★ Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu from the main opposition Republican People's Party has commissioned a report on his party's election failure in collaboration with think tanks, wrote daily Cumhuriyet columnist Barış Terkoğlu.

  The report first summarized a profile of the voters that voted for each candidate:

  President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received the votes from:

• 70% of woman with head scarves
• 62% of people without much education
• 62% of religious people
• 61% of housewives, and
• 58% of nationalists.

  Opposition candidate, Mr. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu received from:

• 52% of students,
• 58% of college graduates,
• 58% of Kemalists,
• 34% of religious people, and
• 35% of nationalists.

  The report says Mr. Erdoğan's campaign set the election agenda and claimed that the opposition would not be able to govern Turkey. It also made allegations that the opposition is collaborating with the terrorists.

  The report states that the opposition should have emphasized that the election is about choosing between a poor, oppressive, and authoritarian versus a fair and democratic Turkey.

  It also points out that reaching out to individual voters was inadequate.

  On June 14, a Republican People's Party statement said that Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu fired all his advisors after the election loss. He has 40 of them. News reports say that he will appoint new ones.

★ Hüseyin Kayıkcı, an official from Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate, says graduation ceremonies evoke eroticism with dances and clothes disregarding religious and national values.

  He called on the state to intervene.

★ In Turkey, people who expressed trust in the news "most of the time" has decreased by one point to 35 percent compared to the figures recorded in 2022, according to the recently released 2023 Digital News Report, reports the Turkish daily Duvar.

  Prepared by Oxford University in the United Kingdom and the Reuters Institute, the report shows that 40 percent of the respondents worldwide said they trust the news most of the time, decreasing two percentage points from 2022.

  According to the respondents, Fox TV, with the largest offline reach in Turkey, is the most trusted news source. Unlike its U.S. counterpart, Fox TV in Turkey is a liberal channel.

  Another news outlet known for its oppositional stance, the left-leaning daily Cumhuriyet, also scored high on trust.

  The share of printed formats as a news source has fallen from 50 percent in 2015 to 21 percent in 2023. Online news sources, including social media, declined but remained the top news source at 75 percent. The share of TV as a news source declined from 75 percent to 56 percent.

★ On June 16, newly-appointed Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek held a three-hour meeting with executives of Turkish banks that are members of the Banks Association of Turkey, the daily Duvar reports.

  After the meeting, Mr. Şimşek told journalists that the Turkish economy and banking sector were on the agenda of the meeting.

  He said that, within the framework of the new program, they would talk with all segments of the public, business and finance sector leaders, and unions.

  He added that they would use a model that would increase investments, exports, production, and employment to increase the incomes of the public.

  On June 15, one day before Şimşek's remarks, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signaled Wednesday that he would let his new economic team hike interest rates to combat inflation and stabilize the lira, reversing an era of unconventional policies, Agence France-Presse reported.

  But the Turkish leader, who once called high rates "the mother and father of all evil," added that people should not assume that he had made a "serious change" in his views.

  President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hinted at a potential increase in the minimum wage following ongoing negotiations and signaled that he would not prevent Mehmet Şimşek's expected interest rate hike decision.

★ Bloomberg economist Selva Baziki calculated that Turkey's Central Bank had sold approximately 199 billion dollars in foreign currency from December 2021 to the end of May 2023 as part of their backdoor interventions to maintain stable exchange rates, reports the Turkish daily Duvar.

  In her social media post, Baziki stated that this amount means the central bank sold approximately 12 billion dollars per month. With the possible impact of the elections (which occurred in mid-May), she estimated that the total for April-May would reach 52 billion dollars.

★ Turkish Tourism sector representatives say that the unstoppable inflation in Turkey has also caused foreign tourists to prefer other countries.

  With the spiking inflation, the cost of expenses of hotels doubled in Turkey, reflected in accommodation prices. According to reporting by business news outlet Ekonomim, going on a vacation in Turkey costs the same price as in Greece but is more expensive than in Spain.

  In the face of these prices, tourism sector representatives have warned that Turkey might lose considerable Russian tourists this year, as they are more inclined to make their reservations at the last minute, making the vacation prices higher.

  Taras Kobyshchanov, vice president of the Russian Tour Operators Association, has said that 5.2 million Russian tourists came to Turkey last year. However, this number might decrease to 4 million this year.

  According to the U.K. Consumers' Association, the cheapest weekly hotel package is in Spain at 639 pounds. Turkey follows this list in second place with 800 pounds, while Greece is in third place with 867 pounds.

★ The 30th Istanbul Jazz Festival is getting ready to say #jazztogether for the 30th time

  The countdown has begun for the Istanbul Jazz Festival, which brings together the month of July with music. Organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts with the sponsorship of Garanti BBVA, the Istanbul Jazz Festival will celebrate its 30th anniversary with a program full of popular and new names between July 7 and 19. At the festival, more than 200 local and foreign artists, from renowned masters to discoveries, will be with the audience in nearly forty concerts.

  For the program of the 30th Istanbul Jazz Festival is >> here <<

★ On June 16, Istanbul State Theater started staging the timeless stories of an old inn and its colorful tenants in Beyoğlu with the musical Tangopera at Atatürk Cultural Center.

  The play will end on June 18.

★ Turkish Journalists Association and Press Museum are celebrating their anniversaries with an exhibition.

  The Collection Exhibition, organized for the 77th anniversary of the Istanbul-Turkish Journalists Association and the 35th anniversary of the Press Museum, met with journalists and art lovers.

  The exhibition includes paintings by famous Turkish painters donated to the Press Museum between 1989 and 2023.

  It features paintings and drawings by Abdi İpekçi, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Cemal Nadir, İbrahim Balaban, and Elif Naci.

  I The exhibition will continue until July 14.

★ Turkish Chef Ebru Baybara Demir won the 2023 Basque Culinary World Prize. Gastronomy experts refer to the prize as the Nobel of Gastronomy.

  The organizers had 1000 chefs from different countries as nominees, and they evaluated 700 chefs.

  Ms. Demir became the first Turkish female chef to bring this award to Turkey. Chef Demir contributed to cultural integration while supporting social development and biodiversity with remarkable gastronomy projects in Turkey's southeastern Mardin city.

  In addition to the support work that started after the devastating earthquake in February 2023, Ebru Baybara Demir has worked for more than 20 years to produce gastronomy-oriented solutions to many issues with her projects focused on refugee integration, the impact of climate change on the soil, and social development.

★ The documentary film "Being Arif," the story of Arif Develi, the patriarch of the 111-year-old Develi Restaurants, met with the audience with a gala attended by the gastronomy, press, society, influencer, business, and sports world.

  The event, in which the veteran of Turkish pop music, Erol Evgin, also gave a concert, took place at Istanbul's Zorlu PSM.

  Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Fatma Şahin was among the guests of the evening. Arif Develi is originally from Gaziantep, and his restaurants serve dishes from there.

  In his speech, Ms. Şahin emphasized the success story of Arif Develi and the importance of the Develi brand.

★ The most refined and elegant examples of Japanese food culture from a Michelin chef at Sankai by Nagaya Bebek Hotel.

  Japanese omakase restaurant Sankai by Nagaya, designed in partnership with Michelin-starred chef Yoshizumi Nagaya, welcomes its guests at Bebek Hotel by The Stay.

  Built by combining two rooms on the hotel's third floor, the restaurant has seating for only 24 people. It combines traditional Edomae-style sushi and Kaiseki cuisine with omakase (chef's choice) tasting menus and serves on plates that qualify as works of art.

  Kaiseki cuisine is a staged presentation style combining traditional values and fresh seasonal ingredients. It emphasizes the concepts of harmony, balance, and craftsmanship. On the other hand, Edomae describes the sushi style prepared with daily fish from the bay of Edo, the old name of Tokyo.

★ be Premium Bodrum continues to host Michelin-starred chefs who have shaped the world cuisine with their passion and unique recipes in July and August.

  Italian Chef Paolo Griffa from Italy Floriano Pellegrino, Portuguese Joao Rodrigues, Spanish Diego Guerrero, and Argentinian Pablo Rivero will start presenting their menus at Notias Restaurant in Be Premium from the beginning of July.

  Hosting Michelin-starred chefs for the first time in 2022, Be Premium Bodrum was deemed worthy of the "Best Public Relations Event" award in Ace of Mice 2023 with this event.

  If you are wondering what the Ace of MICE Exhibition is:

  It is an international meeting and event industry exhibition organized by Turkish Airlines in Istanbul, Turkey, since 2014.

  The event brings together professionals from the meetings, incentives, conferences, and events (MICE) industry, including event planners, organizers, suppliers, and venues.

★ Chef Vittorio Sindoni started to present the summer Italian menu at Da Vittorio, located on the roof of Mövenpick Hotel Istanbul Bosphorus.

  The new menu includes many flavors: homemade tagliatelle with Pecorino cheese and special sauce, warm Catalan-style shrimp, and sea bass with lemon sauce.

Ankara, in central Turkey        : 75/61 Thunderstorms
Antalya, on the Mediterranean    : 79/68 Thunderstorms
Erzurum, in Eastern Turkey       : 75/50 Thunderstorms
Istanbul, in northwestern Turkey : 81/68 Thunderstorms
Izmir, on the Aegean             : 79/64 Thunderstorms
Trabzon, on the Black Sea        : 75/68 Thunderstorms

Black Sea measured at Trabzon         : 67
Marmara Sea measured at Tekirdağ      : 68
Aegean Sea measured at İzmir          : 77
Mediterranean Sea measured at Antalya : 77