News archive of July 2016

In the last few years a lively debate has been taking place both inside and outside the walls of the Academy of Athens on whether the country's leading intellectual institution ought to open up more to society and, if so, how. While the French and Italian academies use Twitter as a means of reaching the younger generation, Greece's academy has yet to take advantage of new media.

Iraq's Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi has said that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leaders and their families have sold their belongings and fled Mosul as Iraqi forces close in on the northern city.

The top Turkish and American soldiers are set for their first face-to-face meeting since the July 15 failed coup attempt amid tension between the two NATO allies over the latter's suspected role in the coup attempt.  

Churches across France opened their doors to Muslims on July 31 to join in prayer with Catholics following the jihadist murder of a priest, the latest in a string of attacks.

More than 100 Muslims were among the 2,000 faithful who packed the Gothic cathedral of Rouen near the Normandy town where two jihadi teenagers brutally murdered 85-year-old Father Jacques Hamel.

Companies in Turkey have been banned from demanding any bankruptcy suspension as long as the current state of emergency continues, according to a new decree. 

More than 10,000 Syrians registered as new electricity users on the European side of Istanbul in the first half of the year, according to report prepared by an electricity provider in the region. 

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has described President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's one-time decision to withdraw all insult cases against him an "elegant move."

Bulgaria's Interior Ministry has recorded an increase in the number of migrants who cross into Bulgaria, news website Dnevnik.bg reports.

More than 500 migrants have been detained across the country over the past 7 days. Of these 120 have been arrested while trying to cross into Bulgaria from Turkey or Greece.

The Yemeni government said on July 30 it has accepted a U.N.-proposed peace agreement to end more than a year of armed conflict, but there has been no word from the rebels.

The announcement by the Saudi-backed government came after a high-level meeting in Riyadh chaired by Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.

Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer has widened his lead in a Gallup poll ahead of October's repeat election for the Austrian presidency. 

Hofer lost by a whisker in May to former Greens party leader Alexander van der Bellen in an election that Austria's constitutional court this month ordered re-run given vote count irregularities.