Anadolu Agency

Turkey plans to start vaccinating nearly 90,000 residents and workers at care and nursing homes and disabled care facilities against COVID-19 this week, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Authorities are also hoping to complete administering the first dose of the virus jab to the country's more than 1 million health care professionals this week.

Turkish authorities conducted nearly 38 million COVID-19-related inspections across the country between March 15 and Dec. 31, 2020, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Jan. 17.

According to data obtained by officials of the Interior Ministry, inspections started just after the first coronavirus case was reported in Turkey on March 11, 2020.

The Necmi Asfuroğlu Archaeology Museum, which has the museum-hotel concept and displays artifacts belonging to five different periods, has welcomed 22,500 visitors since its opening last year.

The Çermik district in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır, known for thermal tourism, aims to attract tourists looking for an isolated tourism site amid pandemic with its Twin Waterfalls and beautiful walking tracks.

Turkish citizen Safiya Kocaağa was honored by French authorities on Jan. 13 with the National Order of Merit for her efforts at a hospital during the early stages of the spread of the novel coronavirus in France. 

The Alanya Museum, where cultural assets belonging to the Neolithic and Hellenistic periods as well as artifacts from the Roman, Byzantine, Seljuks and Ottoman civilizations are on display, provides information about the ancient Anatolian civilizations.

Istanbul's residents have consumed anchovies, known more widely in Turkish as "hamsi," bonito and haddock the most in 2020, according to Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality data compiled by state-run Anadolu Agency.

Some 97 different fish species were brought to the main fish market in the Gürpınar neighborhood of the Beylikdüzü district, said municipality officials.

An Iranian movie production firm has chosen Turkey's Mediterranean tourism hub Antalya for three of its projects, citing the city's historical and cultural wealth.

The resort city also attracts filmmakers with its natural beauty, as well as, precautions that Turkey has taken against the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Turkey's Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK) on Jan. 12 launched an investigation into WhatsApp over its new data-sharing rules.

The American messenger application recently forced users to agree to new service and privacy terms that allow sharing of more personal data with Facebook, which owns WhatsApp.

Commemorated on the 57th anniversary of her passing on Jan. 9, 1964, Halide Edip Adıvar was a literary giant as the author of the first war novel in Turkish literature, as well as one of Anadolu Agency's founders.