"Twitter's official Global Government Affairs account declared the platform would "restrict access to some content in Turkey" in response to legal requests made of the social media site."
"Dr. Tuğrulcan Elmas, a postdoctoral researcher focusing on social media manipulation at Indiana University Bloomington, told Insider he tracked roughly a half dozen accounts posting content related to the Turkish election that had been suspended."
A Russian state-owned company exported almost 212,000 tonnes of grain from the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast in 2023 alone, worth an estimated US$46 million. Ukrainian grain is being shipped to Türkiye, Libya, and Israel. European companies are also involved in the process.
Eyüp Sultan Mosque, Istanbul, Türkiye. Photos from a visit a few years ago. The mosque is located in the Eyüp region of Istanbul.
Named after one of the Companions of Prophet Muhammad, Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (Eyüp is the Turkish form of Ayyub), who is believed to have died in this location in the siege of Constantinople in the 670s. After falling ill during the siege, his final request was to be buried as close as possible to the city walls; his comrades-in-arms fought through the Roman lines to carry out his wish.
The first siege failed. Only in the 1450s was the city eventually conquered, around 775 years later; Eyüp Sultan was one of the first mosques to be built, on the site of Abu Ayyub's grave, a few years after the conquest. By comparison, the famous Blue Mosque was built in the early 1600s - more than 150 years later. The original Eyüp Sultan fell into ruin and was rebuilt in its current form in 1800.
Today in democratic country: People make use of their freedom-of-speech by waivig a flag of an antidemocrat whose oppresive politics have little to no direct effect on their lives celebrating yet another phase of an unwindling antodemocratic spiral some 3000 km far away.
#Israel / Global Index: Israel falls out of the liberal democracy category for the first
time in over 50 years; substantive decline also include freedom from #torture
With the question of whether a “Jewish State” can even be a real democracy put aside, Israel is no longer even that. Strangely, Israel seems to to have finally assimilated in the Middle East, but in the worst possible way.
[…] The Middle East and North Africa (#MENA) remains the most autocratic region in the world, with 98% of its population residing in autocracies. A large share (45%) lives in closed autocracies such as #Iran, #Libya, and Saudi Arabia, but 53% live in electoral autocracies, such as #Türkiye and Iraq. 2% of the region's population reside in #Tunisia, which is in the “grey zone” electoral autocracy category. The remaining 2% live in Israel. Notably, Israel lost its long-time status as liberal democracy in 2023. It is now classified as an electoral democracy – for the first time in over 50 years. This is primarily due to substantial declines in the indicators measuring the transparency and predictability of the law, and government attacks on the judiciary.
[…] Among other things, Israel’s Knesset passed a bill in 2023 stripping the Supreme Court of the power to declare government decisions unreasonable. Indicators that are in substantive decline also include freedom from torture.
Water levels in two of Türkiye's largest natural freshwater lakes have dropped below critical levels, exacerbated due to effects of climate change, excessive and uncontrolled agricultural irrigation, and high temperatures, an expert said Thursday
Russia exports stolen Ukrainian grain to Türkiye, Libya and Israel, investigation reveals (www.pravda.com.ua)
A Russian state-owned company exported almost 212,000 tonnes of grain from the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia Oblast in 2023 alone, worth an estimated US$46 million. Ukrainian grain is being shipped to Türkiye, Libya, and Israel. European companies are also involved in the process.
Escaping China with a spoon and a rusty nail (www.codastory.com)
How one Uyghur man fled Xinjiang via the notorious smugglers' road and broke out of a Thai prison....