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The Kurds are one of the indigenous people of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands, areas that today are contained within southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southwestern Armenia.

Estimated at between 25 million and 35 million people, the Kurds are the fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East. They form a distinctive community, united through race, culture and language. While most of them are Sunni Muslims, there are also Christians, Jews, Yazidis and Zoroastrians among them.

They are considered one of the largest ethnic group in the world without a state.

Here’s a brief look at their political history in the four countries where they largely live:

Iraq

Iraqi Kurds, estimated to make up 15 to 20 percent of Iraq’s population of 38 million people, populate a mountainous region in northern Iraq and enjoy more national rights than Kurds in the neighboring three countries.

The Iraqi Kurds have gained substantial political recognition since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003.

In 2005, the Iraq constitution accepted Kurdish as an official language, along with Arabic, and recognized the predominantly Kurdish provinces of Irbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok as a federal entity known as the Kurdistan Region, which has its own military, known as the peshmerga.

The relationship between the Kurds and the Iraqi government, however, has a history of bloody confrontations and often brutal crackdowns by the central government, particularly during Hussein’s reign.

Feeling pressured by the Kurdish resistance movement, Hussein’s forces in late 1980s unleashed the Anfal campaign, which reportedly left 180,000 Kurds killed or missing, and about 4,500 villages destroyed. The Iraqi government campaign also used chemical weapons, particularly in the 1998 gas attack on the town of Halabja, which left nearly 5,000 residents dead.

Rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, said the Anfal campaign was a systematic ethnic-cleansing program that amounted to genocide. Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and South Korea officially recognize the campaign as genocide.

In March 1991, after their uprising was crushed by the Iraq government, about 1.5 million Iraqi Kurds fled into Iran and Turkey, leading to a refugee crisis. In response, an anti-Hussein international coalition established a partial no-fly zone in northern Iraq to allow the return of refugees and protect them from a future aggression. For years afterward, the zone allowed the Kurds to establish their regional government and parliament.

WATCH: Facts about the Kurds

THE KURDS video player.

The rise of the Islamic State (IS) terror group in 2014 weakened the Iraqi government. The Kurdish peshmerga moved into areas from which Iraqi forces retreated as IS took control.

The Kurds announced they had no intention of withdrawing from these areas, which the Iraqi constitution labels as disputed territories between the Kurdistan Region and the Central Government, and requires a referendum vote on their status.

As IS started losing territory, and the Kurdish peshmergas gained international support for their role in defeating the militants, the Kurdistan Region said it intended to hold a referendum for independence. The vote in September 2017 received 93.25% support, but it was later crushed in an Iraqi government operation, allegedly backed by Iran. It was the most recent attempt by Kurds to establish a state of their own.

Syria

In Syria, Kurds make up nearly 15 percent of Syria’s 22 million prewar population. They primarily live in north and northeastern parts of Syria, with significant Kurdish communities in major Syrian cities, such as Damascus and Aleppo.

Since the establishment of a modern state in Syria in the 1920s, Syrian Kurds have been deprived of political and linguistic rights.

The first Kurdish political party in Syria was founded in 1957, influenced by Iraqi Kurds. The Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria called for political and cultural rights for the Kurdish minority in the Arab-majority country, but its leading members were faced with imprisonment and persecution.

With the eruption of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Syrian Kurds were able to be in charge of their regions for the first time.

The People’s Protection Units (YPG) took control of the area after Syrian government troops withdrew to focus on fighting rebel groups elsewhere in the war-ravaged country.

With the rise of IS in Syria, the YPG proved to be an effective force in the fight against IS. Consequently, the U.S.-led coalition provided assistance to the Kurdish group to remove IS from other territories in Syria.

In 2015, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was established to include non-Kurdish fighters as well.

With U.S. support, the SDF captured most areas from IS control, including Raqqa, the capital of its so-called caliphate. In March 2019, the SDF declared the territorial defeat of IS after pushing out the terror group from its last pocket of control in eastern Syria.

The Kurdish-led SDF now controls nearly one-third of Syria’s territory, which has effectively become a semiautonomous region.

But Turkey considers the YPG an extension of the Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group designated as terrorists by Turkey, the European Union and United States.

This month, U.S. President Donald Trump announced American forces would withdraw from northeast Syria, allowing the Turkish military to launch its long-planned offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters.

Days after the U.S. announcement, Turkey began its operation on two Kurdish-held cities along the Syria-Turkey border. Rights groups, including Amnesty International, said the Turkish-led campaign has killed hundreds of civilians and displaced thousands of others.

Despite a cease-fire that was brokered by the U.S. last week and Turkey’s assurances that it would not resume its military offensive, fighting could resume as both Kurdish forces have not agreed to all the terms of the deal.

Turkey

The Kurds are the largest non-Turkish ethnic group in Turkey. They constitute up to 20 percent of Turkey’s population.

For decades, the Kurds were subjected to the so-called “Turkification policies” of the state, and their ethnic identity was denied. Their language was restricted, and naming their children in Kurdish was banned. For decades, they were referred to as “mountain Turks.”

The question of an independent Kurdistan has a long history that dates back to the Ottoman Empire. In the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the Western allies promised an autonomous Kurdistan. However, that was never fulfilled because the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 following the Treaty of Lausanne.

As a unitary nation state, Turkey considered the Kurds a threat to its national unity and pushed back on demands for equal citizenship rights.

PKK

In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan founded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) with the aim of establishing a united, independent Kurdistan within Turkey, but also including parts of Iraq, Iran and Syria. The group started its armed insurgency inside Turkey in 1984, and since then, tens of thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced as a result of the conflict between the Turkish government and PKK.

In 1999, Ocalan was arrested in Kenya by Turkish intelligence forces. He is serving a life sentence at an island prison near Istanbul.

In March 2013, during the Kurdish “Nowruz,” or new year, celebrations, Ocalan sent a letter to supporters. He called for a cease-fire, as well as setps to disarm and withdraw from Turkey, and an end to armed struggle. The Turkish government praised the letter.

In July 2015, a two-and-a-half-year cease-fire broke down, and the conflict resumed.

According to International Crisis Group, more than 4,500 people have been killed in clashes or terror attacks since 2015.

Iran

Ethnic Kurds make up nearly 9% of Iran’s 80 million population. They are largely Sunni Muslims, but there are some Shiite and Zoroastrian Kurds as well.

The Kurdish political movement in Iran started with the establishment of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1946. Under the leadership of Qazi Mohammad, the group declared a Kurdish republic in the city of Mahabad that same year. Nearly 11 months later, however, Iranian government forces entered Mahabad to crush the new Kurdish entity. Mohammad was executed immediately.

In 1979, after the Islamic revolution toppled the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the new Islamist government carried on the subjugation of the Kurds. The powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) began targeting Kurdish activists at home and abroad.

In 1989, Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, an influential Iranian Kurdish leader, was assassinated in Vienna, Austria. The operation was reportedly carried out by the IRGC.

Influenced by the Turkish-based PKK, the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) was founded 2003 in Iran. Ever since, the group has been engaged in occasional clashes with Iranian security forces.

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Norwegian police opened fire on an armed man who stole an ambulance in Oslo and reportedly ran down several people Tuesday.

Norwegian broadcaster NRK said that several people were struck by the ambulance, including a baby in a stroller who was taken to a hospital. NRK said that police were looking for a woman who may have been involved, but authorities wouldn’t confirm the report.
 
“We are in control of the ambulance that was stolen,” Oslo police tweeted. “Shots were fired to stop him. He is not in critical condition.”
 
The Aftenposten newspaper published a photo showing a man, wearing green trousers lying next to the vehicle surrounded by police officers.
 
Further details weren’t immediately available.
 
The incident took place in the northern part of Oslo, the Norwegian capital.

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The British government says U.K. airlines can resume flights to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, suspended after an Islamic State bombing that brought down a Russian passenger plane four years ago.
 
The Department for Transport said on Tuesday that “improvements in security procedures at the airport, and close co-operation between the U.K. and Egypt on aviation security, mean commercial airlines can now be allowed to operate routes to and from the airport.”
 
The Sinai Peninsula resort had been a major package-holiday destination for British tourists before the November 2015 attack, which killed all 224 people on board and was claimed by the Islamic State group.

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Authorities in Bangladesh said Tuesday that they want to start relocating thousands of Rohingya refugees to a Bay of Bengal island soon from crammed camps near the border with Myanmar, from where they fled.

Top government administrator in Cox’s Bazar, Kamal Hossain, said they listed 100 families willing to move to Bhasan Char, an island hours by boat from the mainland. The government has said it will relocate 100,000 refugees to the island in phases.

Hossain said they wanted to start the relocations in late November or in December.

“Our government policy regarding the Rohingya refugees is no force will be used to handle them. We have long been working with them for confidence building for the relocation,” Hossain said. “I have a list of 100 families comprising of some 7,000 refugees.”

He said they were working to try to convince more refugees to move to the island.

The government set several deadlines earlier to complete the development of the island, but no final dates were announced. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina repeatedly told the U.N. and other international partners that her administration would engage them before making a final decision on the relocation.

The government has been building infrastructure on the island including homes, schools, mosques and flood protection embankments under a multimillion-dollar project.

The plan for relocation first came up in 2015, but no major progress was initially made. But the issue was never dropped despite criticism, including from the United Nations and global human rights groups, which said relocation to the island would further complicate the lives of the refugees because of how often it floods. Many Rohingya were also against the idea but things started to change in recent years, especially after a huge influx of Rohingya in 2017.

More than 1 million Rohingya currently live in Bangladesh, with over 700,000 coming from Myanmar since late August 2017 amid a violent crackdown on Rohingya by the country’s military.

Syed Alam, a 32-year-old refugee, said Tuesday that he listed his 11 family members for the relocation.

“I have seen a video of the island. I have seen concrete buildings there. Here we live in very bad conditions. I think my family will have a better accommodation there,” he said.

Alam said many others in his camp have been consulted already and they are increasingly showing interest.

Another refugee, Mostofa Kamal, 45, said he convinced his children and wife to move to the island.

“Here our life is terrible. There is no space here. I don’t think we will be able to go back in Myanmar very soon. We want to have a better place to stay,’” Kamal said.

In August, Bangladesh and Myanmar attempted to start the repatriation of Rohingya for a second time, but no refugees agreed to voluntarily go back, citing safety concerns in Myanmar. The United Nations said Myanmar needed to do more to build confidence among the Rohingya for the repatriation.

Rohingya Muslims have long demanded that Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country, give them citizenship, safety and their own land and homes they left behind. Myanmar has refused to recognize Rohingya as citizens or even as one of its ethnic groups, rendering them stateless. Rohingya also face other forms of state-sanctioned discrimination.

A U.N.-established investigation last year recommended the prosecution of Myanmar’s top military commanders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for the crackdown on the Rohingya. Myanmar dismissed the allegations.

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The Russian military says two of its nuclear-capable bombers will visit South Africa in what appears to be the first-ever such deployment to the African continent.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that sending the Tu-160 bombers is intended to help “develop bilateral military cooperation” and reflects a “strategic partnership” with one of Africa’s most developed economies.

The mission comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host the first-ever Russia-Africa summit this week with 43 of the continent’s 54 heads of state or government in attendance. The remaining 11 countries will be represented by foreign ministers or other officials.

As part of efforts to expand its clout in Africa, Russia has signed military cooperation agreements with at least 28 African countries, the majority in the past five years.

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A study of former professional soccer players in Scotland finds that they were less likely to die of common causes such as heart disease and cancer compared with the general population but more likely to die from dementia. The results raise fresh concerns about head-related risks from playing the sport — at least for men at the pro level.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow reported the results in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday. They compared the causes of death of 7,676 Scottish men who played soccer with 23,000 similar men from the general population born between 1900 and 1976. Over a median of 18 years of study, 1,180 players and 3,807 of the others died.

The players had a lower risk of death from any cause until age 70.

However, they had a 3.5 times higher rate of death from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. In absolute terms, that risk remained relatively small — 1.7% among former players and 0.5% for the comparison group.

Former players also were more likely to be prescribed dementia medicines than the others were.

The results “should not engender undue fear and panic,” Dr. Robert Stern, a Boston University scientist who has studied sports-related brain trauma, wrote in a commentary published in the journal.

The findings in professional players may not apply to recreational, college or amateur-level play, or to women, Stern noted.

“Parents of children who headed the ball in youth or high-school soccer should not fear that their children are destined to have cognitive decline and dementia later in life. Rather, they should focus on the substantial health benefits from exercise and participation in a sport that their children enjoy,” while also being aware of the risks of head-balling, Stern wrote.

English Football Association chairman Greg Clark said “the whole game must recognize that this is only the start of our understanding and there are many questions that still need to be answered. It is important that the global football family now unites to find the answers and provide a greater understanding of this complex issue.”

The association and players’ union sponsored the study.

“We need to kick on now and understand what it means, because that’s all an awful lot we don’t know,” English FA chief executive Mark Bullingham said. “We don’t know if concussion was the cause or whether it was heading or whatever or whether it’s the old heavy ball or something entirely different.”

But the association’s medical advisory group has not deemed it necessary to issue to change how the game is played, even reducing heading among younger age groups.

“In youth football, you might want to reduce the likelihood of aerial challenges,” Bullingham said. “But our research shows this has already been reduced significantly over the years as we change to small size of pitches, move to possession-based football and now rolling substitutes.”

Referees across all levels can stop games for three minutes to fully assess head injuries, but some experts believe that is not long enough. The English FA also is pushing soccer’s global lawmaking body for the introduction of concussion substitutes, with an additional player switch or as a temporary replacement.

Campaigning to discover more about the long-term impact of head injuries in soccer has been led in England by the family of former England striker Jeff Astle, whose death at age 59 in 2002 was attributed to repeatedly heading heavy, leather balls. In 2017, a British study of brains of a small number of retired players who developed dementia highlighted the degenerative damage possibly caused by repeated blows to the head.

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China is asking the World Trade Organization for the right to impose $2.4 billion in annual penalties on the United States in a case over Chinese subsidies dating back years.

A document published Monday showed China has called for the matter to be considered by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body next Monday. The matter would be referred to a WTO arbitrator if the U.S. objects to the amount China proposes.

The request stems from a July WTO appellate decision in a case dating to before the Trump administration, and unrelated to the tariffs it has slapped on Chinese goods.
 
Washington criticized that decision, which it said recognizes that China uses state-owned enterprises to subsidize and distort its economy but contends the U.S. must use “distorted Chinese prices” to measure subsidies.

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At least 12 white supremacists have been arrested on allegations of plotting, threatening or carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. since the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue nearly one year ago, a Jewish civil rights group reported Sunday.

The Anti-Defamation League also counted at least 50 incidents in which white supremacists are accused of targeting Jewish institutions’ property since a gunman killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Those incidents include 12 cases of vandalism involving white supremacist symbols and 35 cases in which white supremacist propaganda was distributed.

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US to Seek Death Penalty for Accused Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter

The massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue was the deadliest attack ever on Jewish Americans in the US

The ADL said its nationwide count of anti-Semitic incidents remains near record levels. It has counted 780 anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2019, compared to 785 incidents during the same period in 2018.

The ADL’s tally of 12 arrests for white supremacist plots, threats and attacks against Jewish institutions includes the April 2019 capture of John T. Earnest, who is charged with killing one person and wounding three others in a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California. The group said many of the cases it counted, including the Poway shooting, were inspired by previous white supremist attacks. In online posts, Earnest said he was inspired by the deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where a gunman killed 51 people in March.

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Nearly 50 Killed in New Zealand Mosque Attacks; 4 in Custody

Mass shootings at two mosques full of worshippers attending Friday prayers killed at least 49 people on what the prime minister called ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’

The ADL also counted three additional 2019 cases in which individuals were arrested for targeting Jews but weren’t deemed to be white supremacists. Two were motivated by Islamist extremist ideology, the organization said.

The ADL said its Center on Extremism provided “critical intelligence” to law enforcement in at least three of the 12 cases it counted.

Last December, authorities in Monroe, Washington, arrested a white supremacist after the ADL notified law enforcement about suspicions he threatened on Facebook to kill Jews in a synagogue. The ADL said it also helped authorities in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, identify a white supremacist accused of using aliases to post threatening messages, including a digital image of himself pointing an AR-15 rifle at a group of praying Jewish men.

In August, an FBI-led anti-terrorism task force arrested a Las Vegas man accused of plotting to firebomb a synagogue or other targets, including a bar catering to LGTBQ customers and the ADL’s Las Vegas office. The ADL said it warned law enforcement officials about the man’s online threats.

“We cannot and will not rest easy knowing the threat posed by white supremacists and other extremists against the Jewish community is clear and present,” the group’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said in a statement.

The ADL said it counted at least 30 additional incidents in which people with an “unknown ideology” targeted Jewish institutions with acts of arson, vandalism or propaganda distribution that the group deemed to be anti-Semitic or “generally hateful,” but not explicitly white supremacist.

“These incidents include the shooting of an elderly man outside a synagogue in Miami, fires set at multiple Jewish institutions in New York and Massachusetts, Molotov cocktails thrown at synagogue windows in Chicago, damaged menorahs in Georgia and New Jersey, as well as a wide range of anti-Semitic graffiti,” an ADL report said.

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A committee guiding OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy has suggested other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains use Purdue’s bankruptcy proceedings to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits seeking to hold the drug industry accountable for the national opioid crisis.

The committee of unsecured creditors said in a letter sent Sunday to the parties and obtained by The Associated Press that the country “is in the grips of a crisis that must be addressed, and that doing so may require creative approaches.”

It’s calling for all the companies to put money into a fund in exchange for having all their lawsuits resolved.

The committee includes victims of the opioid crisis plus a medical center, a health insurer, a prescription benefit management company, the manufacturer of an addiction treatment drug and a pension insurer. It says that the concept may not be feasible but invited further discussion. It does not give a size of contributions from the company.

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Opioid Settlement Talks Broaden Ahead of 1st Federal Trial

Under the proposal, the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson would pay a total of $18 billion over 18 years

The same committee has been aggressive in Purdue’s bankruptcy, saying it would support pausing litigation against members of the Sackler family who own Purdue in exchange for a $200 million fund from the company to help fight the opioid crisis.

Paul Hanly, a lead lawyer for local governments in the lawsuits, said in a text message Sunday evening that he’d heard about the mass settlement idea, calling it “most unlikely.”

The proposal comes as narrower talks have not resulted in a settlement. Opening statements are to be held Monday in the first federal trial over the crisis. The lawsuit deals with claims from the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga and Summit against a half-dozen companies. More than 2,000 other state and local governments plus Native American tribes, hospitals and other groups have made similar claims.

There have been talks aimed at settling all claims against the drugmakers Johnson & Johnson and Teva and the distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson ahead of the trial. One proposal called for resolving claims against them nationally in exchange for cash and addiction treatment drugs valued at a total of $48 billion over time.

The committee’s proposal went to those five companies plus nine others that face lawsuits.

Opioids, including both prescription painkillers and illegal drugs such as heroin and illicitly made fentanyl, have been linked to more than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000.

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 The still popular former mayor of Baltimore and brother of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Thomas D’Alesandro III, died Sunday at 90.

The family said he had been suffering from complications from a stroke.

Pelosi, who is leading a congressional delegation in Jordan, issued a statement calling her brother “the finest public servant I have ever known…a leader of dignity, compassion, and extraordinary courage.”

D’Alesandro was known around Baltimore as “Young Tommy,” because his father, “Big Tommy,” was also mayor and a U.S. congressman.

“Young Tommy” was president of the Baltimore City Council and was elected mayor in 1967, leading Baltimore through four of the most tumultuous years in the city’s history. His challenges included a number of labor strikes that paralyzed city services, the push for urban renewal, and the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 from which Baltimore has never fully recovered.

D’Alesandro was also the first Baltimore mayor to appoint African-Americans to important city positions.

After deciding not to run for a second term in 1971, D’Alesandro went into private law practice and could still be seen dining in Italian restaurants and attending Baltimore Oriole baseball games until just before his death.

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October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the U.S., and numerous events are organized throughout the country to attract attention to the seriousness and scale of the issue. In the nation’s capital, the best restaurant chefs gathered to cook and eat for a cause. Karina Bafradzhian has the story.
 

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While the internet has definitely made our lives easier, it has come at a cost. Studies show that internet addiction is on the rise, specifically among young people. In Turkey, a recent study shows that internet addiction has risen over the last two decades. For VOA, Yildiz Yazicioglu and Murat Karabulut report from Ankara, Turkey, in this story narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.

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The future of green energy just finished a 25-country tour. It moves as quietly as a whisper, uses the sun, wind and hydrogen for fuel, and emits zero greenhouse gases.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi sails us through this story.

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