ADANA, Turkey

Two Turkish workers, who were stranded for months in Libya, reunited with their families on Sunday.

Yusuf Gurun and Vahit Kiraz, who remained in Sirte, a city controlled by warlord Khalifa Haftar, were rescued last week.

They were handed to Gurkan Gurmericliler, Turkey’s chief consul in Misrata, and later arrived in home town Adana to meet their families.

The reunion became a scene of emotional moments as their loved ones welcomed them. The workers thanked Turkish officials for their endeavors.

Kiraz said he stayed in a closed room for nearly eight months, without seeing daylight.

Gurmericliler told Anadolu Agency that the workers were rescued due to efforts by the Turkish embassy, in coordination with the Libyan Red Crescent and Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation.

Libya has been torn by a civil war since the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country's new government was founded in 2015 but efforts for a long-term political settlement have failed so far.

The UN recognizes the Libyan government headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj as the country's legitimate authority. Turkey also supports the Sarraj administration./aa

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in the Ivory Coast's commercial capital on Saturday to protest against President Alassane Ouattara's plan to seek a third term in the Oct. 31 presidential election.

By early afternoon around 20,000 people had packed a 35,000 capacity stadium in Abidjan, chanting and dancing. Some held banners saying "The people say no to an illegal third term."

Ouattara announced in August that he will seek another term following the sudden death of his handpicked successor.

The constitutional council has cleared him and three other candidates to run, but the opposition says Ouattara is violating the constitution by seeking another term and has called for a civil disobedience campaign.

The 78-year old president, in power for a decade, says a 2016 constitutional change means his two-term limit has been reset.

Over a dozen people have been killed in violent protests, sparking memories of 2010-11, when 3,000 people died in the civil war following a disputed election that Ouattara won. Ivory Coast is the world's top cocoa producing nation.

"My advice to President Ouattara is that Ivorians should sit down to discuss. We want peace. We don't want war," Eve Botti, a supporter of the FPI opposition party, told Reuters at the rally.

Sie Coulibaly, a supporter of former rebel leader Guillaume Soro, whose candidacy was rejected, said he came to the rally to say no to Ouattara's third term. Soro is in exile in France.

The opposition has called for the election to be postponed, but have stopped short of saying they will boycott the poll, while the ruling party has said the election will take place regardless of whether they participate.

Campaigning is expected to start on Oct. 15.

•             The UK, France, and Germany this week pledged to sanction Russia over the August 20 poisoning of Alexei Navalny, a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin.

•             The sanctions will target "individuals deemed responsible" and "an entity involved in the Novichok program," France and Germany said.

•             It will likely have no effect in Moscow.

•             Sanctions were imposed following the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal in England, and the 2019 killing of a Chechen rebel leader in Germany. Neither deterred Russia from trying to take out Navalny in Siberia.

•             A Russia expert told Business Insider there was "a very weak response" to those sanctions, adding: "We've long since gone past the point where Putin cares about what the West thinks about him."

Three of Europe's largest powers pledged in no uncertain terms earlier this week to sanction Russia over the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

France and Germany said in a joint statement, later echoed by the UK, that sanctions "will target individuals deemed responsible for this crime" and "an entity involved in the Novichok program."

Navalny, the top critic of President Vladimir Putin, was poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent on August 20. He spent 48 hours in a Russian hospital before he was permitted to fly to Berlin for specialist care, where he remained until September 22.

In an October 1 interview with Der Spiegel Navalny directly accused Putin of approving the hit.

Russia has denied carrying out the attack, but Europe isn't willing to take the Kremlin's word for it — and is hoping that imposing sanctions on an individual level will deter Russia from trying again.

But the measures will fall on deaf ears in the Kremlin, as similar measures have numerous times before.

"We've long since gone past the point where Putin cares about what the West thinks about him. He knows that we're not friends," Mark Galeotti, a Russia scholar and senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Business Insider.

"This to me sounds like a move that's more about demonstrating political will than actually having any real impact: something has to be done and here's something we can do," Galeotti said.

The individuals sanctioned by France, Germany, and the UK are "basically going to be people within the security apparatus who are already not looking to buy themselves an agreeable little gîte in France, or keep money in a bank account somewhere in Munich."

"It's not going to influence Putin at all. If corrupt individuals lose out on some assets well, that's their lookout. It's not really going to change the opinions of people in the security apparatus, as they're in too deep," he said.

Past sanctions have done little to nothing

In the wake of the March 4, 2018, poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, dozens of Russian diplomats were expelled from the US, Germany, France and the UK, with Russia responding in kind.

The EU and the US then imposed sanctions, with the latter limiting the export of sensitive national-security goods to Russia.

That appeared to have little to no effect on Russia's behavior. The country has continued its attempts to silence its critics, and shrugged off accusations as hearsay.

On August 23, 2019, the Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who fought Russia in the 1990s, was shot dead in broad daylight in Berlin.

In the aftermath, Germany expelled two Russian diplomats and in June 2020, formally accused Russia of ordering the hit.

Yet, 14 months after the hit on Khangoshvili, Russia is once again facing sanctions following its most recent, high-profile assassination target: Navalny.

A Central European intelligence official, who works in opposition to Russian intelligence services, previously told Business Insider that Russian attacks on Navalny would continue upon his return, and that Putin will not care about sanctions.

Navalny is currently in Berlin, where he received treatment, but has said that he will return to Russia.

'A symbolic, rather than a significant response'

Galeotti, the Russian expert, said that while there was ultimately little change inside Russia following the reaction to the Skripal hit, it did shock officials in the country.

"The thing with the Skripal case was that it was a massive multinational expulsion of Russian spies and it was one that caught the Russians by surprise," he told Business Insider.

"They had no idea this big wave of additional expulsions was coming. That was genuinely shocking to the Russians. It had a genuine impact on their intelligence activities."

Ultimately, Galeotti said, "not only was there a very weak reponse to [the sanctions] but now, with Navalny again, it's a symbolic rather than a significant response."

"I suspect that the Kremlin will complain, it will kick up a fuss, but in practice, I think it will be fine.”

Business Insider

Forest fires in Syria and neighbouring Lebanon have killed three people and burned swathes of land since Thursday, officials have said.

Syrian regime television on Saturday morning broadcast scenes from the affected areas, where firefighters were working to extinguish the blazes.

It said hundreds of hectares had burned in the countryside of Syria's coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces, and in the central Homs province.

The health ministry said three people had died in Latakia province since Friday as a result of the fires, and that 70 people were taken to hospital suffering breathing difficulties.

Largest series of fires in years

Dozens of fires were burning, including "45 in Latakia and 33 in Tartus," Syria's Agriculture Minister Mohammed Hassan Qatana told a radio station late Friday.

The Latakia fire brigade said they were "facing the largest series of fires seen in Latakia province in years."

Official news agency SANA said the fire burned homes in Banias, in Tartus province.

More than 100 fires

In neighbouring Lebanon, there have been more than 100 fires across the country since Thursday, according to George Abu Musa, head of operations for the country's civil defence.

"The situation is crazy, there are fires everywhere," Abu Musa said.

"We have mobilised 80 percent of our personnel and almost all our centres in Lebanon."

He said most of the blazes had been extinguished but some were still burning in the mountainous Chouf region in the south, and in Akkar in the north.

Military helicopters were assisting firefighters in "hard-to-reach" areas, he added.

High temperatures and strong winds

Abu Musa was unable to identify the cause of the blazes but said wind and high temperatures were helping them spread.

On Friday, authorities reported several fires across northern and central Israel and the occupied West Bank as temperatures soared, forcing thousands to evacuate.

Dozens of fires hit Lebanon in mid-October last year, amid unusually high temperatures and strong winds.

READ MORE: Why fires in the US have become bigger and badder

Protests from 2019 blazes

The government faced heavy criticism and accusations of ill-preparedness over its response to the 2019 blazes

Days after Lebanon's 2019 fires, mass protests broke out, triggered by proposed tax hikes but quickly transforming into months-long demonstrations against the ruling class, deemed by protesters as inept and corrupt./ TRT

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan’s former President Almazbek Atambayev escaped an armed attack on Friday.

Atambayev was at a demonstration in the Ala-Too square in the capital Bishkek when an unidentified person opened fire on his car.

Two bullets hit the vehicle but Atambayev was unhurt.

The shooter managed to flee from the area.

Kyrgyzstan has been rocked by mass protests that erupted this week against the results of the Oct. 4 parliamentary elections.

Earlier on Friday, President Sooronbay Jeenbekov declared a state of emergency in Bishkek.

Atambayev and other leaders were freed from prison by protesters on Tuesday.

He addressed supporters at the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party on Friday and called on Jeenbekov to resign.

He also apologized to the people of Kyrgyzstan for his mistakes during his tenure in office.

Protests in Kyrgyzstan started on Monday, with people breaking into parliament and other buildings and clashing with police, demanding a new vote.

The unrest forced Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov and Parliament Speaker Dastan Jumabekov to step down earlier this week.

Boronov was replaced by Sadyr Japarov, who protesters released from jail on Tuesday.

The Central Election Commission also declared the election results invalid shortly after President Jeenbekov asked the commission to investigate alleged violations./AA

MEMPHIS, Tenn.(US TODAY) – In an extraordinary operation, a Mississippi man's heart was removed and replaced with what Baptist Memorial Hospital doctors call a "total artificial heart" — battery-charged electromechanical devices that will keep the 41-year-old man's blood pumping until a heart transplant can be arranged.

Wearing a surgical-style mask decorated with an American flag and the motto "United We Stand," artificial heart recipient Brian Pedigosaid Wednesday that his life since his first heart attack —which came "11 days before my 33rd birthday" — had been a constant struggle with heart disease, including a "massive" 2017 heart attack and the almost complete bodily shutdown that led to his Sept. 3 surgery at Baptist.

"I was close to giving up," said Pedigo, who lives in Booneville, about 115 miles southeast off Memphis, with his wife, Amy Pedigo, their two dogs, Remington and Angel, and a pot-bellied pig named Sassy Mae, nicknamed Sassy Pants. ("She talks back to Brian, that's why I call her Sassy Pants," Amy explained.)

Fortunately, the artificial heart — essentially, a pair of pumps that replace the removed ventricles of the heart — has given Pedigo a new lease on life, literally.

"I feel great," said Pedigo, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed. Unsurprisingly, he looked thin and sounded hoarse. "For the last eight years, I've fought, gone down and come back," he said.

Dr. Dmitry Yaranov, Pedigo's primary cardiologist at Baptist, said only about 15 operations of the type that saved Pedigo have been performed in history.

"This is the most complex, the rarest and the highest-risk operation a heart patient can go through," he said.

Also, "the most technically challenging," said Dr. Rachel Harrison, the surgeon who performed the operation with Dr. Martin Strueber, Baptist chief of cardiac surgery and thoracic transplantation.

"It's a very unconventional approach," said Michelle Lorenz, administrative director of transplant services at Baptist. "But we had to do it to save his life."

Pedigo had been receiving treatment in Corinth, Mississippi, before doctors there sent him to Vanderbilt University Medical Center. From there, he came to Memphis, where his failing health called for extreme measures.

"His lungs were no longer oxygenating his blood," Harrison said. "His liver was starting to fail. His kidneys were starting to fail."

Deemed too ill to survive a conventional heart transplant, Pedigo instead received what Yaranov called a "total artificial heart," even though the atria — the smaller upper chambers of the heart — are left behind in this type surgery, to receive blood from the veins. In place of the removed ventricles are a pair of "ventricular assist devices," sewn in place with felt-like "cuffs."

The devices are regarded by doctors as "a bridge to transplantation," meaning that it is supposed to be replaced by a donor heart, eventually. To this end, Pedigo also received a type of breast implant, to fill the hollow left behind by the removed heart and act as a "spacer," to keep the chest ready for a future heart transplant.

The surgery lasted hours. Amy Pedigo said that due to COVID-19 concerns, she couldn't spend all that time in the hospital. "I stayed in my vehicle, and they would call me every hour with updates."

Surgery aside, "She never left my side," Pedigo said. The Pedigos have seven children, ages 13 to 25, and six grandchildren. "Family is everything to me," Brian Pedigo said.

Although the extremity of Pedigo's case is unusual, heart troubles are not. Yaranov said "ischemic heart disease" — which involves the reduction of blood flow to the heart due to blockages in the arteries — is the top killer of white men in the United States. The Mid-South in particular is America's "coronary disease belt," he said, with the highest incidence of heart disease in the nation.

Why? "Genetics, diet and lifestyle," Yaranov said. "That Southern diet."

As a result of the surgery, Pedigo — a construction worker and auto mechanic — has to make what he called a "major life adjustment." Most notably, he now has two tubes emerging from this torso. These tubes connect the pumps of his artificial heart to outside-the-body batteries that he carries in shoulder-strap bags. The batteries keep the artificial heart running. They, in turn, must be charged periodically, like a cellphone.

Is dealing with the batteries a burden? "If it keeps me alive," Pedigo said, "I don't care."

In any event, a sure sign of Pedigo's progress is this very story: Baptist officials waited until they were certain the surgery was a success before contacting a reporter via email. The email contained this remarkable subject line: "Surgeons save a patient's life by removing his heart."

NEW YORK (AP) — “Sesame Street" has always pressed for inclusion. Now in the wake of the national reckoning on race, it's going further — teaching children to stand up against racism.

Sesame Workshop — the nonprofit, educational organization behind “Sesame Street” — will later this month air the half-hour anti-racist special "The Power of We” and hopes families will watch together.

The special defines racism for younger viewers and shows how it can be hurtful. It urges children who encounter racism or hear someone else be the victim of it to call it out. “When you see something that's wrong, speak up and say, ‘That’s wrong' and tell an adult,” 6-year-old Gabrielle the Muppet advises.

The special, composed of little skits and songs in a Zoom-like format, will stream on HBO Max and PBS Kids and air on PBS stations beginning Oct. 15.

In one animated skit, a Black Muppet is told by a white Muppet that he can't dress up like a superhero because they're only white. Though hurt, the Black Muppet nevertheless refuses to stop playing superheroes, saying they can come in all colors. The white Muppet soon apologizes. “Racism hurts and it's wrong,” is the message.

In the song “How Do You Know?” racism is dealt with head-on. “Hey, Elmo, how would you feel if I said, 'I don't like you ‘cause I don’t like the color red?'” sings Tamir, a Black, 8-year-old Muppet. Elmo responds: ”Elmo wouldn't care what you said 'cause Elmo is proud, proud to be red!" It concludes with the lines: “Speak up. Say something. Don’t give in.”

“We believe that this moment calls for a direct discussion about racism to help children grasp the issues and teach them that they are never too young to be ‘upstanders’ for themselves, one another, and their communities,” said Kay Wilson Stallings, executive vice president of creative and production at Sesame Workshop, in a statement.

Current and former Sesame Street human cast members Alan, Charlie, Chris and Gordon take part in the special, alongside celebrity guests Yara Shahidi, the star of "grown-ish;" “Hamilton” star Christopher Jackson; and Grammy-nominated singer Andra Day.

Viewers are offered tips to help their communities unite, including chalk drawings, making positive signs and going to sing-a-longs. When outside, all the puppets wear masks, even the letter puppets. The special concludes with the slogan “Listen. Act. Unite.”

Sesame Workshop has included online resources for parents to help guide conversations with their child about race, including talking, singing and breathing together. “Sharing can help us feel better,” is one tip. There are also downloadable pictures to color and a certificate with a place to put the name of an upstander.

“Sesame Street,” which last year celebrated its 50th anniversary, has a history of explaining the world to children, tackling everything from foster care to substance abuse. The latest special comes on the heels of “Sesame Street” contributing to “Coming Together: Standing Up To Racism,” a CNN town hall special in June hosted by Van Jones and Erica Hill.

A surge in child trafficking misinformation pushed by QAnon conspiracy theorists is stirring public panic, generating violence and interfering with official efforts to protect minors, experts warn.

From the US to South Africa, AFP Fact Check has debunked claims about girls found locked in shipping containers or lured in the street with roses fitted with a location-tracking chip.

A Facebook post shared one million times last month claimed 39 missing children had been found in a trailer in the US state of Georgia. In reality, they were discovered in separate locations in August as part of a police operation and a majority were not trafficking victims.

Another hoax falsely accused US furniture retailer Wayfair of trafficking children inside storage cabinets.

These stories have stoked the flames of QAnon, a far-right movement claiming that US President Donald Trump is waging a secret war against a global liberal cult of Satan-worshipping paedophiles.

QAnon crept up three years ago on the fringes of social media but has since spilt into the mainstream thanks to widely-shared posts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

"A lot of conspiracy theories are about pure people being exploited by a corrupt and decadent elite", said Paris-based extremism and technology expert Julien Bellaiche.

"This is a pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theory but we're also talking about a global cabal and an anti-establishment message that you can identify with practically anywhere in the world."

- Influencers boost QAnon -

QAnon has broadened its appeal particularly among women by focusing on child trafficking, experts say.

Many of the posts feature the hashtag #SaveTheChildren or #SaveOurChildren, which have become synonymous with QAnon.

Influencers on Instagram have helped spread child trafficking misinformation by sharing QAnon narratives in innocent-looking posts, according to Marc-Andre Argentino, a technology and extremist expert at Concordia University in Canada.

"These influencers provide an aesthetic and branding to their entire pages, and they in turn apply this to QAnon content, softening the messages, videos and traditional imagery that would be associated with QAnon narratives," he said in a recent Twitter thread.

"However, behind the branding and soft colours lies the QAnon we all know, along with all it entails: racism, medical/COVID disinformation, violence, and now the negative impact the hijacking of 'save the children' is having on NGOs… that actually save lives."

International charity Save The Children has also sounded the alarm, saying its name in hashtag form had experienced "unusually high volumes" of traffic and caused "confusion among our supporters and the general public".

Influencers are not the only public figures to seemingly promote QAnon. Trump himself at times appears to fan conspiracy theories.

In a September interview, he described his presidential race rival Joe Biden as a puppet controlled by "people that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows".

Of QAnon supporters, he said that "they like me very much".

- 'Pizzagate' -

While some might ridicule these types of conspiracy theories, they have had very real consequences in the past.

During the 2016 US presidential ballot, users on the anonymous 4chan messaging board linked Hillary Clinton to a child sex ring involving a pizzeria in Washington DC.

The false claim prompted one man to fire an assault rifle inside the popular restaurant. No one was hurt.

Since Pizzagate's successor QAnon has burst into the mainstream, banners and t-shirts emblazoned with the letter Q have popped up at anti-lockdown demonstrations in Berlin, Paris and London.

A popular QAnon theory claims the pandemic was invented to divert from child trafficking incidents.

And in the US, QAnon believer Marjorie Taylor Greene is set to enter Congress after she won a primary contest in August.

While viral rumours can spark panic, misinformation around child trafficking is often born out of wanting to help, not harm, French expert Bellaiche said.

"Many people fall down the rabbit hole out of compassion and wanting to help solve a horrific issue. But it can be tricky. You can go down a path that leads you to a destination you didn't think about at first."

- 'Panic and pandemonium' -

False reports have also sprung up around Europe and Africa.

Facebook posts shared more than 8,000 times falsely alleged that a building in South Africa's administrative capital Pretoria was a human trafficking hotspot.

In response, South African police have warned against "continued peddling of fake news" that "seeks to sow panic and pandemonium" and take away attention from genuine cases.

Experts say the ongoing pandemic has created ideal conditions for conspiracies to flourish.

"The more you watch hours and hours of video, the more you feel like you belong to a collective."