Turkey | featured news

The great majority of today's domesticated turkeys may not be able to fly, but their ancestors sure got around. The quintessential New World bird, Meleagris gallopavo, was already an Old World favorite by the time colonists in North America first celebrated any Thanksgiving feasts. Today's turkey researchers are investigating the big bird's genetic heritage and biology as part of an effort to improve several aspects of its cultivation.

Turkey threatened to cut off supplies of electricity to its neighbor Syria on Tuesday, as the Damascus regime found itself under growing pressure from Arab, Turkish, European and North American governments for its ongoing lethal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Turkey struggled to provide shelter on Wednesday to tens of thousands left homeless by an earthquake that killed nearly 500, and rescue teams began taking painful decisions to call off searches for those buried alive.

Turkish families wept in joy and sorrow Monday as a few lucky survivors and many more victims were pulled out of the rubble after a 7.2-magnitude quake leveled over a hundred apartment and office buildings....

As night fell over eastern Turkey on Sunday following the most powerful earthquake in at least a decade, citizens were using flashlights and shovels as they clambered over the rubble of collapsed buildings looking for survivors. At least seven aftershocks rattled the region, one of the nation's poorest. The extent of casualties was not immediately known.

The United States pressed ahead Monday with intensive talks aimed at averting a showdown over Palestinian statehood at the United Nations this week, asking key Muslim ally Turkey not to allow its rift with Israel to grow wider and hoping to coax cooperation from a noncommittal Russia....

Two flights operated by Pakistan's state-owned airline received bombs threats on Wednesday, and both landed safely, one in Turkey, the other in Malaysia, officials said....

Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and said Friday it is cutting military ties with the country over its refusal to apologize for last year's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed nine people.

Meat giant Cargill is recalling 36 million pounds of turkey after a government hunt for the source of a salmonella outbreak that has killed one person in California and sickened dozens more. The Agriculture Department says it is one of the largest meat recalls ever....

Turkey’s armed forced chief, Gen. Isik Kosaner, along with the heads of the army, navy and air force resigned Friday, Reuters reports. The reason for the generals' resignations was not immediately clear, but tensions between the military and the government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have been high in recent years, and a blow up was expected at a major meeting of the the Supreme Military Council next week.