Month: May 2023

Polls have opened in Turkey’s presidential runoff as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fights for a historic third term on Sunday. 

Erdogan is going head-to-head with opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a 74-year-old bureaucrat and leader of the left-leaning CHP. In the first round of voting on May 14, Erdogan secured a nearly five-point lead over Kilicdaroglu but fell short of the 50% threshold needed to win. 

The president’s parliamentary bloc won a majority of seats in the parliamentary race on the same day. 

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that one person has died and 15 are wounded following an attack on a medical clinic in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Zelensky said: “Russian terrorists once again confirm their status of fighters against everything humane and honest.”

He added “the shelling aftermath is being eliminated and the victims are being rescued. All necessary services are involved.”

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Following the EDPB’s binding dispute resolution decision of 13 April 2023, Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (Meta IE) was issued a 1.2 billion euro fine following an inquiry into its Facebook service, by the Irish Data Protection Authority (IE DPA). This fine, which is the largest GDPR fine ever, was imposed for Meta’s transfers of personal data to the U.S. on the basis of standard contractual clauses (SCCs) since 16 July 2020. Furthermore, Meta has been ordered to bring its data transfers into compliance with the GDPR.

Andrea Jelinek, EDPB Chair, said: “The EDPB found that Meta IE’s infringement is very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive and continuous. Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive. The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organisations that serious infringements have far-reaching consequences.”

In its binding decision of 13 April 2023, the EDPB instructed the IE DPA to amend its draft decision and to impose a fine on Meta IE. Given the seriousness of the infringement, the EDPB found that the starting point for calculation of the fine should be between 20% and 100% of the applicable legal maximum. The EDPB also instructed the IE DPA to order Meta IE to bring processing operations into compliance with Chapter V GDPR, by ceasing the unlawful processing, including storage, in the U.S. of personal data of European users transferred in violation of the GDPR, within 6 months after notification of the IE SA’s final decision.

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Russia’s deputy foreign minister has warned Western countries of “enormous risks” if Ukraine is provided with F-16 fighter jets, Russian state media TASS reported Saturday.

The comments come after US President Joe Biden gave his backing for Ukrainian pilots to be trained to fly F-16s, reversing his previous position. 

F-16s are considered high performance weapon systems with a range of 500 miles (860 kilometers), and would be an upgrade to the aircraft currently in Ukraine’s fleet.

Responding to the move, Alexander Grushko said: “We see that the Western countries are still adhering to the escalation scenario.

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Britain and the Netherlands are working on an “international coalition” to help Ukraine procure F-16 fighter jets that Kyiv says are vital to its defense as Russia ramps up its its aerial strikes, a spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday.

The two NATO allies are trying to get the US-made warplanes to Ukraine as well as training Kyiv’s pilots to fly them, according to the Downing Street readout following a meeting between Sunak and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Council of Europe Summit in Iceland.

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Turkey will have a runoff election on May 28 after longtime leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was forced into a second round with only a narrow lead over his rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. 

Neither candidate achieved the required 50% to take the presidency outright, after 100% of ballot boxes were opened, according to Turkey’s Supreme Election Council. All ballot boxes in the country were opened and the voter turnout rate is 88.92%, council chairman Ahmet Yener said.

But Kilicdaroglu now faces a tough battle to win the second round after Erdogan performed better than some opinion polls had suggested.

Official final results for Turkey’s election will be announced on Friday, the chairman of Turkey’s supreme election council Ahmet Yener said.

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Papua New Guinea (PNG) Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko said he was resigning as minister on Friday amid a controversy over the cost and size of the country’s delegation to the coronation of King Charles III in London.

Tkatchenko said in a statement that he “stood aside” after consulting with Prime Minister James Marape, who would assume the portfolio. He remains in parliament.

“I want to make sure the recent events do not interfere with the official visits and summits we are going to have with all the World Leaders in the coming weeks,” Tkatchenko said.

“I also want to ensure the truth of this matter is cleared and the misinformation and lies are corrected,” he added.

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MORE than 174,000 deaths were registered in Australia in 2022 – 12 per cent more than was predicted.

This represents one of the largest excess death levels outside the pandemic in 80 years, according to data from the Actuaries Institute.

Of the additional 20,000 deaths, 10,300 were directly attributed to Covid-19 and 2,900 were linked to the virus in some way. 

The remaining 6,600 excess deaths were not related to Covid-19, the data suggested. 

Instead, they were mostly related to heart disease and cancer.

Karen Cutter, from the Institute’s Covid-19 mortality working group, said the levels are “not within normal levels of fluctuation in non-pandemic times”.

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