Kurdish Militant Group PKK to End Armed Conflict With Turkey
ISTANBUL—A Kurdish militant group said it would end its armed struggle and dissolve itself after four decades of conflict with Turkey, a news agency aligned with the group said Monday.
The decision by the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, will have significant security and political ramifications for the region, not only in Turkey but also in neighboring Syria, where Kurdish forces are fighting Turkish-backed militias.
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Yahoo
31 minutes ago
- Yahoo
We shall not continue as a free country if we continue to submit to radical Islamists
It shows in what strange times we live that it is the chairman of Reform, of all parties, who resigns over the question of banning the burka. Surely his party is the likeliest to favour a ban or – at least – to be able to contain internal disagreements on the subject. Probably Reform's chairman, Zia Yusuf, had other reasons to go. He is not the first person to find it challenging to work closely with Nigel Farage. In a spooky way, Reform tends to act as a mini-Maga, mirroring Trumpery in its highs and lows. Over there, Donald Trump and Elon Musk explode with a cosmic bang; over here, Farage and Yusuf then go off with a smaller pop. For this reason, I suspect that when Maga falters, as it eventually will, so will Reform. Nevertheless, Mr Yusuf is a Muslim. Partly for that reason, he was a recruitment coup for the supposedly 'Islamophobic' Reform. On Thursday, he said his party's newest MP, Sarah Pochin, had been 'dumb', at Prime Minister's Questions, to call for a burka ban; then he resigned. Let me take two other recent examples of where attitudes to Islam raise knotty problems. On Monday, Hamit Coskun, an atheist Turk, was found guilty of a 'religiously aggravated public order offence' and fined. He had burnt a copy of the Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London. In an article in this week's Spectator, Mr Coskun says he was protesting about President Erdogan of Turkey changing his country from a firmly secular state to 'a base for radical Islamists while trying to create a sharia regime'. The magistrate, however, decided otherwise. Mr Coskun had been 'motivated at least in part by hatred of followers of the [Muslim] religion', he said, and so he was a criminal. My other example comes from events outside Parliament on Wednesday. A noisy mob of anti-Israel demonstrators blocked, insulted and intimidated MPs and peers trying to enter. The protesters proudly announced that they were drawing a red line round the premises, as if they had that right. A disabled peer I know who travels by wheelchair, found it frightening to get through the crowd, though he determinedly persisted. He complained to a police officer, and got the airy reply, 'It's free speech, isn't it?' It indicates the sense of vulnerability such situations arouse that the peer asks me not to print his name. Another peer, Lord Moynihan, was surrounded near the Tube station entrance by black-clad youths who subjected him to an involuntary interview, which they filmed, including the question: 'Do you condemn the massacres of Gazans?' 'I do indeed condemn the terrible shootings by Hamas of their own people,' he bravely answered. It was noticeable – and has happened before – that when there are Gaza marches the police and the parliamentary authorities are lax about ensuring legislators can enter freely and protesters are kept at a distance. They seem not to acknowledge the vital difference between free speech and threatening behaviour. Obviously, the greatest passion behind the Gaza marches comes from Muslims (though the secular hard-Left is also involved). Have the police made a covert bargain with the march organisers? The fear of being called 'Islamophobic' seems to disable the police's judgment. They do not properly enforce public order or protect the right of MPs, peers or staff, to reach their place of work unimpeded. Nor do they protect the right of ordinary citizens to enter Parliament without fear. They act as if the 'right to protest' allows parliamentary democracy to be made subject to a picket line. Yesterday, with many other peers, I signed a letter to the Lord Speaker, organised by Lord Walney. One of our points was that, on top of normal public-order legislation, there are at least four other laws which specifically protect Parliament from such attacks. Why are these not enforced, we asked, and why do the parliamentary authorities not take a stronger line to insist that they should be? One of the attractions of Britain to immigrants is that we are a free country, treasuring free speech. In many cases, immigrants enhance our freedom. Now that immigration is on such a vast scale, however, we suffer because many immigrants do not come from freedom-loving cultures. To the extent that immigrants can be grouped by religion, by far our largest group are Muslims. For complex political, economic and cultural reasons, Islam is in global ferment. In that ferment, freedom is often scorned, except the freedom to advance interpretations of Islam, often the most extreme ones. Such Islamists have punitive, sometimes violent attitudes to promoting their version of their faith. At worst, this takes the form of terrorism. The words 'Allahu Akbar!' ('God is great!') have become the war-cry of an imminent explosion or attack. Even without actual violence, Islamism often involves naked anti-Semitism and unreasoning hatred of Israel. Militant Islam also tries to assert its power against the sort of freedoms which the rest of us (including, do not forget, many Muslims) cherish. Examples include forcing women and girls to cover their heads and even their faces, prohibitions on school swimming or singing, protests against being served by women in the public services and the banning of certain books and films. A leading Islamist demand is for a blasphemy law, although its supporters use other words to describe it. Most Muslims are highly sensitive to any perceived insult to their prophet, Mohammed, or to the Koran. Because they regard the Koran as 'the unmediated word of God', some take the view that disrespect to the physical object, the book of his word, is a direct attack on him, and therefore must be avenged. Belief in the sacredness of religious scriptures should be respected by non-believers, but it must not be defended by law, no matter how much transgressions may offend Muslims. It is unpleasant and foolish to burn the Koran in public, just as it was – which often happened in Britain until quite recently – to burn effigies of the Pope. But the only conceivable justification for banning would be in special incidents – burning a Koran in front of worshippers entering a mosque, for example – which would amount to an incitement to violence. The offence here should not be because the act was 'religiously aggravated'. A modern country should not adjudicate between the sincerity, truth or competing ardour of different religious claims. All it can judge is that some things in some places breach civil peace. In all the cases cited above, you can see politicians and public authorities tiptoeing round the subject. Surefootedness is certainly better than clodhopping where religion is concerned. But there is a growing, justified fear that we shall not continue as a free country if we defer to the angriest Muslim voices. Two concepts need to be faced down. The first is the idea of 'Islamophobia', to which this Government wants to give legal shape. The word 'phobia' suggests psychological abnormality, yet surely people are entitled to be frightened of any religion, especially of Christianity and Islam, which aims for conversion and claims universal truth. Such fears may be misplaced, but they are not criminal. The other concept embedded in public policy, thanks to the Equality Act, is that of 'protected characteristics' – one's religion, sex, sexuality, age, disability, race etc. These are intended to defend people against persecution, but in practice they drive us into warring categories. The only protected characteristic anyone should need is to be a British citizen. That unites. Everything else divides. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Sanitation fee passes, begins July 1
The sanitation fee resolution, which caused many conversations and criticisms within Lebanon, was passed by the City Council in a 4-2 vote during Tuesday's meeting. The structure of the fee will be $20 for residential customers and $40 for business customers. The city's sanitation department does not pick up dumpsters used by businesses, only bins specifically used for the city service. Geri Ashley and Camille Burdine, Councilors for Ward 2 and 3 respectively, stuck to their votes against the fee for the second reading. Both raised concerns of how residents at or below the poverty line or seniors on fixed incomes may be impacted by the $20 per month fee. Questions regarding how the sanitation department is funded were asked as confusion rippled through the community. 'This was an unadvertised discussion in a work session. It was a 15-minute discussion,' Ashley said. 'I still don't have all my questions answered. I don't feel like I have the economic information.' 'I think that we should, as a City Council, have spent more time talking about it and seeing if we could come up with any other solutions,' Ashley added. 'If in fact we are paying for garbage in our city's taxes, and now we're incorporating a fee, then what happens next year when we get our taxes? Are our taxes going to be reduced at that point, because that is a double dip.' On Wednesday, Burdine reiterated her thoughts that the city should be more proactive in studying the impact on the citizens before a fee was implemented. She said the response to rising costs caused the city to be 'reactive instead of proactive.' Burdine said she is not opposed to a sanitation fee, but feels that more time should have been spent researching it. Also on Wednesday, Ashley called the fee a 'knee-jerk reaction' and likewise felt that not enough research was done. She also said instead of a flat fee, a property tax increase would take into account the property values and Wards 1, 2 and 3 would not have to deal with a monthly fee which might be a burden. Ashley said she wants to see if the sanitation fee will disappear from the property taxes. Ward 1 Councilor Joey Carmack said he supported the fee because it's a flat fee that all residents pay, which doesn't fluctuate. 'I do not feel it's fair for the sanitation fee to be a property tax,' Carmack said. 'A property tax would be unfair, because for example, person one has a $1 million house, and [may] only have one can of trash. They would pay more taxes than person two [who has] a $350,000 home.' 'We dump the trash from the city at Walter Hill (in Murfreesboro), which has been in the news about closing soon,' Carmack added. 'When that does happen, we will be paying even more to dump trash.' Middle Point Landfill has been working with Rutherford County to increase fees for 'out-of-county' tipping fees, as well as downsizing the number of counties allowed to dump there. During a meeting earlier this year, it was proposed to double the fees for non-Rutherford County clients from $1.20 per ton to $2.50 per ton to generate more revenue for that county. The town meeting hall had more residents in attendance than usual, which was commented on by the Councilors, who expressed gratitude for the increased attendance. Burdine, Chris Crowell, Councilor for Ward 4 and Phil Morehead, Councilor for Ward 6, particularly welcomed the attendance and interest in city business. During the public comment period, nearly a dozen people spoke to the City Council. One resident, Stephen Lawson, said he and others should have the option to opt out of the fee, and that he would rather pay a private company $30 to support that business than give the city $20. He also asked if there were other landfills which could be used. 'I thought there was a landfill in Wilson County. Is that one full?' Lawson asked. 'That's owned by the Wilson County government, and it's just open to construction materials,' Mayor Bell responded. 'It's not open to us.' Alex Buhler, former Ward 1 Councilor who stepped-down in 2012, also spoke. 'They should have that option to opt out,' Buhler said. 'If a thousand people opt out, that's a thousand houses you don't have to go to.' Bell responded by saying that wouldn't save as much money as people think because the sanitation trucks will still be driving by those houses anyway. Some of the Councilors said they don't know if private companies would have the same quality of work that the city does, as officials believe sanitation is a public health matter which the Council 'takes seriously.' Another resident wondered if the sanitation fee would lead to the start of 'nickel and diming' the residents of the city. Glenn Denton, County Commissioner for District 20, which covers the downtown Lebanon region of the county, criticized the growth of the city, which he thinks sparked the need for growing services and the fees to pay for them. 'Enough is enough. We have overbuilt in our city beyond what our infrastructure can handle,' Denton said. 'When do we stop building to where we cannot service and when we cannot pay for the infrastructure around it?' Nearly an hour and a half was spent discussing the sanitation fee and budget for the next year. With the passing of the resolution, the sanitation fee goes into effect July 1.
Washington Post
4 hours ago
- Washington Post
Boston Consulting Group CEO apologizes for Israel-backed Gaza aid project
The chief executive of one of the world's top consulting firms apologized to staff and admitted 'process failures' in the company's decision to help design and run a controversial Israel-backed group that supplanted the work of the United Nations to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post.
