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Over the last decades, growing economic hardships forced people in cities and villages around the world to leave their hometowns to find work in other countries. Dreaming of returning one day and enjoying a better life where they grew up, many invested most of their savings buying houses back home. But often, these houses remain empty, making many communities look like ghost towns. Faiza Elmasry has the story. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Turkish guards at the border with Syria are indiscriminately shooting at and summarily returning asylum seekers attempting to cross into Turkey, Human Rights Watch said.

A senior Turkish government official denied the report Saturday, repeating that Turkey had taken in 3.5 million war refugees since the Syrian conflict began in 2011.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Syrians were now fleeing heightened violence in the northwestern province of Idlib to seek refuge near Turkey’s border, which remains closed to all but critical medical cases.

Syrian armed forces have thrust deeper into the mainly rebel-held province in recent months, and Turkey last month launched military action in the nearby Afrin region, targeting Kurdish YPG militia fighters.

“Syrians fleeing to the Turkish border seeking safety and asylum are being forced back with bullets and abuse,” Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, when asked about the HRW statement, told reporters that Turkish soldiers were there to protect these people and that Ankara has had an “open-door policy” since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011.

A senior government official later told Reuters: “There has been absolutely no case of civilians being fired upon at the border.”

HRW cited U.N. figures saying 247,000 Syrians were displaced to the border area between December 15 and January 15.

“As fighting in Idlib and Afrin displaces thousands more, the number of Syrians trapped along the border willing to risk their lives to reach Turkey is only likely to increase,” Fakih said.

In the latest fighting in Afrin, five Turkish soldiers were killed Saturday when their tank was hit in an attack carried out by YPG fighters, Turkey’s armed forces said.

Under fire

Of 16 Syrian refugees HRW spoke to, 13 alleged that Turkish border guards had shot toward them or other fleeing asylum seekers as they tried to cross while still in Syria, killing 10 people, including one child, and injuring several more.

Turkey has taken in more Syrian refugees than any other country, granting many temporary protection status and providing them with basic services, including medical care and education.

“However, Turkey’s generous hosting of large numbers of Syrians does not absolve it of its responsibility to help those seeking protection at its borders,” the HRW statement added.

It said Erdogan’s government should issue standard instructions to border guards at all crossing points that lethal force must not be used against asylum seekers and that no asylum seeker is to be mistreated.
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Russian oligarchs suspected of corruption will be forced to explain their wealth in Britain, The Times newspaper reported on February 3, quoting the security minister.
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Greek Cypriots are gearing up for a presidential runoff Sunday, barely seven months after the latest failure to reunify the eastern Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus.

President Nicos Anastasiades is looking to reprise his triumph over left-leaning Stavros Malas in 2013 when the two men faced each other. Earlier polls had shown Anastasiades beating Malas convincingly in Sunday’s runoff, but Malas’ strong showing in last weekend’s first round of voting might make it a closer race.

Voters are skeptical about whether anyone can lead them out of the labyrinth of the decades-old division with Turkish Cypriots.

Cyprus was divided into a Greek-speaking south and a Turkish-speaking north in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence and keeps more than 35,000 troops in the north.

Anastasiades, 71, who says it will be his last term in office if re-elected, is counting on his track record of turning the economy around after a 2013 financial crisis that saw unemployment soar and salaries slashed. He has also been trumpeting his role in steering peace talks with breakaway Turkish Cypriots further than anyone else since the 1974 split.

By contrast, the 50-year-old Malas is hoping his relative youth will strike a chord with the 550,000 eligible voters, many of whom are disillusioned by the acrimonious breakdown of the latest round of peace talks and years of economic uncertainty that’s shaken the confidence of the middle class.

Anastasiades and Malas secured 35.5 and 35.2 percent of the vote, respectively, in the first round, setting up potentially a tighter than anticipated final vote.
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Britain has made clear its desire to be part of China’s so-called ‘One Belt One Road Initiative’ — a cornerstone of President Xi Jinping’s vision to boost Chinese investment and influence across Asia, Europe and Africa. There are, however, concerns over the financial and humanitarian costs of the vast infrastructure projects being undertaken. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the United States has issued a blunt warning over what it sees as the dangers of being tied to China’s huge investment projects.
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A record-setting Russian spacewalk ended with a critical antenna in the wrong position Friday outside the International Space Station.

NASA’s Mission Control reported that the antenna was still working. Nevertheless, Russian space officials were convening a special team to see whether further action would be necessary. The antenna is used for communications with Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow.

The trouble arose toward the end of the more than 8 hour spacewalk — the longest ever by Russians and the fifth longest overall — after Commander Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov successfully replaced an electronics box to upgrade the antenna.

Antenna misplaced

The pair watched in dismay as the antenna got hung up on the Russian side of the complex and could not be extended properly. The antenna — a long boom with a 4-foot dish at the end — had been folded up before the repair work.

Misurkin and Shkaplerov pushed, as flight controllers tried repeatedly, via remote commanding, to rotate the antenna into the right position. Finally, someone shouted in Russian, “It’s moving. It’s in place.”

NASA Mission Control said from Houston that the antenna wound up in a position 180 degrees farther than anticipated.

The spacewalk dragged on so long — lasting 8 hours and 13 minutes — that Misurkin and Shkaplerov ended up surpassing the previous Russian record of 8 hours and 7 minutes, set in 2013. It was supposed to last 6 hours.

“Are you kidding us?” one of them asked when they heard about the record.

NASA still holds the world record, with a spacewalk just shy of nine hours back in 2001.

Original equipment

Misurkin and Shkaplerov also asked flight controllers whether the antenna was operating “or have we just wasted our time?” The response: It’s being evaluated.

It was the second spacewalk in as many weeks. On Jan. 23, two U.S. astronauts went out to give a new hand to the station’s big robotic arm. NASA had planned another spacewalk this week, but bumped it to mid-February because engineers needed extra time to get the mechanical hand working.

After removing the old, obsolete electronics box from the antenna — an original part, launched in 2000 — Misurkin shoved it away from the space station. The bundle tumbled harmlessly away, 250 miles above the North Atlantic.

The 60-pound box — measuring just a couple of feet, or less than a meter — was hurled in a direction that will not intersect with the space station, according to NASA officials.

Different approach

While the Russians routinely toss old equipment and used towels overboard during spacewalks, NASA prefers to secure no-longer-needed items or, if possible, bring them inside. Except for SpaceX’s cargo ships, empty supply capsules are filled with trash and set loose to burn up in the atmosphere. The discarded electronics box will re-enter and burn up, too; Mission Control said it did not know when that will occur. 

Misurkin will return to Earth at the end of this month with two NASA crewmates.

The space station is home to two Russians, three Americans and one Japanese.
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Britain has made clear its desire to be part of China’s so-called “One Belt One Road” initiative — a cornerstone of President Xi Jinping’s vision to boost Chinese investment and influence across Asia, Europe and Africa. But there are concerns about the financial and humanitarian costs of the vast infrastructure projects being undertaken.

British Prime Minister Theresa May recently visited Beijing, leading a delegation of ministers and business leaders in an effort to boost trade after Britain’s European Union exit. The two countries signed deals worth $12.7 billion, and May hailed a “golden era” of Sino-British relations.

Her ambassador to Beijing, Barbara Woodward, earlier outlined Britain’s hopes of cooperating in China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative.

“The first is, we’d like to collaborate on practical projects,” she said. “The second area where we’d like to collaborate with China is bringing some of our city of London financing experience. Because these projects are big projects, particularly infrastructure, they require complex funding mechanisms.”

Too complex, according to some.

Approximately 9,500 kilometers away in Uganda, one of China’s latest “One Belt One Road” projects is nearly complete. Soaring above the muddy swamp between the capital, Kampala, and its airport, the new 51-kilometer (31-mile) four-lane expressway was built by the China Communications Construction Company. Its $580 million cost was met with a loan from Beijing.

Kampala’s mayor, Erias Lukwago, says the price is too high.

“Even these Chinese who are coming here from — even these commercial banks we are borrowing from, Exim Banks and what not, the burden will finally come on our shoulders as Ugandans, our children and grandchildren will have to shoulder this burden which is very, very unfortunate,” Lukwago said.

Through the “One Belt” initiative, China has invested across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and even into eastern Europe.

However, Britain’s decision to get involved should not be taken lightly, warns Barnaby Willitts-King of the Overseas Development Institute.

“Particularly in fragile parts of the world where China’s Belt and Road initiative is going to be running through, there are a lot of potential risks around humanitarian concerns, environmental concerns, that I think focusing on just on a trade deal might overlook,” Willitts-King said. “But it’s also got an advantage. The U.K. has worked and invested in a lot of these countries over the years. And it could actually provide some very practical advice to China.”

Washington has gone further in its criticism of China’s trade and foreign policy.

“China, as it does in emerging markets throughout the world, offers the appearance of an attractive path to development. But in reality, this often involves trading short-term gains for long-term dependency,” U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday, ahead of his trip to Latin America.

Many emerging economies welcome China’s investments, and the involvement of countries such as Britain. However, there are concerns that mounting debts will cause big problems further down the road. 
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“Put on a thick jacket,” the 18-year-old son of Albanian immigrants instructed the 12-year-old German-Iraqi boy over the Internet on how to carry out a Christmas market attack last year in the Rhineland town of Ludwigshafen.

“Then go behind a hut and light and run,” he advised.

Fortunately, the crude nail-bomb device failed to work and the 12-year-old was arrested by police in December trying for a second time to pull off an attack, this time outside Ludwigshafen’s city hall.

The chilling mentoring by the 18-year-old from his home in neighboring Austria was detailed last month in court papers.

And now the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is lobbying for a repeal of laws restricting security surveillance of minors under the age of 14, arguing that the country is facing grave risks from what the German media dubs “kindergarten jihadists.”

In a media interview midweek, Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, warned that the Islamic State and the terror group’s followers are continuing to target children in Germany online. “Islamic State uses headhunters who scour the internet for children who can be approached and tries to radicalize these children, or recruit these children for terrorist attacks,” he warned.

‘Massive danger’

Maassen said he was alarmed also at the risks posed by returning “brainwashed” Islamic State women and their children, who he warned pose a “massive danger” to the country. He described the children of jihadist parents as “ticking time bombs.”

An estimated 1,000 German recruits joined IS.

“There are children who have undergone brainwashing in the ISIS [Islamic State] areas and are radicalized to a great extent,” he said. “We see that children who grew up with Islamic State were brainwashed in the schools and the kindergartens of the Islamic State. They were confronted early with the ISIS ideology … learned to fight, and were in some cases forced to participate in the abuse of prisoners, or even the killing of prisoners.”

Only a handful of the 290 children and toddlers who left Germany with jihadist parents — or who were born in Syria or Iraq — have so far returned to Germany. And some rights activists have warned that Germany should not over-react and be too quick to alter civil liberty protections, questioning whether the danger is being over-stated.

The threat posed by the radicalization of minors has become a major political issue in Germany. Three out of five radical Islamist attacks in the country in 2016 were carried out by minors.

This is the second time Maassen has sounded a public alarm about child recruits — he last did so in October, saying he was worried about a new generation of jihadists being raised in Germany. He urged Germans to “take a very serious look” at the threat, and to call police if they noticed anything suspicious.

Last year, de-radicalization experts warned that Western governments were not giving enough thought about what to do with so-called “cubs of the caliphate” — both the offspring of foreign recruits as well as Syrian and Iraqi children enlisted into the terror ranks.

IS leaders made no secret of their earmarking of the young to be “the generation that will conquer Baghdad, Jerusalem, Mecca and Rome,” grooming youngsters to be the deadly legacy of a murderous caliphate on the brink of military defeat. As the terror group’s territory shrank in the face of offensives on IS strongholds in the Levant, the militants highlighted in a series of gloating videos what they hoped would be in store for their enemies.

Other countries share worries

German intelligence officials aren’t alone in expressing worries about the offspring of IS foreign fighters — or the continuing efforts of jihadist recruiters. On Thursday, the head of London’s police’s counter-terrorism command, Dean Haydon, warned of children trained by Islamic State coming back to Britain to carry out attacks.

“Some terror groups are training children to commit atrocities,” he said as he outlined the risks posed by returnees. “We need to not just understand the risk the mother poses but the risk that any child poses as well. We look at them on a case-by-case basis and they may be arrested,” he told a London newspaper. Last month a 27-year-old British woman returning from Syria was arrested at Heathrow airport under terrorism laws. She had a two-year-old with her.

Haydon revealed that police are DNA-testing children who have been brought to Britain by ‘jihadist’ parents after being born in Syria or Iraq to establish their identity. “If a mother turns up with a stateless child, born in Syria, we need to be satisfied that that child actually belongs to that mother because we have had instances of kids trying to be smuggled back into the UK but not actually belonging to that parent,” he said.

De-radicalization experts say child recruits can be rehabilitated but warn they are battling a prevalent attitude among Western officials that ‘cubs of the caliphate’ are different from child soldiers from other wars.

In an interview with VOA last year, Mia Bloom, a Canadian academic, who’s co-authoring a book on jihadist child soldiers, said: “It would be a terrible mistake to think that because someone was a cub for a year or two, they are lost forever – they can be saved and rehabilitated.” She highlighted a de-radicalization program funded partly by the Pakistani army that has proved highly successful. 

 
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The International Court of Justice has laid down definitive maritime boundaries between Costa Rica and Nicaragua in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean and a small land boundary in a remote, disputed wetland.

As part of the complex ruling, the United Nations’ highest judicial organ ruled that a Nicaraguan military base on part of the disputed coastline close to the mouth of the San Juan River is on Costa Rican territory and must be removed.

Ruling in two cases filed by Costa Rica, the 16-judge U.N. panel took into account the two countries’ coastlines and some islands in drawing what it called “equitable” maritime borders that carved up the continental shelf underneath the Caribbean and Pacific.

Such rulings can affect issues including fishing rights and exploration for resources like oil.

Earlier, the court ordered Nicaragua to compensate Costa Rica for damage Nicaragua caused with unlawful construction work near the mouth of the San Juan River, the court’s first foray into assessing costs for environmental damage.

The order by the United Nations’ principal judicial organ followed a December 2015 ruling that Nicaragua violated Costa Rica’s sovereignty by establishing a military camp and digging channels near the river, part of a long-running border dispute in the remote region on the shores of the Caribbean Sea.

In total, Nicaragua was ordered to pay just over $378,890 for environmental damage and other costs incurred by Costa Rica.

Decisions by the court based in The Hague, Netherlands, are final and legally binding.
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As fighting in Syria’s Afrin region nears the end of its second week, soldiers say the battle is moving slowly, with both sides heavily armed and civilian casualties occurring in and around the war zone. VOA’s Heather Murdock is with Turkish and Syrian opposition forces in Soran, in northern Syria.
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Turkey’s judiciary is facing growing international condemnation for the ongoing imprisonment of the local head of Amnesty International.

Thursday, an Istanbul court reversed an earlier decision to release Taner Kilic from pre-trial detention, ruling he should remain in jail for the duration of his case.  In a rare move, the prosecutor had turned to a second court to overturn Wednesday’s release order.

The dramatic succession of events has provoked international condemnation.  “A disgrace and an outrageous travesty of justice,” Amnesty International Secretary General Salil Shetty declared in a statement.  In a similar vein, Rebecca Harms, a member of the European Parliament wrote, “We deeply regret this situation and call for an immediate review of the decision.”

Kilic has been held for eight months on charges of being a member of a terrorist organization. Prosecutors claim an encryption software found on his phone linked him to followers of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed of being behind a 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey. Gulen denies the charge.

Kilic is also accused, along with 10 other human rights activists, including two foreign nationals, of being part of a new conspiracy to overthrow the Turkish government. The 10 other defendants have all been released from pre-trial detention following an international campaign and intense diplomatic pressure.

Kilic’s imprisonment has made him a focal point of growing concern about the treatment of human rights defenders. In a sign of the importance of the case, the Istanbul court Wednesday was packed with European diplomats and international human rights representatives.

Playing the system

“We’re witnessing unusual legal maneuvers which are a reflection of the current dire state of the Turkish judicial system, as well as the erosion of the rule of law,” tweeted Kati Piri the European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur.

But the Kilic case is also putting the spotlight on the EU stance towards Ankara, “It’s totally useless, to send tweets and sorry messages and raise concerns and more concerns about what is happening in Turkey.  They should really think of something, else, for instance Turkey is still a candidate and negotiates its membership with the European Union, it’s a totally weird situation,” points out political scientist Cengiz Aktar, “the tolerance the regime enjoys in the West, this appeasement, is intimately linked to what is happening to the rule of law in Turkey.”

Since Turkey’s declared a state of emergency following the 2016 failed coup, concerns have been growing over the impartiality and functioning of its judiciary. More than 1,000 judges and prosecutors, including two members of the Constitutional Court, are among the 60,000 people arrested in the post-coup crackdown.  Many more members of the judiciary have been fired.  The government claims large parts of the judiciary had been infiltrated by supporters of the coup attempt.

Legal order challenged

The very structure of the judiciary is also in question.  Last month, an Istanbul court ignored the judgment of the Constitutional Court to release journalists Mehmet Altan and Sahin Alpay, who have been in pre-trial detention for more than a year, accused of seeking to overthrow the government.  Prime Minister Binali Yildirim backed the Istanbul court’s stance insisting it knew more about the case.

The move has caused alarm among legal experts, “If this trend continues, any government can use this as a “judicial” basis for not recognizing the decisions of the Constitutional Court.  This means chaos.  This chaos, unfortunately, has been encouraged by the politicians,” warns law professor Osman Can of Istanbul’s Marmara University and member of the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe.  

The European Court of Human Rights, of which Turkey is a member, is set to become embroiled in the ongoing controversy.  The European Court remains the last legal means of redress for Turkish citizens.  “There are so many violations of the European convention of human rights, if the court accepts all these cases, it will be overwhelming, it can virtually stop the work of the court.  This is why the court is very cautious taking these cases,” claims political scientist Aktar.

In a move that has drawn criticism domestically and internationally, the European Court has refused to hear most cases in relation to the post-coup crackdown, arguing the defendants have to exhaust all judicial avenues in Turkey.  That stance is predicted to be increasingly challenged with the power of Turkey’s Constitutional Court in question.  “This can be interpreted as the loss of the effectiveness … of the entire legal order, which in turn can cause very serious consequences for Turkey.  In such a case, the problem becomes, now, one of international relations,” warns professor Can.

 
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