Congress

Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said Turkish negotiators would meet with representatives from Russia's Gazprom to discuss a gas discount for 2015 again Dec. 10.

"We are continuing to work to negotiate a bigger reduction in gas prices. Our target is to clarify the final price by the end of this month," Yıldız said at the signature ceremony for the Istanbul 2016 World Energy Congress.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Dec. 4 his resignation last week was not prompted by "major differences" with President Barack Obama, pushing back against statements that he had been fired or quit due to White House micromanagement.

Health Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu has claimed that Turkey will, by 2018, be the "only country in the world" with hospitals equipped with the most advanced technological equipment and buildings constructed using the latest technology.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are managing more than 600 modernization projects to address the challenges of the world's new security environment, Lt. General Alpaslan Erdoğan, chief of the Plans and Policy Division of the Turkish General Staff, announced late Dec. 3.

Turkey's main opposition party has engaged in self-criticism on the Kurdish peace bid process.

"We couldn't explain our suggestions to Kurdish people for the solution of the Kurdish problem. We were at fault, not you," the Republican People's Party (CHP) chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said at a party meeting extraordinarily held in the souteastern province of Diyarbakır on Nov. 29.

Turkish and foreign tourism representatives, banking executives, journalists and academics met yesterday to discuss future tourism trends at the International Resort Tourism Congress and the conference will continue today.

Social Democrat (PSD) senator Mircea Geoana said at the end of the party's National Executive Committee meeting on Thursday that PSD chairman and Prime Minister Victor Ponta proposed that he be expelled from the party, alongside Dan Sova and Marian Vanghelie.

An experimental Ebola vaccine appears safe and triggered signs of immune protection in the first 20 volunteers to test it, U.S. researchers reported Nov. 26.
     

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has resigned, U.S. officials said on Nov. 25, ending nearly two years in the Pentagon's top job after a bruising mid-term election that undermined President Barack Obama's Democrats in Congress.
   

It is time for Thanksgiving, the table of union and peace. The tradition began in 1621, when 51 newcomers to America hosted 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe. The event took place in the fall; the occasion was to celebrate a good harvest of corn. The celebrations lasted three days; among the food consumed were wild fowl (probably turkey) and five deer.