The Social Entrepreneurship, Empowerment and Cohesion in Refugee and Host Communities in Turkiye Project (SEECO), aiming to support women and young people, will be launched Thursday in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin. 

Funded as part of the European Union’s Facility for Refugees in Turkiye (FRIT), the €39.5 million ($42.4 million) project will be conducted by the World Bank and the Turkish Industry and Technology Ministry's General Directorate of Development Agencies, according to a press release Tuesday by the ministry.

The two-year project will cover 11 Turkish provinces: Adana, Mersin, Gaziantep, Adiyaman, Kilis, Mardin, Hatay, Osmaniye, Kahramanmaras, Diyarbakir and Sanliurfa.

Within the scope of the project, women and young people will be trained and supported financially with up to €25,000 ($26,803).

"Inactive facilities will be renewed and 70 facilities in 11 provinces that can benefit at least 7,000 people will be restored," it added.

Representatives from the ministry, the EU Delegation to Turkiye, the World Bank and ambassadors from the EU members will attend the launching, the press release said.

The death toll from a police raid in a poor neighborhood in northern Rio de Janeiro has risen to 21, authorities in Brazil said Tuesday.  

They said an early morning police raid took place in the Vila Cruzeiro favela, or slum, with the objective of detaining members of an influential drug trafficking group. 

Among the deaths was a woman who was hit by a stray bullet during a gun battle. 

Authorities said a number of alleged drug traffickers opened fire as they resisted arrest and were killed during the confrontation. 

Colonel Ivan Blaz, a spokesman for the militarized police force that led the raid, described it as "a very intense confrontation." 

Residents took to social media to describe loud shooting in the early hours of the morning around 4 a.m. local time (0700GMT), which they said came from a wooded area close to the community, causing alarm among the population living there. 

According to police, several gun battles took place on high parts of the ground in the favela and the wooded areas close by as authorities captured a number of arms and vehicles during the raid. 

Police helicopters were also hit with bullets during the raid. 

Close to 20 schools in the area were closed due to the gunfire, according to residents. 

Vila Cruzeiro, a densely populated favela, sits on a hill close to Rio de Janeiro’s international airport. 

In February, the neighborhood experienced violent clashes as police killed eight people. 

According to the Brazilian news portal G1, authorities were targeting Comando Vermelho, one of Brazil's most powerful gangs. 

Some have criticized the raid for excessive use of force by authorities, notably left-wing councilman Tarcisio Motta, describing it on Twitter as "another massacre. Schools closed, thousands of people terrorized," before going on to add that "extermination is the ongoing policy in Rio de Janeiro." 

Previous notable raids such as last May’s in the city’s Jacarezinho favela were denounced by residents, who called for an independent investigation from rights groups and the United Nations. 

In May 2021, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said "we remind the Brazilian authorities that the use of force should be applied only when strictly necessary and that they should always respect the principles of legality, precaution, necessity and proportionality.”​​​​​​​

In 2021, Brazilian police were responsible for 6,100 fatalities over the course of the year, equating to 17 per day, according to G1’s violence monitor count in collaboration with the University of Sao Paulo and the non-governmental Public Safety Forum./aa

The brutal murder of George Floyd in 2020 sparked mass demonstrations for justice and accountability that resonated far beyond the US.

The accountability demanded by demonstrators has led to reform in the state of Minnesota where Floyd was killed and varying levels of accountability for the four Minneapolis Police Department officers involved.

The following is a brief timeline of events in the two years that followed Floyd's death.

May 25, 2020: George Floyd murdered during fatal arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Floyd was pinned to the ground face-down in handcuffs by Officer Derek Chauvin who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine-and-a-half minutes. Bystander video captured Floyd pleading for his life, telling Chauvin “I can’t breathe,” and desperately crying for his mother. Floyd becomes unresponsive and is later pronounced dead at a hospital. Ex-officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng helped pin Floyd to the ground while Tou Thao prevented bystanders from intervening.

May 25, 2020: Minneapolis police issue statement saying an unnamed man died following a “medical incident.”

May 26: Darnella Frazier, a 17-year-old bystander, publishes video on social media recording Floyd’s final moments as protests demand accountability for the murder and greater racial justice in policing, begin in Minnesota.

May 26: All four officers involved in Floyd’s death are fired by the Minneapolis Police Department.

May 27: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey calls for Chauvin to face criminal charges as some protests turn violent while demonstrations spread to other cities across the US.

May 28: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activates National Guard “to help protect Minnesotans’ safety and maintain peace in the wake of George Floyd’s death." Protesters burn Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct.

May 28: Protests become international with demonstrations in Africa. They will eventually reach all seven continents.

May 29: Chauvin is arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Former US President Donald Trump rails against protesters, calling them “THUGS,” and warning that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The phrase has a racially-charged history dating to the Civil Rights Movement. Protests turn violent in more cities.

May 31: Walz announces state Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Black former progressive congressman and Muslim, will lead the prosecution of Chauvin and any other Minnesota prosecutions related to Floyd’s murder.

June 1: Hennepin County Medical Examiner releases autopsy that determines Floyd’s death was a homicide. Office says Floyd’s heart and lungs stopped working while he was “being restrained” by police.

June 1: US Park Police and National Guard troops forcibly clear peaceful demonstrators from park near White House with pepper spray and tear gas. Trump poses shortly thereafter, holding Bible in front of nearby church and declares himself the “law and order” president.

June 2: Minnesota Department of Human Rights announces civil rights probe into Minneapolis Police Department, the state’s largest police department.

June 3: Ellison increases charge against Chauvin to second-degree murder, also charges Lane, Kueng and Thao with aiding and abetting third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Arrest warrants issued for Lane, Kueng and Thao.

June 4: Memorial held for Floyd in Minneapolis as protests enter their tenth night with tens of thousands of demonstrators filling streets across the country.

June 5: Minneapolis City Council votes for sweeping police reform and bans chokeholds in wake of Floyd’s murder.

June 6: Public memorial services held for Floyd in his home state of North Carolina.

June 8: Protests take place in front of the US Embassy in Ankara.

June 9: Floyd laid to rest near Houston with thousands paying respects. Day named “George Floyd Day” in Harris County, the seat of Texas’s largest city.

June 16: Trump praises law enforcement, issues executive order encouraging police reform, creating database to track officers with excessive force complaints.

July 15: Floyd family announces civil rights lawsuit against Minneapolis and officers involved in Floyd's murder with compensation and damages to be determined by a jury.

Oct. 7: Chauvin released from jail after posting $1 million bond.

March 12, 2021: Floyd family agrees to $27 million settlement with city of Minneapolis, ending lawsuit.

March 29: Opening statements begin in Chauvin’s trial with prosecutor Jerry Blackwell showing jury footage of Floyd’s fatal arrest and saying former officer knelt on Floyd “until the very life was squeezed out of him.”

April 19: Closing arguments made as jury begins deliberations.

April 20: Jury finds Chauvin guilty of second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter. Ellison says verdict is “accountability, which is the first step to justice.”

May 7: Chauvin, Lane, Kueng and Thao indicted by federal grand jury on civil rights charges.

June 25: Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill sentences Chauvin to 22-and-a-half years in prison.

Nov. 2: Minneapolis voters reject plan to replace police department with new Department of Public Safety.

Jan. 24, 2022: Opening arguments begin in federal trial of three former officers accused of violating Floyd’s civil rights.

Feb. 22: Kueng, Lane and Thao found guilty in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights while acting under government authority. Kueng and Thao also convicted of not intervening to stop Chauvin from using excessive force. Sentencing has yet to be held.

April 11: Hearing held for Kueng, Lane and Thao ahead of state trial slated to begin June 13./aa

As both the US and Russia failed to keep their promises on the YPG/PKK terrorist group in northern Syria withdrawing 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from Turkiye’s southern border, the terror group continues to carry out terror attacks in the region liberated by the Turkish Armed Forces and Syrian National Army (SNA).

​​​​​​​Turkiye made separate agreements with the US and Russia on the withdrawal of YPG/PKK elements as the Turkish Armed Forces were carrying out Operation Peace Spring, which began on Oct. 9, 2019 in northern Syria.

After pledging the withdrawal of the YPG/PKK terror group 30 km (18.6 mi.) south of the Turkish border in line with the agreements, the US and Russia have failed to keep their promises for fully two-and-a-half-years.

During a visit to Turkiye by then-US Vice President Mike Pence eight days into Operation Peace Spring, the US side pledged that the terror group would withdraw 32 km (20 mi.) south from the border, but Washington did not fulfill this commitment.

Russia also committed to the removal of the terrorist group from Tal Rifat and Manbij under an agreement reached with Turkiye during Operation Peace Spring.

Moreover, despite the commitment that Moscow would make sure the terrorists would withdraw 30 km (18.6 mi.) from the Turkish border on the M4 highway in northwestern Syria to areas outside of Operation Peace Spring, Russia did nothing to fulfill its pledge.

YPG/PKK in Manbij, Tal Rifat, and Ayn Al-Arab, Syria

The YPG/PKK terrorists still threaten the secure atmosphere of the safe regions with their terrorist attacks in northern Syria.

The YPG/PKK mostly carries out terror attacks in Manbij, Ayn Al-Arab, and the Tal Rifat district of Aleppo. The terror group even uses these regions as bases for its attacks.

The YPG/PKK, which occupied approximately one-third of Syria's territory with support from the US, often targets Azaz, Marea, al-Bab, Jarablus, Afrin, Tel Abyad, and Ras al-Ayn in northern Syria with heavy weapons.

The YPG/PKK terrorists often target Turkish security forces who provide security in the operations Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch and Peace Spring areas, and try to infiltrate the positions of Syrian opposition fighters from regions that the terror group was supposed to withdraw from under the agreements with the US and Russia.

After chairing a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "We will soon take new steps on the incomplete portions of the project we started on the 30-km (18.6-mi.) safe zone we established along our southern border."

Erdogan said that the operation would be launched as soon as military, intelligence, and security forces have completed their preparations./aa

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus broke into tears Tuesday making a speech in Geneva after he was reelected to head the world health agency for a second five-year term.

The celebration was marred when his country of Ethiopia, and neighboring Eritrea refused to accept a congratulatory speech that was to have been delivered on behalf of the 47 African countries at the WHO.

Tedros, who was first elected in 2017, was the sole candidate and was reelected during the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA) and spoke of the impression that a visit to war-torn Ukraine had on him last week.

The WHO chief, an ethnic Tigrayan, told the WHA of being exposed to war as a child and to death in his family, especially his younger brother at an early age, and being from a poor family.

"The combination is bad. That's why when I visited Ukraine when I saw, especially the kids, I felt what I felt,” he said. “It was the image from more than 50 years ago that came to my mind; so visible.”

"So haunting the smell of war, the sound of war. The image of war. I can't even understand; so visible, so clear, and it happened many years ago.

"That's what I don't want to happen to anyone," he said, maybe conscious of the "Health for peace, peace for health" slogan of the 75th WHA assembly, the main decision-making body of the WHO.

Before being appointed WHO Director-General, Tedros served as Ethiopia's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2016 and before that health minister from 2005 to 2012.

He has criticized the current Ethiopian government's handling of the conflict in the Tigray region./agencies

The EU will lift all import duties on Ukrainian goods for a year, according to a decision that the capitals of member countries adopted on Tuesday.

"The Council (of the European Union) adopted today a regulation allowing for temporary trade liberalization and other trade concessions with regard to certain Ukrainian products," the EU institution announced in a statement.

Under the update, the bloc will no longer impose any import duties on Ukrainian goods for a period of one year, including industrial and agricultural products.

With the decision, the EU aims to support the Ukrainian economy and address global food insecurity.

The European Parliament approved the trade liberalizing move last week.

The EU has allocated €2 billion ($2.14 billion) in military aid to Ukraine and mobilized more than €4 billion in macro-financial assistance, humanitarian aid, and support to EU countries hosting refugees from Ukraine since the war began on Feb. 24.

It has also adopted five sets of sanctions against Russia, targeting individuals, including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, banning the export of luxury goods and coal imports, and excluding Russian and Belarusian banks from the international payment system SWIFT./aa