The head of Turkish Red Crescent on Tuesday said his organization provides food to about 3,000 Somalis on a daily basis, thanks to the benefactors who believe in the just cause.

According to a statement, Kerem Kinik recently visited the East African country, which has close ties with Turkey, and inspected organizational activities at the Al-Basiir School for the Blind and Deaf-Blind.

Kinik said the Turkish Red Crescent had been supporting the school as part of its efforts to look after the marginalized.

He added that the donations help prepare the food for orphanages, hospitals, schools and domestic migration camps.

According to the director, Turkey has so far sent up to $3 billion in aid to Somalia since 2011./aa

The US sharply criticized Tuesday the sentencing of a Russian opposition leader to more than two-and-a-half years behind bars, saying the prison term is a blatant effort to stifle political dissent.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated Washington's calls for Alexey Navalny's immediate release, saying the legal proceedings against him "are​ a continuation of efforts to violate Mr. Navalny's rights and suppress political pluralism, as the ECHR previously found."

"Like every Russian citizen, Mr. Navalny is entitled to the rights provided in the Russian constitution, and Russia has international obligations to respect equality before the law and the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly," Blinken said.

"The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concluded that Mr. Navalny’s 2014 conviction, which is the grounds for the new sentence, was 'unlawful and arbitrary' and 'politically motivated,'" he added.

A Moscow court sentenced Navalny to nearly three years in prison, but knocked about a year off the term for time already served in custody.

Navalny pleaded not guilty, and demanded his immediate release. His lawyers, Vadim Kobzev and Olga Mikhaylova, said they will appeal the conviction.

Navalny, 44, was arrested in Moscow after returning from Germany Jan. 17 where he was being treated after being poisoned with the suspected Novichok nerve agent. Navalny has placed blame for the poisoning squarely with Russian officials who deny any role.

Russian authorities said after he returned to the country that Navalny had violated probation terms from a suspended sentence linked to the 2014 money laundering offense, which Navalny says was "politically motivated."/aa

The Moscow City Court on Tuesday sentenced Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny to two years and eight months in prison for violating parole.

The court turned his suspended sentence in a 2014 criminal case into a full custodial sentence, handing Navalny a three-and-a-half-year jail term, minus nearly a year he spent under house arrest from Feb. 28 to Dec. 30 in 2014.

Navalny pleaded not guilty, and demanded his immediate release. His lawyers, Vadim Kobzev and Olga Mikhaylova, said they would appeal the conviction.

In 2014, Navalny was convicted for fraud and embezzlement but his sentence was suspended and replaced with six years of probation. He was obliged to report to the police twice a month.

However, after his alleged poisoning with a nerve agent last year, the condition to appear before the police was put on hold for the duration of his treatment in Germany.​​​​​​​

Since he was discharged, the relaxation ended in September 2020. But, according to the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, he did not provide any objective reasoning for his non-appearance, and was thus put on a wanted list.

Upon his return to Russia on Jan. 17, Navalny was arrested at the airport, which provoked mass protests throughout Russia. According to rights activists, over 5,000 people were detained on Jan. 31./aa

Breast cancer has overtaken lung cancer as the most common form of the disease globally, a World Health Organization (WHO) expert said Tuesday.

"The cancer burden is significant and increasing. In 2020, the number of people diagnosed with cancer globally reached 19.3 million, and the number of people dying, increased to 10 million," Dr. Andre Ilbawi, technical officer at the WHO Cancer Control unit, told reporters ahead of Feb. 4 World Cancer Day.

"The biggest and most likely driver of the increased total number of cases is population expansion, improvement in life expectancy and management of other competing health illnesses," he said.

With increasing life expectancy, there comes an increased risk of cancer, he said.

Ilbawi also noted that the year-long COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted cancer treatment and other diseases.

He said surveys have found that 50% of governments have had cancer services partially or completely disrupted due to the pandemic.

"Delays in diagnosis are common. Interruptions in therapy or abandonment have increased significantly," he noted, adding that this would likely have an impact on the total number of cancer deaths in coming years.

"Healthcare professionals have been under great stress to deliver services, and there are significant reductions in research and clinical trial enrolment. To state it simply, the consequences of the pandemic on cancer control efforts have been profound," he added.

He said the data shows that for this first time, breast cancer representing 11.7% of cancer cases now constitutes the most common form of the disease globally, followed by lung cancer (11.4%), which has historically been the leading cause of the diseases.

The novel coronavirus has affected an unspecified number of countries "of all income levels," although some wealthier nations had managed to counter the effects of the pandemic more effectively.

That includes the Netherlands, where special programs speed up access to cancer diagnosis and treatment for those with symptoms, said the WHO doctor.

"But still 60-70% of cancer cases and deaths are already occurring in low and middle-income countries," said Ilbawi.

"So, we know projecting forward that this will reach a proportional level, and most of the cases will continue to arise in those settings."/aa

While strong economies in the world have bought millions of coronavirus vaccines, purchasing a cure is not a possible option for many nations in Latin and Central Americas.

Low-income countries are often more reliant on COVAX from Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and WHO, rather than big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca.

According to Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the goal is to provide vaccines for at least 20% of the population in each country participating in COVAX, including 37 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Although 27 nations have sufficient financing to purchase those vaccines, 10 countries will receive them at no cost "due to their economic condition or population size," the PAHO said Sunday.

Those 10 nations include Bolivia, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

All of those countries have lower than $12,000 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita, according to the latest data of the World Bank. Bolivia has the highest population inside them with 11.5 million.

Bolivia, Honduras and El Salvador have the highest COVID-19 case counts with nearly 220,000, 150,000 and 55,200 cases, respectively, the US-based Johns Hopkins University's data showed.

They would receive doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine starting from mid-February. Bolivia, Colombia, El Salvador, and Peru will also receive a total of 377,910 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

The Americas region will need to immunize about 500 million people to control the pandemic, the organization underlined./aa

At least eight people, including soldiers, were killed and several others wounded when terrorists ambushed military personnel in Lower Shabelle region of Somalia on Tuesday, an official said.

The ambush took place in the vicinity of Doonka, 40 kilometers (24 miles) southwest of Mogadishu. The al-Shabaab militant group claimed responsibility.

Abshir Mohamed, a police official in the region, told Anadolu Agency by phone that the military personnel were targeted while escorting vehicles carrying goods to the capital.

He said six soldiers and two drivers were killed in the attack, adding that the injured were taken to Afoye, a nearby town, for treatment.

The al-Qaeda affiliated group also claimed attacking Ethiopian forces serving under African Union Mission in the country's southwestern region of Bakol, killing at least four soldiers./aa

Turkey's benchmark stock index closed Tuesday at 1,511.43 points, up by 1.27%.

Starting the day at 1,505.09 points, Borsa Istanbul's BIST 100 index gained 18.98 points over Monday's close of 1,492.45 points.

During the day, the index hovered between 1,505.09 and 1,516.54 points -- 93 stocks on the index rose, seven fell compared to the previous close.

The total market value of the BIST 100 was around 1.1 trillion Turkish liras ($158 billion) by market close, with a daily trading volume of 29.8 billion Turkish liras (nearly $4.1 billion).

The highest trading volumes were posted by gold miner Koza Altin, conglomerate Dogan Holding, and private lender Garanti BBVA.

Conglomerate Bera Holding was the best performer, with its shares up 9.96%, while stocks of Gubre Fabrikalari, a chemical fertilizer producer, dropped the most by 3.79%.

The price of one ounce of gold was $1,845.80 at market close, down from $1,858.39 at the previous close, according to data from Borsa Istanbul's Precious Metals and Diamond Markets.

The price of Brent crude oil was around $58 per barrel as of 6.15 p.m. local time (1515GMT).

The Grand Mosque of Pantin near Paris, closed as part of a crackdown against radical Muslims by the French government in the aftermath of history teacher Samuel Paty’s assassination, will soon be reopened, the interior minister announced Monday. 

The mosque was forced to shut down last October after posting a video on social media condemning Paty and demanding his eviction from a school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine for showing offensive caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.

Speaking at the National Assembly on Monday during a discussion on a bill consolidating the respect of the principles of the Republic, or separatism bill, Gerald Darmanin conceded that since its closure in October, the mosque has “brought itself into compliance with the laws of the Republic. We will have to reopen it for the benefit of the faithful.”

The council of state, the country’s top administrative court, had ordered the mosque to close for six months for sharing a video on its Facebook page on Oct. 9 of an anguished parent of a student of Paty’s class demanding the history teacher be fired for showing cartoons in the class on freedom of expression.

The council found the remarks in the video mentioning Paty’s name for showing the caricatures could provoke “violence, hate and discrimination” which justifies the closure of a religious site as per the Internal Security Law. A week after the video was shared, Paty was beheaded outside the school by a Chechen youth.

Darmanin had personally requested the closure of the Pantin mosque located in the suburb of Saint Denis for relaying the message to intimidate the teacher and disclosing the school’s address.

On Monday, Darmanin said the ministry will have to issue a decree earlier than announced for the reopening, because “we are not fighting against a religion, we are fighting against those who make an Islamist takeover against Muslims.”

He added that France has strong provisions to guarantee independence and autonomy for places of worship and this is distinct from politics of the day. However, due to “sickness and corruption,” the authorities are forced to suspend the activities of such associations where in the hidden parts illegal and secret acts are devised.

“When such decisions are to be taken, they must be done with a strong hand without trembling,” he said.

Darmanin explained the measure on the supervision of religious places and why the Pantin mosque was shut. He said the mosque’s organizers have now “cleaned the house and organized things in accordance with the law of the Republic” and therefore he has decided to authorize the reopening earlier than scheduled.

Speaking further on the proposed law targeting separatism, he affirmed that it is “faithful to the republican tradition of secularism" and was based on “neither naivety nor hysteria."

He said Muslim separatism was making France sick and damaging national unity, and in order to confront it, the principles of the Republic need to be strengthened./aa

The UN said Monday that it was very concerned about the serious deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the Central African Republic (CAR).

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that the high level of insecurity along the main supply route from Cameroon to the CAR has caused the suspension of imports, which has led to an increase in the prices of basic foodstuffs of between 75% and 220%.

He said this is happening in a context of already severe food insecurity as 2.3 million people in the war-torn country were already projected to be food insecure.

‘’Over 1,600 inbound trucks, including 500 with humanitarian supplies, have been blocked at the border since mid-December 2020. Humanitarian organizations are beginning to report critical stock outages, including food and trauma kits,” Dujarric said.

On Friday, the UN reported that over 200,000 people had been displaced inside and outside the country.

Dujarric said rapid assessments show alarming figures of severe malnutrition among the newly displaced.

On Friday, African leaders in the Great Lakes region met in the Angolan capital, Luanda, to discuss the security crisis in the CAR.

They called for a unilateral and immediate cease-fire and asked to immediately allow the free movement of people and goods in the road corridor between Cameroon’s port city of Douala and CAR’s capital Bangui while encouraging President Faustin-Archange Touadera to pursue dialogue.

The situation has been tense in the landlocked Central African country after former President Francois Bozize’s candidacy for the Dec. 27, 2020 elections was turned down.

The retired general seized power in a 2003 coup but was overthrown in a 2013 rebellion. Several militia groups, some close to Bozize, have since attacked civilians, armed forces and UN peacekeeping forces.

Touadera, who won a second term as president in last month’s polls, has reiterated his commitment to peace./aa

When Turkey grows, everyone benefits from it, Turkey's presidential spokesman said Monday. 

"It is not done for a certain segment [of society]. When you build roads, bridges, hospitals, open schools, invest in science and technology, allocate a budget for research and development, you do this for the whole society. This is what it actually should be. There is nothing to be proud of," Ibrahim Kalin said in a program on YouTube.

Pointing out Turkey's struggle in facing the challenges of the last hundred years, Kalin said people in Turkey -- regardless of their political views -- have been able to establish bonds with both Bosnia and Jerusalem, while the Turkish people's orientation towards Tripoli and Skopje is the result of the nation being the imperial heir of the Ottomans.

"When the economic standards, the standard of living, the quality of life increases in Turkey, of course, everyone will benefit from this. Those who live in the city, in the countryside, live in the village or live in the east and west," he said.

Noting that Turkey is an "energy dependent country" which has not discovered oil or gas or natural resources such as gold or uranium due to its geographic location, Kalin said his country became rich with a strong leadership, good economic management and faith in the nation.

"We are in the same place and our geography has not changed. Our population has increased. The need for employment increased, but we believed in ourselves," he said, adding the nation has extracted a "new wealth" from what it possesses.

"If we can manage it, share it, and do this in a fair and compassionate manner, we as a nation will leave here again enriched. Everyone gets a share of this wealth. As the cake grows, everyone's share increases. This is what should happen," Kalin added./aa