News archive of October 2014

During a joint press conference in Paris with French President François Hollande on Oct. 31, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used the acronym DA’ISH, instead of ISIL to refer to the fundamentalist organization of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

According to the Ankara representative of daily Yeni Şafak, Abdülkadir Selvi, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the families of the victims who died in the coal mine accident in Ermenek: “I wish you had written a letter before and informed us of this in some way; we could have done what was necessary.”

Istanbul is hosting an unusual exhibition titled “Magnificent Century: The Great Exhibition” of costumes, decorations and accessories used in a popular Turkish television series on the life of 16th-century Ottoman Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent.

The 2nd Istanbul Design Biennial, organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), and curated by Zoë Ryan, opens on Nov. 1. The theme of this year’s edition is “The Future Is Not What It Used to Be.”

There has been a boom in the supply of cranes in Turkey with the rise in the construction sector. Housewives even buy and rent this equipment as an investment, according to sector representatives.

The Jihadist International is a growing phenomenon. Like the Communist International of the early 20th Century, this movement feeds on domestic inequality, and contrary to popular perception, its breeding ground is also in the West. The front-lines of the Jihadist International are made up of fighters foreign to our region.

The resistance in Kobane and the following protests on Oct. 6-7 in Turkey have confronted us with the weaknesses of the peace process in Turkey, as well as the new reality in the region.

The same reply comes whenever we ask why we need so many coal mines, so many hydroelectric power plants (HES) and so many thermic power plants: “We need a lot of energy.”

The day that was supposed to be celebrated as Turkey’s “Republic Day,” Oct. 29, was rather a time of mourning this time. Because Turkey had yet another horrific mine accident. In the south-central Anatolian province of Karaman, near the town of Ermenek, 18 miners suddenly got buried under hundreds of tons of water.

Last Sunday was a busy day: three elections, in three different continents, all of them offering at least the hope of better times.