G-20

Two people were killed in flooding caused by heavy rain in the Black Sea province of Trabzon on Sept. 21 after rivers swollen by heavy rain spilled over their banks in the Beşikdüzü district.

Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said it had rained four times as much as normal.

A white stork, which was freed in Slovakia after a GPS tracker was attached to it, has died in the southern province of Mersin. 

Turkish officials said the animal was shot with a gun by hunters.

Turkish counter-terror police detained 40 foreign nationals in raids in Istanbul over their suspected links with Islamic State, of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Sept. 18.

Police carried out simultaneous raids to 23 addresses in Istanbul's Fatih district detaining suspects from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Azerbaijan.

Thousands of people bid farewell to Tarık Akan, a renowned Turkish actor who died of lung cancer at the age of 66 in Istanbul on Sept. 16, following a ceremony at the Muhsin Ertuğrul Theater on Sept 18. 

Three soldiers were killed and three others were wounded in clashes between security forces and outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in the rural parts of the Agacdibi village of central Hakkari province in eastern Turkey.

A young woman has been verbally and physically assaulted on a public bus on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday for wearing short pants, private broadcaster ShowTV has reported.

The 23-year-old woman was assaulted after she got onto the bus in the Maslak neighborhood of Istanbul on Sept. 12. 

Russian Chief of General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov on Sept. 15 met with Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar in Ankara, in a visit which signaled a new term of cooperation between the two countries as they worked to mend strained ties gradually.   

The chief of the Russian army's general staff, Valery Gerasimov, will visit Ankara on Sept.

"[President] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has proven to be a world leader. He mends fences with Russia. And now the U.S. is jealous. Did you see how [U.S. President Barack] Obama was looking at Erdoğan and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin during the G-20 Summit?" an elderly acquaintance recently said to me. 

"Who broke ties with Russia in the first place?" I asked. 

A starfish fossil has been found at an altitude of 1,200 meters in the southern Turkish province of Mersin's Bozyazı district, Doğan News Agency has reported. 

The fossil appears to prove that the Taurus Mountains were under the sea millions of years ago.

The starfish fossil was discovered in a rock, with locals saying there are many fossils of barnacles in the vicinity.