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A cyber friend, Mehtap Demir sends me this video. Well, she actually plays and sings in the video. I did not realize she was to become a famous person:)
Well, it is not my type of music but i found this video very playful.
Speaking of music, I loved the solo album of Serj Tankian and here is the hit song there:
Serj Tankian - Empty Walls (Official Video)
He doesn't like Turks much, but I know he and his band, System of a Down have quite a following in Turkey...
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan poses during a photocall for his film "Three Monkeys" at the 61st Cannes film festival. At the festival, Ceylan's film offered a breather from a slew of hard-hitting movies on social themes with a highly personal family drama.
(AFP/Anne-Christine Poujoulat)
found in Movie Maps of the World
You’d think that in the world of global cinema, the US is the dominant force. You’d be wrong. Think New Zealand, India and Iceland. Of course these cartograms (i.e. maps distorted to demonstrate some kind of information) fall into the third category of untruths enumerated by “lies, damned lies and statistics”. Having these these cartograms demonstrate other aspects of the film industry would undoubtedly result in radically different maps.
Turkey’s Political Opposition Blasts Ruling AKP
From a news article by Goksel Bozkurt :
The [Constitutional Court trial to close the AKP has] ushered in a period of turmoil within the party, with some formerly vocal senior members slowly withdrawing to the background while others are making their presence felt in anticipation of future prizes.
The public is perfectly aware that every political move has a relevant background. It knows which steps are taken and to what end. It boldly supports political attempts that take its requests and demands into consideration.Citizenship to the union should be extended to the long term legally resident third country nationals who should be offered the opportunity to obtain the nationality of the Member State in which they are resident.
I’ve been meaning to write about the Serbian elections, and the continuing slapfest over Macedonia, and some more about the frozen conflicts, and all that good stuff. But first:
Niko Bellic is Serbian.
He’s not just a generic Eastern European; he’s a Bosnian Serb who fought in the war as a teenager. The game’s backstory (which is revealed over many hours of play) involves his war experiences, and his issues with them pervade the whole game. Also, he seems to have come from rural Bosnia, so he’s initially pretty baffled by American urban culture.
EU finance ministers have sharply criticised the high settlements reached between companies and top managers, and plan to tax "golden handshakes" in future. Europe's press asks whether the move is justified or just panders to populist sentiment.
Looking through the finalists for the 2008 Gerald Loeb Award, several things stand out. Despite the excellence of the work being cited, the list of finalists should raise a note of caution about at least one key metric for the ability of American business journalists to look at major problems before negative trends turn to economic calamity.
President Abdullah Gül hosted a banquet at Çankaya Palace on Tuesday night in honor of Queen Elizabeth, who is on a four-day official visit to Turkey for the first time in 37 years.
14 mai 2008, Ankara
Le chef de la diplomatie britannique David Miliband a déclaré mercredi à Ankara que le projet français d’une Union méditerranéenne ne pouvait pas constituer une alternative à l’élargissement de l’UE.
“L’Union méditerranéenne peut être et doit être un projet bénéfique pour l’Union européenne mais ne peut constituer, j’insiste là-dessus, une alternative à l’élargissement de Union européenne à la Turquie”, a déclaré M. Miliband au cours d’une conférence de presse commune avec son homologue turc Ali Babacan.
Reuters, 16 mai 2008, Bruxelles
par David Brunnstrom et Yves Clarisse
La Commission européenne présentera mardi des propositions pour la mise en oeuvre de l’Union pour la Méditerranée (UPM) qui montreront surtout l’ampleur des divergences qui subsistent sur ce projet.
Deux mois avant le sommet de Paris qui, le 13 juillet prochain, doit porter l’UPM sur les fonts baptismaux, l’architecture institutionnelle et le financement de ce projet cher à Nicolas Sarkozy restent encore à déterminer.
There has been a number of articles in the press recently about concerns about potentials falls in revenue for search engine giant Google, contradicted somewhat by other reports that companies’ ad spend is continuing to move online. Whatever the truth, it strikes us that public affairs people in Brussels should consider using Google Adwords as standard part of their advocacy programmes towards the EU institutions.
Description: Jamaica has one of the most controversial criminal justice systems in the world. There have been reports of overcrowded prisons throughout the Caribbean island. In recent months a Jamaican nonprofit has made strides to give prisoners training on how to use citizen media to document their grievances.
Tools Being Used: blogs, Flickr, podcast
If you hadn’t been paying attention to international news, Myanmar is bordering on a humanitarian crisis. This is the result of a cyclone which swept through the impoverished nation and the government’s decision to prevent aid workers from entering the country. Western journalists are also being prevented from entering the country. The result? Images are sneaking their way on to Facebook. According to ABC News, “Relief workers and survivors inside Myanmar, formerly Burma, are sending e-mail updates and photos to friends and contacts outside the country to be posted on Facebook.”
Hillary Clinton, answering a question that contained two hypotheticals—that Iran had its own nuclear weapons and that it attacked Israel with them—threatened to “obliterate” Iran with “massive retaliation.” Not once, but five times (one, two, three, four, five), mostly under direct questioning. So we may presume that she means it, that it wasn’t too late at night, and she didn’t misspeak.
Gary Sick gives us some background on “dual containment,” which may be what is behind Clinton’s pairing of nuclear threats with her concept of a nuclear umbrella for the non-Iran states of the Middle East.
By Patricia H. Kushlis
Seems to me that the foreign policy advisors for all three still-standing US presidential candidates should take a hard look at the results of the most recent 19 nation public attitudes poll formally released today at a Carnegie lunch by World Opinion.org and coordinated by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). And in particular that section on how Americans see their government and this country’s relationship to others.
Ruşen ÇAKIR
I received the results of research conducted by Associate Professor Dr Hakan Yilmaz from Bosporus University from the editor-in-chief of Capital magazine, Sedef Seckin Buyuk."
Britain's Queen Elizabeth (front 2nd L) and Turkey's First Lady Hayrunnisa Gul (front L) listen to a verse of the Koran at the Green Mosque in Bursa May 14, 2008.
REUTERS/Riza Ozel/Pool (TURKEY)
Turkey's decades-old terror problem caused by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) entered a new phase when US President George W. Bush openly declared the PKK an enemy of the United States after meeting with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Nov. 5, 2007. Guillaume Perrier
Après plus de sept années de procédure, une cour d’Istanbul a condamné Adnan Oktar à trois ans de prison ferme, vendredi 9 mai, pour ” création d’une organisation illégale ” et ” enrichissement personnel “. Soupçonné d’être à la tête d’une secte créationniste, ce Turc de 52 ans, qui se présente comme ” scientifique et écrivain “, doit faire appel, selon ses proches, pour tenter d’éviter une incarcération.
Violent anti-Roma riots have taken place in Naples in recent days, triggered when a 16 year old Roma girl was charged with intent to kidnap.
Things have moved on a bit in the argument about EU money to the UK to help regions hit by floods last summer, the subject of this post.
I happened to visit Hidrellez celebrations but i am rather lazy to note that...
Some of the results of a 2007 study on middle-class identity in Turkey by Dr. Hakan Yilmaz of Bosphorus University: (JW: I find it particularly intriguing that the headscarf is not seen as a symbol of piety, but of good character, as I have long argued that the meaning of “covering” to those who practice it has changed radically over the past two decades.):
Unfortunately Tuncay Özkan preferred money to his right to criticize and sold out the KanalTürk Channel to the Koza group – a group which has been supportive of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and which is believed to have if not formal, some sort of “heartfelt” connections with the Fethullah Gülen brotherhood.What's bad in that? Özkan established a TV channel which despite all the adverse conditions proved to be a success and wanted to cash that success into some hard money – some 40 million dollars. At a time when the state is selling its establishments, why should not a “successful” businessman sell his own establishment particularly if there are people paying several fold
A certain prominent Turkish columnist who has -- thank goodness -- recently emerged from his fixation with "Christian Europe," warned one of the "spokespersons" from the EU, saying, "Don't listen to the tales that the Justice and Development Party [AK Party] spin, their real desire is for Shariah!"
The relaunch of the redesigned MyTelegraph site this summer will see user generated content integrated across other areas of Telegraph.co.uk, said Telegraph communities editor Shane Richmond at the PPA conference. 
It seems that pictures published by Le Monde on May 10 (left, click to enlarge), accompanying a story entitled "Hiroshima: what the world never saw," weren't authentic, the paper revealed yesterday.
Force India Formula One driver Giancarlo Fisichella of Italy (top) and Williams Formula One driver Kazuki Nakajima of Japan crashed after the start of the F1 Grand Prix of Turkey on Sunday where Felipe Massa captured his third straight Formula One auto race. 
Mother's Day was celebrated all around Turkey yesterday, with children expressing their love for their mothers in many different ways, such as giving flowers or gifts or kissing their hands as a sign of respect. 
President Abdullah Gül gave a reception at the Çankaya Palace yesterday on the occasion of Europe Day. A group of students along with dignitaries attended the event.
"Troya," the latest dance production by the Anadolu Ateşi (Fire of Anatolia) dance troupe, premiered Wednesday night at the İstanbul Exhibition Hall. The performance, which has a 120-strong cast, attracted wide attention from İstanbulites.
A political stalemate has emerged after early parliamentary elections were held in Serbia on Sunday. While President Boris Tadic's Democratic Party has come away with victory, it has not won enough seats to form a parliamentary majority. The nationalist Serbian Radical Party, on the other hand, could form a government despite its election defeat.
Serbian voters sent another mixed message to their political parties in the general election of 11 May 2008. The result was not as bad as many feared, not as good as some might think, and not as clear as some might imagine.
Boris Tadic, Serbian president and leader of the coalition “For a European Serbia,” declared victory after elections Sunday in which his party took an estimated 103 of the national assembly’s 250 seats.
True, yesterday’s large pro-Europe voting turnout did come as a pleasant surprise to
This is a guest blog post by our long-time reader and commenter Pat Patterson:
The blog Coming Anarchy has a balanced piece concerning the recent proposal by Chancellor Merkel and the CDU to create a German National Security Council that argues, "It is for these reasons that a seemingly innocuous and in fact logical step like creating a national security council has again sparked debate among citizens and politicians alike." And that, "Over the past few years though with the changes in both the domestic and international security situation, debate has been ongoing about whether Germany needs a National Security Council based more on the American model for example."
More than 10,000 people have perished and the Province of Sichuan has been devastated by an earthquake. In addition to its humanitarian consequences, the disaster also has political ramifications.
Europe is Russia's historic neighbour as well as being part of its own identity. St Petersburg, for instance, is a distinctly European city. Europe is both a role model and an object of phobias. This ambivalence has characterised various periods of our national history.
The armoured personnel carriers stormed Babur Square in Andijan with lightning speed on Friday 13 May 2005, bringing death without any warming. The uniformed men riding atop the vehicles fired purposefully and indiscriminately into the crowd of more than a thousand men, women and children gathered under the monument to the Mongol ruler Babur. In an instant, Uzbekistan's authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, had drowned the anti-tyranny demonstration in blood.
People in the office are very happy now as we just received a good news. the Dutch Consulate will be funding one of our projects. Well, I am not directly involved but all others in the office are directly involved and as they are happy, I am happy too. Child Studies Unit site is here.
Child Unit at work in the canteen. From right to left: Şaylan Uran, Gözde Durmuş, Melda Akbaş and Ayşe Beyazova
Turkey's President Abdullah Gul gestures to Britain's Queen Elizabeth as they get ready to listen to the national anthems upon their arrival at the presidential office in Ankara May 13, 2008.
REUTERS/Fatih Saribas
A sober affair as Turkey welcomes the Queen - Times Online
Turkey is a democracy ! : May 2008 : gilmas : My Telegraph
BBC NEWS | UK | State visit sends message to Turkey
Britain and France opposite to each other about Turkey : May 2008 : Metin YILMAZ : My Telegraph
Britain's Queen Elizabeth praises Turkey's role as bridge between West, Islamic world - International Herald Tribune