Turkey’s main opposition party is filing a petition to the European Court of Human Rights challenging Turkey’s April referendum that increases the powers of the president.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP, signed the petition on Tuesday before he continued on his 425-kilometer (265-mile) “March for Justice” – a walk from Ankara to Istanbul protesting the jailing of a party lawmaker and other alleged injustices. The march, now on its 20th day, ends Friday. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “yes” camp won the referendum with a thin margin.

The CHP contested the outcome citing irregularities, including the electoral board’s decision to count as valid unstamped ballots despite the law. CHP decided to apply to the Strasbourg, France based court following unsuccessful Turkish high court appeals.
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Feted by some British newspapers as proof of a Brexit vote windfall, Britain’s recent export recovery ranks as the worst among Europe’s major economies, according to one closely-watched measure.

Surveys of manufacturers across Europe published by data firm IHS Markit on Monday underlined Britain’s challenge as it tries to become an export-led dynamo outside the European Union.

The export orders gauge of the UK Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index slid to a five-month low in June.

While still indicating growth in exports, it left Britain as the weakest performer in terms of foreign orders, barring Greece, among big western European economies for a fourth month running.

That’s a poor return for the pound’s 12 percent fall against a range of currencies since the Brexit vote a year ago.

It also casts doubt over the belief among some Bank of England officials that strong exports will help make up for a slowdown in consumer spending, suggesting the British economy could cope with a first interest rate hike in a decade.

“Sterling’s depreciation has been the least successful in Britain’s post-war history,” said Samuel Tombs, economist at consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics consultancy.

Since sterling began to fall at the end of 2015, net trade has dragged on the economy, unlike after earlier sharp falls in the exchange rate in 1967, 1975, 1992 and 2007/08, Tombs said.

Some indicators have suggested exporters are doing well.

The Confederation of British Industry’s gauge of manufacturing exports, which is based on a different methodology to the PMIs, hit a 22-year high in June.

But the official data is more muted: goods trade export volumes rose at an annual rate of 5.3 percent in the three months to April, the best showing since January 2016 but still below rates seen through most of 2015.

As well as putting Britain’s export recovery into context, the latest figures suggest Britain’s plan to become an export-led “champion of free trade” — as trade minister Liam Fox put it — is not entirely in its own hands.

Its success will hinge just as much on how well its competitors fare in winning business in the same markets and, on that score, the euro zone is showing its muscle.

“I think that is a reflection of the euro area, in terms of them winning global trade gains due to the weak euro,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit, said.

The euro is 17 percent weaker against the U.S. dollar than at the end of 2014, despite a recent rally.

Part of the underperformance of British exporters in relation to the euro zone may reflect the fact that they have hiked selling prices faster, to help recoup rising energy and imported material costs exacerbated by the weak pound.

While the euro zone’s export price index rose 2.7 percent between the third quarter of last year and the first quarter of 2017, Britain’s increased more than 8 percent.

Increased volatility in sterling, which historically has been more stable than the euro against the dollar, might also be weighing on potential buyers of British goods.

“It’s not so much that the UK is doing badly, it’s just that the euro zone is doing very well at the same time,” said Williamson.
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A dispute in Turkey over the removal of the theory of evolution from schools is set to escalate further.  

Turkey’s main teachers’ union, Egitim Sen announced it is turning to the courts. 

“Excluding the theory of evolution from the curriculum and obliging all schools to have a prayer room and water closet (for ablution) destroys the principle of secularism and the scientific principles of education,” said Egitim Sen chair Mehmet Balik, “We will open a lawsuit against these regulations and take these implementations to court.”

The education ministry argues there is no religious or political agenda behind the reform rather that evolution is simply “too complicated and controversial” . The decision to end the teaching of evolution was made by a state official rather than a politician.

But senior members of the ruling AK Parry government, which has Islamist roots, for some time have had evolution in their sights. 

“Scientifically, the theory of evolution is already an archaic and disproven theory,” said deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus in January, “There is no such rule that this theory must be taught.”

Longtime pressure against evolution

The teaching of evolution has long been under pressure in Turkish schools.  Teachers and academics in the past few years have complained the importance of evolution was being reduced, while religious interpretations such as “creationism” and “intelligent design” were being enhanced in text books.

Egitim Sen has repeatedly spoken out that its members face pressure from fellow teachers and school heads of religious persuasion, as well as some parents not to teach evolution.

 

“In the high schools evolution was already taught very badly, it was already being increasingly taught as hypothesis rather than a theory, if it was mentioned at all,” declares Professor Kerem Cankocak, one of Turkey’s top physicists of Istanbul Technical University.  

“So the complete removal of evolution was expected.  Already I see many students who don’t know or refuse to accept it.  But this latest change is part of a wider plan, natural sciences, philosophy, social sciences all cut back in the new curriculum.  They (government) want a generation who don’t think,” Cankocak said.

 

 

Expanding religious education

Critics of the new reforms point out they come as the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has markedly expanded the role of religion in education.  There has been a dramatic expansion of Islamic schools, called Imam Hatip.  The schools initially set up to train Imams, devote more than a quarter of education to religious studies.

In 2002 when Erdogan, an Imam Hatip graduate, came to power, 65,000 children attended the schools, now nearly a million attend.  In the past couple of years state secular schools have started to be converted into Imam Hatips, in many cases with parents being given little notice or opportunity to move their child to another school.

 

Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast region, which is the center of a power struggle between the ruling AK Party and the staunchly secular pro Kurdish HDP, has witnessed some of the most far reaching education changes.

“In normal state schools, that are designated as ‘project schools’ have many religious classes,” claims Saliha Zorlu, co head of Egitim Sen Diyarbakir branch.

Islamist trend?

“There is an ongoing intervention to make society more conservative, and the government knows that they can succeed in making the changes deeper and longer term by using the field of education.  We’ve seen even in the kindergarten classes that girls were asked to cover their head,” Zorlu said.

Erdogan and his government strongly reject the charge of any religious agenda and insist the secular state is safe in their hands, they reject their party being labeled religious, preferring the word conservative.  They argue the reforms are more about pluralism and that education should reflect and meet the demands of Turkey’s largely conservative society.  But critics point to Erdogan’s rhetoric of raising young people to embrace “national and moral values,” a demand he repeated only last week.  Critics claim a moral generation is code for Islamist.

But the controversy about evolution, religion and education far predates Erdogan and his ruling AK, “After a 1980 military coup the generals introduced a terrible education system, they introduced religion to fight against communism, many of the consequences of today started there,” points out Professor Cankocak.  During that period the army, which often likes to present itself as guardian of the secular state, introduced compulsory religious classes and creationism into the curriculum.

 
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U.S. President Donald Trump says he is talking Monday with the leaders of three European allies – Germany, France and Italy – before his trip to the summit of leaders of the world’s biggest economies later in the week in Hamburg, Germany .

In early morning Twitter comments, Trump gave no hint about what he will discuss with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

Merkel said she expects world leaders at the G-20 conclave will broadly agree on the imperative of the continued fight against global terrorism, but disagree on other issues.

“I don’t think we’ll have unified positions on all issues at the end, but it’s sensible and honest to talk to each other on all issues of international diplomacy,” she said at a news conference in Berlin Monday.

She said Trump is at odds with other global leaders on some issues, perhaps most notably in pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years.

“We know certain positions that the American government holds and I don’t expect that these positions will be abandoned as a result of a two-day trip to Hamburg,” Merkel said.  The German leader and Trump plan to meet with each on Thursday, just before the summit.

Before he will meet with them at the summit, Trump spoke Sunday with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to discuss the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons development program.  Trump also talked with Middle East leaders in an effort to untangle the diplomatic standoff between Saudi Arabia and three other Arab countries with Qatar.

The White House said Trump and Xi “reaffirmed their commitment to a denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” while Trump also raised the threat of North Korea’s ballistic missile program.

Chinese state media said Xi told also Trump “negative factors” have affected U.S.-China relations, and Xi hopes Trump will appropriately handle Taiwan-related issues according to the “One China” principle.

Since 1979, the United States has recognized China’s official position that Taiwan is part of China.  Last week, the U.S. approved $1.42 billion in arms sales to Taiwan.

​In the conversation with Abe, the White House said both leaders were united on increasing pressure on North Korea to “change its dangerous path” and the United States and Japan are ready to respond to “any threat or action taken by North Korea.”

The White House statements ended by saying Trump and Xi, and Trump and Abe, look forward to meeting in person this week at the summit.

The White House said Trump also talked with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, as well as Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Trump “addressed his concerns,” the White House said, about the dispute the Saudis, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have with Qatar.  The four countries have accused Qatar of promoting terrorism in the region and have demanded Qatar shut down the Al Jazeera television network, evict Turkish troops from Qatar, and curb its ties with Iran.

Trump “reiterated the importance of stopping terrorist financing and discrediting extremist ideology,” the White House said, and also “underscored that unity in the region is critical” to combating terrorism.

On Monday, Trump said of his call with King Salman, “Interesting things are happening!” but did not elaborate.

In addition to bilateral meetings with the Chinese and Japanese leaders in Hamburg, Trump is also due to hold talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Sunday, at least 10,000 people in Hamburg peacefully protested the upcoming summit, one of about 30 protests planned in the coming days, in part to protest Trump’s policies, including his announced intention to pull the U.S. out of the climate change agreement.  

Summits of world leaders often are held in exclusive, remote resorts, to easier to control security, but this year’s G-20 gathering is in the heart of Hamburg, by design.

Merkel picked the city as the summit host in part to show world leaders that protests play an accepted role in a vibrant democracy.
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French media reports say eight people have been injured in a shooting near a mosque in the southern city of Avignon in what appears to be a criminal settling of scores.

Local magistrate Laure Chabaud was quoted by La Provence and Le Dauphine Libere as saying that the mosque did not appear to be the target of the Sunday night shooting. La Provence quoted her as saying police have ruled out a terrorist motive.

Police and prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment early Monday.

The reports say the perpetrators fled.

No mosque was publicly listed at the reported address.

The shooting comes as France’s government prepares to extend a state of emergency in place since Islamic extremist attacks in 2015, citing continued threats.
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