Turkey’s state-owned energy importer «biggest dollar buyer» at Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar

«In the narrow arched alleyways where shopkeepers have plied their trade for more than half a millennium, Erdogan’s last-ditch efforts to smother bets against the lira don’t have the same bite,» Bloomberg has observed. While authorities in Turkey introduce new rules to restrict foreign currency transactions by banks in moves to counter growing demand for …

Czech Weapons in Azerbaijan: How a Chassis Turned into a Howitzer

Two years ago, when the Azerbaijani army showed off their Czech Dana howitzers and Vampire rocket launchers in a promotional video, it attracted extraordinary media attention: the Czech Republic does not officially export military equipment to this country. The arms branch of the Czechoslovak Group immediately rushed to make an official statement that, in accordance …

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Baku and why sport and politics cannot be separated

The Baku pogrom began on 12 January 1990, when a nationalist rally in Azerbaijan’s capital quickly turned ugly, and huge crowds took to the streets in search of the city’s dwindling but significant Armenian population. By this point, Azerbaijan and Armenia had been at war for two years, a period that had seen mass expulsions and unspeakable atrocities on both …