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The Wall Street Journal’s Turkey correspondent, Marc Champion, has another great article out, this time taking a look at the spectacular recent growth of Turkish Airlines (THY) and how that is both mirroring and working hand-in-hand with Turkey’s rising political and economic ambitions.
This has become viral. Apaçi is a kitsch lifestyle form developing among lower class urbanized male youths in Turkey. Particular wearing style, collective dancing, and music. Very kitsch though…
Fazıl Say might be a good musician… but he is definitely not a good communicator. He keeps making statements on every social/political issue in an utterly arrogant and elitist manner. He sometimes explicitly insults people but some will always tolerate him because he is a self-appointed secularist crusader… He will be marketed abroad as a … Read more
A Critique of the Cuts July 27, 2010 “Oh be still my beating heart… I just fell in love again. Was that a shawl Eva was wearing, or a superwoman cape?” What prompts academics to declare a scholar a superhero? The praise above is from a comment on a blog that linked to Eva von … Read more
UNESCO denied a report by the semi-official Anatolian Agency that Istanbul will be kept on the World Heritage List.
Historical Galata Tower is seen in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, July 21, 2010. Turkey is facing the constant threat of a killer quake but even after the deaths of over 18,000 people in western Turkey in 1999 it has focused on rescuing people in the aftermath of an earthquake rather than implementing stricter building codes and punishing those who infringe them, a parliamentary report concludes. Experts predict that Turkey, crissed crossed by active fault lines, could be hit by a major earthquake in the next 30 years that could devastate Istanbul and cause thousands of deaths.? Read more » (AP Photo/Ibrahim Usta)
(AP Photo/Ibrahim Usta)
President Gül shares a cup of tea with İstanbul locals
Today’s Zaman
President Abdullah Gül spent some time with locals in İstanbul’s Tarabya neighborhood yesterday and chatted with them while drinking tea. …
Two towns whose populations are more intermixed due to domestic migration, Dörtyol and İnegöl have been targets of psychological operations in order to start communal strifes. This is a pattern that has been observed several times in pre-1980 coup d’etat. In the old days, Alevis vs. Sunnis tension was manipulated. Now comes Turks vs. Kurds tension. Kurdish populations increase in especially Western parts of Anatolia and this brings some social tension. There have been some other attempts to instigate strifes in recent years but İnegöl and Dörtyol cases that happened in the same week seem to be more deliberate. Mobs agitated by Turkish nationalist themes are mobilized after seemingly personal conflicts between persons that happend to be Kurds and Turks.
Unlike the previous cases, government acted swiftly this time and there have been arrrests in İnegöl and security forces patrol the city. Mobs are cowards. When they see security forces at work, they back down. In fact, in most of the cases, security forces are “called to wait” and then come the massacres. This time the government will not let this happen. It seems. Well, apparently these operations aim to destabilize the country and calls for “law and order” regime. Not more democratizations…
In the mean time, Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu who emerged as a symbol of hope for some in opposition continue to embarrass himself with ridicilous allegations.. That’s the best CHP could reach…
In the mean time, judiciary battles continue. There is a warrant to arrest 102 active and retired military officials although it is not executed yet… We will see the drama unravel in the next days…
In addition to irregular series of “Introducing Turkish Cybersphere” and weekly Sunday posts of ” Erkan?s field diary: Top posts of the week and month“, I would like to introduce a weekly post series on my heavy metal consumption. I hope to post “Metalhead” every Thursday… METALHEAD (Part 1) album of the week Knights of … Read more
REPORT: TURKEY’S INTERNET CENSORSHIP PROBLEM The Media Association has released a report analyzing the various aspects of the problem of Internet access blocks in Turkey. The report, looking at the Internet as a new conduit, examines Law No. 5651, which regulates the Internet, as well as the current YouTube and Google IP bans, and makes … Read more
The Catalan parliament in Barcelona on Wednesday passed a ban on bullfighting that will go into effect in the autonomous Spanish region starting 2012. The press writes that rather than being a victory for animal rights over an outdated tradition, the resolution is an expression of Catalan desires for self-determination and clear demarcation from the central power in Madrid.
from Jon Worth by Jon
Source: Pewglobal.orgThe Pew Global Attitudes Project has recently published a very interesting piece of research investigating attitudes towards the full Islamic veil. The results show a remarkable difference between Europeans and US citizens.
Observer columnist David Mitchell (half of the comedy team Mitchell and Webb is in fine form today with this column on the absurdity of burqa banning. It was one of those bits of the Sunday paper that had me stopping to read a passage aloud to my wife every ten seconds or so until she snatched it out of my hands and read it herself.
from Global Voices Online by Marwa Rakha
Written by Mustafa Kutlay and Lukas Linsi
The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States in November 2008 was accompanied by popular enthusiasm in Europe. During his election campaign he had been given a rapturous reception in Berlin where over 100,000 spectators gathered when he spoke at the Victory Column in Berlin. But the support for Obama in Europe was not confined to a popular movement; also the European political elites pinned their hopes on Obama to improve trans-Atlantic ties after the divisions that marked the era of George W. Bush. After all, Obama was a declared multilateralist in international politics and he seemed ideologically close to the traditions of European social democracies on priority issues on the policy agenda, such as health care reform, climate change and tax reform. At the same time, the European leaders in France, Germany and Great Britain were considered to be exceptionally ?pro-American.? The moment seemed unusually ripe for trans-Atlantic cooperation and it was no surprise that Obama?s first overseas trip as US President led to Europe.
Asked about the CHP letter to the S&D Group, the CHP?s EU Representative in Brussels Ms. Kader Sevinc replied that ?This was a private correspondence. It would be inappropriate to make it public without the consent of other persons. The letter conveyed the message of the CHP President Mr Kilicdaroglu and the party?s position on […]
Unfortunately, I could not find an English translation of proposed changes. I am working on it. You can find a documents where all changes in Turkish are listed. Besides, AKP set up a website again only in Turkish about the changes here. I will declare my official position on referendum soon… The list of constitutional … Read more
An archive of interviews with anthropologists from Somatosphere by Eugene Raikhel Alan Macfarlane interviews Clifford Geertz in 2004. As a number of anthro blogs have mentioned in the past, Alan Macfarlane, of the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge, has assembled a massive online archive of video materials, including a lot of in-depth interviews with … Read more
Human Rights Association states that 351 children have been killed accidentally by security forces between 1989-2010 in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia regions (mainly Kurdish lands) ********* Ministry of Justice: Defending Genocide is Freedom of Speech from Bianet :: English The Ministry of Justice did not issue permission for a trial against Armenian Agos newspaper owner … Read more
Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron (L) meet in Ankara July 26, 2010.? Read more » REUTERS/Adem Altan Cameron backs Turkey joining the EU from FT.com – World, Europe David Cameron will express his ‘anger’ on Tuesday at Turkey’s European Union membership bid being ‘frustrated’ by the bloc’s leaders, as … Read more
One of my friend from our Social Media classes is doing a survey about the usage of social media. First of all the survey takes about 20 minutes I’m sure that you will find it enjoyable. Not only the questions but also the answers which you rate will be so similar with your daily life. … Read more