Author: Belgin Hazan

In a rare trip abroad, Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to touch down in Johannesburg on Tuesday to attend a BRICS summit in the South African city that China’s state media is hailing as a grand new start for the Global South. The BRICS Summit will get underway on Wednesday with at least 40 heads of state and government joining South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, China’s Xi, India’s Narendra Modi and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will represent Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who is attending virtually due to the threat of arrest for alleged war crimes. In…

The construction of tourist facilities on two beaches that were part of the ancient city of Phaselis – a tentative nominee for Unesco world heritage status – has caused outrage at what is claimed to be the latest example of the Turkish culture ministry sacrificing heritage for tourism. The Alacasu and Bostanlık beaches, on Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast in the province of Antalya, were part of Phaselis, a Greek and Roman settlement thought to be the birthplace of Plato’s student Theodectes. Despite having ruins dating back to the second century BC, the beaches have never been subject to an archaeological dig. In…

BEIJING, August 5. /TASS/. The Chinese Embassy in Moscow has asked the Russian side to investigate the incident of ‘violation of rights’ of several Chinese citizens at the Russian-Kazakh border, according to the diplomatic mission’s WeChat page. It says that on July 29, the Russian side denied entry and canceled tourist visas of five Chinese citizens who tried to cross the border by car. They were allegedly interrogated for four hours. The competent Russian authorities, according to the embassy, denied entry to the Chinese citizens “because the purpose of their trip, indicated in the application for obtaining a visa, did…

ISTANBUL, Aug 7 (Reuters) – Turkey’s current account (TRCURA=ECI) is expected to record a rare surplus of $426 million in June due partly to tourism and lower energy bills, a Reuters poll showed on Monday, while the deficit was seen at $41 billion in 2023. The June estimate is based on the median response of 14 economists, whose poll forecasts ranged from a $1.1 billion surplus to a $1 billion deficit. Turkey’s trade deficit, a major component of the current account, declined 37.3% year-on-year in June to $5.16 billion, data showed. The median forecast of six economists for the current account deficit…

Ukraine has warned that it could target all shipping out of Russian and Russian-occupied ports and signalled its readiness to fight on the Black Sea, after Moscow’s declaration of a naval blockade and bombardment of Ukrainian ports. The defence ministry in Kyiv issued a statement saying that from midnight on Thursday, all shipping plying Russian-held ports “may be considered by Ukraine as such carrying military cargo with all the associated risks”. The announcement mirrored a threat from Moscow on Wednesday against all ships using Ukrainian ports. “The fate of the cruiser Moskva proves that the defence forces of Ukraine have…

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey will act to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership bid in conjunction with cooperation from Stockholm in the fight against terrorism, President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Friday as saying. Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, abandoning policies of military non-alignment that had lasted through the Cold War. Their applications must be approved by all members of the alliance. Having held up ratification of Sweden’s NATO bid for more than a year, Erdogan unexpectedly agreed after the alliance’s summit in Lithuania this month to forward it to Turkey’s…

Apart from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unconventional policy of cutting interest rates despite skyrocketing inflation, repeated earthquakes in Turkey have wrecked the nation’s creaking economy even further. Turkey’s already struggling economy has been hit by earthquakes, leading to a major crisis in the country, resembling the situation faced by the Ottoman Empire during and before the Great War or World War I. Then one of the most powerful empires in the world, the Ottoman Empire collapsed due to financial mismanagement and natural calamities, such as floods, corruption and huge debts forcing it to default on loans. Meanwhile, in the present…

If ever a country needed an International Monetary Fund (IMF)-supported economic adjustment program, it has to be Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey. It is not simply that his country has sky-high inflation, a gaping external current account deficit and a currency in seeming free fall. It is that the country’s foreign exchange reserves are depleted and Erdogan’s past economic policy mismanagement has left the country with a major investor confidence deficit. The IMF could help the country’s president, who won reelection late last month, set his economy in order, not least by helping to prevent a full-blown foreign exchange crisis. It could do so by boosting confidence through provision of desperately…

Brookline’s hottest Greek restaurant, Bar Vlaha, is booked out for roughly two months, but you can still grab a seat at the bar if you time it right. The intrigue: Bar Vlaha pays homage to the Vlach people, a nomadic group of shepherds. The restaurant cooks using charcoal and offers “the warmth of old-world hospitality to bring the roots of Greek culture to Brookline,” its website says. What to do: Bar Vlaha opens at 5pm every day. Pop in sometime within the first hour for a spot in the bar. Bring a friend, but I’d limit your party to two in case seats are…

On Sunday, Greece is preparing for an election to determine the governing party for the next four years. Despite polls indicating that the ruling New Democracy (ND) party is likely to win, the opposition remains optimistic about their chances of victory. Greece is gearing up for an election on Sunday to determine who will govern the country for the next four years, as the opposition remains optimistic about their chances of victory despite the polls indicating that the ruling New Democracy (ND) party is likely to win. In recent weeks, surveys have pointed to a rebound in the popularity of…