AKP’s Istanbul office launched a videosharing site. Check it out here .
Erdoğan, a sultan?
The person who earlier this week unfurled a banner reading "Last Ottoman sultan, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan I" during the inauguration ceremony of İstanbul’s new Metrobus line most likely could not have guessed that this gesture would become the subject of heated debates in Turkey.
The Economist The enduring popularity of Recep Tayyip ErdoganBut will popularity blunt the reforming zeal of Turkey’s prime minister?
The rise of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan | World news | guardian.co.uk
Time For Erdoğan For Self-Criticism
[Originally published in Hürriyet Daily News] Word has it that Prime Minister Tayyip ErdoÄan did not like the Turkey chapter of the annual Human Rights Report recently launched by the U.S. State Department. The report in fact praises Turkey’s advances on several fronts, but also criticizes the government for several issues, including restrictions on "media freedom." "Senior government officials, including Prime Minister ErdoÄan," the report notes, "made statements during the year strongly criticizing the press and media business figures, particularly following the publishing of reports on alleged corruption in entities in Germany connected to the ruling party." When ErdoÄan read this, a column was reporting in daily Radikal the other day, he not only found it objectionable but also accused the Turkish media in question for "misleading the Westerners." Well, it rather looks like that the Westerners only reported what was all too obvious: the never-ending conflict between the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and especially the prime minister himself, and certain media groups, including the DoÄan Media Group, which owns several papers, including this one. That took a new level recently when the Turkish Treasury imposed a half-billion-dollar levy against the DoÄan Media Group. I am no expert in tax matters, and I have no idea about the technicalities of the fine, but I just know that it looks all too suggestive when such a fine comes right after a heated war of words between the media group in question and the government. In the face of all that, there are two questions that need to be asked: Why is ErdoÄan so much at odds with certain segments of the media? And what does he need to do?
An election without excitement
As the local elections slated for March 29 draw near, Turkey is yet to feel any excitement about the event. We know that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been in a number of cities holding rallies attended by enthusiastic crowds for several weeks.
Erdogan Democracy Means One Man, One Fridge in Turkey Election
By Ben Holland
March 3 (Bloomberg) — Tekin Geze got a free refrigerator and a washing machine two weeks ago, courtesy of the Turkish government. They’re stowed, still wrapped in cardboard, in the only corner of his mud-brick shack that doesn’t leak.
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