Kenya

Thousands of people will meet in Turkey's biggest city on Nov. 13 to run the Istanbul Marathon, the world's only road race where people can cross from Asia to Europe.

There is something about medieval castles that really intrigues many people. It could be growing up with all those Disney films of fairy tales and princesses, or the many Hollywood movies of heroic deeds by kings and knights that attract us to them. The irony is that these fairy tale castles were actually inspired by real castles.

President Tayyip Erdoğan's remarks on Oct. 29, in which he said reinstating the death penalty could be on parliament's agenda "soon," rekindled debates about the quality of democracy in Turkey and also put the country's position in further jeopardy vis-a-vis European institutions.

A Turkish entrepreneur has established an official betting system particularly for camel and horse races and sporting competitions in Ghana, with his company reaching 100,000 people on a monthly basis and creating 2,000 jobs. 

Gudeta Biratu of Ethiopia won the 33rd edition of the International Sofia Marathon held in Bulgaria's capital on Sunday.

With a time of 2 h 15 min 46 s, he has run the 41.195 km distance nearly a minute faster than Samuel Demie, his predecessor in 2015 who also won the race and also came from Ethiopia, thus achieving the third-best time since the event was first held.

The Turkish government donated vital pediatric medical equipment worth millions of Kenya shillings to a hospital in central Kenya on Sept. 19.      

Donated by the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TİKA), the equipment is set to help in the treatment of newborns as well as help prevent infant deaths.      

The imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, is "in good health" and has called for an end to the Kurdish conflict, his brother said on Sept. 12 after visiting him in jail.

The Turkish Exporters' Assembly (TİM) has called for some 181 envoys and civil servants from 73 countries across the globe to talk about Turkey's devotion to democratic rule and robust economy in their countries and to boost cooperation with Turkey during a three-day meeting hosted in the Aegean province of Çanakkale on Sept. 2-4, the association said in a statement.

Just two days before President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrived in Somalia on June 3, the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organization al-Shabaab attacked a hotel in Mogadishu, the capital of the country, killing at least 15 people. Most strikingly the Ambassador Hotel is where Erdoğan and his delegation had stayed in their previous visit to Somalia.

Rescue workers pulled a six-month-old baby girl out of the rubble of a building in Kenya's capital on May 3 and reunited her with her father, more than three days after it collapsed following days of heavy rain.