Ankara: 5 dead in aerospace attack. Pkk accused
Today's news: Storm Trami in the Philippines leaves at least 26 people dead, displacing over 150,000; Bangladesh's interim government bans student wing of the Awami League; China accuses foreign spy agencies of attempting to steal space programme secrets; In first ever, Pyongyang sends propaganda leaflets to Seoul .
TURKEY
Five people were killed and 22 injured in the attack on the headquarters of the Aerospace Industry (Tusas) in Kahramankazan, Ankara province. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya stated that two attackers, a woman and a man, had been ‘neutralised’, adding that the attack most likely involved the Kurdish PKK rebel group, although there is no official claim so far. The Turkish Defence Ministry announced that air strikes had been launched against Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq and northern Syria.
PHILIPPINES
Tropical Storm Trami has killed at least 26 people and forced more than 150,000 people to flee their homes, Philippine officials said today, after hitting the northeast coast. Trami, known locally as Tropical Storm Kristine, dumped heavy, torrential rains on the main island of Luzon, causing widespread flooding and landslides.
BANGLADESH
The interim government of Bangladesh officially banned the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of deposed premier Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party, declaring it a ‘terrorist organisation’. This move comes in response to mounting pressure from the Student Anti-Discrimination Movement, which has outlined five key demands, including the abolition of the current constitution, the removal of President Mohammed Shahabuddin and the dissolution of the BCL.
CHINA
China's Ministry of Security said foreign spy agencies have been trying to steal secrets from the country's space programme as the arms race in space intensifies and emerges as a new ‘battlefield for military struggle’. Safeguarding space security has become a key strategy for China's survival and future development, the ministry said.
NORTH KOREA - SOUTH KOREA
North Korean propaganda leaflets, apparently carried by balloons, were found scattered on the streets of Seoul, including personal attacks on the South Korean president and the country's first lady. The leaflets against Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon Hee found in the capital appear to be the first case in which the North Korean government has directly sent anti-South propaganda material across the border.
RUSSIA - BRICS
The Brics summit in Kazan, which according to Vladimir Putin ‘brings together a third of the planet’, opened, but not under the best auspices, with the serious absence of the president of one of the founding countries, 78-year-old Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, due to a fall at home that caused him trauma and a head injury, although he promised to attend online.
TAJIKISTAN
The Russian light industry company BTK Grupp, founded in 2005 by Tajmuraz Bolloev, an Ossetian entrepreneur very close to Vladimir Putin and under Western sanctions since June, continues to operate undisturbed through Tajikistan, where it leases 5.5 thousand hectares of land and has opened two textile factories, which mass-produce military uniforms for Russian soldiers.
15/07/2023