Turkey

Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook said his company opposed a demand from a U.S. judge to help the FBI break into an iPhone recovered from one of the San Bernardino shooters.

Cook said that the demand threatened the security of Apple's customers and had "implications far beyond the legal case at hand." 

An academic who was working at ?zmir University's Psychology Department was dismissed from his post without explanation on Feb. 17, after signing a recent peace petition calling for an end to security operations in the southeast.

Some 40 percent of the shops in Istanbul's leather exporting district, Zeytinburnu, have been closed down, leaving 3,000 people jobless, as the sector faces the risk to lose its largest market, Russia. The owners of the remaining shops have said their products were seized in Russia. 

New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with President of European Parliament Martin Schulz on Wednesday during his two-day visit to Brussels.

Refugee issue and the negotiations between the government and the institutions dominate the agenda of Mr. Mitsotakis meetings with political leaders in Brussels on February 17-18.

Turkey wants the establishment of a secure humanitarian aid strip 10 kilometers deep into the Syrian side of its border, including the town of Azaz, in order to prevent "attempts to change the demographic structure" of the area, Deputy Prime Minister Yalç?n Akdo?an stated on Feb. 17. 

The European Union's draft annual progress report slammed "the return to violence" by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey's southeast and called on all parties to recommit to the abandoned peace process, underlining there is "no violent solution" to the Kurdish question.

Over 30 percent of all adults in Turkey are considered to be "extremely overweight," according to a study conducted by the Health Ministry.

Thousands of Turks, like millions worldwide, experience the physical and emotional impact of obesity, according to professor Nazif Ba?r?aç?k, the president of the Turkish Association for the Study of Obesity.

Turkey's social security body will not fund cancer treatment medicines for patients diagnosed with lung cancer who have ever had a smoking habit, according to a new regulation that went into effect on Feb. 3.

The Social Security Institution's (SGK) new regulation requires people with lung cancer to pay for their own treatment medicines if they have a smoking habit.

Some 413 murders of women were reported by the Turkish media in 2015, the Umut (Hope) Foundation has stated in a new report, underlining that the trend has been increasing since the beginning of 2016.

The foundation called on Feb. 16 for NGOs to conduct comprehensive studies on the issue, which it described as a "mass murder of women." 

Greek Cyprus said on Feb. 16 it was planning a third offshore licensing round for hydrocarbons exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, moves which have triggered opposition from Turkey in the past.