* Former president Mr. Rauf Denktash of Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus passed away on January 13 after a long illness.
  According to the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, thousands attended an official ceremony on Monday for Mr. Denktash. Turkish Cypriots gathered early in the morning outside the hospital where their former leader died at the age of 87.
  His successor Mr. Mehmet Ali Talat and Turkish Cypriot premier were among the crowd at the ceremony. Turkey sent a large delegation headed by Turkish President Mr. Abdullah Gül for the funeral. Turkish Prime Minister Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Affairs Minister Mr. Ahmet Davutoglu also attended.
  Later Mr. Denktash was laid to rest in Cumhuriyet Park in Lefkosa, Cyprus upon a decision by Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Council of Ministers. A contest will be held to select the monument to be built on the tomb
  Mr. Denktash was born in 1924 in Cyprus. He was the founding President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. He devoted his life to Cypriot Turks. In response to attacks by the Greek Cypriot EOKA underground organization on the Cypriot Turks, Mr. Denktash, along with two friends, formed the Turkish Resistance Organization.
  In 1959, Mr. Denktash played a role in establishing the Zurich Agreement that established a bi-communal republic on the island. After the 1963 events where Greek Cypriots attacked the Turkish Cypriots, Mr. Denktash went to Ankara, Turkey. Later, he returned to Cyprus on a boat and began reforming the Turkish Resistance Organization. In 1964, Mr. Denktash' entrance to the island was prohibited by the then Greek Cypriot president archbishop Makarios. Mr. Denktash continued to secretly assist in the resistance to the Greeks. In 1967, Mr. Denktash was arrested while attempting to secretly enter the island. After intensive efforts, Mr. Denktash was returned to Turkey.
  After Turkish intervention in Cyprus in 1974, Mr. Denktash was elected state leader twice in both 1976 and 1981. Finally, on November 15th, 1983 with the unilateral declaration of independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, the republic was established.
  According to Turkish Press reports, Mr. Rauf Denktash's final words were "this is an independent republic".

* Turkey's Foreign Affairs Minister Mr. Ahmet Davutoglu's spoke at a UN meeting entitled "Reform and Transitions to Democracy" organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia in Beirut, Lebanon.
  Mr. Davutoglu said that Syrian leader Mr. Bashar al-Assad might not keep his promise about the general amnesty.  
  On Sunday Syrian president Mr. Al-Assad, declared general amnesty covering the crimes committed between March 15, 2011 and January 15, 2012.
  Mr. Davutoglu said that Mr. al-Assad previously made similar statements, but unfortunately the promises had not been kept so far.

* The Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News reported on Friday that Turkey's Parliament has set Turkish President Mr. Abdullah Gul's term in office at seven years after a 2007 amendment appeared to lower it to five.
  Mr. Gül was elected for a one-time seven-year term in August 2007. But a few months later Turkey enacted constitutional changes that reduced the presidential term to five, with the right to stand for re-election.
  The amendments did not specify whether Mr. Gul's term would be affected, leading to confusion. The move, however, has failed to end debate over how long he should serve, with the opposition saying the move is unconstitutional. Mr. Gül said on Friday, the opposition could seek its cancellation at Turkey's highest court. Turkish Parliament which is dominated by legislators from Prime Minister Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party voted late Thursday to fix Gul's term at seven years.

* According to the Hurriyet Daily News, President Barack Obama named Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan among the five leaders that he has established relations based on confidence, in an interview with Time.
  The interview with president Obama was conducted by Fareed Zakaria, the Editor-at-Large of Time magazine.
  See more at: Obama Interview

* Assembly of Turkish American Associations criticized Gov. Rick Perry , one of the contenders for the republican party's presidential nominees, for saying that Turkey is ruled by Islamic terrorists and it should be kicked out of NATO.
  Mr. Perry was answering a question by Fox News' Brett Baier, who said that "since the Islamist-oriented party took over in Turkey," the murder rate of women has increased, press freedom has declined, and the country has "embraced Hamas" and threatened military action against Israel.
  The leaders of Turkish American community in Texas issued also a statement and expressed their disappointment with Perry's remarks.
  The Texas Turks said that since Mr. Perry was stationed in Turkey in 1970's, he should have known better.

* Turkish daily Cumhuriyet English addition published some Anatolian News Agency news about the Turkish economy.
  According to this news, Turkey's short term outstanding external debt went up 12.5 percent as of the end of November, 2011 when compared to the year 2010 and was recorded as $88 billion.
  The number of Turkish-flagged commercial vessels over 150 gross tons have increased by 45 percent in the last decade to reach 1,832.
  The average age of the vessels are 21 years and the largest part of them are dry cargo vessels numbering 496, followed by passengers 237 ships and 221 tankers carrying liquid or gas.
  The number of leisure yachts and vessels over 150 gross tons also increased to 124 in 2011 from 65 in 2008.

* Turkish daily Cumhuriyet in English reports that Iraq approved a power plant project worth $235 million proposed by the Turkish company ENKA according to Turkish Economy Minister Mr. Zafer Caglayan on Wednesday.
  Mr. Caglayan said Turkey always attached a great importance to unity in Iraq after holding a meeting with Massoud Barzani, head of the regional administration in the north of Iraq, in Irbil.
  After the meeting, Mr. Caglayan told reporters that they discussed economic relations between Turkey and Iraq.
   Mr. Caglayan said Iraq was of great importance for Turkey and it had the second place in Turkey's exports. New border gates should be opened to boost trade between the two countries, he said.
  Again according to Mr. Caglayan, Iraq's health ministry also approved another Turkish company's $125-million hospital project.

* According to the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet Turkish defense contractor Aselsan has signed a 95.5 million euro agreement with HDW/MFI Business Partnership in a submarine construction project, Aselsan said in regulatory filing on Wednesday.
  The agreement involves the construction of submarines for the Turkish Naval Forces with air independent propulsions at Turkey's Golcuk Naval Shipyard. Aselsan said its deliveries are scheduled for 2015-2023.

* The Turkish daily Yeni Safak reported that unemployment in Turkey dropped 2.1 points in the three-month period ending November 2010 to 9.1 percent.

* The seventh Mountain Films Festival will soon be held in three Turkish provinces and is expected to reach around 10,000 people.
  In Istanbul it will be held at the Institute Français in Taksim, Aynalıgeçit in Galatasaray, and the Pusula Art Gallery in Harbiye.
  Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Mountains Culture Association and Festival President Murat Yılmaz said the aim of the festival was to host adventure and nature movies and documentaries and to make people more familiar with nature and support nature sports.
  Noting that their main aim was to bring people who are living in urban areas to the mountains and the middle of nature, Yılmaz said everyone could do nature sports and added that the most important thing was to want to.
  People are not in touch with nature when they live in urban environments, according to Yılmaz. "Because society loses its values in urban environments, people also lose their own personality," he said, adding that this also resulted in illness, stress and fatigue. "People stop thinking about life, stop questioning, and also lose their awareness of life."
  This is a problem that everyone experiences in daily lives, according to Yılmaz. In nature, however, people can understand how to solve every kind of problem that we face in daily life, he said. After facing hardship in nature, people understand that the problems they face in urban life are easy to handle.
  "There are total of 28 mountain film festivals in 17 countries. The first mountain films festival started in the Italian city of Trento in 1952," he said.
  "Western societies started to discover the world 500 to 600 years ago. We are not trying hard enough to present and know our own country," said Yılmaz.
  "We are very much behind the rest of the world in terms of our discovery and adventure culture. New nature sports are being discovered everywhere in the world," he said, noting that people were combining surfing and skiing to create new things. "We need more time for Turkey and I believe we will do it very easily."
  See more at Mountains

* A retrospective exhibition by an artist who began painting when he met Turkey's most famous poet, Nazım Hikmet, in Bursa Prison 70 years ago, is now on display at the International Art Center in Istanbul's Üsküdar.
  İbrahim Balaban's exhibition, "Balabanizm," features 140 works, including previously unseen tiles, design, carpet and canvas works, as well as a self-portrait signed by Nazım himself.
  Turks around the country marked the 110th anniversary of Nazım's birth with ceremonies on Jan. 15. The artist said his talent was discovered and developed thanks to the poet's support and interest and that they were together for seven years.
  Mr. Balaban said he opened his first solo exhibition in 1953 in Istanbul and that he continued staging exhibitions in the following years both in Turkey and abroad.
  The artist said he was prosecuted in the past because of his paintings but acquitted and added that his works were also attacked in an exhibition in the southern province of Adana.
  Recalling a shared memory with Nazim Hikmet, Mr. Balaban said: "He told me, 'You are the best painter in the world.' I knew that I was the best painter of the world but also that the world's best poet approved it. He made my name known all around the world. This is why I dedicate this exhibition to him."
  Mr. Balaban said the exhibition also displayed a portrait of the artist signed by Nazım. "I was told in prison that Nazım Hikmet drew the portraits of prisoners and I made him draw my portrait. He showed me the painting and said 'it is done.' I did not like the painting because he did not draw my jacket and tie in the painting. When I said this, he responded, 'I did not do it because I did not want you to look like a tax collector.' Then I found six color pens and added the jacket and tie to the painting."
  Mr. Balaban said he was displaying paintings that had been inspired by Nazım's poems, including one titled "the Courtyard of Prison", which he drew last year with inspiration from the poem "Today is Sunday".
  The exhibition also displays two works from the collection of Nazım's wife Piraye Hanım. One is Mr. Balaban's self-portrait that he made in 1946 at İmralı Prison by looking at a mirror while the other is a work titled "The Fountainhead".
  Piraye Hanım's grandson Kenan Bengü said she had many other works, paintings and letters from Nazım.
  "Balaban made these paintings when he was at İmralı Prison and sent them to Nazım Hikmet, who was in Bursa Prison at the time. Sometime later, the poet gave them to Piraye Hanım and they have survived," Mr. Bengü said.
  The grandson said they had started working to evaluate their archive of Balaban's works after 2000. "These paintings had been kept in hidden places for many years. I did not know that the self-portrait belonged to Balaban. We got together with him 15 days ago thanks to a friend in common and showed him the paintings. He was very excited because he had forgotten all these paintings, which were his first works. He asked for the paintings for this exhibit, and now we are displaying them," Bengü said. Balaban said he kissed the painting when he saw his self-portrait.
&  "Balabanizm" will continue until Feb. 14.
  See more at Balabanizm

* Ankara's Cervantes Institute will host Argentinean Days events with the support of the Argentinean Embassy in Ankara between Jan. 23 and 29.
  The events will start with a conference titled "Tango as a city structure" given by Argentinean writer Andres Neuman and continue with "Film and Soccer " movie days, according to the institute's written statement.
  Mr. Neuman will talk about the development of Buenos Aires and its cultural, musical and literary heritage. His presentation will feature tango song lyrics and music.
  The movie days aim to raise awareness of soccer's influence on Argentina's culture.
  There will be five films shown in the program, including one documentary about soccer.
  See more at http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/TurkRadio.aspx?pageID=238&nID=11766&NewsCatID=385

* According to the Anatolia News Agency, Eight films by late Turkish director Yılmaz Güney will be shown in Toronto as part an event titled "The Way Home: The Films of Turkish Master Yilmaz Güney."
  The screening event is being organized by the eighth Toronto International Film Festival between Jan. 26 and Feb. 5.
  The same films will also be screened in Turkey and other parts of the world as part of the second Yılmaz Güney Culture and Arts Festival between Jan. 15 and March 15.
&  An important portion of the festival's revenue proceeds will go toward funding work conducted by the Yılmaz Güney Culture and Arts Foundation.
  See more at Guney Films

* Minnesota International Center is organizing a program titled "Turkish Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring". The program will feature Dr. Sinan Ciddi, Executive Director, Institute of Turkish Studies, Georgetown University. r>&n  The program will take place on January 23 at Carlson School Of Management, University of Minnesota.
  For more information visit Ciddi @ Int. Center

* On January 25, 2012 at 4:30 p.m. Ahmet Altan, editor-in-chief and lead columnist of the independent Turkish newspaper Taraf, will give a lecture at the Harvard University Tsai Auditorium in Cambridge Massachusetts.br>  The lecture is co-sponsored with the Seminar on Turkey in the Modern World, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University br>  Ahmet Altan is one of Turkey 's most well-known intellectuals and writers. His best-selling novels and sociopolitical commentaries have been banned and burned as well as granted prizes, and for over twenty years, his columns have consistently addressed taboo issues in Turkey : so much so that he has faced court proceedings and over a century of jail time for alleged offenses against the state.
&  In 2009, Altan was awarded the Sparkasse Leipzig Media Foundation's Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media.

* American Friends of Turkey, an organization based in the Washington, DC area, is organizing a lecture by Dr. Günder Varinlioglu titled "Turkey through the lens of Nicholas V. Artamonoff" on January 25 at 6:30 pm at the Turkish embassy. br>  Nicholas V. Artamonoff (1908-1989), an amateur photographer from Istanbul, left us a stunning record of the cultural heritage and life in Turkey from 1930 to 1945. His photographs give snapshots of Classical, Byzantine, and Ottoman monuments; streets, shops, and cemeteries; craftsmen, traders, musicians, and children.
  His photographic work preserved in the collections of Dumbarton Oaks and the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery focuses mainly on Istanbul, but also documents his trips to Bursa, Izmir, and archaeological sites in Western Turkey.
  This lecture reconstructs the life and career of Nicholas V. Artamonoff by retracing his steps through his photographs. The rising interest in the cultural heritage of Turkey provides the context in which the young Artamonoff, who arrived to Istanbul at the age of fourteen, became an impressive photographer.
  See more at AFOT event on Artamonoff

High and Low Temperatures in Degrees F, Weather

Snow depths at skiing locations:

* Snow covered most of Turkey this week, bringing life to a standstill in many localities.
  In Istanbul car ferries stopped working, one of the bridges that connects Asia to Europe was closed and the metro system stopped working.
  In many provinces of Turkey schools were closed. Many roads leading to go rural areas were blocked by snow. For example, 549 roads leading to villages were closed just in Sivas, one of 81 provinces Turkey has.
  The temperature dropped to -6° F in the province on Tuesday night.

* Anatolia News Agency reported on 20 January 2012 that the need for natural gas is rising as heavy snow paralyses most of Turkey. On Jan. 16 a record was broken, and consumption reached 178 million cubic meters.
  Meanwhile, Turkey's state-run pipeline company Botas urged commercial establishments in the Marmara and Ege regions to start to use secondary fuel sources to alleviate shortages.