Ukraine

A Palau-flagged dry cargo ship sank off the coast of Turkey's Black Sea province of Bartın on Jan. 17, according to an official.

Rescue workers managed to save six crew members and reached the body of one other on the Arvin, which sank off the coast of Bartın province, said Bartın Governor Sinan Güner.

"Six people were rescued from the cargo ship," provincial governor Guner said, as reported by TASS, referring to Anatolia.
In the meantime, bad news arrived, as Governor Sinan Guner announced that four people from the ship were killed and that their bodies were found.

Ukraine has dismissed an offer by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik to return a disputed icon to Ukraine if it can first prove that it sought the icon, before Dodik gave it to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in December.

Epirus in northwestern Greece, the Ionian Islands and the Aegean islands are currently the only green areas in Europe, according to a revised map published on Thursday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) charting the spread of the coronavirus.

Security experts in Moldova are raising questions about the resilience of the country's cyber defences after a massive operation at the European level, to which Moldova contributed, uncovered and closed the biggest DarkNet website selling drugs, stolen credit card data and malware.

Turkey is pleased to see the safe return home of four Ukrainian sailors from Libya, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Jan. 9.

"My treasured friend @ZelenskyyUa [Volodymyr Zelensky], we are pleased that Ukrainian sailors have returned home safe and sound," he said in reply to the Ukrainian president's Friday tweet thanking the Turkish leader.

Çağla Büyükakçay, one of the three Turkish players competing in the 2021 Australian Open's qualifying stage, won her first game on Jan. 10 to advance to the second round.

Büyükakçay, world number 178, beat 15-year-old Andorran Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva 6,4-6,4 in Dubai.

She will next play Ana Konjuh of Croatia, who won 6-2,-67-6-4 against Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany.

Three Turkish tennis players will compete in the 2021 Australian Open's qualifying stage with drawings for the first round in the men's and women's category held on Jan. 9.

Çağla Büyükakçay and Pemra Özgen will be on court to play in the first round in the women's competition.

Cem İlkel will appear in the men's qualifiers.

The qualifying phase will be held Jan. 10-13.

The Turkish government has ratified several separate international agreements with seven countries in areas of sports, health, and air transportation, according to Official Gazette on Jan. 7. 

A cooperation agreement between Turkey and Montenegro in the area of youth and sports was signed on Oct 4, 2019, and ratified on Thursday at the Turkish Official Gazette.

The US State Department expressed its strong opposition to the Turkish-Russian TurkStream gas pipeline saying that together with the Nord Stream 2 they undermine the European energy security and serve only the Russian interests.