Turkish Airlines Domestic Flights Start on June 4

Domestic flights will start on June 4 and international flights will begin on June 10, Turkish Airlines CEO İlker Aycı has announced.

Speaking on Cüneyt Özdemir’s YouTube channel, Aycı said the following: 

“Domestic flights will start on June 4 and international flights will start on June 10. Hand luggage will not be permitted to be carried on board, instead an extra 8 kilos will be added onto the baggage allowance. A handbag may be brought on board.“

The Turkish Airlines CEO went on to say that “I would like to say to all our passengers who buy a ticket, whether they want to fly or not, will have the right to change it free of charge until December 31, 2021”.

Michigan AG says Trump sent 'the worst possible message' by refusing to wear a mask in front of cameras during tour of Ford plant

Michigan's attorney general slammed President Donald Trump for "conveying the worst possible message" by refusing to wear a mask in front of cameras during his visit Thursday to a Ford manufacturing plant.

"I am ashamed to have him be President of the United States of America," Dana Nessel, a Democrat, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" Thursday.

"And I hope that the voters of Michigan will remember this when November comes, that he didn't care enough about their safety, he didn't care about their welfare, he didn't respect them enough just to engage in the very simple task, the painless task, the easy task of wearing a mask when he was provided one."

"And so I hope that we'll have a new president soon enough who does respect people more than this president does," she continued.

Her comments come after the President toured and delivered remarks at the Ford plant in Ypsilanti, which has been repurposed to produce ventilators and personal protective equipment.

While at the plant, Trump said he did wear a mask during the tour, but "didn't want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it" when in front of the cameras. He showed off a navy blue mask with the presidential seal on it. An individual from Ford confirmed to reporters that the President had worn the mask.

So far, Trump has resisted covering his face in public or being seen wearing a mask, despite the federal government's recommendations to do so in public during the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking to reporters as he departed the White House on Thursday, Trump said "I don't know, we're going to look at it" when asked if he would wear a mask.

Earlier Thursday, Nessel had told CNN's Alisyn Camerota if Trump "fails to wear a mask, he's going to be asked not to return to any unclosed facilities inside our state." Asked if that was now the case after his tour, she said pointedly, "I will say speaking on behalf of my department and my office, that's right. That's exactly right.

"Today's events were extremely disappointing and yet totally predictable," Nessel told Blitzer.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, recently issued an executive order that includes requiring manufacturing facilities to suspend all tours. Nessel noted that Michigan waived that requirement for Trump's visit to the Ford plant.

Another executive order Whitmer signed this week requires anyone who is medically able to wear a facial covering when in an enclosed space.

As a result, Nessel has threatened legal action against "any company or any facility that allows him inside those facilities and puts our workers at risk." Following Trump's tour, she said, "I think that we're going to have to have a very serious conversation with Ford in the event that they permitted the President to be in publicly enclosed places in violation of the order.

"They knew exactly what the order was and if they permitted anyone, even the President of the United States, to defy that order, I think it has serious health consequences potentially to their workers."

On Tuesday, Ford said it had shared its safety policies with the White House -- including that everyone wear a mask "in all facilities, at all times" -- but added that "the White House has its own safety and testing policies in place and will make its own determination." 

Asked Tuesday if he would wear a mask on his visit, Trump had said, "I don't know. I haven't even thought of it."

"It depends. In certain areas I would, in certain areas I don't. But I will certainly look at it," he added.

Trump recently went maskless during his tour last week of a medical equipment distribution facility in Pennsylvania and his tour earlier this month of a Honeywell plant in Arizona that produces N95 respirator masks.

Child drowns at sea off Greece in first fatality

A child died after being pulled from the sea when a boat capsized on Monday off the Greek island of Lesbos, Greek officials said, the first reported fatality since Turkey opened its border last week to let migrants reach Europe.   

Separately, two Turkish security sources told Reuters a Syrian migrant had died from injuries on March 1 after Greek security forces intervened to prevent migrants crossing from Turkey into Greece, but Athens branded the claim "fake news".   

More than 10,000 migrants, mostly from Syria, other Middle Eastern states and Afghanistan, have reached Turkey's land borders with EU states Greece and Bulgaria since Ankara said on Feb. 27 it would stop keeping them on its territory.   

Further south, at least 1,000 migrants have reached Greece's eastern Aegean islands since March 1 morning, Greek police say.   

The Greek coast guard said the boat which capsized off Lesbos had been escorted there by a Turkish vessel. Forty-six people were rescued and two children were taken to hospital, one of whom could not be revived.   

Another dinghy with about 30 Afghans arrived on Lesbos early in the morning, a Reuters journalist reported from the island. Thirty-two others were rescued in the seas off Farmakonissi, a small island close to Turkey, the coast guard said.   

"This is an invasion," Development Minister Adonis Georgiadis told Skai TV on March 2.    

The latest migrant surge follows Turkey's decision to stop enforcing a 2016 agreement with the European Union whereby it prevented migrants from entering the bloc in return for billions of euros in aid.   

Turkey, already home to 3.7 million Syrian refugees, has another million arriving on its doorstep from a new surge of fighting in northern Syria and says it cannot handle any more.       

White flags

The EU's chief executive Ursula von der Leyen expressed sympathy on March 1 with Turkey over the conflict in Syria but said its decision to let refugees and migrants cross into Europe "cannot be an answer or solution".   

Von der Leyen was due to visit the Greek-Turkish border on March 3 with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis

Migrants on the Turkish side of the border, some holding white flags, called the Greek soldiers and riot police to open the gates to let them through, saying they had kids and women.   

A Greek government spokesman said a video circulating on social media showing a young man with wounds to the head laid out on the ground near the border was "fake news". Two Turkish security sources said the Syrian man had died of his wounds. 

"We call upon everyone to use caution when reporting news that furthers Turkish propaganda," spokesman Stelios Petsas said on Twitter.     

Petsas has said the migrant surge poses "an active, serious, severe and asymmetrical threat to national security".   

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov of Bulgaria, which also shares a land border with Turkey, was due to hold talks in Ankara on March 2 evening with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the migrant crisis.   

Turkey's decision to open its border threatens to reverse an agreement that halted Western Europe's biggest wave of migration since World War Two, the 2015-2016 crisis when 4,000 people drowned in Aegean and more than a million reached Greece.   

There are more than 40,000 migrants still living on Greece's Aegean islands in severely overcrowded camps.   

More than 60 non-governmental organizations urged the EU on March 2 in an open letter to take urgent action to relocate them across the bloc and speed up the processing of asylum claims.

Erdoğan, who has long accused the EU of failing to provide enough support to Ankara in the migrant crisis, opened Turkey's border after at least 34 Turkish soldiers sent to Syria to monitor a crumbling ceasefire there were killed last week.

Information on Nicosia State Hospital Services

Health Minister Dr. Ali Pilli held a press conference to inform the public regarding the outcome of the fire that broke out at the Dr. Burhan Nalbantoğlu state hospital in Nicosia.

He said that the preliminary examination of the damage assessment has been completed and that apart from the Angiography and Cardiovascular Surgery department, other departments at the hospital will open for service.
Minister Pilli also said that the operating theatres could come into service as of Wednesday.

“The outpatient’s clinic, x-ray, laboratory, ambulatory care services, chest diseases services, infection services, dialysis, oncology and nuclear medicine will continue to provide services. At the same time, the Thalassaemia and diabetic centres will continue to provide services. On Wednesday the operating theatres will open but cardiovascular surgeries and angiography will not take place”, the health minister said.

- LGC

Chili pepper lovers might live longer says new study

New Italian research has found that people who eat chili peppers on a regular basis appear to have a lower risk of death than those who avoid the spicy ingredient.

Led by researchers from the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention of I.R.C.C.S. Neuromed in Pozzilli, Italy, the new study set out to investigate whether chili peppers, which are a common ingredient in Italian cuisine and the Mediterranean diet, may be linked with a lower risk of death in those who consume them regularly.

For the study the team looked at 22,811 adults living in the Molise region of Italy who were participating in the Moli-sani study. 

The participants' chili pepper intake was measured using a Food Frequency Questionnaire and categorized as none/rare consumption, up to two times per week, three or four times per week, and more than four times a week. They were then followed for an average of eight years. 

The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), showed that participants who ate chili peppers four times a week or more had a 40 percent lower risk of dying of a heart attack compared to those who never or rarely ate them. In addition, the risk of dying from a stroke was more than halved.

"An interesting fact," added Marialaura Bonaccio, first author of the publication, "is that protection from mortality risk was independent of the type of diet people followed. In other words, someone can follow the healthy Mediterranean diet, someone else can eat less healthily, but for all of them chili pepper has a protective effect."

The study is the first to investigate whether eating chili peppers could be linked to a lower risk of death in a European and Mediterranean population, although chili peppers have already been linked to a lower risk of death in Chinese and American populations. 

"Chili pepper is a fundamental component of our food culture," commented researcher Licia Iacoviello. "We see it hanging on Italian balconies, and even depicted in jewels. Over the centuries, beneficial properties of all kinds have been associated with its consumption, mostly on the basis of anecdotes or traditions, if not magic. It is important now that research deals with it in a serious way, providing rigor and scientific evidence. And now, as already observed in China and in the United States, we know that the various plants of the capsicum species, although consumed in different ways throughout the world, can exert a protective action towards our health."

Results:

Over a median follow-up of 8.2 years, a total of 1,236 deaths were ascertained. Multivariable hazard ratios (HRs) for all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality among participants in the regular (>4 times/week) relative to none/rare intake were 0.77 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.66 to 0.90) and 0.66 (95% CI: 0.50 to 0.86), respectively. Regular intake was also inversely associated with ischemic heart disease (HR: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.35 to 0.87) and cerebrovascular (HR: 0.39; 95% CI: 0.20 to 0.75) death risks. The association of chili pepper consumption with total mortality appeared to be stronger in hypertension-free individuals (p for interaction = 0.021). Among known biomarkers of CVD, only serum vitamin D marginally accounted for such associations.

Conclusions:

In a large adult Mediterranean population, regular consumption of chili pepper is associated with a lower risk of total and CVD death independent of CVD risk factors or adherence to a Mediterranean diet. Known biomarkers of CVD risk only marginally mediate the association of chili pepper intake with mortality.

Trump defender at impeachment debate says Jesus got a better deal in his trial

As the House debated articles of impeachment Wednesday, the president’s defenders reached all the way back to the biblical times, and across the globe to Pearl Harbor, for metaphors to describe what they said was happening to President Trump.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., compared the impeachment of Trump to the trial of Jesus Christ.

“Before you take this historic vote today, one week before Christmas, I want you to keep this in mind: When Jesus was falsely accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face his accusers. During that sham trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than Democrats afforded this president in this process.”

Loudermilk then yielded back, neglecting to mention that Pilate eventually let the crowd decide Jesus’s fate. Recent polls have shown a slim majority of Americans approving of Trump’s impeachment. Rep. Fred Keller, R-Pa., later said that he would pray for Democrats, using the same language as Jesus praying for his executioners on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Trump has refused to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry in any way, declining to supply requested documents and instructing his top aides not to testify.

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., brought up the “belly of the beast,” an allusion to the story of Jonah and the whale, in a rambling commentary on the culture war he felt was being perpetrated by Democrats.

“I have descended into the belly of the beast,” Higgins said. “I have witnessed the terror within and I rise committed to oppose the insidious forces, but this unjust and weaponized impeachment brought upon us by the same socialists who threatened unborn life in the womb, who threatened Second Amendment protections of every American patriot and who have long ago determined that they would organize and conspire to overthrow President Trump.”

Higgins displayed a map showing all the counties that voted for Trump in 2016, making it appear as if he won an overwhelming share of the vote. (In fact, the 63 million votes he received, a figure frequently cited by his supporters, was nearly 3 million fewer than Hillary Clinton’s total.) “Our republic shall survive this threat from within. American patriots shall prevail,” he intoned.

kktc Police warned: Watch out for fake 50 TL banknotes!

Police General Directorate, by making an official statement, underlined the need to pay attention to fake banknotes of 50 TL. The press statement of the police said: TL It was found that last night, in Kyrenia, 400 TL of the cash, which was saved by a person (Name Undisclosed) and which was thought to be a fake, was indeed confirmed to be fake.

 

These 50 TL counterfeit bills, which are taken as exhibits by the police, are all composed of serial number A 625255062. 

Since the counterfeit currency is considered to have previously been placed on the market in question, it is stated that the persons and institutions that will sell and exchange money with banks, foreign exchange companies, financial institutions, markets and citizens with a fake 50 TL, Turkish Lira ”type of currency are hereby advised that they should be very careful and inform the nearest police station of the suspicious distributors.