More than 40 held in Turkey coup plot: Erdogan

Monday, February 22, 2010
ANKARA: Turkish police Monday detained more than 40 people, including former air force and navy chiefs, in connection with an alleged military plot against the Islamist-rooted government, officials and media reports said.

The police swoop came amid rising tensions between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the moderate offshoot of a banned Islamist movement, and its secularist opponents.

"This morning our security forces began a detention process," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference during an official visit to Spain.

"As of now, more than 40 people have been detained," he said, but gave no details on who was arrested.

The CNN-Turk and NTV news channels said police detained former air force chief Ibrahim Firtina, former navy chief Ozden Ornek and other high-ranking officers both retired and on active service in Ankara, Istanbul, the western city of Izmir and the northwestern city of Bursa.

Those held were brought to Istanbul for questioning by anti-terror police.

They included at least five other retired top officials, among them Ergin Saygun, the former First Army commander and retired admirals Ahmet Feyyaz Ogutcu and Lutfi Sancar, the reports said.

CNN-Turk said army chief Ilker Basbug postponed a three-day official trip to Egypt because of the operation.

There was no comment on the detentions either from police or prosecutors who ordered the arrests.

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India's swine flu death rate is increasing

Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...

Snake bite deaths

Monday, July 06, 2009 COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government recorded some 33,000 snake bites in 2008, with most of the victims coming from remote villages.The Department of Government Information said in a statement that most of the snake bite cases could be fatal if neglected.The statement said snake bites are often neglected in Sri Lanka as victims do not seek treatment at hospitals where advanced medication is available. Instead, the victims rush to traditional type of treatment which could be a risk, reports Xinhua.Snake bites death at domestic level, outside hospitals, go unrecorded, said the statement.Most victims of snake bite are from the rural and remote villages where there is no electricity after dusk.Statistics show that Sri Lanka has over 90 species of snake with around 10 species possessing venom capable of killing a human being.In Sri Lanka the annual death rate due to snake bite envenoming is one of the highest in the world being 6 in 100,000 population.

Suicide bombings kill 18 in Iraq

Thursday, August 13, 2009 MOSUL: At least 18 people, most of them members of the ancient Yazidi religious sect, were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on Thursday in a packed cafe in northern Iraq, a local government official said.At least 31 people were also wounded after the bombers detonated suicide belts packed with explosives in the cafe in Kalaa town, in the district of Sanjar, local district chief Dakheel Qassem Hasoon, told a foreign news agency."Two suicide bombers entered the Cafe Barbaroz at 4:30 pm (1330 GMT) and blew themselves up, killing 18 civilians and wounding 31. Most of the victims were Yazidis," Hasoon said.Kalaa, northwest of the insurgent stronghold of Mosul in northern Nineveh province is predominantly populated by the minority Yazidi religious sect, as well as Arabs and Kurds.The attack is the deadliest since Monday, when 51 people were killed across Iraq, including 28 members of the tiny Shabak sect cut down when two truck bombs det...

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