Turkish-origin army officer awarded in Netherlands
A Turkish-origin officer serving the Netherlands army has been awarded a medal for saving his Dutch neighbors in a fire in Amsterdam last March.
Ekrem Karadeniz, 44, a captain in the Dutch army told Anadolu Agency on Sunday that he feels honored.
The silver medal was handed over by the mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema.
Karadeniz said that he came home early on the day of the fire.
"I saw dark smoke from my window. I understood that they weren't ordinary fumes. When I looked outside the window, I heard my neighbor's screams from downstairs. I went to the bathroom and covered my head after wetting it with a big towel. I asked my wife to call emergency while running downstairs," Karadeniz said.
He said he found his neighbour half unconscious on the floor and took him outside.
"Then I took my neighbor's spouse outside as well," he said, adding that he checked if anyone else was trapped in the fire.
He managed to exit the building safely.
Karadeniz gave first aid to his neighbors until an ambulance arrived to the scene.
"I only fulfilled my responsibility," he told his neighbors, who thanked Karadeniz for his bravery.
Turkey on Saturday extended condolence to India over a deadly train accident in Indian state of Punjab on Friday evening."We have received with deep sorrow the tragic news of the train disaster in Amritsar city during Dussehra Festival celebrations which resulted in the loss of many lives and injuries," a statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.“We extend our sincere condolences to the people and Government of India as well as to the relatives of those who lost their lives and wish speedy recovery to the injured,” the statement said.At least 59 people were killed and 72 others injured on Friday when a train ran over people in the Indian state of Punjab, according to Times of India, a local daily.Officials said that the crowd gathered near the railway track in Amritsar district for celebrations of Dussehra, a Hindu festival, were unable to hear an approaching train due to firecrackers.Malaysian deputy PM criticizes Myanmar leaderIndia-US ties reach new level with signing of key pactsIndia's #MeToo activists welcome minister’s resignation
Turkey condoles with India over deadly train accident
Turkey on Saturday bade farewell to the country’s renowned photographer Ara Guler, who died to heart failure on Wednesday at the age of 90.Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay and Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin attended a ceremony in Istanbul to pay tributes to Guler.Nonagenarian Guler had suffered a heart attack and was taken to the intensive care unit of Florence Hospital where he breathed his last.Expressing grief over death of the photographer, Oktay said Guler was a great artist, who inspired many photographers."We will always remember our notable artist with respect," he added.The vice president said Guler will be remembered with his photo interviews and documentaries.Separately, voicing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s message, Kalin said Guler has left a magnificent heritage to the next generations and was a great master in photography."Big artists continue to live with their works of art after their death as well. And I see Ara Guler, who is one of the most important photo masters in Turkey, making history with his camera as a big artist," Kalin saidHis photo interviews with many well-known figures such as British politician Winston Churchill, British philosopher Bertrand Russell, ex-Indian PM Indira Gandhi, Spanish painters Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso, and U.K.-born film director Alfred Hitchcock will always be in people's minds.Erdogan also offered his condolences to Guler's family.'Eye of Istanbul'Dubbed "Eye of Istanbul", Guler rose to fame with his black-and-white portraits of the city. He was suffering from kidney failure and had to be taken for treatment thrice a week."That dialysis makes me stupefied," he said in an interview with Anadolu Agency in 2015.“I cannot do anything three days a week. It takes four hours each time, and it is unbearable.”However, old age and illness did not stop him from pursuing his work. In 2015, he took pictures of the ongoing construction of Istanbul’s third bridge on the Bosphorus.Guler belonged to a family of Turkish intellectuals.His mother came from an Armenian family which owned several houses around Beyoglu, a neighborhood in Istanbul.On Saturday, a memorial ceremony for him was held at Galatasaray Square in Istanbul's European side.Later, Guler's coffin was taken to an Armenian church in Beyoglu district and he was buried at the Armenian Cemetery in Sisli district after the ceremony in the church.
Turkey bids farewell to renowned photographer Ara Guler
Two days after the fire, Amsterdam police congratulated him over his heroic behavior and awarded him.
Serving the Dutch Armed Forces for many years, Karadeniz said that this was not his first medal as he was given six others.
Karadeniz added that his ancestors were war veterans for Turkey as his grandfather and great-grandfather took part in the Korean War and Canakkale battle in Turkey.
Turkish forces served under the UN Command during the Korean War between 1950 and 1953, and 774 Turkish soldiers were martyred.
The Battle of Canakkale started in February 1915, when Britain and France decided to launch the Dardanelles campaign, in order to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war as quickly as possible by reaching and capturing its capital Istanbul.
The victory gave Turkey a massive morale boost that enabled it to wage a war of independence and eventually, in 1923, form a republic from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
The head of the European Parliament suggested on Thursday that EU states who refuse to host refugees could instead pay more for migration and development projects in Africa.The migration dispute has divided southern and eastern EU states as well as rich destination countries such as Germany since 2015, when more than one million refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia reached the bloc's borders.But the tone has changed recently after years of one camp insisting all EU states must take in some people and the other side rejecting that."No relocation - more money for Africa," Antonio Tajani told a news conference on Thursday as the bloc's 28 national leaders discussed migration. "This should be a good compromise."‘Turkey managed refugee influx remarkably well’"It's better to have an agreement with a compromise than no agreement," he said.Mediterranean arrivals are below 100,000 people so far this year, according to United Nations data, a far cry from the 2015 influx that caught the bloc unprepared and overwhelmed security and other public services.The chaotic scenes are still reverberating in European politics, which has since seen a surge in support for anti-immigration, populist and nationalist groups. But lower arrivals now mean some of the heat is off, making a deal easier.The eastern, ex-communist EU states like Poland and Hungary are still adamant that they would not allow any refugees from the mainly-Muslim countries in.Germany, France and the Netherlands, previously firmly demanding solidarity from all EU states, may be more open now to allowing their reluctant peers to buy out of the scheme as a way of sealing a deal, diplomats said in Brussels."We cannot force (others to take in refugees), but those that do not do so must possibly contribute in another way such as... in Africa. Everyone needs to take on some of the responsibility that we all have," Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told his EU peers recently.Any political agreement was likely to take more time, diplomats and officials said, not least because Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the eurosceptic Italian government have built their political clout on an anti-immigration line and criticism of how the EU has handled the matter. 
EU moves closer to overcoming migration feud
London's black taxi cabs will hit the streets of Paris next year as the Chinese Geely-owned London Electric Vehicle Company continues its global expansion of the famous models.In 2017, the firm picked Amsterdam as its first foreign destination for the new electric version of the taxi and it has since announced expansion plans to Oslo, Berlin and Hamburg.The taxi should be transporting Parisians in the first half of 2019 once negotiations with the favoured importer are concluded, the firm said in a statement."Given the air pollution difficulties facing French cities, we are very much looking forward to giving both drivers and passengers new options in Paris following a very positive reception on the streets," said Chief Executive Chris Gubbey."This truly bolsters our European position and we look forward to serving the cities of France alongside those in Norway, the Netherlands and Germany." 
London's black taxi cabs to launch in Paris next year