On this day twenty years ago, actor Kemal Sunal suffered a fatal heart attack as he boarded an early morning domestic flight from Istanbul to the Black Sea city of Trabzon. He was just 55 years old. Sunal is said to have had a lifelong fear of flying and had not been on a plane […]
A left-wing newspaper in North Cyprus has reverted to its former name ‘Avrupa’ [‘Europe’] after African students accused the paper of “encouraging racism and stereotyping” for calling itself ‘Afrika’ and using a monkey in its logo. On Thursday, 25 June, the paper’s front page bore the new Avrupa masthead, complete with a new animal icon, […]
Ünal Üstel, the Minister for Tourism and the Environment, has been removed from his post by Ersin Tatar, the Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC). The Prime Minister made the announcement on Friday, naming Kutlu Evren as his replacement. Mr Üstel’s position had become untenable after he was implicated in the […]
On Thursday, 4 June, families of Sonya Kaygan and other Turkish Cypriots who died in Britain during the coronavirus pandemic gathered at Shacklewell Lane Mosque in Dalston, East London, to say goodbye to their deceased loved ones before they were repatriated to their native homeland of North Cyprus for burials. It was a deeply moving, […]
For the past two months, eighteen families have been campaigning to have their deceased loved ones returned to North Cyprus for burial. Last week, eleven of those families received the news that their applications had been successful. An announcement by the government of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) on Thursday, 14 May, stated […]
British and Turkish officials have refuted British media reports that personal protection equipment (PPE) from Turkey has fallen short of required standards. On Thursday evening, Britain’s envoy to Ankara Sir Dominick Chilcott took to Twitter to say, “Stories in the UK media that 400K items of PPE sent from Turkey are unusable are untrue.” The […]
For the past few weeks, all eyes have been on how New Zealand has been winning the war against coronavirus. Yet over in the Eastern Mediterranean, a similar success story is playing out in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The small country with a population of 350,000 has managed to flatten its infection […]
On Monday, 30 March, the UK’s Turkish community was rocked by news of the death of popular musician Doğan Ahmet. The founder member of legendary Turkish pop-folk band Konkurt died of coronavirus a day after being admitted to North Middlesex Hospital, in North London, aged 72. Twenty-four hours later, the community was in shock when […]
Erkin Guney, the head of the UK Turkish Islamic Trust (UKTIT) which administers funerals for British Turks, has said calls from families in the community who need help with burying their loved ones have rocketed this week. He has received calls from 15 different families in the past few days, and all bar one has […]
The world of a psychic medium is intense and, to those of us on the outside, insane. Apparently gifted with paranormal senses, psychics serve as a link between the dead and the living, carrying messages from our deceased relatives and other guides, while their magical hands appear to detect and cure illness. Their intuition and […]
