ISTANBUL, Turkey — The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs met yesterday to answer the question of whether or not the mass killings of Armenians during and after the first world war by forces of the Ottoman Empire was genocide. After more than three hours of debate, they had their answer. The approval of the resolution, which calls on President Barack Obama to “characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide”, has set off waves of unrest in Turkey, who immediately recalled their ambassador in Washington.

GECITKOY, Northern Cyprus — When Cyprus lay dry and parched with drought in 2008, Senol Akmehmet had to buy water shipped in by truck to keep his goats and sheep alive. He couldn’t plant any crops. The local reservoir, called Gecitkoy like Akmehmet’s village, dried up and disappeared.

WASHINGTON — The Greek membership of the eurozone has never been easy. While other EU countries either adopted the euro or chose not to do so, Greece was the only EU country that wanted to join the common currency area at the outset, but could not. The Greeks were keen to jettison the drachma because of their past experience with inflation and devaluation. Giving monetary authority to the European Central Bank would eliminate those two problems.