Istanbul Province

The 2nd International Üsküdar Poetry Festival, which kicked off on April 9, is continuing with a total of 33 poets from 16 countries sharing their art with audiences at different locations and streets in Istanbul's Üsküdar neighborhood. 

Up to six million houses should be demolished and rebuilt in Turkey within the framework of "urban transformation," President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has said, claiming that the process is a necessary precaution against natural disasters.  

A traffic jam paralyzed Istanbul morning traffic as a suicide was attempted on the 105-meter-high Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge over the Bosphorus on April 11. Road maintenance work also contributed to the traffic jam. 

Following the collapse of a wall in Istanbul's historic Gülhane Park, which killed two people and injured five others, ?lber Ortayl?, the former director of Topkap? Palace Museum, said alarm bells were ringing for the entire compound unless a thorough reinforcement project started immediately.  

Istanbul Atatürk Airport, which is operated by TAV Airports, became in 2015the 11th largest airport worldwide by providing service to 61.8 million passengers over the course of the year, the company said in a written statement on April 6. 

The number of people using public transportation in Istanbul has plummeted after deadly terror attacks rocked both Turkey's biggest metropolis and its capital in less than a week in March, daily Habertürk reported on April 5.

The construction of Istanbul's new airport, which is being billed as the world's largest, is taking place 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with more than 13,000 workers from 16 countries.

An endeavor to legally define waterways is underway as part of efforts to realize a controversial project, dubbed "Kanal Istanbul," which aims to build a canal across Istanbul's European side to supplement the Bosphorus Strait. 

Istanbul's interdisciplinary art festival, Pera Fest, which has chosen "Art against Discrimination" as the theme of its 14th edition, opened on March 21 with a poetry & music event at Tiyatro Pera. Despite the general atmosphere of fear and anxiety due to the recent terror attack's proximity to the event, many of the invited artists attended the festival's opening event.     

A court case on a fake exhibition of one of the 20th century's most important artists, Joan Miro, which opened on Nov. 20, 2013, at Istanbul's Mimar Sinan University Faculty of Fine Arts Tophane-i Amire Culture and Arts Center, has been concluded.