Flash flood traps nine in huge bat cave in west RomaniaBucharest, 22 August 2016 (MIA) - Romanian rescue teams are working to free nine people trapped by a flash flood in a huge bat cave in western Romania.
A spokeswoman for the local emergency services, Alina Marescu, told The Associated Press that two of the nine stranded in the cave by the flood that came after torrential rain on Monday afternoon were experienced speleologists, or those who study caves.
She said there was room for people to take shelter in the Huda lui Papara cave, a massive cave which is home to the largest bat colony in Europe, located in the Apuseni Mountains in the northwest Transylvania region.
She said specialized teams from three counties were trying to rescue those trapped. She said water levels were falling. ba/18:11
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Turkey suspends 95 police as post-coup crackdown rolls on
Istanbul, 22 August 2016 (MIA) - Turkish authorities suspended 95 Istanbul police officers, including police chiefs, on Monday, broadcaster CNN Turk reported, the latest steps in a sweeping crackdown to target security forces following a failed coup last month.
About 80,000 people in the police, military, judiciary and civil service have been sacked or suspended since the failed July 15 coup, when a group of rogue soldiers attempted to topple the government. Turkey says followers of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen were behind the attempt.
Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in rural Pennsylvania since 1999, denies the charge and has condemned the coup.
The 95 officers were suspended from duty at Istanbul police headquarters in Istanbul, CNN Turk said, Reuters reported. No one was immediately available for comment at the Istanbul police headquarters.
Separately, photos published by state-run Anadolu Agency showed lorries draped with Turkish flags hauling armoured vehicles, covered in tarpaulin, out of barracks in Istanbul and Ankara, to be taken to locations outside the cities.
Under a decision taken after last month's coup, all military barracks within the two cities are to be moved elsewhere by Sept. 11.
Istanbul and Ankara are to be transferred outside the cities by Sept. 11. Anadolu said armoured vehicles from the 66th mechanised infantry brigade were transported out of the Bastabya barracks in Istanbul. It said the transfer of military vehicles would continue.
Coup plotters had commandeered vehicles from the Bastabya barracks on the night of the coup, sending them to Istanbul's Ataturk Airport and the police headquarters.
Turkey's Supreme Military Council, which normally meets just twice a year, was to convene for the second time in a month on Tuesday as part of the government's plan to overhaul the armed forces and bring it fully under civilian control.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim was to chair the council meeting, starting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, sources from his office said. No statement has yet been issued on the agenda of Tuesday's meeting. ba/19:19
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Turkey Kurdish wedding bomber 'may not have been child'
Ankara, 22 August 2016 (MIA) - Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says authorities do not know if a suicide bomber who attacked a Kurdish wedding killing 54 people was a child, the BBC reported.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after Saturday's attack in Gazantiep that the bomber was 12-14 years old.
Turkey has linked the bomber to so-called Islamic State (IS), but Mr Yildirim said "a clue has not yet been found concerning the perpetrator".
His statement came as Turkey's military targeted IS militants in Syria.
Television reports said howitzers had been used against IS near the border town of Jarablus.
Turkish artillery had also hit US-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG positions north of Manbij in Syria, broadcaster NTV said.
A coalition including YPG has been pushing IS out of Syrian towns, including Manbij, recently.
Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a Turkish-Kurdish rebel group fighting for autonomy since the 1980s.
Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting on Monday, Yildirim said the earlier statement identifying the attacker as a child was a "guess" based on witness accounts.
Most of the victims were children, media reports say.
Twenty-nine victims of the attack, which took place on Sunday, were under the age of 18, reports said, with one official saying 22 were under the age of 14.
Thirteen of those killed were women, Turkish media said. Sixty-six people are still in hospital, 14 of them in a serious condition, Dogan news agency reported.
One woman lost four children in the attack, the Haberturk newspaper reported. Emine Arhan told the title "if it wasn't for my only surviving child, I would have killed myself".
Another victim was a nine-year-old girl who had stayed on at the party to see the bride after her parents had left, according to the Vatan newspaper.
A disproportionately large number of women and children were killed in the attack because it targeted henna night, a part of the celebration attended mainly by women and children.
Hurriyet newspaper said the type of bomb, which contained scraps of metal, was similar to those used in previous attacks on pro-Kurdish gatherings.
Prosecutors said a search was also under way for two people believed to have accompanied the suspected attacker to the wedding party but who left before the blast.
Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, is known to contain several IS cells.
In a defiant speech on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said IS should be "completely cleansed" from the border area with Turkey. ba/20:14
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Cyprus talks continue following the summer break
Nicosia, 23 August 2016 (MIA) - Greek and Turkish Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akinci are expected to have their first meeting on the Cyprus issue, following the summer pause in talks.
The leaders are meeting to discuss possible solutions to the decades long partition of the island. United Nations mediators are helping the Turks and the Greeks on the island try to reach a deal and re-unify the country.cc/10:01
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Belgrade to stop responding to Croatian statements, says PM Vucic
Belgrade, 23 August 2016 (MIA) - Serbia's Prime Minister has said that the country's political leadership will no longer comment on statements about Serbia coming from Croatia.
Aleksandar Vucic told a press conference that "we have been witnesses in recent days to brutal verbal attacks against the Republic of Serbia by the Republic of Croatia," media in Serbia reported.
"We have always told the truth about the suffering of our people in Gradina, Jasenovac...," he said, referring to WW2 death camps ran by the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), and added:
"We spoke also about Operation Storm, and stand behind all those words."
"A top-ranking Croatian official said I spoke about the gouging of Serb eyes, I am sorry that in Croatia they did not consider the facts and condemn the crime. We did not ask them to admit the crime, all we seek is remorse. Bearing in mind that we have said all about that, that we have responded to Croatia in the politest way countless times, from this day we will abstain from any comment coming from the Republic of Croatia, because we want to put an end to the immature game of ping pong played with statements. They can continue to insult us, while we will continue with the successes and growth, because they see that as their defeat," said Vucic.
"Not because we are afraid of them," he added, "but because we want them to stop with the policy where they want to present Croatia and Serbia as two immature states playing ping pong."
Vucic then said he was saddened to see Croatian officials "unwilling to abandon this kind of fascist past, which is expressed in their comments on the anniversary of the killings of Serbs that we commemorated recently, and say they do not agree with it and are condemning those crimes in the fiercest manner."
"We are not asking them to say it was genocide, although it was, but only to offer condolences and express remorse toward the families of the victims, instead of condemning in their statements the victims' grandchildren, while glorifying the executioner grandfathers."
"We will continue with the policy of maintaining peace and stability in the entire territory, we will continue to build, despite the problems, better and better relations in the future," said Vucic.
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