Diary

ANKARA (AA) - Here are the main topics Anadolu Agency’s English Desk plans to cover on Friday, Aug. 9, 2019 (coverage may change depending on developing/breaking stories):

TURKEY

SAMSUN - Annual Ambassadors’ Conference to wrap up in Black Sea province of Samsun.

SAMSUN - Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to address businessmen, local media representatives, students, academicians.

ANKARA - Central Bank of Turkey to release balance of payments figures for June.

ANKARA - Turkey’s statistical authority, TurkStat, to release poultry and milk production figures for June.

ANKARA - TurkStat also to release red meat production statistics for the second quarter of 2019.

ITALY

ROME - Following political developments in wake of interior minister’s call for snap election.

RUSSIA

MOSCOW - Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to hold news conference.

KYRGYZSTAN

BISHKEK - Monitoring developments following arrest of former Kyrgyz president Almazbek Atambayev.

JAMMU AND KASHMIR

SRINAGAR - Following developments after India scraps special status of Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir region.

SUDAN

KHARTOUM - Following latest developments on TMC-opposition agreement to share power.

SYRIA

ALEPPO/IDLIB - Monitoring developments in Syrian civil war.

SPORTS

ISTANBUL - Anadolu Agency’s sports desk to host Turkish Basketball Federation (TBF) chair and former NBA player Hidayet Turkoglu.

SPECIAL REPORT

Erratic swings in weather patterns add to Afghans' woes

By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan (AA) - The heated global debate over climate change hardly sounds relevant to war-ravaged Afghanistan, but the mountainous country is quietly bearing the brunt of its effects.

SPECIAL REPORT

India’s move sans Kashmir assembly’s say ‘illegal’: expert

By Iftikhar Gilani

ANKARA (AA) - The recent act of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government of abrogating the special status to Jammu and Kashmir is “illegal” and equivalent to “committing a fraud”, said a top constitutional expert in India.

SPECIAL REPORT

'Nuclear powers must remain loyal to norms set by NPT'

By Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) - Marking the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the first and only times nuclear weapons have been used in combat, an expert stressed that the risk of the use of nuclear weapons a second time may only be reduced if superpowers such as the U.S. and Russia remain loyal to the rules and norms set by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).