News archive of August 2016

"The reaction of the West - or its lack of reaction - to the coup seems to have pushed you to a nationalist line," a friend told me after I complained about the Western media's reporting about the situation of the press in Turkey.
Asking the right question, and the way you ask it, is crucially important in "good" journalism. 

'Felatun Bey and Rakım Efendi, An Ottoman Novel' by Ahmet Mithat Efendi, translated from the Turkish by Melih Levi and Monica M. Ringer (Syracuse University Press, 176 pages, $14.95)

First, a short story taught in diplomacy, intelligence and management academies around the world, reflecting the tense situation in Syria:

The Zeus Lepsynos Temple from the 2nd century B.C. will be revived to regain its former glory, as archaeological excavations continue in the ancient city of Euromos in the western province of Muğla's Milas district. 

Airport charges per passenger will be reduced at the 14 airports that the Fraport-Sentel consortium is set to undertake this year, as well as all other airports operated by the state, according to state privatization fund TAIPED.

The latest data on consumption and exports point to the fact that the Greek economy has not yet developed the necessary momentum to break the recessionary cycle, despite government projections for an economic rebound in the second half of the year.

The mostly positive second-quarter results released by banks Alpha and Piraeus on Tuesday evening sent Greek bank stocks soaring on Wednesday, ahead of the announcements of results from National and Eurobank. The banks index jumped 12.43 percent and trading volume reverted to normal levels on the last day of a month that ended with gains of 1.06 percent for the market's benchmark.

Firefighters on Wednesday evening were trying to put out a large blaze that broke out early in the afternoon at a cooperative fruit juice factory in Nea Kios, a suburb of the northern Peloponnesian town of Argos, that spewed acrid black smoke into the air over a radius of several kilometers. [Vassilis Papadopoulos/Eurokinissi]

Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala has resigned, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım announced following an unscheduled meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan late on Aug. 31. 

Labor Minister Süleyman Soylu has replaced Ala and former Health Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu has replaced Soylu as labor minister, Yıldırım said.

As rumors abounded over the progress of a dramatic competition for four television broadcasting licenses that was still ongoing late Wednesday, bailiffs on Wednesday morning placed several injunctions against the process in the railings of the hermetically sealed and heavily guarded gates of the General Secretariat of Information and Communications (GGEE) in central Athens.