All across Britain there are ongoing efforts to raise vital funds to offer relief to millions of Turks and Syrians affected by the two devastating earthquakes that struck Turkiye on 6 February. Among those seeking to help is the Mayor of Southwark, Councillor Sunil Chopra, who has announced that his Mayoral charity dinner will be […]
A British Turkish Cypriot businessman and activist is standing to be a local councillor in Tottenham, North London. Allen Windsor is the Liberal Democrats’ candidate for the upcoming by-election in Tottenham Hale ward, which is being held this Thursday, 9 March. The election was called after a Labour councillor, Yannis Gourtsoyannism, resigned just nine months into […]
Familiar animal noises brought cheer to earthquake survivors in Turkiye’s southeastern city of Kahramanmaraş last week, as a retired imam sang the children’s song “Ali Baba’s Farm” through loudspeakers. “Uncle” Ömer Faruk Şirikçi, the former imam of the city’s Abdülhamid Han Mosque, sat in a tent with a microphone and invited children temporarily living in […]
“What an immoral, shameless, ungrateful being”. These words and more were spouted out by the President of the Republic of Türkiye, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in desperation and anger. Such insults are so commonplace with him that one expects the opening lines of his address to the nation to be equally lethal. He curses people and […]
A leading pro-unification activist in Cyprus has urged the newly elected Greek Cypriot leader, Nikos Christodoulides, to take “unilateral confidence building steps” to help with the resumption of talks to solve the long-running “Cyprus problem”. Kemal Baykallı, a co-founder of civil society group Unite Cyprus Now, made his comments to Greek Cypriot daily Dialogos, which […]
Football fans from two of Istanbul’s biggest clubs grabbed the headlines in Turkiye and abroad with their earthquake related actions at the weekend. Beşiktaş players warmed up at the Vodafone Stadium before their home game on Sunday, 26 Feburary, against Antalyaspor wearing tops bearing the names of the areas affected by the devastating earthquakes that […]
Thursday saw President Ersin Tatar of the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) come together with the newly elected Greek Cypriot leader, Nikos Christodoulides, in the buffer zone in the capital Lefkoşa / Nicosia. The meeting, which ran for nearly two hours, took place under the auspices of the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for […]
Turkish staff at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) are hoping to raise three quarters of a million pounds to help their compatriots overcome the devastating impact of two catastrophic earthquakes that hit Turkiye a fortnight ago. In the early hours of Monday, 6 February, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Gaziantep, followed by […]
There were more fatalities in southeast Turkiye after a new earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale struck the already devastated province of Hatay on Monday evening. It follows two mega earthquakes that hit the same region two weeks ago, which has killed more than 48,000 people and left millions of people displaced. At least […]
One of the most significant personalities from the British Turkish Cypriot community, Fikret Derviş, has passed away aged 86 years old. Derviş, a former President of the Council of Turkish Cypriot Associations (UK), had been struggling with ill-health for the past few years. He had been in a care home since last July and was […]
