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How did the lipstick affair make it into the news? Did Turkish Airlines issue a press release in which it stated that as of now red lipstick is forbidden for stewardesses? No, they reacted only after the discussion started. Probably it was the group of stewardesses that protested the ban by putting pics of themselves with red lips online. Fact …
After a few months in Diyarbakir, I’m flying back to Istanbul later today. I’m not sure for how long, but I hope to be back in my new base camp Diyarbakir very soon. What gives me no choice but to leave now is the totally deplorable electricity situation here, which makes it impossible to write the first chapter of my …
Dutch PM Rutte con-gra-tu-lates Erdogan
The Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, was in Turkey last week with a business mission. We, Dutch journalists in Turkey, were invited to have a chat with him, and with the brand new Minister of Foreign Trade (the new government was installed recently, but Rutte lead the previous government as well). Rutte also had a meeting with PM Erdogan, and …
Let’s go back in time 42 years, to 15 and 16 June 1970. Workers protested against a government plan to ban strikes. Around 75,000 people participated, mostly in Istanbul and Izmir. Many of the organizers of the strike were arrested and tried according to martial law. But in the end, the protest was successful: the proposed law was withdrawn.
Why is …
Bosporus fish, or: fishermen as easy target
An utterly sad low in the trouble over fishing the Bosporus: the head of a fishermen’s cooperative was shot because he opposed the way some of his colleagues scrape the Bosporus fishing grounds with their nets, contributing to certain fish becoming extinct. The man lost his left eye. It’s about time the government takes responsibility.
If you didn’t know any better, …
The bottom line is: Turkey and the Netherlands are friends. Officially since 400 years ago, but in practice even much longer. No temporary political wind can change that. According to Jan-Paul Dirkse, the Dutch ambassador to Turkey, all you need to do is look at the map: ‘Then you see that we are in the same sphere. It makes it …
‘A campus should not be a trade zone’
(This blog post was written by my intern Zehra Kaya, who studies at the Journalism Academy in the Netherlands. She is currently studying for one semester at Yeditepe University in Istanbul.)
Thanks to banners saying ‘Occupied area’ it’s hard to miss the Starbucks on the huge campus. The branch of the coffee giant has been occupied by students since last week. …
A million packs of coloured crayons
Emine Erdogan hugs a Somali woman holding a child. Erdogan himself is about to gently squeeze the cheek of a kid to whom he just gave a pack of coloured crayons. Erdogan is on a mission. A mission to relieve the suffering of the Somali people? Or is it a business mission? A promote Turkey trip? Or a PR mission …
‘Buy gold now’, says Nick, my American colleague at the office who specializes in economy. My two French colleagues and me stand at his desk. We want to know about the trouble the Turkish lira is in, and he tries to explain it to us. ‘Gold?’, we say, our faces pretty desperate. ‘Gold is extremely expensive, why would anybody want …
Anybody who thinks the increase in the killings of women will vanish as soon as the AKP is no longer governing Turkey, should really very quickly wake up. One, because that’s not going to happen any time soon (they will probably win the coming elections). Two, because it is a dangerous form of denial of the complexity and seriousness of …
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