Türkiye
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday that Türkiye violated fair-trial and no-punishment-without-law rights in three judgments covering 947 applicants, most convicted over alleged links to the 2016 coup attempt. The rulings follow the court's 2023 finding that convictions based on the ByLock messaging app were systemically flawed. More than 720,000 people have been investigated and over 127,000 convicted since the coup, and Turkish cases now make up over 40 percent of the court's entire pending docket.
At the third hearing of his separate espionage trial on Tuesday, jailed İstanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu accused people close to President Erdoğan of profiting from Türkiye's investment-fund manipulation scandal and said they were being shielded from it. He named former family minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya and her husband, saying they bought shares for 163 million lira and sold them for about 2.17 billion lira before moving roughly 2.2 billion lira into a Treasury account. İmamoğlu denies the unrelated espionage charges, which carry 15 to 20 years if he is convicted.
A court in Kırıkkale ordered the arrest of 15 people, including former AKP mayor Ahmet Sungur and former MHP mayor Osman Türkyılmaz of Yahşihan district, in a corruption investigation announced Tuesday. Prosecutors allege the group ran a criminal organization involving bribery, extortion and bid-rigging at the municipality; 13 other suspects were also arrested, two placed under house arrest and 18 released under judicial supervision. Sungur, expelled from the AKP, was already serving a sentence in a separate extortion case.
President Erdoğan met North Rhine-Westphalia premier Hendrik Wüst in Ankara on Monday, the first official visit by a sitting NRW premier to Türkiye, as part of a three-day trip marking 65 years since the 1961 Türkiye-West Germany labour recruitment agreement. The two discussed modernising the EU-Türkiye customs union, defence-industry cooperation and human rights. Wüst, a senior figure in Germany's CDU, is discussed as a possible successor to Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Europe
Estonia's government said on Tuesday it has concluded with certainty that an arson attack in August on Milrem Robotics, a Tallinn firm that supplies unmanned vehicles to Ukraine, was sabotage ordered by Russia's special services. Three suspects, including two Latvian nationals arrested in Latvia and extradited last month, are now in Estonian custody, and Tallinn has summoned Russia's ambassador. NATO chief Mark Rutte said the same day that Russia's wider sabotage campaign across Europe is failing to weaken support for Ukraine.
Source:
Euronews · Tuesday, 29 September 2026
The European Commission presented a five-point plan on Tuesday to prevent and respond to sudden mass arrivals at the EU's external borders, including new 'gateway offices' for legal migration, an emergency response framework, an expanded Frontex mandate, sanctions on smuggling networks and wider return cooperation with non-EU countries. The Commission says irregular border crossings are now at their lowest level since 2021. EU interior ministers will discuss the plan on 1 and 2 October.
French civil servants went on strike and students blockaded about 330 high schools on Tuesday, ahead of Thursday's formal presentation of the government's 2027 budget bill, which is expected to detail the previously announced 54 billion euro savings package, including a fourth consecutive freeze on civil servants' base pay. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez reported 440 arrests nationwide amid roughly 170 rallies. The unrest comes seven months before France's next presidential election.
Two members of the European Parliament called on Monday for the European Commission to invoke the EU's blocking statute to stop European banks automatically cutting off International Criminal Court judges and prosecutors sanctioned by the United States over the court's investigation into Israeli war crimes. Nine ICC judges and four prosecutors are currently under US sanctions, and European banks have been pre-emptively denying them services for fear of secondary sanctions even though the US measures do not legally bind EU entities. The Netherlands, which hosts the court, made the same request to the Commission on 23 September.
The World
King Mohammed VI appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri, mayor of Marrakesh, as Morocco's prime minister on Tuesday, after her centrist Authenticity and Modernity Party won the most seats in this month's parliamentary election. She is the second woman to lead a government in the Arab world, after Tunisia's Najla Bouden in 2021, and must now build a coalition to reach a governing majority in parliament.
The US-led coalition's combat mission in Iraq ended on Tuesday under the terms of a 2024 US-Iraq agreement, closing more than two decades of American military presence that began with the 2003 invasion and continued through the campaign against the Islamic State group after 2014, at a total cost of more than 4,500 American lives. Iraq's government marked the withdrawal with three days of public holidays under the banner of restored sovereignty, but Kurdish and Sunni leaders warned it is premature: the disarmament of Iran-aligned militias has been pushed back to June 2027, and some armed groups still refuse to disarm.
Saudi-backed airstrikes hit a market on the outskirts of Taiz, southwest Yemen, early on Sunday, killing dozens; Houthi officials gave death tolls ranging from seven to about thirty, with total casualties, including wounded, put at near fifty. The Yemeni government side has not confirmed a toll and access to the site is contested. Separately, a World Health Organization report said more than 800 people have been killed in Yemen's war since it reignited in July; the report also recorded 809 new casualties, dead and wounded combined, in the single week ending 26 September.
Rapid Support Forces drones struck a fuel depot near Abu Haraz, close to Wad Madani in Sudan's Al Jazirah state, early on Sunday, setting fuel and diesel tanks on fire before civil defence teams contained the blaze. It is reportedly the first attack on the area since the Sudanese army recaptured Wad Madani from the RSF in early 2025. A UN report this week said foreign recruitment, including Colombian mercenaries fighting for the RSF in Darfur, is fuelling a civil war that has displaced more than 11.8 million people.
Culture, the week in Istanbul
The most comprehensive Yoko Ono exhibition ever staged in Türkiye, with 67 works spanning instruction pieces, film and participatory installations such as 'Grapefruit' and 'Cut Piece'. 'Insound and Instructure' runs at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum in Emirgan until 27 December.
Tunisian oud player and vocalist Dhafer Youssef performs his new album 'Shiraz' live with piano, trumpet, bass and drums, as part of the Akbank Jazz Festival's international programme. The concert is a rare chance to hear one of the Arab world's best-known jazz crossover artists in Istanbul.
A group show at Borusan Contemporary's restored Bosphorus mansion explores artificial intelligence, algorithms and digital culture, with works by teamLab, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Daniel Canogar, alongside Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri's first solo show in Türkiye. The museum, known as the 'Haunted Mansion', opens weekends only, Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 19:00.
A group show of contemporary Turkish photography and lens-based art, featuring 18 artists working since the 2010s, explores imagined landscapes and alternative ways of picturing place. The exhibition closes on 18 October, so this is a last chance to see it at Istanbul Modern in Karaköy.
