A US pastor under house arrest in Turkey is prepared take his case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unless the Turkish judiciary sets him free, his lawyer told Al Jazeera.

The case against Andrew Brunson, who is being held on terrorism charges, has triggered a full-blown diplomatic dispute between Washington and Ankara with no end in sight. 

A Turkish court in the western province of Izmir on August 17 rejected an appeal to release Brunson, upholding a judgment taken by a lower court earlier in the week.

Ismail Cem Halavurt, Brunson’s lawyer, said that they would go to the Constitutional Court, the highest court in Turkey, within weeks as the last effort to find a domestic remedy to Brunson’s situation.

“We will receive a formal notification on the latest verdict by the criminal court in Izmir soon. Then we have a month to appeal it at the Constitutional Court,” Halavurt said, adding that Brunson’s “right to liberty and security” as well as “right to travel” have been breached.

“Unless the Constitutional Court frees him, we will have to take the case to the ECHR as the domestic legal remedies we can seek will be exhausted,” he added.

Turkey is one of 47 signatories of the European Convention on Human Rights that established the supranational human rights court, which makes binding verdicts.

Arrested in 2016

A protestant pastor, Brunson, who lived in Turkey over two decades with his family, was arrested in 2016 in a government crackdown following a failed coup bid. He faces 35 years in prison on espionage and violence charges.

Brunson was in prison before he was allowed to be kept under house arrest on July 25. He also has a court-ordered travel ban imposed on him. 

Halavurt said that the case has been increasingly politicised because of the eroding diplomatic climate between Washington and Ankara.

“It is very hard for the Turkish judiciary to act impartial in such a politicised case. Therefore, we are prepared to take it to the relevant international judicial authority, the ECHR,” he told Al Jazeera.

US and Turkish officials have been trading barbs over the Brunson case, which included remarks from US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkish officials have stressed that the Turkish courts were independent, including the ones hearing the case of Brunson.

Erdogan said earlier in August that his country would not make compromises regarding the independence of the judiciary, in a reference to the Brunson issue.

Talking to Al Jazeera, Ahmet Berat Conker, an MP with Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, called on the US to respect the judicial process for the pastor.

“The independent Turkish judiciary will make a verdict on the case without bowing to any pressures,” said Conker, who is also a member of parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

Tariff war

The NATO allies have recently imposed increased tariffs on each other as the diplomatic dispute spilled over to the economic arena.

Washington announced a doubling of steel and aluminium tariffs on Turkey on August 10, with Ankara hitting back five days later by doubling tariffs on certain US imports, such as passenger cars, alcohol and tobacco.

“It is a big mistake to link the future of mutual relations to a judicial judgment. The approach of the Trump administration to the issue is wrong,” Conker told Al Jazeera.

“The two countries should discuss the issues they have through diplomatic channels, and independent from judicial processes.”

The Turkish lira has taken a dive since the beginning of the year, and with an acceding speed in the month of August. The currency lost more than 40 percent of its value against the US dollar this year, amid macroeconomic concerns and the diplomatic showdown between Washington and Ankara.

The Turkish government has demanded extradition of Fethullah Gulen, an exiled religious leader based in the US and wanted in Turkey. Ankara accuses Gulen of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt that killed about 300 people.

Erdogan has suggested in public addresses that an exchange of Gulen for Brunson would be possible.

Follow Umut Uras on Twitter: @Um_Uras

Campbell Soup plans to pursue a sale of its international division and its Campbell Fresh unit as the company seeks a turnaround amid declining soup sales and turmoil for the packaged foods industry.

The food giant announced Thursday that it would refocus its strategy primarily on the North America market in snacks, meals and beverages.

The moves include a plan to sell the Bolthouse Farms and Garden Fresh Gourmet brands, as well as the company’s refrigerated soup products. Bolthouse Farms makes healthy drinks and was acquired in 2012, while Garden Fresh Gourmet makes hummus and salsa and was acquired in 2015. 

Remaining brands will include the company’s namesake soup, as well as Goldfish crackers, Pepperidge Farm cookies, Snyder’s of Hanover pretzels and V8 drinks.

After the sudden exit of CEO Denise Morrison earlier this year, Campbell Soup is trying to get traction amid a cultural shift away from packaged foods and toward natural ingredients and prepared foods.

Campbell Soup also reported Thursday that fiscal fourth-quarter sales when excluding acquisitions and one-time factors fell 3 percent for the quarter, while its profit tumbled 70 percent to $94 million.

More: Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison suddenly exits post as U.S. soup sales struggle

More: Campbell becomes snack empire, as soup sales cool

More: Campbell Soup to acquire Snyder’s pretzel, Pop Secret popcorn maker

A 14 percent drop in U.S. soup sales, when excluding a recent acquisition, drove much of the overall decline.

A recall of Goldfish crackers after a salmonella scare also hurt the company’s sales and bottom line.

The company, which is also under pressure to shed unnecessary expenses, said Thursday that it would cut an additional $150 million in costs. That will include “continuing to optimize its manufacturing network.”

Campbell Soup had already announced plans to cut $500 million in costs and pursue $295 million in savings from its acquisition of snack maker Snyder’s-Lance. The goal is to achieve those cost cuts by the end of its 2022 fiscal year.

The food giant said it had hired financial advisers to seek buyers of its Campbell International and Campbell Fresh businesses. That includes physical operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Japan. 

Taken together, the assets up for sale have 2018 sales of about $2.1 billion.

Campbell Soup interim CEO Keith McLoughlin said the company also considered splitting or pursuing a sale of the entire operation.

“Our new leadership team will concentrate on significantly improving operational discipline through a rigorous management model that aligns the enterprise from strategy through execution,” McLoughlin said in a statement. “We are moving forward with a sense of urgency to complete these changes in fiscal 2019, setting the foundation for sustainable, profitable growth in fiscal 2020 and beyond.”

Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey.

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President Donald Trump and his then-attorney Michael Cohen devised a plan to purchase decades worth of unflattering stories from the National Enquirer’s publisher, according to The New York Times. 

The deal, which reportedly never went through, would have allowed Trump’s team to own stories that American Media Inc., which owns the Enquirer, purchased rights to but chose not to publish under a practice called “catch and kill.”

The Times reports the stories spanned decades – dating back to at least the 1980s –  and include a spattering of tips from decades ago, including marriage problems, suspected affairs and Trump’s lawsuits. The stories were reportedly kept in a safe with story notes, sources and other information. 

It’s unclear whether the information still exists or was destroyed. The Associated Press reported the information was moved from the safe to a different location around the time of Trump’s inauguration. 

The notion of purchasing stories from AMI was revealed last month when Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, released a secret recording of Trump and Cohen talking about it.

More: Recording of Trump and Michael Cohen discussing payment for Playboy model’s story obtained by CNN

More: Reports: CEO of company that owns National Enquirer offered immunity deal in exchange for info on Trump, Cohen

More: Five things to know about Michael Cohen’s guilty plea

In the tape, Cohen is heard talking to Trump about opening a company to pay AMI head David Pecker for all the stories the company has on him. They wanted to do this in case Pecker left the company and someone else came into ownership of the unflattering stories. 

Among the stories: The Enquirer paid former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story about an alleged 10-month affair between herself and Trump that began in 2006. 

Pecker is a longtime friend of Trump and the story was never published. 

For this story, Cohen did pay the company $125,000 for the rights to her story. The Times reports a deal never came to fruition for the other stories kept by the company. 

Pecker has cooperated with prosecutors and took an immunity deal to talk about Cohen’s role and Trump’s knowledge of the payoffs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Premier League news plus Gareth Southgate’s England squad announcement – Live – BBC Sport

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UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said a potential “perfect storm” is looming over Syria’s Idlib province, with possible military implications beyond the region.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Thursday, De Mistura offered to travel to Idlib to help ensure civilians can leave through a humanitarian corridor amid fears of an imminent government offensive to retake the last major region controlled by rebels.

“You can understand that when there is a perfect storm coming up in front of our eyes potentially, we need to address first things first,” De Mistura said. 

“I am once again prepared … personally and physically, to get involved myself … to ensure such a temporary corridor would be feasible and guaranteed for the people so that they can then return to their own places once this is over,” he added.

The UN also called on Russia, Iran and Turkey to forestall the battle in Idlib, which would affect millions of civilians and could see both sides using chemical weapons.

Idlib, which borders Turkey, is home to nearly three million people, up to half of whom are rebels and civilians transferred en masse from other territories that has fallen to Syrian troops after intense battles.

A major military operation in Idlib would pose a particularly threatening humanitarian situation because there is no opposition territory left in Syria where people could be evacuated to.

“There is no other Idlib,” De Mistura said, stressing the need to ensure civilians can evacuate to nearby areas under government control, with guarantees their rights will be respected once they get there.

“It would be a tragic irony frankly if at almost the end of … a territorial war inside Syria, we would be witnessing the most horrific tragedy to the largest number of civilians,” he said.

“It would be quite tragic at this stage, having seen how difficult the seven years [of Syria’s war] have been.”

‘Hotbed of terrorists’

Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Thursday called the Syrian rebel-held province of Idlib a “hotbed of terrorists” and said not tackling the problem was not a good option.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the comments to reporters on a conference call while answering a question about planned Russian naval drills in the Mediterranean, an exercise he said was justified due to the difficult situation in Syria.

Russia said on Wednesday that fighters there “must be liquidated” and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described them as “a festering abscess”.

More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria’s war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

Two years ago, De Mistura offered to go to eastern Aleppo and to personally escort al-Nusra rebels out of the besieged city. 

“Al-Nusra refused my offer to accompany them out, and they went to Idlib, and we lost two months at least and thousands of people died because of that,” he said.

The UN envoy said there were an estimated 10,000 al-Qaeda and al-Nusra fighters in Idlib, along with their families.

While he stressed the legitimacy of battling such “UN-identified terrorists”, he insisted efforts to defeat them did not justify putting the lives of some 2.9 million people in the area at risk.

“There is and can be no justification … to not avoid using heavy weapons in densely populated areas,” he said.

On Wednesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that full-scale military operations in Idlib province could lead to a “humanitarian catastrophe” and cautioned against the use of chemical weapons.

A major offensive in the Idlib area, where displaced people already make up half the population, risks forcing another 700,000 Syrians from their homes, the United Nations said.

It also risks raising tensions with Turkey, whose army established a ring of observation posts around the rebel territory last year under a “de-escalation” deal with Russia and Iran.

Turkey, which has a small military presence in Idlib, has warned against such an attack.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Image: Dan Charity – WPA Pool/Getty Images

Bet you never thought you’d hear Prince Harry’s singing voice. 

Well, on Wednesday night, Harry got up on stage with the cast of Hamilton at Victoria Palace Theatre in London, and sang the first line of “You’ll Be Back” — a song that’s usually sung by King George III in the play. 

Judging by his dulcet tones, Harry should consider a career in theatre. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton creator and star, pointed out the significance of Harry’s choice of song. “King George III’s great-great-great-great-great-great grandson The Duke of Sussex sang a few bars tonight,” Miranda tweeted. 

Of course, Harry wasn’t just on stage to dazzle us with his vocal prowess (though, we’d be totally fine if he were). He was actually attending a gala performance of Hamilton in support of Sentebale, a charity founded by Harry, which supports children and young people affected by HIV in Botswana and Lesotho. 

Image: Dan Charity – WPA Pool/Getty Images

It’s not too late to rethink your career, Harry!

A residential fire in Chicago left no survivors and killed 10 children who were attending a slumber party. At the time of the fire, no adults were at home and the apartment had no working smoke detectors.

Officials announced Tuesday the 10th fatality from the Sunday morning fire: a 14-year-old boy. The Chicago Fire Department said the investigation into the fire’s cause is ongoing and that the boy’s death left “no survivors” of the fire.

The victim, Adrian Hernandez, was about to start high school; he enjoyed wrestling and Chinese food, his mother, Leticia Reyes, told the Chicago Tribune.

“He was nice,” Reyes told the paper. “He was a quiet boy. He didn’t start trouble with nobody.”

Victims of the fire ranged in age from three months old to teenagers, according to fire department spokesman Larry Langford. 

Langford said an investigation suggests the children were asleep at the time of the fire, were overwhelmed by smoke and were unable to wake up.

Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services is investigating “allegations of neglect” in relation to the incident.

The building has been subject to numerous code violations in the past and the owner of the building had been recently attempting to evict the woman who rented the unit impacted by the fire, WGN 9 Chicago reports.

► August 29: Coast Guard finds probable cause for ‘negligence’ in Branson duck boat tragedy, feds say

► August 28: Mom of boy, 9, who committed suicide wants ‘bullying to end’

The fire started on the second floor of a house located in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, according to CNN. The first floor of the unit was unoccupied, the network says.

Arson has been ruled out as a cause of the fire by investigators. They believe the fire started on the apartment’s back porch, where the children had previously set off fireworks and people have smoked cigarettes.

Investigators are attempting to determine what activities occurred on the porch before the fire, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. Additionally, authorities are analyzing an electrical device that is unrelated to previous code violations at the building, the Chicago Fire Department announced Wednesday.

In the wake of the fire, the department encouraged residents to have working smoke detectors, calling the devices “cheap insurance to protect your family.” Earlier this week, the department passed out smoke detectors on the block where the fire occurred.

Contributing: The Associated Press.

 

 

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Associated Press

Published 4:52 a.m. ET Aug. 30, 2018

CANBERRA, Australia – Convicted classified document leaker Chelsea Manning will not be allowed to enter Australia for a speaking tour scheduled to start Sunday, her event organizer said on Thursday.

Think Inc. said it had received on Wednesday a notice of intention from the government to deny Manning entry. The group is calling on her supporters to lobby new Immigration Minister David Coleman to allow her into Australia. While she can appeal, past precedent suggests the decision has already been made.

Think Inc. said it had given the government more than 10 letters of support from individuals and organizations who support Manning’s entry to Australia.

“Ms. Manning offers formidable ideas and an insightful perspective which we are hoping to bring to the forefront of Australian dialogue,” Think Inc. Director Suzi Jamil said in a statement.

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Manning was an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Army when she leaked military and diplomatic documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. She served seven years of a 35-year sentence before then-President Barack Obama granted her clemency in 2017.

The transgender activist who recently lost a long-shot bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland is scheduled to speak at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday and has subsequent events in Australia and New Zealand.

The Department of Home Affairs said while it does not comment on individual cases, all non-citizens entering Australia must meet character requirements set out in the Migration Act. The reasons a person might fail the character test include a criminal record or a determination they might a risk to the community, according to the department.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the decision was for Coleman, who was sworn in as immigration minister on Tuesday.

A foreign affairs spokeswoman for the opposition Labor party, Penny Wong, said the government should be transparent about the reason if Manning is denied entry.

Amnesty International accused the government of trying to silence Manning. “By refusing her entry, the Australian government would send a chilling message that freedom of speech is not valued by our government,” Amnesty International national director Claire Mallinson said in a statement.

Lawyer Greg Barns, who has represented Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, said people with criminal records have been allowed into Australia in the past. He said no one would seriously suggest Manning was a risk to the Australian community.

Immigration in New Zealand expects to make a decision by Friday on whether to grant her a “special direction” visa. She doesn’t qualify for entry otherwise because she has a criminal conviction within the last 10 years for which she had a sentence exceeding 1 year, according to the country’s visa rules.

New Zealand’s center-right National Party opposition is urging the government to decline her visa request. If the decision goes against Manning, she can have it reviewed by the immigration minister.

She is due to speak in the Australian city of Melbourne on Sept. 7, the New Zealand city of Auckland on Sept. 8, the New Zealand capital Wellington on Sept. 9 and the Australian city of Brisbane on Sept. 11.

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The Football Association of Wales has held talks over a potential home nations bid for the 2030 World Cup.

FAW chief executive Jonathan Ford believes the joint proposal would be “strong and compelling”.

The Scottish FA has also confirmed that exploratory discussions have begun, while the FA is already looking at a bid that Uefa has previously said it would “strongly support”.

Ford confirmed there is set to be a feasibility study into the prospect.

A Downing Street spokesman has also said the UK government would be supportive of a bid involving the home nations.

The SFA says its current focus is on Euro 2020, with Glasgow one of the host cities for the tournament, but BBC Scotland understands the Scottish government is aware of the discussions and would also support any bid.

“This is something that has come up in conversation and it is something we are looking into,” Ford told BBC Sport Wales.

“It’s no more than that and there’s going to be no news until at least midway through 2019.

“But there is going to be a little bit of a feasibility study to see whether or not a UK-wide bid, a home nations bid or similar, would be a powerful, strong bid.

“Personally, I think it would be and I think, should we go forward at that stage – which, as I say, won’t be determined until well into 2019 – I think we’d have a very strong and compelling bid.

“There’s a long way to go on it but it could be 2030, Fifa World Cup in the home nations – what a fantastic opportunity that would be.”

The Welsh government is also supportive of any bid, with economy and transport secretary Ken Skates confirming: “We are fully aware and supportive of the proposed feasibility study into a potential 2030 UK World Cup bid.

“Given Wales’ proven track record in delivering major events, and our ambition to host further events, we are fully supportive of the FAW’s aspirations.”

An English-led home nations bid for the 2030 World Cup was described in June as “definitely on the radar” by former Scottish FA boss Stewart Regan.

It came after Fifa vice-president David Gill said England should have “great confidence” in bidding for the 2030 tournament, having lost out to Russia for the right to host the 2018 tournament.

An SFA spokesman said in July it would be “open-minded” about a joint bid while, earlier this month, Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill said hosting World Cup games at Windsor Park would be “huge” for the country.

Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay have announced their plans to jointly bid for 2030 while Tunisia would be open to the idea of a North African bid along with Algeria and Morocco.

“The reality is for countries like Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, it’s always going to be a case of having to do it in partnership with another, and the logical partner for us would be England,” added Ford.

“You need a lot of stadia now; of course, the structure of the competition has changed – you need 16 40,000-seater stadia.

“Of course, we have a fantastic stadium with the Principality Stadium and we’d love to be there, but there’s a lot of discussions to be had.”

Asked whether the potential bid would include all four home nations, Ford said: “All of the discussions are still being had, so there’s a lot of wait and see.”