LEAD · GAME CHANGERS

The heaviest rain in 84 years drowned Ayazağa, a business district built along a streambed. Ankara’s answer is bulldozers, a fast-track renewal offer and a disaster-insurance bill. For builders, insurers and owners, the Istanbul property game has new rules.

BY MEHMET ISTANBULLU · ABOUT 6 MINUTES

Between Wednesday, Oct. 14, and Friday, up to 273 kilograms of rain fell on each square meter of parts of Istanbul, about 27 centimeters of water. It was the heaviest downpour the city has recorded in 84 years. ^[1][3] Six people died, five in Istanbul and one in neighboring Kocaeli, and three are still missing. ^[2] Rescuers pulled 3,057 people from the water, 65 of them by boat from a single cafe in Eyüpsultan. ^[3][1] Authorities logged 9,850 emergency calls, 48 landslides and 53 collapsed retaining walls in 39 districts. ^[2][3]

The worst of it landed in Ayazağa, in the Sarıyer district, where offices, car showrooms, a stadium and new towers stand on or beside the bed of a stream. Water rose to 2.5 meters. ^[5] Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum said 300 businesses and 200 vehicles were damaged there alone. ^[3] On Friday night, crews began pulling down what stood in the way: the Ayazağa Atatürk Stadium and its stands, 16 shops, a Quran course and staff lodgings, to clear 1,700 meters of streambed for rehabilitation by İSKİ, the city’s water utility. ^[4] Istanbul Governor Davut Gül said many buildings in the streambed are new, and that other streams need medium- and long-term work. ^[5][4]

WHY IT MATTERS

Kurum’s verdict was blunt: “We cannot plan the future with the data of the past” (translated by The Other Post). He said the 50- and 100-year rainfall calculations behind the city’s drainage no longer hold, and called stream cleaning, rehabilitation, stronger drainage and a fresh assessment of flood risk “a responsibility that can no longer be postponed” (translated by The Other Post). ^[3]

On Saturday he went further. Meeting Ayazağa residents with the heads of TOKİ, the state housing agency, and of the ministry’s urban renewal directorate, alongside Istanbul’s acting mayor, Nuri Aslan, and Sarıyer’s mayor, Oktay Aksu, he said that “for Istanbul, urban renewal is no longer a matter that can be put off” (translated by The Other Post). He offered owners two routes: the state’s Yarısı Bizden (“Half From Us”) program, or area-wide renewal by TOKİ. An Urban Renewal Office will open in the district, and the Cendere and Ayazağa stream projects will be fast-tracked under what the ministry calls a “resilient city” model. ^[7]

That reaches far beyond one district. Yarısı Bizden pays up to 1.875 million lira ($37,900) per home: an 875,000-lira ($17,700) grant, an 875,000-lira loan and 125,000 lira ($2,500) for relocation. ^[8][10] Payments go to the contractor in tranches of 30%, 30%, 30% and 10% as work advances, and loan repayments start two years after the permit, over up to 10 years. ^[9] In September the program was extended to Dec. 31, 2027. Of 435,683 Istanbul units in its scope, 108,881 are finished. ^[8] In this editor’s judgment, a flood that turns renewal into a public-safety case can move the remaining three-quarters of that pipeline faster than any price signal could.

The bill exposes a second gap. Only about 940,000 Istanbul properties carry a policy that covers floods, roughly 17% to 20% of homes and businesses, said Atilla Oksay of TSB, the insurers’ association. DASK, the compulsory scheme, covers earthquakes only, and a Compulsory Disaster Insurance bill has been drafted and sent to parliament. ^[11] The sector estimates insured losses at about $400 million, or 20 billion lira, with some 90% passed on to reinsurers; 1,700 homes and businesses and 440 vehicle owners have filed claims so far. ^[12] Yılmaz Yıldız, chief executive of Zurich Insurance’s Turkish arm, puts the figure at $300 million to $350 million, or $500 million in a pessimistic case. In today’s money, he said, the Ayamama flood of 2009 cost insurers $200 million to $250 million. ^[13]

PROFILE: AYAZAĞA

Ayazağa is the business district Istanbul built in a hurry. Sarıyer’s 1:1,000 implementation plan for the area was approved on March 18, 2016, and its Article 36 was later revised because of stream, slope and topographic constraints. ^[15] The daily Evrensel reported that the worst flooding in Ayazağa, Göktürk, Kemerburgaz and Riva struck near large projects. It also reported that İSKİ warned on July 26, 2010, of flood risk at the Maslak 1453 development site, whose seventh zoning plan an Istanbul administrative court annulled in June 2024. ^[16] Those are one newspaper’s findings, but they frame the question every lender will now ask: who approved what, and when.

The dead include Turgut Dursun, 66, found beneath a bridge in Ayazağa, and Faik Şentürk, a worker killed at a school construction site in Beykoz. ^[1][6]

THE BEST MOVES

WHAT TO WATCH

The bottom line: In this editor’s judgment, Istanbul repriced water risk in a single week. The capital, contracts and insurance that follow will favor owners and builders who move before the next storm, not after it.

IN BRIEF

WEALTH

On Oct. 15 the index provider MSCI froze any changes that would raise Turkish companies’ weight in its indexes: no increases in foreign-inclusion factors or share counts, no additions to the MSCI Turkey IMI and no upward size migrations, effective immediately and until further notice. It cited possible coordinated trading through fund holdings linked to smaller listed companies, which undermines free float. Turkish authorities have introduced a framework that excludes fund-held stakes from free float. If progress is insufficient by June 2027, MSCI may consult on moving Turkey from Emerging to Frontier or Standalone status. ^[18] The BIST 100 opened 1.44% lower the next day and fell as much as 3%; FTSE Russell raised similar concerns earlier this month. ^[19]

The move: Check how much of your Turkish equity exposure sits in small caps with fund-heavy shareholder registers, and watch MSCI’s 2027 market classification review.

BUSINESS

A joint venture of Turkey’s Gülsan Holding and Saudi Arabia’s Mofarreh Group has won an estimated 923 million riyal ($246 million) contract from the Royal Commission for Riyadh City to build steel flyovers at seven intersections, MEED reported on Oct. 16. The package covers 8.86 kilometers, excluding one junction, on a 12-month schedule. It is part of an urgent bridges program across 10 junctions as the capital prepares for Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup. Rival bidders included Nesma & Partners, Masco and Yuksel Saudia. ^[20] The partners announced their venture on July 31. Mofarreh says it has completed 1,500 projects and employs more than 5,000 people. ^[21]

The move: For Turkish contractors eyeing the Gulf, a local partner with a long Saudi record is the ticket. Watch the remaining packages of the bridges program.

GEOPOLITICS

Alethea, a US threat-intelligence firm, reported on Oct. 16 a new wave of Operation Doppelgänger, the influence campaign run by Russia’s Social Design Agency and Structura. Between Oct. 7 and 9, more than 50 fake accounts and over 1,000 bots produced about 150,000 quote-posts on X. The targets: the US midterms on Nov. 3, Israel’s election on Oct. 27 and France’s 2027 presidential race. The links led to cloned versions of Walla! News, Le Parisien and Le Point, sites built and held in reserve for 17 months. A technique Alethea calls “Invisible Ink” slips past keyword monitoring, and some fake articles are already indexed by Google, where AI assistants may pick them up. ^[22]

The move: Before forwarding a striking story, read the web address letter by letter, and have your communications team watch for clones of the outlets that cover you.

PROFILE

Seven weeks into the top job, John Ternus is shipping the first new kind of iPhone in years. It shows what sort of chief executive he means to be.

John Ternus at Apple’s 50th anniversary kickoff, New York, March 13, 2026. Sketch after a photo by Tessa Bury, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons ^[26]; adapted as a pencil sketch.

John Ternus became Apple’s chief executive on Sept. 1, and Tim Cook moved up to executive chairman. ^[23] Ternus is a hardware man. He worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems, joined Apple’s product design team in 2001, ran hardware engineering as a vice president from 2013 and joined the executive team in 2021. He holds a mechanical-engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania. His teams worked on the iPad, AirPods, the Mac and the iPhone Air, a recycled aluminum alloy and 3-D printed titanium. ^[23]

“Having spent almost my entire career at Apple, I have been lucky to have worked under Steve Jobs and to have had Tim Cook as my mentor,” he said when the succession was announced. ^[23] His first new category is the iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable: a 7.6-inch inner screen, a 5.4-inch outer one, a titanium body and a hinge of more than 100 parts, priced from $1,999 to $3,199. He calls it “the most transformational change to iPhone since the original.” ^[24] Pre-orders opened Oct. 16, and first deliveries arrive Oct. 23 in more than 70 countries, Turkey and the UAE among them. ^[25][24]

The move: In this editor’s judgment, an engineer at the top means Apple will compete on hardware others cannot easily build. Wait for the first month of independent hinge tests and repair prices before you buy one.

TECH

Amazon’s Bee unit launched two personal AI devices on Oct. 15. Bee Frontier, $74.99 and on sale now, clips on or straps to the wrist, is IP67 water-resistant and runs about seven days on a charge. Bee Eclipse, a magnetic, card-sized device at $99.99, is coming soon with more than 21 days of battery. ^[27][28] Both listen through the day, transcribe and summarize, and connect to Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple’s HealthKit and Alexa+. Bee can also suggest Amazon purchases from things you mention. ^[27]

Amazon says audio is processed in real time and then deleted, transcripts are encrypted with keys held on the device, an LED shows when it is listening and it asks for consent on calls. Bee Pro costs $11.99 a month. ^[27] Amazon bought Bee in July 2025. ^[28]

The move: Decide whether always-listening devices may enter your boardroom, and put it in writing before a guest arrives wearing one.

GEOPOLITICS

Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, visited the Turkish drillship Çağrı Bey on Friday, Oct. 16, about 372 kilometers off the Somali coast. ^[29][30] The Curad-1 well is Turkey’s first deep-sea exploration well outside its own waters: about 3,480 meters of water, a total depth of about 7,500 meters and a 288-day operation under a March 2024 agreement with TPAO, the Turkish state oil company. ^[29][30] Three navy ships escort it, and about 500 people work across the ships and an onshore base. ^[30] No commercial discovery has been announced. ^[29]

Somalia’s petroleum minister, Daahir Shire Mohamed, expects visible results by year-end. Ali Haji Warsame, a former Puntland minister, doubts commercial oil before 2034, and Puntland disputes Mogadishu’s authority over resources. Published assessments of the deal put cost recovery at up to 90%, above the national framework’s 70% ceiling, and royalties at up to 5%. ^[30]

The move: Watch for a results statement before Somalia’s presidential vote on May 15, 2027. ^[30] In this editor’s judgment, a find would lift the value of every Turkish bet in the Horn of Africa.

SCREEN

You Can See Everything, A24’s documentary about the Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim over more than three years, took $5.54 million on Friday from 855 theaters, second in North America. It was filmed in the month before Holmes began her 11-year prison sentence. ^[31]

Variety projected a $12.45 million weekend, against early estimates of $7 million to $8 million. That would beat the $7.1 million opening of Melania from 1,778 theaters, the biggest for a non-music documentary in more than a decade. ^[31]

The move: In this editor’s judgment, audiences keep paying to watch due diligence fail. See it with your investment committee, then ask which of your own deals rest on a demo nobody has checked.

LIFE

On Oct. 15 the team behind Cellino, a company that automates the manufacture of patient-specific cells, launched Reservoir. It freezes an adult’s own immune cells from a routine 60-milliliter blood draw, stores them below −150°C in an FDA-registered facility and keeps them in the customer’s name. First draws are at partner clinics in Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. ^[32] The price is $4,995 for collection, processing and the first year of storage. ^[33]

The target is five vials of five million cells each, far fewer than the collections used for today’s CAR-T therapies. “Reservoir preserves cells. It does not treat,” said co-founder Nabiha Saklayen. Longevity.Technology recalls that private cord-blood banks sold a similar promise, and their vials are rarely called upon. ^[32]

The move: Treat it as an option with an annual fee, not a cure. Ask your physician what five vials could be used for today, and what storage will cost over 20 years.

LISTEN

The Daily (The New York Times) · Fri., Oct. 16 · 28 min

Caleb Renner, a young farmer in Klemme, Iowa, shows what two years of war, tariffs and inflation have done to his community, and why he may turn against the Republican Party for the first time. Iowa could elect a Democrat as senator or governor for the first time in 20 years. ^[34] In this editor’s judgment, when farm states turn, tariff policy bends. Worth it for any exporter planning past Nov. 3.

Listen to the episode →

LISTEN

The Koerner Office · Tue., Oct. 13 · 46 min

In a solo episode, Chris Koerner reports on six weeks of letting AI agents do real work. One gathered eight pool quotes in 24 hours and saved him thousands on contractors; another job produced an $11 website that already brings in leads. He shares the prompts he uses. ^[35] The takeaway for a family office: hand the first round of bids to software, and keep the final handshake human.

Listen to the episode →

READ

Elisabeth Braw · PublicAffairs · Oct. 13, 2026 · 368 pages

Nearly all the world’s data, and two-thirds of its oil and gas, move through cables and pipelines on the seabed, and sabotage there, from the Baltic to Taiwan’s Matsu Islands, is rising. ^[37] Reviewing it for Foreign Policy, John Kampfner cites intelligence estimates of a Russian shadow fleet of at least 600 ships. ^[38] Read it before you take a stake in a subsea cable or pipeline in the Eastern Mediterranean.

See it on Amazon →

READ

Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados · Crown · Oct. 13, 2026 · 336 pages

Two 60 Minutes producers draw on nine years of reporting to argue that an elite Russian unit attacked U.S. officials with a directed-energy weapon and that Washington played it down. ^[39] In The Cipher Brief, the former CIA analyst Michael J. Ard rejects both claims, citing intelligence assessments that found foreign attacks “very unlikely.” ^[40] Read the book and the rebuttal together: a case study in evidence versus conviction.

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READ

One Decision · Damon Tabor · Fri., Oct. 16

Tabor traces two decades of Israeli intelligence operations inside Iran and argues that the wars that displayed them may have cost Israel some of its best sources, as Tehran arrested thousands and sped up executions. Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group puts it in one line: “intelligence is not the same as comprehension.” ^[36] A caution for any leader who mistakes access for understanding.

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Every pick links to the original. Our note says why it is worth your time; the work is theirs.

SOURCES: FRONT PAGE 1–22 · THE OTHER PAGE 23–33 · YET ANOTHER PAGE 34–40 (ACCESSED OCT. 18, 2026)

The Other Post: Daily Briefing for the Conscientious Leader is independent analysis for decision-makers. Nothing here is investment, legal or medical advice. Issue No. 4 · © 2026 Mehmet Istanbullu