Security forces arrested 44 suspects and were searching for 20 others in separate operations against the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) on Tuesday. The suspects are accused of infiltrating the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), while some among them were handlers for infiltrators.

The biggest operation was based in the western province of Izmir where the Chief Prosecutor’s Office issued arrest warrants for 47 people, and 31 were arrested. Police raided several locations in the province and 15 other provinces to apprehend the suspects.

Among the captured and wanted suspects were 27 serving officers and four former/retired officers from the army’s Land Forces, navy, air forces and gendarmerie forces and 16 former military cadets who were expelled from schools on suspicion of their affiliation with FETÖ. They were identified through their contacts with other FETÖ members by public payphones, a commonly employed method of the terrorist group, which ran a meticulous scheme of infiltration of the army for decades, according to investigations. The suspects were of various ranks, including a colonel and 28 noncommissioned officers, along with two specialist sergeants.

Elsewhere, prosecutors in the central province of Konya issued arrest warrants for 17 suspects in an investigation into FETÖ’s secret military network. So far, 13 suspects were detained during the operations in Konya and 14 other provinces.

FETÖ has been under intense scrutiny since the July 15, 2016 coup attempt its infiltrators in the army carried out. The Ministry of National Defense announced earlier this month that 24,387 members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) were sacked since the coup attempt for possible ties to the group, while administrative inquiries are underway for 781 others.

The terrorist group, which had infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary and the bureaucracy, still has backers in the army ranks, though they managed to disguise their loyalty, as operations and investigations since the coup attempt indicated. According to an investigation by Istanbul's Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which was made public in December 2020, the terrorist group began infiltrating the TSK more than four decades ago. Based on a report prepared by the Gendarmerie General Command, the report says 22 of the 239 students who graduated from military schools between the 1970s and 1990s were charged with involvement in the 2016 coup attempt, while 58 others were investigated for being a member of FETÖ following the failed putsch bid. While the students discharged from military schools could not continue carrying out their missions in the army, they still aided FETÖ's attempts by offering insight into the military's workings and playing an "active role" in establishing the hidden network inside the TSK, the report says.

FETÖ is led by Fetullah Gülen, who currently lives in the United States and is implicated in a long list of trials against the terrorist group./DS

Recurring dust storms whipping Kuwait in the spring and summer are normal considering the country’s location and the desert climate, said Dherar Al-Ali, the supervisor of stations at the meteorological division of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Ali told KUNA that Kuwait’s location in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula puts it in close proximity with sources of dust, namely the Iraqi marshlands, Al-Rafidain plain, Iraq’s Western Desert, Syria’s rural regions, and the Al-Dahnaa and Al-Dabdaba deserts.

There are local sources of dust too such as Warba and Boubyan islands and the desert region of Al-Habari in the northwest, sand dunes in Al-Huwaimlah and treeless empty spaces. The Saudi Al-Dahnaa desert brings in reddish dust, Ali said, indicating that some storms are as vast as 200 km – these are emerging ones coming mainly from the Western Desert in Iraq and Al-Rafidain plain. As to storms of a 150-km width, they usually rage at high speed and originate from the Iraqi marshes and Wadi Al-Batin. – KUNA

Head of the Arab League affairs at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information Reem Al-Houti stressed on Monday the importance of the Arab media strategy and the Ministry of Information great interest in implementing its multiple axes across its different sectors. This came in a statement by Houti to the press at the end of the second meeting of the media expert group concerned with formulating an action plan for the Arab media strategy.

Houti, who represented Kuwait at the meeting, pointed out that the different sectors of the Ministry of Information are implementing the plan through television coverage through news bulletins, cultural programs, radio programs and social media, and participating in presenting strategies, plans and media studies in this regard. She stated that the strategic plan includes several important issues, on top of which is the Palestinian cause, “which is Kuwait’s top priority”, in addition to the topics of combating terrorism and extremism, sustainable development, valuing the Arab personality and upgrading media work.

Houti stated that the meeting discussed the plan and the difficulties facing its implementation, in addition to the Saudi proposal (initiative) related to the COVID-19 crisis. She explained that the meeting decided to transform the mentioned proposal into an expanded project and an Arab strategy for dealing with crises in general. Houti also indicated that the Kuwait presented its views regarding dealing with crises in the media, stressing the importance of the idea of a comprehensive Arab strategy to face and deal with crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. – KUNA

Kuwait’s top lawmaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem joined parliamentarians from across the world for talks in Turkey on Monday over a worsening migration crisis, as the European Union (EU) continues grapple with an influx of asylum-seeking refugees. “The real burden of the issue of migration and refugees does not fall on developed nations with a strong voice, but on countries like ours that are neighbors to the crisis regions,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the Global Parliamentary Conference on migration via video link.

He lashed out at some countries for “using the few hundred refugees they have accepted as advertising material,” blaming these nations for “taking no responsibility in the face of the deepening humanitarian crises,” state-run Anadolu news agency quoted him as saying. Ankara’s top lawmaker Mustafa Sentop said his country is home to some four million refugees, highlighting the enormous task of meeting their “humanitarian, social and educational needs.”

“As the issue of migration is not Turkey’s problem, it is a great injustice that the material and moral burden of this problem should be placed only on Turkey’s shoulders,” he added. The two-day talks bring together lawmakers from 54 countries, all of whom aim to find solutions to one of the world’s most pressing problems.

Earlier Monday, Speaker Ghanem held talks with the Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Sentop, discussing bilateral cooperation ties between the Kuwaiti and Turkish parliaments and the latest developments in the region. The talks came on the sidelines of the parliamentary conference on migration, organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in line with the Turkish Parliament, under the auspices of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The two sides discussed updates on the issues of Kuwaiti investors in Turkey, which Al-Ghanem previously discussed with Turkish officials in the past. Ghanem thanked the Turkish authorities for solving many of the real estate fraud issues suffered by some Kuwaiti investors and citizens, while looking forward to solving the remaining similar issues. Ambassador of Kuwait to Turkey Ghassan Al-Zawawi and Kuwait’s Consul General in Istanbul Mohammad Al-Mohammad attended the meeting.

On the sidelines of the conference, Ghanem met the Head of the Iraqi parliamentary delegation Evan Faeq Jabro, where they discussed bilateral cooperation between the Kuwaiti and Iraqi parliaments. The Iraqi parliamentary delegation conveyed the greetings of the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Mohammad Al-Halbousi to Ghanem. Two Iraqi MPs, Vian Dakhil and Basima Basim, attended the meeting. Ghanem also met earlier Monday with IPU President Duarte Pacheco, discussing a range of topics including issues pertaining to refugees and migrants in the region. The two also touched on matters to be discussed at future IPU events in Indonesia and Rwanda in October.

Ghanem’s participation in the conference, which discusses the subject of international agreements on issues of migration and refugees, was a response to an official invitation from his Turkish counterpart. The Kuwaiti parliament’s invitation to the conference also comes from the fact that Kuwait is one of the main donor countries in the world for refugee issues, especially the issue of Syrian refugees. – KUNA

Central banks of major economies around the world are undertaking the fastest rate hiking cycle seen since the early 1990s to tame the record-high inflation.

The global economy failing to fully recover from the coronavirus pandemic, persisting supply chain disruptions, the global chip crisis, soaring energy and food prices, and Russia's war on Ukraine have all contributed to the inflation in major economies reaching the highest level since the 1970s.

Central banks, in response, have initiated a strict monetary tightening policy and begun aggressively raising their interest rates to lower the money supply, which climbed to an all-time high during the pandemic when the world was in lockdown.

After the annual consumer inflation climbed to 8.6% in May, the U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday made a rate hike of 75 points, its steepest in 28 years, after raising the rates 50 basis points in May and 25 points in March.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said after the Fed's meeting that another 75 basis points of a rate hike is on the table for the central bank's next meeting on July 27.

The Federal Open Market Committee said in its statement that it anticipates "ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate."

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari signaled Friday he could also support another 75 basis point hike at the bank's meeting next month.

Europe

After the Fed, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) on Thursday also made a rate hike of 50 basis points, carrying its interest rate to minus 0.25%, from minus 0.75%.

"The tighter monetary policy is aimed at preventing inflation from spreading more broadly to goods and services in Switzerland. It cannot be ruled out that further increases in the SNB policy rate will be necessary in the foreseeable future to stabilize inflation in the range consistent with price stability over the medium term," it said in a statement.

Later Thursday, the Bank of England (BoE) raised interest rates by 25 basis points, carrying it to 1.25%, from 1%. This marked the fifth straight rate hike for the central bank.

The BoE said it estimates consumer inflation to average slightly more than 10% when it peaks in the fourth quarter of this year.

"Global inflationary pressures have remained elevated and oil prices have risen further," the bank said in its monetary policy statement, adding: "The risks to the inflation projection were judged to be skewed to the upside at these points."

Although the European Central Bank (ECB) has not made a rate hike yet, it signaled last week that interest rate increases would begin next month.

The ECB's Governing Council plans to raise the key interest rates by 25 basis points at the July meeting, while some economists expect 50 basis points of hikes from the bank in the remaining three meetings this year.

The ECB also revised up its inflation forecast to 6.8% for this year, from its previous projection of 5.1% made in March, and also lowered its economic growth expectation to 2.8% for 2022, down from its previous estimate of 3.7%.

Other economies

On Wednesday, Brazil's central bank made a rate hike of 50 basis points, raising its benchmark interest rate to 13.25%, up from 12.75%, and signaled that more rate hikes are on the way.

"The global environment has deteriorated further, marked by downward revisions on prospective global growth in an environment of strong and persistent inflationary pressures," it said in a statement.

Inflation in Brazil is expected to come in at 8.8% in 2022 and 4% in 2023, according to the bank's monetary policy committee.

Ukraine sharply raised its interest rate to 25% from 10% on June 2, tightening its monetary policy for the first time since Russia launched a war on the country on Feb. 24.

The National Bank of Ukraine said in its statement that a rise in the key policy rate will spur investors' interest in the country's national currency and assets, while also reining in inflation.

The Bank of Canada on June 1 raised its policy interest rate by 50 basis points, and said inflation in the world and Canada is largely driven by higher prices for energy and food, adding: "The increase in global inflation is occurring as the global economy slows."

The bank said Russia's war on Ukraine, China's coronavirus-related lockdowns and ongoing supply disruptions are all factors boosting the inflation, while the war has increased uncertainty and is putting additional upward pressure on prices for energy and agricultural commodities.

Annual consumer inflation in Canada reached 6.8% in April.

Central banks of Australia, India, South Korea, Mexico, Poland and South Africa all have raised interest rates and begun monetary tightening in recent months.

Russia

There are, however, exceptions such as the Russian central bank that lowers interest rates, and both macroeconomic indicators and the value of the ruble have been improving in the country since the start of the war.

The Russian central bank on May 26 announced it has cut its key interest rate by 300 basis points to 11%, from 14%.

"Inflationary pressure eases on the back of the ruble exchange rate dynamics as well as the noticeable decline in inflation expectations of households and businesses," the Bank of Russia said in a statement.

Annual inflation in Russia reached 17.8% in April, but the bank said it forecasts annual inflation declining to a range of 5% to 7% in 2023 and further falling to 4% in 2024./aa

As triple-digit temperatures arrive in the U.S.' hottest big city, Phoenix's homeless people struggle to survive in the brutal heat with very few safe havens to turn to

Thousands of homeless people's lives are in danger in Phoenix, the hottest big city in the United States, sweltering on the streets in deadly extreme temperatures.

Hundreds of blue, green and grey tents are pitched under the sun’s searing rays downtown, a jumble of flimsy canvas and plastic along dusty sidewalks.

The stifling tent city has ballooned amid pandemic-era evictions and surging rents that have dumped hundreds more people onto the sizzling streets that grow eerily quiet when temperatures peak in the midafternoon. A heat wave earlier this month brought temperatures of up to 114 degrees Fahrenheit (45.5 degrees Celsius) – and it’s only June. Highs reached 118 degrees Fahrenheit last year.

"During the summer, it’s pretty hard to find a place at night that’s cool enough to sleep without the police running you off,” said Chris Medlock, a homeless Phoenix man known on the streets as "T-Bone" who carries everything he owns in a small backpack and often beds down in a park or a nearby desert preserve to avoid the crowds.

"If a kind soul could just offer a place on their couch indoors maybe more people would live,” Medlock said at a dining room where homeless people can get some shade and a free meal.

Excessive heat causes more weather-related deaths in the United States than hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes combined.

Around the country, heat contributes to some 1,500 deaths annually, and advocates estimate about half of those people are homeless.

Temperatures are rising nearly everywhere because of global warming, combining with brutal drought in some places to create more intense, frequent and longer heat waves. The past few summers have been some of the hottest on record.

Just in the county that includes Phoenix, at least 130 homeless people were among the 339 individuals who died from heat-associated causes in 2021.

"If 130 homeless people were dying in any other way it would be considered a mass casualty event,” said Kristie L. Ebi, a professor of global health at the University of Washington.

It’s a problem that stretches across the United States, and now, with rising global temperatures, heat is no longer a danger just in places like Phoenix.

This summer will likely bring above-normal temperatures over most land areas worldwide, according to a seasonal map that volunteer climatologists created for the International Research Institute at Columbia University.

Last summer, a heat wave blasted the normally temperate U.S. Northwest and had Seattle residents sleeping in their yards and on roofs, or fleeing to hotels with air conditioning. Across the state, several people presumed to be homeless died outdoors, including a man slumped behind a gas station.

In Oregon, officials opened 24-hour cooling centers for the first time. Volunteer teams fanned out with water and popsicles to homeless encampments on Portland’s outskirts.

A quick scientific analysis concluded last year’s Pacific Northwest heat wave was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change adding several degrees and toppling previous records.

Even Boston is exploring ways to protect diverse neighborhoods like its Chinatown, where population density and few shade trees help drive temperatures up to 106 degrees Fahrenheit some summer days. The city plans strategies like increasing tree canopy and other kinds of shade, using cooler materials for roofs, and expanding its network of cooling centers during heat waves.

Hot summer threatens lives worldwide

It’s not just a U.S. problem. An Associated Press analysis last year of a dataset published by the Columbia University’s climate school found exposure to extreme heat has tripled and now affects about a quarter of the world’s population.

This spring, an extreme heat wave gripped much of Pakistan and India, where homelessness is widespread due to discrimination and insufficient housing. The high in Jacobabad, Pakistan near the border with India hit 122 degrees Fahrenheit in May.

Dr. Dileep Mavalankar, who heads the Indian Institute of Public Health in the western Indian city Gandhinagar, said because of poor reporting it’s unknown how many die in the country from heat exposure.

Summertime cooling centers for homeless, elderly and other vulnerable populations have opened in several European countries each summer since a heat wave killed 70,000 people across Europe in 2003.

Emergency service workers on bicycles patrol Madrid’s streets, distributing ice packs and water in the hot months. Still, some 1,300 people, most of them elderly, continue to die in Spain each summer because of health complications exacerbated by excess heat.

Spain and southern France last week sweltered through unusually hot weather for mid-June, with temperatures hitting 104 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas.

Climate scientist David Hondula, who heads Phoenix's new office for heat mitigation, says that with such extreme weather now seen around the world, more solutions are needed to protect the vulnerable, especially homeless people who are about 200 times more likely than sheltered individuals to die from heat-associated causes.

"As temperatures continue to rise across the U.S. and the world, cities like Seattle, Minneapolis, New York or Kansas City that don’t have the experience or infrastructure for dealing with heat have to adjust as well.”

In Phoenix, officials and advocates hope a vacant building recently converted into a 200-bed shelter for homeless people will help save lives this summer.

Mac Mais, 34, was among the first to move in.

"It can be rough. I stay in the shelters or anywhere I can find,” said Mais who has been homeless on and off since he was a teen. "Here, I can stay out actually rest, work on job applications, stay out of the heat.”

In Las Vegas, teams deliver bottled water to homeless people living in encampments around the county and inside a network of underground storm drains under the Las Vegas strip.

Ahmedabad, India, population 8.4 million, was the first South Asian city to design a heat action plan in 2013.

Through its warning system, nongovernmental groups reach out to vulnerable people and send text messages to mobile phones. Water tankers are dispatched to slums, while bus stops, temples and libraries become shelters for people to escape the blistering rays.

Still, the deaths pile up.

Kimberly Rae Haws, a 62-year-old homeless woman, was severely burned in October 2020 while sprawled for an unknown amount of time on a sizzling Phoenix blacktop. The cause of her subsequent death was never investigated.

A young man nicknamed Twitch died from heat exposure as he sat on a curb near a Phoenix soup kitchen in the hours before it opened one weekend in 2018.

"He was supposed to move into permanent housing the next Monday,” said Jim Baker, who oversees that dining room for the St. Vincent de Paul charity. "His mother was devastated.”

Many such deaths are never confirmed as heat related and aren't always noticed because of the stigma of homelessness and lack of connection to family.

When a 62-year-old mentally ill woman named Shawna Wright died last summer in a hot alley in Salt Lake City, her death only became known when her family published an obituary saying the system failed to protect her during the hottest July on record, when temperatures reached the triple digits.

Her sister, Tricia Wright, said making it easier for homeless people to get permanent housing would go a long way toward protecting them from extreme summertime temperatures.

"We always thought she was tough, that she could get through it," Tricia Wright said of her sister. "But no one is tough enough for that kind of heat."/AP

It has been 159 years since former American President Abraham Lincoln issued Emancipation Proclamation declaring "that all persons held as slaves ... are, and henceforward shall be free."

With street parties, the trumpets and drums of marching bands, speeches, and a few political rallies, people across the United States have celebrated Juneteenth, a jubilee commemorating the end of the legal enslavement of Black Americans. As the U.S. marks only the second federally recognized Juneteenth, Black Americans living overseas have embraced the holiday as a day of reflection and an opportunity to educate people in their host countries on Black history.

President Joe Biden moved quickly last year to federally recognize the day Black Americans have been celebrating since the last enslaved people were told they were.

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, commemorates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to order freedom for the enslaved people of the state – two months after the Confederacy had surrendered in the Civil War.

"Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” Biden said in a statement Sunday. "They confront them to grow stronger. And that is what this great nation must continue to do.”

In a proclamation on Friday, Biden remarked on the 10 people slain in a racist mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, on May 14.

"We must stand together against white supremacy and show that bigotry and hate have no safe harbor in America," the proclamation said.

Atlanta began with a festival in the heart of the city on Friday and parades beginning at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. preached.

Some of the largest city celebrations, from Los Angeles to Chicago to Miami, not only touched on the history of slavery in America but also celebrated Black culture, business, and food.

A Gallup Poll found that Americans are more familiar with Juneteenth than they were last year, with 59% saying they knew "a lot” or "some” about the holiday compared with 37% a year ago in May. The poll also found that support for making Juneteenth part of school history lessons increased from 49% to 63%.

Yet many states have been slow to designate it as an official holiday. Lawmakers in Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and elsewhere failed to advance proposals this year that would have closed state offices and given most of their public employees paid time off.

Celebrations in Texas included one at a Houston park created 150 years ago by a group of formerly enslaved men who bought the land. At times, it was the only public park available in the area to the Black community, according to the conservancy’s website.

"They wanted a place that they could not only have their celebration, but they could do other things during the year as a community,” said Jacqueline Bostic, vice chairwoman of the board for the Emancipation Park Conservancy and the great-granddaughter of one of the park's founders, the Rev. Jack Yates.

Participants included Robert Stanton, the first African American to serve as director of the National Park Service, and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, who grew up in the historically Black neighborhood where the park is located and whose killing by a Minneapolis police officer two years ago sparked protests worldwide.

As more people learn about Juneteenth, "we want to harness that and use this moment as a tool to educate people about history and not just African American history but American history,” said Ramon Manning, chairperson of the board for the Emancipation Park Conservancy.

In Fort Worth, celebrations included the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, named for the Black cowboy who is credited with introducing bulldogging or steer wrestling. The rodeo’s president and CEO, Valeria Howard Cunningham, said children often express surprise that there are real Black cowboys and cowgirls.

More young people have become involved in planning Juneteenth events, said Torrina Harris, program director for the Nia Cultural Center in Galveston, the holiday's birthplace.

Juneteenth provides an opportunity to reflect on "the different practices or norms that contradict the values of freedom” and consider how to challenge those things, Harris said.

In Phoenix, hundreds of people gathered for an annual event at Eastlake Park, which has been a focal point for civil rights in Arizona. The recently crowned Miss Juneteenth Arizona used her platform to speak about how she felt empowered during the state pageant, which is part of a nationwide competition that showcases and celebrates the academic and artistic achievements of Black women.

It's a "moment to build up sisterhood, it's not about competing against each other for a crown, it's about celebrating Black women's intelligence and staying true to ourselves,” said Shaundrea Norman, 17, whose family is from Texas and grew up knowing about Juneteenth.

Kendall McCollun, 15-year-old Teen Miss Juneteenth Arizona, said the holiday is about the fight for social justice.

"We have to fight twice as hard to have the same freedoms that our ancestors fought for hundreds of years ago,” she said. "It's important we continue to fight for my generation, and this day is important to celebrate how far we've come."

The event featured performances by Kawambe-Omowale African Drum & Dance and speeches from politicians about ways residents could get involved in local politics as children received balloon animals and ran through Eastlake Park's playground.

In New York City, Juneteenth was celebrated across its five boroughs, with events drawing crowds that exceeded organizers’ expectations. In central Brooklyn, well over 7,000 people attended a food festival organized Saturday and Sunday by Black-Owned Brooklyn, a digital publication and directory of local Black businesses.

Although Juneteenth is a Black American holiday, organizers of the festival said they were intentional about including cuisines and flavors from the Caribbean and West African countries. On Sunday, long lines formed from nearly every food stall while a DJ played soulful house music for festively dressed attendees./agencies