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The head of a Turkish business group that cut down thousands of olive trees in western Turkey to build a power plant before the gambit was foiled by the judiciary has accused the “natural gas lobby” of annulling the project.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkey’s Hizbullah, whose members are mostly Kurdish Islamists, have engaged in fresh street battles in a southeastern province near Turkey's border with Syria, killing at least three, more than two months after the clashes that led to the deaths of 36 people.

The other day, an interesting email dropped into my inbox. It included a scanned page from the Los Angeles Examiner dated Aug. 1, 1926.

Santa Claus is a citizen of Turkey – or he would have been if he was living today. In the third century, he was known as Saint Nicholas of Myra, today’s city of Demre in the province of Antalya. So he was one of us. Yet Santa brings no gifts to his fellow citizens this year. Instead, a pattern is now emerging around the Turkish economy for the year to come.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has publicly expressed regret over his once-friendly relations with U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, as he likened what he perceived as “betrayal” by Gülen and the Gülenist movement to being stabbed in the back.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has said as he was a “man of duty,” he would always wish to be in the service of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and contribute to Turkish politics.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed his opposition both to birth control, which he declared last week as “treason,” and abortions, an act that he has famously branded a “massacre,” in a similar vein to the killings of 34 villagers in Roboski three years ago.

Turkey’s renowned philosophy Professor Ionna Kuçuradi has reacted to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said the Turkish language is not suitable for the discipline, daily Cumhuriyet reported.

Mustafa Ali Tonbul (R) after his surgery with his father, Mehmet.
A 17-year-old high school student sentenced to three months in jail with four other teenagers by a Children’s Court for setting up tents during last year’s Gezi protests in İzmir has expressed his dismay for the ruling handed out Dec. 26.

A 16-year-old student arrested on charges of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been released pending trial following an objection filed by his lawyers after the case stirred national controversy.