News archive of December 2016

Turkey's main stock exchange, Borsa Istanbul, has become the first institution to convert all of its cash assets into the Turkish Lira a few hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on people and institutions to back the struggling currency against the U.S. dollar.   

Turkey's prison population rose by nearly 12 percent in 2015, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said on Dec. 2.      

The number of prisoners stood at 177,262 by the year's end, an 11.7 percent rise on 12 months earlier. These numbers do not account for the huge rise in inmates in the aftermath of Turkey's failed military coup attempt of July 15.

The scope of the toll the six-week old battle for Mosul has taken on Iraqi forces emerged Dec. 1, with U.N. figures showing that around 2,000 had been killed in fighting last month alone, while 926 civilians were also killed in fighting in the past month.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş has said there are registries of aircrafts that flew over the region where Turkish troops were hit in northern Syria on Nov. 24, and the truth would be eventually understood, hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied either Moscow's or Syria's involvement in the strike.  

KFOR's biggest investment in Kosovo, a new bridge over the Bistrica River worth EUR 400,000, was open to traffic on Friday.

In an attempt to prevent Kosovo PM Isa Mustafa from attending the ceremony in northern Kosovo, Serbs blocked the Pristina-Raska road near the town of Zvecan earlier in the day.

French President Francois Hollande dramatically announced Dec. 1 he would not seek re-election next April at the end of his five-year term as he bowed to historic low approval ratings.

The withdrawal means the 62-year-old Socialist will be the first president of France's fifth republic, founded in 1958, to quit after just one term.

Lately, renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has been more preoccupied with warning humanity what the future of Earth could be if it continues on its present trajectory than he has with scientific breakthroughs.

Thailand has a new king, with the country's crown prince formally taking the throne to succeed his much-revered late father, who reigned for 70 years.

Tens of thousands of Muslims poured into central Jakarta on Dec. 2, to protest against the city's governor, a Christian accused of insulting the Koran, fuelling tension that has alarmed Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
 

The name of the historic new "Eurasia tunnel" crossing under Istanbul's Bosphorus Strait will be be chosen through an online poll, Turkey's transport minister has said.