Leaders of Muslim and Christian countries celebrated the wedding of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's daughter, a gathering that the Turkish premier show-
cased as a bridge between the West and the Islamic world.
Esra Erdogan married Berat Albayrak, the son of Turkish journalist Sadik Albayrak, amid tight security in downtown Istanbul.
PHOTO: EPA
Thousands of guests attended the ceremony on Sunday, including Jordan's King Abdullah II, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Greek Premier Costas Caramanlis and Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase.
The wedding came as Turkey is pressing to become the first mostly Muslim member of the EU. Erdogan pointed to the wedding celebration as an example of Turkey as a crossroads between the East and the West.
"The people at this ceremony reflect this country: They're from East and West, with their heads covered and uncovered," private TV station NTV quoted Prime Minister Erdogan as saying at the close of the ceremony. "Our guests are the same way. Two are from the East and two from the West."
NTV earlier quoted Erdogan as describing his daughter's wedding as "a meeting of civilizations."
Erdogan's government, which has Islamic roots, has made Tur-key's bid to join the EU its top priority and the government often promotes the country as a bridge between the West and the Islamic world.
Many Turks, however, fear the EU may exclude Turkey because it is overwhelmingly Muslim.
The four foreign leaders -- two Christian and two Muslim -- served as witnesses at the secular ceremony. In Turkey, only secular marriages are legally accepted.
Ersa Erdogan studied in the US at Indiana University because she wears a headscarf which is banned at universities in this staunchly secular country. The bride's full white gown included a headscarf that glittered with sequins.
Many Turkish Islamists have pushed for EU membership in the hopes that EU laws might be more accepting of Islamic symbols such as the headscarf, which Turkish secularists see as a challenge to the secular state.
Caramanlis' attendance was another sign of improved relations between Turkey and Greece -- traditional rivals that came to the brink of war three times after 1974.
"This is something I couldn't have even dreamed a few years ago," NTV quoted Caramanlis as saying. "This shows that we're doing something right: that a Greek prime minister is a witness at the wedding of a Turkish prime minister's daughter."
The wedding took place amid extremely high security after four suicide bombings in Istanbul last November killed more than 60 people. The attacks were blamed on al-Qaeda.
Some 5,000 police, including snipers, were on duty for the wedding and guests were searched as they entered the site. Nearby streets were closed to traffic and police searched passing cars.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
RSS