Armenia’s national Greco-Roman wrestling team will battle for third place Wednesday in the 2013 FILA (International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles) Greco-Roman Wrestling World Cup competition, which is being held in Tehran, Iran.
Armenia will compete against Turkey for the bronze medals.
The makeup of the teams and the fighting pairs are announced, and the matches will get underway shortly.
NEWS.am Sport
via Armenia vs. Turkey | NEWS.am Sport – All about sports.
Spicy Turkish dishes including Lahmacun and Kofta Izgara delighted people. PHOTO: PUBLICITY
KARACHI: A Turkish man’s gastronomical obsession, a bit of dreaming and a great deal of destiny is what brought Turkish restaurant Solen Istanbul to Pakistan.
Restaurateur Mehmet Celal Ulutatar came to Karachi to set up a business venture, and realised during his stay how much potential the port city has. “I see a lot of potential in Karachi for Solen Istanbul. Destiny brought me here,” said Ulutatar at the opening of his restaurant at Dolmen City Mall in Clifton on Friday.
Solen Istanbul, which is a chain of restaurants, has five outlets in Turkey’s capital Istanbul. At the event, the excited Turkish Consul General Murat M Onart said that he had been hoping that a Turkish restaurant would open in the city. “It is sheer luck. Whatever I dream of becomes true. It was just a dream which has finally become a reality.”
Guests present at the event were treated to Turkish delicacies, including Lahmacun — a round, thin piece of dough flattened and topped with minced meat and chopped vegetables. The herbs included onions, tomatoes and parsley and the bread was baked to perfection. Turkish pizza, made by stuffing pita bread with spicy minced meat, red tomatoes and bell pepper was also served to guests who kept asking for more.
Chefs, Abdullah, Abdul Hakim and Omar Farooq were specially flown into Karachi to train the staff. The local crew was taught to cook Turkish cuisine including Kofta Izgara (grilled meatballs) and Sutlac (rice pudding).
Onart, who is very hopeful of the restaurant’s success said, “Pakistanis would love the splendours of Turkish cuisine — we are as obsessed with food as them!” Endorsing his statement, Ulutatar added, “I hope that people find the food extraordinary for their taste buds.” He also recommended that people try Iskender, a Turkish shawarma.
Among the locals present at the event to host the Turkish expats was Talha Nawabi, who said, “It is surely going to be a treat for those who enjoy Turkish cuisine.” Nawabi added that people are losing interest in fast food and that Solen Istanbul will become a hit because most of the meat is grilled.
For Pakistanis accustomed to spicy and chatpata food, Turkish cuisine may seem a little bland. Authentic Turkish food concentrates on retaining the flavour of the meat instead of adding spices, so Solen Istanbul’s fate really depends on whether or not desi foodies can live without their mirchi.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 19th, 2013.
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via Solen Istanbul — a treat from Turkey – The Express Tribune.
Leviathan is not big enough for exports by pipeline and LNG, and this could harm Woodside’s plans to build an LNG facility.
17 February 13 17:43, Amiram Barkat and Hillel Koren
A natural gas export contract with Turkey could generate $3-4 billion revenue a year for the Leviathan partners, Noble Energy Inc. (NYSE: NBL), Delek Group Ltd. (TASE: DLEKG), and Ratio Oil Exploration (1992) LP (TASE:RATI.L), according to an analysis of market prices and the quantities of gas under discussion by the parties. Turkey currently pays $11-16 per million BTU for natural gas it buys via pipeline, depending on the contracts with natural gas suppliers.
Turkish daily “Sunday’s Zaman” reports that Turkey’s main gas supplier, Russia, which supplies 55% of the country’s gas, charges $400 million per billion cubic meters, or $11 per million BTU. Azerbaijan, which supplies 10% of the country’s gas, charges $300 million per billion cubic meters, and Iran, which supplies 25% of the country’s gas, charges $505million per billion cubic meters. Turkish complaints about the high price of Iranian gas resulted in the opening of arbitration proceeding in March 2012. Nonetheless, Turkey increased its gas purchases from Iran by 10%, compared with 2011, to 8 BCM, at a cost of over $4 billion.
Talks between Turkish companies and the Leviathan partners mention gas deliveries equal to Turkey’s imports from Iran.
Energy analysts are currently skeptical about a deal, saying that there is nothing to price at this time, and that Egyptian gas affair demonstrates the geopolitical risks of any gas contract. “If the gas flow stops after two years, how will that affect the return on investment and yields? After all, no one can guarantee such large gas sales,” a market source says.
Noble Energy executives have said in the past that any deal with Turkey would require changes in the diplomatic landscape. In addition, any large gas deal with Turkey could have ramifications on liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plans and on plans by Australia’s Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (ASX: WPL) to become a partner in Leviathan for the purpose of building such a facility.
The size of gas discovery at Leviathan and other fields are not big enough for simultaneous exports by pipeline and LNG, even assuming that the Tzemach Committee does not reduce its gas export recommendations, following disappointing results from wells drilled after the report was published.
Market sources believe that that Leviathan partners will soon announce an update on the discovery. Source close to the matter are optimistic about an upward revision from the current estimate of 17 trillion cubic feet of gas. The Leviathan 4 verification well, begun in mid-November, will take four months to complete. The well is targeting strata at a depth of 5,300 meters, including 1,600 meters water depth. The well will later serve as the gas production rig as part of Leviathan’s development plan.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on February 17, 2013
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2013
via Leviathan gas sales to Turkey worth $3-4b a year – Globes.
ISTANBUL // A dark and damp basement of an Istanbul mosque is home to about 30 people who have nowhere else to go, victims of a new and largely unnoticed refugee crisis in Turkey.
Most of the inhabitants of the basement, which used to serve as the mosque’s morgue, are Afghan refugees. They are new arrivals, not from Afghanistan directly, but from Turkey’s eastern neighbour Iran, where conditions for refugees have started to worsen.
There are about 20,000 Afghan refugees in Turkey, most of whom have arrived in recent months, according to the Ankara office of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.
At the mosque in the neighbourhood of Zeytinburnu, just outside the ancient city walls, a local charity has been providing shelter, food and clothes for the Afghans and several Iranians, who have also moved into the basement.
“What else can we do,” Kiyaz Aras, the deputy chairman of the charity that runs the mosque, said this week. “They would be out on the street otherwise.”
One of the refugees, Sajjad Ramizani, 18, son of a family of Afghan refugees in Iran, said his parents decided to send him to Turkey with his grandmother and an uncle half a year ago.
He and other refugees say there is increasing pressure on Afghans in Iran to leave, as Tehran is facing growing economic difficulties, caused in part by western sanctions in response to Iran’s nuclear programme.
Mr Ramizani’s parents remain in Iran. “But they want to come as soon as they have the money,” he said.
In the past two years, efforts to help refugees in Turkey have focused on the region bordering Syria, where close to 180,000 Syrians are sheltered in government-run camps. But in the shadow of the Syrian crisis, the number of Afghan refugees in Turkey has started to rise dramatically.
Only 7,000 Afghans are officially registered, the UN agency said in a written response to questions this week. “As a result of a sharp increase from June 2012 onwards an additional 13,000 have approached UNHCR.”
Most of the Afghans arriving here come not straight from their homeland, but from Iran, home to around 820,000 Afghan refugees.
The UNHCR said the increase was “due to many factors, including the fear of Afghans for what will happen in Afghanistan after the international troops pull out in 2014 and the economic situation in Iran which makes it very difficult for many Afghans in Iran to be able to survive”.
Abdulriza Sagagi, a spokesman for the Iranian embassy in Ankara, denied that his country was pushing the Afghans out.
“There is no pressure whatsoever,” Mr Sagagi said by telephone. He suggested that such complaints came from Afghans who wanted to improve their chances of being accepted by a western country.
But refugees, such as Mr Ramizani, said the pressure was real.
Born into a family of Afghan refugees in the Iranian city of Isfahan, Mr Ramizani said his family was suddenly confronted with a hostile attitude by Iranian authorities last year.
“We had a shop there, and we had a car,” Mr Ramizani said. “Then the police came and closed down our shop and took away our car.”
Mr Ramizani now works as a helper at a car park in Istanbul and tries to keep in touch with his parents by calling them from one of the phone shops in Zeytinburnu that advertise cheap telephone calls to Afghanistan, Iran and central Asian countries.
Up the road from the mosque, Aci Nusrat, another newly-arrived Afghan refugee, was taking a walk in the warm February sun.
Mr Nusrat, 60, fled Afghanistan shortly after the Soviet invasion of 1979 and settled in the Iranian city of Shiraz, where he worked as a teacher in a karate school. Then, about two months ago, the life he had known for 30 years came to an abrupt end.
“All of a sudden, they refused to give new papers to Afghans,” he said about Iranian authorities. Mr Nusrat and his family of seven decided to go to Turkey, which they reached after a trek over the mountains. After arriving in Zeytinburnu, his son found work at a construction company so the family can afford its own apartment.
Since coming to Istanbul, Mr Nusrat, whose crushing handshake betrayed the lifelong athlete, has been trying to keep fit by working out on gym machines in a public park on the shore of the nearby Sea of Marmara. Although he entered Turkey illegally and lacks valid identity papers, he said he was not concerned about being extradited from Turkey.
“The police here are good, they are bad in Iran,” he said. “I want to stay here.”
Turkey does not grant refugee status to Afghans, but agrees to let them stay in the country while UNHCR officials try to find countries willing to take them in, a process that can take years.
Taner Kilic, director of the Association for Solidarity with Refugees (Multeci-Der), an NGO, said Afghan refugees in Turkey had to wait up to four years before getting their first interview at the UNHCR to talk about a possible move to another country.
via Afghan refugees leave Iran for Turkey – The National.
Georgia, Tbilisi, 16 Feb. / Trend N.Kirtskhalia /
Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Alasania and Chief of Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Necdet Ozel agreed on issues of conducting joint military exercises at a meeting in Ankara on Saturday, the Georgian Defense Ministry told Trend.
According to the ministry, the meeting discussed matters related to strategic partnership of the two neighboring states, particularly, the future cooperation and joint exercises.
On Saturday, the Georgian delegation also met with representatives of the defense industry of Turkey.
Within the visit, Alasania and delegation members met with the management of the committee for defense and security of Turkish Parliament.
During the meeting, the sides discussed both military cooperation and strategic partnership between the two countries. The Turkish side also expressed its full support for Georgia’s aspirations to join NATO.
via Georgia and Turkey discuss joint military exercises – Trend.Az.
NEW DELHI: Turkey today said it wants to double the number of flights from Delhi and Mumbai connecting the country to boost tourism and enhance trade and investments relations.
“We want to double the frequency of flights from Delhi and Mumbai. We also want to start flights to more Indian destinations. It will help in boosting tourism sector in both the countries,” Ambassador of Turkey to India Burak Akcapar said here at a CII function.
At present, a total of seven flights from Mumbai and Delhi connect India to Turkey.
“We have completed all the procedures from our side (to increase flight frequency). Now the ball is in India’s court,” he added.
Akcapar emphasised on the need to increase awareness among the business community of both the countries to enhance trade and investments relations.
He said that the bilateral trade between the countries reflects that a lot needs to be done to increase two-way commerce as India is lagging behind several of its peers including China and several African nations.
“Trade figure is very low. India lags behind in the way it represents in Turkey. It lags behind China, Africa and its peers in the world,” he said.
The bilateral trade stood at USD 4.5 billion in 2011-12. The Ambassador said that huge opportunities exists in Turkey for Indian business community in sectors like infrastructure, IT and automobile.
He also emphasised to increase cultural cooperation between the countries and urged the Indian Prime Minister to visit Turkey.
Major imports from Turkey comprise minerals, fertilisers, nuclear reactors and machinery, while exports include pharma, manmade yarn and electronic goods.
via Turkey seeks more air connectivity with India to boost tourism, trade – The Economic Times.
