Documents seized in a police raid on the house of an executive of a TV station as part of the ongoing Ergenekon operation have revealed that a secret and illicit military intelligence unit known as JITEM was engaged in several illegal acts, including drug and human smuggling and arms trade with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)….
The conflict between Georgia and Russia has seen the EU become the main diplomatic mediator between the two and it should use this status to develop peaceful relations in the region, argue Nicu Popescu et al. in an August 2008 commentary for the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Turkey is one of the countries that will be most vulnerable vis-à-vis a new global order triggered by the conflict between Georgia and Russia, a study by the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization (ISRO/ USAK) has noted.
The conflict erupted on Aug. 7-8 when Georgia tried to retake South Ossetia. A Russian counter-offensive pushed into Georgia proper, crossing its east-west highway and nearing a Western-backed oil pipeline. Russia ignored Western demands to remove its remaining troops from Georgia’s heartland, saying the residual troops are peacekeepers needed to avert further bloodshed and to protect the people of Georgia’s separatist, pro-Moscow provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two days after Moscow said it had wrapped up its withdrawal.
If things continue like this, Turkey-US relations will have tense moments. Mr. Bidden is good for Mr. Obama but not for Turkey. Or is it really the case?
An anti-Turkish vice president according to Hürriyet. He is known to defend Armenian, Greek, Cyprus lobby theses. But Foreign Policy experts state that Turkey is already changing is foreign policy attitudes and there won’t much new tension btw Turkey and US….
It is impossible to expect that Ankara will welcome Barack Obama’s decision to appoint Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.
Yahoo! News may be considered as a news organization, according to Jessica Barron, director of editorial programming. Unlike online news outlets that aggregate news content from the Web, Yahoo! is not only investing in its own journalists but is also signing agreements with wire services and "traditional" sources.
Two dancers act during the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Photo: EFE / Bernd Thissen.
found in World Watches in Awe as Beijing Olympics Close With Carnival-themed Extravaganza
Though the Third National Program declared last Monday by government spokesperson and State Minister Cemil Cicek raised hopes among the pro-EU intellectuals of Turkey, many are skeptical about the program’s prospects….
Pablo Picasso, Untitled (Arlequín y Polichinela), 1924 Found in 20th Century Works on Paper from the Fundacion Mapfre Collection: Picasso, Tapies, Miro Erkan is ‘on duty’ this week. So I will be in the campus representing PR and Advertising departments everyday btw 10 am-6 pm. I am always in the campus but normally I come … Read more
What will the outcome of the Ergenekon case be? This question alone is sufficient to explain the hopes and worries about the future of Turkey.
The older brother of one of the main suspects in the murder of journalist Hrant Dink was detained by police yesterday. Osman Hayal was detained for being in Istanbul when a teenage nationalist
The lead suspect in the Malatya massacre case denied any connection with retired Maj. Gen. Levent Ersöz, who was arrested in relation to the Ergenekon case, in a trial at Malatya’s Third Court
By Alex Barker in Ankara and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York
Turkish bloggers are closing their websites to protest against courts banning dozens of mainstream sites for carrying content deemed “immoral” or insulting to Turkey’s founding father."
There are currently 853 Web sites banned in Turkey, including video-sharing site YouTube and dailymotion.com, placing Turkey in the league of countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, famous for restricting freedom of speech.
The league start today! Beşiktaş plays with Antalyaspor tomorrow.
Well, for those who are familiar the photo above is my season pass card. Erkan returns to İnönü. I couldn’t help buying this year’s pass. The photo used in the card is as far as I remember from the 1949-50 season when Beşiktaş defeated Fenerbahçe 1-0 and became the champion. A giant poster of this photo is hanged in Inönü Stadium Store and the title is ‘Being a BJK fan’
Before an evening of football, in two hours I will have to attend a wedding ceremony. A friend and former colleague, Erol, gets married today.
This is a column title by İsmet Berkan but it well portrays my state of affairs; sort of. For the last few days, I am satisfied with the pace of writing and unfortunately these lonely office hours in evenings do not help. I would prefer a crowded and noisy office to this silent and being-alone office. I am glad this damn summer is ending. and here comes a round up mostly on Turkey’s fantasies with all-track diplomacy…
A man carries a log to his home in a small hillside settlement located near the village of Janovce in Eastern Slovakia where none of the houses have running water or a toilet. A surprising 20 million people in the European Union do not have access to decent toilets and suffer from a lack of hygiene, posing serious health risks, experts meeting at World Water Week in Stockholm said.
(AFP/File/Joe Klamar)
The notion that German Chancellor Angela Merkel should step up and take the lead within the EU to resolve tensions over Georgia and reshape the West’s relations with Moscow appears to be emerging, with analysts claiming Germany is the only country that Russia might listen to.
I’ve been working on an article on the relationship between anthropology and the military, and Nikki Kuper, an honours student in our department, has been thinking about doing her honours thesis project on the Human Terrain System. So together, Nikki and I decided to put together an annotated bibliography of sources on the Human Terrain System, Minerva, and PRISP and post them here to Culture Matters so that others can benefit from them.
If you know of any resources or links that aren’t listed below (or if you spot any mistakes), please send me an e-mail (lisa.wynn[at]mq.edu.au) and we’ll add them to our list and credit you with the contribution.
–L.L. Wynn and Nikki Kuper
The European Parliament’s temporary relocation to Brussels from Strasbourg reignites a row about where it should be based.
found in Small Food Nation
(Pieter Aertsen, Butcher’s Stall with the Flight into Egypt, 1551. Source.)
A pilot project that will give unrestricted online access to EU-funded research results was launched yesterday (20 August), which the Commission claims will ensure better exploitation of scientific studies and guarantee a "fair return" for taxpayers. But specialist publishers are unhappy with the move.
Two BBC website readers share their experiences of the Soviet invasion and living under communist rule in Czechoslovakia.
The NATO foreign ministers gathered yesterday to confer on the crisis in the Caucasus. NATO General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer sharply condemned Russia and called for an immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops. Europe’s press discusses the role of the alliance after Moscow’s show of force.
