In a surprising bit of good news for Ankara, Turkey outperformed all of the world’s leading economies in the third quarter, outpacing forecasts with 6.7 per cent real GDP growth thanks to a stimulus campaign that urged banks to lend.
That growth was a mirage, as it spurred a sharp devaluation in the lira and a fast-emerging Covid-19 crisis. After months of only announcing symptomatic cases, the Turkish government shifted its position last week and began revealing all new Covid cases.
Suddenly, with around 30,000 daily, Turkey ranked among the world leaders in terms of rising case numbers, confirming the fears of health experts who argued for months that Turkish authorities were hiding the true extent of the crisis. The Turkish Medical Association believes the declared numbers are still low, and that Turkey is actually seeing some 50,000 new daily cases. Either way, starting on November 15, Turkey experienced 16 consecutive days of record Covid-related deaths, putting its toll near 15,000.
The government last week put new restrictions in place, including weeknight curfews and weekend lockdowns. Restaurants are now delivery-only and foot traffic on major streets and squares, including Istanbul’s central Taksim Square, has been reduced. Authorities are said to be mulling further measures, including an extended lockdown over the New Year holiday. Yet Turkish officials are also aware that this spring’s lockdown led to a sharp economic contraction, of nearly 10 per cent.
Turkey is already seeing economic warning signs. Inflation rose to 14 per cent last month, its highest level since the summer of 2019, prompting US investment bank JP Morgan to warn that Turkey’s economy had serious vulnerabilities and its stewards had no room for error.
Investor rating service Moody’s recently downgraded Turkey’s debt rating deeper into junk status and said a balance-of-payments crisis was likely. A few weeks later the lira fell to an unprecedented low, beneath 8 to the dollar.
The currency stabilised somewhat after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan installed a new Central Bank director, who quickly raised rates, replaced his largely inexperienced son-in-law Berat Albayrak with a more experienced hand as Treasury and Finance Minister and announced a wave of economic reforms.
Still, dark clouds are gathering. For more than a year, US President Donald Trump has held off on sanctioning Turkey for its purchase of Russian-made S-400 missile defence systems – a move required under the US' 2017 Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
With the incoming Biden administration, that looks set to change. The final version of the US annual defence policy bill unveiled last week mandates that the President sanction Turkey for its S-400 acquisition within 30 days.
A man mourns the death of a relative from Covid-19 at the Kucukcekmece Municipality Morgue in Istanbul last week. Starting on November 15, Turkey experienced 16 consecutive days of record Covid-related deaths. EPA
Also looming for Turkey are possible European Union sanctions in response to Ankara's aggressive posturing in the eastern Mediterranean, in particular its handful of exploratory drilling operations, backed by warships, in maritime areas claimed by EU members Cyprus and Greece.
Those two states and France have been calling on the EU to sanction Ankara for months, and the bloc’s leaders will take up the issue at a summit in Brussels starting on Thursday. “Turkey must stop its provocations and its hostile rhetoric,” Charles Michel, President of the European Council who will preside over the coming summit, said last Friday.
Meanwhile, Mr Erdogan is being challenged like never before. His Justice and Development Party (AKP) co-founder and former deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, last week called for the release of leading Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas and activist-philanthropist Osman Kavala, both of whom have been in prison for more than three years on widely questioned charges. Mr Erdogan denounced his long-time colleague, leading to Mr Arinc's resignation from a key advisory council and more talk of AKP fracturing, following last year's departure of two key figures. Also last week, the most pro-government of Turkey's polling groups, ORC Research, acknowledged for the first time that support for the parliamentary alliance between the AKP and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) had fallen below 50 per cent. The AKP and MHP received support from 48.9 per cent of those polled, while the opposition alliance received 47.4 per cent – a gap within the margin of error.
Economically, Mr Erdogan has been here before. A mid-2018 currency crisis grew into an economic crisis mainly because, that August, the Trump administration sanctioned Turkey for the continued imprisonment of American pastor Andrew Brunson. A desperate Ankara freed Mr Brunson two months later and the economy stabilised, but has remained stalled.
President Erdogan surely remembers this episode, which is why he has been doing all he can to cozy up to the West and avoid sanctions amid a Covid crisis, which could be devastating, politically and economically. Turkey brought its drilling ship Oruc Reis, which has in recent months been a bellwether for its expansionist moves in the eastern Mediterranean, back to port and expressed a readiness for talks on Cyprus and maritime issues; reached out to Saudi Arabia, with Mr Erdogan's phone call to King Salman last month to smooth tensions; and to Israel, with intelligence chief Hakan Fidan leading an effort to normalise ties.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu last week said Turkey backed Ukraine’s international initiative to see Crimea returned to Ukraine, an agenda that will see its first summit in May, with France, Germany, the US and Britain in attendance, along with Turkey.
A supporter of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party holds a mask of their jailed former leader Selahattin Demirtas during a rally in Ankara last month. Reuters
The next day Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin welcomed Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special representative for Afghanistan, to Ankara and voiced support for the ongoing Afghan peace talks. Mr Erdogan plans to announce Turkey’s judicial reform plan on Thursday, which happens to be global Human Rights Day, and some insiders have predicted he will release Kavala or Demirtas, or both.
Turkey and its Nato allies suddenly appear aligned on Saudi Arabia and Israel, Russia and Ukraine, the Afghan war and the eastern Mediterranean – and possibly, at least partially, the rule of law. Is it enough?
We’ll have a better idea of Turkey’s fate very soon. The day after the EU summit begins, Turkey plans to start administering the Chinese-made Covid vaccine to its healthcare workers.
David Lepeska is a veteran journalist who has been covering Turkey for the past decade
House-hunting
Top 10 locations for inquiries from US house hunters, according to Rightmove
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
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Rating: 4/5
Key findings of Jenkins report
Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
