News archive of May 2017

Hundreds of mourners gathered in central Athens Wednesday to pay their respects to Constantine Mitsotakis, the former conservative prime minister who died this week aged 98.

A public prosecutor in Diyarbakır has submitted a summary of proceeding for a main opposition lawmaker on terror charges, further increasing the number of Republican People's Party (CHP) deputies facing legal action.

An Istanbul chief public prosecutor filed an indictment on May 31 against a history magazine's chief editor for "insulting the memory of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk," the founder of modern Turkey, seeking from 1.5 years to 4.5 years of jail time, Doğan News Agency has reported.

The Parliament has approved rules for nomination, hearing and election of members of the judicial and prosecutors' bodies within the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), of the parliamentary quota, FOCUS News Agency reported.

The rules were unanimously approved with 103 votes in favour.

Aleksandar Vucic was on Wednesday sworn-in as Serbia's new president during a ceremony held at the National Assembly in Belgrade.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, has invested 15 million euros in equity of Turkish hospital group Acıbadem's Bulgaria unit, Acıbadem City Clinic, to give a further boost to the group's growth in the Middle East and Balkans and to improve healthcare services in Bulgaria, the parties said in a statement on May 30. 

Aleksandar Vucic has been sworn in as Serbia's president, telling his supporters that he will work on peace and stability in the Balkans, reported Fox News.

Vucic, a former ultranationalist turned self-declared pro-European Union reformer, formally resigned on Wednesday from his prime minister's post after winning presidential election by a landslide in April.

Greece has received interest for hydrocarbons exploration and exploitation in two sites off the island of Crete from a consortium of Exxon Mobil, France's Total and Greece's Hellenic Petroleum, the energy ministry said on Wednesday.

Russia's state news agency TASS on Wednesday reported about the change at the top of the Serbian state, focusing on the new president's speech.

Two workers are trapped after a coal mine collapsed in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak on May 30, Doğan News Agency has reported.

The collapse occurred in a mine run by a private firm in Zonguldak's Kilimli district at 8:30 p.m. on May 30. 

Tayfun Keskin, 34, and Volkan Köroğlu, 32, were trapped after the mine's roof collapsed 600 meters away from the mine's entrance.