Author: Belgin Hazan

All men in Russia are required to do a year-long military service, or equivalent training during higher education, from the age of 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree setting out the routine spring conscription campaign, calling up 150,000 citizens for statutory military service, a document posted on the Kremlin’s website showed on Sunday (31 March). All men in Russia are required to do a year-long military service, or equivalent training during higher education, from the age of 18. In July Russia’s lower house of parliament voted to raise the maximum age at which men can be conscripted to 30…

The U.S. military should reassess its force posture in Europe and reduce its reliance on revolving door-style unit rotations, a major think tank’s analysts concluded in a Monday report. The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ transnational threat team based their study on official documents, open-source materials and interviews with subject-matter experts. The report’s authors recommend that the Army abandon the rotational armor brigade deployment model that “eats up … the Army’s force structure and long-term readiness.” Currently, two armor brigades are deployed to Europe. Instead, the report said, the service should permanently station an Armored Brigade Combat Team in Poland to…

Following months of sky-high inflation, Turkey’s January Business Confidence report points towards a slowly improving situation. The Turkish Business Confidence numbers for January 2024 were released on Thursday morning, clocking in at 100.9 this month, above the one-year low of 99.1 seen in December. This was mainly due to finished goods stocks rising from 95.2 in the previous month, to 95.3 in January. Total orders also inched up to 85.1 from 83.8. To note, a score above 100 indicates an optimistic outlook to the economic activities while below 100 points to a pessimistic outlook. Furthermore, production expectations for the next…

The families of mobilized Russian soldiers on Thursday asked President Vladimir Putin to return their loved ones from the front in Ukraine, more than a year after the men were recruited. “We’re against legalized slavery,” said members of Put’ Domoi (“Way Home”), a group of soldiers’ wives and mothers calling for an end to mobilization, in a video address shared on the messaging app Telegram. Some 300,000 reservists were recruited to boost Moscow’s troop numbers in Ukraine as part of Putin’s “partial” mobilization drive that he announced in September 2022. Putin declared an end to the mobilization the following month but did not formalize it…

Nacho Sanchez Amor, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, said Ankara’s abrasive talk on foreign affairs was one of the main impediments to improving relations with Brussels. Turkey is seeking to simplify European visa access for its citizens and to update a 1995 customs agreement with the bloc that could help boost exports. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week recommended offering Turkey both in return for a series of concessions. These included Turkey clamping down on Russian sanctions evasion and progress on the issue of the divided island of Cyprus. Sanchez Amor added another condition on the last…

KHARKIV, Ukraine, Nov 17 (Reuters) – Faced with the constant threat of Russian air strikes, officials in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region have begun building heavily fortified underground schools that will allow children to safely return to in-person studies as Moscow’s invasion grinds on. Schools in the region of around 2.5 million people, which borders Russia, were forced into online learning after the Kremlin’s February 2022 invasion. Kharkiv is frequently targeted by Russian missiles, drones and artillery, with the governor reporting on Thursday that settlements in three different districts had been struck over the previous 24 hours. Two schools, each accommodating…

Rome (16/11 – 57) Sri Lanka is mired in a deep political and economic crisis and the country’s then President Rajapaksa has flown out of the country, days after a huge crowd of protesters stormed his residence in July 2022. Protesters for months have demanded the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose government has been blamed for chronic mismanagement of the country’s finances. The island nation of 22 million people has suffered months of lengthy blackouts, acute food and fuel shortages, and galloping inflation in its most painful downturn on record. Here is how the crisis unfolded: April 1: State of emergency Rajapaksa declares a temporary state of emergency, giving security forces sweeping powers to arrest and…

Socrates is the most important exponent of Western philosophy, with his ideas forming a continuum from Ancient Greece to today’s Western thought. It has been said of Socrates that he “brought philosophy down from the stars to the earth,” because, thanks to his own personality, philosophers ceased to deal with natural phenomena and began to deal with man and society. In fact, many philosophers before Socrates dealt with political problems, while Democritus grappled with ethical issues. However, it was Socrates who advanced these issues by applying philosophical thinking to them. The reason that Socratic interests marked the history of philosophy…

In the recent Narkogüç-37 Operation targeting drug and stimulant substance dealers in the provinces of Istanbul and Bursa, 156 suspects were apprehended, according to Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. Yerlikaya emphasized their determination to cleanse the country of drug traffickers and dealers in a statement on his social media account. The Istanbul Provincial Security Directorate’s Narcotics Division, with the participation of 624 personnel in several Istanbul districts, including Avcılar, Bahçelievler, Başakşehir, Bayrampaşa, Beyoğlu, Esenyurt, Eyüpsultan, Güngören, Kağıthane, Küçükçekmece, Üsküdar, Ümraniye and Şişli, conducted simultaneous operations at 96 addresses. Yerlikaya reported that 92 suspects were apprehended during these operations. Additionally, in Bursa,…

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak is expected to visit Türkiye accompanied by a large delegation Friday, according to a report Thursday. Novak, along with a 60-person delegation, is expected to engage in a series of meetings in Ankara, a report by a Turkish private broadcaster A Haber said. The agenda includes the talks on the proposed idea of setting up a natural gas hub in Türkiye and the grain agreement. The Kremlin last October floated the idea of creating a major gas-trading hub in Türkiye as Moscow worked to reroute its energy exports after European countries sharply cut their…