AFP Asia Business

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Tuesday that massive overnight strikes on Gaza were “only the beginning” and that future negotiations with Hamas “will take place only under fire”.The strikes, by far the largest since a truce took effect in January, killed more than 400 people across the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.Netanyahu said in a video statement on Tuesday evening “Hamas has already felt the strength of our arm in the past 24 hours. And I want to promise you –- and them –- this is only the beginning”.Negotiations have stalled over how to proceed with a ceasefire whose first phase has expired, with Israel and Hamas disagreeing on whether to move to a new phase intended to bring the war to an end.The Israeli premier said in his address that “from now on, negotiations will take place only under fire,” before adding: “Military pressure is essential for the release of additional hostages”.Israel has vowed to keep fighting until the return of all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack that sparked the war.By Tuesday afternoon, witnesses in Gaza said the attacks had largely stopped, though sporadic bombing continued.”Today I felt that Gaza is a real hell,” said Jihan Nahhal, a 43-year-old woman from Gaza City, adding that some of her relatives were wounded or killed in the strikes.”Suddenly there were huge explosions, as if it were the first day of the war.”Hamas has not responded militarily so far, and in a statement urged friendly countries to “pressure” the United States to bring to an end the strikes by its ally Israel.Hugh Lovatt, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP that “Hamas does not want to be dragged into another war”.The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump’s administration before launching the strikes, while Israel said the return to fighting was “fully coordinated” with Washington.A State Department spokesperson said that “Hamas bears total responsibility… for the resumption of hostilities”.The United Nations and countries around the world condemned the strikes, while the families of Israeli hostages pleaded with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt the violence, fearing for the fate of their loved ones.- ‘Complete destruction’ -Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday’s operation was ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages”.Hamas said Israel had “decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement” brokered by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, and warned that the resumption of violence would “impose a death sentence” on the remaining living hostages.The group’s leader, Sami Abu Zuhri, told AFP the aim of the strikes was “to impose a surrender agreement, writing it in the blood of Gaza”.Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “Hamas must understand that the rules of the game have changed”, threatening to unleash the Israeli military until the group’s “complete destruction” if it did not immediately free the hostages.Hamas said the head of its government in Gaza, Essam al-Dalis, was among several officials killed.In the southern Gaza Strip, AFP footage showed people rushing wounded people on stretchers, including young children, to hospital. Bodies covered with white shrouds were also taken to the hospital’s mortuary.- ‘Shocking’ -The Gaza health ministry said the bodies of 413 people had been received by hospitals, adding “a number of victims are still under the rubble”.UNICEF spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen, speaking to AFP in southern Gaza, said the deaths include “dozens and dozens of children, with many more children wounded”.Medical facilities that “have already been decimated” by the war were now “overwhelmed”, she added.Families of Israeli hostages rallied in front of Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem, and a campaign group accused the government of causing “the explosion of the ceasefire, which could sacrifice their family members”.Governments in the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere called for the renewed hostilities to end.”The images of burning tents in refugee camps are shocking. Fleeing children and internally displaced persons must never be used as leverage in negotiations,” said Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.Hamas backer Iran denounced the wave of attacks as a “continuation of the genocide” in the Palestinian territories, while Russia and China warned against escalation.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the strikes were part of “deliberate efforts to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force the Palestinians into displacement”.Trump has floated a proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza, an idea that was rejected by Palestinians and governments in the region and beyond, but embraced by some Israeli politicians.Hours after the wave of strikes began, Netanyahu’s Likud movement said that a far-right party that had quit the government in January in protest at the Gaza truce would rejoin.- Attack from Yemen -The ceasefire in Gaza took effect on January 19, largely halting the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.That first phase of the deal ended in early March after numerous exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.But the two sides have been unable to agree on the next steps, with Hamas demanding negotiations for a second phase, which should lead to a lasting ceasefire.Israel had sought to extend the first phase, cutting off aid and electricity to Gaza over the deadlock.Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel’s retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 48,577 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the two sides.Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 58 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.On Tuesday evening, Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels — have pursued a campaign of attacks in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians — launched a missile at Israel, which the military said was intercepted.

Global stocks diverged while gold hit a record high on Tuesday as investors juggled geopolitical concerns with renewed violence in Gaza and a high-stakes US-Russian presidential phone call.Wall Street resumed a downward slide after two up days, but European stocks rose as German lawmakers approved a massive spending boost for defense and infrastructure.Gold struck a new …

Geopolitical tensions buffet markets as gold hits record Read More »

Iranians on Tuesday lit bonfires in the streets and jumped over them, carrying on an ancient tradition ahead of the Persian New Year to purify themselves and ward off evil spirits.The fire festival, called Chaharshanbe Suri, is celebrated every year on the night of the last Tuesday of the Iranian calendar year.In Tehran, fires illuminated the streets at dusk and the sound of songs and music filled the air.”We came here to have a little fun and boost our morale,” said Amir Saadati, a 31-year-old waiter.”We’re all in a bad economic situation”, Saadati told AFP, expressing his hope that “all the problems will disappear” with the new year beginning on Friday.Iran’s economy, already reeling from biting international sanctions, has suffered more blows with a sharp currency depreciation and soaring inflation.During the Chaharshanbe Suri festival, participants jump over bonfires while chanting “I give you my yellow colour” — symbolising disease — and “I take your red colour” — symbolising life.”It is a night of joy” with people dancing “at home and in the streets”, said 32-year-old vendor Erfan Hosseini.The festival is part of Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage and is generally frowned upon by the Shiite Muslim clerical establishment.But it is popular with young people, many of whom make their own fireworks for the event, a practice that sometimes results in injury or even death.

A community of Palestinian Bedouins has decried a major theft of their livestock in the occupied West Bank, where the UN says violence from Israeli settlers is taking place in a climate of impunity.On March 7, dozens of Israeli settlers, some of them armed, attacked Palestinian residents in Ras Ein al Auja while under the protection of Israeli forces, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).Resident Haitham Suleiman Zayed described how around 40 vehicles arrived in the pastoral area in the Jordan Valley, accompanied by “army forces and armoured Israeli vehicles”. More than 1,500 livestock were stolen, he said.”We tried to confront them by throwing stones at them to make them move away from this enclosure, but we could not do that”, Zayed, 25, told AFP, adding that Israeli forces had intervened to protect the thieves, whom he referred to as settlers.Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military referred to a police statement issued the day after the incident.The statement said police had intervened after receiving a report regarding the theft of 50 sheep from Zohar’s farm — a settler outpost run by Zohar Sabah, an Israeli targeted in November by United States sanctions against settlers involved in acts of violence.The sanctions introduced by the administration of former president Joe Biden were cancelled by President Donald Trump on his return to power.- ‘War crime’ -“Police and (Israeli) forces began searching for the flock and arrived at a Bedouin encampment near the Palestinian village of Auja, where they located the (settler’s) stolen flock”, the Israeli police statement said.”The Palestinian suspect was arrested and taken for interrogation, where he admitted to the act,” it added.OCHA said that according to eyewitnesses, “settlers physically assaulted and injured a Palestinian man, stole approximately 1,400 livestock, killed 12 goats, and damaged at least three houses and several solar panels.”The Palestinian man injured during the confrontation was “restrained by Israeli police while settlers beat him,” the UN office added.Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is home to nearly three million Palestinians and around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.”The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement on Tuesday.”Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers,” he added.His comments came as his office released a new report on the situation in the West Bank between October 2023 and last November.”The line between settler and state violence (has) blurred to a vanishing point, further enabling an increase in violence and impunity”, the report said. – ‘Main goal to displace’ -OCHA said that Israeli settlers in February bulldozed an area of Ras Ein al Auja to build a road connecting two settlement outposts.”From Masafer Yatta in the south to the northern Jordan Valley in the north, there is not a single square meter safe from settler attacks,” said Zayed.”The main goal is to displace people,” he added.Throughout the Gaza war, violence in the West Bank — a separate Palestinian territory — has soared, as have calls to annex it, most notably from Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.Since early last year, the territory has seen a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets, as well as violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities.Since the start of the war in October 2023, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 911 Palestinians, including many militants, according to the Palestinian health ministry.Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 32 Israelis over the same period, according to official figures.

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Tuesday a Can$6 billion (US$4.2 billion) deal with Australia to develop an Arctic radar system, warning that Canada must take more responsibility for its defence as US priorities shift.Carney made the announcement in Iqaluit, capital of the Nunavut territory in the Canadian Arctic, on the final leg of his first …

Canada PM Carney announces deal with Australia to boost Arctic radar Read More »

Israel likely aims to pressure Palestinian militant group Hamas into accepting its truce terms with its strikes on Gaza on Tuesday, but the escalation could also serve Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu domestically, analysts say.The pre-dawn Israeli strikes — by far the deadliest since a ceasefire came into effect on January 19 — killed more than 400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.Hamas said those killed included the head of its government in Gaza and other officials.The January ceasefire largely halted more than 15 months of war sparked by the Islamist group’s deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.The truce’s first phase saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages, including some who were deceased, in exchange for about 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli custody, and enabled the entry of aid into the besieged territory.But it expired on March 1 without agreement on what a second phase would look like.Hamas has consistently demanded negotiations for a second phase to lead to a lasting ceasefire.Israel meanwhile has sought to extend the first phase until mid-April under a US-backed plan, cutting off aid and electricity to Gaza over the deadlock in negotiations.Mairav Zonszein, senior Israel analyst at the International Crisis Group, said it was clear Netanyahu had “wanted to go back to some kind of non-ceasefire” in Gaza.The Israeli prime minister had shown his intention by not withdrawing Israeli troops as planned under the first phase, she said.David Khalfa, of the French Jean Jaures Foundation, said the intensified bombardment aimed to force Hamas to accept a proposal put forward by US envoy Steve Witkoff “to extend the first phase, including the possibility of a permanent ceasefire” and free more hostages.A US State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday Hamas bore “total responsibility” for Israel’s renewed air strikes, accusing the group of rejecting a “compelling deal”.Hamas has not responded militarily so far, and accused Israel of attempting to force it to “surrender”.Hugh Lovatt, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said “Hamas does not want to be dragged into another war”.Khalfa said Hamas fighters would likely “drop their weapons, hide them… then disappear as much as possibly, blend into the local population”.They could “carry out ambushes if Israel sends in ground troops”, he added.- Domestic woes -But the air strikes also come as Netanyahu faces a raft of political crises at home.His ruling coalition was weakened after far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s party quit in protest over the January truce.The prime minister is on trial for corruption charges, which he denies.And his bid to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency has threatened to plunge Israel into deep political crisis.Netanyahu has cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to sack Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, whose agency has been accused of failing to prevent the 2023 attack.The Shin Bet has also been investigating some of Netanyahu’s aides for allegedly receiving payments from Qatar, according to Israeli media reports.”The minute Israel starts firing in Gaza, all those things become quieter and less urgent,” Zonszein said.Lovatt said “Israel is resuming its war against Gaza because Netanyahu sees it as being in his political interest.”It seems to have in part paid off.With a budget vote approaching at the end of the month, Ben Gvir’s party returned to government on Tuesday, hours after the wave of strikes began.What comes next “depends on… if the US is trying to somehow get back to the ceasefire and hostage release after letting Israel flex some muscle,” Zonszein said.Lovatt said continued air strikes could kill “hundreds or even thousands of Palestinians, and perhaps even Israeli hostages”.But even then, he said, “Hamas will still not be destroyed or ejected from Gaza as Israel claims to want.”

Israel vowed Tuesday to keep up its renewed bombing of Gaza, warning that a wave of intense air strikes that reportedly left hundreds dead and drew international condemnation was “not a one-day attack”.The strikes, by far the largest since a truce took effect in January, killed more than 400 people across the Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.By Tuesday afternoon, witnesses said the attacks had largely stopped, though sporadic bombing continued.”Today I felt that Gaza is a real hell,” said Jihan Nahhal, a 43-year-old woman from Gaza City, adding that some of her relatives were wounded or killed in the strikes.”Suddenly there were huge explosions, as if it were the first day of the war.”Israel vowed to keep fighting until the return of all the hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 2023 attack that sparked the war.Hamas, which has not responded militarily so far, accused Israel of attempting to force it to “surrender”.Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that “without the release of our hostages, Israel has no alternative but resuming military operations”.He later said that the strikes were “not a one-day attack”, adding Israel would “continue the military operation in the coming days”.The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump’s administration before launching the strikes, while Israel said the return to fighting was “fully coordinated” with Washington.A State Department spokesperson said that “Hamas bears total responsibility… for the resumption of hostilities”.The United Nations and countries around the world condemned the strikes, while the families of Israeli hostages pleaded with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt the violence, fearing for the fate of their loved ones.UN chief Antonio Guterres said Gazans were being subjected to an “intolerable level of suffering” with the strikes.- ‘Complete destruction’ -Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday’s operation was ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages”.Hamas said Israel had “decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement” brokered by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators, and warned that the resumption of violence would “impose a death sentence” on the remaining hostages.The group’s leader, Sami Abu Zuhri, told AFP the aim of the strikes was “to impose a surrender agreement, writing it in the blood of Gaza”.Defence Minister Israel Katz said that “Hamas must understand that the rules of the game have changed”, threatening to unleash the Israeli military until the group’s “complete destruction” if it did not immediately free the hostages.Hamas said the head of its government in Gaza, Essam al-Dalis, was among several officials killed.In the southern Gaza Strip, AFP footage showed people rushing stretchers with wounded people, including young children, to hospital. Bodies covered with white sheets were also taken to the hospital’s mortuary.- ‘Shocking’ -The Gaza health ministry said the bodies of 413 people had been received by hospitals, adding “a number of victims are still under the rubble”.UNICEF spokeswoman Rosalia Bollen, speaking to AFP in southern Gaza, said the deaths include “dozens and dozens of children, with many more children wounded”.Medical facilities that “have already been decimated” by the war were now “overwhelmed”, she added.Families of Israeli hostages rallied in front of Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem, and a campaign group accused the government of causing “the explosion of the ceasefire, which could sacrifice their family members”.Britain, France and Germany called for the renewed hostilities to end.”The images of burning tents in refugee camps are shocking. Fleeing children and internally displaced persons must never be used as leverage in negotiations,” said Berlin’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.Hamas backer Iran denounced the wave of attacks as a “continuation of the genocide” in the Palestinian territories, while Russia and China warned against an escalation.Egypt, Qatar, Jordan and Turkey also condemned the violence.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said the strikes were part of “deliberate efforts to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and force the Palestinians into displacement”.Trump has floated a proposal to move Palestinians out of Gaza, an idea that was rejected by Palestinians and governments in the region and beyond, but embraced by some Israeli politicians.Hours after the wave of strikes began, Netanyahu’s Likud movement said that a far-right party that had quit the government in January in protest of the Gaza truce would rejoin.- Attack from Yemen -The ceasefire in Gaza took effect on January 19, largely halting the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.That first phase of the deal ended in early March after numerous exchanges of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.But the two sides have been unable to agree on the next steps, with Hamas demanding negotiations for a second phase, which should lead to a lasting ceasefire.Israel had sought to extend the first phase, cutting off aid and electricity to Gaza over the deadlock.Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in 1,218 deaths, mostly civilians, while Israel’s retaliation in Gaza has killed at least 48,577 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the two sides.Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 58 are still in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.On Tuesday evening, the Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, whose Iran-backed Huthi rebels have pursued a campaign of attacks against Israel and shipping in the Red Sea in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians.

A Turkish university on Tuesday revoked the university degree of Istanbul’s powerful mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the biggest political rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on grounds it was falsely obtained.The ruling could hurt Imamoglu’s plans to challenge Erdogan in the 2028 election, coming just days before he was to be formally named the main opposition CHP party’s candidate for the race. Under the Turkish constitution, any presidential candidate requires a higher education degree. Imamoglu slammed the decision as “unlawful” and vowed to contest the move in court. “We will fight this illegitimate decision in court,” said the 53-year old who has been targeted by an increasing number of what critics say are politically-motivated legal probes. “We will build a system that will erase injustice from this country’s memory,” vowed Imamoglu, who was resoundingly re-elected as mayor of Turkey’s largest city last year. He had earlier warned that the days were coming when “those who made this decision will be held accountable before history and the justice system”. Erdogan has repeatedly rejected claims that he himself never graduated from university and was not constitutionally able to hold the office of president.- ‘Imamoglu is our candidate’ -In a statement on X, Istanbul University said the degrees of 28 people, including Imamoglu would be “withdrawn and cancelled on the grounds of… obvious error”. It did not elaborate further. Opposition leader and CHP head Ozgur Ozel slammed the decision as a “black mark” for the world of law and academia, but vowed it would not stop the party from fielding Imamoglu as a presidential candidate. He is to be formally named at a party primary on Sunday.”The action taken is not legal, but political… we stand behind Ekrem Imamoglu… (who) is our presidential candidate”, said Ozel, expressing hope the courts would reverse the decision “as soon as possible”.CHP lawmaker Murat Emir described the move as “a heavy blow to our democracy”.The mayor’s office had previously published a copy of the business management diploma Imamoglu received from Istanbul University in 1995 after a journalist claimed he did not have one.In recent years, Imamoglu has been named in multiple legal probes, with three new cases opened this year alone. In 2022, he was handed two years and seven months in jail and banned from political activities for “insulting” election officials in Istanbul, in a sentence that he has appealed, the outcome of which is still pending. A vocal opponent of Erdogan — whose route to the presidency also saw him serving as Istanbul mayor — Imamoglu has lashed out at the legal cases as judicial “harassment”.Istanbul University said it was sending documentation to the Istanbul prosecutor’s office as well as to the higher education council. 

Residents of Gaza have been plunged into “abject fear” once again, a top UN humanitarian director said Tuesday, after intense Israeli strikes resumed on the Palestinian territory.”Overnight our worst fears materialized. Airstrikes resumed across the entire Gaza Strip,” Tom Fletcher, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the UN Security Council in a video meeting.”Unconfirmed reports of hundreds of people killed… and once again, the people of Gaza living in abject fear.”The council meeting was called — prior to the air strikes — by several member states to discuss the humanitarian situation as Israel has blocked aid into Gaza Strip since March 2.”This total blockade of life-saving aid, basic commodities and commercial goods will have a disastrous impact on the people of Gaza who remain dependent on steady flow of assistance,” Fletcher said.”As Gaza is cut off — again — our ability to deliver assistance and basic services is becoming harder.”He said that during the recent ceasefire, before the new blockade, 4,000 aid trucks entered the territory each week, reaching more than two million people, and more than 113,000 tents were distributed.”This proves what’s possible when we’re allowed to do our job,” he added.”We cannot and must not accept our return to pre-ceasefire conditions or the complete denial of humanitarian relief.”With the exception of the United States, almost all members of the Security Council expressed concern or condemned the new Israeli strikes, with Algeria accusing Israel of “completely disregarding” the ceasefire.The world is witnessing “another chapter of collective punishment, collective punishment being afflicted upon the people of Gaza,” said Algerian ambassador Amar Bendjama.”Once again, Palestinian blood is being used as a tool for the political calculations of the Israeli politicians,” he said.Acting US ambassador Dorothy Shea pushed back against accusations that the Israeli army was carrying out “indiscriminate attacks,” asserting instead that it was “striking Hamas positions.””The blame for the resumption of hostilities lies solely with Hamas,” she said, after the group “steadfastly refused every proposal and deadline they’ve been presented over the past few weeks.”US President Donald Trump “has made clear that Hamas must release the hostages immediately or pay a high price, and we support Israel in its next steps,” she said.

A Turkish university said Tuesday that Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and already the target of a clutch of court cases — falsely obtained his university degree. The ruling could deprive him of the chance to challenge Erdogan for the presidency — an office which requires a higher education degree.Imamoglu slammed the decision as “unlawful” and said the board of Istanbul University had no authority to make such a decision. “The days when those who made this decision will be held accountable before history and justice are near,” the popular mayor said on X. “The march of our nation, thirsty for justice, law and democracy, cannot be stopped,” he vowed.Imamoglu, who is in his second term as mayor of Turkey’s largest city, is likely to fight the decision in court. Erdogan has repeatedly faced claims that he never graduated from university himself, and thus should not be president, claims he and officials have rejected.- ‘Imamoglu is our candidate’ -Istanbul University said the degrees of 28 graduates including Imamoglu “will be withdrawn and cancelled on the grounds of… obvious error”, it said on X. Main opposition CHP leader Ozgur Ozel condemned the decision as a “black stain” and said the university’s decision would not stop the party from fielding Imamoglu as a presidential candidate in 2028.Imamoglu “is our presidential candidate”, Ozel said, with primaries to pick an opposition candidate due to be held on Sunday. Ozel hoped that the decision would be reversed by court “as soon as possible”.”The action taken is not legal, but political… we stand behind Ekrem Imamoglu”. Murat Emir, a lawmaker from Imamoglu’s CHP party, said: “This decision has dealt a heavy blow to our democracy.”The mayor’s office has previously published a photocopy of a business management diploma which Imamoglu received from Istanbul University in 1995 after a journalist claimed he did not have one.The opposition mayor is the subject of multiple investigations and court cases in the run up to presidential elections in 2028. Regularly targeted by Erdogan, who was also a mayor of Istanbul, Imamoglu was sentenced to two years and seven months in jail and banned from political activities in 2022 for “insulting” members of Turkey’s High Electoral Committee, a sentence he has appealed.A vocal opponent of the president, Imamoglu denounced what he termed judicial “harassment” in January on leaving an Istanbul court where he had been questioned as part of an investigation opened after criticism of the city’s public prosecutor.Istanbul University said it was sending documents to the Istanbul prosecutor’s office as well as the high education council.