Author: Dusun Levni

The counterterrorism expert and author of “Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Massacre: Lessons for the International Community” explains how religious extremism manifested in Sri Lanka’s deadliest terror attack. On April 21, 2019 – Easter Sunday – a coordinated series of bombings ripped through Sri Lanka, targeting churches and luxury hotels. Over 260 people were killed, making it the deadliest terrorist attack ever suffered by Sri Lanka. The attack has continued to resonate in Sri Lankan society and politics, as the public demands to untangle questions of responsibility: Why was the attack not prevented, and what can be done to stop the…

NASDAQ columnist Larry Ramer has selected 4 of the most promising specialized companies for targeted mergers and acquisitions (Special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC for short), which investors should look at in the near future. It’s first SPAC by Kenges Rakishev, but not the first NASDAQ listing At the moment, they are not operating, and their main goal and characteristic is to bring selected private companies to the stock exchange through a merger, rather than a traditional IPO. Stock analysts are holding their breath, waiting for the upcoming deals to be announced, as they predict a sharp increase in the…

Frankfurt (22/09 – 58.33) Since May 2022, the Tajikistani authorities have stepped up their ongoing crackdown on Pamiris, an ethnic, linguistic and religious minority originating from the Pamir mountains in Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast of Tajikistan. They have arbitrarily detained hundreds of Pamiris, including civil society activists and human rights defenders, and imprisoned over 200 of them after convictions in unfair trials, in a campaign aimed at stripping the local communities of their leadership and dismantling their civil society. The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Pamiri civil society activists, journalists and human rights defenders who have been detained solely…

On June 20, after meeting with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier announced Germany’s recent endorsement of Kazakhstan’s efforts to create alternative trade routes and transport corridors to Europe while bypassing Russia. Steinmeier declared that such measures would further prevent the Kremlin’s ability to evade sanctions via Kazakhstan (Svoboda, June 20). However, Moscow’s moves to redirect trade through a new corridor that would circumvent Kazakhstan pose a challenge to Astana’s ambitions (see EDM, 5 July). Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, both local governments, neighboring foreign states and international institutions have invested much effort and money…

The operator of a Belfast butcher’s shop has been fined £2,500 over food safety offences. The prosecution was taken by Belfast City Council against Mr Colin Blain, The Lane Butcher, at Belfast Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday May 23, following complaints made in December 2021. Belfast City Council Environmental Health officers found 91 turkey butterfly breasts that were beyond their use-by date and an additional consignment of raw turkeys located on crates outside the premises.  The business was also prosecuted for failing to ensure that the design and construction of the shop permitted good hygiene practices particularly in relation to the…

Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are among the top five donors so far to the UN fund for relief work in Turkey after the earthquake that killed more than 55,000 people. Donors have so far contributed $268 million to the $1 billion flash appeal issued by the UN after the 7.8-magnitude quake on February 6 and its aftershocks that devastated areas of south-east Turkey and parts of war-torn Syria The UN humanitarian agency’s spokesman, Jens Laerke, told reporters in Geneva on Friday that the initial emergency phase of the assistance programme had ended. On February 16, the UN launched an appeal…

The Republic of Kazakhstan and the IAEA have agreed to strengthen collaboration in the peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology, following IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi’s visit to the country this week. Mr Grossi met with Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and senior leaders in the country, and visited the world’s only Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) Bank — a physical reserve of LEU for eligible IAEA Member States in case the supply of LEU to a nuclear power plant is disrupted due to exceptional circumstances that disable the securing of the fuel from the commercial market or any other supply arrangement. The…

A wary ruling from an international court of arbitration against Turkey complicates relations among Baghdad, Ankara, and Erbil. As Turkey approaches pivotal elections, the International Chamber of Commerce’s Court of Arbitration in Paris has ruled against it in a long-running dispute with Iraq regarding crude oil exports from Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region. After losing the case, Turkey was ordered to pay Iraq around $1.5 billion for limited aspects of breach of contract from 2014-18. The ruling, which was made public March 25, three days after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani visited Ankara, will likely lead to some shifting in the Ankara-Erbil-Baghdad relationship as…

Türkiye Thursday started natural gas production from a vast reserve discovered in the Black Sea, which promises to curb the country’s external dependence and cut consumer energy prices. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan green signaled the first delivery to an onshore plant, which will begin with 10 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas daily in the first phase. “This is a historic milestone for Türkiye’s path to energy independence,” Erdoğan told the ceremony held in northern Zonguldak province broadcasted live on television. Production will be increased to 40 million cubic meters of gas per day in the coming period, the president…

The head of the American diplomacy spoke with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in the Kazakh capital Astana, during this tour which comes a few days after the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine . His visit was intended to strengthen the footprint of the United States in this region caught between the powerful Russian neighbor, a former tutelary power now concentrated on Ukraine, and the growing influence of China, in particular through its project investments of the new silk roads . Main announcement made during his visit, Mr. Blinken indicated that 25 million additional dollars…