★ The campaign for Turkish local elections on March 31 is continuing in full force.

  Here are some headlines about the elections in the news:

  - Daily Duvar: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went to Turkey's eastern Van Province for the Justice and Development Party mayoral candidate's rally in the city center. Security officers blocked off major avenues to make way for Erdoğan's security fleet and paralyzed life.

  - Bianet: Fatih Erbakan, the leader of the New Welfare Party, wanted a rally at the Republic Square in Elazığ City in Eastern Turkey, where President Erdogan previously held one. However, the provincial administration told Erbakan he could not have his rally there because the square is not a designated "rally area."

  - Bianet: 1.3 million young people who have reached the age of 18 will cast their votes for the first time in this election.

  - Daily Cumhuriyet: Murat Kurum, the ruling Justice and Development Party's candidate for Istanbul mayor, said on TV, "We are humans, we may make mistakes." Murat Kurum makes many blunders in his speeches.

  - Hürriyet Daily News: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged ongoing support for local governments while leveling accusations of "dirty dealings" against the opposition during a rally in eastern Turkey on March 14.

  - Daily Sözcü: Ankara Metropolitan Municipality (ABB) Mayor and Republican People's Party Ankara Candidate Mansur Yavas said at the opening of the Sokullu Election Coordination Center, "This election is so important, and the lesson you will give at the ballot box will be a big lesson for the price increases that will come after April 1."

★ Turkey's opposition Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party has named jailed Kurdish politician Gültan Kışanak and Öztürk Türkdoğan as its Ankara co-mayoral candidates.

  In an interview with the daily Duvar, Gültan Kışanak said portraying the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party as "an enemy" condemns the government and the opposition to radical nationalism.

  According to Duvar, the campaign team established for Ms. Kışanak has been working intensively. Kışanak has also been working on the campaign with political prisoners in Kandıra Prison.

  Ms. Kışanak says her candidacy cheered political prisoners.

  See the full interview >> here <<

★ According to Al-Monitor, Iraq's National Security Council banned the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, which has been waging an armed campaign against Turkey.

  After a high-level security meeting in Baghdad attended by Turkey's foreign affairs and defense ministers and the intelligence chief, a joint Iraqi-Turkish statement disclosed the ban.

  Al-Monitor adds that the Kurdistan Workers Party, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and the European Union, has its headquarters in the mountains of northern Iraq, across the Turkish border.

  Read more: >> here <<

★ According to the Study Travel website, young adults from Turkey show a strong desire to study abroad and increasing preferences for higher education destinations. However, funding and access to work remain potential barriers, according to a new survey.

  Turkish young adults prefer the United Kingdom as the most preferred destination, followed by Germany and the US.

  Read the details >> here <<

★ According to Al Jazeera, a migrant boat sank off Turkey's Aegean coast, killing at least 22 people, including seven children.

  The migrants were traveling on a rubber dinghy, which capsized.

★ Turkish animal-rights activists were outraged by the release of İbrahim Keloğlon, a man who tortured a cat to death. In a second trial, a court sentenced Keloğlan to a reduced sentence of 2.5 years. However, the court put him under judicial control measures, including a travel ban, and released him.

  The animal rights activists wanted a harsher penalty for the man to deter acts of animal cruelty.

★ According to Agence France-Presse, the Turkish Competition Authority concluded its probe into Italian company Ferrero for complaints from Turkish hazelnut farmers.

  Ferrero, the maker of the spread Nutella, told the Competition Authority it would resolve complaints of loan payments to hazelnut producers.

★ According to the Turkish daily Duvar, Turkey's Central Bank increased the maximum interest rate on credit card cash withdrawals from 4.42 percent to 5 percent.

  After the bank halted policy rate hikes in the run-up to the elections, this adjustment aimed at further tightening monetary policy.

  Hakan Kara, a former central bank chief economist, said it is a step in the right direction, albeit late.

★ The number of unemployed Turks increased by 85,000 compared to last month, reaching 3.2 million in January, according to official statistics, reports the daily Duvar. 

  Labor union DİSK reported that the number of broadly defined unemployed was 10.45 million in the same period.

  The seasonally adjusted (narrow-defined) unemployment rate was 9.1 percent, and the composite measure of labor underutilization (broad-defined unemployment) rate was 26.5 percent in January 2024, according to the state-run Turkish Statistics Institute's Household Labor Force Survey.

★ According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Turkey's arms exports doubled in 2019-2023 compared to 2014-2018, making the country the 11th biggest arms exporter globally.

  The first three on the list are the United States, France, and Russia. The combined exports of the US and Western European countries made up 72 percent of all arms exports in 2019–2023. 

  Turkey exported arms most to the United Arab Emirates at 15 percent, followed by Qatar (13 percent) and Pakistan (11 percent).

  On the other hand, Turkey's imports shrank by 29 percent from 2014-2018. It stands as the 17th largest arms importer. It imported the most from Spain, Italy, and Russia.

★ The proportion of women in the Turkish agricultural workforce dropped by 614,000, or 48.8% to 18.3% of the total employed. 

  Ömer Fethi Gürer, the opposition Republican People's Party Deputy, stated that women's participation in agricultural production supports rural areas' development and prevents migration. He also proposed that the government should cover women's social security premiums.

★ According to the NavalToday website, Turkey's first national frigate, TCG ISTANBUL (F-515), built by the STM Defense Technology Engineering company, has tested the first national MİDLAS Vertical Launch System.

★ The Turkish opposition says President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not a frugal man.

  He lives in a compound built for him for $1.2 billion a decade ago. It has 1150 rooms and costs over $360 million annually to operate.

  This week, the daily Cumhuriyet estimated what it cost to have the president go around with an army of bodyguards and hundreds of cars. The daily Cumhuriyet calculated that, in one day, it was as much as 492 minimum wages, or roughly $260,000.

★ According to William Mullane of USA Today, Istanbul became the hair transplantation capital of the world.

  Mullane says there are more than 100 excellent transplant hospitals in Istanbul. Patients from all over the world go there.

  It says medical professionals have years of experience and refined the process to provide excellent outcomes at affordable prices.

  After a hair transplantation operation, patients also get to see Istanbul.

★ Authoroties in Istanbul approved Odine, a Turkish telecom company, for an IPO, reports the website Telecom Paper.

  Odine said with the proceeds from the IPO, they will work to expand its international growth.

  The Odine website states that the company has been in business for over 20 years and has more than 170 global customers in 17 countries and 25 technology partners.

  Read more about the company >> here <<

★ The San Francisco International Arts Festival will have the ensemble Istanbul Connection on Sunday, May 12 evening.

  Connection is a Bay Area musical collective formed in 2015 when thirteen members of the hottest Balkan and Latin bands were gravitationally pulled to visit the city of Istanbul.

  In addition to Turkish tunes, the band also features Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Albanian music.

  Read the details >> here <<

★ Writing in the New York Times, Margaret Lyons says the Netflix Turkish series "A Round of Applause" offers a fresh and surprising vision of anxiety and alienation.

  She characterizes the series as "a surreal family comedy." She adds: "It is a vivid, imaginative depiction of family neuroses. The concept of sublimated despair is a pillar of contemporary television. But the show's surrealism is fresh and surprising, made even more so by the sense of creeping sameness of so many other shows right now."

  A Round of Applause follows Zeynep (Aslihan Gurbuz), her husband, Mehmet (Fatih Artman), and her son, Metin (played at various ages by Rezdar Tastan, Eyup Mert Ilkis, and Cihat Suvarioglu), though the show begins before his conception.

  On the Ready Steady Cut site, Jonathan Wilson wrote the following about the series:

  "I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that nobody who watches A Round of Applause will have ever seen anything quite like it before.

  "The Turkish Netflix series is a defiantly original and deeply metaphorical examination of parental anxiety, growing up, relationships, and more, all wrapped up in a formally daring production that frames each of Season 1's six episodes as an experimental vignette with a distinct concept."

  See the IMDB for more on the series and other reviews >> here <<

★ A therapy dog project, launched for the first time at Istanbul Airport, aims to offer a peaceful and pleasant traveling experience to passengers feeling stressed about flights with the support of their pawed friends.

  Under the pilot project, five specially trained therapy dogs started to work at Istanbul Airport.

  The trainers take the dogs around the airport to support passengers with positive energy.

★ After the first Turkish Airlines flight touched down in Australia for the first time in March, 7NEWS of Australia wrote about the company.

  7NEWS writes that there are many reasons why Australians should consider Turkish Airlines.

  One is that it flies to 130 countries, 30 more than the next biggest carrier. It allows free stopovers in Istanbul with accommodations.

  Read the original article with more details >> here <<

★ The German consulate in Istanbul started a painting exhibition for International Women's Day.

  The exhibition, dubbed Art About Women, features Gülin Hayat, a much-liked Turkish painter, and her five students. Some paintings are for sale, and the money raised will go to the Mor Çatı Women's Shelter endowment to help the women escape abuse.

  The consulate also says that they are encouraging art with exhibitions like this.

  The opening of the exhibition was also interesting. The German consular corps showed its musical talents and had a mini-concert. Even Johannes Regenbrecht, the consul general, participated in the performance by playing the flute.

  The photographs of the exhibit are on the German Consulate's Facebook page >> here <<

★ A 130-year-old tunnel, discovered by renovators in 2017 under a historic "han," is open to visitors. A han is an office and business building.

  The building, named Rumeli Han, commissioned by Saricazade Ragip Pasa, an Ottoman administrator, is part of three historic buildings in the area. The names of the other buildings are Anadolu and Afrika. 

  In their names, Rumeli, Anadolu, and Afrika represent the three continents in which the Ottoman Empire held sway. They are in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul.

★ Experts in ancient languages are translating a 2,100-year-old inscription discovered in the Gerger district of Adiyaman in eastern Turkey. A military helicopter retrieved the inscription from a cliff and transported it to the ancient city of Perre.

  Margherita Facella, a professor at the University of Pisa in Italy, and Charles Crowther from Oxford University traveled to the city and examined the work. Ms. Facella said that the inscription includes a statement by Commagene King Antiochos I.

  Villagers found the inscription on the face of the hill next to a relief depicting Kings Antiochos I  and Mithridates I of the neighboring  Parthian Empire.

★ Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest known evidence of body perforation in skeletons dating back 11,000 years at the Boncuklu Tarla excavation site in southeastern Turkey.

  Furthermore, analysis reveals that only adults had body piercings, indicating that the prehistoric custom might be associated with coming-of-age rituals.

  For more information about the find, read the article published in the journal Antiquity >> here <<

★ The Ayakapı Bath, a deserted Turkish bath that renowned architect Sinan of the Ottoman Empire built in 1582, is up for sale for $2 million, reports the daily Duvar.

  The bath has an unrivaled view of the Golden Horn, adds the daily Duvar.

  Mehmet Dilbaz, a Turkish historian and writer, says that the bath is a very important structure since it was the last work of architect Sinan before he died in 1588.

  He adds that once the bath had many frescoes and decorations. However, after its privatization in 1957, the owner sold all of them, leaving barren walls.

★ According to the Associated Press, Ercan Aydinlik, a 36-year-old man, launched a service to rent goalkeepers for mini-soccer teams.

  People do not want to be goalkeepers, and mini-soccer players find it difficult to form a team. There comes Aydinlik's company to rescue. He rents goalkeepers for $10 per match.

  Aydinlik has 160 people signed up as goalkeepers-four-higher. On the Internet, he has thumbnail photos and short bios of the goalkeepers that renters could see.

  Aydinlik's service is available in multiple cities in Turkey.