With a significant number of Russian residents, Antalya will be hosting its annual Russian-Turkish Culture Festival, starting from Saturday this week. For its seventh edition, the festival will provide cultural exchange with Russian and Turkish guests including children. 

Congressional negotiators on Wednesday approved an initiative to track and combat foreign propaganda amid growing concerns that Russian efforts to spread “fake news” and disinformation threaten U.S. national security. The measure, part of the National Defense Authorization Act approved by a conference committee, calls on the State Department to lead governmentwide efforts to identify propaganda and counter its effects. The authorization is for $160 million over two years.

Richard Stengel, the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, bluntly states the problem that has been worrying him and should worry us all: “In a global information war, how does the truth win?” The very idea that the truth won’t be triumphant would, until recently, have been heresy to Stengel, a former managing editor of Time magazine.

The new sanctions target North Korea's hard currency revenues by placing a "hard, binding cap" on coal exports, cutting them by at least 62 percent, capping them at around $400 million or 7.5 million tons, diplomats said. According to the Global Trade Atlas, China is on track to import nearly $1 billion worth of coal from North Korea in 2016 despite a previous sanctions regime.

With the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the issue of U.S.-Russia relations is acquiring a new importance. Russia figured prominently in the discussion of the U.S. elections and in debates about the direction of American foreign policy. Now the central question is whether or not the possibility of warmer relations between the two sides—or even a new détente—exists? What would it take to adopt a fresh approach?

Nowadays, the crucial question is based on what we expect from the EaP program in terms of implementation of its possible action framework in conjunction with partner countries. Does it fail or thrive in future expectancy?! [...] the arduous processes of the world order compel the EU to change its basic principles, the way of strategy, positions as well as instruments by taking into account the different stances of partner countries.