Turkey explosion: Reports of wounded in central Ankara

An explosion has taken place in the Kizilay neighbourhood of the Turkish capital Ankara, and reports say some people have been injured.

The cause of the blast is not yet clear.

Witnesses say the explosion happened near the main bus station on Ataturk boulevard and close to many government ministries. Some vehicles were on fire.

Last month, a bomb attack on a military convoy in Ankara killed 28 people and injured scores more. 

A Turkey-based Kurdish militant group said it carried out that attack.

Ivory Coast Hotel Shooting: Seven Dead - Reports

At least seven people have died in a gun attack on an Ivory Coast beach resort popular with tourists, according to reports.

A witness said four attackers opened fire with rifles as they entered the hotel in Grand-Bassam, around 25 miles east of Abidjan.

Grand-Bassam on the Ivory Coast

The attackers were "heavily armed and wearing balaclavas" and "fired at guests at the L'Etoile du Sud (Southern Star), a large hotel which was full of expats in the current heatwave", according to a witness who spoke to AFP news agency.

It is not yet clear if they are affiliated with any particular militant group.

Josiane Sekongo, 25, who lives nearby, said she ran outside when she heard the gunfire and saw people running away from the beach.

Residents are now hiding in their homes while security forces respond to the attack, she said.

A dozen ambulances are on standby and military vehicles are heading to the scene with heavy machine guns, along with armed traditional hunters known as Dozo.

Witness Luc Gnago told Sky News he had seen six bodies on the beach - one of which he thought was that of an assailant - and one in the hotel, which he described as "a white man".

He said: "I arrived after the shooting. There are many soldiers around the beach and around the hotel.

"The beach is now empty. There are only a few people looking after the bodies."

An AFP journalist reported seeing around a dozen people, including an injured Western woman, being evacuated in a military truck.

A witness told French broadcaster BFMTV he saw "the body of a European woman" and "two or three" hooded shooters.

Video footage from a witness shows seven people lying on the ground, Reuters news agency has reported.

Grand-Bassam is home to around 80,000 people and has UNESCO World Heritage status due to the architecture from its French colonial past.

Over the past few months, attacks have been launched on luxury hotels in the capitals of Ivory Coast's neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso, leaving dozens of people dead and West African nations re-assessing security in the face of the growing threat from jihadists.

Ivory Coast: Shooting at Grand-Bassam beach resort

Gunfire has erupted at the beach resort of Grand-Bassam in Ivory Coast, French media say.

They quote eyewitnesses as saying the shooting began in a hotel. There have been reports of casualties.

Grand-Bassam is located about 40km (25 miles) east of the country's main city, Abidjan.

Twin Boys Drown After Falling Into Fish Pond

Two-year-old twins Rhys (L) and Shaun (R) fell into a fish pond

Two-year-old twin brothers have drowned after falling into a garden fish pond in a tragedy described as "every parent's worst nightmare".

Emergency services were called to the address in Dalgety Bay, Fife, at around 8.20am on Saturday after the boys - Rhys and Shaun, whose mother has been named as Sarah Aitken - were discovered.

They were taken to Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy but later died, Police Scotland said.

One message left with flowers reads: 'Rest in peace little ones'

The family of the youngsters is being supported by officers, as inquiries are made to establish the circumstances that led to their deaths.

In a statement issued through Police Scotland, the twins' parents said: "We would like to thank everyone for their support at this unfortunate and difficult time. 

"Both boys were long awaited little soldiers who were full of love, happiness, fun and cheek. Individually and together they have touched the lives of everyone they met. 

"We along with our family and friends are still in shock and devastated at such a tragic loss from such a 'freak' accident."  

Emergency services were called to the address in Dalgety Bay, Fife

Local MSP Alex Rowley said: "This is awful news and is every parent's worst nightmare.

young lives from the same family is just heartbreaking.

"My thoughts and prayers, and those of the whole community, are with the family."

Flowers and messages of support have been left at the house. One note reads: "Rest in peace little ones."

A Police Scotland spokesman said: "We received a call around 8.20am on Saturday following a report of concern for two children at an address in Dalgety Bay, Fife.

"Two male twins, aged two-years-old, had reportedly drowned in a fish pond and officers attended with the Scottish Ambulance Service.

"The children were taken to the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy where they sadly died.

"Officers are supporting the family at this time. Inquiries to establish the full circumstances are ongoing."

North Korea claims it could wipe out Manhattan with a hydrogen bomb

SEOUL — North Korea claimed Sunday that it could wipe out Manhattan by sending a hydrogen bomb on a ballistic missile to the heart of New York, the latest in a string of brazen threats.

Although there are many reasons to believe that Kim Jong Un’s regime is exaggerating its technical capabilities, the near-daily drumbeat of boasts and warnings from Pyongyang underlines the regime’s anger at efforts to thwart its ambitions.

“Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union,” DPRK Today, a state-run outlet that uses the official acronym for North Korea, reported Sunday.

“If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an inter-continental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes,” the report said, citing a nuclear scientist named Cho Hyong Il.

The website is a strange choice for issuing such a proclamation, given that it also carried reports about rabbit farming and domestically made school backpacks.

North Korea’s newly developed hydrogen bomb “surpasses our imagination,” Cho is quoted as saying, because it is many times as powerful as anything the Soviet Union had.

“The H-bomb developed by the Soviet Union in the past was able to smash windows of buildings 1,000 kms away and the heat was strong enough to cause third-degree burns 100 kms away,” the report continued.

Kim in January ordered North Korea’s fourth nuclear test and claimed that it was a hydrogen bomb, not a simple atomic one. But most experts are skeptical of the claim, saying the seismic waves caused by the blast were similar to those caused by the North’s three previous tests.

Then in February, Kim oversaw the launch of what North Korea said was a rocket that put a satellite into orbit but that is widely considered part of a long-range ballistic missile program.

North Korea has made advances in its inter-continental ballistic missile program, and experts generally conclude that the United States’ West Coast might now be in reach but that there has been no suggestion that the North would be able to hit the East Coast.

Many experts are also skeptical of the “miniaturized warhead” that Kim showed off last week during a visit to a nuclear weapons plant, saying it doesn’t look right.

But Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, warned against dismissing it too soon.

“It does not look like US devices, to be sure, but it is hard to know if aspects of the model are truly implausible or simply that North Korean nuclear weapons look different than their Soviet and American cousins,” Lewis wrote in an analysis for 38 North, a website devoted to North Korea. “The size, however, is consistent with my expectations for North Korea.”

Tightening the grip: Turkey's media takeover

In the latest crackdown on Turkey's media, authorities this week raided and seized control of the largest daily newspaper: Zaman, its sister publication, Today's Zaman, and the Cihan news agency.

The takeover, which was backed by the country's courts, was the latest blow in a long-running and deeply personal saga between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen.

Gulen, a 74-year-old Islamic leader based in the US, has been a vocal critic and political opponent of Erdogan and is closely affiliated with the anti-Erdogan Zaman newspaper.

Erdogan has repeatedly accused Gulen of trying to overthrow the government, but Gulen has denied the allegations.

The crackdown comes at an already worrying time for press freedom with several media outlets in Turkey also being targeted. Last year, two editors from the Cumhuriyet newspaperwere accused of treason over their story which alleged that Turkey was arming rebel fighters in Syria. When the country's highest court ordered their release from jail, Erdogan announced that he would not respect the ruling, setting the stage for a showdown between the government, the courts and the media.

Talking us through the story are: Sevgi Akarcesme, editor-in-chief of Today's Zaman; Banu Guven, a TV anchor for IMC; Jane Kandur, a columnist with Daily Saba; and Asli Tunc, a professor at Istanbul Bilgi University.

---

Other media stories on our radar this week: Hassan Hanafi, once a respected broadcaster in Somalia was sentenced to death for colluding with al-Shabab in the murder of six fellow journalists; the Thai government has dropped a legal case against a photojournalist who was arrested last year for carrying a flak jacket and a helmet through the airport in Bangkok; and in the US, the Washington Post has been criticised over its coverage of Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders.

---

On President Erdogan's radar: An interview with Can Dundar

Ten months ago, Turkey's Cumhuriyet newspaper published a story about Turkish intelligence trucks allegedly carrying weapons to rebels in Syria.

The story didn't go down well with the government and Can Dündar, the Cumhuriyet's editor-in-chief and his Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gul, were charged with espionage, revealing classified information and membership in a terrorist organisation.

The two men spent three months in prison before a Constitutional Court ruling set them free however the president has made it clear that the case is not closed.

The Listening Post's Richard Gizbert talks to journalist Can Dundar about the Turkish government's steamrolling of the press, the reporting that landed him in jail, and why he is still on President Erdogan's radar.

---

Recipe videos tend to go viral so Red Sky studios, a post-production company based in Alabama, adopted the same approach for their video about film production. It's called 'Recipe for disaster' and shows what's needed to bake 'your epic film'. The difficulty level is very hard. The cooking time is months, sometimes years or forever. And yes, their video did go viral.

600 IS Fighters 'Killed In Three Weeks'

Islamic State has lost 600 fighters and thousands of square kilometres over the past three weeks, the US Secretary of State says.

John Kerry made the comments after talks with European allies in Paris on the Syrian conflict.

"In Syria, over the last three weeks alone, Daesh has lost 3,000 sq km (1,160 sq miles) and 600 fighters," he said, using another name for Islamic State.

Mr Kerry also said a recent truce has reduced violence in the war-torn country by 80-90%, which he said was "very, very significant".

The landmark truce signed between the Syrian regime and rebels - but not by jihadist groups like Islamic State and Nusra Front - took effect late last month.

A new round peace talks on the Syrian conflict are due to start in Geneva on Monday.