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Turkish Prosecutor Charges 47 People over Deaths of Newborns

Turkish police seen in Istanbul - File/AFP
Turkish police seen in Istanbul - File/AFP
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Turkish Prosecutor Charges 47 People over Deaths of Newborns

Turkish police seen in Istanbul - File/AFP
Turkish police seen in Istanbul - File/AFP

An Istanbul prosecutor has indicted 47 people, including doctors and nurses, over the inappropriate treatment of babies for profit, causing the death of at least 10 newborns in one of Türkiye's biggest health scandals in recent years.

The Health Ministry has shut down nine private hospitals as a result of the investigation, with a total 19 health institutions deemed to bear responsibility, the indictment said.

The suspects are accused of creating a criminal group to put newborns in certain private hospitals and receive payments from Türkiye's social security body for inappropriate and sometimes fake treatments, the indictment obtained by Reuters said.

The main opposition CHP party has sought a parliamentary inquiry into the affair and called for the resignation of Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu. He has said his ministry's inspections of hospitals will now be carried out "more strictly than ever".

Two of the suspects, working on an emergency phone line, had sought newborns that could be sent to these hospitals for intensive care treatment, according to the 1,399-page indictment, filed in an Istanbul court last week.

It said newborns then became the victims of malpractice or inadequate medical care, with medicine meant for them sold to others and some dying due to infections contracted in the units.

The goal of the criminal gang was "to obtain financial gain, rather than improving the health conditions of the patients," it added.

The suspects, including two doctors and 11 nurses, denied the charges, saying they had not intentionally sent the newborns to particular hospitals and that the babies had received the necessary treatment, the indictment said.

The charges the suspects face include forming a criminal group, fraud, forgery of official documents and murder by negligence. Some defendants could be sentenced to as many as 589 years in jail if found guilty.

Twenty-two suspects have been jailed pending trial.

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US Waving a ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy at Iran

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)
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US Waving a ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy at Iran

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman (AFP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave Iran a choice between focusing on itself and on trying to build a better country for its people, or bear the consequences of continuing its engagement in what he called “misadventures” throughout the region and beyond.
During a conversation Wednesday with Michael Froman, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, the outgoing Secretary of State reflected on the carrot-and-stick policy that the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump could adopt towards Iran.
He said there is a prospect of negotiations with Tehran to reach a new nuclear deal. However, he urged the policy of continued pressure on Iranian authorities to stop their nuclear policies in the Middle East.
Asked about the possibility of Iran accelerating its nuclear program in light of its failures in various parts of the Middle East, notably after Tehran lost its primary proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon and after the fall of the regime of its ally Assad, Blinken said “There’s no doubt this has not been a good year for Iran.”
He noted that Iran has to make some fundamental choices.
One choice, Blinken said, “is to focus on itself and focus on trying to build a better, more successful country that delivers for its people, which is clearly what most Iranians want, and to stop getting involved in these adventures – or misadventures – throughout the region and beyond.”
The outgoing Secretary of State also affirmed that Iran desperately needs to be focused on its economy, on growing the country, and delivering for people.
If they don’t make that choice, he said, “they have some hard decisions to make, yes, about where they’re going to go in the future to be able to sustain the kind of troublemaking that, unfortunately, they’ve been engaged in for many, many years.”
Blinken said he doesn’t think that a nuclear weapon is inevitable.
“I think this is something that may be more a question now because as they’ve lost different tools, as they’ve lost different lines of defense, sure, you’re going to see more thinking about that.”
He warned the costs and consequences to Iran for pursuing that route would be severe. “So I am hopeful that that remains in check,” he said.
Blinken then reiterated the position of President Joe Biden’s administration, saying that the so-called JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, was capable to take off the prospect of Iran getting to a nuclear weapon anytime soon by bottling up, tying up the fissile material, making sure their breakout time in producing enough fissile material for a bomb was pushed back beyond a year.
He said now that breakout time in terms of the production of fissile material is a matter of a week or two.
“They don’t have a weapon, and the weaponization piece would take them some time,” he added.
The Secretary of State then called on the next administration to find a way to engage this, because the production of 60 percent enriched uranium gives them the capacity, at least in terms of fissile material, to produce multiple weapons’ worth of material in very short order.
Asked about the prospect of a negotiation of a new nuclear deal with Iran, Blinken said there is the prospect of negotiations.
“Of course, it depends on what Iran chooses to do and whether it chooses to engage in meaningfully,” he said. “And of course, the incoming administration will have to make a decision.”
He recalled how President Trump last time around pulled out of the deal, and wanted, as he called it, a better, stronger deal. “Fine. Let’s see what’s possible,” Blinken said.
He then revealed that from administration to administration, whether it’s the Biden, the Trump or the Obama administration, there’s been a shared determination and a shared determination that remains to ensure that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
Huge Opportunity
Blinken’s comments came shortly after White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Iran is at its “weakest point in decades,” after the fracturing of the Axis of Resistance.
The advisor also spoke about the huge opportunity” to advance regional integration.
At an event in New York, he said recent events in the Middle East — including the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the toppling of Bashar Assad in Syria — present a “huge opportunity” to advance regional integration.
When asked about efforts to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, Sullivan affirmed that Saudi leaders have already said in recent months that a deal cannot move forward without a commitment by Israel to the creation of a Palestinian state.