All News from Balkans

Torbalı, one of Turkey’s spinach capitals, produces spinach that even ‘Popeye the Sailorman’ would approve, especially the spinach produced in the aptly named town Sağlık, Turkish for ‘health’ I think everybody has watched the stories of “Popeye the Sailorman” at least once in their life. I always loved this character that, after eating spinach, changed into a superman.

The Central Bank is not expected to change the interest rates in today’s last annual Monetary Policy Committee (PPK) meeting. Despite the expectation of a fall in inflation rates, markets are not predicting that the Central Bank will lower interest rates soon.

In some party conventions of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), banners in "Ottoman" are being hung.

One was not written in Ottoman. In other words, it was not Turkish written in the Arabic script, it was Arabic. Upon the warning of a former Cabinet Minister Nihat Ergün, it was taken down.

You already know a parliamentary inquiry committee has been formed to investigate four former Cabinet ministers within the context of the infamous investigation that is now closed; the one history has recorded as the “Dec. 17, 2013 investigation.”

The inquiry commission met Dec. 22, 2014 to reach a decision, but it was postponed to the meeting on Jan. 5, 2015. 

As the global economy has recently entered another crazy era with the plunging oil prices down to $60 per barrel, the Turkish economy is again in the middle of opposing trends; old and new “norms.”

By Sotiris Nikas

The work of the European Commission’s Task Force for Greece is to be completed at the end of February, with the formal completion of the bailout agreement, while a new European agency is expected to replace it.