Turkey's attacks on Christians is way out of hand.

clipped from news.yahoo.com ANKARA, Turkey – A Roman Catholic bishop was stabbed to death in southern Turkey on Thursday, a day before he was scheduled to leave for Cyprus to meet with the pope, officials and reports said. Luigi Padovese, 63, the apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was attacked outside his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun. The killing was not believed to be politically motivated. The Vatican-affiliated Asia News agency cited unnamed witnesses as saying the driver appeared to be "depressed, violent and threatening," in recent days. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told The Associated Press in Rome that the Vatican felt "immense pain, consternation, (and) bewilderment" over the death and noted that it showed the "difficult conditions" of the Catholic community in the region. The killing is the latest in a string of attacks in recent years on Christians in Turkey, where Christians make up less than 1 percent of the 70 million population.

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Russia, Turkey becoming strategic partners - Medvedev

clipped from en.rian.ru Russia and Turkey are becoming strategic partners, President Dmitry Medvedev said shortly before his visit to Ankara, due May 11-12. "June 3 will see 90 years since the day diplomatic relations between our countries were established, and my visit will take place shortly before that remarkable date," Medvedev said in an article for Turkish newspaper Zaman. "First of all, we can say with conviction that Russian-Turkish ties are reaching the level of full-scale strategic partnership," the Russian leader said, adding that a declaration signed by the two presidents in Moscow in February 2009 testified to that. He also said Russia sees Turkey as a "good and reliable neighbor with whom we are happy to jointly build plans to further strengthen cooperation for the good of our countries' peoples."

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Surprise: 100 U.S. nukes based in Istanbul with double-key security system

clipped from www.worldtribune.com ANKARA — The United States was said to be maintaining a nuclear weapons arsenal in a Turkish city. ShareThis "One of the keys is in the United States and the other in the host country, in this case Turkey," Baytok said on April 5. "During war time these weapons are fired with this double-key system." Turkey was said to harbor up to 100 U.S. nuclear weapons as part of NATO. But the warheads were long believed to have been based at the Turkish air base at Incirlik rather than Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey. Baytok said some of the tactical weapons were located in Istanbul while others were in cities near the Black Sea. He defined tactical weapons as those designed to strike former Warsaw Pact states in Europe. Neither Turkey nor the United States responded to Baytok's assertion. In 1972, he said, Ankara issued its only decision regarding the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

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Turkey rejects Israel's offer of post-quake aid

clipped from www.ynetnews.com Ankara declines Jerusalem's proposal to assist search and rescue operations following 6.0-magnitude earthquake which hit country's east Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the defense establishment to put together an aid proposal for Turkey, following the earthquake that hit the country's eastern region Monday, only to be rejected by Ankara. The 6.0-magnitude quake shook the Elazig province in eastern Turkey around 4:30 am (GMT). Some 57 people were killed and over 40 aftershocks have been registered since, the strongest reaching 5.5 on the Richter Scale. Over a decade ago, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Turkey, killing some 18,000 people. An Israeli search and rescue mission sent at the time was instrumental in saving dozens of lives.

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