Geography of Asia

The Turkish Foreign Ministry has reshuffled a number of ambassadors, including Moscow and Kiev, the two warring neighboring states. The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, Tanju Bilgiç, will serve in Moscow while Mustafa Levent Bilgen will be deployed to Kiev, the Turkish media reported on June 16.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank "serves China's interest" and Beijing wields "undue" influence over what is supposed to be a multilateral organisation, a former executive told AFP yesterday after resigning.

In the wake of his resignation, Canada's Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Ottawa would "immediately halt all government-led activity at the Bank".

Russian tourists' bookings for holidays in Türkiye, especially in Antalya, have increased by 20 percent in the past few weeks compared with April and May, Turkish daily Milliyet has reported.

Russian holidaymakers had delayed vacation plans due to the ongoing war and elevated inflation which eroded their purchasing power. Russians were looking for alternative destinations to Türkiye.

Binance's Cyprus unit has applied to be removed from Cyprus' register of crypto asset service providers, the securities regulator website showed on Wednesday, in a move Binance said would allow it to focus on its larger European businesses.

President Joe Biden is dispatching White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan to Tokyo this week for talks with his counterparts from Japan, Philippines and South Korea.

Poland and Spain have pulled their personnel from a Turkish-led military exercise over the presence of troops from the breakaway entity in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, military sources have said.

The exercise, named Anatolian Phoenix, is being held from June 6 to 16 in the Turkish interior.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said his country is ready to open a consulate in Shusha, a city that Azerbaijan took from Armenian forces in a war in 2020.

Erdogan made the comment during a visit to Azerbaijan at the start of his third term in office following presidential elections last month.

In a one-day visit to the breakaway state in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus on Monday, newly re-elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that "if there are those who want to prevent peace, then we will be forced to implement a different plan."

The UEFA Champions League final game that Istanbul hosted at the weekend has given a huge boost to the city's hotels and marks "a milestone" for the local tourism industry, says Müberra Eresin, the president of the Hotel Association of Türkiye (TÜROB).

Despite losing both his legs in the Kahramanmaraş quakes, an 18-year-old survivor has not given up scuba diving and still goes under the water whenever he gets the chance to help him get over the trauma he has gone through.