VOA’s Turkish Service contributed to this report.

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s opposition won decisively in the controversial re-vote in the Istanbul mayoral election. The victory is a significant defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who lost his Istanbul power base of 25 years.

Erdogan’s candidate Binali Yildirim was quick to congratulate his opponent Ekrem Imamoglu for his victory.

“My rival is ahead, and I am congratulating him and wishing him success,” Yildirim said. “Elections mean democracy and these elections revealed one more time that it works perfectly in Turkey.”

Erdogan also congratulated Imamoglu in a tweet, “the national will has been manifested again,” wrote Erdogan.

Provisional results indicate Imamoglu increased his winning margin to over 700,000 votes with 54% of the total votes, up from the razor-thin majority of 13,000 in the March poll.

 Erdogan successfully got election authorities to annul that victory on the technicality of ineligible election monitors.

 Imamoglu speaking to reporters in his election headquarters said his win was a boost for democracy.

“This is a new beginning. A period of love, tolerance, respect has started,” he said, “and waste, ostentation, arrogance, and discrimination is over.”

With news of Imamoglu’s victory spreading across the city, celebration broke out. Parades of cars started honking their horns as they drove around the city while hundreds of people danced in Istanbul’s main thoroughfare. Festivities are expected to continue into the night.

Erdogan put his political prestige on the line campaigning for Yildirm. However, the electorate, many of whom cut their vacations short to vote, backed Imamoglu’s message of democracy and political inclusivity.

Imamoglu thanked his coalition partner, the Good Party, but also praised the pro-Kurdish HDP for their support.

The HDP was not part of Imamoglu’s election alliance, but the party did not have a candidate in the race and called on their supporters to back Imamoglu.

“The winner is HDP and Kurds, full stop,” tweeted HDP leader Pervin Buldan. The party’s vote is seen by observers as key to his success, with Kurds accounting an estimated 20% of the electorate.

For Erdogan, once thought as invincible in the polls, the defeat is both personal and political.   The drop in support for his party was evident in Uskudar, a district on the Asian side of Istanbul where Erdogan has his personal residence, and historical AKP stronghold. Erdogan’s rise power was built on winning the city’s mayorship in 1994.

Observers say that resentment has been growing over Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian style of leadership after a failed coup attempt in 2016, marked by mass purges and sweeping crackdowns against businessmen, journalists and human-rights activists.

However, observers say possibly more worrying for Erdogan are the growing critics within his party who are unhappy over his authoritarian stance and a sputtering economy. In the past months, reports are growing of a looming split within his AKP party.

The opposition’s significant victory in Istanbul is expected to put pressure on Erdogan and his AKP to call for early elections.

“It’s the biggest evil to talk about elections,” said Devlet Bahceli MHP leader the coalition partner of the AKP.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told VOA Turkish that in canceling Imamoglu’s March 31 win in Istanbul, Erdogan obstensibly handed Imamoglu victory by branding him the politician who represents the people.

“This is how Erdogan was able to come to power as a pious conservative working class roots politician who represented Turkey’s mostly pious working class masses. But of course in 20 years since Erdogan Has become the power and by canceling Imamoglu’s victory he has turned him into the new Erdogan. Imamoglu now stands for the dispossessed and marginalized,” Cagaptay said.
 
 A potential legal challenge still hangs over Imamoglu, however. During his latest campaign, he allegedly insulted a state governor, a criminal offense in Turkey. Imamoglu vehemently denies the accusation. Last week Erdogan raised the possibility of Imamoglu’s prosecution and disbarring as mayor.

But given the scale of Imamoglu victory, some observers suggest that any legal move against him would threaten to plunge the country into chaos.

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During the 1969 series of riots that followed a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, the New York Daily News headlined a story that quickly became infamous: “Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees are Stinging Mad.”

Some of the coverage of rioting outside the gay bar — unimaginable today in mainstream publications for its mocking tone — was itself a source of the fury that led Stonewall to become a synonym for the fight for gay rights.

Fifty years later, media treatment of the LGBTQ community has changed and is still changing.

“The progress has been extraordinary, with the caveat that we still have a lot to do,” said Cathy Renna, a former executive for the media watchdog GLAAD who runs her own media consulting firm.

Coverage nonexistent or negative

Before Stonewall, mainstream media coverage of gays was generally nonexistent or consisted of negative, police blotter items.

When a small group demonstrated against government treatment outside the White House in 1965, a newspaper headline said, “Protesters Call Government Unfair to Deviants,” noted Josh Howard, whose film “The Lavender Scare,” about an Eisenhower-era campaign against gays and lesbians in government, aired on PBS this week.

A 1966 Time magazine article called homosexuality “a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding and, when possible, treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste and above all, no pretense that it is anything but a pernicious sickness.”

This is the sort of thing that Howard, who was 14 at the time of Stonewall, read about people like himself when he was young.

“It’s a hard way to grow up,” said the longtime CBS News producer. “I sort of realized that it was safe for me to be in the closet.”

Stonewall got some straightforward coverage at the time, although stories in The New York Times and the New York Post ran well inside the newspapers. An Associated Press story from June 30, 1969, said “police cleared the streets in the Sheridan Square area of Greenwich Village early Sunday as crowds of young men complained of police harassment of homosexuals.”

New York television stations ignored it, so the visual record amounts to a handful of still pictures.

Wake-up call for the media

The Daily News story was filled with slurs, and it began: “She sat there with her legs crossed, the lashes of her mascara-coated eyes beating like the wings of a hummingbird. She was angry. She was so upset she hadn’t bothered to shave.”

At the time, many demonstrators were more upset with riot coverage by the now-defunct alternative newsweekly The Village Voice, said Edward Alwood, author of “Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media.”

One Voice writer holed up with police inside Stonewall and said he wished he was armed. 

“The sound filtering in doesn’t suggest dancing faggots anymore,” Howard Smith wrote. “It sounds like a powerful rage bent on vendetta.”

Another Voice writer, Lucian Truscott IV, repeatedly referred to “faggot” and “faggotry” and said of the rioters at one point, “limp wrists were forgotten.”

“That event has generally been seen through political lenses,” Alwood said. “It was also a wake-up call for the media.”

Discomfort, stereotyping persisted

The immediate impact was growth and a heightened profile for news outlets specifically oriented to gays and lesbians, said Eric Marcus, author of the book “Making Gay History” and host of a podcast of the same name.

Marcus wrote in an essay this week about how Time magazine’s 1966 story “just about burned the skin off my face as I read it.”

Time didn’t cover Stonewall, but in October 1969 published a cover story about the emerging civil rights movement. While more straightforward in its reporting than the essay three years earlier, the story “was still dripping with sarcasm and contempt,” he said.

Time published Marcus’ piece as part of its Stonewall anniversary coverage, although it didn’t apologize for its past work.

While outright hate within the mainstream media subsided through the years, discomfort and stereotyping persisted. The go-to gay image for most publications was a silhouette of two men holding hands.

Coverage of gays in the military, for example, focused on “showers and submarines,” Renna said, or the unease of straight males in the presence of gays. Lesbians were barely mentioned, a sign of little awareness of diversity.

Through her work at GLAAD, Renna saw how Ellen DeGeneres’ revelation that she was a lesbian, both the ABC sitcom character she played at the time and the comedian in real life, was pivotal to promoting understanding.

Attention to language

Renna has urged journalists to pay attention to their language. Being gay is not a lifestyle, she notes; “Having a dog is a lifestyle.” She also urges the use of “sexual orientation” as opposed to “sexual preference,” a recognition that being gay isn’t a choice.

“The vast majority of journalists are not homophobic,” she said. “They’re homo-ignorant.”

Renna, who wears her hair short and favors tailored suits, is used to being mistaken for a man. Until about a decade ago, people she would correct generally shrugged. As a sign of changing attitudes, “now people fall over themselves to apologize once they realize I’m a girl,” she said.

A handbook of terminology for news organizations that is put out by LGBTQ journalists has helped increase awareness.

There are still missteps. The AP decreed in 2013 that its journalists would not use the word “husband” or “wife” in reference to a legally married gay or lesbian couple. After a protest, the AP reversed its call a week later.

Two 2017 entries in the AP Stylebook, considered the authoritative reference for journalists on the use of language, illustrate how far things have come since the “queen bees” days 50 years ago. The AP endorses the use of “they, them or theirs” as singular pronouns (replacing he or she) if the story subject requests it, although the AP urges care in writing to avoid confusion.

The stylebook also reminds readers that not all people fit under one of two categories for gender, “so avoid references to both, either or opposite sexes.”

Gender identification remains an object of confusion for many journalists. Activists also urge news organizations to be aware of people who are emboldened to lash out at the LGBTQ community by the divided politics of the past few years.

A newspaper apologizes

With the Stonewall anniversary, Marcus, of “Making Gay History,” has been busy working with news organizations doing stories about the event.

One publication he finds particularly interested and responsible in marking the occasion is the New York Daily News. The News on June 7 wrote an editorial recognizing its unseemly moment in history.

“We here at the Daily News played an unhelpful role in helping create a climate that treated the victims as the punchline of jokes, not as dignified individuals with legitimate complaints about mistreatment,” the newspaper wrote. “For that, we apologize.”

It was the newspaper’s second apology for its 1969 story in four years.

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Museums across the United States are striving to be more accessible to everyone. That includes touchable versions of photographs and paintings for people who may not be able to see them. At a recent expo by the American Alliance of Museums in New Orleans, new technology was used to help the visually impaired “see” art and pictures. VOA’s Deborah Block tells us more.

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Concrete military walls and police security checkpoints are seen on every corner of Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul.  The robust security presence signals a major effort to protect civilians and government officials from terrorist attacks.  But the very real threat of violence, like a suicide attack, doesn’t stop Kabul residents from living and enjoying their daily lives.  VOA’s Ahmad Samir Rassoly gives us a unique view of a typical night in Kabul.

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The world may be moving toward renewable energy sources, but fossil fuels are still the fuel of choice for the transportation industry. Especially when it comes to moving big things like planes and cargo ships, it’s all about petroleum. But Swiss researchers are looking to at least make the creation of fuel a carbon neutral process.

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Eighteen people were killed when an under-construction building in Cambodia collapsed early Saturday, an official said, as rescuers struggled to reach missing workers feared trapped under a mountain of twisted steel and rubble.

The seven-story steel and concrete structure in the coastal town of Sihanoukville, west of the capital Phnom Penh, was a Chinese-owned project.

At least 24 people were injured and some workers had been trapped inside the building soon after it collapsed, according to the office of the spokesman for the local province of Preah Sihanouk.

“The steel structure has collapsed on itself and we don’t dare move it,” the spokesman, Oar Saroeun, told Reuters Saturday. “We can only wait and listen for any signs of life. … We are afraid more of it will collapse on them. … We will work through the night to remove the steel.”

A statement issued Sunday by Preah Sihanouk Province officials said 40% of the debris from the site had been cleared. It was not clear how many more people were missing.

Photos of the scene shared on social media showed groups of rescuers working their way through a crumpled heap of steel girders and concrete.

Preah Sihanouk province and its largest town, Sihanoukville, has seen a rush of investment in recent years from China, especially into the casino, property and tourism sectors.

Home to Cambodia’s largest port and a Chinese Special Economic Zone connected to Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, the town is also undergoing a construction boom to serve growing crowds of Chinese tourists and investors.

Police have detained four people, including three construction supervisors, for questioning in relation to the accident, according to a statement from the province.
 

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VOA congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson and VOA Persian’s Katherine Ahn contributed to this report from Washington.

WASHINGTON — Iran warned Saturday that it would react sharply to any perceived aggression against it.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi told the semi-official Tasnim  news agency that Iran would not allow any of its borders to be violated.  He said “Iran will firmly confront any aggression or threat by America.”

Britain’s Middle East minister travels to Tehran Sunday for talks with Iranian officials.  Britain’s Foreign Office said Andrew Murrison will call for “urgent de-escalation in the region.”  Murrison will also discuss Iran’s threat to cease complying with the nuclear deal that the United States pulled out of last year.  

Friday U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that the United States was “cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,” Trump tweeted, saying the action would have been disproportionate.

“I am in no hurry,” Trump added.

President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with Iran – Gave them 150 Billion Dollars plus I.8 Billion Dollars in CASH! Iran was in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to Nuclear Weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019

The president also said that he authorized additional “biting” sanctions against Iran late Thursday night as part of his administration’s maximum pressure campaign to force Iran to restart negotiations over its nuclear program.

Hesameddin Ashena – an adviser to #Iran President @HassanRouhani – with a blunt message to the US on avoiding war w/#Tehran: if you don’t want war, ease the sanctions… pic.twitter.com/eBgXZnAbAG

— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) June 21, 2019

“Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!” Trump tweeted.

The move appears to pull Washington and Tehran back from the brink of armed conflict that could engulf the Middle East. President Trump spoke Friday with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“The two leaders discussed Saudi Arabia’s critical role in ensuring stability in the Middle East and in the global oil market,” said White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley. “They also discussed the threat posed by the Iranian regime’s escalatory behavior.”
 
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday, “We are in an extremely dangerous and sensitive situation with Iran. We must calibrate a response that de-escalates and advances American interests, and we must be clear as to what those interests are.” She added that any hostilities against Iran must first be approved by Congress.
 
Concern about a potential armed confrontation between the U.S. and Iran has been growing since U.S. officials recently blamed Tehran for mine attacks on two oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, allegations Tehran denies, and Iran’s downing of an unmanned U.S. drone this week.

James Phillips, a senior researcher at the conservative Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said he believes the immediate risk of a U.S.-Iran conflict has passed. “It’s probably over as far as the incident goes with the shoot down of the drone. But, I think if there are further provocations, the president will respond in a strong and effective manner,” he said.
 
Phillips also said he does not expect Tehran to accept U.S. calls for negotiations while Trump continues a “maximum pressure campaign” of sanctions on Iran. “I doubt that Tehran will be serious until it sees who wins the next presidential election,” he said.

The U.S. announced this week it was authorizing another 1,000 troops — including a Patriot missile battery and additional manned and unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to bolster defenses at U.S. positions in Iraq and Syria.

Trump earlier said the unmanned surveillance drone that was shot down was flying over international waters in the Strait of Hormuz when it was hit by an Iranian missile, and said the incident was a “very bad mistake.”

Iran says the drone flew into its air space, a “blatant violation of International law.”

Iran’s letter to @antonioguterres & #UNSC: While Iran does not seek war, it reserves its inherent right, under the UN Charter,to take all appropriate necessary measures against any hostile act violating its territory & is determined to vigorously defend its land, sea & air. pic.twitter.com/LDQBOZPCi5

— Alireza Miryousefi (@miryousefi) June 20, 2019

Friday, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, showed off pieces of wreckage he said Iran had recovered after shooting down the U.S. drone.

He also said Iran itself had shown restraint, opting not take shoot down another U.S. plane, sparing American lives.

“Another spy aircraft called P8 was flying close to this drone,” Hajizadeh said. “That aircraft is manned, and has around 35 crew members, well we could have targeted that plane.”

“It was our right to do so, and yes it was American, but we didn’t do it,” he said.

At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace. It was targeted at 04:05 at the coordinates (25°59’43″N 57°02’25″E) near Kouh-e Mobarak.

We’ve retrieved sections of the US military drone in OUR territorial waters where it was shot down. pic.twitter.com/pJ34Tysmsg

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) June 20, 2019

U.S. Air Forces Central Command, which oversees U.S. military activity in the region, has called many of the Iranian claims “categorically false.”

Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Earl Brown rejected Iran’s claims that a surveillance plane was flying alongside the drone, saying, “At no point in time did any U.S. aircraft enter Iranian airspace on June 19.”

US, Other Nations Agree to Toughen Supervision of Iran’s Banks

Financial Action Task Force announces more focus on money laundering, terror financing concerns in Iran

The U.S. Defense Department has also released images to bolster its assertion the drone did not enter Iranian airspace. But a news report said the department erroneously labeled the drone’s fight path the location where it was shot down. An image apparently showing the airborne drone exploding provided little context.

“It’s a really dangerous game and if I was flying in that region – which I have before – I’d be a little more nervous,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a U.S. Air Force Veteran who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, told reporters Friday.

Kinzinger said Iran has moved the situation “this time – and multiple times prior – into the kinetic military realm. This is not the president doing it. I think a military response, even a small one is appropriate but if there’s a strong economic cost then I think that could work, too.”

But in recent days, Democrats have expressed concern Trump has not adequately consulted with the U.S. Congress on a military response they say could have grave consequences.

“I think every president would probably say initial, retaliatory strikes are ok but let’s de-escalate this, let’s look for a diplomatic solution,” Rep. Ami Bera, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told VOA. “He (Trump) may be walking right into the hands of what the Revolutionary Guards want.”

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The World Health Organization says millions of people with epilepsy are reluctant to seek treatment because of the stigma attached to their ailment, leading to the premature death of many.  WHO has released the first global report on epilepsy.

Nearly 50 million people around the world suffer from epilepsy.  The World Health Organization reports this neurological disease affects people of all ages in all walks of life.  It says this brain disease can cause seizures and sometimes loss of awareness.  

Program Manager in WHO’s Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Tarun Dua says people with epilepsy suffer widespread stigma and discrimination as a consequence of their unusual behavior.

“So, in many settings, people with epilepsy they are embarrassed…children are not allowed to go to school, adults are not allowed to work, sometimes not even marry or the right to drive is also not there,” said Dua. “So, these stigma and human rights violations and sometimes also the death that is associated with epilepsy—so premature mortality in epilepsy is three times that of the general population.” 

Causes of epilepsy include injury around the time of birth, brain infections from illnesses such meningitis or encephalitis and stroke.  WHO estimates 25 percent of cases are preventable.

Dua says early death among people with epilepsy in low and middle-income countries is significantly higher than in wealthy countries.  She says the stigma associated with epilepsy is a main factor preventing people from seeking treatment.  

She says low cost, effective medication to treat the disease is largely unavailable in poor countries as are the number of specialists competent to deal with this brain disorder.

“For example, if you look in low and middle-income countries, there is only one neurologist per one million population,” Dua said. “Now, that is definitely insufficient to provide care for all people with epilepsy.  What it means is that we need the non-specialists, the primary care doctors to take care for people with epilepsy.” 

Dua says WHO has the tools and evidence-based guidelines that show epilepsy can be successfully treated in primary health care.  She says pilot programs introduced in Ghana, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Vietnam are making huge inroads in closing the epilepsy treatment gap.

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Mauritanian voters are headed to the polls in the country’s first election without an incumbent presidential candidate since the 2008 coup.

Polling stations opened Saturday at 8am across the Sahara Desert nation and will remain open until 7pm local time.

President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is stepping down, as is mandated by the constitution, after his two five-year terms.  His ruling Union for the Republic (UPR) party has put forth former defense minister Mohamed Ould Ghazouani as its candidate.

Opposition candidates say that Ghazouani would not affect any change from the last administration – change they say is desperately needed.

“I think there needs to be a true changeover, because the state today of my country is catastrophic. The economic situation is extremely serious, as are our societal problems,” Sidi Mohammed Ould Boubacar, a former prime minister and leading opposition candidate supported by the Tewassoul party, told VOA.

Boubacar is one of five opposition candidates running to replace the UPR. Other candidates include well-known anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, who has promised a national inquiry into the country’s cases of modern slavery.

Though voters are mobilized by the wide range of candidates, many are wary that the National Electoral Commission, which earlier this year refused appeals to employ foreign observers, may not hold fair elections.

According to a Gallup poll, 64% of Mauritanians do not have faith in the honesty of the elections.

When asked who they believe will win the election, many voters VOA spoke with in Nouakchott preceded their answer with “If the state doesn’t cheat…”.

The country’s last elections in 2014 were heavily criticized for being unfair and were boycotted by many opposition parties. Then-incumbent President Aziz won by 84%.

Mauritania has had five military coups since it gained independence from France in 1960.

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Organizers of Georgia’s first LGBT+ pride march called off the event at the eleventh hour Friday after a wave of political unrest in Tbilisi that left hundreds of people injured.

LGBT+ Georgians had been planning to go ahead with a rally in the capital despite threats from extreme right-wing groups and fierce opposition from the influential Orthodox Church.

They postponed the march after police used tear gas and fired rubber bullets to stop crowds angered by the visit of a Russian lawmaker from storming the parliament building.

“There won’t be a march tomorrow,” Giorgi Tabagari, one of the event promoters, announced Friday, with tensions still running high in the capital of the former Soviet republic.

Organizers said the rally would be held at a later date that was yet to be confirmed.

“It was a hard decision for us all to make because we put so much energy, resources and passion to it,” Tbilisi Pride member Tamaz Sozashvili told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“But on the other hand, we acknowledge the ongoing political situation in the country. We think this is not the right time to do it.”

More than 200 protesters and police were injured in Thursday’s clashes, some of them seriously, as demonstrators pushed against lines of riot police, threw bottles and stones and grabbed riot shields, drawing a tough response.

The Pride march was intended as the finale of a five-day program of events to raise awareness about LGBT+ issues, including a play and a conference, both of which went ahead without incident.

The Caucasian nation has witnessed a cultural clash between liberal forces and religious conservatives over the past decade as it has modernized and introduced radical reforms.

The influential Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate had urged the government to ban the rally, describing it as an unacceptable provocation aimed at promoting “the sin of Sodom,” while far-right groups threatened to form vigilante units to stop it.

The government had earlier warned against the march going ahead, saying participants’ safety could not be guaranteed.

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Nine passengers and crew were killed on Friday evening when their plane crashed near an airfield in Hawaii, authorities said, during what broadcaster CNN said was a
skydiving trip.

The twin-engine King Air plane went down near the Dillingham Airfield, the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) said. The fire service said the aircraft was engulfed in flames when
fire crews arrived and there appeared to be no survivors. “We are still gathering information as to the intent of the flight and what they were doing,” Honolulu Fire Department Chief Manuel Neves told a news conference.

CNN said the plane was on a skydiving excursion and that Federal Aviation Administration would investigate the crash. Dillingham is a joint-use airfield operated by the HDOT
under a 25-year lease from the U.S. army, according to its website.

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