Turkey to Impose Four-day Curfew Starting May 16

Two men wearing face masks seen at the deserted Istiklal Street during curfew in Istanbul, Turkey. (EPA)
Two men wearing face masks seen at the deserted Istiklal Street during curfew in Istanbul, Turkey. (EPA)
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Turkey to Impose Four-day Curfew Starting May 16

Two men wearing face masks seen at the deserted Istiklal Street during curfew in Istanbul, Turkey. (EPA)
Two men wearing face masks seen at the deserted Istiklal Street during curfew in Istanbul, Turkey. (EPA)

Turkey will impose a four-day partial curfew in 31 states beginning Friday midnight until the midnight of Tuesday, May 19, announced President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the counyry continues to grapple with the coronavirus outbreak.

"There will again be a lockdown in place on May 16-17-18 and 19," he said in an address to the nation following a weekly cabinet meeting on Monday.

Further, Erdogan said intercity travel restrictions on nine more cities had been lifted.

Starting next week, those aged 65 and above will be allowed to go outside from four to six hours on Sundays. Those under 20 will be allowed to go outside for six hours, twice per week.

He added that the hospitals, currently under construction, at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport and in Sancaktepe will help with medical tourism for people arriving from abroad.

Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said that international flights will gradually resume in June, noting that the country will contact 70 countries to relaunch air traffic in a bid to bring tourists back to Turkey.

Shopping centers reopened in Turkey on Monday after a 50-day shut down. Preventive measures have been introduced, including taking the temperature of shoppers before entering the mall. Anyone with a temperature above 38 will be directed to a medical center.

The opposition, however, criticized the reopening of malls while COVID-19 cases are still being registered and people are not abiding by preventive measures.

Turkey reported 55 deaths on Monday and 1,114 more infections. This raises the death toll to 3,841 and overall infections to 139,870.



Iran Renews Missile Attacks on Israel, Killing 3 and Wounding Dozens 

An explosion erupts from a missile fired from Iran in Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
An explosion erupts from a missile fired from Iran in Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
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Iran Renews Missile Attacks on Israel, Killing 3 and Wounding Dozens 

An explosion erupts from a missile fired from Iran in Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
An explosion erupts from a missile fired from Iran in Tel Aviv, Israel, 16 June 2025. (EPA)

Iran launched a new wave of missile attacks on Israel early Monday, triggering air raid sirens across the country as emergency services reported at least three killed and dozens more wounded in the fourth day of open warfare between the regional foes.

Iran announced it had launched some 100 missiles and vowed further retaliation for the surprise attack on its nuclear program and military leadership that Israel began last Friday.

Powerful explosions, likely from Israel’s defense systems intercepting Iranian missiles, rocked Tel Aviv shortly before dawn on Monday, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky over the coastal city.

Authorities in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv said that Iranian missiles had hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, blowing out windows and heavily damaging multiple apartments.

The Israeli Magen David Adom emergency service reported that two women and one man — all in their 70s — were killed in the wave of missile attacks that struck four sites in central Israel. That brought the total death toll in Israel to at least 17 since Iran began launching missiles at the country in response to Israel's sweeping attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure last Friday.

The MDA added that paramedics had evacuated another 74 wounded people to hospitals, including a 30-year-old woman in serious condition, while rescuers were still searching for residents trapped beneath the rubble of their homes.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that if Israeli strikes on Iran stop, “our responses will also stop.” But after a day of intensive Israeli aerial attacks that extended targets beyond military installations to hit oil refineries and government buildings, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard struck a hard line, vowing that further rounds of strikes would be “more forceful, severe, precise and destructive than previous ones."

The day before Israel's military struck dozens of sites across Iran, expanding its targets beyond military installations to hit oil refineries and government buildings.

Iran on Sunday said Israel had killed the Revolutionary Guard's intelligence chief and pummeled population centers in intensive aerial attacks that raised the death toll from Israel’s campaign to 224 people since Friday.

Health authorities also reported that 1,277 were wounded in Iran, without distinguishing between military officials and civilians. Rights groups putting together their own casualty reports in the country have suggested that the Iranian government's death toll is a significant undercount.