Turkey

Thousands of people in Istanbul have marched to mark the first anniversary of the death of the youngest victim of the Gezi Park protests.

Berkin Elvan was 14 when he was hit by a police teargas canister in Istanbul on June 16, 2013, as anti-government demonstrations swept Turkey. 

An eccentric Turkish singer has testified for "insulting" Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu, becoming the latest celebrity targeted by Turkey's draconian laws protecting public officials from defamation.

"It is an honor to be detained for my opinions, not for stealing or for corruption," Atilla Ta? said late March 6 on his Twitter account, which has more than 720,000 followers.

Mehmet Baransu, a Turkish journalist who first made a name for himself by publishing secret military documents, was arrested earlier this week. He is accused specifically of exposing the ?Sledgehammer? documents that he published in daily Taraf in June 2010 to great sensation. The documents seemed to suggest that a ?war simulation?

Women continue to be underrepresented at Turkey?s top-level state positions, according to recent research released by a Turkish NGO working on women?s representation.

The governorate of a province in western Turkey has confirmed that a Turkish citizen allegedly wounded while fighting for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria is being treated in a hospital in the province.

A market economist friend lamented to me on March 4 that all she could think about was the exchange rate. She was exhausted from talking to clients on the impact of the lira?s depreciation on the Turkish economy, and claimed that Turkey was heading for a crisis.

Footage shown by the Italian website Globalist.it depicts members of the terror group preparing for a suicide attack against PKK positions in northern Syria.

As the website reports, Italian secret services confirmed the authenticity of the video, which means that the presence of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, fighting alongside jihadists, is also confirmed.

Women make up only 30 percent of Turkey?s labor force, according to a new report from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜ?K) released on March 5.

There has been intense activity at the Air Force base in Diyarbakir, Turkey, as Ankara is considering whether to help Iraq in the fight against Islamic State, media sources say.

Aircraft are being regularly scrambled, and troops have been instructed to "react" in case of hostility from IS, according to reports.

Turkey?s Ziraat Bankas? General Manager Hüseyin Ayd?n has told reporters that the state-run lender plans to launch its off-shoot, Ziraat Kat?l?m Bankas?, an Islamic participation bank, on May, 29, which is the anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Istanbul.