At Least 75 Killed, Many More Trapped and Injured After Magnitude 7.2 Quake Rocks Eastern Turkey

AFP Photo

At least 75 people were reported killed and many more feared trapped in collapsed buildings after a magnitude 7.2 earthquake jolted the mountainous province of Van in southeastern Turkey on Sunday.

Up to 30 buildings collapsed in Ercis, including a dormitory, and 10 buildings collapsed in Van, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said.

Rescuers in Ercis scrambled to find survivors in a flattened eight-story building that had shops on the ground floor, television footage showed. Residents sobbed outside the ruins, hoping that missing relatives would be rescued.

"My wife and child are inside! My 4-month-old baby is inside!" CNN-Turk television showed one young man crying.

Witnesses said eight people were rescued from the rubble, but frequent aftershocks were hampering search efforts, CNN-Turk reported.

"There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is too much destruction," Zulfikar Arapoglu, the mayor of Ercis, told NTV television. "We need urgent aid. We need medics."

The quake's epicenter was in the village of Tabanli, 10 miles from Van.

Between the aftershocks and the number of people feared trapped in some of the collapsed buildings, the death toll is expected to rise. Authorities had no word on damages or casualties from the remote villages in the region, but local officials beginning to assess damage via helicopter.

Assad Regime Crackdown Continues Amid Reports of Syrian Troops Defecting; Syrian Army Masses at Turkish Border

As troops loyal to the Bashr al-Assad regime continued their crackdown of anti government protesters, media reports claim that defecting soldiers and policemen are among the thousands of Syrian refugees streaming into southwestern Turkey.

Unwilling to open fire on demonstrators who have taken to the streets chanting the revolutionary slogans of uprisings across the Arab world, some Syrian troops have chosen to lay down their arms and flee to neighboring countries like Turkey.

It is difficult to estimate how many have done so, partly because they are afraid to speak out and partly due to severe restrictions on foreign media reporting in Syria, which makes it hard to corroborate accounts inside the country.

But Internet videos have begun increasingly to surface in recent weeks of men displaying military insignia and identification cards who say they have left an army that has used tanks and guns to suppress protesters calling for freedom.

Assad has relied on the armed forces, whose commanders are mostly from his minority Alawite sect, to crack down on protesters, who are mostly from the majority Sunni population.

Syrian troops have been massing along the Turkish border, occupying positions in border villages and attempting to block the flow of refugees to Turkey during the Assad regime's crackdown. The deteriorating situation within Syria has caused Turkish forces to be on aert and raised tensions across tge region.

Turkish Delight- Muslima Poses for Cover of German Edition of Playboy

A 25 year old Turkish actress living in Berlin has turned heads and raised the ire of islamists and much of her own family for appearing in the German Edition of Playboy this month.

Sila Sahin, a 25-year-old Turkish German living in Berlin, had until now been regarded as a glowing example of how a modern Muslim girl should behave in a multicultural society.

A successful actress starring in German television soap opera Good Times, Bad Times, she pleased her many fans and made her Turkish family proud.

But her latest move has shocked some of those fans, and enraged those closest to her.

Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sila Sahin seems to be sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.

'I did it because I wanted to be free at last,' she said. 'These photographs are a liberation from the restrictions of my childhood.'
Her family have, unsurprisingly, reacted with horror, and her mother has cut off all contact with the actress.

'My mother is still angry. It will be even more difficult with my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles,' she said on the website devoted to her television soap.

She has, however, managed to talk to her actor father, who expressed concern over the pressure she will inevitably face from those not only within the Turkish community in Germany, but from the wider Muslim community as a whole.

Ms Sahin's declared intention was to used the controversial Playboy photoshoot as a call to action for other Turkish girls who suffer the effects of their strict backgrounds, where women's choices are often limited, husbands are chosen for the girls and chastity closely controlled.

Salih (center) with cast members from German soap opera 'Good Times, Bad Times' in earlier photo shoot

Now granted some may question the wisdom of posing nude because you thought your parents might've been too strict, but Muslim women have been known to pay for much less with their lives at the hands of their own family- even in America.

Warning! The preceding image may be NSFW!

All that's missing is a verbal beatdown of some stupid mullah. On the plus side, her Turkish father is an actor himself and while probably not thrilled with her decision, isn't ready to write her out of the will or run her over yet.

Aside from the possible Rule 5 implications, I'm in favor of Ms. Sahin's decision for no other reason than I'm glad to see Muslimahs who aren't coerced into wearing what amounts to a Hefty bag with eye slits to appease some of their violent and backwards 7th century relatives.

They don't necessarily have to take everything off, either [altho' who am I to stop their exhibitionist displays? NANESB!] but I think an attractive Muslima not afraid to show off her beauty would be an even more effective emissary than any representative from the various crumbling authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.

[Hat Tip- Jammie Wearing Fool]

Another Horn of Africa Update: U.S. Commandos Re-Take Japanese Tanker; Danish Yacht Seized by Pirates

OMAN: U.S. Commandos have boarded a Japanese oil tanker that was seized by pirates off the coast of Oman and re-taken the vessel without firing a shot on Sunday.

Twenty-four crew members on the MV Guanabara took refuge in a protected part of the vessel after reporting they were under attack Saturday, roughly 328 nautical miles southeast of Duqm in southern Oman.

A special unit from the destroyer USS Bulkeley boarded the oil tanker Sunday and detained the suspected pirates, according to a news release from the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF). No shots were fired and no injuries were reported.

"The ships and aircraft under my command have today scored a real and immediate victory through the disruption of a suspected act of piracy and the detention of individuals believed to be engaging in piracy," CMF's counter-piracy commander, Abdul Alheem, said in a statement.

Two vessels from the NATO counter-piracy task force- the USS Bulkeley and the Turkish frigate TCG Giresun- received a distress call from the Guanabara and shadowed the vessel before it was boarded by the commandos.

The captured pirates will reportedly face trial in Tokyo.

PUNTLAND: Seven Danish nationals were captured by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean on Feb. 24th after their yacht was seized. This captives includes a family of five (the parents and three children) as well as 2 crew members.

An official from the village of Bandarbeyla in Puntland said that it was likely the Danes were being held in a mountainous region called Hul Anod. The official also said that a warship was spotted some 1.5 miles off the coast of the village and cautioned against any sort of military operation after the massacre of 4 Americans at sea last month.

According to piracy expert, the average ransom payout for a large shipping vessel and its crew is in the neighborhood of $5 million. A couple from the UK were released in September 2010 reportedly after a ransom of $1 million was paid out.

MOGADISHU: Somali officials have reported that an American from Alabama who joined the Al Shabaab Islamist group was killed in clashes with soldiers from the Somali transitional government and African Union peacekeepers this week.

Somali Defense Minister Abdihakim Mohamud Haji Fiqi told The Associated Press that Somali officials do not have a body and that the intelligence reports have not yet been confirmed.

"We have information saying that he died," Fiqi said. "I'm not sure 100 percent sure but this is the information that we get from different sources. We need to make sure."

Omar Hammami, who grew up in the middle-class town of Daphne, Alabama, joined the al-Qaida-linked Somali militants in 2007 while he was in his early 20s. He became the most high-profile American member of al-Shabab and had taken on the nom de guerre of Abu Mansour al-Amriki, or "the American."

Forces from the Somali transitional government, backed by African Union peacekeepers have been mounting a countrattack against the Islamist al Shabaab militia. On Monday, the Somali and multinational forces were able to seize control of the border town of Bulo Hawo- along the Kenyan and Ethiopian border- from Al Shabaab; the first time forces from the UN-backed Transitional government were able to exert control over territory outside of Mogadishu.

[hat tip: Jammie Wearing Fool]