Funr (FUNR)

[SharonB]

Turkey hosts high-level meeting on maritime issues
21/05/2007

CANAKKALE, Turkey -- The western city of Canakkale is hosting the Balkan-Black Sea Regional Commission meeting of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMR) on Monday (May 21st). More than 130 governors and other senior officials from Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Croatia, Ukraine, Belgium and Turkey are taking part. They are discussing new inter-regional co-operation and maritime transportation opportunities in the Black Sea region.

In other news, some 50,000 people joined a pro-secular rally held in the Black Sea town of Samsun on Sunday. This was the sixth such protest against the Islamist-rooted government ahead of the July 22nd general elections. It was in Samsun on May 19th, 1919, that Turkey's secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, began the Turkish war of independence. (Radikal, Sabah, Hurriyet, Turkishpress.com - 21/05/07; UPI, AP, RFI - 20/05/07)
http://www.balkantimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2007/05/21/nb-08