Category: World

“A little while ago, the person who left the bomb was detained by our Istanbul Police Department teams,” the Anadolu Agency quoted Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu as saying. He did not identify the suspect but said 21 other people were also detained for questioning.

Sunday’s explosion was a shocking reminder of the anxiety and safety concerns that stalked the Turkish population during years when such attacks were common. The country was hit by a string of deadly bombings between 2015 and 2017, some by the Islamic State group, others by Kurdish militants who seek increased autonomy or independence.

The minister said evidence obtained pointed to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and to its Syrian extension, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD. He said the attack would be avenged.

“We know what message those who carried out this action want to give us. We got this message,” Soylu said. “Don’t worry, we will pay them back heavily in return.”

Soylu also blamed the United States, saying a condolence message from the White House was akin to a “killer being first to show up at a crime scene.” Turkey has been infuriated by U.S. support for Syrian Kurdish groups.

He said security forces believe that instructions for the attack came from Kobani, the majority Kurdish city in northern Syria that borders Turkey.

In its condolence message, the White House said it strongly condemned the “act of violence” in Istanbul, adding: “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our NATO ally (Turkey) in countering terrorism.”

Soylu said of the 81 people who were hospitalized, 50 were discharged. Five of the wounded were receiving emergency care and two of them were in life-threatening condition, he said. The six who were killed in the blast were members of three families and included a 15-year-old and a 9-year-old.

Istiklal Avenue was reopened to pedestrian traffic at 6 a.m. on Monday after police concluded inspections at the scene. People began leaving carnations at the site of the blast.

Mecid Bal, a 63-year-old kiosk owner said his son was caught up in the blast and called him from the scene.

“Dad, there are dead and wounded lying on the ground. I was crushed when I stood up” to run, Bal quoted him as saying.

Restaurant worker Emrah Aydinoglu said he was talking on the phone when he heard the explosion.

“I looked out of the window and saw people running,” the 22-year-old said. “People were lying on the ground, already visible from the corner of the street (I was in). They were trying to call (for help), whether it was an ambulance or the police. All of them were shrieking and crying.”

The PKK has fought an insurgency in Turkey since 1984. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since then.

Ankara and Washington consider the PKK a terrorist group but they diverge on the issue of the Syrian Kurdish groups, which have fought against the Islamic State group in Syria.

In recent years, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led a broad crackdown on the militants as well as on Kurdish lawmakers and activists. Amid skyrocketing inflation and other economic troubles, Erdogan’s anti-terrorism campaign is a key rallying point for him ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections next year.

Following the attacks between 2015 and 2017 that left more than 500 civilians and security personnel dead, Turkey launched cross-border military operations into Syria and northern Iraq against Kurdish militants, while also cracking down on Kurdish politicians, journalists and activists at home.

“In nearly six years, we have not experienced a serious terrorist incident like the one we experienced yesterday evening in Istanbul. We are ashamed in front of our nation in this regard,” Soylu said.

On Sunday, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag told pro-government broadcaster A Haber that investigators were focusing on a woman who sat on a bench by the scene of the blast for about 40 minutes. The explosion took place just minutes after she left.

Turkey’s media watchdog imposed restrictions on reporting on Sunday’s explosion — a move that bans the use of close-up videos and photos of the blast and its aftermath. The Supreme Council of Radio and Television has imposed similar bans in the past, following both attacks and accidents.

Access to Twitter and other social media sites was also restricted on Sunday.

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.

The first inquiry by retired District Court Chief Justice Reginald Blanch concluded in 2019 that there was no reasonable doubt that Folbigg, now aged 55, murdered her children Sarah, Laura and Patrick and was guilty of the manslaughter of her firstborn, Caleb.

The start of the new inquiry in Sydney is focusing on a rare CALM2 genetic variant present in both daughters. Research into the variant published last year, after Blanch’s report, found that it might cause heart arrhythmias and sudden death in young children, lawyer assisting the inquiry Sophie Callan said at the outset of the hearing.

“The central question at all times has been whether Ms. Folbigg caused the death of one or more of her four children or whether they died of natural causes,” Callan said.

While 22 medical experts had testified at her trial in 2003, numerous experts across a range of medical and scientific fields have since provided reports that support Folbigg’s case.

“This caucus of medical and scientific evidence is weighty and dominates consideration of Ms. Folbigg’s convictions,” Callan said.

“However, it is not the only source of evidence relevant to the question of her guilty. Another significant category of evidence were diaries and journals she maintained when the children were alive,” Callan added.

A second phase of the inquiry that begins in February will focus on the dairies which prosecutors in her trial presented as “intimate, personal and exact analysis of what her thinking” when she wrote them, Callan said.

Prosecutors “characterized certain entries in her diaries, particularly in combination, as admissions of guilt, suggesting the diaries were the strongest evidence that you could possibly have for Ms. Folbigg having murdered her four children,” Callan said.

Caleb was born in 1989 and died 19 days later in what a jury determined to be the lesser crime of manslaughter. Her second child, Patrick, was 8 months old when he died in 1991. Two years later, Sarah died at 10 months. In 1999, Folbigg’s fourth child, Laura, died at 19 months.

Prosecutors told her jury the number of similarities among the deaths made coincidence an improbable explanation.

Similarities included that all died unexpectedly under the age of 2. Folbigg was the only one at home or awake when the children died and they were always still warm to touch. She lived at the time with her former husband Craig Folbigg.

On three occasions, she said she discovered the deaths during trips to the bathroom and once while checking on a child’s wellbeing.

Except in Laura’s case, Folbigg never helped them, Callan said.

Prosecutors offered the jury three options: the children died of identified natural causes, unidentified natural causes or deliberate suffocation by their mother.

Some medical experts who testified at her trial cited Meadow’s Law, an approach to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS, named after British pediatrician Samuel Roy Meadow.

As Callan described the theory, the first unexpected death of an infant in a family may be attributed to SIDS, a second should be labeled undetermined and a third should be considered homicide until proven otherwise.

Callan said that reasoning had been widely discredited and urged Bathurst to reject any expert evidence that relies upon that reasoning.

“It could be described as unscientific and, in a legal context, wholy inconsistent with the prosecution baring the burden of proof and the accused person’s entitlement to the presumption of innocence,” Callan said.

Folbigg is serving a 30-year prison sentence which will expire in 2033. She will become eligible for parole in 2028.

New South Wales Attorney General Mark Speakman ordered the new inquiry in May when he rejected Folbigg’s petition for a pardon.

That petition was “based on significant positive evidence of natural causes of death” and signed by 90 scientists, medical practitioners and related professionals.

If Bathurst finds reasonable doubt of Folbigg’s guilt, he can report to the Court of Criminal Appeals which could consider squashing her convictions.

The work to reveal the image as originally painted comes as Gentileschi’s contribution to Italian Baroque art is getting renewed attention in the #MeToo era, both for her artistic achievements but also for breaking into the male-dominated art world after being raped by one of her art teachers.

Her work was featured in a 2020 exhibit at the National Gallery in London.

“Through her, we can talk about how important it is to restore artwork, how important it is to restore the stories of women to the forefront,’’ said Linda Falcone, coordinator of the Artemisia Up Close project.

“Allegory of Inclination” originally was commissioned for the family home of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, the great-nephew of the famed artist. The building later became the Casa Buonarotti museum, and the painting was displayed until recently on the ceiling in a gilded frame. When lead conservator Elizabeth Wick removed the painting in late September, a shower of 400-year-old dust was released.

Wick’s team of restorers is using ultraviolet light, diagnostic imaging and X-rays to differentiate Gentileschi’s brush strokes from those of the artist that covered the nudity. The public can watch the project underway at the museum through April 23.

Restorers won’t be able to remove the veils because the cover-up was done too soon after the original, raising the risk that Gentileschi’s painting would be damaged in the process.

Instead, the restoration team plans to create a digital image of the original version that will be displayed in an exhibition on the project opening in September 2023.

Gentileschi arrived in Florence shortly after the trial in Rome of her rapist, during which the then-17-year-old was forced to testify with ropes tied around her fingers that were progressively tightened in a test of her honesty.

She also had to endure a physical examination in the courtroom behind a curtain to confirm that she was no longer a virgin. Eventually, her rapist was convicted and sentenced to eight months in prison.

“Somebody else would have been crushed by this experience,’’ Wick said. “But Artemisia bounces back. She comes up to Florence. She gets this wonderful commission to paint a full-length nude figure for the ceiling of Casa Buonarroti. So, I think she’s showing people, ‘This is what I can do.’”

While in Florence, Gentileschi also won commissions from the Medici family. Her distinctive, dramatic and energetic style emerged, taking inspiration from the most renowned Baroque painter of the time, Caravaggio. Many of her paintings featured female heroines, often in violent scenes and often nude.

She was 22 when she painted “Allegory of Inclination,” which was commissioned by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger. Another member of the family, Leonardo Buonarroti, decided to have it embellished to protect the sensibilities of his wife and children.

“This is one of her first paintings. In the Florentine context, it was her debut painting, the same year she was then accepted into the Academy of Drawing, which was the first drawing academy in Europe at the time,” Falcone said.

With the younger Michelangelo as her patron, Gentileschi gained entry to the cultural milieu of the time.

“She was able to hobnob with Galileo and with other great thinkers. So this almost illiterate woman was suddenly at the university level, producing works of art that were then, you know, appreciated by the Grand Duke,” Falcone said. “And she became a courtly painter from then on.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the blast a “treacherous attack” and said its perpetrators would be punished.

In addition to the six people killed, Istanbul Gov. Ali Yerlikaya tweeted that another 53 were wounded — casualty counts that Erdogan also gave.

Erdogan did not say who was behind the attack, but he said it had the “smell of terror” without offering details and also adding that was not absolutely certain yet. He said investigations were ongoing by the police and the governor’s office, including reviewing footage of the area.

Turkey was hit by a string of deadly bombings between 2015 and 2017 by the Islamic State group and outlawed Kurdish groups. More than 500 civilians and security personnel were killed in the attacks.

Turkey’s media watchdog imposed temporary restrictions on reporting on the explosion — a move that bans the use of close-up videos and photos of the blast and its aftermath. The Supreme Council of Radio and Television has imposed similar bans in the past, following attacks and accidents.

Access to some content on Twitter and other social media sites, such as videos, was limited.

The Madrid region is at the center of the protests. Partial walkouts started in the region last Monday, with an all-out strike called for Nov. 21 for nearly 5,000 Madrid doctors.

The protest was called by neighborhood associations, labor unions and leftist political parties.

The Madrid regional government led by the Popular Party’s Isabel Ayuso has come under fire in recent years, and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, for poor staffing in hospitals and primary health care centers.

Organizers say that though Madrid is the Spanish region with the highest income per capita it is also the one that spends the least amount per capita on primary health care. They claim that for every 2 euros spent on health care in Madrid, one ends up in the private sector.

“The people of Madrid deserve quality primary health care and not delays of more than a week to see family doctors or pediatricians,” the AMYTS doctors’ union says.

Ayuso denies there are staff shortages and claims the protests and strikes are being orchestrated by left-wing parties in the run-up to municipal and regional elections next year.