* On Friday, members of the Turkish media, trade unions and opposition parties had simultaneous rallies in Turkey's largest city Istanbul and the capital Ankara against a crackdown on journalists, calling on the ruling party to "get your hands off the press", reports the Hurriyet Daily News.
  Several thousand people participated in the protests following the detention and raiding of homes of prominent journalists in connection with an alleged coup plot.
  Symbolically breaking their pencils and calling on the government to step down, several thousand journalists in Istanbul and Ankara held dual demonstrations Friday to protest recent crackdowns and police actions against some of their colleagues.
  The larger group was in Istanbul, where some protesters covered their mouths with black ribbons and others carried a giant Turkish flag down the city's main pedestrian thoroughfare, İstiklal Avenue.
  People watching the demonstration threw flowers from windows overlooking the street as protesters chanting slogans criticizing the ruling Justice and Development Party: "AKP, get your hands off the press," "Free press, free Turkey" and "A free press cannot be silenced."
  The protests were sparked by police raids Thursday of 16 homes in Ankara and Istanbul, including those of journalists Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık, as part of an alleged plat to overthrow the government.
  Sixty-one journalists are currently held in prison and 88 have served time in jail since 2009, said Ercan İpekçi, the head of the Turkish Journalists' trade union, who was among the protesters.
  "Oppression of journalists has come to an insufferable point. Those who claim journalists are being detained or arrested not because of their journalistic activities but because of other crimes are basically committing the crime of 'false accusation' according to the Turkish Rule of Conduct," İpekçi said.
  Journalists covered their mouths with black ribbons and snapped pencils during the peaceful protest organized by the G-9 platform including the Turkish Journalists Union, or TGS, the Progressive Journalists Association, and other media organizations.
  Reaction to the arrests came also from abroad. "Actions like this have a strong chilling effect on media freedom. It clearly illustrates the need for Turkey to reform its media laws," Dunja Mijatovic, media representative of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, said in a statement.
  "The detained journalists should be immediately released without any conditions," she said, according to an Agence France-Presse report.
  The European Commission is following the recent police actions against journalists with concern, Commissioner Stefan Fule said Thursday.
  Hurriyet Daily News says that the raids have fueled accusations of a campaign to bully government opponents, drawn U.S. criticism and sparked an outcry over press freedom in European Union-aspirant Turkey.
  The International Press Institute, another Vienna-based media watchdog, also expressed its concern about the arrests.
  Şener, one of the journalists detained Thursday, is an investigative reporter for daily Milliyet and was named a "World Press Freedom Hero" by IPI last year.
  U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday that the United States had concerns about trends in Turkey and would monitor ongoing arrests of journalists there, the Associated Press reported. He urged for "any investigations or prosecutions proceed in a transparent manner."
  "We will continue to engage Turkey and encourage an independent, pluralistic media," Crowley told reporters. "It is critical to a healthy democracy."
  Reporters Without Borders also condemned the arrests, saying on its website it is appalled by the wave of searches, detentions and arrests of investigative journalists in Istanbul and Ankara, and called for the immediate and unconditional release of the detained journalists in accordance with international law.
  Read more at:  http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

• Euro Parliament expects clear answers about arrests, says MEP
• Hrant Dink’s family offers support to arrested Turkish reporters
• Support grows for arrested reporters in Turkey
• Turkish justice minister comments on arrests of journalists
• Turkish journalist puts the DNA of Ergenekon probe under the microscope
• Questions for Turkish journalists raise more questions
• Journalists Şener, Şık under formal arrest, 3 others freed
• Politicians react as questioning of Ergenekon suspects continues in Istanbul
• Turkish newspaper claims more journalists targeted by ruling party
• Turkey slammed by int'l groups over detaining of journalists
  

* Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the Bosphorus Strait tunnel that would connect the Asian and European sides of Istanbul at the districts of Harem and Sarayburnu.
  The 5.4-kilometer, two-story Eurasia Tunnel will be constructed 1.8 kilometers south of the Marmaray Tunnel, and it will be a part of the 14.6-kilometer Istanbul Strait Highway Passage Project.
  The new tunnel is a joint undertaking by a Turkish-Korean consortium, and it is estimated to cost $1.1 billion.
  Travel time between Istanbul's Kazlıçeşme and Göztepe districts will be reduced to 15 minutes when the tunnel is completed in 2014.

* Didem Yaman, a Turkish Ph.D. student, was still missing Saturday many days after a powerful earthquake hit New Zealand's Christchurch city.
  Didem was working as a lecturer at the Department of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Çanakkale 18 March University.
  She was also working on her doctorate on the history of relations between Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, which was why she was in New Zealand when the earthquake occurred.
  Yaman's doctoral adviser at Otago University, Professor William Harris, arrived in Christchurch to look for the Turkish student.

* Belgian media, citing intelligence sources, stated that Fehriye Erdal, a suspect in the assassination of Turkish industrialist Özdemir Sabancı in 1996, could have been killed by her own organization, DHKP-C, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, reports the Turkish daily Milliyet.
  News reports that appeared in the Het Belang van Limburg and Gazet van Antwerpen dailies in Belgium stated that Belgian security units are seriously focusing on the probability that Ms. Erdal could have been killed.
  Belgian police officials made a surprise statement and said they were no longer looking for her.
  The executives wanted the file to be closed. "Erdal was a small fish for the organization but she knew much," the Belgian police said. "She was getting a lot of money from some people to hide."

* According to the Anatolia News Agency, Turkey's EnerjiSA, Sabancı Holding's energy group, and its Austrian partner Verbund on Saturday inaugurated a wind plant in Turkey's northwestern province of Çanakkale.
  The 90-megawatt plant is the first of a series of wind turbines EnerjiSA is set to launch in 2011, Sabancı CEO Güler Sabancı told reporters.
  "We are targeting to achieve 300 megawatts in wind power and soon we will launch a 100-150 megawatt project. We have confidence in Turkey's competitive energy market," Ms. Sabancı said.
  Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız also attended the opening ceremony.

* Turkish gendarmerie forces detained 200 people for participating in and organizing cockfighting in Davutlar, in the Aegean province of Aydın's Kuşadası district, Turkish daily Radikal reported Monday.
  A fighting arena for roosters had been set up under the pretense that the "Indian Rooster Festival" was being held in the venue.
  Of the 200 people taken into custody, 15 were rooster owners. Even the gendarmerie forces were shocked by the arena which was specifically prepared for cockfighting and even included its own scoreboard.
  The participants had arrived at the "festival" in luxury cars, possessed tickets with the "Indian Rooster Festival" logo as well as between about 2,000 and 10,000 dollars in cash.

* Turkish prime minister Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's guards allegedly beat children during a convention about children's rights at the Haliç Convention Center in Istanbul on Sunday, the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet reported Monday.
  Mr. Erdoğan was protested by elementary school students during his speech at the First Turkey Children's Rights Convention, the newspaper said.
  Two female students who stood up during the prime minister's speech chanted "free education, free courses."
  The two students were subdued and escorted out of the hall by the prime minister's guards before being detained by law enforcement officers.

* Smuggling and forgery in Turkey tripled in 2010 over 2009, according to the Turkish police, Turkish daily Vatan reported Monday.
  Around 44 million smuggled cigarettes and 23 million pirated CD's and books were seized, the daily said.
  According to data found in the 122-page police report, the number of fake identity cards doubled in 2010 while the production of drugs also tripled. Around 850,000 drugs were seized.
  There was a decrease, however, in the number of purses that were snatched. While 13,000 people were robbed of their purses in 2009, this number decreased to 2,491 in 2010, an 80 percent decrease.

* According to the Anatolia News Agency, Turkey's statistics authority TurkStat on Monday gave income distribution figures for 2009, which saw the widening of the gap in income disparity in Turkey.
  The top 20 percent controlled 47.6 percent of the total wealth as the poorest 20 percent claimed only a 5.6 percent share.
  The richest 20 percent of the population in Turkey had an income 8.5 times higher than the income of the bottom 20 percent.
  In 2008, the bottom 20 percent had an income 8.1 times lower than the top 20 percent had.
  TurkStat said in 2009, 17.1 percent of the population lived below the poverty line. The figure was 16.7 percent in 2008.
  Data showed six out of every 10 people lived below the poverty line. 43.9 percent of the population could not afford buying new clothes as 87.4 percent could not go on holiday.

* Forbes Turkey magazine has released its "Top 100 Wealthiest Turks" list for 2011.
  The magazine said that the total fortunes of Turkey's 100 richest people had increased from last year's $87 billion to $104 billion this year.
  Mehmet Emin Karamehmet, with his fortune reaching $4 billion, topped this year's list.
  There are 23 women on this year's list with 8 of them billionaires.

* Elections are in the offing in Turkey and the Turkish women are wanting to have more say in how the country is run. The Association for Educating and Supporting Women Candidates NGO of Turkey has launched a campaign dubbed "275 Women Lawmakers" to promote the election of more female parliamentarians in the general elections on June 12.
  In other election news, Turkey's Supreme Election Board said the number of deputies from Turkey's 14 biggest provinces would be increased during the upcoming elections this summer, while number of deputies from the 28 least populous provinces would decrease.
  Accordingly, Istanbul and the western province of İzmir will have more deputies than 22 eastern provinces.
  Istanbul will send 85 deputies while Bayburt will have only one representative in the Turkish Parliament.
  Also, in related news, the head of the Board said Turks living abroad would not be able to cast their votes in their countries of residence but that they would have to go to the ballot boxes at Turkey's borders.
  "There is infrastructure work to be done to set up ballot boxes and for their online linking to prevent multiple voting as well as for online voting," Board Chairman Ali Em said.
  The board's decision was made in a meeting last Saturday, drawing heavy criticism from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

* Turkey's prime minister Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won a lawsuit filed with a high British court against Britain's Daily Telegraph, with the publication ordered to pay 25,000 pounds in damages.
  Mr. Erdoğan sued the daily for alleging in a news story that he had accepted a $25 million donation from Iran to fund his party's campaign for the upcoming elections.
  The court ruled that the newspaper's allegations were not based on concrete evidence and that the story was inaccurate.

* Hailed by critics as a "musical marvel," U.S. jazz artist Hilary Kole took the stage at the Istanbul Jazz Center as part of the Garanti Jazz Green concerts, reports the Hürriyet Daily News.
  Ms. Kole, who has shared the stage with world-renowned artists like Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock and Nancy Wilson, performed a series of concerts on March 3-5. She will be performing again on March 9-12.
  Ms. Kole began her professional career at the legendary Rainbow Room as the youngest singer ever to grace the stage there. She co-created and originated the lead female roles in the critically acclaimed, award-winning off-Broadway musicals, "Our Sinatra" and "Singing Astaire." Her compositions have garnered three National Federation of Music Awards. She is also the recipient of the prestigious Delius Award.

* According to the Hurriyet Daily News, Turkish artist Gülay Alpay has participated in the New York Pool Art Fair, from Friday to Sunday.
  Pool is an exhilarating and hot art fair whose main purpose is to create a meeting ground for outstanding unrepresented artists and the large public of contemporary art professionals. The fair serves as an invaluable resource for the artistic community and the general public.
  On view will be Alpay's signature environmental installations that are interactive, participatory and provocative. Her work creates a platform where viewers are not merely passive spectators, but rather they are engaged participants interacting with a given space and context, infusing the event with the vitality of human communication. With spontaneity and wit, she evokes a range of theoretical positions from body issues to psychoanalysis.
   See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

* Laurence Salzmann and his wife, Ayşe Gürsan-Salzmann, have produced the book "Travels in Search of Turkey's Jews," reports Niki Gamm of Hurriyet Daily News.
  The book is the result of a project they undertook for the Chief Rabbinate of Istanbul to come to Turkey and document Jewish monuments throughout the country.
  The couple visited 32 towns and cities in four geographical regions of Turkey, sometimes returning to previously visited places to confirm facts or add more data and renew old acquaintances.
   See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

* According to Enis Tayman of the daily Radikal reports that Turkish women working for the maritime sector have united to found a Turkish branch of the Women's International Shipping and Trade Association.
  The Women's International Shipping and Trade Association, which has been active in the world since 1974, only came to Turkey in 2009. As part of their mission to promote Turkey, the association is organizing the Women's International Shipping and Trade Association-Mediterranean 2011 meeting in Turkey and is already preparing to hold the World meeting in 2013 in Turkey.
   See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

* Anatolia News Agency reports that a new research book by Ms. Hülya Tezcan, "Magic Shirts from the Topkapı Palace Collection", features the "magic shirts" worn by Ottoman sultans through the ages.
  The artistic shirts were believed to protect them from evil eye and diseases while also make them invisible during battle
  "Famous calligraphers, muralists, ulama and astronomers of the Ottoman period worked in collaboration to produce shirts for sultans. These high-quality shirts were believed to protect people from the evil eye and diseases.
  They were also believed to make wearers invisible in war," said Hülya Tezcan, a professor and former curator of the Sultans' Costumes and Textiles Section of the Topkapı Saray Museum.
   See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

* Turkey's Christians are enjoying carnival these days, reports Vercihan Ziflioglu in the Hurriyet Daily News.
  The best-known carnival is Tatavla, which has a history of 569 years. The annual carnival, which stopped in 1941 because of political fluctuations in the country, was revived last year.
  "Our people want to know and to let the public in general know that we all live together," says one of the organizers.
  Organized by Greeks in Şişli's Kurtuluş district, once known as Tatavla, the Tatavla Carnival, which is also known as "Baklahorani," will address a wider mass of people this year on Monday. Kağıthane Municipality Press Consultant and researcher Hüseyin Irmak and Greek couple Harris and Marina Drimalitou who are living in Istanbul and are responsible for reviving the event, spoke to the Hürriyet Daily News.
   See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

* According to the Anatolia News Agency, prominent Turkish musician and writer Zülfü Livaneli will represent Turkey at an upcoming meeting of the "High Panel on Peace and Dialogue among Cultures" founded by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
  The panel, which was set up by UNESCO last year and held its first meeting in Paris in February 2010, will convene for the second time in New York on March 11 this year.
   See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

* Sabanci Foundation's "Turkey's Changemakers" hosts Ismail Gunduz, the Buyukcekmece District Governor in Istanbul, who attracted Roma children to schools with an important aspect of their culture: music.
  Roma people are among the most colorful nomadic communities in the world. However, their colorfulness and nomadic nature create major issues in Turkey as in the Continental Europe. Available data highlights that there are approximately 800,000 Roma citizens currently living in Turkey. Although there have been efforts at different levels of governance for their adaptation to social life, Roma people in Turkey represent a marginalized group that are often denied their basic rights to education, health, shelter, sanitation, work and social security.
   See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/

* Turkish artist Ayşe Nihan Uğuz, who is forced to live with a rare genetic disorder, has opened eight solo exhibitions and many joint exhibitions for her paintings during her career, reports the Anatolia News Agency.
  A member of the International Plastic Arts Association, Uğuz's works have been displayed in convention halls around the world thanks to a competition organized by a American medical company.
  Ms. Uguz was born in Turkey's mediteranean province of Adana in 1976.
  See more at http://www.impsn.org/page/patient/pic7

* According to the Anatolia News Agency Europe's tallest building, 236-meter-high Istanbul Sapphire opened on Friday.
  Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Istanbul Sapphire, with its environmentally-friendly design, vertical gardens, recreational areas and technological features, had raised standards.

* According to the Turkish daily Vatan, Paris Fashion Week was opened by Turkish designer Hakan Yıldırım from the Turkish town of Çemişgezek in the eastern province of Tunceli instead of renowned fashion designer Galliano, who was accused of anti-semitism.
  The "Hakaan creation," introduced by Russian model Natalia Vodianova, received a standing ovation at the opening ceremony.

* Halil Akkas of Turkey won bronze medal in 3,000 meters in the 31st European Athletics Indoor Championship in Paris on Saturday.
  629 athletes from 50 countries competed in the championships at Paris' Palais Omnisports Paris Bercy.
  Turkey's Kemal Koyuncu came on the second place behind Manuel Olmedo of Spain and won silver medal.
  Turkey ranked 12th in the championships after winning a silver and a bronze medal. Russia ranked first with 15 medals, followed by France with 11 medals and Germany with 10 medals.

* On Sunday, Trabzonspor will visit Beşiktaş in one of its most crucial games of the season, and on Monday, leader Fenerbahçe seeks to extend its run when it plays Gençlerbirliği in the Spor Toto Super League. The Yellow Canaries, Fenerbahçe, who are on a league-best seven-game winning streak, will try to keep hold of the league's top spot after rising to the top for the first time this season.
  The Black Sea Storm, Trabzonspor, has been erratic recently and lost top spot in the standings last Sunday following a 3-3 draw against Kayserispor. Trabzonspor, who had held top spot since the 11th week of superlig, lost its advantage with a string of poor results. With only two wins in six weeks, Trabzonspor is now level with Fenerbahçe on points.
  With the team's back against the wall, Trabzonspor will play one of the most important games of the season when it visits troubled Beşiktaş on Sunday.
  Beşiktaş appears to be finally emerging from its worst streak of the season, which included three consecutive losses in which the opposition scored four times in each outing. In addition to a 4-2 Super League defeat at the hands of Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş was crushed by Europa League opponent Dynamo Kyiv by scores of 4-1 and 4-0; all the matches took place within a span of just eight days. The Black Eagles then showed signs of improvement with a 2-0 win over Medical Park Antalyaspor, ending their four-match losing streak. The victory was also only the second since Dec. 5, 2010, when the team beat Bursaspor 1-0.
  Another comfortable win came Thursday against Gaziantep Municipality, as Beşiktaş beat the second-tier side 3-0 in the return match of the Ziraat Turkish Cup. The win saw Beşiktaş advance to the semi-final of the cup – the club's only remaining chance of silverware this season – with an 8-0 aggregate victory.
  Beşiktaş will meet Gaziantepspor in the Turkish Cup semifinal. The two teams are also chasing the league's fourth position, which is currently occupied comfortably by Kayserispor.
  Also on Sunday, defending champion Bursaspor, whose camp has been dominated by transfer talk surrounding striker Sercan Yıldırım's possible move to Lokomotiv Moscow, will try to remain in the title race with a tough match against Istanbul Municipality.