World
Turkish authorities arrest key rival of Erdogan; critics say it's 'no coincidence'
Students clash with police over detention of Istanbul mayor
Reuters reports that Turkey has detained Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the main rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on charges of corruption and aiding a terrorist group in what the main opposition party called “a coup.” (Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is facing criticism over what critics say is a crackdown on opposition political figures after police detained his main rival, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, on charges of corruption and links to terrorism.
The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office issued detention orders for İmamoğlu and 106 other prominent political figures. The suspects are alleged to have committed offenses including bribery, embezzlement, bid rigging, aggravated fraud and unlawful acquisition of personal data.
İmamoğlu was accused of collaborating with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist group that has led an insurgency against the Turkish state and is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.
BIPARTISAN LEGISLATION SEEKS TO REIN IN ERDOĞAN’S TURKEY OVER TIES TO US FOES
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu (Aziz Karimov/Getty Images/File)
Critics remain suspicious of the arrest of a prominent opposition figure, especially at a time when Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party has suffered losses in local elections in the past year.
“İmamoğlu’s arrest is no coincidence. He is Erdoğan’s political nemesis, and his likely candidacy to run against him for the presidency has been weighing on Erdoğan’s mind,” Sinan Ciddi, nonresident senior fellow on Turkey at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital.
People protest the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in Istanbul on March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Ciddi warned that the detention of political adversaries represents the end point of Turkey as a democracy, claiming that free and fair elections as well as peaceful transfer of power are no longer possible.
Turkish officials pushed back on accusations that the wave of arrests was politically motivated.
TURKEY’S CONFRONTATIONAL FOREIGN POLICY CHALLENGES GREECE, EUROPEAN UNION AMID RISING MARITIME TENSIONS
A spokesperson from the Turkish Embassy in Washington referred Fox News Digital to a statement from the Justice Ministry.
“Attempting to associate judicial investigations and cases with our President is, to say the least, an act of audacity and irresponsibility,” wrote Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç.
People protest the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in Istanbul on March 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
“In our country, the separation of powers—legislative, executive, and judicial—is a fundamental principle. The judiciary does not take orders from anyone,” the statement added.
İmamoğlu thanked global leaders and members of the European Parliament in a post on X and vowed to continue fighting for Turkey’s democracy.
“I stand resolute, entrusting myself not only to the 16 million residents of Istanbul but to the 86 million citizens of Türkiye and all who uphold democracy and justice worldwide. I stand firm in my fight for the fundamental rights and freedoms.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (AP/Emrah Gurel/File)
İmamoğlu, member of the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019 and re-elected in 2023. In both elections, he defeated Erdoğan-backed AKP opponents. He was seen as the likely nominee of the CHP to face Erdoğan in the next presidential election scheduled for 2028, or sooner if elections are called early.
Authorities placed a ban on public demonstrations for four days in an attempt to quell any growing backlash to the arrests. Özgür Özel, chair of the CHP, Turkey’s main opposition party, addressed large demonstrations gathered in Istanbul and called for mass protest to oppose what the opposition sees as a flagrant violation of democratic norms.
In response to the arrest, Istanbul University annulled İmamoğlu’s diploma, a move that would bar him from running for president, according to Turkish law, which requires the president to have a university degree. İmamoğlu said the act was beyond the university’s authority and a troubling sign of political interference in academia.
Soner Cagaptay, senior fellow at the Washington Institute, said in a post on X that Erdoğan was originally catapulted into political stardom as then-mayor of Istanbul in 1999 when he was imprisoned on charges of inciting religious hatred, only to see his popularity rise and become leader of Turkey since 2003.
South Korea on Wednesday admitted for the first time that in its rush to send children to American and European homes decades ago, its adoption agencies committed widespread malpractices, including falsifying documents, to make them more adoptable.
The findings by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government agency, which said children were sent away “like luggage” for profit decades ago, were a hard-won victory for South Korean adoptees abroad. Many adoptees have returned to their birth country in recent years, campaigning tirelessly for South Korea to come to terms with one of the most shameful legacies of its modern history.
Adoption agencies falsified documents to present babies as orphans when they had known parents, the commission acknowledged. When some babies died before they were flown overseas, other babies were sent in their names. The heads of four private adoption agencies were given the power to become legal guardians for the children, signing them away for overseas adoption.
The commission’s report was the government’s first official admission of problems with the country’s adoption practices, including the lack of oversight, even though such malpractice had been exposed in the past. The agency recommended that the state apologize for violating the rights of South Korean adoptees.
South Korea is the source of the world’s largest diaspora of intercountry adoptees, with around 200,000 South Korean children sent abroad since the end of the Korean War in 1953, mostly to the United States and Europe.
In its destitute postwar decades, South Korea promoted overseas adoptions to find homes for orphaned, abandoned or disabled children abroad rather than build a welfare system for them at home. The government left it to the adoption agencies to find and ship children abroad for fees from adoptive families.
“Numerous legal and policy shortcomings emerged,” said Sun-young Park, the chairwoman of the commission. “These violations should never have occurred.”
The findings carry repercussions beyond South Korea, as several receiving countries — including Norway and Denmark — have opened investigations into their international adoptions. The United States, which has received more children from South Korea than any other country, has not done so.
“This is a moment we have fought to achieve: the commission’s decision acknowledges what we adoptees have known for so long — that the deceit, fraud, and issues within the Korean adoption process cannot remain hidden,” said Peter Moller, a South Korean adoptee from Denmark who led an international campaign for the commission to launch an investigation.
The commission identified many cases where the identities and family information of children were “lost, falsified or fabricated” and where children were sent abroad without legal consent.
It cited the case of a baby girl it identified only by her last name, Chang, who was born in Seoul in 1974. Her adoption agency in Seoul knew her mother’s identity. But in the documents it sent to her adoptive family in Denmark, the agency said the girl came from an orphanage.
That agency, Korea Social Service, charged a $1,500 adoption fee, as well as a $400 donation, per child from adoptive families in 1988, the commission said. (South Korea’s per-capita national income that year was $4,571.) Some of these funds were in turn used to secure more children, turning intercountry adoptions into “a profit-driven industry,” the commission said.
South Korea’s export of babies peaked in the 1980s, with as many as 8,837 children shipped abroad in 1985. Children were “sent abroad like luggage,” the commission said, presenting a photo that showed rows of infants and young children strapped to airplane seats.
“While this is not news to us adoptees, it is a significant victory in the sense that we are finally receiving acknowledgment of what has happened to us over the years,” said Anja Pedersen, who was sent to Denmark in 1976 under the name of another girl, who had died while waiting for adoption.
The truth commission does not have the power to prosecute any of the adoption agencies, but the government is required by law to follow its recommendations.
The adoption agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Since the commission launched its investigation in late 2022, some 367 overseas adoptees have asked it to investigate their cases, a majority of them from Denmark. On Wednesday, the commission recognized 56 of them as victims of human rights violations. It was still investigating the other cases.
Mia Lee Sorensen, a South Korean adoptee who was sent to Denmark in 1987, said the commission’s findings provided the “validation” that she had been seeking. When she found her birth parents in South Korea in 2022, they couldn’t believe she was alive. They told her that her mother had passed out during labor and that when she woke up, the clinic told her that the baby had died.
Those whose cases weren’t recognized among the victims on Wednesday expressed hope that the commission would be extended to carry out more investigations.
Mary Bowers, who was adopted by a family in Colorado in 1982, was still waiting for answers to many inconsistencies in her adoption papers.
“This is only the beginning,” Ms. Bowers said.
Houthi militants in Yemen are claiming responsibility for recent attacks against U.S. warships in the Red Sea.
The terror group claimed in a statement published by the Jerusalem Post Tuesday that they had attacked the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and several U.S. warships in the Red Sea.
Early on Wednesday, the Houthis said they had targeted a U.S. vessel and Israeli military locations using drones.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.
TRUMP’S SIGHTS SET ON IRAN AFTER US AIRSTRIKES DECIMATE MORE THAN 30 HOUTHI TARGETS
The Houthis in Yemen claimed responsibility for alleged recent attacks against U.S. warships. (Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The Houthis had claimed earlier this month that they had attacked the Truman and its warship in response to U.S. attacks on Yemen, but offered no evidence to support their claim of retaliation.
The U.S. military had shot down several Houthi drones a short time before the group’s claim.
This comes after several Trump administration officials discussed plans for a forthcoming military strike against the Houthis in a group chat on the encrypted messaging service Signal in which they mistakenly added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, who said he received a request to join the group on March 11 from what appeared to be the president’s National Security Advisor Michael Waltz.
The group, called “Houthi PC Small Group,” featured top Trump officials discussing what turned out to be an upcoming attack on the Houthis, as many are criticizing the group chat as a massive breach of national security and note that senior officials are not supposed to discuss detailed military plans outside special secure facilities or protected government communications networks.
TRUMP OFFICIALS ACCIDENTALLY TEXT ATLANTIC JOURNALIST ABOUT MILITARY STRIKES IN APPARENT SECURITY BREACH
The Houthis claimed they had attacked the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and several U.S. warships in the Red Sea. (Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Goldberg reported that 18 people were listed in the group, including Waltz, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
The article noted that officials were discussing “war plans,” and Goldberg said he elected not to publish some of the highly sensitive information he saw in the Signal chat, including precise information about weapons packages, targets and timing, because of potential threats to national security and military operations.
The editor also said that Ratcliffe put the name of a CIA undercover agent into the Signal chat.
The Houthis said they had targeted a U.S. vessel and Israeli military locations using drones. (AP)
The White House has confirmed that the group chat “appears to be authentic,” although administration officials, including Hegseth, have sought to downplay concerns and discredit Goldberg as a reporter.
“I’ve heard how it was characterized. Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Hegseth said Monday.
Hegseth criticized Goldberg as “a deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again, to include the, I don’t know, the hoaxes of Russia, Russia, Russia, or the fine people on both sides hoax or suckers and losers hoax. So this guy is garbage.”
The claims appear to have sprung from reports that the Nordic countries have started advising citizens to keep a supply of cash at home in the case of a digital banking crisis.
A false narrative spreading online claims that Norway and Sweden are doing away with e-money and are returning to a fully cash-based society.
For example, one post circulating on social media says the countries are now going back to paying in cash because they’ve supposedly realised that it’s the most secure payment method, as digital accounts allow the authorities to block your transactions.
Another popular post says that Sweden is going back to cash because digital payments are potentially a threat to national security.
However, these claims aren’t accurate.
They appear to have their origins in news reports over the past few months that both countries are putting the brakes on their plans to become cashless societies, apparently over fears that fully digital payment systems could leave their financial and state institutions vulnerable to Russian cyber attacks.
For example, The Guardian recently reported that despite the Nordic countries’ ambitions to reduce their reliance on cash, they are now starting to see electronic banking as a potential threat to national security.
An image or link to this report is often shared by social media users alongside a claim that the countries are getting rid of e-money altogether.
As things stand, Norway and Sweden have the lowest amount of cash in circulation as a percentage of GDP in the world, according to recent figures from Sveriges Riksbank, the central bank in Stockholm.
Fellow Nordic country Denmark also ranks quite low, as does the UK, while the eurozone as a whole still has significantly more cash in circulation.
But now, Sweden is encouraging citizens to use cash regularly through a variety of different measures.
Over the past few months, the defence ministry released a brochure entitled “If Crisis of War Comes” in which it advised people to keep a week’s supply of cash at home to remain prepared.
Sveriges Riksbank also said that the country needs to make sure that no one is excluded and that everyone is able to pay in the event of a large-scale crisis or war.
Norway meanwhile recently brought in legislation that fines retailers if they don’t accept cash, and also advised people to keep some cash on hand in case digital payment systems are attacked.
Nevertheless, Sveriges Riksbank told EuroVerify it’s not abandoning digital payments, and that it’s continuing with its plans to bring in an “e-krona” — a digital version of Sweden’s national currency.
Norges Bank, Norway’s central lender, also fully denied the claims that the country wants to move away from an electronic payment system and back to cash.
ADVERTISEMENT“Increased use of electronic payment methods has brought great benefits to society as a whole, banks, and their customers,” a spokesperson for the central bank said. “However, there is still a need for cash. Cash is not an end in itself, but has properties and functions that other payment methods and instruments do not have, and which are important to ensure an efficient and secure payment system.”
There’s no evidence that either country is trying to phase out e-money and return to a 100% cash-based society.
The misleading narrative online appears to feed into fears of digital currencies, in particular the digital euro envisaged by the European Central Bank (ECB).
Opponents of the digital euro say it could damage privacy, financial control and security, and even fully supplant cash.
ADVERTISEMENTFor example, they say that every transaction could be monitored by central authorities, leading to financial surveillance, and that the government would have more control over the currency, opening up the possibility of currency manipulation.
It’s also been suggested that the elderly or those in rural areas could lose out, as they wouldn’t have the same access to digital services as those in more urban areas.
However, the ECB and its president, Christine Lagarde, have repeatedly said that a digital euro would complement cash, not replace it, and that it would be safe, make payments more efficient, and be easy for all to use.
“The use of cash to make payments is declining and the shift towards online shopping and digital payments is accelerating,” the ECB says. “The digital euro would be an electronic form of cash for the digitalised world. It would give consumers the option to use central bank money in a digital format, complementing banknotes and coins.”
ADVERTISEMENT“Like cash, the digital euro would be risk-free, widely accessible, user-friendly and free for basic use,” it continues. “Moreover, the digital euro would strengthen the strategic autonomy and monetary sovereignty of the euro area by boosting the efficiency of the European payments ecosystem as a whole, fostering innovation and increasing its resilience to potential cyberattacks or technical disruptions, such as power outages.”
Will Lionel Messi Play for Inter Miami vs. Philadelphia Union?
Hey, ‘Daily Show’: Stop calling Boston the most racist city in America. It’s not funny. – The Boston Globe
One hospitalized after shooting in downtown Denver apartment complex
A full breakdown of Sam Darnold’s Seattle Seahawks contract
Crews to begin replacing Imperial Beach Pier's planks as part of $2.6 million overhaul
-
News1 week agoVance to Lead G.O.P. Fund-Raising, an Apparent First for a Vice President
-
News1 week agoTrump Administration Ends Tracking of Kidnapped Ukrainian Children in Russia
-
Business1 week agoEgg Prices Have Dropped, Though You May Not Have Noticed
-
Technology1 week agoThe head of a Biden program that could help rural broadband has left
-
Technology1 week agoDude Perfect and Mark Rober may be the next YouTubers to get big streaming deals
-
World1 week agoCommission warns Alphabet and Apple they're breaking EU digital rules
-
News7 days agoTrump’s Ending of Hunter Biden’s Security Detail Raises Questions About Who Gets Protection
-
News1 week agoU.S. to Withdraw From Group Investigating Responsibility for Ukraine Invasion