Financial crisis

Sharp swings in global financial markets in the past few days are not worrying since economic growth is strong but reforms are still needed to avert future crises, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said on Feb. 11.

Greece on Feb. 8 made another tentative return to markets with a seven-year bond, its first sale of the sort since the start of the economic crisis, officials said.

The world economy is facing the risk of a new financial crisis, warned German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, quoted by the electronic edition Politico. Global debt and the volatile borrowing market can push the world into new serious financial sector problems.

Another financial crisis is still possible, according to International Monetary Chief Christine Lagarde. She was commenting on a statement by US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who predicted she would not see another financial crisis in her lifetime.

Brazen Bulgarian gangs "terrorise the elderly and rob them over their life savings with increasingly aggressive phone scams nettling millions of euros," according to an AFP story.

Tactics used range "from impersonating police to hurt loved ones", according to the report carried by Daily Sabah newspaper.

Rising income inequality is seen as the top risk for the global economy in 2017, with reforms to market capitalism increasingly viewed as necessary to ward off a populist backlash, the World Economic Forum said on Jan. 11.

LONDON - As the world is preparing to leave 2016 behind as a year fraught with political surprises, financial crises and market volatility, governments and businesses including those in Turkey have started to set their eyes on what the next 12 months have in store for them politically and economically. 

Amid present-day meltdown in the Middle East, many are looking back to past generations to try to understand the roots of the problems. This search is particularly notable around the centenary of the First World War, when the current strained regional order took shape as a range of nation states emerged from the rubble of the Ottoman Empire.

Property prices that would have caused a buying frenzy had it still been the period before the financial crisis are now appearing in a number of upmarket areas of Attica, estate agency data show, while the uncertainty in the country's economy leaves no scope for any improvement in the market in the coming year either, real estate experts warn.

I should be the last person to write on economic matters, since it is neither my profession nor my passion. Nevertheless, none of us need to be experts nowadays to see that the prospects for Turkey's economy are rather dim.