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The satellite is due to be launched at 10:15 BST from ESA's Kourou station in French Guiana.

ESA's XMM-Newton observatory was launched in December 1999 from Kourou, French Guiana.

It follows a "successful" seven-minute-long, hot-fire test on the vehicle's main engine at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

Mr. Erdogan has been a pioneer in tapping the power of women in grass-roots politics in Turkey, said Nur Sinem Kourou, a professor at Istanbul Kultur University who has studied his party’s women’s groups.

“We have to protect him,” Ms. Kourou said, summarizing their views.