Headlines:
- Can the AK party save Turkey’s flagging economy?
- Recitation of dawn adhan from minaret speakers banned in northern Cypriot town
- US Destroyer completes exercise with Turkish Navy
Can the AK party save Turkey’s flagging economy?
Sweeping to power in an unexpected landslide victory, elections in Turkey have handed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK party another four years at the helm and a parliamentary majority.
Ending five months of political deadlock, Sunday’s electoral victory marked a turnaround for the country and ushered a return to single-party rule.
Drawing more than four million more votes than it did in June’s elections, the poll handed Erdogan a fresh mandate to lead Turkey and address one of the country’s biggest challenges – the economy.
Turkey’s currency, the lira, has tumbled more than 25 percent against the euro and dollar this year, and has become one of the worst performing emerging market currencies in the world.
The country’s current account deficit has also widened to $45bn, with Turkey – essentially – spending much more than it earns.
According to the IMF and World Bank, the once booming economy that grew 9.2 percent in 2010 is now forecast to grow by just 3 percent this year, and 2.9 percent in 2016.
And the vital tourism and export sectors have also shrunk. Tourism revenue was down in the first quarter of this year and the export goal of $173bn for 2015 will likely not be met.
So, can the government turn around an economy struggling with rising inflation, slowing growth and a shrinking tourism sector? [Source: Al Jazeera]
With this ruling Capitalist order based on riba, any party or person can save the sinking economy. The only way to save it is the Khilfah rashidah, not any other solution.
Recitation of dawn adhan from minaret speakers banned in northern Cypriot town
A local court in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has banned the recitation of the dawn adhan — the Islamic call to prayer — through minaret speakers on the grounds that it disturbs locals.
In the town of Lefke, lawyer Feza Guzeloglu asked a court to ban the recitation of the dawn adhan, which is recited in the early hours of the day, through minaret speakers. As the trial is still continuing, the court issued an interim decision to ban the adhan until the trial is concluded.
After the decision issued on Monday, the dawn adhan was not being recited from the minaret speakers of three mosques in the town. If the court’s final verdict upholds the ban, the ruling may set a precedent for other complaints. [Source: Today’s Zaman]
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is named as “Young Land” in Turkey. This young land imitates its Motherland’s 30’s history. In the 30’s, the Turkish government led by Ataturk and Inonu banned Arabic Adhan and recited it in Turkish words.
US Destroyer completes exercise with Turkish Navy
The U.S. Navy’s guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook recently completed a joint exercise with Turkish naval forces in the Mediterranean.
“We are here because the U.S. and Turkey are very close allies,” Cmdr. Tim Moore, the ship’s second-in-command, told Anadolu Agency on Friday.
“This is an excellent opportunity for our two nations to stand together to promote peace and stability in the region.”
Moore denied the destroyer’s mission was connected to either the summit or the conflict in Syria.
Naval maneuvers between Oct. 27 and Nov. 6 saw the Donald Cook and two U.S. patrol aircraft join 17 Turkish ships and 14 aircraft for the Dogu Akdeniz 2015 exercise.
The destroyer, which is usually based on Spain’s Atlantic coast, would be in the eastern Mediterranean for an “undisclosed amount of time”, he said.
Aegis system
The Donald Cook is an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer equipped with the Aegis anti-missile radar system.
Since the U.S. and Germany announced they would pull their Patriot anti-missile batteries out of southern Turkey, where they were acting as a NATO deterrent to an attack from Syrian territory, the U.S. has stressed the value of Aegis-equipped ships to do the same job.
“You will always have a destroyer in the eastern Mediterranean,” Moore said. “There will always be one of these ships promoting peace and stability in the region.”
According to the U.S. Navy’s website, the Aegis system is capable of tracking missile threats from air, sea and land and knocking out the missiles with SM-2 or SM-3 interceptor missiles.
“We are underway supporting U.S. objectives now but also we are working with our allies always,” Moore said. “We are always here helping our friends.”
In April last year, the ship was tested when a Russian Su-24 fighter made repeated low-level passes near the destroyer in the western Black Sea while another Russian jet circled overhead. Speaking at the time, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said: “The Donald Cook is more than capable of defending itself against two Su-24s.”
Asked about the ship’s reaction to any future threat, Moore told Anadolu Agency: “We are always ready to defend the ship in any instance if we feel provoked. We are ready to defend ourselves and our friends.”
The Donald Cook, which fired the first Tomahawk missile of the 2003 Iraq invasion, was commissioned in 1998 and has a crew of more than 300, a third of who are women.
Tanju Bilgic, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said last week that the Donald Cook and other U.S. ships would “continue their permanent existence in the eastern Mediterranean as part of support for our country’s defense”. [Source: Anadolu Agency]
Defending who? Against what? These questions are not clearly answered. These kind of destroyers are not sent abroad just to “exercise”, but are being used to protect its owners against what they see as “Muslim Threat”.