Category: EU Members

European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Turkey on 17 Dec. 2004

Turkish classical pianist wins top prize in Germany

Turkish pianist Elif Şahin

German-based young Turkish classical pianist Elif Şahin and her counterpart won the top prize at this year’s Hugo Wolf International Competition for Lied in Germany, news agencies reported this week.

The duo made up of Şahin and soprano Annelie Sophie Müller came in first among the 12 finalists in the 2010 competition’s finals, held from Sept. 14 to 19 at the State College of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart.

Şahin and Müller, who are both studying at the Stuttgart State College of Music, were selected for the finals from among 114 entrants in this year’s competition, whose jury was chaired by famous German mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Austrian soprano Birgid Steinberger, Dutch bass-baritone Robert Holl, Swiss baritone Kurt Widmer and pianists Wolfram Rieger from Germany and Graham Johnson from Britain were the other members of the judging panel.

The Şahin-Muller pair won a cash prize of 20,000 euros and was invited to give a concert at the Stuttgart-based International Hugo Wolf Academy, which is organizing the competition.

Held every three years, the Hugo Wolf International Competition for the Art of Lied is dedicated to a different composer in each edition. This year’s competition was dedicated to Robert Schumann, Hugo Wolf and Gustav Mahler, all of whom have an anniversary in 2010.

The competition is aimed at “discovering and promoting young Lied artists — singers and pianists — as well as arousing the interest of a new audience into Lied as an art form,” as the organizers put it on the academy’s website, www.hugo-wolf-akademie.de.

, 24 September 2010

September 24, 2010
INTERCULTURAL CHESS TOURNAMENT

Intercultural Rapid Chess Tournament, organized from the 10 year old, turkish originated, multicultural chess club “”SATRANÇ CLUB 2000”. Slogan: “We all play in one language / Wir spielen eine Sprache / Biz ayni dilden oynuyoruz”. The tournament will be played during the Intercultural Week in Cologne, Germany. Please find all details here:

https://www.turkishnews.com/de/content/2010/08/22/interkulturelles-schachturnier/ or www.satranc.de.vu

Organizer: Intercultural Chess Club “SATRANÇ CLUB 2000”

Event type: Competition/Tournament

Date: 26/09/2010 – 26/09/2010

Venue: City Hotel Köln am Neumarkt, Clemensstr. 8, 50676 Cologne

Countries: Germany, Turkey

Planned media coverage: Newspapers, chess magazines, chess TV, Internet

Target Groups:

Adults (in general)
Business and commerce
Children
General public
Media
Members of migrant communities / Speakers of minority or regional language(s)
Parents
Participants in adult education programmes
Policy deciders/politicians at national, regional or local level
Pupils
Researchers
Students
Tourism
Young people (in general)

Scope: Local

Contact Address
Mr. Güven Manay
00491799425521
[email protected]

September 24, 2010
Limbless Father swims across Channel

A Frenchman became the first limbless person to swim the Channel on Saturday night.

Philippe Croizon, 42, set off from Folkestone, Kent, at around 6am expecting to reach France within 24 hours but managed to complete the feat in just 13-and-a-half hours.

He was forced to have his arms and legs amputated after he suffered an electric shock while removing a television aerial from a roof 16 years ago.

He only taught himself to swim in the last two years and does so using prosthetic legs and a snorkel and mask.

Earlier his spokeswoman said he was swimming faster than expected after completing his first 12 miles in just eight hours.

After completing the 21-mile challenge, Mr Croizon told the BBC that at no point did he feel he was not going to make it, despite pains and aches all over his body.

His father said his son had been helped by favourable wind conditions and had even had three dolphins swimming alongside at one point, which was a “sign of good luck”.

The amputee trained for 35 hours a week for the past two years and his endeavour attracted letters of support from President Sarkozy and other politicians.

The Telegraph

September 21, 2010
Turkish, Greek journalists to set up joint association

Turkish and Greek journalists, who got together at a media conference in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir on Saturday, agreed to set up a joint association.

Turkish and Greek journalists, who got together at a media conference in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir on Saturday, agreed to set up a joint association.

Journalists from Turkey and Greece, who met at a round-table meeting as part of “The 6th Turkish-Greek Media Conference”, unanimously approved the establishment of “Turkish-Greek Journalists’ Association”.

Moreover, the conference’s gala dinner was held at Izmir’s Swissotel with the participation of journalists and high-level officials from Turkey and Greece.

Speaking at the gathering, Greek Deputy Premier Theodoros Pangalos said Turkey and Greece had a common history and culture, adding that the two countries could use such values against globalization.

AA

, 19 September 2010

September 20, 2010
Turkish consulate in Greece attacked

FIREBOMBED

ATHENS, Greece — Unidentified assailants threw firebombs at the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki on Saturday (September 18th). No one was injured in the attack. The bombs were hurled by a group of 15 people who targeted a guard post outside the consulate. “We consider this an attack against Greek police rather than against the consulate,” the police said. A similar incident happened on August 12th. (AFP, DPA, Hurriyet – 18/09/10)

September 20, 2010
Bulgarian Government Baffled by Demands for Bulgarian School in Northern Cyprus

Bulgarian Diaspora Minister Dimitrov has boasted a doubling of the number of the Bulgarian schools abroad. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria’s government is currently perplexed as to how to go about the opening of a Bulgarian school in the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

This has been announced by Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov, who spoke at a public discussion in Sofia organized by the “PR Thursday” club of M3 College where he was the special guest.

“We have been really surprised to find out that there are about 9 000-10 000 Bulgarian expats of ethnic Turkish origin residing in Northern Cyprus, who have asked for the opening of a Bulgarian school so that their kids can attend it,” Dimitrov said.

He explained that the expats in question are from those Bulgarian Turks who left Bulgaria in the late 1980s fleeing from the so called “Revival” or “Regeneration Process”, an assimilation campaign of the Bulgarian communist regime forcing Muslims, Bulgarians and Turks alike, to adopt Slavic-Christian names. Estimates say some 200 000-300 000 Bulgarian Turks and Muslims left the country then even though about half are believed to have come back after the regime collapsed in 1989.

“What is particularly bewildering for us in this case is the fact that Bulgaria has not recognized the independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and therefore the Bulgarian government has no way of sponsoring a Bulgarian school there. If we open a Bulgarian school there, this will mean the recognition of this quasi-state. So we are stuck at the moment. But we will definitely find some form under which we can do it, in one way or another,” Dimitrov said.

He pointed out that a similar community of expat Bulgarian Turks living in Turkey’s Edirne, right to the southeast of the Bulgarian border had asked the Bulgarian government for a Bulgarian school, which is currently attended by 53 children.

The Diaspora Minister boasted an increase of the Bulgarian schools abroad to 136 since he took office a year ago, up from about 50.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was proclaimed in 1983 and has been recognized only by Turkey.

, September 10, 2010

September 17, 2010