“A Kabul suicide bomber rammed a car laden with explosives into a vehicle belonging to Nato’s top envoy in Afghanistan, killing one Turkish soldier and wounding at least one person, Turkish officials said.
The explosion struck in the heart of the heavily fortified capital close to the German, Iranian and Turkish embassies, rattling windows and putting embassy staff on high alert.””
“Sharp criticism of the central bank by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan raised concern about the future of its governor and of respected Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan on Thursday, weighing on Turkish assets.
Babacan, who is in charge of the economy, met Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu for more than two hours late on Wednesday after Erdogan questioned whether the bank was under external influence and slammed its interest rate policy.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/26/turkey-cenbank-markets-idUSL5N0W028320150226
“During his visit to Ankara in December 2014, Vladimir Putin announced that South Stream—a large pipeline that would have carried Europe-bound Russian gas under the Black Sea and across Southeastern Europe—had been terminated. A major reason for South Stream’s cancellation was attributed to the exit from the project of Bulgaria, one of the key countries through which this pipeline would pass. Instead, Russia and its regional partners, including Turkey, are now discussing a new pipeline project—Turkish Stream, sometimes referred to as Turk Stream.”
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Russia-Is-Not-Bluffing-With-Turkish-Stream-Project.html
“Turkey’s state-run news agency says a former police intelligence chief has been detained as part of an investigation into negligence by officials in the 2007 murder of an ethnic Armenian journalist.
Anadolu Agency says Ramazan Akyurek was detained Thursday in Ankara for the death of Hrant Dink.”
“The copyright in The Little Prince expired in most of the world at the end of last year (it has thirty more years to run in France because Antoine de Saint-Exupéry died in the Second World War, ‘Mort pour la France’). In the first two weeks of January, more than thirty Turkish publishers released translations of the 1943 novella. Between them they bought 130,000 bandrols, holographic stickers required for every book sold in Turkey.”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2015/02/26/kaya-genc/turkish-versions-of-the-little-prince/
“Turkey’s ambassador to Britain and the chief executive of Turkish Airlines (THY) have been summoned to appear before British members of parliament over the disappearance of three British schoolgirls who traveled to Turkey and are believed to have crossed into Syria to join the extremist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Britain’s Guardian newspaper has reported.”
“Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a vision for a “new Turkey” where he would preside over the country and build a regional military, political and cultural powerhouse from his sprawling new $600 million presidential palace in the capital of Ankara.
But brawls in parliament over Mr. Erdogan’s proposal to give more power to the security services, growing charges of his authoritarianism and blowback over his perceived reluctance to confront the Islamic State militants have become hurdles in the way of Turkish leader’s lofty strongman ambitions.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/2_252015_mexico-turkey-98201jpg/
