Weekly Turkey Report( 9-16 July) 5th anniversary of the coup attempt, Turkey at the 2020 Olympics

Turkey marked the fifth anniversary of the 2016 coup attempt.

On the night of July 15, 2016, a military tried to take over the country, using warplanes and tanks to attack government buildings.

The coup attempt resulted in the deaths of 251 people, and 2,734 were injured.

Since then, July 15 has been a symbol fort the bravery of the Turkish nation. The day is marked as the  Democracy and National Unity Day with events nationwide to commemorate those who lost their lives and to remember the determination to protect the country.

Turkey is going to compete at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Turkey will be represented by a total of 108 athletes consisting of 58 males and 50 women, in 18 branches at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, which have been postponed until this year due to the pandemic.

This will mark Turkey’s second-highest participation in the  Olympics in its history after its participation with 114 athletes in 2012.

Male athletes will also achieve the highest number of participants with 58 people.

So far, Turkey has won 39 gold, 25 silver, and 27 bronze medals in 6 sports branches in the history of the Olympic Games.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced the number of cases seen in Turkey, as delta and delta plus variants continue to alarm the world.

Accordingly, the number of delta virus cases in 36 provinces in Turkey has reached 750, while delta plus cases have been seen in 3 provinces and there are still 3 cases.

So far 61%  of the country's adult population has received at least one vaccine dose in Turkey.

While noting there are currently no visible signs of a fourth wave of the pandemic, Fahrettin Koca warned that this does not mean it would not be happening in the future and this possible threat could only be eliminated by intensifying vaccination.

Director Semih Kaplanoglu's latest film " Commitment Hasan" from Turkey was screened at the 74th Cannes Film Festival.

Being one of the 38 films selected from 2,000 nominations, the film took place in the ‘’Un Certain Regard’’ section, which is one of the official sections of the festival.

The film is about the events that unfolded when a man who makes his living from his father's orchard tries to get rid of a power pole that is meant to be planted in the middle of his estate.

Being very happy to represent his country, Kaplanoğlu said he is proud that a film from Turkey is taking part in one of the greatest festivals in the world.

A new high-tech development and design center is established at Karatay University in central Turkey.

Smart Technologies Center Project is qualified for €5 million in funds from the European Union under the  Competitive Sectors Program, which is a financial cooperation between the EU and Turkey.

The center will provide a “perfect infrastructure” in projects to be developed for the use of smart technologies in agricultural machinery.

In the center, agricultural tools such as tilling, spraying and planting machines with artificial intelligence will be developed, which will make a big contribution to the region lacking in producing smart agricultural technologies.