PSR - Politics & Strategy Reviews

A strong and measured reply to Barzani

2007-04-24T22:54:00.000+03:00

What Massoud Barzani said regarding Turkey during an interview with al-Arabiya was grave and cannot be accepted. The reaction, a proportional and pretty strong one, came from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan.

“We were invited to attend the Riyadh summit of the Arab League. While there, we spoke with Iraqi President Talabani and it was agreed that we should not talk to the media,” said the Prime Minister. “I gave some reasons as to why, but now it seems that they broke their promises again.

“I would recommend that they walk the walk and talk the talk. They should establish their position clearly,” continued Erdoğan. “Or else, they will squirm beneath their own words. Northern Iraq, neighboring Turkey, is making serious errors for not adhering to their own policies, and they could pay dearly. We are a natural state, a state whose history dates back centuries. History knows what we have done in relation, to even Baghdad, let alone northern Iraq.

“Thus, one needs to be very careful when using such strong rhetoric. Barzani, unfortunately, has ignored that line again,” he said. “I don't know if he is satisfying himself with these remarks, but the Turkish Republic does not need to respond in kind in order to gain satisfaction. They should be writhing under those words. It would be to their benefit to be more careful.”
The reaction is strong, but still, “measured.”

*** *** ***

So, what did Barzani say?
First of all, it has to be noted that what Barzani said at the “Frankly Speaking” program of al-Arabiya television was not specifically about Turkey and the interview encompassed Iran, viewpoint on Israel and the situation inside Iraq. When the al-Arabiya reporter said, “Turkey says they would not let the Kurds to annex Kirkuk to Iraqi Kurdistan,” Barzani replies, “We will not allow the Turks to interfere in the issue of Kirkuk.”

Afterwards, the journalist reminded Barzani that the Turks have “a huge army.” Barzani continues, “I do not fear their military power. No matter how strong their military power might be, it will not be stronger than that of Saddam. I do not fear their military or diplomatic power because they interfere in an affair that does not concern them. They interfere in an internal affair of another country. Kirkuk is an Iraqi city of Kurdish identity. History, geography, and all facts prove that Kirkuk is part of Iraq's Kurdistan and Kurdistan is part of Iraq. Therefore, Kirkuk is an Iraqi city with a Kurdish identity and Turkey has no right to interfere in the issue of Kirkuk. If it does, we will interfere in the issue of Diyarbakır and other cities.”

Asked if this is a threat, Barzani replies, “This is not a threat but a reply to interference. What right does Turkey have to interfere in the issue of Kirkuk?” He then says, “If they allow themselves to interfere in the issue of Kirkuk for the sake of a few thousand Turkomans there, we will then interfere for the 30 million Kurds in Turkey.”

The journalist then asks if things will reach this limit. Barzani says he hopes not, and continues, “If the Turks insist on interfering in the issue of Kirkuk, I will be ready to bear all the consequences and not allow them to peddle their plan in Kirkuk.”

Responding to another question, Barzani adds, “If we are denied our right to settle down and live freely, I swear by God that we will not allow others to live in security or stability. We are ready to defend our freedom and our cause to the end.”

This reply brings forth the question whether the Iraqi Kurds are helping Kurds in Turkey and Iran. “Frankly speaking, we support their rights,” says Barzani. “We do not interfere in their affairs; they choose the way to demand their rights or to struggle for their rights.”

Barzani denies supporting them with funds and weapons and says, “They do not ask us and we are not ready to interfere in their affairs, but we support them morally and politically. We are against the use of violence. It is impossible to support them with weapons, but we are ready to help them with all other means.”

*** *** ***

This is not a “wise” speech. In addition, it is riddled with mistakes. He says there are 30 million Kurds in Turkey, thus lying through his teeth. Moreover, what he says regarding Kirkuk amount to “tautology.” Claiming that Kirkuk is a city of “Kurdish identity,” and that “history, geography and all facts prove that Kirkuk is part of Iraq's Kurdistan,” is a self-styled allegation. He tries to build politics on this claim, but you cannot build politics upon tautology.

His father had made the same mistake in 1974 and this “miscalculation” resulted in obliteration and great suffering for Kurds. The reason for Jalal Talabani's breaking up and forming a separate organization is a grave mistake of father Barzani. Thus, decision makers in Turkey should not think Talabani and Barzani are “the same thing.”

In fact, this rhetoric was not viewed positively by the Talabani. Two weeks ago, a Kurdish minister from the Baghdad government was in Turkey for a meeting and he complained of the “inciting remarks” of Barzani.

Why is Barzani behaving this way? It is related with his personality. Massoud Barzani has a “rigid” personality. Plus, he lives 20 kilometers north of Irbil, on top of a mountain in Selahaddin, closed off from the world. One cannot say he has a broad field of view. However, those words cannot be counted as a “miscalculation” as a whole. Barzani thinks Turkey is in an atmosphere of elections and cannot act freely because of domestic balances. He thinks the rhetoric against him in Turkey in essence stems from Turkish inner politics, and is about the ongoing power struggle. He is also aware that the United States is cornered both in domestic politics and in Iraq. Thus, he comes up with the conclusion that his room for maneuvering has widened during this critical year for Kirkuk.

Add to those the fact that Barzani thinks Turkey's real issue is not PKK, but the formation in Iraq's Kurdistan region, and that Turkey is determined not to recognize this formation. Adding his personal traits to this conviction, Barzani toughens more and more. It can also be thought that he is following the general “diplomatic line” in the Middle East, which is basically aiming to reach a “consensus point” by “escalating” issues first.

But, he is wrong. Of course, it is not on the agenda for Turkey to militarily intervene in northern Iraq “immediately.” Turkey's national interests, the situation in Iraq, the United States, regional and international stability, etc. would not let this happen. It is expected that the relations between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdish leaders would continue with “harsh declarations” for a while. Thus, Barzani might think he has got a “tactical advantage.”

But, it is pretty dubious that he gets a “strategic advantage” out of this situation. Enmity between Kurds and Turks would benefit none, but when one looks at the “balances of power,” it would be especially harmful for Kurds.

The “message” in Tayyip Erdoğan's measured but strong reply should be understood as such....

Cengiz Candar

Turkey weighs cross-border attack on PKK separatists

2007-02-02T12:50:00.000+02:00

By Vincent Boland and Guy Dinmore
Published: February 1 2007 02:00 Last updated: February 1 2007 02:00
Turkey made a decisive contribution to the Iraq war nearly four years ago when the parliament in Ankara rejected a US request to allow an invasion from the north. The military impact of this decision belongs to the "What if...?" school of history.

The diplomatic fallout is still casting a shadow over the US-Turkish relationship. Now Turkey could be about to make a second dramatic contribution.

Amid constant bloody clashes between Turkish troops and PKK Kurdish separatist guerrillas operating out of northern Iraq, Ankara is weighing up a cross-border incursion to attack PKK bases. Turkey, its political leaders insist, has the right and the determination to eliminate threats to its territory wherever they come from.

General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the general staff, is expected to set out Turkey's concerns over Iraq when he visits Washington later this month. One possible outcome intended to guard against a unilateral Turkish intervention would be a joint anti-PKK military operation with US and Iraqi forces, says an analyst who asked not to be named.

Turkey is also becoming alarmed by what it claims is electoral and demographic gerrymandering by Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk, the oil capital of Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Ankara fears that Kurdish control of Kirkuk would give the Iraqi Kurds the economic basis for independence if Iraq were to break up.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, and other Turkish leaders have warned repeatedly that the gerrymandering threatens to make a fait accompli of a referendum on Kirkuk's status later this year that Turkey will not tolerate. Turkey is increasingly identifying with the Turkmen minority in the city, which Ankara believes is being ill treated by the Kurds.
Some see the danger of fighting erupting in Kirkuk. This would complicate US plans to "surge" troops into Baghdad, commented Glen Howard, head of the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington security think-tank.

"The Turks are now signalling that they are going to arm the Iraqi Turkmen as the Kurds refuse to back off on the [Kirkuk] referendum," he commented.

Some of the talk in Turkey is election-year rhetoric: no Turkish politician ever lost votes by being tough on Kurdish separatism.

But diplomats and analysts say the debate is also serious. A military strike into northern Iraq - with or without the consent of the US - is militarily and politically possible, perhaps even probable, some believe.

A senior retired Turkish diplomat, with extensive knowledge of the political and military calculations involved in such a decision, said military planning was not as far advanced as public statements from politicians suggested.

"This is not an easy decision to take, even though we are entitled by international law to undertake such a mission," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

"We have to ask ourselves whether it would achieve our objectives, would it satisfy public opinion, what impact it would have on our international relations."
The debate among the Turkish leadership, hesaid, "is hot, but the thinking is not yet at that stage [of military intervention]".

In 2006, the US and Turkish governments each appointed a retired general - Gen Joseph Ralston of the US and Gen Edip Baser of Turkey - as "PKK co-ordinators" to develop a strategy to target the separatists in northern Iraq. But last month Mr Erdogan branded the initiative "a failure", without quite specifying how it had failed.

The two generals met senior politicians in Ankara this week and the initiative appears to be still on track.

Mr Erdogan's remark, nonetheless, indicated Turkey's impatience with the apparent impunity with which the PKK is acting and the inability of the overstretched US and Iraqi military to crack down on the separatists in Iraq's most stable region.

Turkey is home to 15m ethnic Kurds, some of whom openly sympathise with the PKK. It fought a long war against the PKK in the 1980s and 1990s, which cost at least 35,000 lives. After that conflict petered out and its leadership was captured, the PKK disappeared into the Iraqi mountains to launch periodic attacks on Turkish soil.

Nicholas Burns, US undersecretary of state, said in Ankara recently the US had "enormous sympathy" with Turkey's stance on the PKK, but he suggested Ankara needed to work more closely with Baghdad rather than undertake unilateral moves.

Diplomats say Ankara should be spreading largesse among the Kurdish communities, instead of threatening to disrupt the referendum process in Kirkuk. Others say Turkey's entire Iraq strategy - such as it is - will fail unless it wins the hearts and minds of the Iraqi Kurds.
Sahin Alpay, an academic and commentator, wrote this week: "The most effective way for Ankara to achieve its objectives in Iraq is to win the trust and friendship of the Iraqi Kurds."
Additional reporting Guy Dinmore in Washington

Star Wars Gangsta Rap and others

2007-01-24T12:52:00.000+02:00

Thats ok, alittle fun...(coffee ?)

1-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWKHbSxnfB8
2-http://outhouserag.typepad.com/outhouserag/2006/09/star_wars_gangs.html
3-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX3aSeHwf7A
4-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x2-AmY8FI8&mode=related&search=

Furor in Iran over ?Turkish dancing? accusations

2007-01-04T11:38:00.000+02:00

Thursday, January 4, 2007

An Iranian vice president has filed a complaint against two lawmakers after a furor erupted over his alleged attendance at a ceremony in Turkey where women were dancing, the Fars news agency reported.

Esfandyar Rahim Mashaie has accused the members of Parliament of conducting a smear campaign against him by distributing a CD which purports to show him applauding while a woman stages an oriental dance at an official ceremony in Turkey.

It is considered strictly forbidden under Islam in Iran for a man to watch an unrelated woman dancing and such allegations are deeply sensitive for a member of conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government.

Mashaie, who is also head of Iran's tourism and culture organization, has accused Members of Parliament Emad Afrough and Saeed Abotaleb of doctoring the video to show him applauding the dancing and said he did not attend that section of the ceremony.

?They lied since they edited a portion of the opening session when there was dancing, trying to say that I was there during the whole show,? he said. ?I was not there, you are wrong. Watch it again. I objected to the Secretary-General [of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu]... and I told him: ?No Islamic!'? he told Fars.

?The CD you saw was certainly an edited version. Of course I clapped, but not during that dance. ?I will pursue the case until they tell me that they were wrong and compensate me for the fuss they have caused,? said Mashaie, who was Ahmadinejad's cultural supremo during his tenure as the mayor of Tehran.

Asked why he had maintained his silence over a ceremony which took place more than a year ago, he replied: ?There was nothing to talk about. There is conspiracy. A conspiracy to tarnish the government's work.?

Afrough retorted to Fars that he would be filing a complaint of his own. ?I am also ready to file a complaint. We were expecting from him to leave the ceremony but apparently he did not and sat until the end of it.?

On Iraq, Israel's borders, Quebec, Republican voters, Turkey and turkey

2006-12-23T09:47:00.000+02:00

The year's big issue, again
SIR ? The ghosts of Lord Raglan and Sir Douglas Haig must be roaming your corridors late at night, because I detect the spirit of Balaclava and the Somme in your rejection of the Iraq Study Group's report (?Don't do it?, December 9th). In striking contrast to your ?stay the course? position, the cry of sauve qui peut is now resounding through the offices of Republicans hoping to be elected in 2008, and congressional and popular support is eroding in line with the deterioration in our position on the ground in Iraq.

Maybe we should view superpower America as being a pitiful, helpless giant. The technical wizardry of the invasion was awesome, of course, but that is in stark contrast to the occupation, where an undermanned, underequipped army assigned to embody the neocons' nation-building dream has proved itself incapable of handling the job.

The prospect, then, is for some version of ?cut and run?, however well disguised, and however dishonourable. It would not be the first time in American history: Bill Clinton in Somalia, Ronald Reagan in Lebanon, and Gerald Ford in Vietnam come to mind?not to mention the 1876 election compromise that withdrew Union troops from the South, condemning Southern blacks to almost another century of servitude. And for a worst-case scenario, there was Britain's abrupt withdrawal from the Indian subcontinent in 1947, which forced millions to flee their ancestral homes, with roughly 1m dying in the attempt.

William Burke

San Francisco

SIR ? You argue that the announcement of an American withdrawal will weaken our leverage over the internal politics of Iraq. However, the opposite is equally plausible. As long as Iraq's leaders think America will keep its forces in the country indefinitely they will continue to refuse to compromise and turn a blind eye to sectarian violence. Maybe the prospect of American forces being pulled out will concentrate Iraqi minds. But because either option could fail, isn't it sensible for the United States to choose the one that will minimise costs and the loss of American lives?

Richard Greene

Hopewell, New Jersey

Marking the line
SIR ? It is incorrect to refer to the ?Green Line? as ?Israel's internationally recognised border? (?Rowing Rabbis (cont.)?, December 9th). The Green Line represents the ceasefire lines drawn up in 1949 after the Arab-Israeli war, and up until 1967 Israel's Arab neighbours never recognised this as an international border. Following the Six Day War, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 242 that called for Israel to withdraw from ?territories occupied in the recent conflict? (note it did not say all territories) in return for a permanent peace agreement and termination of all hostilities. It did not call for a unilateral Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line, nor recognise this as Israel's permanent border.

The language of the resolution was carefully drafted to allow for territorial adjustments as part of any peace negotiations, and this is reflected in the agreements that Israel eventually signed with Egypt and Jordan, the Oslo Accords signed with the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Ehud Barak's proposals to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000. The recent proposal made by Ehud Olmert to resume negotiations with the Palestinians is also consistent with this principle.

Raphael Lerner

Glencoe, Illinois

Not a nation apart
SIR ? You completely missed the subtle nature of the motion on Quebec passed by Canada's Parliament (?Nation bidding?, December 2nd). It recognised that the Québécois do form a nation within a united Canada, but because Québécois are French-speaking Canadians, tied to French culture and ethnic ancestry from France, the motion refers only to a people with no mention of provincial boundaries. Many Quebeckers are not Québécois. As such, the prime minister, Stephen Harper, has assuaged the pride of the separatists, yet given them no ground to further their ends of separating the province of Quebec from Canada.

Matt Hurst

Ottawa, Canada

SIR ? A few years ago I sat next to a young Quebecker on an aeroplane and she explained to me how she saw herself as living in a distinct society, but one which was not simply French. She had once visited Paris, where she had been treated to haute cuisine at a restaurant of the utmost elegance, causing her to feel part of something very superior to Anglophone Canada. After the meal she slipped down to the ladies' room and there, in a moment of horrified revelation, she had understood that she was also a North American.

Edward Lidderdale

London

Primary state of mind
SIR ? Regarding Lexington's thoughts on whether the Republicans can become a national party again (?A national party no more?? December 2nd). I'm a ?Live Free or Die? New Hampshire gun-owning libertarian fiscal conservative Republican-leaning independent who has voted a straight Democratic ticket for two elections in a row now. That makes me just the sort of voter Lexington had in mind. I have always found the way that the GOP won the South distasteful, but under George Bush the party has finally become an organisation I would be ashamed to support in any way. Karl Rove is not a genius and now his luck is running out. Perhaps the Republicans need to remember their first and greatest president, who proved conclusively that the South, for all its delusions, doesn't amount to much alone. Otherwise, we'll just have to bring back the Whigs.

Bruce Morley

Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire

A bird's tale
SIR ? Naile Berna Kovuk's indignation at Turkey being named after poultry is misplaced (Letters, December 2nd). The bird was actually named after the presumed country of origin, not vice versa. When first encountered, the turkey was confused with guinea-fowl, known then as turkeycocks. They were introduced to Europe from their native Africa via Turkey. The rest is (etymological) history.

Michael Metcalf

New York

SIR ? English merchants in Turkey discovered a most delicious bird to eat and exported it back to England, where it became very popular, and was known as a ?Turkey bird? or simply a turkey. There are odd names for a turkey in other languages as well, where the bird always seems to have come from somewhere else. In Turkey itself it is known as hindi (meaning from India), in Italy tacchino (peacock) or pollo d'India (India again); in Arabic it is called an ?Ethiopian bird?.

Tony Allwright

Killiney, Ireland

SIR ? The Poles call the same species indyk, perhaps after the French name for it, dinde (of the Indies). The Portuguese call it peru. The turkey is a truly global bird and should be used as a fitting symbol for the next round of World Trade Organisation talks.

Konrad Brodzinski

London

With Lasers and Daring, Doctors Race to Save a Young Man?s Brain

2006-12-19T13:31:00.000+02:00

He picked up a sponge soaked in antiseptic and began scrubbing the shaved skull of Chris Ratuszny, 26, a mechanic from Lindenhurst, N.Y.

Mr. Ratuszny lay on the operating table, anesthetized and oblivious. His head jutted out past the end of the table, supported by four pins that had been screwed into his skull. The pins were attached, like spokes in a wheel, to a semicircular frame ? surreal but standard, the hardware typically used to immobilize the head for brain surgery. A thick purple line had been drawn from his neck to the top of his head, to guide the scalpels.

He was about to become the first person in the United States to undergo an operation involving the use of an excimer laser to treat a giant brain aneurysm, a dangerous ballooning of an artery that could burst and kill him or leave him with devastating brain damage. The aneurysm was too big for the most common treatments, which involve clips or metal coils; it required bypass surgery on an artery in the brain.

The laser is not approved for brain surgery in the United States, but Dr. Langer got permission from the Food and Drug Administration to use it on an emergency basis for Mr. Ratuszny (ra-TOOSH-nee) last Tuesday at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan. The Dutch neurosurgeon who devised the laser procedure, Dr. Cornelius Tulleken, flew in from the Netherlands to help. He has performed the operation on about 300 patients in Europe.

Dr. Tulleken?s technique involves a seemingly small variation on the standard procedure and takes just a few minutes in an eight-hour operation. But it could make all the difference for patients like Mr. Ratuszny, said Dr. Langer, who traveled to Utrecht in 1999 to learn the procedure from Dr. Tulleken. The advantage of the laser is that it lets surgeons operate without clamping a major artery in the brain ? a step required in the standard operation, but one that can cause a stroke.

?It?s a high-risk operation in the best of hands,? Dr. Langer said.

He estimated that the laser could reduce the risk of stroke from bypass surgery for aneurysms to 12 percent, from 15 percent. But comparative studies have not been done. Some surgeons are skeptical, while others are eager to learn the technique, and it has begun to catch on in Europe, Dr. Tulleken said. A neurosurgeon from Chicago came to New York just to see how Mr. Ratuszny?s procedure was done.

The laser definitely makes the operation easier, Dr. Langer said, because just knowing that the brain arteries are still open takes enormous time pressure off the surgeon during critical parts of the operation. To him, that alone makes it worthwhile.

?If it was me, my head, and there was a new device that would allow me to have this operation without occluding an artery, that?s what I?d want,? Dr. Langer said.

Besides making operations easier, the laser may make surgery possible for some aneurysms that would otherwise be inoperable, Dr. Tulleken and Dr. Langer say. Hoping to get the device approved in the United States, Dr. Langer plans to direct a study of it at several medical centers in the United States starting in March. The hospital invited The New York Times to observe and report on the operation, whatever the outcome. Even if the device is approved, it is unlikely to come into widespread use, he said. It costs about $500,000, and giant aneurysms like Mr. Ratuszny?s are rare. Dr. Langer estimated that no more than 1,000 patients a year in the United States would need operations like Mr. Ratuszny?s.

The equipment is made by Elana, a company started by the University Medical Center in Utrecht, where Dr. Tulleken teaches. He owns no stock, he said but relatives do, as does Dr. Langer.

Three million to six million people in the United States have brain aneurysms but do not know it, according to the Brain Aneurysm Foundation in Boston. Aneurysms form when artery walls weaken, but the underlying cause is unknown. Most do not rupture.

But 30,000 people a year do suffer ruptures, with dreadful results. Half die within a month, and many survivors wind up with significant brain damage.

In Mr. Ratuszny?s case, the problem seemed to come out of nowhere. He had always been healthy. A soft-spoken, powerfully built man who works out, he has been a lifeguard at ocean beaches and served in the Army Reserves. Now, he works as a Lexus mechanic. He is recently divorced and dotes on his son, Sam, a 3-year-old with a mohawk who shares his father?s solid physique and knack for taking things apart.

One morning two years ago, when he was 24, Mr. Ratuszny woke up with an excruciating pain in his head. At first, the diagnosis was migraine, but when the usual drugs did not help, doctors ordered an M.R.I. scan.

By the time Mr. Ratuszny got home from the scanning center, he had five telephone messages waiting ? telling him to go straight to the emergency room.

He had what doctors call a giant aneurysm. A three-inch length of an artery had ballooned out to several times its normal diameter and coiled back on itself to form a tangled mass the size of a golf ball inside his head. The vessel was an especially sensitive one: the left internal carotid artery, which feeds the brain centers that control the right hand and create speech and personality.

Mr. Ratuszny was sent to Dr. Langer, the director of cerebrovascular neurosurgery at St. Luke?s-Roosevelt, Beth Israel and Long Island College Hospital.

The only way to fix such a large aneurysm would be to bypass it ? create a detour for blood to flow around it ? by taking a vein from Mr. Ratuszny?s leg and sewing its ends to the artery on either side of the aneurysm. Once the bypass was in place, the aneurysm could be sealed off with clips or stitches. It would gradually shrink.

But the operation was risky. The bypass would run from the carotid artery in the neck up over the brain and then down through the Sylvian fissure between the frontal and temporal lobes, to attach to a brain artery beyond the aneurysm. The standard operation would require cutting a hole in the brain artery and then sewing an open end of the bypass vein to the hole ? like making a T-shaped junction between pipes.

But to cut an artery, the surgeon must temporarily clamp it, or the patient will bleed to death. The clamps may have to stay on for a half-hour or even an hour. And that is where the risk comes in: cutting off blood flow to the brain can cause a stroke that leaves permanent damage.

Some patients can tolerate the clamping because they have other blood vessels that will fill in for the artery. But Mr. Ratuszny seemed to lack those collateral vessels. Dr. Langer thought he had a high risk of a serious complication like a stroke from the operation ? at least 10 percent to 15 percent. And yet the risk of doing nothing was even worse: for giant aneurysms, studies put the odds of rupture or death in one to five years at 50 percent.

Dr. Langer thought Mr. Ratuszny was a perfect candidate for Dr. Tulleken?s technique. Not only would it spare him the clamping, but it would allow Dr. Langer to attach the bypass directly to the left internal carotid, which he considered a better repair method than the standard operation. But the laser was not yet available in the United States.

Mr. Ratuszny?s aneurysm appeared stable, and Dr. Langer thought it would be safe to postpone the operation until the Food and Drug Administration allowed him to use the laser in a study. Mr. Ratuszny agreed to wait, hoping for a safer operation, even though the aneurysm was causing double vision and tremendous pain in his head that sometimes put him in the hospital.

Dr. Tulleken, gaunt and wry at 66, is a man of formidable eyebrows, and a fan of Spinoza and The New York Review of Books. He spends one day a week in the laboratory practicing microsurgical techniques, and he believes that neurosurgery should not be ?rude,? because the brain does not like being manhandled or having its blood supply clamped off.

This belief led him to devise a new technique. The idea is deceptively simple: instead of cutting a hole in the brain artery and then sewing a vein to it, he sews first and cuts later. That way, the artery does not have to be temporarily clamped, and blood flow to the brain is not cut off. A excimer laser is used to make the hole because it can be slipped into a tight space on the tip of a slender tube and makes a clean cut that stays open without burning nearby tissue.

Late in November, Dr. Langer was shocked to see that Mr. Ratuszny?s aneurysm had expanded markedly. It was pressing dangerously on his optic nerve and bulging into his nasal sinus, where it had actually eaten through a bony wall. Mr. Ratuszny?s left eyelid drooped, light hurt his eye and he had such severe pain in the eye, face, neck and head that it sometimes made him vomit.

The artery was stretched thin. Dr. Langer ordered Mr. Ratuszny to head for the hospital if his nose began to bleed, because it could be the first sign of a hemorrhage.

The operation could not be postponed any longer. Mr. Ratuszny?s father was prepared to take out a second mortgage on his house to pay to have the surgery in Utrecht, but the F.D.A. allowed Dr. Langer to use the device this one time.

A few days before the operation, Mr. Ratuszny said he was eager to get it over with. ?If that thing blows up in my head, it?s not something I?m going to survive,? he said.

Dr. Langer said, ?The best case is he goes back to work in about a month and can be a dad, for the rest of his life.?

At 2:40 p.m. last Tuesday, everyone in the operating room was ordered to put on safety glasses. A two-minute countdown was begun by Michael Münker, a physicist from Elana, the Dutch company that makes the laser-tipped tubes.

?Thirty seconds left,? he called. ?Fifteen seconds. Five seconds.?

It was not quite ?Star Wars.? The laser fired ? invisibly. All eyes were on monitors that showed a magnified image of the surgical field. As Dr. Langer withdrew the laser, a flap of tissue cut from the artery wall was stuck to the tube and blood began to flow. The artery was open.

Working through the microscope, using long forceps to grip a fine, curved needle, Dr. Tulleken began the delicate task of sewing the ends of a vein together to complete the bypass. A resident watched, awed by his deft hands.

By 5 p.m., Dr. Michael Tobias, a neurosurgery resident, was fastening metal plates to Mr. Ratuszny?s skull with a screwdriver to replace a 4-inch-by-2-inch oval of bone that had been cut out with a saw.

At 6 p.m., the anesthesiologist, Dr. Jonathan Lesser, prepared to wake Mr. Ratuszny, who had been under anesthesia for more than nine hours.

For brain surgeons, the biggest worry comes not during the operation, but after. They watch the waking patient with hope and dread, searching but not wanting to find signs of a stroke. Can he talk? Move his limbs? Respond to commands?

Almost as if he were afraid to watch, Dr. Langer rested on a stool, leaning against the wall, his head bowed. He seemed unaware that he was bouncing his foot in time with a beeping monitor, matching Mr. Ratuszny?s every heartbeat.

?This is the painful part,? he said. ?Sometimes you do everything right in neurosurgery and the patient doesn?t do well.?

He had predicted that Mr. Ratuszny would most likely have some speech problems after the operation from brain swelling, but that they would be transient.

?Chris!? Dr. Lesser called loudly, standing beside operating table. ?Open your eyes, big guy!?

It took a few more rounds of yelling, but Mr. Ratuszny began to respond. His left knee rose.

?They always move the leg you?re not worried about,? Dr. Langer said.

But within moments, Mr. Ratuszny was moving all his limbs and even raising his head and shoulders, as if he might bolt up off the table. Dr. Langer leapt from the stool to his side, and he and Dr. Tobias joined the chorus: Squeeze my hand! Stick out your tongue! Groggily, Mr. Ratuszny obeyed. He mumbled a few words in answer to questions, then began shivering violently. The doctors called for extra blankets.

?Chris, you did great,? Dr. Langer said. ?You?re all done, buddy.?

As predicted, the day after the operation Mr. Ratuszny did have some speech trouble: he repeated himself and had difficulty finding the right words. But he spoke fluently and laughed at jokes, and the problems began to diminish over the next few days. In his hospital room last Friday, three days after the operation, Mr. Ratuszny greeted visitors cheerfully and said his eye pain had already decreased. By Monday, he was up and about, despite a painful infection in one arm from an intravenous line. He couldn?t wait to go home, see his son and return to work.

China 'crackdown on online games'

2006-12-13T09:11:00.000+02:00

Online games are popular in China's internet cafes

China is enforcing more monitoring of online games after some were found to contain banned religious or political material, a state news agency reported.

The announcement adds to government controls on Chinese newspapers, television and other media.

China has more than 23 million online gamers, generating revenues of more than $850m (£440m) a year.

Distributors must now obtain approval before releasing new games, reported Xinhua news agency.

Companies must also submit monthly monitoring reports, confirming developers have not added forbidden content.

The latest round of enforcement was prompted by "a rash of problems with imported online games, some of which contain sensitive religious material or refer to territorial disputes", Xinhua said.

It said some were criticised as pornographic or too violent.

Chinese officials said distributors concealed the content of the games when applying for approval, and operators sometimes upgraded games with improper content, Xinhua reported.

Tiptoeing through a spiritual minefield

2006-12-05T11:46:00.000+02:00

WHEN expectations are abysmally low, almost anything can come as a pleasant surprise. Barring last-minute upsets, that seemed to be the conclusion people on all sides were drawing as Benedict XVI pursued one of the trickiest diplomatic missions ever undertaken by a pope.

You are not wanted! Don't come! Don't cause tension!? screamed a headline in Turkey's noisiest Islamist newspaper, Vakit, on the eve of the papal visit to Turkey this week. In case anybody was vague about the theological differences between the world's two largest monotheistic faiths, participants in an anti-papal protest held up a placard that spelled it out: to Muslims, Jesus Christ is not the son of God, he is a prophet of Islam. Cooler-headed Turks?the great majority?were embarrassed by the stridency of their pious compatriots, but some still resented the pope's visit because it gave hotheads such a perfect opportunity to sound off.

Against this gloomy background, the set-piece encounters between the pope and Turkey's leaders, secular and religious, brought sighs of relief all round. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the mildly Islamist prime minister, showed once again his gift for drawing back from the brink of crisis by agreeing at the last minute to meet the pontiff at Ankara airport. Mr Erdogan claimed afterwards that one of Europe's most prominent Turco-sceptics had been converted into a supporter of his country's European Union membership?at a time when that flagging cause needs all the help it can get (see article). Whether Benedict really has overcome his personal doubts about Turkey's EU membership is open to question; but the new Vatican line is that, if Turkey meets the necessary conditions (including respect for Christian rights) to join the club, that can only be good.

In a gesture of personal humility that Turks found impressive, the pope also called on the country's top religious bureaucrat, Ali Bardakoglu, who looks after Muslim affairs, at his office. It was a somewhat surreal encounter: each side fielded 11 officials, like a football team, while a Turkish actress, best known for her roles in steamy films and her startling changes of hair colour, served as interpreter. But it gave the pope a chance to say what he really believes about relations with Islam: that the two faiths should have an ?authentic dialogue? and get better acquainted, while avoiding the mistake of seeming to paper over their differences.

Behind the diplomatic politesse, however, lurk some hard, unresolved issues over Turkey's relationship both with other faiths and with its potential Western partners. The day after he met the pope, Turkey's president, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, said that he was blocking several provisions of a law designed both to satisfy a long-running EU demand and to respond to one of the biggest grievances of the country's religious minorities.

As passed by parliament on November 9th, the law would have made it easier for non-Muslim religious foundations, and foundations controlled by foreign interests, to acquire property?or, in cases where it had previously been confiscated by the state, to reclaim it. Over the Turkish republic's 83-year life, property worth hundreds of millions of dollars?schools, hospitals and orphanages, for example?has been appropriated from non-Muslim religious communities, and in particular from the Greek Orthodox church in Istanbul. Attempts to regain it have generally been blocked by arcane procedural and legal manoeuvres.

The president's veto on parts of the bill will hardly be seen as a kind gesture towards Europe, or to local Christians. If the avowedly Islamist Mr Erdogan had blocked the reform, it would have been interpreted as a sign of Muslim antipathy towards Christians. Coming from the president, the gesture speaks of lingering xenophobia among Turkey's secular elite.

As he made his way round Turkey, the pontiff was no doubt mindful not only of the deep differences of opinion among Turkish Muslims, but also of some highly sensitive issues in intra-Christian diplomacy that were the original objective of his trip. He first planned to come to Turkey as a guest of Patriarch Bartholomew I, the 270th archbishop of Constantinople and New Rome. The goal was to pursue closer relations between Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, in which the Istanbul-based prelate ranks as first among equals.

On the face of things, the papal visit is a much-needed boost to the morale of the patriarch, whose local flock has shrunk to only a few thousand, thanks to a steady exodus of Istanbul Greeks that started after state-sponsored pogroms in the 1950s. But extravagant gestures of fraternity between pope and patriarch still upset several other parties. The first of these are Turkish nationalists, inside and outside the state, who are always suspicious that the Orthodox prelate may compromise Turkish sovereignty by trying to establish a ?Vatican state? on the soil of their republic. Also watching warily are devout Orthodox Christians around the world, who stand ready to denounce the patriarch if he appears to backslide on any doctrinal points.

Perhaps the wariest observers are the Russian authorities, both lay and clerical. As the pope has quickly found, his declared wish for rapprochement with Orthodox Christians has opened up an old fault-line in the Orthodox world between the Russians, who see themselves as top Orthodox dogs by virtue of numbers and geopolitical power, and the Istanbul patriarchate, which enjoys an historic ?primacy of honour? among Orthodox sees.

In September, when senior bishops of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox world held their first formal encounter for many years, the Catholics were embarrassed to find themselves witnessing a big Greco-Russian squabble, laced with intricate arguments over the meaning of decisions taken 1,500 years ago. In a world where politics and religion inexorably overlap, such matters affect diplomacy too.

Take the thorny issue over whether the Istanbul bishop may style himself ?ecumenical? or universal patriarch. The Turkish state says no: his followers, including an influential lobby of Greek-Americans, say yes. A fresh spat broke out only this week when the Turkish authorities declared that the patriarchate's security badges for the papal visit were invalid because they employed the E-word. Officials in Ankara admit that they are under pressure from Russia on this issue of Christian nomenclature. The message from Moscow is that Turkey's present policy suits them just fine. Pity the pope as he tiptoes around this many-cornered fight.

Conflicting opinion is what drives scientific advance

2006-12-02T08:49:00.000+02:00

When it comes to the public communication of scientific findings a further step down a well defined road wins easier acceptance than a deviation from the beaten track. Most academic research is therefore simply boring and eccentricity less tolerated. But any form of censorship encourages complacency and discourages innovation.

The Royal Society, Britain?s scientific establishment, has just released a report on public communication of scientific findings. Journalists in search of stories and scientists anxious for publicity and research funding issue early, oversimplified or downright misleading accounts of research. Unsubstantiated claims of a link between immunisation and autism have caused distress to millions of British parents. Korea?s progress in stem cell research seems to have been won at the expense of truth and ethics.

The Society?s answers are self-restraint and peer review. Peer review is the process by which professions review their own work. Articles submitted to journals receive critical assessment from referees experienced in the field. Peer review is a bulwark against cranks, crooks and incompetents. But too much reliance on peer review carries its own dangers. Every profession defines its own concept of excellence in inward-looking ways.

Successful academics learn how to trigger the buttons that win the approval of referees. The physicist, Alan Sokal, demonstrated this by the submission of a spoof article to the cultural studies journal Social Text in 1996. The content was nonsense, but the form and jargon corresponded so closely to reviewers? expectations that the contribution was accepted. Professor Sokal?s purpose was to demonstrate that standards were lower and more subjective in softer subjects than in more scientific ones and, while he was right, the problem identified was more general. All subjects, from architecture to physics, from literary criticism to economics, develop what Thomas Kuhn called paradigms ? assumptions common to all practitioners and assumed to represent universal truth until a new paradigm displaces the old.

A further step down a well defined road wins easier acceptance than a deviation from the beaten track. Most academic research is therefore boring, and more so as scholarship has become more professional, eccentricity less tolerated and peer review multiplied through processes of grant awards and research assessment. The latest idea in Britain is to make these processes routine by shifting from the costly and fallible exercise of subjective judgment to a cheaper and objective system of quantitative metrics. This can only aggravate the problems.

Big advances come through the paradigm shifts and peer review makes this difficult. The line between the crank and the genius is sometimes a fine one and may only be apparent after time has elapsed. Many Nobel Prize winners had difficulty securing early recognition. The world of today favours the competent professional ? as judged by the standards of other competent professionals. In a sense this self-reference is right: the people to decide whether astrology is good astrology are other astrologers. But they are not the people to decide whether astrology itself is any good. Judgment of the rigour and relevance of professional standards and scholarly research can never be left to professionals and scholars alone.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, an elegant suspension bridge in Washington State, carried traffic for four months in 1940. In a high wind, the flat deck acquired a beautiful wave pattern. The oscillations grew larger and larger until the roadway finally disintegrated into Puget Sound.

The trade newspaper, Engineering News-Record, was forced to retract its suggestion that the designer, Leon Moisseiff, might have been responsible. The editors apologised for any inference drawn by ?the casual reader? that ?the modern bridge engineer was remiss?.

But the perspective of ?the casual reader?, though not a substitute for peer review, is as essential as the contribution of the little boy who pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. Any form of censorship, including self-censorship and censorship by fellow professionals, encourages complacency and discourages innovation. The history of modern scholarship is that, more slowly than we would wish, truth and new knowledge emerge only from a cacophony of conflicting opinions.

A bird's eye view

2006-11-27T09:54:00.000+02:00

We birds are at last beginning to feel for the first time happy and encouraged with developments in the United States. Why? Because the results of the Nov. 8 elections, in which the Democratic human Party took control over both Houses, clearly demonstrate that the American humans have at last woken up and were able to say to the Bush man humans that enough is enough.

The results also show that democracy is making a fast recovery in the United States and that the American humans can no longer tolerate restrictions to their individual freedoms. It was also a message of discontent not just with the Bush man's policies over Iraq but with the Republicans' control of Congress, which left the president able to operate without any restraint from the legislative authorities. The first practical result of the elections was the resignation of the Rumsfeld man, something that should have taken place a long time ago, since he represented a misfought war. The Frank Rich man, in an article published in the International Herald Tribune on Nov. 13, describes the outcome of the elections in a very eloquent way. We quote some excerpts: "Of course the thumping was all about Iraq. But let us not forget Katrina. It was the collision of the twin White House calamities in August 2005 that foretold the collapse of the Bush Presidency. Back then, the full measure of the man finally snapped into focus for most Americans, sending his poll numbers into the 30s for the first time. The United States saw that the president who had spurned a grieving wartime mother camping out in the sweltering heat of Crawford was the same guy who had been unable to recognize the depth of the suffering in New Orleans' fetid Superdome. This brand of leadership was not the ?compassionate conservatism? that had been sold in all those photo ops with African-American schoolchildren. This was callous conservatism, if not just plain mean.? Well said, Mr. Rich man, and bravo to the American humans who reacted in such an effective way to safeguard their democracy.

We birds welcomed the hosting in our city on Nov. 13 and 14 of the Alliance of Civilizations, which is an initiative by the Erdogan man and the Zapatero man in improving relations between the West and Islam. We were also happy to see that the Kofi Annan man and the Khatami man were also present at this important meeting. What we, however, could not understand, was the absence of Patriarch Bartolomeos, who, in his wisdom had initiated dialogue between Christianity and Islam from 1992. His experience from this on-going dialogue would have greatly contributed to the meeting of the Alliance of the Civilizations. But this was not the case. Maybe another time!

We have nothing more to say about the ongoing crisis between Turkey and the EU. We would just like to quote the last paragraph of our column of Oct. 9 last year. "Some bird-brained advice is once again necessary for the Turkish human administration. The best way to get your revenge on the way that the EU treated you these last few days is by doing what the EU does not expect you to do. And that is to start implementing everything that you have been told to implement. In that way you will deprive the EU of the pleasure of finding a reason to further delay your accession negotiations. That should be your primary objective. Your second objective should be to start a campaign to charm the public opinion of the EU. We know from the past that you are good at that. It is imperative in the next 10 years of negotiations that you change the negative opinion that the European humans have about Turkey. This will also influence in a positive way the positions of the EU governments. Only by doing that will the humans of Turkey be able to enjoy one day the freedom of the birds."

Ponder our thoughts, dear humans, for your benefit.

Talat: We have no gift for Papadopoulos

2006-11-18T11:14:00.000+02:00

Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat stressed on Wednesday that he will continue efforts for the unification of the island of Cyprus, but will never accept giving Maras (Varosha) "as a gift" to Greek Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos, who rejected the last major peace effort in 2004.

EU Term President Finland has suggested the return of Maras to Greek Cypriots, in exchange for opening the Turkish Cypriot port of Magosa to direct trade with the EU, as part of a deal that aims to break Cyprus deadlock that threatens the future of Turkey's EU talks.

At celebrations yesterday for the 23rd anniversary of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), President Mehmet Ali Talat described his vision of a settlement on the divided island as "a united federal Cyprus" under the roof of the European Union.

The celebrations began at Dr. Fazil Kucuk Bulvari and continued with an aerial display by the Turkish Air Force of "Turkish Stars" in Girne and continued with celebrations and key speeches all around the country. The Turkish government was represented at the celebrations by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Addressing the crowd during a celebration in Lefkosa, Talat expressed commitment for a settlement and unification on the island, but underlined that for that the Greek Cypriots must accept the political equality of the Turkish Cypriots.

"Turkish Cypriots, by establishing and advancing the TRNC, have made it clear to the world that they want to govern themselves rather than becoming local or secondary extension of an external authority," he said.

Criticizing Greek Cypriot leader Papadopoulos for using Turkey's EU membership negotiations as a means of imposing its "osmosis" policy upon the Turkish Cypriot side, Talat said this Greek Cypriot game is coming to an end. "Soon it will be even clearer that nothing can be attained through such cheap bargains and blackmailing, which are completely incompatible with European values," Talat said.

The Turkish Cypriot president also raised criticism of the EU for what he called "discriminatory" treatment of Turkish Cypriots. Talat said it is unfortunate that the EU is embracing current Greek Cypriot leader Papadopoulos, who made preparations and gave orders in 1963 for the mass killings of Turkish Cypriots. But he underlined that despite that, Turkish Cypriots will continue in their bid for a settlement and EU membership. "Sooner or later, the Turkish Cypriots will take their place in the EU," Talat stressed.

What we (the EU) Say in Cyprus, Goes!

2006-11-13T13:28:00.000+02:00

The EU Commission has finally released its 75-page progress report and 20-page strategy document on Turkey. The report is almost as long as the previous one. While preparing the report, there were obvious efforts to place important obstacles in front of Turkey.

EU Term President and Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja?s recommendation of a Cyprus solution model is now the subject of a new debate.

France had proposed holding a referendum in all countries on Turkey?s accession; however, the proposal was rejected and was not included in the report. Certainly, France?s goal is to stave off Turkey, which is a nightmare for France and a potential economic rival, before it becomes any stronger.

It?s important to examine the evaluations made immediately before and after the report by EU Commission Chairman Jose Manuel Barroso and European Parliament?s Turkey liaison Camiel Eurlings. The words of both as well as Tuomioja?s proposal were aimed at misleading Turkey. EU Commission Chairman Barroso, who assessed the report immediately before it was released, said that if the Cyprus problem continued, Turkish-EU negotiations would not be halted and diplomatic initiatives would be launched.

Barroso also advised Turkey to open its ports to Greek ships and planes by the end of the year. If ports aren?t opened, the issue will be taken up by the Council of Ministers to be held on Dec. 14. The aim was to frighten Turkey in hopes that it might open its ports.

The Injustice to Turkey

In a press conference held after the European Union published its progress report and strategy document, Eurlings said Turkey had to implement the additional protocol to ensure reliability to the European Union, emphasizing that they weren?t asking Turkey to recognize the Greek Republic of Cyprus. He also appealed to the union to remove the embargo on Turkish Cypriots , noting the situation for the Turkish Cypriots was extremely important to resolve the Cyprus problem.

While Eurlings was keen not to use the term ?Turkish Cyprus,? he used the term ?Turkish Cypriots? or ?the Cypriots living in places on the island where the Greek Republic of Cyprus is not sovereign.?

EU authorities had guaranteed they would lift the embargoes applied to Turks in Cyprus if Turkey accepts the Annan Plan. Although 65 percent of Turkish Cypriot voters voted ?yes? to the referendum, the EU authorities failed to keep their promises and said, ?That is a political decision, not a legal one,? as a reason for not removing the embargoes. When Turkey asked why it was carrying all the weight, EU authorities said, ?You are right legally, but we are superior politically,? which in other words meant ?Because we said so.?

As for Finland?s recommendations, EU term president and Finnish Foreign Minister Tuomioja said: ?These recommendations are your last chance on the subject of a Cyprus solution. If you miss this chance, there won?t be another opportunity like this.? But, we saw how unreliable and untrustworthy the words of these people were when new recommendations were made after both sides rejected the proposals. There was a decision made on April 26, 2004, by the EU Council that said the Council was determined to end the isolation of the Cyprus Turkish society and support the economic development of the Turkish Cypriot community by reuniting Cyprus.

The fact remains that the EU council decision, dated April 26, 2004, to remove the embargo on Turkish Cypriots was placed in the 10th protocol of the 2003 Accession Agreement.

EU Continues Faulty Cyprus Policy

This is an EU Council decision; in fact, it?s a decision of the EU Council comprised of ministers and so this decision is the European Union?s institutional obligation. Trusting this EU Council obligation and the 4th article of the Financial Aid Regulations, Turkey signed the final declaration of the EU Council summit on Dec. 17, 2004, which expanded the Ankara Agreement to include 10 new members. This meant Turkey had to open its ports to Greek Cypriot ships and planes. Now the European Union is changing the game. Implementing the April 26, 2004 EU Council decision doesn?t remove the embargoes nor does it take any steps to do so. The European Union hasn?t kept its promise.

The European Union wants Turkey to comply with the Dec. 17 final declaration of the EU Council and the contents of the Accession Framework Paper, dated Oct. 3, 2005, and it is putting pressure on Turkey to open its ports to ships and planes with a Greek flag. Moreover, although the Greeks, while becoming an EU member, signed the 10th protocol and agreed to comply with U.N. Security Council decisions regarding Cyprus by a comprehensive solution and to support efforts of the U.N. General Assembly, they didn?t and they continued to prevent the economic development of Turkish Cyprus.

According to the EU Commission progress report, the recommendation for opening ports before the Dec. 14 summit is not an ultimatum. This recommendation aims for the Commission and, consequently, the European Union to put pressure on Turkey. If there is no progress on the ports issue, then there will be a recommendation at the Dec. 14 summit to freeze the negotiations on chapters related to transportation and the customs union. The summit will most likely be a difficult one with Greek Cypriots making veto threats and Turkey refusing to open it ports to carriers with Greek flags. Although efforts to halt the negotiations may intensify, the European Union will not have the courage to suspend negotiations with Turkey. The accession talks will continue with the postponement of discussions on titles related to ports.

The report evaluates how well Turkey has adopted the EU membership criteria in the political and economic fields, it includes the titles of topics confirmed for discussion, works on compatibility with EU accession and important developments made in the last year. Turkey has fulfilled all of its responsibilities. If it weren?t for the underlying ill-intentions on the committee and the creation of artificial problems with a mind to prevent Turkish membership, Turkey could become a member well before 2020. It was indicated in the report that as a result of signing the additional protocol, Turkey is responsible for enabling ?transportation? and the ?free circulation of goods? for all 10 new EU members, and that the European Union will make an evaluation during the year as to whether or not Turkey made full compliance on this matter. It is not mentioned as to what kind of precautions will be taken in case the evaluation is negative.

This approach shows that no sanctions will be made if Turkey doesn?t open its ports to ships and planes with Greek flags and that accession talks won?t break off for this reason. Another interesting part of the report is the statement to the effect that Turkey has remained bound to a comprehensive solution under the leadership of the United Nations in almost any attempt at a Cyprus solution, regardless of the source.

This description is good proof that Turkey is not in the ?no? position and that it is accepted as a party that wants a Cyprus solution. This new and positive definition in the Turkish report should be used very well. Another positive implication of the report on the Cyprus issue is the emphasis on the fact that Turkey has supported both communities of the island regarding talks on the ?technical committee? level resulting from the Gambari initiative. The mention of the 11-point plan of action on Cyprus presented by Turkey in the EU Commission progress report shows that in spite of Papadopoulos?s immediate rejection of these recommendations, they are still valid alternatives and they comprise a positive point for Turkey.

Professor Ata Atum, East Mediterranean University Faculty Member

Consider the salient truth about international concerns

2006-11-07T13:37:00.000+02:00

Our attitudes to risk are governed, not by their incidence, but by their salience. Subjective assessments emphasise the salience of risks. For politicians, salience is all and that is why we are at war on terror.

Last week Bill Clinton, former US president, brought the great, the good and, above all, the rich to New York to discuss important global problems. But what makes a global problem "important"?

We mostly judge risks by their salience. Alone at home a few weeks ago, I heard a noise and, on investigating, disturbed a burglar who had walked through an unlocked door. I have since installed a new and sophisticated alarm system. The objective risk has not changed but my perception of it has. Salience explains why we go for a check-up when we hear that a friend has cancer or heart disease and why we drive more carefully after passing the site of a road accident. Salient risks are those that everyone is talking about or that we have recently encountered.

The risk of terrorist attack was not salient enough before September 11 2001 and too salient after. But, as you stand in line at airport security, observe that you are more likely to be killed by an object from space than in an aircraft crash. If the asteroid that hit the planet 100 years ago had landed in Trafalgar Square, it would have destroyed London. Because it only flattened a forest in remote Siberia, the risk is not salient. A bigger collision in Mexico 65m years ago led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and most other species. One day a similar event will destroy life on earth as we know it, if North Korean weapons of mass destruction, or a new pandemic, have not got us first.

The asteroid risk was briefly made salient by the movie, Armageddon. For most of human history, there was not much point worrying about space objects because there was nothing we could do. But, as the film showed, we might now be able to avert such a disaster: a nuclear explosion could deflect the path of the object.

How probable is the event? How serious are the consequences? How feasible and how costly is counteraction? These criteria, not salience, should determine the importance of global problems. But they are not always easy to apply. Some scientists believe that a shower of quarks could become a strangelet and pull all other matter into it until the whole earth, you and me included, was compressed into a sphere of 100m diameter. This is a conceivable outcome of experiments in high-energy physics. Other scientists note that no strangelet has ever been observed and doubt that one ever will be. But the trouble with apocalyptic projections is that all, except the last one, will be falsified.

Strangelets so lack salience that they are hard to take seriously: I cannot imagine that a single reader of this newspaper will lie awake tonight worrying about strangelets. But if events can be too rare to be salient enough to merit our attention, they can also be too frequent to be salient enough to receive our attention.

Each year, a million children die from malaria. Those who live in areas where the disease is endemic, and survive, acquire a degree of immunity. They remain vulnerable through their lives to episodes of disease, which sap their energy and productivity. Perhaps a billion or more malarial episodes occur every year.

Almost every study that has asked the three key questions of global issues - how likely, how serious, how preventable - has put the communicable diseases of malaria and HIV/Aids at or close to the top of the list. HIV/Aids acquired salience by spreading through the bathhouses of San Francisco, and has lost salience as the developed world has brought its epidemic under control and this could be achieved in the developing world. Malaria, eliminated from Europe and North America in the last century, has never been salient. But it is largely preventable - sleeping nets treated with insecticide alone dramatically reduce its incidence, and the discovery of an effective vaccine is a wholly realistic prospect.

World leaders emphasise issues that are salient to them and to their voters. But Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the richest men in the world, have instead asked the questions - how likely? how costly? how amenable to action? - and put disease control at the head of their list of global issues. That judgment demonstrates the power of philanthropy over politics, of individual over collective action, of decision over discussion.

British believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il

2006-11-03T09:36:00.000+02:00

* US allies think Washington threat to world peace
* Only Bin Laden feared more in United Kingdom

The ICM poll ranks the US president with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety.

America is now seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbours and allies, according to an international survey of public opinion published today that reveals just how far the country's reputation has fallen among former supporters since the invasion of Iraq.Carried out as US voters prepare to go to the polls next week in an election dominated by the war, the research also shows that British voters see George Bush as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, or the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both countries were once cited by the US president as part of an "axis of evil", but it is Mr Bush who now alarms voters in countries with traditionally strong links to the US.
British believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il
· US allies think Washington threat to world peace · Only Bin Laden feared more in United Kingdom
Julian GloverFriday November 3, 2006The Guardian
The ICM poll ranks the US president with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety.
America is now seen as a threat to world peace by its closest neighbours and allies, according to an international survey of public opinion published today that reveals just how far the country's reputation has fallen among former supporters since the invasion of Iraq.Carried out as US voters prepare to go to the polls next week in an election dominated by the war, the research also shows that British voters see George Bush as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, or the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both countries were once cited by the US president as part of an "axis of evil", but it is Mr Bush who now alarms voters in countries with traditionally strong links to the US.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The survey has been carried out by the Guardian in Britain and leading newspapers in Israel (Haaretz), Canada (La Presse and Toronto Star) and Mexico (Reforma), using professional local opinion polling in each country.It exposes high levels of distrust. In Britain, 69% of those questioned say they believe US policy has made the world less safe since 2001, with only 7% thinking action in Iraq and Afghanistan has increased global security.
The finding is mirrored in America's immediate northern and southern neighbours, Canada and Mexico, with 62% of Canadians and 57% of Mexicans saying the world has become more dangerous because of US policy.
Even in Israel, which has long looked to America to guarantee national security, support for the US has slipped.
Only one in four Israeli voters say that Mr Bush has made the world safer, outweighed by the number who think he has added to the risk of international conflict, 36% to 25%. A further 30% say that at best he has made no difference.
Voters in three of the four countries surveyed also overwhelmingly reject the decision to invade Iraq, with only Israeli voters in favour, 59% to 34% against. Opinion against the war has hardened strongly since a similar survey before the US presidential election in 2004.
In Britain 71% of voters now say the invasion was unjustified, a view shared by 89% of Mexicans and 73% of Canadians. Canada is a Nato member whose troops are in action in Afghanistan. Neither do voters think America has helped advance democracy in developing countries, one of the justifications for deposing Saddam Hussein. Only 11% of Britons and 28% of Israelis think that has happened.
As a result, Mr Bush is ranked with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety. He is outranked by Osama bin Laden in all four countries, but runs the al-Qaida leader close in the eyes of UK voters: 87% think the al-Qaida leader is a great or moderate danger to peace, compared with 75% who think this of Mr Bush.
The US leader and close ally of Tony Blair is seen in Britain as a more dangerous man than the president of Iran (62% think he is a danger), the North Korean leader (69%) and the leader of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah (65%).
Only 10% of British voters think that Mr Bush poses no danger at all. Israeli voters remain much more trusting of him, with 23% thinking he represents a serious danger and 61% thinking he does not.
Contrary to the usual expectation, older voters in Britain are slightly more hostile to the Iraq war than younger ones. Voters under 35 are also more trusting of Mr Bush, with hostility strongest among people aged 35-65.
· ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,010 adults by telephone from October 27-30. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. Polling was by phone in Canada (sample 1,007), Israel (1,078) and Mexico (1,010)

NASA's Mars Orbiter Spies Victoria Crater

2006-10-27T09:36:00.000+03:00

An image of the Victoria Crater, one of the biggest craters on Mars, was released on Friday.
Scientists located several layers of sedimentary rock and think it could be a sign that there was once liquid water on the Red Planed.

Victoria Crater is 200 meters deep and has a diameter of 800 meters, which means it is 5 times larger than other craters observed so far. Scientists from NASA emphasized the images of the crater are a touchstone for exploration studies of Mars, and will contribute to answering questions about Mars? past .

NASA?s Mars Rover Opportunity was sent to Mars in 2004. Opportunity reached the Victoria Crater, which was its biggest target so far, on Sept., 27, 2006. After a long preparation process, Opportunity finally managed to take pictures of Victoria Crater on its 951st day on the planet.

The French Definition of a 'Genocide'

2006-10-16T12:03:00.000+03:00

No one, I suppose would disagree with the French lower house Parliamentary minority Socialist MPs? definition of a ?Genocide? as ?the organized killing of a people to end their collective existence?.

However, the ?lower house minority Socialists? MPs of the La Sinn River overlooking Assembly National (the Parliament), seem to have a short memory to la Sinn River graveyard. Thousands of Algerians were reported to have been thrown alive into La Sinn River, and left to be drawn during the late 20th century (Ahmed Bin Billa, al-Jazeera TV, 2004). Isn?t that a ?Genocide?? which was an ?organized killing of a people to end their collective existence?.

The minority Socialist MPs, whose their country is traditionally, popular for art, literature, theatre, and poetry should remember that, ?whose house is glassy, shouldn?t throw the houses of the others with stones?. Beginning of ?Hijab? (Muslim women head scarf) banning in public places and in schools, to satirizing the Prophet of Mercy for all humanity, Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him (PBUH) , to lately, considering any denial to the Armenian ?Genocide?, as a crime, French Assembly National, who gave away its ?Statue of Liberty? to the United States of America, appear to have lots of memory lapses.

long time before the notoriously, infamous Armenian alleged ?Genocide? took place in Turkey during 1915, the French brutal, and barbaric colonization committed a numerous of genocides against Algerians, both inside Algeria, and in France itself, since 1832 up to 1962, when the Algerians had eventually, achieved their independence. About 7 million Algerians were killed during French colony in Algeria, while resisting French occupation (President Ahmed Bin Billa, al-Jazeera TV, 2004). Despite requests, and appeals from Algerian President, Butaflieqa recently, made public to France to apologize for its horrendous 'Genocides' in Algeria, France has not yet, responded.

Although, there are many Turks, including influential thinkers, and politicians, will not deny hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed in 1915 during a relocation arrangement to other parts of the Ottoman Empire, the issue of a ?Genocide? was reported to have been conceived as highly, controversial. Some argue that, those Armenians who died, were caught into inter-communal warfare. Thus, it was not ?the organized killing of a people to end their collective existence?.

In other words, It was not a ?Genocide?. A few others in Turkey, and beyond however, would argue that, it was conscious, and it was a ?Genocide?. Despite World-wide contentious differentiation on the event, the lower house minority Socialists of French Assembly National apparently, for voting reasons are determined to legalize their mind-set.

Many in France make a case that, sheer politics are behind the minority Socialists initiative. As such, there are no ethics, good merits, or else genuine concerns about the Armenian ?Genocide?. The minority Socialists, by proposing such a bill in order to push for a law criminalizing denial of an Armenian genocide, aim at gaining Armenian votes, during next year presidential elections.
One presume, as do many that, the minority Socialists also, aim at spreading an anti Turkey sentiment, in order to make it impossible for Turkey, as a predominantly, Muslim country to join the EU. Has to be born in mind that, Turkey has already got an appointment from the EU for 2010, to negotiate its membership.

Since there are more or less 6 million Arabs in France, mainly, from Algeria, and other Arab North African countries, would be such an opportunistic moment for the Socialists in France to push for a law that, considers Israeli occupation forces? killing in Gaza, and other Palestinian lands as ?Genocide?. Approximately, 750 Palestinian civilians, including women, and children were killed by the Israeli occupation forces since January 25th, as Hamas, Islamic Resistance Movement democratically, was voted to office. More than 3000 civilians, including women, and children either injured or maimed since then. Additionally, nearly, 4000 civilians, including children, and women were arrested. If these killings, are not a ?Genocide?, what a ?Genocide? could be. Isn?t this an ?organized killing of a people to end their collective existence?.

Instead of crying over a controversial history, without of course endorsing genocides by anyway, against any human race Palestinian daily, ?Genocides? committed by Israeli occupation forces, are crystal clear, which is beyond controversy, and globally, documented by satellite cameras, including French TVs, press, and media. Had the French Socialists been sincere about human suffering, they would have assuredly, considered Israeli ?Genocides? against Palestinians since as early, as 1948, as real ?Genocides?. Plus, this would certainly, bring them at least 3 million votes by Arab French.

Nobel for a writer, not his politics

2006-10-14T09:55:00.000+03:00

Last year - not long after Orhan Pamuk was tried for insulting Turkishness - an Istanbul newspaper ran an article entitled 'Who is Maureen Freely?' Their answer was that I was more than just Orhan's friend and translator - I was a shadowy master agent whose sole purpose in life was to win my client a Nobel Prize.

It was part of a much larger hate campaign in the rightwing press - just one lie amongst thousands. The campaign was so vicious that I was sure that - even if it wanted to honour Turkey's foremost writer - the Nobel Academy, which shies away from controversy and does not wish to take instruction from shadowy master agents, would want to wash its hands of the whole thing

So - though I've often used the N word when writing about Pamuk's work - I was probably the most surprised person in the world this morning. I was just finishing a fiction seminar at the University of Warwick when he rang me with the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, and I'm afraid I screamed. He was calm and courteous, as I too tried to be on a series of radio programmes afterwards. But I am somewhat troubled that almost every interview began with the same question. Did I see this prize as political?
No, I don't. Orhan Pamuk has been on the world stage for 15 years now. He is a hugely innovative literary writer whose books owe as much to the great 19th century novelists as they do to the modernist traditions to which he also belongs. His subject is the clash of civilisations, or rather, the strange and subtle interweavings of contradictory cultures in Turkey past and present. In his historical novels - The White Castle and My Name is Red - he presents dark metaphors that illuminate the contradictions of contemporary life. In his contemporary novels, he pierces the silences enforced by state ideology to expose the truth about power and its masters. But like all important writers in Turkey, he has often been asked - and felt obliged - to speak on matters of political principle. He has spoken most consistently and eloquently on free expression.

For many years, his high profile in the west allowed him more freedom than most. That ended in February 2005 when he remarked in passing to a Swiss journalist that though a million Armenians had been killed in the country of his birth, no one talked about it. The firestorm in the Turkish press was so fierce that he briefly left the country. And then there was the lawsuit, which seemed to come at such an awkward time for Turkey. Here it was, trying to join the EU. But here it was, prosecuting yet another writer for his words. It wasn't doing itself any favours, was it? The story has moved on since then - as many as 80 writers, scholars, artists, and activists have been prosecuted for insulting state, the judiciary, or Turkishness itself; there are 45 more cases set to go to trial before the end of the year.

The ultranationalist lawyers who brought the case against Pamuk hope to trample democratic debate. Here they have not (yet) succeeded. The intelligentsia is putting up a good fight. But it's come at a cost, especially for those who are known in the west, and most especially for Orhan. His life story eclipsed the stories in his books.

My hope is that this will change now. The Nobel has gone not to the man and not to his politics but to his words, his characters, and his ideas. Born into a culture that had (recently) clipped its eastern roots, and that was struggling to define itself as western, he has (like all of us who grew up in Istanbul) grappled with double identities all his life. What might have seemed a curse to a young man is the source from which his imagination feeds. He has taken both sides of his clashing heritage and made them whole. Though he is often praised in the west for making Turkey "visible", his greater achievement is to make the west see what it looks like from the outside. This is why he has such devoted readerships on both sides of the divide.
Now that he has won the prize of prizes, will he be allowed to shed his political persona and go back to his desk? It's too early to tell. He is still a controversial figure in Turkey. He will, no doubt, continue to challenge its official history when he thinks it right to do so, just as he will continue to challenge Islamophobia and ultranationalism in the west. But now, at last, his books will come first. Who knows, the day may come when he is honoured even in the country he's put back on the map.

For U.S., a Strategic Jolt After North Korea?s Test

2006-10-10T09:04:00.000+03:00

North Korea may be a starving, friendless, authoritarian nation of 23 million people, but its apparently successful explosion of a small nuclear device in the mountains above the town of Kilju on Monday represents a defiant bid for survival and respect. For Washington and its allies, it illuminates a failure of nearly two decades of atomic diplomacy

North Korea is more than just another nation joining the nuclear club. It has never developed a weapons system it did not ultimately sell on the world market, and it has periodically threatened to sell its nuclear technology. So the end of ambiguity about its nuclear capacity foreshadows a very different era, in which the concern may not be where a nation?s warheads are aimed, but in whose hands its weapons and skill end up.

As Democrats were quick to note on Monday, four weeks before a critical national election, President Bush and his aides never gave as much priority to countering a new era of proliferation as they did to overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Bush and his aides contend that Iraq was the more urgent threat, in a volatile neighborhood. But the North?s reported nuclear test now raises the question of whether it is too late for the president to make good on his promise that he would never let the world?s ?worst dictators? obtain the world?s most dangerous weapons.

?What it tells you is that we started at the wrong end of the ?axis of evil,? ? former Senator Sam Nunn, the Georgia Democrat who has spent his post-Congressional career trying to halt a new age of proliferation, said in an interview. ?We started with the least dangerous of the countries, Iraq, and we knew it at the time. And now we have to deal with that.?

Mr. Bush?s top national security aides declined Monday to be interviewed about whether a different strategy over the past five years might have yielded different results. But Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, has described the administration?s approach to North Korea as the mirror image of its dealings with Iraq. ?You?ll recall that we were criticized daily for being too unilateral? in dealing with Saddam Hussein, Mr. Hadley said. ?So here we are, working with our allies and friends, stressing diplomacy.?

But at the same time, he said the administration had made a conscious decision not to draw ?red lines? in dealing with Kim Jong-il?s government because ?the North Koreans just walk right up to them and then step over them,? just to show they can. Other aides say that, lines or no lines, the North simply decided to race for a bomb ? and finally made it.

North Korea announced its nuclear breakout in early 2003, kicking out international nuclear inspectors and very publicly beginning its drive to turn its stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel rods into a small arsenal of weapons. Focused then on the coming war with Iraq, Mr. Bush and his administration chose to set no limits.

But foreign policy, as Mr. Nunn says, is ?all about priorities,? and until Monday the closest Mr. Bush came to drawing a red line for the North was in May 2003, when he declared that the United States and South Korea ?will not tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea.?

The Central Intelligence Agency?s estimates in the years since have been that the United States has been tolerating exactly that ? a small arsenal of nuclear fuel sufficient to produce six or more weapons.

Notably, Mr. Bush did not repeat that threat on Monday morning. Instead, he drew a new red line, one that appeared to tacitly acknowledge the North?s possession of weapons. The United States would regard as a ?grave threat,? he said, any transfer by North Korea of nuclear material to other countries or terrorist groups, and would hold Mr. Kim?s government ?fully accountable for the consequences of such actions.?

To critics of Mr. Bush?s counterproliferation policy, this seemed a recognition that the North had successfully defied American, Chinese and Japanese warnings about building weapons and testing them, and was now simply trying to manage the aftermath. North Korea, it appears, is taking a page from Pakistan?s strategic playbook: it exploded its first nuclear device in 1998, endured three years of sanctions, and now has emerged as a ?major non-NATO ally? of the United States.

Mr. Bush?s aides say that if Mr. Kim believes he, too, can expect the world to impose a few sanctions and then lose interest in the issue, he is wrong. ?He is really going to rue the day he made this decision,? Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said of Mr. Kim on Monday. But Mr. Bush?s critics charge that the threat may be empty. As they see it, Mr. Kim watched the Iraq war and drew a simple lesson: that broken countries armed with nuclear weapons do not get invaded, and do not have to worry about regime change.

?Think about the consequences of having declared something ?intolerable? and, last week, ?unacceptable,? and then having North Korea defy the world?s sole superpower and the Chinese and the Japanese,? said Graham Allison, the Harvard professor who has studied nuclear showdowns since the Cuban missile crisis. ?What does that communicate to Iran, and then the rest of the world? Is it possible to communicate to Kim credibly that if he sells a bomb to Osama bin Laden, that?s it??

Mr. Allison was touching on the central dilemma facing Washington as it tries to extract itself from the morass of Iraq. Whether accurately or not, other countries around the world perceive Washington as tied down, unable or unwilling to challenge them while 140,000 troops are trying to tame a sectarian war.

Divining North Korea?s true intentions is always difficult; there is no more closed society on earth. But the broad assumption inside and outside the United States government is that Mr. Kim?s first priority is the survival of his government. And the second is that without a nuclear weapon, he believes his government would have no way of staving off the larger, richer powers around it: China, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

All have fought over control of the Korean Peninsula in decades past, and to Mr. Kim?s mind, presumably, the prospect that the North could lash out is the only reason they have stayed at bay.

Mr. Kim may have calculated, many experts believe, that at this point there is little more that the Bush administration can do to him. The United States has imposed sanctions on his country since the end of the Korean War. The new crackdown on the banks through which the North conducts many of its illicit activities ? counterfeiting, missile sales, trade in small arms ? are being choked off, a step the North Korean leaders presumably see as part of a strategy of bringing them down.

It may be years, or decades, before historians know whether Iraq played into Mr. Kim?s calculations about when to conduct a nuclear test. But clearly, managing simultaneous crises around the world is straining the system in Washington, and posing the Bush administration with more direct challenges than many believe it can handle at one moment.

That returns Mr. Bush to the problem he faced when he came to office, and that his aides have never stopped arguing about: whether the best way to contain North Korea is to further isolate it, or to draw it out of its paranoid shell. The nuclear test may force Washington to pick a strategy.

North Korea says nuclear test successful

2006-10-09T14:41:00.000+03:00

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea faced a barrage of condemnation and calls for retaliation Monday after it announced that it had set off a small atomic weapon underground, a test that thrust the secretive communist state into the elite club of nuclear-armed nations.

The United States, Japan, China and Britain led a chorus of criticism and urged action by the United Nations Security Council in response to the reported test, which fell one day after the anniversary of reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's accession to power nine years ago.

The Security Council had warned North Korea just two days earlier not to go through with any test, and the Pyongyang government's defiance was likely to lead to calls for stronger sanctions against the impoverished and already isolated country.

White House spokesman Tony Snow called for "immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act" and said that the United States was closely monitoring the situation and "reaffirms its commitment to protect and defend our allies in the region."

South Korea's geological institute estimated that the test's power was equivalent to 550 tons of TNT, far smaller than the two nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in World War II.

The U.S. Geological Survey said it recorded a magnitude-4.2 seismic event in northeastern North Korea. Asian neighbors also said they registered a seismic event, but only Russia said its monitoring services had detected a nuclear explosion.

"It is 100 percent (certain) that it was an underground nuclear explosion," said Lt. Gen. Vladimir Verkhovtsev, head of a Defense Ministry department, according to Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency.

Although North Korea has long claimed it had the capability to produce a bomb, the test was the first manifest proof of its membership in a small club of nuclear-armed nations. A nuclear armed North Korea would dramatically alter the strategic balance of power in the Pacific region and would tend to undermine already fraying global anti-proliferation efforts.

"If the test (is) true, it will severely endanger not only Northeast Asia but also the world stability," Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso warned.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, facing his first major foreign policy test since his recent election, called for a "calm yet stern response."

South Korea said it had put its military on high alert, but said it noticed no unusual activity among North Korea's troops.

China, the North's closest ally and the impoverished nation's main source of food, expressed its "resolute opposition" to the reported test and urged the North to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks. It said the North "defied the universal opposition of international society and flagrantly conducted the nuclear test."

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair said the test was a "completely irresponsible act," and its Foreign Ministry warned of international repercussions.

The White House said a test defied world opinion.

"A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a provocative act in defiance of the will of the international community and of our call to refrain from actions that would aggravate tensions in Northeast Asia," Snow said.

Russia, which borders North Korea, had urged Pyongyang not to conduct a nuclear test. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov last week voiced concern about the environmental consequences for Russia. The Foreign Ministry warned that a test would add to regional tensions and undermine the international nuclear nonproliferation regime.

The North has refused for a year to attend six-party international talks aimed at persuading it to disarm. The country pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 after U.S. officials accused it of a secret nuclear program, allegedly violating an earlier nuclear pact between Washington and Pyongyang.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the underground test was performed successfully and there was no dangerous radioactive leakage as a result.

North Korean scientists "successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions," the government-controlled agency said, adding this was "a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation."

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the ... people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," KCNA said. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

South Korea said the test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (9:36 p.m. EDT Sunday) in Hwaderi near Kilju city on the northeast coast. South Korean intelligence officials said the seismic wave had been detected in North Hamkyung province, the agency said.

No increase in radiation levels was detected in Russia's Primorye territory, which borders North Korea, the Russian news agency Interfax quoted regional meteorological service spokesman Sergei Slobodchikov as saying. Vladivostok, a large port city on Russia's Pacific Coast, is about 60 miles from the short border with North Korea.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun convened a meeting of security advisers over the test, Yonhap reported. The Japanese government set up a task force in response, Kyodo news agency said.

A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in July after a series of North Korean missile launches imposed limited sanctions on North Korea and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program - a demand the North immediately rejected.

The resolution bans all U.N. member states from selling material or technology for missiles or weapons of mass destruction to North Korea - and it bans all countries from receiving missiles, banned weapons or technology from Pyongyang.

Speculation over a possible North Korean test arose earlier this year after U.S. and Japanese reports cited suspicious activity at a suspected underground test site.

South Korean stocks plunged Monday following North Korea's announcement of the test. The South Korean won also fell sharply. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, fell as low as 1,303.62, or 3.6 percent.

Markets in South Korea, the world's 10th largest economy, have long been considered vulnerable to potential geopolitical risks emanating from the North. The two countries, which fought the 1950-53 Korean War, are divided by the world's most heavily armed border.

The two Koreas, which fought a 1950-53 war that ended in a cease-fire that has yet to be replaced with peace treaty, are divided by the world's most heavily armed border. However, they have made unprecedented strides toward reconciliation since their leaders met at their first-and-only summit in 2000.

The South had planned to ship 4,000 tons of cement to the North on Tuesday as emergency relief following massive flooding there, but decided to delay it, Yonhap reported, quoting an unidentified Unification Ministry official.

South Korea had said the one-time aid shipment was separate from its regular humanitarian aid to the North, which it has halted after Pyongyang's missile launches in July.

Impoverished and isolated North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 23 million people since its state-run farming system collapsed in the 1990s following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.

Knowledge Sharing: Forever a Future Prospect?

2006-10-07T10:01:00.000+03:00

Is knowledge sharing a utopia, the international community?s new « buzz word »? We do not think so. A few examples are more telling than a dozen analyses.

In 1965, Singapore was overrun with shantytowns, and its economy was underdeveloped. Since then, the authorities have pursued resolute policies aimed at investing in education, improving skills and productivity and attracting high-added-value industries. The per capita GDP of Singapore has today overtaken that of many countries of the North.

An economy based on the sharing and spread of knowledge is an opportunity for the emerging countries and for the wellbeing of their populations. Thus, despite its poverty, the Indian State of Kerala now boasts a level of human development close to that of the countries of the North: life expectancy has risen to 73 years and rates of schooling are in excess of 90%. Kerala contributes significantly to making India the 8th nation in the world in terms of scientific publications.

In 1971, a few thousand migrants settled in an empty plain 20 km from Lima and created Villa El Salvador. Practising self-reliance, its inhabitants set up education centres and formed associations. A courageous endeavour of participatory community development, relying on women, transformed this shanty area into an organized town. Recognized in 1983 as a municipality, Villa El Salvador established in 1987 its university. Today, 98% of its children attend school and the rate of adult illiteracy (4.5%) is the lowest in the country. The town now has 400,000 inhabitants, including 15,000 students. The municipality provides computer access points for its citizens, who express their opinions on issues under discussion within the community.

Shared knowledge is thus a powerful lever in the fight against poverty. It is also today the key to wealth production. Finland, which suffered a severe economic crisis following the break-up of the Soviet Union, is currently cited as a model: it invests almost 4% of its GDP in research, its education system is highest rated among the industrialized countries by OECD, and the variation in performance between pupils and educational institutions is astonishingly low, demonstrating that success on the scale of knowledge societies can very well be combined with equity.

These are far from being isolated examples. In all parts of the world, different countries are in the process of inventing new styles of development, based on knowledge and intelligence. For a society?s development potential will depend less in future on its natural wealth than on its capacity to create, spread and utilize knowledge. Does this mean that the 21st century will see the rise of societies based on shared knowledge? Since this is a public good that ought to be accessible to all, none should find themselves excluded in a knowledge society. But the sharing of knowledge cannot be reduced to the dividing up of knowledge or the exchange of a scarce resource to which nations, societies and individuals lay competing claim.

In network societies, creativity and the possibilities of exchange or sharing are greatly increased. These societies create an environment particularly favourable to knowledge, innovation, training and research. The new forms of network sociability that are developing on the Internet are horizontal and not hierarchical, encouraging cooperation, as well illustrated by the models of the research ?collaboratory? or « open source » computer software.

The emergence of network societies and the concomitant reduction of transaction costs encourage the rise of new forms of productive organization, founded on exchange and collaboration within a sharing community. This is particularly vital set against the temptation of economic warfare: these new practices hold out the hope that we shall be able to arrive at a fair balance between the protection of intellectual property rights, necessary for innovation, and the promotion of knowledge belonging to the public domain.

The sharing of knowledge cannot however be confined to the creation of new knowledge, the promotion of knowledge belonging to the public domain or the narrowing of the cognitive divide. It implies not only universal access to knowledge, but also the active participation of everyone. It will therefore be the key to the democracies of the future, which should be based on a new type of public space, in which genuine democratic encounters and deliberations involving civil society will make it possible to address social problems conceived in prospective terms. « Hybrid forums » and citizens? conferences prefigure this development in some respects.

The obstacles that stand in the way of knowledge sharing are admittedly numerous. Like the solutions we are putting forward, they are at the heart of the UNESCO World Report Towards Knowledge Societies directed by Jérôme Bindé and published a few months ago. The 21st Century Talk that we have just organized at UNESCO on the topic of knowledge sharing has doubtless helped to identify them more clearly: polarization, the digital divide and, even more serious, the knowledge fracture and gender inequality ? these are the main impediments to the sharing of knowledge. To overcome these obstacles, societies will have to invest massively in lifelong education for all, research, info-development and the growth of « learning societies? and to cultivate greater respect for the diversity of cognitive cultures and for local, traditional and indigenous knowledge. Knowledge sharing will not forever be a future prospect: for it is not the problem but the solution. The sharing of knowledge does not divide knowledge: it causes it to grow and multiply.

Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO

THE FORGOTTEN OPTION:TURKISH EURASIANISM

2006-10-03T09:32:00.000+03:00

Turkey, which has been making its future plans according to the prospect of the EU membership for 40 years, is now facing the ambiguity of the ?open-endedness,? that has been offered to, or rather imposed on us at this stage of the accession negotiations. What does the EU plan for Turkey, while the Turkish society seems to be completely focused on the EU affairs and our once untouchable and nonnegotiable red lines have gone pink?

Cyprus, which is about to be lost in the same way that Crete was lost, Aegean Sea, which is subject to the schemes aiming at Turkey?s geostrategic eminence in the region, and Greek designs over Istanbul and incessant Armenian demands that have both received the generous support of the EU, are the signposts on the long, narrow and crooked road and warn against the danger awaiting. The EU for which we have greatly compromised our identity and national honor seeks to play an influential role beyond the north-eastern border of Turkey. Whereas we turn our faces to the West, the western countries try to extend their influence to Central Asia which is the fatherland of Turks. This region, which has been central to theories of world supremacy throughout history, is known as Eurasia. The EU?s newly emerged interest in the area is simply based on the existence of abundant energy resources there, but for us, it is the homeland of Turkish states and the nourisher of Turkishness.

Where is Eurasia?

It is possible to answer this question in 10 different ways. Answers vary according to one?s nationality and historical and political convictions; hence remain relative. Our versions of definitions of Eurasia are listed below.

? It is the vast region that encompasses the entire Europe and Asia from Atlantic to Pacific and Lisbon to Vladivostok.
? It is the region stretching towards the west and east of the Ural Mountains.
? It is the region sheltering the Turkish and Slavic peoples (Turkish, Mongolian, Slavic, Hungarian, and Finnish) for centuries.
? And finally, in its narrowest sense, Eurasia can be defined as the region where the Turkish states, in other words the Turkish world, dwell on.

Eurasianism in the Early Twentieth Century

It was a truism in the nineteenth century that the power who commanded the oceans would be much more advantageous than its rivals. From the early twentieth century on, however, with the advancement in the railroads the territorial powers acquired the same degree of mobility as the maritime powers. Within this context, the power that had the potential to command Eurasia territorially would emerge superior to the maritime powers which had to sail miles and travel costly in order to arrive at the point where the land powers reached with much ease through shortcuts offered by the railroad.

Therefore, one of the commonplaces of the early twentieth century was that the state which controlled the heart of Eurasia could also control the entire Europe and Asia -and even Africa to some extent. Although such commonplace had its part in the eruption of the two World Wars, the subsequent advancement of the naval-air forces, such as the US, rendered an extra-region actor the hegemon of this globalizing world. This fact should be seen as the confirmation of what some American strategists suggest ?which is, the control of the centre lays in the power of the peripheral states. However, we can not claim that this rule saying ?who commands the peripheral states commands Eurasia, who commands Eurasia determines the world?s future? applies perfectly. Nevertheless, today it is apparent that the US acts on a strategy based on subordinating the peripheral states of Eurasia with the purpose of preventing Russia from emerging in the region as a global power.

Eurasian Strategies during the Cold War Period

Even after the dissolution of the USSR, the strategic assessments concerning Eurasia ?no different than those pertaining to the Cold War era- focus on hindering in the region the supremacy of Russia which is today world?s second biggest nuclear power and hence the Russian attempts at becoming once again a world power. For this particular reason, the US demonstrates much interest in the Turkic countries and deploys forces there. It seeks to both stop the spreading of the Russian influence through Eurasia and protect China from Russia. The nuclear assets of China, which is considered as an eminent nuclear power, do not, in fact, exceed the capacity stored in a Trident-type submarine of the US. Therefore, against the common point of view, it is not likely in the future that China will challenge the US?s global power. Furthermore, the scarcity of its energy and uranium resources setbacks the Chinese development. As China proceeds towards the end of its development strategy, its oil demand increases considerably. All in all, it can be argued that the US, in order to pursue further its Greater Middle East Project, counterbalance Russia and safeguard its abundant investments in China, seeks to settle down in Eurasia. Meanwhile, the pretext that China needs American support in the region serves conveniently this design of the US.

?Eurasian Balkans?: Where the empires of the past encountered

Over the past fifty years, the role to be played by Eurasia in the world-supremacy plans have been assessed by taking into consideration the developments on the three fronts, namely Europe, Neareast and Fareast. Recently, into these three fronts are included Turkey-Caucasia and Central Asian Turkish Republics, which are together called by Brezezinski the ?Eurasian Balkans.? This new front, with its unique underground richness and oil resources, has an immense geostrategic value.

Eurasia has a central place not only in the formation of Turkish identity but also in the Russian designs of supremacy. Under the strategic guidance of his consultant Alexander Dugin, the Russian President Vladimir Putin has been forcing Turkey out of any plans concerning the future of Eurasia, which is in fact inherently Turkish. The motive behind such exclusive attitude could possibly be explained by Russia?s urge to be cautious towards the Turkic Republics in the region and their potential to be one day powerful and unified. On this account, Russia has been following the Paris-Berlin-Moscow-Tehran-Tokyo axis in shaping its Eurasian policy. Nevertheless, Putin?s latest visit to Turkey and his offer of cooperation and friendly advice not to be so much caught up with the EU affairs could be understood as a sign that Russia may put an end to its attempts to exclude Turkey from Eurasia. Also, Dugin?s latest visits to Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the speeches that he delivered there signal a change of heart in the Eurasian policies of Russia and thus underpin our argument. Dugin highlights the vast possibilities of cooperation ranging from economic to strategic ?even in Eurasia.

Dugin?s theory of Eurasianism bears much resemblance with the Soviet Imperialism of the past. First and foremost, it is essentially anti-Americanist. The Putin administration, which has been seeking ways to increase even further its influence in the Central Asia through a kind of neo-imperialism, is also active in the region by means of successful organizations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Commonwealth of Independent States. Thus Russia enhances its regional existence by strong bonds of economy, culture and politics. However, Putin who envisages challenging America?s design of world supremacy through Paris-Berlin-Moscow-Tehran-Tokyo axis in accordance with Dugin?s viewpoint, has chosen to neglect the Turkishness embedded in the characteristics of the region. Implication of this express negligence as a policy in Eurasia will soon weaken Russia in the region where the Turkish elements are predominant and will eventually facilitate the entrance of the US into Eurasia as an extra-regional but omnipotent actor. Still, Putin?s visit to Turkey indicates that a change in this attitude is on the horizon.

The Theories based on the Turkish-Slavic Unification

There is another theory based on a Turkish-Slav Unification proposed by Bagramof, which is more realistic than Dugin?s theory of Eurasianism. This theory suggests the restoration of the rights of Turkish Muslim minorities and Altınordu in the region.

Within this approach, as orientalist Alexander Kadirbayev emphasized, the ideal of stronger Eurasia lays in the unification of Turkish and Slavic peoples. According to Kadirbayev, ?Eurasianism is grounded on the steppe and forest, in other words on the unification of the Turkish and Slavic peoples. Expansionism, crossing borders and foundation of mighty states are all results of the steppe culture. This is how the Turkish character was formed. The consciousness of coming from Turan and partaking in Turkish Union has prevented the assimilation of the Turks.? In compliance with the maxim saying ?what makes the Eurasian continent is not the geographical union but the cultural one,? extra-regional actors such as the US and Germany, which is encouraged by Russia to be active in this region, are incompatible with this nature of the region. Therefore, designs built on the existence of the outsiders are not realistic. As Kadirbayev held, the Soviet imperialism rose on the harmonious co-existence of the Turkish and Slavic cultures. The most important determinant of the Eurasian culture is, however, the Turan (Turkish) element. Still, the third continent situated between Europe (West) and Asia (East), namely Eurasia, stands on the harmony of its Turkish-Muslim and Russian components. The first is represented by Turkey, whereas the latter by Russia. Both countries built empires in the region and had a say in the shaping of Eurasia?s future.

US?s Quest for Supremacy in Eurasia

Against this background, it would not be wrong to suggest that the American endeavors such as the Greater Middle East Project and North African Project are indeed the tools of an American Eurasianism. Today, consequent to a shift in its rationale, the US seems to ground its strategies in the notion of ?land power? and thus aims to extend its support, through land forces deployed in Eurasia, to the Anglo-Saxon naval civilization, which is in fact greatly under American control. The invasion of Afghanistan, acquisition of military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, obtaining of military permit for passage to Central Asian Republics could be perceived as the unfolding of the Eurasianism as Brezezinski prescribed. Next steps in this American version of Eurasianism will probably be Iran and Syria. Despite Russian resistance, American supremacy in Caucasus, which has started in Georgia, could continue growing.

The confirmation of the Eurasianist theories -in terms of territorial superiority and power- could be seen in the fact that the civilizations, which advanced to greatness in the region, built long lasted empires. Roman, Great Alexander?s Macedon, Genghis Khan?s Mongolian, Persian, Russian, Turkish Seljukid and Ottoman Empires can all be shown as an example to this. Therefore who commanded this heartland commanded not only Eurasia but also the entire world and thus became a super power.

Fully aware of this historical fact, the US aims to keep the peripheral states of Eurasia under its influence and prevent Russia from acquiring global power once again. Within this context, by manipulating the peripheral states such as Korea and the Philippines in the Fareast and Germany and Poland in Europe, the US strives to hinder Russia?s dominance over Eurasia.

Extended Eurasianism - New Eurasianism

Given the varying perceptions of Eurasianism and the diversity of its peoples, though after considerable hardship, it is likely that a new concept of cooperation depending on multipolarism will emerge. Today, it could be possible for Turkey, Iran, the Turkic Republics, Ukraine, Russia, China and even Japan to unite around a certain Eurasianism defined in terms of politics and economics. However, as a realistic Eurasianism requires geographical and cultural unity and the above mentioned countries lack such unity, especially with respect to their cultural identities, their version of Eurasianism does not seem to be a viable option.

Another view, which is similar to the one recently acknowledged in Russia as ?Neo Eurasianism? claims that ?At the heart of Eurasianism could only be Turks.? As this view goes, ?Russia could partake in Eurasianist designs only under the condition that it recognizes the Turkish-Muslim reality and acts accordingly. This principle does not divide Russia, but unifies it instead.? The Russian intellectuals, who argue for this ideal, desire religion to be important, while they at the same time pursue a secular Eurasianism.

If Iran comes to a secular line, it will be a realistic approach to include it into this Eurasianism and it is important to mention that Iran is a country where, in fact, the peoples of Turkish origin founded empires and states until 1924. Although the Eurasianist tendency that exists among Turks and Slavs do not exist among the Persians, the presence of the Turkish element in that country?s demographic profile could lead to such a development.

However, such Eurasianism encounters fierce opposition from the mainstream political groups in Russia and the pro-Atlantic and -European Union groups in Turkey. Additionally, in Russia the views similar to those of Dugin in their anti-imperialist approach and to those of Putin in their quest for making Russia a global power may overshadow this Eurasianist argument.

Nevertheless, in the pursuit of Eurasianism in the region Turkey should be cautious of the manipulative attempts of both the US and Russia, as Eurasianism requires cooperation and in the disguise of cooperation there may come subordination.

A realistic Eurasianism should not be dominated by one power, cause religious conflicts and antagonize the peoples of the region. Besides, not being against any state, alliance and ideology will increase the chances of this Eurasianism to be successful. This ideology can succeed on its own terms. Meanwhile, it will also be realistic to form a Turkish-Eurasianist integration as well.

If Neo-Eurasianist doctrine presupposes a Turkish-Slavic Union, by allying with Turkish Eurasianists, Russians could remain influential in the east of the Ural Mountains where the Turkish peoples are predominant. The world?s one of the greatest energy resources in this region encompassing the Caspian region, Tataristan and Siberia indicate that economic cooperation within Eurasianism, which could lead to the emergence of modern welfare states, is a very profitable prospect. Because Russia is not recently very successful in building solid alliances on its own and feels the potential threat of the American oil companies that are active in the region, it should seriously take into consideration the Eurasianist option requiring a Turkish-Slavic Union. In the near future, Russia might experience a second dissolution. In order to prevent this, it should cease seeking eminence through the hallow Eurasianism of the Tsarist era.

Turkish Interpretation of Eurasianism

If Russians choose to neglect completely the prospects of cooperation with Turkish, then Turks should not hesitate to concentrate on Turkish Eurasianism and help it flourish in the Turkish world.

Whereas Slavs are the majority in the west of the Ural Mountains, they seem to be outnumbered by the Turks and semi-Slavic and Mongolian peoples in the east. This situation, hinting a perfect geographic and cultural integrity in Turan, offers a fine starting-point for Turkish Eurasianism.

Of course, certain hardships today hinder the further enhancement of Turkish Eurasianism. From Dugin?s point of view particularly, Turkey, which has been on the opposing front of Russia, gave up on its imperial pursuits subsequent to its transformation to a nation-state. It has now an overtly pro-Atlantic stance. According to this viewpoint, Turkey and Russia, two rival powers, will remain in constant clash in the region and Turkey could build relationships with the Turkic states only in the degree that Russia allows. Furthermore, Russian statesmen living in the nostalgia of the Soviet days will always stand in the way of a real cooperation with Turkey. Yet, another obstacle to the Turkish Eurasianism is evidently the US.

At the outset, American version of Eurasianism and, as its extension, the Greater Middle East Project aimed at the limitless access to the natural resources of the Central Asia by the help of a friendly Turkey and pacified Iran. All was, in fact, in compliance with Brezezinski?s Eurasianism. Nevertheless, the US presently requires no help to enter the region, as it stands powerful at the heartland of Eurasia thorough its military bases in Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan as well as its military presence in Iraq. On this account, it is questionable to what extent the US will need a potentially rival Turkey in the region or whether it will permit Turkey to be active in Eurasia.

In line with the current trends of Eurasianism and consequent to the US-Russian alliance, the US has enabled Russia to dominate the Turkish geostrategic zone which was once safeguarded by the US to serve the Turkish interests. This fact reveals that it is imperative for Turkey to dwell on an Eurasianism designed solely for the Turkish world.

Once pursued, such Eurasianism would provide Turkey with many considerable benefits. Turkey could, above all, bridge between the Central Asian Republics and EU and skillfully manage an energy network spread all through both continents. In comparison with the EU, Turkey is vastly more advantageous an actor in the region given its geographical, ethnical and cultural proximity to the Central Asian states. It would not be wrong to suggest that at the summit of December 17, 2004 the EU did not completely rule out the possibility of Turkey?s accession in spite of the fact that the materialization of this possibility will make Turkey the biggest member state, because Turkish Eurasianism is likely to result in a very profitable union from which the EU would not want to be excluded.

In the future, Turkey should, on one hand, preserve its national borders and unitary structure and, on the other hand, summon the Turks, Persians, Uzbeks, Azerbaijanis, Kyrgyzs, Kazaks and Turcomans under a geographical unity. It is Turkey?s historical mission to grow from a regional to a semi-global power by means of first economic cooperation and then political integration.

Turkey?s most helpful tools in its quest for greatness are its geostrategic advantages in the areas where oil pipelines are being constructed as well as its military power and human resources fortified by technological training. Its commitment to democracy is also another asset that would bring along the leadership that Turkey aspires to.

Turkish Eurasianism envisages advancement towards a full integration between Turkey and Azerbaijan. ?One nation, two states? is a motto shared by both countries. However, not hiding their discontent with the prospect of such rapprochement, Russia and Iran seek ways to prevent any integration between these two major Turkish states of the region. Their support to Armenia and opposition to Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline should be understood within this context. Russia, which aims to subordinate Azerbaijan, and Iran, which pursues very cautious policies towards 30 million Azerbaijani Turks within its borders, both desire to pacify Azerbaijan by the help of Armenia and obstruct the communication and cooperation within the Turkish world.

Resistance against the EU?s interference with Turkish Eurasianism

Another step to be taken within Turkish Eurasianism is to reinvigorate the Economical Cooperation Organization (ECO). This organization has the potential to be the motor that will inactivate an enhanced industrial, commercial and cultural integrity amongst Turkey, Azerbaijan, the Turkish Republics of Central Asia, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, our commitment to the EU acquis does not allow enhancing further the current integration with these countries. When Turkey entered the Customs Union, the EU promised full membership in return. Subsequent to Turkey?s entrance to the Customs Union, most of our small and medium scale enterprises could not compete and bankrupted in the end. Our importation from the EU member states has constantly increased over the past 11 years and finally reached to the amount of 28 billion dollars this year. Our current trade deficit amounts to 5,8 billion dollars. Among the countries to which the EU exports most, Turkey ranks sixth. It is now time to say no to the Customs Union, which has virtually made our country an open market for the EU, curtailed the progress of our relationship with Turkish world and simply enslaved us. If the open-ended negotiations with the EU mean to leave Turkey in a vast ambiguity and uncertainty for a period of 10 to 15 years, then we should freeze commitments to the Customs Union until a final date for accession has been set. We therefore demand the right to trade freely again with the neighboring and brethren countries in our region. It is vital and urgent for Turkey to put an end to the unfair and asymmetric relation with the EU and take a stand against its impositions and assertions which should in fact remind us of the historical phenomena ?the Capitulations!

UZBEKISTAN AND DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENTS

2006-09-28T11:50:00.000+03:00

Uzbekistan, country from which Anatolian Turks had their roots, had difficult problems when it stepped on the way towards independence in 1990. There is no doubt Uzbeks needed, before all else, to handle one leading problem, which is the fulfillment of the free market conditions, together with another, which was the transition from the Communist system into a more liberal and decentralized model, and therefore implement a great many institutional sine qua non of Western world.

When I visited Uzbekistan in 1993, it was most probable to see the concrete consequences of the system experiencing the problems characteristic to the beginning stages of her transformation process. However, it was also in those years that Uzbekistan was beginning to rapidly replace the artificially-democratic system that was limited by the Communist heritage, with essential and modern democratic institutions and work on the standardization in order to correspond to the modern world.
In that new modern era, Uzbekistan was obliged to compensate the socio-economic losses and distress of the population ? who were used to live below world standards and dependent on state support with little work as civil servant ? which would arise from the implementation of the new system. In order to reach that end, it was crucial to initiate democratic changes in the political arena, while on the other hand install new social institutions, in parallel with fulfilling the requirements of liberal economy. The year 1993 that I witnessed was experiencing the problems of this transition and opening process.
When I repaid a visit to Uzbekistan in 2006, I found myself in a country that proved to satisfy all standard requirements of a modern society. Plenty of modern hotels were built, thousands of factories and facilities operating in services sector were established and a modern finance sector together with its institutions was created. Furthermore, it was much more impressive to monitor those reforms and the initiatory steps that are introduced within the framework of fundamental legal principles on site.
However, considering this last development, I observed significant institutions that are to be taken seriously and did not exist even in Western countries, which from time to time had biased and unjust criticisms for Uzbekistan as well as Turkey. A genuine ?democracy?, which was solely based on popular participation and was like no other I experienced in the rest of the world was implemented. Besides, the new societal system is organized so as to prioritize democracy together with market economy in order to achieve a truly democratic society.
A Retrospective Democratic Approach
Scientists and historians found key elements of democracy in the historical political traditions of the Turkic societies that existed from the beginnings of history while searching for ways to improve democratization in Uzbekistan during the transition from the Communist regime to the new regime. Fundamentally, the democratic conception had always existed in the essence of those Turkic empires that spread throughout the world from Central Asia to the West, in the smallest administrative unit, which was called ?mahalla.? Throughout the history, strong Turkic states were built upon this conception. Provided that the small local units with comprehensive individual participation from below were strong, powerful Turkic states had emerged based upon the dynamism and passion stemming from such popular political participation.
Having considered this element, Uzbekistan president, far-sighted statesman Mr. Islam Kerimov gathered the prominent and respectful elders ?Aksakallar? (White-Beardeds) in order to consult them on the defects of Uzbek society. The resulting ideas made way to the establishment of ?Mahalle waqf? system and Uzbek government immediately began working on the system throughout Uzbekistan. The law on the establishment of ?Mahalle waqf? was enacted in 12/09/1992. In this way a truly democratic system lead by the ?Aksakallar? that was ordained to meet the all the basic needs of society was introduced. Such a system of cooperative institution did not exist under the Soviet era; because the ?Mahalla Waqf? system, which is built upon the traditions and customs of Uzbek people, while attaching importance to the conventional ethics, was perceived as a threat to the philosophy of the communist regime which opposed alternative cooperative social organizations. ?Mahalla? provided the proper conditions for the training and raise of youth for future, constituting the basis of social organization as it was based on traditional ?aile? (family) association. On the other hand communist system gave priority to dialectic materialist patterns for the training of the youth and the individual, rather than referring to their traditions. Ironically, Soviet Union prepared its own culmination by renouncing the individual mentality, motivation and the traditions and customs that empowered this mentality.
Mahalla Waqf and Aksakals
?Mahalla waqf? began operating for the moral, pedagogical and educational development of people, in the relatively small mahallas that were composed of approximately 5000-7000 individuals who closely know each other. Throughout with a new administrative approach, ?Mahalla Waqf? works out to solve the problems concerning education, social security, environment, health, employment etc. bearing in mind the basic presumption that ?mahalla is a big family.? Therefore, ?mahalle,? rather than the state, is positioned to watch out the individuals. Within the new waqf system, ?aksakal,? who is chosen via elections, serves for the sake of mahalla by appointing his secretary and advisors responsible from the religious, moral and traditional education.
The ?aksakal? agency, which is the third elected agency in Uzbekistan after the president and parliamentarians, is an administrative regime motivated by the parole ?mahalla is a family? that existed since Emir Timur. The agency is the realization of the idea that ?aile?, and ?mahalla? as its product, constitute the nucleus of society and the state. The training programs and courses, which procure productive and inventive development of the youth and adults in line with the motto ?economic development begins from the mahalla,? constitute the most precious treasure for a society that hopes for a better future. Considering the basic premise of education and that the ?mahalla is the cradle for education?, the pupils in crèche, primary, secondary schools and university students are trained for the future by the teachers of the education commissions of mahalla waqf, bethinking the basic traditional and customary principles. Thus, schools, although being state institutions, are controlled in the ?mahalla.?
Social Function
?Mahalla Waqf?, which has important social functions, firmly institutionalized the ab aeterno social solidarity of the Turkic world by the establishment of the new system. ?Mahalla waqf? supports the aids for families, elders, needy and ailing people. Moreover, waqf may even help the entrepreneurs/businessmen to establish businesses when necessary.
Observing a system that resembles the Anatolian Turkish ?Ahi? organization still functioning in Uzbekistan may also help us understand the core of the Turkic social traditions and social life.
The financial resources provided by the state in order to help the needy people can also be used most efficiently and optimally, since mahalla would be well aware of those who require relief.
Another important eminence of social solidarity within the mahalla structure can be observed in the importance given to the women and their problems. Particularly, doctors, lawyers and other professional members of the ?Women?s Commission,? which works in order to help women participate in the social life, contacts girls and young women in order to guide them to adopt social life. Subsequently, their specific demands are noted and addressed to the Aksakal for their adequate fulfillment.
The election of ?Mahalla Waqf? (a truly democratic institutional approach of local organization) administration for 2.5 years is explicitly addressed in the Constitution of Uzbekistan. A particular number of delegates that are chosen among the streets of a mahalla substantiate the first chain of the realization of the common will through democracy by participating into a ?kurultay? (assembly) of the delegates. Mahalla waqf, counting 474 in Tashkent and 9941 throughout Uzbekistan, provides an exemplary basis for the appropriate coordination of information between the state, the government and the local divisions. In that respect, it presents a pilot model that should be followed by modern societies.
Other Civil Societal Institutions in Uzbekistan
In addition to mahalla waqf that represents the ideal type of participatory administrative approach, it is observable that Uzbekistan is beginning to accomplish an orderly and systematic social system in terms of establishing an essential civil society with firm bases.
Organizations, such as the ?Institute for Civil Society Studies,? which works in order to contribute for the development of civil societal organizations, increase the level of public participation to government and society for further democratization and liberalization, together with ?Kemalet Youth Movement? (Kemalet meaning maturity) that works for the endorsement of promising contribution of youth to society, appear to be noteworthy institutions pioneering the civil societal progress in Uzbekistan.
?Institute for Civil Society Studies? making striving efforts for the restructuring and enhancement of political parties by working hand in hand with the mahalla waqf, contributes to democratic development of Uzbekistan. Additionally, efforts concerning the development of independence of media institutions are issues worth mentioning in that respect.
?Kemalet Youth Movement,? which was founded in 2001, prepares youth aged 14-28 for future by affiliating them to the movement as members. The movement having 4.5 million members and bureaus in every province of Uzbekistan operates through agencies in schools, universities, colleges and military institutions.
This brilliant movement, aiming to unite youth, protect their interests, increase their competence in social life, solve their problems, inform them of their socio-political rights, guide them through entrepreneurship, facilitate their sports abilities and most importantly prepare them for life, has valuable efforts in addition to publication of 3 gazettes and 5 magazines, which is to be considered as an exemplary endeavor for those societies having problems concerning the future condition of their youth.
Uzbekistan, as one of the most stable societies of the world in terms of internal security, facilitates ideal urbanization projects. Also being free from foreign debt and in addition to her successful efforts for the institutionalization of democratization, it stands in an inspiring position even to arouse jealousy for the Western societies. This is a great achievement thanks to the successful efforts for the protection of independence of Uzbekistan through the implementation of democratization and secularization reforms by the respectful president of Uzbekistan Mr. Islam Kerimov. His Excellency, being well aware that foreign powers? attempt to interfere with the internal affairs of independent countries, implement imperialist policies in order to repress through ?weaken and control? principle, successfully established a commendable principle of independence that we, Anatolian Turks envy and yearn for, by keeping away those foreign powers away from Uzbekistan. Our wish is the initiation of new policies for cooperation between two powerful countries in order for unitary, solidarity and development, which would remind us of the old Turkish saying ?What does one hand do? But when two hands clap makes a sound.? Moreover, it is both crucial and advantageous that cooperation, economic and political solidarity, between Turkey and Uzbekistan, which the Western states always feared of, is enhanced and improved further. We have to draw lessons especially from the delinquency of the previous coalition governments in Turkey and push for serious reformation of the foreign policy agenda of the current government.

Latest GPS Bird Ready For Launch From Cape Canaveral

2006-09-27T09:56:00.000+03:00

Latest GPS Bird Ready For Launch From Cape Canaveral

Artist's conception of Lockheed Martin's GPS Block IIR satellite.
by Staff Writers
Cape Canaveral Fl (SPX) Sep 22, 2006

The second modernized Global Positioning System (GPS) Block IIR satellite built by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Air Force is set for launch aboard a Delta II rocket on Sept. 25, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Known as GPS IIR-M, the modernized spacecraft are the most technologically advanced GPS satellites ever developed and are designed to provide significantly improved navigation performance for U.S. military and civilian users worldwide.

Lockheed Martin Navigation Systems is under contract to modernize eight IIR satellites for its customer, the Global Positioning Systems Wing, Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif.

Designated GPS IIR-15(M), this satellite will join the first modernized IIR spacecraft declared operational last year and 12 other operational Block IIR satellites currently on-orbit within the overall 29-spacecraft constellation. The Air Force is dedicating the mission to honor American POW/MIAs past and present.

The GPS IIR-M series offers a variety of enhanced features for GPS users, such as a modernized antenna panel that provides increased signal power to receivers on the ground, two new military signals for improved accuracy, enhanced encryption and anti-jamming capabilities for the military, and a second civil signal that will provide users with an open access signal on a different frequency.

The Global Positioning System enables properly equipped users to determine precise time and velocity and worldwide latitude, longitude and altitude to within a few meters. Air Force Space Command's 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS), based at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo., manages and operates the GPS constellation for both civil and military users.

GPS IIR-M production takes place at Lockheed Martin facilities in Valley Forge, Pa. The modernized navigation payload is provided by ITT Industries in Clifton, N.J.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about 135,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2005 sales of $37.2 billion.

Japanese Fret That Quality Is in Decline

2006-09-21T09:03:00.000+03:00

TOKYO, Sept. 20 ? Perhaps only in Japan could a television series like ?Project X? have become one of the most popular TV shows. No, it isn?t a science fiction thriller. It?s about product quality.

More specifically, it?s about a bunch of corporate engineers who invented the hand-held calculators and ink-jet printers that helped turn this nation into an industrial powerhouse.

So it is little wonder that a recent surge in recalls of defective products has set off national hand-wringing and soul-searching here, in radio talk shows, on the front pages of newspapers and in the hushed corridors of government ministries.

Even in local noodle shops, the conversation turns to the bruised pride and fears that Japan may be losing its edge at a time when South Korea and China are breathing down its neck.

?Craftsmanship was the best face that Japan had to show the world,? said Hideo Ishino, a 44-year-old lathe operator at an auto parts factory in Kawasaki, an industrial city next to Tokyo. ?Aren?t the Koreans making fun of us now??

?It took us years to build up this reputation,? Kazumasa Mitani, 32, a co-worker, chimed in. ?Now we see how fast we can lose it.?

This, after all, is a country that has been obsessed with perfection. Tokyo?s sprawling subway and train networks run like clockwork, accurate to the minute. Television factories assign workers with rags to wipe down every new set, lest a Japanese consumer find a single fingerprint and return it. In supermarkets, many apples and melons are individually wrapped in protective plastic foam.

In the last two months, the national angst increased after large-scale recalls of defective products made by Toyota and Sony, the country?s two proudest corporate names. In the United States, product recalls occur so frequently that most are barely noticed. But here, they have created something of a crisis in a country where manufacturing quality is part of the national identity.

The fingers have no main culprit to point to. Some say young Japanese are too lazy. Others say American-style management is to blame.

The spate of bad news has not stopped. Just this week, Sony suffered another blow when Toshiba announced that it was recalling 340,000 Sony-made laptop batteries, after last month?s recalls of 5.9 million batteries. And Toyota, which has experienced a soaring number of recalls in recent years, said Wednesday that it would hire 8,000 more engineers to strengthen quality.

Some here admit that Americans may find the fuss perplexing. But Japan is the country that elevated the American quality guru W. Edwards Deming to virtual sainthood and conquered global markets with its eminently reliable cars, cameras and computers. For a time, American and European executives even flocked here to learn Japanese quality-control concepts like ?kaizen,? meaning ?improvement.?

World-leading craftsmanship became so central to the nation?s self-image that many Japanese seem to have trouble imagining their country without it. The recalls are discussed here in the same breath as Japan?s rising rates of crime and juvenile delinquency and other signs that the country?s tightly woven social fabric may be starting to fray.

In the news media, Sony?s and Toyota?s quality problems have frequently topped coverage of wars in Iraq and Lebanon. And Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the leading economic daily, began a front-page investigative series this month called ?Can Japan Protect Quality??

?Toyota and Sony have been a wake-up call that something is amiss in Japan,? said Takamitsu Sawa, an economics professor at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. ?Japan seems to have lost something important on the way to becoming a developed country, and many Japanese want to get that back.?

One of those is Toshihiro Nikai, Japan?s trade minister, who twice last month took unusually blunt steps in this nation that normally recoils from confrontation. He sent letters to executives from Sony ordering them to report on quality-control improvements after back-to-back recalls by Apple and Dell of faulty Sony-made laptop batteries. Sony promised to comply and diligently sent employees to receive the letters by hand. It was the first time such orders had ever been issued to Sony.

?This is very rare,? said Atsuo Hirai, assistant chief at the trade ministry?s information product safety section. Rarer still was the fact that a few weeks earlier, the transport ministry issued similar orders to Toyota.

Hiroshi Okuda, the retired chairman of Toyota and elder statesman of Japan?s business world, called on his countrymen to do more about what he saw as the declining competitiveness of Japanese manufacturing.

?Japan lacks a sufficient sense of crisis,? he warned last month.

The sense of crisis has moved even into the classroom.

New York Times

If Italy thinks the unthinkable about the eurozone

2006-09-19T17:09:00.000+03:00

What if a government decided to leave the European Monetary Union and abandon the Euro? A realistic question, and yet nobody dares to ask.

The agreements that established the euro contain no provisions to allow exit. However, if some government - let us suppose the Italian one - decided to leave, there is nothing Europe could or would do to stop it. But what exactly would a government set on such a course - or forced into it - do?

The objective would be to establish a currency - the new lira - which would substitute for the euro in domestic transactions but sell at a discount to the euro in international transactions. A bus fare of one euro would become a bus fare of one new lira but the external value of the new lira might fall to 75 euro cents in financial markets.

There are no precedents in advanced economies for such a policy. Currency unions have broken up before, but they have usually been de facto rather than legal currency unions - as between Britain and Ireland. Or the motives for the break-up have been political rather than economic. When Czechoslovakia split apart the aim was to preserve, rather than to alter, the terms of exchange between the two new states.

The laws that brought the euro into being said that contracts made in lire were to be interpreted as contracts made in euros at a prescribed conversion rate. But you cannot simply pass a law that contracts made in euros can in future be discharged in new lire. The plan would have to distinguish Italian contracts from others. But how? The Italian state would pay employees and pensioners in new lira. It might impose a temporary freeze on domestic prices and wages, whose lira amount could not exceed their old euro values. This is the familiar apparatus of crisis devaluation. But what of financial and commercial contracts made in euros before A-day but not yet completed?

The simple answer is that an agreement in euros stays in euros. But this is not politically feasible. Italians would not accept that their mortgages and credit-card debts, denominated in euros, would cost them one-third more to repay: and it would be absurd if the bank deposits of Italian residents were revalued by a similar amount.

The relevant principle of international law seems to be that debts are denominated in the currency of the place where they are to be paid. But in the modern world, that question often has no clear answer. The residence of parties to the contract also matters. This seems to give generally sensible answers when both are Italian, but in many cases one party is Italian and the other is not. What of multinational companies? Then there is an issue of legal jurisdiction. For example, many financial contracts are made under English law even if the transaction has nothing to do with England. An English court would want to uphold a valid Italian law, but it cannot be assumed it could or would, especially if that law seemed to favour Italians at the expense of other nationalities.

Businesses with activities in both Italy and other countries would find that some assets and liabilities had been converted to new lira while others remained in euros, and there would be large mismatches between the two. The likely losers would be multinational companies with Italian assets and dollar balance sheets: the likely gainers might be Italian retail financial institutions, which collect deposits in Italy and place them in other countries. The outcome would be a period of chaos in markets and a decade of work for lawyers.

Some people will conclude that these problems make a break-up of the euro impossible. This would be a profound error. History - not least the establishment of European monetary union itself - shows that, given political determination, practical problems will be overcome. Civil servants, lawyers and bankers are there to ensure that a client's wishes are met even if misconceived and if the Bank of Italy does not have a plan in its safe, its officers have been failing in their plain duty.

Any international bank or business should contemplate these issues. But the consequences of such contemplation are grave: in financial markets, actions to protect against a contingency make that contingency more likely. That is why a debate on the fragmentation of the eurozone is a debate that no one dares have.