The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) has met with Turkish officials for the third time this year, marking the second such meeting since June. The party’s leader, Salahhaddin Bahhadin, held discussions with Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister in Ankara.
The KIU is the largest Islamic party in Kurdistan, rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood tradition. It currently holds seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament and four in the Iraqi Parliament.
Despite its relatively modest representation, the KIU’s seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament carry strategic weight, as no single party has secured a majority. This positions the KIU as a potential kingmaker or a divisive force in shaping the dynamics between the KDP and PUK within the Kurdistan Region's parliament.
The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) has met with Turkish officials for the third time this year, marking the second such meeting since June. The party’s leader, Salahhaddin Bahhadin, held discussions with Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister in Ankara.
The KIU is the largest Islamic party in Kurdistan, rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood tradition. It currently holds seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament and four in the Iraqi Parliament.
Despite its relatively modest representation, the KIU’s seven seats in the Kurdistan Parliament carry strategic weight, as no single party has secured a majority. This positions the KIU as a potential kingmaker or a divisive force in shaping the dynamics between the KDP and PUK within the Kurdistan Region's parliament.
At its heart, Telegram is little more than a messaging app like WhatsApp or Signal. But it also offers open channels that enable a single user, or a group of users, to communicate with large numbers in a method similar to a Twitter account. This has proven to be both a blessing and a curse for Telegram and its users, since these channels can be used for both good and ill. Right now, as Wired reports, the app is a key way for Ukrainians to receive updates from the government during the invasion. But Telegram says people want to keep their chat history when they get a new phone, and they like having a data backup that will sync their chats across multiple devices. And that is why they let people choose whether they want their messages to be encrypted or not. When not turned on, though, chats are stored on Telegram's services, which are scattered throughout the world. But it has "disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments," Telegram states on its website. Individual messages can be fully encrypted. But the user has to turn on that function. It's not automatic, as it is on Signal and WhatsApp. The picture was mixed overseas. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.6%, under pressure from U.S. regulatory scrutiny on New York-listed Chinese companies. Stocks were more buoyant in Europe, where Frankfurt’s DAX surged 1.4%. Right now the digital security needs of Russians and Ukrainians are very different, and they lead to very different caveats about how to mitigate the risks associated with using Telegram. For Ukrainians in Ukraine, whose physical safety is at risk because they are in a war zone, digital security is probably not their highest priority. They may value access to news and communication with their loved ones over making sure that all of their communications are encrypted in such a manner that they are indecipherable to Telegram, its employees, or governments with court orders.
from pl
