Free Republic

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Tough-talking Warsaw Mayor Lech Kaczynski led Poland's presidential runoff Sunday after a campaign in which he stressed traditional Roman Catholic values and the need for a social safety net. An exit poll for Polish public television showed him leading with 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent over pro-market legislator Donald Tusk, and Tusk said he had lost. "Today I must tell myself I did not make it," Tusk told glum supporters at his election headquarters. An exit poll for TVN24 private television showed an even wider margin, Kaczynski with 53.5 percent and Tusk with 46.5 percent. Partial...

Turk government ordered to pay damages over ill-treatment of pro-Kurdish activists STRASBOURG (AP) - The European Court of Human Rights yesterday ruled that Turkey had breached an international rights treaty in 10 separate cases concerning pro-Kurdish activists and ordered the Turkish government to pay damages. Turkey, which is seeking membership of the EU, is a member of the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights organization, and is bound to uphold the European Convention on Human Rights. The Strasbourg court said several articles of the convention were breached in the 10 cases, all dating back to the mid- and...

One of the most important battles of the 17th century was the Battle of Vienna, which was fought on September 12, 1683... This victory freed Europe from the Ottoman Turks and their invasions and secured Christianity as the main religion in all of Europe.

'Honour killing' shocks Germany By Ray Furlong BBC News, Berlin An impromptu shrine has been created at the place where Hatun Surucu was gunned down. There are flowers, candles, messages of support and photographs of the 23-year-old Turkish woman, who died of multiple bullet wounds to the head and chest. The police have arrested her three brothers, in the belief that Mrs Surucu was the latest victim in a series of so-called "honour killings" that have taken place in Berlin in recent months. "She had no other enemies. This murder bears all the hallmarks of an honour killing," says police...

NICOSIA, Cyprus - A bomb exploded before dawn in a Greek Orthodox church in Turkish-occupied north Cyprus on Friday, causing damage but no injuries, authorities said. The attack followed media reports that Turkish Cypriot extremist groups had vowed to try to prevent services planned next week at the Saint Mamas church to celebrate its namesake's saint's day. Mehmet Ali Talat, the premier of the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state, said authorities would press forward with the first service at the church in decades, planned as a gesture of reconciliation between ethnic Turks and Greeks. Hundreds of Greek Cypriots who fled Morphou,...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Iraqi militants have killed a Turkish truck driver and two more are missing, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. A ministry official told Reuters Osman Alisan's body had been identified in a hospital in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. He said it was not clear whether the two missing drivers had been taken hostage by militants. Earlier, NTV television reported that Alisan had been shot dead on Monday in Filfayl, about 70 km (40 miles) from the Turkish border, after delivering fuel oil to U.S. occupation forces. NTV showed members of his family mourning his death....

Turkish Man Kills 14-Year-Old Daughter Thu Apr 29, 2:41 PM ET By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer ANKARA, Turkey - Ignoring the pleas of his 14-year-old daughter to spare her life, Mehmet Halitogullari pulled on a wire wrapped around her neck and strangled her — supposedly to restore the family's honor after she was kidnapped and raped. Nuran Halitogullari, buried Thursday in a ceremony attended by women's rights advocates, is the latest victim in a long history of so-called "honor" killings, which Turkey's government is struggling to curb. Each year, dozens of girls are killed in Turkey by their relatives...

France's ruling conservative party opposes Turkey's rapid accession to the European Union, one of its leaders said on Thursday. The comments followed remarks by France's new foreign minister on Wednesday reiterating Paris's view that Turkish membership depends on a European Commission report later this year, and that it is not yet ready to join. "We very clearly say no to Turkey's integration into the European Union," Francois Baroin, the secretary general of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement and its third-ranking leader, told Europe 1 radio in an interview. The government endorses EU expansion "to certain limits, probably Bulgaria...

Most Americans did not know there was an Italian military unit operating in southern Iraq, both because the press rarely provides information having to do with allies supporting the Bush administration, and also because it doesn't fit the stereotype we have — and which Italians themselves share, by the way — of non-threatening, charming people who shy away from military conflict and armed violence. The Italians came to believe that they were welcome wherever they go, because they always charm the locals in ways that Americans, Germans, Russians, and the others just can't match. The evidence seemed to support the...

Taliban Back Off Threat to Kill Turk Monday November 3, 2003 1:31 PM By BURT HERMAN Associated Press Writer KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Suspected Taliban insurgents appear to have backed off a threat to execute a Turkish hostage who was kidnapped to bargain for the release of 18 Taliban prisoners, Turkish and Afghan authorities said Monday. Hasan Onal, the Turkish road engineer who was abducted Thursday, was in ``good health,'' said Kurtulus Ergin, the Kabul manager of the Turkish company Gulsan-Cukurova which employed Onal. Onal's Taliban captors threatened to kill him before the end of Sunday unless the prisoners were...

Bloodshed as Kirkuk falls By Sam Kiley in northern Iraq 10 April 2003 I was caught up in a dramatic firefight today as the allied push through northern Iraq claimed the key oil town of Kirkuk. In a major advance for the coalition campaign, I accompanied US marines and Kurdish peshmerga forces as they reached positions on the very edge of the city and then thrust further into the centre. Groups of Kurdish fighters, including women, marched in to be met by crowds of celebrating locals. But the path to Kirkuk was perilous. In Laylan, our unit of Kurds and...

Turk 182 is on..today!!