Turkey’s communications director criticized a statement on Wednesday by the US State Department on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s recent comments regarding Israel. “Speaking about an Israeli Prime Minister who expressed his enjoyment of killing Muslims is not anti-Semitism. It is an unfortunate reality of some Israeli leaders’ mindset,” Fahrettin Altun said on Twitter. He accused the US of being hypocritical, and said: “We categorically reject any attempt to misrepresent our President Erdogan’s words.” His remarks came after the State Department on Tuesday condemned what it called “Erdogan’s recent anti-Semitic comments regarding the Jewish people.” Opposing Israel’s persecution of Palestinians,

COVID-19 vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) are effective against all variants of the virus, said a UN health body official on Thursday. “All COVID-19 virus variants can be controlled in the same way — with public health and social measures,” Hans Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, said at a news conference. “All COVID-19 virus variants that have emerged so far do respond to the available, approved vaccines.” COVID-19 cases and deaths are declining in the Europe region of the WHO, which comprises 53 states stretching from the Arctic to the Russian Far East. Weekly cases

The central Turkish city of Konya is due this weekend to host a new conference on Muslim economics and finance, organizers said in a press release Thursday. Organized by the Konya Chamber of Commerce and Karatay University, the First Karatay International Conference on Islamic Economics and Finance (KARCIEF) will be held this Saturday and Sunday. The two-day event will discuss six topics, including Islamic finance, Islamic capital markets, financial technologies, and SMEs. The opening ceremony will feature speeches by Tarik Akin, department head of the Turkish Presidency’s Finance Office; Sekip Avdagic, chairman of the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce; and Rifat

A total of 26 bodies have been retrieved from the Arabian Sea since a barge was hit by Cyclone Tauktae on Monday and sank 35 nautical miles from Mumbai, Indian officials said Wednesday. A rescue operation is ongoing to find the missing people from Accomodation barge P-305 as well as the tug Varapradha, with 188 rescued so far, according to the Indian Navy. Navy spokesman Commander Mehul Karnaik told Anadolu Agency that 49 people are missing from the P-305. Tauktae made landfall late Monday in the western state of Gujarat, with wind gusts of up to 185 kilometers (115 miles)

It has been 73 years since the Nakba, or The Catastrophe, and Palestinians are marking the day this year amid Israeli attacks on occupied lands. Observed on May 15 annually, Nakba Day marks the 1948 forced expulsion of nearly 800,000 Palestinians from their homes in historical Palestine. Seventy-three years ago, hundreds of Palestinians were forced to leave their villages and towns in historical Palestine to neighboring countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Another part of Palestinians found themselves displaced to the Gaza Strip and West Bank amid rising attacks by Zionist gangs to pave for the way for the creation

The American news agency Associated Press on Saturday voiced “shock and horror” over an Israeli attack targeting a building which houses its office in Gaza City. “We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza,” Associated Press CEO and President Gary Pruitt said in a statement. “We are seeking information from the Israeli government and are engaged with the U.S. State Department to try to learn more,” he added. Despite Israel’s knowing the location of Associated Press office there, Pruitt said that they received a

The European Union urged Azerbaijan and Armenia on Friday to moderation regarding tensions concerning setting borders. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he called on both sides to show maximum moderation and reduce tensions during telephone calls with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ara Aivazian. He said the borders must be set through negotiations and that the EU welcomes technical talks between the parties. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed some regions settled by the Azerbaijani army and decided to make an application to the Collective Security Treaty Organization — a military alliance comprised of