Guvecci: Syrian troops pushed to the Turkish border on Thursday in their sweep against a 3-month-old pro-democracy movement, sending panicked refugees, including children, rushing across the frontier to safe havens in Turkey. The European Union, meanwhile, announced it was slapping new sanctions on the Syrian regime because of the "gravity of the situation," in which the Syrian opposition says 1,400 people have been killed in a relentless government crackdown. Syrian...
01:03 AM, Jun 24, 2011
Thessaloniki: For nearly half a century, she raised a Greek flag every day at the border with Turkey - a simple act that elevated her to national status. A funeral service was held on Monday for 107-year-old Vasiliki Lambidou in the village of Marasia, located in the country's remote northeast. She died on Sunday. Lambidou had lived in the same house a few dozen yards (meters) from the Greek-Turkish border...
01:40 AM, Jun 21, 2011
An interesting exercise in the wired era is to type two words into Google search - 'Turkish' and 'model'. As one quickly sees, the world's commentariat has found common cause in proposing Turkey as the elixir for strife in just about every place between East Europe's Carpathian Mountains and the Hindu Kush. If only places like Bosnia, Egypt and Afghanistan could just be more like Turkey, the arguments go; implicitly...
10:58 AM, Jun 20, 2011
Beirut: An activist group says Syrian troops backed by tanks and firing heavy machine guns have entered a village near the Turkish border. The Local Coordination Committees, a group that documents anti-government protests, says troops backed by six tanks entered Bdama early on Saturday. The village is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Turkish border. On Friday, Syrian forces swept into Maaret al-Numan, a town on the highway linking...
02:48 PM, Jun 18, 2011
Amman: Thousands of Syrians have fled the historic town of Maarat al-Numaan to escape troops and tanks pushing into the north in a widening military campaign to crush protests against President Bashar al-Assad. In Turkey, which has been receiving thousands of Syrian refugees escaping military assaults, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan held talks on Wednesday with an envoy of Assad as Ankara pressed its southern neighbour to end military attacks n...
07:25 AM, Jun 16, 2011
ISTANBUL: Turkey's ruling party surged to a third term in parliamentary elections Sunday, setting the stage for the rising regional power to pursue trademark economic growth, assertive diplomacy and an overhaul of the military-era constitution. However, the Justice and Development Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan fell short of a two-thirds majority in parliament, a shortcoming that will force it to seek support for constitutional change from other political...
11:18 AM, Jun 13, 2011
Istanbul: Turkey's ruling party led by a wide margin in partial returns from parliamentary elections on Sunday, state-run television reported, setting the stage for a third term in which the government is expected to seek an overhaul of the military-era constitution. However, results indicated that the Justice and Development Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not heading for a two-thirds majority in parliament, a shortcoming that would force...
11:55 PM, Jun 12, 2011
Guvecci: More than 4,000 Syrians have fled to Turkey to escape a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad and thousands more are sheltering near the border, officials and activists said on Saturday. Fearing revenge from security forces for clashes in which authorities said 120 troops were killed this week, the refugees streamed out of the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour ahead of a military operation launched by the army...
09:40 PM, Jun 11, 2011
Oslo: Norway will scale down its fighter jet contribution in Libya from six to four planes and withdraw completely from the NATO-led operation by August 1, the government said on Friday. Defence Minister Grete Faremo said she expects understanding from NATO allies because Norway has a small air force and cannot "maintain a large fighter jet contribution during a long time." The announcement comes as the Obama administration puts pressure...
09:22 PM, Jun 10, 2011
Istanbul: Official Turkish websites were attacked by Internet vigilante group Anonymous on Thursday as part of a protest against what it says is government Internet censorship. With an election three days away, access to Turkey's telecoms authority website, identified as a main target in the protest against a planned new Internet filtering system, was blocked as planned at 6 pm (1500 GMT). While authorities worked to limit the disruption, other...
01:06 PM, Jun 10, 2011
Tripoli, Libya: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, increasingly cornered under a stunning upturn in NATO airstrikes, lashed back with renewed shelling of the western city of Misrata on Wednesday, killing 10 rebel fighters. The international alliance said it remained determined to keep pounding Gadhafi forces from the air, but would play no military role in the transition to democratic rule in oil-rich North African country once the erratic leader's 42-year rule...
03:38 AM, Jun 09, 2011
Brussels: US officials say Defence Secretary Robert Gates pointedly prodded five allied nations on Wednesday to share more of the burden of the NATO-led air campaign against Libya. They say none committed to do more. Officials say Gates used his final NATO meeting before retirement to press Germany and Poland to join the military intervention, and Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands to contribute to strike missions against ground targets. The...
01:15 AM, Jun 09, 2011
Ankara: A 5.9-magnitude earthquake rocked western Turkey, shattering windows, damaging old buildings in one town and killing two people, authorities said. The Istanbul-based Kandilli Observatory said the quake in Kutahya province occurred at 23:15 pm (local time) on Thursday and was centred in the town of Simav. Governor Kenan Ciftci of Kutahya province said that one person died in Simav after jumping out of window in panic. Ciftci, however, said...
06:52 AM, May 20, 2011
Tripoli: Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi are staging a "massacre" in the besieged city of Misrata, evacuees said on Monday, as Turkey said it was trying to broker a ceasefire to halt the bloodshed. A government spokesman said Libya was ready for a "political solution" with world powers. He said the country was ready to discuss political reform, but Gaddafi had to stay. Libyan TV showed Gaddafi saluting...
08:07 AM, Apr 05, 2011
Ankara: Turkey plans to build a coastal nuclear power plant close to an earthquake-prone area; dismissing neighbors' fears that Japan's nuclear disaster shows that the new plant could be a risk to the whole Mediterranean region. Greece and Cyprus say the move is a gamble that could cause catastrophe and want the European Union to scrutinize the EU candidate's plan in a debate fraught with political and historical baggage. Turkish...
03:01 PM, Apr 02, 2011
Antalya: Security cameras in Turkey have recorded the sight of a baby crawling onto a highway and startling drivers, who waved frantically to other motorists to get out of the way. The miraculous part of the story was the baby survived. The video footage from the incident on Thursday was taken in the southern town of Antalya and shown on Turkish television channels. It shows a baby crawling out of...
12:49 PM, Sep 18, 2010
Seattle: Google Inc's legal chief called for pressure on governments that censor the Internet, such as China and Turkey, arguing that their blocking access to websites not only violates human rights but unfairly restrains US trade. The remarks, by Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, mark a new economic theme in the Web company's campaign for an unrestricted Internet, and may inflame a touchy relationship with China, after the company...
11:20 AM, Sep 09, 2010
Turkey tightened a ban on YouTube and has cut public access to a host of Google-owned sites. ...
02:31 AM, Jun 26, 2010
Turkish warplanes launched air raids at suspected Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq on Saturday. ...
07:15 AM, Jun 20, 2010
A report says Turkey may halt military cooperation with Israel and may not send back its envoy to Tel Aviv. ...
06:03 PM, Jun 16, 2010
