I packed my towel and swimsuit. I checked the swimming time for women. So what could stand between me and my first ‘training’ for this event next month which I really want to take part in? Only the entrance fee to the brand new municipal swimming pool, I thought. So there I was, telling the […]
A total of 98 deaths in the last seven years: the shipbuilding business is booming in Turkey, but to achieve this growth the safety of the workers has been neglected. Turkey’s biggest shipbuilding area is Tuzla, south of Istanbul. Workers went on strike last Monday to demand safer working conditions, but when I went to […]
You want to adjust a bit in a society that is not yours. Also waste wise. But I just can’t do it, throwing waste on the street. I try sometimes, really. For example when I have an empty water bottle in my hand. I’m walking, or waiting for a bus or a boat. I’m about […]
KAYSERI – Holland will help Turkey with the setting up of six refugee centres and the training of personnel for the centres. There’s 1.2 million euro’s available for the project, coming from EU funds. Dutch State Secretary of Justice Nebahat Albayrak finalised the details of previous agreements this week during a working visit to Turkey. […]
KAYSERI – Holland and Turkey have made concrete agreements to solve problems in cooperation on legal issues. From now on, there will not always be strict interpretation of national laws. Every legal case will be examined individually. That’s the outcome of a meeting between Dutch Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin and his Turkish counterpart Mehmet Ali […]
What a game really! One moment it seemed Turkey would be out of the tournament, next thing they turn a 0-2 score in favour of Czech Republic into a 3-2 victory, and that in about fifteen minutes! Istanbul will be celebrating a wonderful match tonight. At the moment, everything that is able to make noise, makes […]
Doctors warn against ‘relax pills for students’, as they might do more harm than good. Newspapers have been publishing sample exams for weeks. Private schools drill their students for the last time. What’s going on? Tomorrow the university entrance exams take place. About one and a half million students compete for one of the approximately […]
That’s the basic theme of a campaign by the ministry of education to fight illiteracy. Especially for women, of course. Turkey has a population of around 70 million and about 5 million of them are illiterate. In order to make more women in particular attend literacy classes, the ministry has come up with a plan […]
I started level 5 of my Turkish lessons. There are six levels and each one takes two months to complete. So in about four months I will be speaking Turkish! I’m so much looking forward to it, really. Truth is, of course, learning a language is so much more frustrating than I ever thought. When […]
‘Be patient Republic! Democracy will come soon and rescue you from this mad lover’. I like the Genc Siviler – the Young Civilians – , the citizens’ group that always finds an uncomplicated and clear way to comment on political developments. Today they protested the decision by the Constitutional Court to cancel an amendment to […]