Vowel letters

French economist and author Thomas Piketty’s blockbuster book launch in Turkey has witnessed a mini-crisis due to language issues.

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ has defended the new presidential palace’s much-debated cost by comparing the situation to the billiard table at the Pembe Köşk (Pink Villa), which was used by the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in the 1920s.

A group led by former Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin has taken the first step toward founding a new political party called the “Nation and Justice Party.”

Istanbul’s central district of Beyoğlu is whetting the appetite of investors, as around half of the 50,000 buildings in the city’s heart of entertainment and arts need to be renewed, Mayor Ahmet Misbah Demircan has said.

A forensic report on a graft probe started last year has said the transcribed documents and tape recordings of the telephone conversations between the high-profile suspects are consistent.

On the 100th anniversary of Turkish cinema, books have been published; symposiums have been held. I have read articles reflecting diverse views in some magazines. Thus, I preferred to compile several views about the history of the 100th year and its phases.

A donkey tied to a railway track in the Ulukışla district of the Central Anatolian province of Niğde narrowly escaped a tragic death on Nov. 17, when the operator of a running freight train noticed it at the last minute and managed to stop the train with only three meters to spare before hitting the animal.

“Ölüdeniz,” the last masterpiece by leading Turkish painter Ömer Uluç, who died in 2010, was sold for 950,000 Turkish Liras at the 283rd auction of the Antik A.Ş. Auction House held at Antil Palace.

The auction, which received great attention from collectors, offered works by leading contemporary Turkish artists.

Exceeding the opening price

Leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Öcalan could make a call for disarmament as of March 2015 if a consensus is reached in the Kurdish peace process with the Turkish state, co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtaş said in an interview Nov. 14.

At the Barbaros Square near the Beşiktaş ferry station, a neighborhood in central Istanbul, you should definitely go and see the world photographs exhibited in containers.

The name of the exhibition is “Cities and Stories.” It will be open until Nov. 18.