and tragically lost his life.

“Mikey was a much loved teenage boy and his family have been left totally devastated.

“They have shown incredible bravery and have courageously spoken out against knife crime since his death, which is something they should never have to do.

“Since Mikey’s death, other young lives have been lost across our policing area and as a result we have launched a proactive operation to tackle and disrupt serious violence and knife crime involving young people.

“However, we know police enforcement alone won’t solve the problem and we’re working closely with our local authority partners, our colleagues in education and health and the Violence Reduction Partnership to identify the root causes and divert young people away from criminality.

“Our communities are also key and we’d like to encourage parents to talk to their children about knife crime – to make sure that they understand the terrible consequences carrying a knife can have and also how to report if they have concerns about someone they know carrying a knife.”

Headline

Shock As Woman Who Visited Hospital For Scan Was Told She’s Dead

Published

3 hours ago

May 3, 2024

Editor

A woman was left shocked when she turned up to a hospital scan only to be told by staff that her records showed that she was already ‘’dead.”

Susan Johnson from Scarborough was left ‘shaking by a leaf’ after staff at the Bridlington Hospital in Yorkshire told her their records showed she’d been dead for four months.

The incident left Susan, 62, a retired housekeeper, baffled that her husband Bob needed to bring her a strong coffee to help calm her nerves.

The mother-of-two told BBC News: ‘I gave them my letter and their first words were, “ooh you’re dead”.

‘I said, “pardon?”. I was in shock.

‘Then they put something on the computer so I could have the scan and then they just said, “bye” and that’s it.’

It is unclear how the mistake happened as when Susan contacted her GP, they told her that the mistake had been fixed.

However, when she contacted the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the call handler told her she was still marked as already dead on the system.

‘On the computer you’re dead,’ she was told. Susan then informed her she couldn’t be dead as she was on the phone and talking.

The error meant that Susan’s carer’s allowance for looking after her disabled husband Bob briefly stopped, though this has now been fixed.

She said she shut down completely after the news and said there was nobody to talk to about the mistake.

Scarborough Medical Group told the BBC they’d received an electronic instruction about the ‘death’ from Primary Care Support England (PCSE).

Susan is concentrating on her hobbies of gardening and knitting as she recovers from the shock.

An NHS spokesperson said: ‘We are aware of an issue involving a civil death registration being incorrectly recorded against a patient’s medical record.

‘This was removed within 24 hours of it being reported to us in March 2023 and the patient was re-registered by their GP.

‘We would encourage the patient to contact us directly so we can explain further.’

Headline

PHOTOS: Sandhurst Trained: UK High Commissioner Hosts First Nigerian Female To Graduate From Premier British Military Institution

Published

8 hours ago

May 3, 2024

Editor

The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery, has congratulated Princess Owowoh on making history at the United Kingdom’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS).

Taking to X.com on Thursday, Montgomery expressed his pleasure in meeting Owowoh, who was accompanied by an officer from the Nigerian Defence Academy.

Sharing photos, he wrote, “I was pleased to meet 2nd Lt. Princess Owowoh, the first Nigerian female officer cadet to graduate from the UK’s

#RMASandhurst, accompanied by Lt. Col Nyiam from the #NDefenceAcademy to congratulate her on making history, hear about her experience, and reflect on our Nigeria-British relationship.”

Owowoh graduated from the RMAS as the first-ever Nigerian female officer on April 12.

She joined the NDA in Kaduna in 2018, where she was appointed as a cadet lance corporal in her second year.

She rose to a cadet sergeant in her fourth year and was appointed company senior under Officer Charlie (CSUO C) in her fifth year.

Owowoh held the appointment with two other female counterparts and made history by becoming the first female to hold the position of CSUO at the academy.

During her fourth year, she completed the academic component of the commissioning course, achieving first-class honours in biological sciences.

See the photos below: