Turkey pulls 2 girls out of rubble three days after quake; death toll rises to 85

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ In what one rescue worker called a miracle, extraction teams brought two girls out alive on Monday from the wreckage of their collapsed apartment buildings in the Turkish city of Izmir, three days after a strong earthquake hit Turkey and Greece. Onlookers applauded in joy and relief as ambulances carrying the girls rushed to hospitals immediately after their rescues. The overall death toll in Friday’s quake reached 85 after teams found more bodies overnight amid toppled buildings in Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city. Close to 1,000 people were injured,…

Death toll rises to 39 as fighting between Armenia, Azerbaijan enters second day

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Armenian separatists in the breakaway region of Nagorny Karabakh said on Monday 15 more of its fighters have been killed in a flare-up of a territorial dispute, bringing the death toll to 39 as the fighting entered a second day. World leaders have urged a halt to the fighting between Azerbaijan and the Armenian rebels after clashes erupted on Sunday, raising the spectre of an all-out conflict that could draw in regional powers — Russia and Turkey. Ex-Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked since the early 1990s in a…

Turkey, Greece To Conduct Rival Exercises As Oil Tensions Rise

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COURTESY BY: https://www.bolnews.com/ Turkey and Greece have decided to conduct rival naval exercises off the Greek Island of Crete on Tuesday. The announcement comes after rising tensions over claims to gas and oil in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has also sent an official warning to other vessels. Germany is likely to send its Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to Athens and Ankara on Tuesday as it tried to decrease tension. The Minister is likely to meet Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis before negotiations in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart. According to…

Turkey Discovers A Natural Gas Reserve In The Black Sea, President Erdogan

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COURTESY BY: https://www.bolnews.com/ A Turkish drilling ship has discovered a natural gas reserve in the Black Sea, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters. According to details, he said that the drilling ship Fatih, which has been operating in the area since July, had found 320bn cu m (11.3 tr cu ft) of gas. Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that it was the biggest natural gas reserve Turkey has found. Turkey will be capable of importing less energy if it can extract the gas commercially. President Erdogan announced that all tests and engineering work…

Turkey Offers Lebanon To Restore Beirut’s Port And Destroyed Buildings

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COURTESY BY: https://www.bolnews.com/ ANKARA: Turkey has offered to restore Beirut’s port and destroyed buildings. According to the foreign news agency, Turkish Vice President ‎Fuat Oktay and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu met with the Lebanese President. The meeting also offered the use of the Turkish port of Mersin and an air ambulance to transport the injured to Turkey. Beyrut’ta meydana gelen patlamada yaralanan vatandaşlarımızın aileleri ile bir araya gelip, kendilerine geçmiş olsun dileklerimizi ilettik. Şartlar ne olursa olsun devletimiz vatandaşlarımızın daima yanındadır. pic.twitter.com/TRbS0cE4fE — Fuat Oktay (@fuatoktay) August 8, 2020 Turkish…

Turkey Passes Law To Regulate Social Media Content

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COURTESY BY: https://www.bolnews.com/ Turkey on Wednesday passed a controversial new law regulating social media to comply with any demands by the government to block or remove content. Under the new law by Turkey, social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter have to ensure they have local representatives in Turkey and to comply with court orders over the removal of certain content or face heavy fines. The legislation targets social networks with more than a million unique visits every day and says servers with Turkish users’ data must be stored…

Erdogan joins thousands to pray for first time at Hagia Sophia mosque in 86 years

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COURTESY BY: https://tribune.com.pk/ At special service for historic reopened mosque, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recites Surahs from the Quran TURKEY: Friday’s historic prayers in Turkey’s Hagia Sophia Mosque marked the first acts of worship there in 86 years. Thousands of people took part in the traditional Friday prayers both inside and outside the historic mosque in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest metropolis. Before the Friday prayers, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recited from the Quran inside the reopened mosque, choosing from both the Surah Al-Fatihah and the Surah Al-Baqarah. Later, four…

President Erdogan Visited Hagia Sophia After Its Reconversion To Mosque

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COURTESY BY: https://www.bolnews.com/ Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Hagia Sofia on Sunday just days before the first Muslim prayers are due to be held at the there. The President paid a visit for inspection, Erdogan took stock of the conversion work, providing pictures showing scaffolding inside the building. It was unclear whether Erdogan planned to be among some 500 worshippers set to attend Friday prayers. Turkey’s  top court paved the way for the conversion in a decision to revoke the edifice’s museum status conferred nearly a century ago. The…

Turkey’s Prez Erdogan says Hagia Sophia becomes mosque after court ruling

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COURTESY BY: https://www.hindustantimes.com/ President Tayyip Erdogan declared Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia open to Muslim worship on Friday after a top court ruled that the building’s conversion to a museum by modern Turkey’s founding statesman was illegal. Erdogan made his announcement, just an hour after the court ruling was revealed, despite international warnings not to change the status of the nearly 1,500-year-old monument, revered by Christians and Muslims alike. “The decision was taken to hand over the management of the Ayasofya Mosque…to the Religious Affairs Directorate and open it for worship,” the…

Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey lost ground in coronavirus fight

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COURTESY BY: https://www.hindustantimes.com/ President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday Turkey had lost some ground in its battle with the coronavirus but a focus on hygiene, masks and social distancing will protect people and help the economy rebound in the second half of the year. This month, Ankara opened restaurants and cafes and lifted weekend stay-home orders and most intercity travel bans. But since June 1 new Covid-19 cases have doubled to nearly 1,600 per day, raising concerns of a re-emergence. “The numbers in recent days show that we have lost…