Anadolu Agency

FIRE IN ROMANIAN NIGHTCLUB KILLS 27 PEOPLE
NASA’S CASSINI SAMPLES WATERY PLUMES OF
SATURN’S MOON
FOOTBALL: BESIKTAS, KASIMPASA DRAW IN
TURKISH SPOR TOTO
WEATHER
BUCHAREST, Romania
NASA’s Cassini probe on Wednesday visited an icy
ANKARA
A blast and fire at a nightclub in the Romanian capital
moon of Saturn that contains a vast ocean of liquid
Besiktas drew 3-3 with Kasimpasa in the Turkish Spor
Saturday
of Bucharest killed at least 27 people and wounded
water beneath its frozen surface and has the potential
Toto Friday night, bringing an end to the 10th week
SUNNY
180 others, Romanian Health Ministry official Raed
to support life.
of the super league. Besiktas still leads the table with 23
Arafat said Saturday.
Cassini hovered just 49 kilometers (30 miles) above
points, followed by Galatasaray and Fenerbahce with
At least 24 of the injured people were said to be in seri-
Enceladus, far closer than any previous mission. It dove
21 points each. Galatasaray smashed Eskisehirspor 4-0
Sunday
ous condition and were taken to hospitals, Arafat said.
through icy plumes shooting from the moon’s south
in the league football match at Turk Telekom Arena
SUNNY
Around 400 people were estimated to be inside the club
pole. Scientists hope water samples from these plumes
in Istanbul on Thursday and kept its second position in
at the time of the incident. >WORLDS
will provide clues to the.... >TECNOLOGY
the table. >SPORTS
14 °C
Saturday- October 31, 2015
Turkey Votes in 26th General
Election
MORE THAN 54 MILLION TURKS HEAD TO POLLS ON SUNDAY FOR PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION
ANKARA
More than 54 million Turkish voters
head to the polls on Sunday in a rerun
of June’s inconclusive election.
The vote will see 550 deputies from
among 16 political parties and 21
independent candidates elected to the
Turkish Grand National Assembly,
representing 85 constituencies in 81
provinces for a four-year term.
Turnout is expected to be high. The
June 7 poll saw 84 percent of the electorate vote.
Turkey elects its parliamentary representatives through a closed list system
of proportional representation that sees
a set number of candidates elected per
district. In all but three cases a district
corresponds to a province - only in
Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir provinces
are there multiple districts.
Under this system, a political party
must achieve a nationwide 10 percent
threshold to achieve a single parliamentary seat. Votes for any party that
fails to achieve the threshold are distributed among the parties that pass the
10 percent mark within the constituencies the unsuccessful party stood.
In June, the Peoples’ Democratic Party
(HDP) succeeded in reaching the
threshold for the first time, depriving
the Justice and Development (AK)
Party of a parliamentary majority for
the first time since 2002.
The other two parties to win seats
five months ago were the Republican
People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist
Movement Party (MHP).
Voting According to the Supreme
Election Council, a total of 54,049,940
domestic voters are eligible to vote in
Turkey’s 26th general election.
The 175,006 polling stations open at
8.00 a.m. local time and close at 5.00
p.m. According to officials, 1,264,000
Turks - nearly a 44 percent turnout voted abroad at 113 polling stations
before this week. The votes from ballot
stations at airports and border crossings
will be collected when the polls close
on Sunday.
The election council has printed
75,288,955 ballot papers for domestic
and overseas voters.
Voters select a party rather than a candidate, with the parties deciding the
order in which their candidates are
elected under the closed list system.
This means the parties try to put forward as many candidates as there are
number of seats in a voting district.
The election will be overseen by
observers from civil society groups and
political parties as well as international
monitors.
Among Turkey’s 81 provinces, Istanbul
sends the greatest number of lawmakers to parliament - 88 deputies
from three districts - due to its huge
population. Sparsely populated Konya,
the province covering the largest geographical area, sends just 14 deputies.
The parties
Of the 16 parties registered to contest
Sunday’s election, the polls suggest
the same four will pass the 10 percent
threshold.
The Justice and Development (AK)
Party: Led by Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu, the party is looking to
regain its majority in parliament and
increase its seats from 258.
The party won more than 49 percent
of the vote in the 2011 general election
and its candidate won 52 percent in the
presidential election last August but
this fell to less than 41 percent in June.
The party, which has based much of its
popularity on its economic record and
an appeal to traditional Muslim values,
counts central Anatolia as its stronghold, as well as key provinces such as
Istanbul and Ankara.
Republican People’s Party (CHP): The
left-wing main opposition party, established by Turkey’s founder Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk, is looking for a significant boost on June’s result, which
saw it take nearly 25 percent of the vote
and win 132 seats. One of its deputies
has since become an independent.
Its campaign has focused on reforming
the economy, education, the judiciary
and politics. The party’s strongholds
include the coastal provinces of Izmir
and Antalya.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP):
Headed by Devlet Bahceli, the nationalists, like other the AK Party and
CHP, have pledged to secure better
conditions for public sector workers
and pensioners.
The party has also said it would reverse
the “solution process” initiated by the
AK Party to end the Kurdish conflict
and take a tough stance on terrorism
and defeat the PKK.
The MHP receives the bulk of its support from central Anatolia, where it
has usually come second to the AK
Party in conservative provinces. The
party secured just over 16 percent of
votes in June, taking 80 seats. It has
also lost a single deputy since the last
election.
Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP): The
party, which has added to its traditional
Kurdish base an appeal to left-wing
progressives, gained 80 seats in June’s
poll and took more than 13 percent of
the vote nationwide.
Led by Selahattin Demirtas and Figen
Yuksekdag, the party has been heavily involved in the solution process to
resolve Turkey’s three-decade Kurdish
conflict as a bridge to the PKK.
The party is strongest in Turkey’s
eastern and southeastern provinces
and hopes to win leftist votes in the
provinces.
Other parties standing on Sunday are
the Independent Turkey Party; the
Grand Unity Party; the Democratic
Party; the Democratic Left Party; the
Communist Party; the Nation Party;
the Felicity Party; the Patriotic Party;
the People’s Liberation Party; the
Rights and Liberties Party; the True
Path Party; and the Liberal Democratic
Party.
Road to snap election
Sunday’s vote is being held after
coalition talks failed to produce an
administration.
On July 9, Prime Minister and AK
Party leader Ahmet Davutoglu was
asked by President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan to form a new government
within a 45-day timeframe.
Davutoglu met with both CHP leader
Kemal Kilicdaroglu and the MHP’s
Devlet Bahceli in coalition talks that
ultimately proved futile.
A caretaker government was formed by
Davutoglu on Aug. 28 to steer Turkey
to the year’s second general election,
announced by President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan on Aug. 27. It will be the
country’s fourth nationwide election
in two years following a presidential
election in August last year and local
elections the previous March.
>MORE DETAILS
Russian jet with 224 people aboard crashes in
Egypt’s Sinai
CRASH IN VOLATILE SINAI PENINSULA LEAVES NO SURVIVORS, ACCORDING TO
EGYPTIAN SECURITY
CAIRO
A Russian passenger plane with more
than 200 people aboard crashed in
Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Saturday,
according to the Egyptian Prime
Minister’s office.
A Russian Airbus-321 aircraft carrying
a total of 224 people crashed in central
Sinai, the prime minister’s office said
in a statement.
According to Egypt’s Civil Aviation
Authority, the plane lost contact with
air-traffic controllers shortly after
taking off from the Egyptian Red Sea
resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh en route
to St Petersburg.
R u s s i a ’ s a v i a t i o n a u t h o r i t y,
Rosaviatsiya, said the passenger plane
had taken off at 03:51 GMT and had
been due to arrive at St. Petersburg’s
Pulkovo Airport at 12:10 GMT.
Rosaviatsiya said the plane had failed to
make scheduled contact with Cypriot
air-traffic controllers before disappearing from radar.
No information is yet available regarding the nationalities of the passengers
aboard, but it is believed that the plane
-- operated by Russian air carrier
Kogalymavia -- had been carrying
12 °C
Syria Talks End in Vienna
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FIVE YEARS, ARCH-RIVALS SAUDI ARA BIA, IRAN SEEK POLITICAL
SOLUTION IN SYRIA
VIENNA
International and regional
actors, including Iran and
Saudi Arabia met in Vienna
on Friday for high-level talks
to reach a political solution to
the civil war in Syria.
The U.S. and Russia invited
foreign ministers from 15
countries, including Turkey,
Qatar and France, as well
as senior representatives of
the EU and UN to the talks.
Russia reportedly insisted on
including Iran in the talks.
Foreign ministers of arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran are
sitting on the same negotiating
table for the first-time since the outbreak of civil-war in Syria in 2011.
German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier welcomed
Iran’s participation and described
the meeting as a ray of hope.
“If all parties show willingness during negotiations for
the de-escalation of the crisis
in Syria and make their contributions, then this can be a
first step towards a political
solution to the Syrian conflict,” Steinmeier said ahead of
the talks.
Speaking after eight hours
of negotiations, French Foreign
Minister Laurent Fabius said: “There
are some points on which we disagree and particularly the future of
Mr. Bashar al-Assad.
parallel to the renewed political process.
Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov said there was
“So as far as we are concerned
we think that he has no place
in the future of Syria. And
other people, other countries
think different, particularly
Iran. But there are some points
on which there have been
improvements -- concerning
the role of UN, concerning
elections, concerning a new
government, concerning a
new constitution.”
He added the group would
meet again in two weeks.
U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry said the sides had agreed
with the UN to explore a
nationwide cease-fire to run
no consensus on President
Bashar al-Assad’s role in Syria’s
future, Interfax news agency
reported. He also emphasized
the need for direct dialogue
between the warring parties.
H is Turk ish counter par t
Feridun Sinirlioglu said: “The
point that most of the countries… agreed on is that a
peace in Syria is not possible
with Bashar al-Assad. There
is no argument on that. The
countries who think differently on this topic are obvious.”
>MORE DETAILS
Iraq, Eu Agree To Form
Anti-Daesh Intelligence Center
IRAQ AND EU AGREE TO ESTABLISH INTELLIGENCE CENTER
TO COMBAT DAESH
ANKARA
The Iraqi government and the
European Union announced
Thursday that they will establish a joint intelligence center
to combat Daesh.
According to a statement from
Iraq’s interior ministry, the
EU and Iraq agreed to establish the intelligence center
during a visit by an EU security committee.
In the statement, Iraqi Minister
of Interior Mohammed al-Ghaban said many Daesh militants in the region come from
EU countries.
Iraq has been gripped by a
security vacuum since June
2014 when Daesh stormed the
northern city of Mosul and
declared a self-styled caliphate
in parts of Iraq and Syria.
>MORE DETAILS
Suicide bombers arrested
on Turkish border
PRESIDENT SAYS SUSPECTS WITH EXPLOSIVES HELD LESS THAN
ANKARA
S u ic ide bom b er s c a r r ying explosives have been
arrested on Turkey’s border
with Syria less than two days
before Sunday’s general election, President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said Friday.
“This evening suicide bombers
were arrested as they tried to
flee to Syria,” he said in an
interview broadcast on private TV.
“They had 7 kilograms of
TNT on them. God knows
what they were planning to
do, on the eve of the election.
We are following these developments closely.”
>MORE DETAILS
Egyptian army again floods
Gaza tunnels
PALESTINIAN SOURCE SAYS MANY TUNNELS FLOODED WITH
SEA WATER IN SIX AREAS IN SOUTHERN GAZA
mostly Russian tourists.
According to the Russian aviation
authority, 17 children were aboard the
ill-fated aircraft.
The Egyptian authorities, meanwhile,
said a cabinet-level crisis committee
had been established to follow up on
the incident.
A source from Egypt’s Aviation
Ministry said debris from the plane
had been found near the city of Arish
in northern Sinai.
A local security source has ruled out
the possibility that the incident was
caused by militant activity, attributing the deadly crash to a technical
malfunction.
North Sinai has been the epicenter
of a violent insurgency -- which has
mainly targeted Egyptian security personnel -- since the ouster in mid-2013
of democratically elected President
Mohamed Morsi by the army.
or’s office said on Wednesday.
>MORE DETAILS
RAFAH, Palestine
For the second time in recent
weeks, Egyptian authorities
flooded the area along the
border with Gaza with water
to destroy underground tunnels between Sinai and the
Palestinian territory.
A Palestinian source told
Anadolu Agency that many
tunnels were flooded with sea
water in six areas in southern Gaza.
The Egyptian army had built
large pipelines along the border with the Gaza Strip and
began flooding the area with
seawater in September in an
effort to destroy a network of
underground tunnels between
the Palestinian territory and
the Sinai Peninsula.
Blockaded by Israel since 2007,
Gaza used to receive muchneeded supplies through the
network of smuggling tunnels on its border with Egypt’s
Sinai Peninsula.
Since the 2013 military coup
against President Mohamed
Morsi, Egyptian authorities
have cracked down on the
tunnels.
Last year, Egyptian authorities
began to establish a buffer zone
in North Sinai’s city of Rafah
along the border with Gaza
following a spate of militant
attacks against army and police
forces. >MORE DETAILS