News archive of October 2016

BELGRADE - French Ambassador to Serbia Christine Moro on Thursday awarded Belgrade Dance Festival Director Aja Jung with the Order of Knight of Arts and Letters.

British newspaper Guardian published an article entitled “Air quality worsens in Greece as recession bites”, focusing on the impact the economic crisis the country has been facing on the environment. The piece points out that thousands of Greeks are forced to use any material, even trash to keep warm as they are unable to afford conventional energy sources to keep warm.

Going to church on Sundays is generally associated to a solemn esoteric experience, with a choir chanting and in some cases the scent of incense permeating the gathering. But some of the younger members of these traditional congregations find this atmosphere very boring and unappealing.

At least 30,000 people have been left homeless following a powerful 6.5 magnitude earthquake that hit provinces in central Italy on Sunday, according to Italian media. Over 200 aftershocks have been recorded since Sunday, while hundreds of houses across the central part of the counter have been completely destroyed due to the earthquakes over the past 2 months.

The FBI has reportedly obtained a warrant to dig through hundreds of thousands of newly-discovered emails allegedly related to a private server used by Hillary Clinton. It’s unclear if the renewed probe will achieve any results before US Election Day.

Three Turkish companies that have cooperated on several large projects in the last decade have peacefully parted ways in the power distribution business, Limak Holding Chairman Nihat Özdemir told daily Hürriyet on the sidelines of Oct. 29 Republic Day celebrations at the Presidential Palace in Ankara.

A court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır arrested Gültan Kışanak and Fırat Anlı, the co-mayors of the province, late on Oct. 30 following their detention last week in the latest blow to opposition movements in Turkey.

President Tayyip Erdoğan's remarks on Oct. 29, in which he said reinstating the death penalty could be on parliament's agenda "soon," rekindled debates about the quality of democracy in Turkey and also put the country's position in further jeopardy vis-a-vis European institutions.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) head Devlet Bahçeli's recent move to revive the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) efforts for a presidential system has puzzled many, but journalist Kemal Can believes it is part of a bid to extend leverage over the government.

How many refugees are there in Turkey? What was the date when the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey passed the three million mark? Does Turkey have the capacity to absorb them? Will the country's "open-door" policy continue forever, turning it into a safe haven for refugees?