President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched Turkiye's first delivery of natural gas to its national grid from a gas reserve discovered in the Black Sea. Turkey’s annual gas consumption stands at 55-60 billion cubic meters. The country aims to meet 30% of its gas needs from the Black Sea reserves by 2026, said the website 3-e-news. "This is a historic milestone for Türkiye's path to energy independence," Erdoğan said at the ceremony held in northern province of Zonguldak. Recep Erdoğan also announced that natural gas used in kitchens and for hot water, equivalent to 25 cubic meters per month on average, would be provided free of charge for a year. Households are expected to receive the first quantities of gas from the Black Sea reserves in the first week of May.

Doctors in Nis save lives during their days off

Instead of praises and awards, we demand high-quality equipment, enough staff to treat our patients and better management in healthcare, said cardiologists from the Serbian city of Nis. Surgeons from the Clinic for Cardiac Surgery in Niš /UKC Niš/ worked 12 consecutive weekends without pay to eliminate all waiting lines for heart and vascular surgeries. It all started at the initiative of a young doctor after calling a relative of a patient who was on the waiting list. "You can bring the patient on Monday", said the doctor. "He died 10 days ago", the relative of the deceased replied. “We must eliminate all waiting lines so patients can survive”, the clinic’s Director Dr. Dragan Milić said for the weekly news magazine NIN. “You can use money to measure a kilogram of tomatoes, a bottle of juice or a box of cigars, but you can’t use money to measure human life. That is the major difference”, said Dr. Dragan Milić

EUR 200-5,000 fine for smokers dropping cigarette butts in Greece

Throwing cigarette butts in the environment in Greece is absolutely prohibited, as it can cause a fire. The basic fine for this offence is EUR 200, but it can reach up to EUR 5,000, depending on the area in which the offence is committed or whether it is committed systematically, the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns. According to the anti-smoking law, smoking and the consumption of tobacco products are completely prohibited in all vehicles, private or public, when minors under the age of 12 are traveling in them. The fine for smoking in the presence of a child under the age of 12 in a private car is EUR 1,500, and in a public car – EUR 3,000. Moreover, driver’s licenses are revoked for a period of one month.