President of Turkey Erdogan at European parliament in 2014
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was poised this week to announce a further land invasion of large areas of northern Syria.
Erdogan has made similar threats in the past six months. But cross-border air raids last Sunday heightened the possibility that a bigger military operation may occur.
He wants to use the pretext of a recent terrorist bombing in Istanbul to take over areas that are dominated by his Kurdish opponents.
“We are continuing the air operation and will come down hard on the terrorists from land at the most convenient time for us,” Erdogan told parliament last week.
The Turkish military currently controls a swathe of territory running along more than 200 miles of the Syrian border.
If Turkey does move into Syria, it could cause splits in Nato. Turkish forces will be in direct conflict with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
This includes the Kurdish People’s Protection Units which Turkey says are part of a terrorist force.
Us military press secretary brigadier general Pat Ryder said that Turkish airstrikes in Syria “directly threatened” US troops working with the SDF to combat Islamic State.
A Turkish drone strike recently landed close to US personnel at a US military base near Hasakah, Syria.
At least seven people, including a newborn baby and two children, were killed on the southern Italian holiday island of Ischia after a landslide devastated a small town.
A wave of mud, debris and stones broke away from the island’s highest mountain last Saturday and crashed down over houses and roads in and around the town of Casamicciola Terme.
As rescuers continued to search for five people still missing, anger was growing over years of rampant illegal construction that contributed to the disaster.
The number of illegally built homes and other buildings—estimated at 28,000 across the island—has been blamed for exacerbating the damage.
They put the inhabitants at permanent risk from flooding and earthquakes which have often hit over the past years.
And disasters are becoming more frequent due to climate change.
The illegal building also meant that trees, which play an essential role as buttresses in reducing landslide risk, were torn down.
Politicians of all stripes has issued pardons for unlawful buildings in recent decades.
The same hamlet was hit by a landslide in 2009, when a 14 year old girl died, and damaged again by an earthquake in 2017. Casamicciola Terme lies in an area of the island that is extremely vulnerable to landslides and seismic activity.
Strikers are demanding an unallocated €1.6 billion go towards workers' pay rise
Another day of mass resistance
