GOOD MORNING--TURKEY PRESS SCAN ON JAN 2

HURRIYET
-- BEGINNING OF YEAR, END OF LIFE
Turkey began the new year with a tragic news report. Seven students of Ankara's Bilkent University died due to natural gas leak at home. Law students gathered to a party and celebrate the new year. They slept early in the morning. The tragedy was revealed when students did not respond to phone calls made by their relatives early in the first day of the new year.
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-- PM ERDOGAN NAMES GOKCEK AS MAYOR CANDIDATE IN ANKARA
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan announced that his ruling Justice and Development (AKP) Party's Ankara mayor candidate in local elections on March 29 was the current mayor of the capital, Melih Gokcek.
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-- TOURISM REVENUES REACH $20 BLN
Turkey reached the target of 26 million tourists and $20 billion tourism revenues in 2008. Tourism industry grew 13 percent in the same period. The highly criticized "all inclusive" system in Turkish tourism industry has now become the hope for the year 2009 due to economic crisis.
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MILLIYET
-- KURDISH LANGUAGE AND LETTERS DEPARTMENT TO TWO UNIVERSITIES
Professor Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, the chairman of the Higher Board of Education (YOK), said during a ceremony to launch the state-run TRT-6 TV channel that is broadcasting in Kurdish, that department of Kurdish language and letters would be established in two leading universities in Turkey. Ozcan said the board was thinking of opening those departments in universities in Ankara and Istanbul.
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-- ERDOGAN SAYS "GOKCEK" WITH PRAISES
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan made public the candidate Ankara mayor of his Justice and Development Party (AKP). Erdogan eulogized Melih Gokcek, the current mayor of Ankara, and said his party would go on with Gokcek. Turgut Altinok, the mayor of Ankara's Kecioren town who was thought to be declared as the candidate mayor of Ankara, was nominated as the mayor of Kecioren again. Altinok did not walk and stand on the rostrum where Erdogan was standing although his name was paged.
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SABAH
-- CONSTITUTION SHOULD BE AMENDED THIS YEAR
President Abdullah Gul gave some messages for 2009 in his exclusive interview broadcast on the private ATV TV channel on Thursday evening. Gul said, "I wish that Turkey will adopt a comprehensive constitutional amendment in 2009. There are so many common issues in all draft constitutions. I advise that the constitution should be handled in a more pluralist way." Gul also said, "we have an ongoing friendship with Mr. Tayyip Erdogan since 1968. We have civil and professional relations, and we believe it is beneficial to our country. There is not any row between the prime minister and the president."
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-- TV IN KURDISH BEGAN WITH ROJIN
The state-run TRT-6 TV channel began broadcasting with Kurdish folk songs of singers Rojin and Nilufer Akbal. Political parties except the Justice and Development Party (AKP) did not participate in the inauguration ceremony to which President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan sent messages.

VATAN
-- 2009 BEGINS WITH TRAGEDY
Seven students of Ankara's Bilkent University met at one of their friends' apartment in Cankaya district to celebrate the new year. But they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
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-- TV IN KURDISH OK, UNIVERSITY NEXT
Turkey's state-run TV corporation TRT has launched TRT 6, which is broadcasting in Kurdish language, with a ceremony on Thursday. A deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) sang a Kurdish song at the ceremony. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said "may TRT 6 be beneficial" in Kurdish. In the meantime, Higher Board of Education made public another move for Kurdish language. "We will open Kurdish language and letters departments at Ankara and Istanbul universities," Board Chairman Yusuf Ziya Ozcan said.
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CUMHURIYET
-- THIRD-GENERATION ENTHUSIASM
Within next six months, Turkey will be introduced with the third-generation communication technologies, which the world started using eight years ago. People will no longer need computers to access the internet thanks to the 3N technology. People in Turkey can have visual phone calls with the new system, surf on the internet more quickly, and watch TV programs on their cell phones.
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-- TEXTILE BOTTOMS OUT
Despite the newly-established 58 companies, 340 workplaces were closed in Istanbul. According to the data of the Ministry of Industry & Trade, 598 textile companies were closed in 2008 and only 195 companies were established. No companies were founded in many cities including Adiyaman, Amasya, Ordu and Sakarya, and moreover current companies were shut down.
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RADIKAL
-- TRAGIC MISFORTUNE OF SEVEN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
Ozgur Turan Atilla, a student at the Faculty of Law at the Bilkent University in Ankara, invited his friends to a new year party at home as his mother would be in the Aegean city of Izmir. Busra Bek, Elif Koyuncuoglu, Oguzhan Tozburun, Tarik Sukru Yilmaz, Ceren Okkali and Can Dokumaci accepted the invitation and they celebrated the new year till early on January 1. Emre Koc, a person who was living in the same apartment building and who stayed late at night to study, noticed that he was being poisoned around 4:30 a.m. on the first day of the new year. He woke his mother up, called an ambulance and warned Baskent Dogalgaz, the gas company selling natural gas and dealing with breakdowns. Emre did his best to wake his neighbors up but he could only woke up the doorman.

Natural gas authorities could not wake the teenagers up either. The aunt of Ozgur was called, the door was opened by a locksmith but it was too late. The head of the Baskent Dogalgaz company said, "the pipe that connected the domestic heating system to the chimney was torn up, and the burned gas spread to the house."
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-- EU PROMISE IN ECONOMY
In its national program, Turkey pledged to liberalize its economy for a Turkey vision that completed European Union (EU) membership process. Turkey will also ensure price stability and financial discipline.

YENI SAFAK
-- TAX PAYMENT WITH CREDIT CARDS
The first installment of the Motorized Vehicles Tax will start to be paid on January 2. Vehicle owners can pay their taxes in banks with their credit cards.
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-- AKP TO GO ON WITH GOKCEK, GUZELBEY AND KUCUKLER
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) made public its candidate mayors for Ankara, Gaziantep and Erzurum. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Melih Gokcek would again run for Ankara mayor, Asim Guzelbey for Gaziantep mayor, and Ahmet Kucukler for Erzurum mayor.