Turkey’s president appoints new head of statistics agency

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s president has fired the head of the Turkish Statistical Institute, which is responsible for posting official inflation statistics among other data, and returned a former justice minister to his post. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decisions were announced on the Official Gazette early Saturday. Prices have skyrocketed in recent months as Turkey experienced economic turmoil with an unstable national currency, triggered by massive interest rate cuts.  Inflation on consumer prices for December was officially announced at 36.08 percent, up from 21.31 percent in November.