Rapid rent increases and property prices in Istanbul have reached staggering heights, rendering even ordinary properties unaffordable for most Turks. Over the past two years, the cost of real estate per square meter in the city has skyrocketed by over 480%, according to consulting firm Endeksa. Adjusted for inflation, housing prices in Turkey as a whole rose by 51% last year, surpassing all other major economies, as reported by a study conducted by the Bank for International Settlements.

The primary factors driving this surge are reckless interest-rate cuts and resulting inflation, both stemming from the policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. These developments have encouraged individuals with access to credit to invest in property as a means of preserving their wealth. Foreign buyers, particularly Russians, have also played a role in driving up prices, especially in Istanbul and along the Mediterranean Riviera.

The destructive earthquakes that struck southern Turkey earlier this year, claiming the lives of over 50,000 people, have had further repercussions. The estimated 3 million individuals displaced by the disasters have relocated to other parts of the country, leading to an abrupt spike in demand. 

Concerns about a potentially devastating earthquake in Istanbul, which lies just north of a significant fault line, have caused the prices of newer and safer buildings in the city to surge. Interestingly, according to a recent study by Bahcesehir University’s Center for Economic and Social Research, the neighborhoods farthest from the fault line have witnessed the highest price increases.

While one might anticipate a burst in this property market bubble, even recent policy changes may not be enough to bring the market back to reality. On June 22nd, Turkey’s central bank implemented a policy U-turn by increasing the benchmark interest rate by 6.5 percentage points. However, analysts suggest that prices will continue to rise, albeit at a slower pace, as long as inflation expectations remain high.

Unfortunately, inflation expectations remain persistent. The recent interest rate hike deemed insufficient to make a substantial impact, failed to alleviate pressure on the Turkish lira, which swiftly plummeted by 3% against the dollar within an hour of the decision. Since President Erdogan’s reelection on May 28th, the currency has depreciated by 18%. This, along with a recent 34% increase in the minimum wage, on top of a 55% increase six months prior, is expected to sustain inflationary pressures.

As the Istanbul property market continues its meteoric rise, it poses significant challenges for ordinary Turks struggling to find affordable housing. The government may need to implement further measures to address the growing housing affordability crisis and curb excessive speculation. Meanwhile, investors and analysts closely monitor the market, anticipating a potential adjustment in the future, albeit at a more moderate pace of growth.

WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) – The United States formally determined that Myanmar’s army committed genocide and crimes against humanity in its violence against the Rohingya minority, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, warning that as long as a military junta was in power nobody in the country would be safe.

Announcing the decision, which was first reported by Reuters on Sunday, Blinken said the attacks against Rohingya were “widespread and systematic” and that evidence pointed to a clear intent to destroy the mainly Muslim minority. read more

The determination could bolster efforts to hold the Myanmar generals accountable and help prevent further atrocities, U.S. officials believe. Activists welcomed the move but called for concrete actions like tougher sanctions on the junta.

In his speech at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the top American diplomat readout tragic and chilling accounts of victims, who had been shot in the head, raped and tortured.

Myanmar’s armed forces launched a military operation in 2017 that forced at least 730,000 Rohingya from their homes and into neighboring Bangladesh. In 2021, Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup.

“Since the coup, we have seen the Burmese military use many of the same tactics. Only now the military is targeting anyone in Burma it sees as opposing or undermining its repressive rule,” Blinken said.

“For those who did not realize it before the coup, the brutal violence unleashed by the military since February 2021 has made clear that no one in Burma will be safe from atrocities so long as it is in power,” he added.

Days after U.S. President Joe Biden took office, Myanmar generals led by Commander in Chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power on Feb. 1, 2021, after complaining of fraud in a November 2020 general election won by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi’s party. Election monitoring groups found no evidence of mass fraud.

The armed forces crushed an uprising against their coup, killing more than 1,600 people and detaining nearly 10,000, including civilian leaders such as Suu Kyi, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an advocacy group, and setting off an insurgency.

Blinken’s recognition comes after two earlier State Department examinations failed to produce a determination on the atrocities, which U.S. officials had only referred to as “ethnic cleansing” until now.

“There is no doubt that being allowed to get away with genocide of the Rohingya encouraged the military to think it could get away with holding a coup as well,” said Tun Khin, a Rohingya activist who heads the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK and attended Blinken’s address.

“Accountability for Rohingya genocide will not just help protect the Rohingya, it will help protect all the people of Burma.”

FEW REAL CONSEQUENCES

In response to the coup, the United States and Western allies sanctioned the junta and its business interests, but have been unable to persuade the generals to restore civilian rule after they received military and diplomatic support from Russia and China.

Advocates say Monday’s declaration, which does not automatically unleash any punitive measures but carries political weight, could help judicial efforts worldwide to hold the junta accountable, but say more action needs to follow.

Washington should work through U.N. bodies to push for accountability while also extending sanctions to target the foreign currency reserves Myanmar’s junta gathers from oil and gas revenues, said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

“The Myanmar military will continue to commit atrocities so long as other governments fail to impose measures to hold them accountable,” Sifton said.

Blinken on Monday announced $1 million in new funding for a U.N. investigation on Myanmar and said the United States has shared information with Gambia connected to its case at the International Court of Justice, where it has accused Myanmar of genocide.

Monday’s announcement comes after more than four years of examinations by the State Department, including a 2018 report prepared with outside lawyers that surveyed more than 1,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh.

Three-quarters of those surveyed had witnessed the military kill someone and more than half witnessed acts of sexual violence, Blinken said, adding the findings “demonstrate that these abuses were not isolated cases.”

Blinken also recalled the experience of his stepfather, Samuel Pisar, who was sent to the Nazis’ first concentration camp at Dachau a dozen years after it was built – an example of how the groundwork for genocide is laid over years or even decades.

An exhibit at the museum showed how Rohingya had their rights and citizenship “methodically stripped away” over many years, Blinken said.

LVIV/IRPIN, Ukraine, March 7 (Reuters) – Ukrainian officials said a bread factory had been hit by a Russian air strike on Monday as the country’s negotiators assembled for talks with Russian officials after previous rounds that brought no respite in the conflict.

The bodies of at least 13 civilians were recovered from the rubble after a factory in the town of Makariv in the Kyiv region was hit, local emergency services said. Five people were rescued off the 30 believed to have been there at the time. Reuters was not immediately able to verify the reported attack.

Russia earlier offered Ukrainians escape routes to Russia and its close ally Belarus on Monday after weekend evacuation ceasefire attempts failed. In the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, hundreds of thousands of people remained trapped without food and water under regular bombardments.

A Ukrainian negotiator urged Russia to stop its assault on Ukraine, which the United Nations said had sent 1.7 million people fleeing to Central Europe.

“In a few minutes, we will start talking to representatives of a country that seriously believes large-scale violence against civilians is an argument,” Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter. “Prove that this is not the case.”

Under the Russian offer, a corridor from the capital Kyiv would lead to Russia’s ally Belarus, while civilians from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city, would be directed to Russia, according to maps published by the RIA news agency.

“Attempts by the Ukrainian side to deceive Russia and the whole civilised world…are useless this time,” the Russian defence ministry said after announcing the “humanitarian corridors”.

A spokesperson for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Russian proposal was “completely immoral”.

“They are citizens of Ukraine, they should have the right to evacuate to the territory of Ukraine,” the spokesperson said.

A day earlier, Reuters journalists had witnessed people trying to flee the town of Irpin near Kyiv getting caught in Russian shelling.

On Monday people picked their way over the twisted ruins of a large bridge in Irpin, with river water rushing just beneath them.

“It’s like a disaster. The city is almost ruined and the district where I’m living (there are) no houses which were not bombed,” a young woman leaving with her children told Reuters.

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians. It calls the campaign it launched on Feb. 24 a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and remove leaders it describes as neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies call this a transparent pretext for an invasion to conquer a nation of 44 million people.