Constantinople

Director Guy Ritchie visits historical sites in Istanbul

British director and screenwriter Guy Ritchie on Feb. 28 visited Hagia Sophia mosque and Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.

The world-famous director is in Turkey for the shooting of his movie Five Eyes.

Ritchie, known for his productions, including Clash, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: Shadow Plays and The Gentlemen, toured Istanbul with his crew.

Heavy snowfall disrupts life in Istanbul

Heavy snowfall and cold weather conditions disrupted traffic and paralyzed daily life in Istanbul on Feb. 17.

According to the Metropolitan Disaster Coordination Center (AKOM), temperatures will rise to seasonal norms on Feb. 18.

"Snow thickness in the high and rural areas of the city reached up to 30 centimeters," said AKOM in a statement.

Heavy snow covers all of Istanbul on weekend lockdown

After moving in from Turkey's northwestern Thrace region, cold weather coming from the Balkans finally arrived in Istanbul on the weekend, which coincided with a curfew imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By Feb. 14 midnight, much of the city was covered in white as the Asian districts of the 16-million metropolis were last to receive heavy snowfall.

Population hits 83.6 million, growth rate nosedives

Turkey's population hits 83.6 million as of the end of 2020, while the population growth rate nosedived from 13.9 per thousand in 2019 to just 5.5 per thousand in 2020, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) announced on Feb. 4.

Some 459,000 were added to the country's population in 2020, according to TÜİK's Address-Based Population Registration System (ABPRS).

Yale’s Frank Snowden on how this pandemic, like others, is changing history

If 2020 had been coronavirus-free, it would have been difficult to envision a Donald Trump defeat or to see the global economy operating under strict statist control fueled by printed money. These are only two developments that are bound to cause a kind of lasting change that has not yet been fully realized.

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