ISTANBUL – Turkey is getting ready for a general smoking ban in public places, including restaurants, bars and tea houses, starting Sunday. According to a poll ninety percent of the population supports the ban, but in the hospitality sector there are complaints that jobs will be lost, as well as traditions. Ismet Nebi Dökmecier points […]
This week the newspapers are full of young guys, and now and then a young girl, with their hands up in the sky: they got good results in their ÖSS. That’s an exam at the end of the school year, which determines whether you are smart enough for university and, if so, for which university. […]
My love is working in a big carpet shop as a salesman, and how interesting it is to get an insight into how it works there. Well, for the customer it’s not always so funny, but then again, he’s not always aware of what’s going on. Take for example a customer called Robert Boş. It’s […]
The trouble in north western China is a big news item in Turkey. Of course it is bound to be, since the Uighurs are a Turkish people, just like Turkmens, like Uzbeks, Kazaks and Azeris, to name just a few. It struck me that the newspaper Hürriyet predicted the trouble a few days before it […]
For the last one and a half years I have been a regular contributor to the most important news agency in the Netherlands, ANP. People assume I work for them more or less fulltime and send in several stories a week. That is not the case, so maybe I should explain what it means to […]
The problem with tourists is that they often want to ‘go somewhere’, whereas I usually prefer just to wander around in the streets. But actually, in Üsküdar you can get stuck on busy streets, not knowing where to turn left or right to find somewhere nice. So I’ll direct you to somewhere specific, where you […]
ISTANBUL – Following a court order access to “Google Sites”, a site where people can build their own website, has been blocked in Turkey, according to several Turkish media today. The reason for the closure? Google Sites would admit sites with content insulting to Atatürk, Turkey’s founding father. Insulting Atatürk is forbidden by law in […]
When you live in Turkey for some time and follow the news, you could get used to the considerable power the military still has in this country. They interfere in politics all the time on all sorts of issues, from the Kurdish question and relations with Armenia to matters of freedom of expression and freedom […]
ISTANBUL – A Turkish judge sentenced a man convicted of domestic violence to give his wife a weekly bouquet of flowers for the next six months. He also has to read five books on raising children, writes daily Hürriyet today. For the last four years Turkish judges have had the possibility of handing out alternative […]
A friend of mine got a call from his bank some weeks ago asking if he wanted to have a credit card. No, he said, I don’t want that, because I don’t have a steady income and I’m sure I will not be able to pay the credit card debt. And what did he find […]