Free Republic

Gauging the value of the Turkish lira against the US dollar has required the power of divination so far this year. Anxiety is high as Turks wait to see whether the lira will tumble more and reach the once-unimaginable level of 4 lira per $1. snip- Now, 4 lira to a dollar is entirely possible and is seen as a harbinger of the big financial crisis to come. snip- The data indicates Turkey will be facing an inevitable financial collapse or at least a severe economic crisis this year. Such a crisis will worsen the security situation in Turkey, which...

The situation in Turkey is bad and getting worse. It’s not just the deterioration in security amidst a wave of terrorism. Public debt might be stable, but private debt is out of control, the tourism sector is in free-fall and the decline in the currency has impacted every citizen’s buying power. There is a broad sense, election results notwithstanding, that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is out of control. He is imprisoning opponents, seizing newspapers left and right and building palaces at the rate of a mad sultan or aspiring caliph. In recent weeks, he has once again threatened to dissolve...

Germany’s AIDA Cruises has adjusted its 2016 deployment in Europe, opting to pull the AIDAstella from the Eastern Mediterranean due to “ongoing security concerns” in Turkey. The 2013-built AIDAstella will now be re-deployed to the Western Mediterranean, taking over the routes of the AIDAaura and sailing from Palma de Mallorca in Spain, according to a written statement issued by the company on Jan. 29. It said the move came as a result of the large number of inquiries from guests concerned following the Jan. 12 bomb attack in Istanbul that killed 11 German tourists. The AIDAstella was originally scheduled on...