Eurasia

People seem to think that Turkey has changed in some basic way in the past couple of years, that the system of 80 million people somehow shifted its stance overnight to no longer be an integral part of Western civilization.

Turkey?s annual industrial production growth slowed to its lowest point in the last 18 months in November, official data revealed Jan. 8.

?Calendar-adjusted industrial production increased by 0.7 percent compared with the same month last year,? the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜ?K) stated in a report.

This is the lowest performance by Turkish industry since May 2013.

Turkey has a severe current account gap problem. The gap has recently decreased to 6 percent of the country's GDP, but this has mainly been caused by the plunge in oil prices. As Turkey is dependent on foreign sources in energy, its energy bill is now decreasing. But this is not the cure to the problem.

Russia's ambassador to the EU has called on the bloc to launch talks with the newly formed Eurasian Economic Union despite the Western economic sanctions against Moscow imposed over the Ukraine crisis.

OSCE "proved capacity to act in crisis-laden 2014"

VIENNA -- The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has proven its capacity to act in crises during 2014, Didier Burkhalter has said.

The Swiss foreign minister and OSCE chairperson-in-office added on Thursday that "further efforts" were needed to strengthen European security....

Koç University's Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (RCAC) has opened a new exhibition, "Propaganda and War, The Allied Front During The First World War," to mark the 100th anniversary of the Great War.

The exhibition displays selected historical objects and archival documents of Ottoman artifacts and memorabilia from World War I from the Ömer M. Koç Collection.

Almost half of Turks believe the economy will go bad in the next 12 months, yet very few of them think this will affect their household income negatively, according to an AvivaSA saving trends study conducted in 12 countries.

The most concerned people for their debts are from Turkey, but Turkish people also save some of the least money, said the study.

Dec. 16, 2014 was an important anniversary in Turkey's long and arduous road to the EU. Ten years ago on that day, the EU Council agreed that Turkey sufficiently fulfilled the Copenhagen political criteria and was ready to start accession negotiations with the EU for full membership.

Turkey supplies around one of every four sea breams and bass consumed in Europe, said Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker Dec. 23, adding that the country's fish exports have increased six-fold over the last decade.

The new, third consecutive trial for the murder of the journalist Dusko Jovanovic began on Tuesday in the High Court in Podgorica, with the only defendant, Damir Mandic, pleading innocence and accusing the police of "planting evidence".

Mandic said he had been kept in prison for 10 years although he was innocent, and his human rights had been violated.