Foreign News
Turkish President Erdogan’s main rival jailed
The main rival to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been formally arrested and charged with corruption.
Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, is expected to be selected as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2028 presidential nominee in a ballot on Sunday.
He has denied the allegations and said they are politically motivated. “I will never bow,” he wrote on X before he was remanded in custody.
His detention sparked some of Turkey’s largest protests in more than a decade. Erdogan has condemned the demonstrations and accused the CHP of trying to “disturb the peace and polarise our people”.
Imamoglu was one of more than 100 people, including other politicians, journalists and businessmen, detained as part of an investigation on Wednesday, triggering four consecutive nights of demonstrations.
On Sunday, he was formally arrested and charged with “establishing and managing a criminal organisation, taking bribes, extortion, unlawfully recording personal data and rigging a tender”. He was remanded in custody pending trial. AFP and local media reported he had been taken to a prison in Silivri.
In social media posts, Imamoglu criticised his arrest as a “black stain on our democracy”, and said judicial procedure was not being followed. He urged people across the country to join protests and to take part in Sunday’s vote.
Imamoglu is the only person running in the CHP’s presidential candidate selection.
The arrest does not prevent Imamoglu’s candidacy and election as president, but if he is convicted of any of the charges against him, he will not be able to run.
The party’s chairman said nearly 15 million people had cast a ballot in the vote, which was extended for three hours due to heavy turnout. The party said some 1.6m votes came from its members. The rest were cast by non-members at separate ballot boxes for those who wished to show solidarity with Imamoglu. [The BBC cannot independently verify these figures.]
Imamoglu’s arrest sparked a fifth night of protests. Crowds had gathered near Istanbul’s city hall by early evening, and could be seen waving Turkish flags and chanting in front of a row of riot police.
As night began to fall, officers were seen firing water cannons at some protesters.
The jailed politician is seen as one of the most formidable rivals of Erdogan, who has held office in Turkey for 22 years as both prime minister and president.
However, due to term limits, Erdogan cannot run for office again in 2028 unless he changes the constitution.
Opposition figures say the arrests are politically motivated.
But the Ministry of Justice has criticised those connecting Erdogan to the arrests, and insist on its judicial independence.
In a message shared on X through his lawyers late on Sunday, Imamoglu said he sent his greetings to those protesting and that voters had showed Turkey had had “enough” of Erdogan.
Also that evening, X’s Global Government Affairs department said it objected to “multiple court orders” from Turkey’s communications regulator to block over 700 accounts on the platform, including those of Turkish political figures and journalists.
It said the move was “not only lawful, it hinders millions of Turkish users from news and political discourse in their country”.
Imamoglu has meanwhile been suspended from his post as Instanbul’s mayor, Turkey’s interior ministry said in a statement.
Prosecutors also want to charge Imamoglu with “aiding an armed terrorist organisation”, but the Turkish court said it was not currently necessary.
The CHP had a de facto alliance with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) in connection with last year’s local elections.
DEM has been accused of being affiliated with the PKK – or Kurdistan Workers’ Party – which it denies.
The PKK declared a ceasefire early this month, after waging an insurgency against Turkey for more than 40 years. It is proscribed as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US.
Meanwhile, Istanbul University announced on Tuesday it was revoking Imamoglu’s degree due to alleged irregularities.
If upheld, this would put his ability to run as president into doubt, since the Turkish constitution says presidents must have completed higher education to hold office.
Imamoglu’s lawyers said they would appeal the decision to revoke his degree to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights.
The Supreme Election Council will decide whether Imamoglu is qualified to be a candidate.
[BBC]
At least two dozen people have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a group of domestic tourists visiting a popular beauty spot in Indian-administered Kashmir, authorities have told the BBC.
The attack took place in Pahalgam, a picturesque town in the Himalayas often described as the “Switzerland of India”.
The region’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, said the attack was “much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years”. Reports suggest that there are a large number of wounded, with some in critical condition.
US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen were among world leaders who condemned the attacks.
“Deeply disturbing news out of Kashmir. The United States stands strong with India against Terrorism,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Von der Leyen called the Kashmir deaths a “vile terrorist attack”, while Putin expressed “sincere condolences” for the consequences of a “brutal crime”.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who cut short his trip to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the attack – said the perpetrators would “be brought to justice”.
“Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakeable and it will get even stronger,” Modi wrote in a statement on X.
Tuesday’s attack is unusual in that, in three and a half decades of conflict, tourists have rarely been targeted – especially on such a scale.
Home Minister Amit Shah travelled to Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city, on Tuesday to hold an emergency security meeting.
The region’s Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, said the army and police had been deployed to the scene.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. There has been a long-running insurgency in the Muslim-majority region since 1989, although violence has waned in recent years.
The attack took place in Baisaran, a mountain-top meadow three miles (5km) from Pahalgam.
Vehicles are unable to reach the area where the shooting occurred, Inspector General of Jammu and Kashmir Police Vidi Kumar Birdi told BBC Hindi.
A tourist from Gujarat, who was part of a group that was fired upon, said that chaos broke out after the sudden attack, and everybody started running, crying and shouting.
Video footage shared by Indian media outlets appears to show Indian troops running towards the scene of the attack, while in other footage victims can be heard saying that the gunmen had singled out non-Muslims.
Footage on social media, which has not been verified by the BBC, appears to show bodies lying on a meadow with people crying and pleading for help.
Police said multiple tourists had been taken to hospital with gunshot wounds. The area has been cordoned off and soldiers are stopping vehicles at checkpoints. A joint search operation by the Indian army and Jammu and Kashmir police is ongoing.
Several protests have been organised for Wednesday, according to Indian media.
Since the 1990s, an armed separatist insurgency against Indian rule in the region has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including those of civilians and security forces.
The Himalayan region was divided following India’s independence from Britain, partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
The two uclear armed states both claim the region in its entirety and have fought two wars and a limited conflict over it in the decades since.
Some 500,000 Indian soldiers are permanently deployed in the territory. The government claims the security situation has improved and violence has come down since Modi revoked Kashmir’s partial autonomy in 2019, although there are still incidents of violence.
The last major attack on civilians occurred in June 2024 when nine people were killed and 33 injured after militants opened fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims. In 2019, a suicide bombing in Indian administered Kashmir killed at least 46 soldiers and prompted Indian airstrikes on targets in Pakistan.
Pahalgam is a popular tourist destination, both domestically and internationally, and in recent years the government has attempted to encourage further tourism to the region.
Around 3.5 million tourists visited Kashmir in 2024, according to official figures.
[BBC]
Police in Ecuador say they have arrested four people in connection with an attack by gunmen at a cockfighting ring in which 12 people died.
Weapons and replica police and army uniforms were seized during police raids in the north-western Manabí province on Friday – a day after the attack in the rural community of La Valencia.
Footage of the attack shared on social media showed gunmen entering the ring and opening fire, as terrified spectators dived for cover.
Reports in local media suggested the attackers in fake military gear were members of a criminal gang whose rivals were at the cockfight.
A criminal investigation has been launched by the provincial authorities.
As many as 20 criminal gangs are believed to be operating in the Latin American country, vying for control over major drug routes.
Ecuadorean President Daniel Noboa has said that about 70% of the world’s cocaine now flows through Ecuador’s ports before being shipped to the US and Europe.
The drug is smuggled into Ecuador from neighbouring Colombia and Peru – the world’s two largest producers of cocaine.
This January saw 781 murders, making it the deadliest month in recent years. Many of them were related to the illegal drug trade.
[BBC]
Robots ran alongside humans at the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday.
Twenty-one humanoid robots, designed by Chinese manufacturers, raced alongside thousands of runners over a 21km (13-mile) course that included slopes, turns and uneven surfaces.
Some robots completed the race, while others struggled from the beginning. One robot fell at the starting line and lay flat for several minutes before getting up and taking off.
While robots have made appearances at marathons in China in the past, this is the first time they have raced against humans over the course of a half-marathon.
[BBC]
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