Nigeria proposed one year for the complete return of bronze artifacts from Germany, an official said Friday. 

Government spokesman Segun Adeyemi said in a statement that Germany agreed to return dozens of antiquities stolen from the country's southern Benin Kingdom in 1897.

Information Minister Lai Mohammed, at a roundtable meeting in the capital of Abuja, requested that German officials sign the requested agreement for artifacts repatriations by December.

"Full return should be completed in a year's time, not beyond August 2022," said a statement from the Mohammed

Director General German Museum Andeas Gorgen and Stephen Steinlein, a secretary in the German president’s office, indicated their country's readiness to follow the process of the return of the works.

Nigeria plans to build a special museum in the palace of the traditional ruler of the Benin Kingdom where the more than 1,000 bronze works were stolen by the UK, Germany and other countries.

The kingdom described the artifacts as the people's heritage and history and demanded Britain and other European nations holding items take a clue from Germany./aa

The Bosnian war from 1992 to 1995 took away all the male members of the Halilovic family and their mother.

The Halilovic family is one of many who suffered during the war and the Srebrenica genocide on July 11 in 1995.

The family had two sons and two daughters. But only the daughters have remained after the war.

The sons were killed in the Srebrenica genocide, which is described as the greatest human tragedy in Europe after World War II.

Esnaf Halilovic, whose remains were found in a mass grave, will be buried Sunday on the 26th anniversary of the genocide. along with 18 other identified victims

Rahima Halilovic, Esnaf’s aunt, told Anadolu Agency the war broke up the family.

She said the elder Halilovic was the one who was first killed.

"He left home to go to work in 1992 and never returned. Later on, my mother-in-law lost her life in a mortar attack during the war. We took care of the four children who were left homeless with my husband, Sabahet,” she said.

Halilovic said Esnaf's brother, Almir, and her husband were killed while they were trying to reach the "safe zone" in Tuzla through a forest path.

"The bone remains were found in the Suceska area. Only a few bones were found. We will bury them and give them final peace,” she said.

Halilovic said that the other brother’s body has still not been found.

"They were killed while they were innocent and without sin," she said, noting they were loved by everyone.

"The bone remains that have been found need to be buried. Finally this year, we will have a funeral on July 11 so that we will have a grave to pray,'' said Halilovic.

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed after Bosnian Serb forces attacked a UN "safe area" in Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch troops tasked with acting as international peacekeepers.

Srebrenica was besieged by Serb forces who were trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form a state.

The UN Security Council declared Srebrenica a "safe area" in the spring of 1993. But Serb troops, led by Gen. Ratko Mladic overran the UN zone. Mladic was later sentenced to life for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces occupied the area, killing 2,000 men and boys on July 11 alone. Some 15,000 residents of Srebrenica fled to the surrounding mountains but Serb troops hunted down and killed 6,000 in the forests.

Bodies of victims have been found in 570 different areas in the country./aa

Foreign students who studied in Turkey and graduated in 2021 from the "Turkiye Scholarships" program provided by the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) expressed gratitude to Anadolu Agency for the program. 

“If YTB had not given us this opportunity, perhaps we would not have had the opportunity to do a doctorate as the situation in Palestine is difficult,” said Issa M. A. Baraijia, a Palestinian who graduated from Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University’s Department of Contemporary History postgraduate program. “There are no PhD programs in the West Bank.”

“I think this program is good for international cooperation. Graduates of this program will contribute to relations between countries,” said Indonesian Haryono Haryono, a graduate from the Department of Business Administration at Selcuk University in central Konya province.

Higher education scholarship programs provided by Turkey were branded "Turkiye Scholarships" in 2012.

More than 165,000 applications from 178 countries were received in 2021.

Nearly 15,000 international students are currently studying in Turkey as part of the Turkiye Scholarships program, while nearly 3,000 students from 104 countries graduated in 2021.

International students who graduated attended the "10th International Student Graduation Ceremony and 2020 Turkey Alumni Awards" ceremony in Ankara./aa

The outrage in Spain continues to grow on Friday over the Consumer Affairs Ministry’s “eat less meat” campaign in Europe’s most meat-consuming nation.

According to the ministry, Spaniards eat more meat per capita than anywhere else in the European Union — more than one kilogram (2.2 pounds) per week.

The Spanish nutrition agency recommends consuming less than half that amount, between 200 and 500 grams.

Spain is also a major meat supplier, slaughtering 70 million livestock animals each year (7.6 million tons of meat), according to the ministry.

The livestock sector accounts for 9.1% of Spain’s greenhouse gas emissions and each kilo takes around 15,000 liters of water to produce. This, he said, could become increasingly problematic in the country prone to droughts and rising temperatures.

“Excessive meat consumption is bad for our health and bad for the environment... That does not mean we cannot have barbecues with our families, but we should moderate our consumption,” says Spanish Consumer Affairs Minister Alberto Garzon in the campaign video.

In the land of jamón and chorizo, the campaign has unleashed a flurry of criticism from the agricultural sector, opposition politicians and even fellow government ministers.

“We’re sick of politicians telling us what to do,” Reyes Maroto, minister of tourism and commerce, said on Friday. She added that Spain has “the best gastronomy in the world” and that meat is one of the country’s most “valued products.”

Stupefied’ by campaign

In an open letter to the consumer affairs minister, six meat-producing associations said they were “stupefied” by his campaign.

The letter went on to share data about Spain having the longest life expectancy in the world, how the transportation sector causes more than three times more emissions than livestock farming and how 90% of the water used for livestock in Spain is rainwater.

It also reminded Garzon that Spain’s livestock sector accounts for 2.5 million jobs and €9 billion ($10.6 billion) in exports.

The opposition Popular Party has asked Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to fire Garzon immediately for the campaign.

Popular Party leader Pablo Casado said Garzon is “demonizing” the important economic sector and called the campaign “another example of left-wing interventionism that wants to control citizens.”

Even Sanchez, along with most other members of Spain’s progressive coalition government, has disavowed the “eat less meat" campaign.

When asked about the controversy, Sanchez’s response was: “Speaking in very personal terms, when someone gives me a medium-rare steak, it’s unbeatable.”/aa

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to mothers protesting the forcible recruitment practice of PKK terror group in southeastern Diyarbakir province has raised their hopes.

Families of children abducted or forcibly recruited by the PKK terror group have been protesting in the Diyarbakir province since Sept. 3, 2019, encouraging their children to give up their weapons and surrender to Turkish authorities.

The protest outside the office of the opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which the government accuses of having links to the PKK, had started with three mothers who said their children had been forcibly recruited by the terrorists.

On Friday, Erdogan paid a visit to the protesting families and voiced support for their cause.

Aysegul Bicer, whose son Mustafa was abducted by the PKK terror group nearly three years ago, said that Erdogan has supported their struggle from day one.

"We are very happy with the visit of our president. We were strong, we become stronger ... We call for unity and solidarity," Bicer said.

"Our president said that the struggle of mothers is justified. We believe that together we will defeat the PKK and bring our sons down the mountains," she went on to say.

Omer Tokay, a father whose child was abducted by the terror group at the age of 14, said that he has been participating in the sit-in for nearly two years.

Expressing his gratitude over the president’s visit to the protesting families, Tokay said that Erdogan has promised to the families that he will play his role to reunite them with their children.

Suleyman Aydin, another grieving father, said: “We will continue our protest with determination. The visit of our president gave us moral support.”​​​​​​​/aa

The remains of 19 more victims of the Srebrenica genocide were sent on Friday for burial in the village of Potocari two days later on the 26th anniversary of the 1995 genocide.

Scores of people came out in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the nearby town of Visoko to bid a final farewell to the recently identified victims.

Every year on July 11, newly identified victims of the genocide are buried in a memorial cemetery in Potocari in the eastern part of the country.

After passing by Vogosca, a Sarajevo suburb, the truck carrying the coffins, draped with a large flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina, stopped in front of the presidency near a memorial for children killed in the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995.

Around 1,500 children were massacred during the brutal 1995 siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces.

Husein Kavazovic, grand mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, led people in prayers for the departed.

Emotional scenes were witnessed as the truck passed through the streets, with large crowds of people, including women and children, seen crying and praying for the victims.

Sefik Dzaferovic, a Bosnian member of the country’s presidency council, Croat member Zeljko Komsic, and Montenegro’s Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic attended the ceremony in Sarajevo.

Dzaferovic said it was critical that the parliaments of Kosovo and Montenegro should pass bills against the Srebrenica genocide.

“I will not forget the victims of the genocide until Judgment Day. This pain is too great,” he said.

After Sunday’s burials in Potocari, the number of genocide victims laid to rest in the memorial cemetery will rise to 6,671.

Srebrenica genocide

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed when Bosnian Serb forces attacked Srebrenica in July 1995, despite the presence of Dutch peacekeeping troops.

The Serb forces were trying to wrest territory from Bosnian Muslims and Croats to form a state.

The UN Security Council had declared Srebrenica a “safe area” in the spring of 1993. However, troops led by Gen. Ratko Mladic, who was later found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, overran the UN zone.

Dutch troops failed to act as Serb forces occupied the area, killing some 2,000 men and boys on July 11 alone.

About 15,000 residents of Srebrenica fled to the surrounding mountains, but Serb troops hunted down and killed 6,000 more people.

Bodies of victims have been found in 570 different places in the country.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that a genocide had been committed in Srebrenica.

On June 8, 2021, UN tribunal judges upheld in a second-instance trial a verdict sentencing Mladic to life in prison for the genocide, persecution, crimes against humanity, extermination, and other war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina./agencies