Pope Francis Wades Into Mideast Turmoil With Turkish Visit

  | By NICOLE WINFIELD and SUZAN FRASER  Posted: 11/28/2014

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) shakes hand with Pope Francis (R) ahead of an official meeting at Turkey's Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey on November 28, 2014. (Photo by Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) | Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Pope Francis urged Muslim leaders to condemn the "barbaric violence" being committed in Islam's name against religious minorities in Iraq and Syria as he arrived in neighbouring Turkey Friday for a delicate visit aimed at improving interfaith ties.

Francis sought to offer a balanced message as he met with Turkish political and religious officials at the start of his second trip to the Middle East this year. He reaffirmed that military force was justified to halt the Islamic State group's advance, and called for greater dialogue between Christians, Muslims and people of all faiths to end fundamentalism.

"As religious leaders, we are obliged to denounce all violations against human dignity and human rights," Francis told Mehmet Gormez, Turkey's top cleric and other religious officials gathered at the government-run Religious Affairs Directorate. "As such, any violence which seeks religious justification warrants the strongest condemnation because the omnipotent is the God of life and peace."

Francis condemned the "barbaric violence" by IS against Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities and the destruction of their places of worship.

Turkish Christians attends a mass in the St. Esprit Cathedral (the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit) before Pope Francis visit in central Istanbul November 28, 2014. Pope Francis arrived in Turkey on Friday at a sensitive moment for the Muslim nation, as it cares for 1.6 million refugees and weighs how to deal with the Islamic State group as its fighters grab chunks of Syria and Iraq across Turkey's southern border. (Photo by Ozan Guzelce/Getty Images)

The Vatican has voiced particular concern about the expulsion of Christians from communities that have had a Christian presence for 2,000 years and has demanded that they be allowed to return home in safety once the conflict settles.

Francis' three-day visit to the Muslim nation comes at a sensitive moment for Turkey, as it struggles to cope with 1.6 million refugees fleeing the IS advance in Syria and weighs how to respond to U.S. calls to get more engaged with the international coalition fighting the extremists.

Turkey has accused the group of casting a shadow over Islam and has said Muslim countries have a duty to stand up against its radical views. But Turkey is still negotiating with the United States over helping the coalition, pressing for a safe haven and a no-fly zone along the Syrian border with Turkey and demanding the coalition go after Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Turkey has long been accused of turning a blind eye to IS fighters entering Syria from its territory in the hope that it would hasten Assad's downfall — charges it denies.

"Those who veer away from the message of Islam — which is a call for peace — and spread violence and savagery are in a state of rebellion against Allah no matter what they call themselves," Gormez told the pope in stressing Turkey's opposition to the fundamentalists.

He and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan both complained about rising Islamophobia in the West, with Erdogan saying prejudices against Muslims were helping fuel radical Islamic groups like the IS in the Middle East and Boko Haram in Africa.

"Those who feel defeated, wronged, oppressed and abandoned ... can become open to being exploited by terror organizations," Erdogan said.

Erdogan said he hoped Francis' visit would strengthen ties between Christians and Muslims. But the pope's visit was met largely with indifference among Turkey's people, 99 per cent of whom are Muslim.

"I don't know what a Catholic leader is doing in a Muslim country," said Akay Incebacak, an Istanbul resident ahead of Friday prayers at the Sisli Mosque. "We need to discuss whether our religious leaders are welcome or met with that much respect abroad."

The pope was greeted at Ankara's Esenboga Airport by a line of Turkish dignitaries before heading to the mausoleum of the Turkish republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, where he laid a wreath.

"My wish is that Turkey, which is a natural bridge between the two continents, is not just a point of intersection, but at the same time a point where men and women belonging to all cultures, ethnicity and religion live together in dialogue," Francis wrote in a guest book at the mausoleum.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said it was clear Francis "was not exactly in his milieu" in carrying out all the protocol required of him by his Turkish hosts, paying his respects at the mausoleum, inspecting the turquoise-uniformed honour guard and being received at Erdogan's enormous and controversial $620 million new palace, which environmentalists and architects have opposed. Lombardi said it was a more excessive protocol than Francis was used to, but that he did it out of respect for his hosts.

Pope Francis (C) visits Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk within his three-day Turkey visit on November 28, 2014 in Turkish capital Ankara. (Photo by Okan Ozer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Beyond the geopolitical issues, the three-day visit will give Francis a chance to reach out to Turkey's tiny Christian community — less than 1 per cent of Turks are Catholic — and visit with the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I.

Francis will tour two of Istanbul's most impressive sites, the Haghia Sofia — the Byzantine church-turned-mosque that is now a museum — and the nearby Sultan Ahmet mosque, Turkey's most important place of Muslim worship. The Vatican's plans call for him to pause in the mosque for a moment of "reflection."

The Vatican added a speech to Francis' itinerary Sunday at an event in which some Syrian refugees are expected to attend. The absence of any meeting with refugees had raised eyebrows given that Francis had met with refugees in Jordan and in the Palestinian territories and has made welcoming refugees a major thrust of his papacy.

In his opening remarks to Erdogan, Francis praised Turkey's welcome of refugees and said the international community had the "moral obligation" to help Ankara provide for them.

Security was tight: Turkish media reports said some 2,700 police officers would be on duty during the Ankara leg of the trip alone, and that a court had issued an order allowing police to stop and search cars and carry out random identity checks on people along routes used by the pope.

Pope Francis Wades Into Mideast Turmoil With Turkish Visit

Pope Francis to visit Turkey in most challenging mission of papacy so far

Constanze Letsch in Istanbul, John Hooper in Rome and agencies

Friday 28 November 2014

Preparations for Pope Francis's visit take place at the church of St George in Istanbul. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images

Pope Francis embarks on one of the most delicate missions of his 18-month-old papacy on Friday, when he is expected to wrestle with the problems of Christian persecution in the Muslim world and tackle relations with Islam in a time of spreading jihadism during his visit to Turkey.

As if that were not enough, he is also expected to deal with the millennium-old schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy that centred on the city that is now Istanbul.

The fourth pope to visit Turkey, Francis will seek to emphasise his commitment to dialogue with Muslims and other Christians at a time of increased violence against Christian minorities in the region.

He is to make what his spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, described as a very important speech on Muslim-Christian relations on Friday.

While in Ankara, the 77-year-old Argentinian pontiff is also due to visit Turkey’s directorate for religious affairs, or Diyanet, and meet Mehmet Görmez, the country’s most senior cleric. Görmez said he wanted to raise the problem of Islamophobia in his talks with the pope.

“Horrible things are happening everywhere in the Islamic world,” he told Deutsche Welle radio.

“These incidents have negatively affected Muslims not only [in the region], but also in Europe. While all these painful events are unfolding, there are those that argue that the source of these problems is Islam, which leads to injustices being committed against Islam

“We will have to work closely together with the pope on this,” he said.

Francis will also walk straight into another controversy when he visits the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s new palace built on once-protected farm and and forest in Ankara. He will the first foreign dignitary to be hosted at the lavish, 1,000-room complex.

The palace, which dwarfs the White House and other European government palaces, cost of £394m. It has drawn the ire of opposition parties, environmentalists, human rights activists and architects who say it is too extravagant, has damaged the environment and was built despite a court injunction against it.

Erdoğan brazenly dismissed the court ruling. “Let them knock it down if they have the power,” he said.

The Ankara branch of the Turkish Chamber of Architects sent a letter to the pope this month, urging him not to attend his welcoming ceremony on Friday at the “illegal” palace.

A spokesman for the pope brushed off the request. The Turkish government had invited Francis to visit and he would go where the Turkish government wished to receive him, he said.

Among the questions hanging over the trip is whether Francis will pray alongside his Muslim hosts when he visits Istanbul’s Sultan Ahmet mosque in Istanbul also known as the Blue Mosque on Saturday.

His predecessor, Pope Benedict, appalled many traditional Catholics when he appeared to do so on his visit to Turkey eight years ago. The Vatican put out a statement saying Benedict had merely been in meditation, though he conceded that he “certainly turned his thoughts to God”.

Francis will be the fourth reigning pope to visit Turkey, and his comes at an intensely sensitive moment for the dwindling Christian communities of the Middle East. Many of the Iraqi and Syrian Christians who have fled their homes to escape the spread of Islamic State (Isis)are currently living as refugees in Turkey.

On Tuesday, Francis appeared to reach out for dialogue with Isis. “I never count anything as lost. Never. Never close the door. It’s difficult, you could say almost impossible, but the door is always open,” he said.

From the Vatican’s standpoint, another important aspect of the visit will be the opportunity to consolidate the papacy’s good relations with the ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew I, the pre-eminent spiritual leader of the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christians. Francis’s stay in Turkey will coincide with the feast of St Andrew, whose significance for the Orthodox church is similar to that of St Peter for Catholics.

More than five centuries after Greek Christian Constantinople fell to Muslim Turks, the ecumenical patriarch and his aides still live in the city that is now Istanbul. Bartholomew attended Francis’s investiture last year, the first ecumenical patriarch to attend such a ceremony in Rome since the two churches split almost 1,000 years ago.

The pope shares close personal ties with Bartholomew I, who is to receive him at the patriarchate, also known as the Phanar, on Saturday. The following day, which is the feast of St Andrew, the pope is due to attend an Orthodox liturgy before the two men have lunch together.

“We are eagerly awaiting the visit of our brother, Pope Francis,” Bartholomew I said in a press release. “It will be yet another significant step in our positive relations as sister churches.”

Bartholomew I may generally be seen as conciliatory towards the Vatican, but the de facto leaders of the Orthodox church in Moscow are much warier and more hostile.

Interfaith dialogue has not always been easy in Turkey, a country with a 99% Muslim population, but many Christians say things have improved under the government of the Islamic Justice and Development party (AKP).

Erdoğan’s administration has shown partial support for the country’s Christian minorities. A law was passed last year to return property confiscated by the Turkish state to its owners and allow Christian religious classes in schools.

Dr Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, the metropolitan of Bursa and abbot of the Holy Trinity monastery on Halki, the second largest of the nine Princes’ Islands off the coast of Istanbul, is the former main secretary of the patriarchate. He said the last papal visit was overshadowed by the reluctance of his Turkish hosts.

“The Turks tried to put obstacles in our way wherever they could,” he said. “The AKP government still had to face the power of the secularists and the military then, and they were not pleased with the visit of the pope. This time there are no problems at all.”

His main grievance, and that of Orthodox Christians everywhere, is that the theological seminary housed in the monastery grounds since 1844 remains closed after the Turkish government banned all private higher education institutions in 1971. Erdoğan has previously said that no legal obstacles remain to the reopening of the school.

“Can there be a better place to educate true ecumenical staff open to interfaith dialogue than this school?” asked Lambriniadis, who is the first head of the school unable to graduate from it. “This is a theological school in a Muslim country from where high church officials graduate to be sent everywhere in the world. We can educate the kind of religious scholars that we so desperately need today.”

 

Pope Francis to visit Turkey in most challenging mission of papacy so far | World news | The Guardian

Ecumenical Patriarch keeps Byzantium alive in Turkey

 

 A priest enters at the Church of St. George in Fener Patriarchate for Pope Francis's visit on Thursday, in Istanbul. Pope Francis will visit Turkey on November 28-30, eight years after his predecessor, Benedict XVI, made a landmark visit to the predominantly Muslim country.

Down a narrow side street, in a district of Istanbul on the Golden Horn well off the beaten tourist track, sit the relatively modest headquarters of the "first among equals" of the world’s estimated 300 million Orthodox Christian believers.

From there Vartholomaios I, known as Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, serves in an office that dates back to the early days of the Byzantine Empire, over a millennium before the Ottoman conquest of the city in 1493.

His office of Ecumenical Patriarch has remained in place through all the historical convulsions since, its spiritual importance now out of all proportion to his relatively modest base in Istanbul.

Vartholomaios’s significance will be underlined again on Saturday and Sunday when he meets Pope Francis on his first visit to Turkey, the latest step in narrowing the schism between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches that dates back to 1054.

Under Vartholomaios, in office since 1991, the archbishop’s role has taken on an new importance going even beyond the bounds of Orthodoxy.

He has won praise for seeking to build bridges with the Catholic faith as well as Islam and also winning accolades for his commitment to environmental activism.

Last weekend, visiting US Vice President Joe Biden made a point of finding time to hold a lengthy meeting with Vartholomaios at the patriarchate.

"This is a really fine man!" Biden declared.

Vartholomaios is the primus inter pares (first among equals) of Orthodox churches across the world, including Greek, Russian, Serbian and Romanian. His degree of influence varies, but many consider him to the the spiritual head of the entire Orthodox faith.

He remains known as Archbishop of Constantinople, in a throwback to the former Byzantine name of the city, which was only officially renamed as Istanbul in the 1920s after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

A holder of the US Congressional Gold Medal bestowed on him in 1997, Vartholomaios was born in 1940 on the island of Gokceada in western Turkey as Dimitrios Archontonis.

But his authority has not spared him from an uphill battle for greater rights inside Turkey.

The Turkish authorities do not recognise Vartholomaios as the Ecumenical Patriarch but just as the leader of Turkey’s tiny remaining Greek Orthodox minority of just 2,500 people.

His exalted titles in Greek carry no weight for Turkish officials who know him as the Fener Rum Ortodoks Patrigi (Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Fener) after the Istanbul district where the patriarchate is located.

His position is subject to strict rules by the Turkish authorities, most notably that its holder must be a Turkish citizen.

The Turkish authorities have also not approved repeated requests to reopen the patriarchates seminary on the island of Heybeliada (Halki in Greek) off Istanbul, creating concerns about where Vartholomaios’s successor will be found.

Vartholomaios angered the Turkish authorities in 2009 when he told a US television network he felt "second class" and even "crucified" in Turkey.

Then foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, now prime minister, described the remarks as "extremely unfortunate."

Turkish police in 2013 said they had uncovered a plot to assassinate Vartholomaios but his office said the patriarch did not believe it was something serious.

His term in office has also been marked by rocky relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, which gives short shrift to the idea he is the spiritual leader of Orthodox believers.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013 held an unprecedented gathering of the world’s Orthodox leaders in the Kremlin, Vartholomaios did not attend and instead sent a lower-ranking cleric.

But the focus of his meeting with Pope Francis will be the rapprochement with the Catholic Church, a process that began in 1964 with the embrace between Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, the first such meeting since the 15th century.

Vartholomaios also visited the Vatican for the inaugural mass of Pope Francis, the first time in history that an Ecumenical Patriarch had attended the installation of a Pope.

"We are eagerly awaiting the visit of our brother, Pope Francis," Vartholomaios said ahead of the visit. "It will be yet another significant step in our positive relations as sister Churches." [AFP]

ekathimerini.com , Friday November 28, 2014 (09:34)  

ekathimerini.com | Ecumenical Patriarch keeps Byzantium alive in Turkey

David Cameron to tell EU: cut all tax credits to migrants

Patrick Wintour and Alan Travis Friday 28 November 2014

Prime minister to announce that EU membership is dependent on measure affecting more than 300,000 EU migrants in UK

David Cameron's proposal aims to make Britain a less attractive place to EU migrants. Photograph: Getty Images

David Cameron will deliver the most challenging speech of his premiership on Friday as he tries to restore his shattered credibility on immigration by saying Britain’s European Union membership is now dependent on nation states being able to withhold almost all benefits from EU migrants.

The measure would affect more than 300,000 EU migrants working in Britain and claiming tax credits. It is designed to reduce the disparities in take-home pay between that earned by EU migrants working in Britain and in their birthplace and is aimed squarely at the low-skilled end of the labour market.

The proposal, to make Britain a less attractive place, is an implicit acknowledgement that cutting back on EU migrants’ access to out-of-work benefits, the main thrust of coalition policy so far, is ineffective since migrants come to work rather than as “benefit tourists”.

Under the plan an EU migrant would need to work in Britain for as long as four years before being eligible for tax credits.

The proposal requiring a rewriting of the EU’s social security rules, and possibly treaties, is to be delivered in an address in the West Midlands and will in effect set out Cameron’s terms for recommending Britain continue its 41-year-old membership of the EU in a referendum scheduled for 2017.

But in his speech Cameron is not expected to call for the right to apply a temporary emergency brake on free movement of workers if a country is being overwhelmed by EU migrants. The absence will disappoint Euro sceptics who have become doubtful that fiscal disincentives will be enough, and will prompt the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, to argue that Britain will only regain control of its borders if it leaves the EU.

The former prime minister John Major, in a speech in Berlin a fortnight ago, had suggested that applying a temporary brake was necessary, and it was thought he was trailing the plan on behalf of Cameron. But it appears Downing Street, assessing the diplomatic feasibility, has held back from endorsing a demand that would have struck at one of the fundamental principles of the EU.

The Conservatives have also been told that plans to put a brake on what the government has described as “destabilising flows of EU migrants” would be very hard to set out in law.

Senior figures including the new EU president, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have said the principle of the free movement of workers is non-negotiable, but are likely to support a fundamental review of the right of EU migrants to be able to access other countries’ social security systems.

British diplomats and ministers have been touring European capitals trying to rally support for the proposals, and it has been notable that David Cameron, in a belated effort to build alliances, has in recent weeks been loth to criticise his long-term opponent Juncker.

The prime minister’s defining speech comes as immigration figures show net migration to Britain is now 16,000 a year higher than when the Tories came to power.

Net migration rose to 260,000 in the year to June – an increase of 78,000 on the previous year, making a mockery of Cameron’s critical 2010 election “no ifs, no buts” pledge to bring net migration down below 100,000 before the 2015 election.

The level of net immigration to Britain has been above 200,000 every year for a decade now and is an indication of rising labour mobility within Europe.

Cameron’s coalition partner Nick Clegg said: “This was a Conservative preoccupation. They made that promise. They have now broken that promise and they will have to suffer the embarrassment of having done so. I think that it does damage public confidence in the immigration system by over-promising and under-delivering in this way.”

The numbers show that putting aside the EU net migration figures, net migration from outside the EU to Britain has risen to 168,000. The government in theory has control over migration from outside the EU, but the figures suggest it has not been able to put bold enough measures in place to counter the lure of the UK’s buoyant economy.

Cameron is likely in his speech almost to make a virtue of the failure of his policy to argue that extraordinary counter measures are now required to give a clear right for EU nation states to decide whether and when EU migrants should be allowed to be paid in-work tax credits.

In advance of the Cameron speech both the Liberal Democrats and Labour have called for the right of EU migrants to claim tax credits to be curtailed.

A snapshot of the tax credit caseload in March 2014 found 318,000 families had a non UK EU national in receipt of tax credits, alongside a further 421,000 non EU nationals. About 16% of the total tax credit caseload comes from outside the UK.

The figures also show EU migrants are slightly more likely to claim in-work benefits than UK nationals. EU migrants make up 5.56% of the UK workforce, but families with at least one EU migrant make up 7.7% of in-work tax credit claims.

It is argued that withdrawal of tax credits, principally working tax credit and child tax credit, will dramatically cut the amount of income unskilled EU migrants receive, leaving them closer to the salary they would be paid in their native country.

The think-tank Open Europe has calculated that if tax credits were withdrawn a single earner on the minimum wage with no dependent children would see their income drop by £100 a week from £290.28 to £196, taking their pay close to the Spanish minimum wage.

The disincentive effect of withdrawing tax credits for an EU worker on the minimum wage in the UK but capable of earning the average wage in their home country would force Polish workers to take a 22% pay cut, while a Bulgarian would only earn a little more.

Open Europe has argued that in-work benefits should not be available until an EU migrant has worked in Britain and contributed to social security for between two to five years. It is argued continental welfare systems, unlike the UK are still dependent on the contributory principle.

 

David Cameron to tell EU: cut all tax credits to migrants | Politics | The Guardian

Muslims Discovered the Americas, Claims Turkish President

BY Berivan Orucoglu NOVEMBER 22, 2014

It is becoming increasingly painful to write about Turkey these days. Every week, there is a controversial incident or statement from Turkey that is difficult to explain to the American public. For this week's outlandish remark, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that the Americas were actually discovered by Muslims back in the 12th century, three centuries before Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic.

"Latin America's contact with Islam dates back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus," Erdogan said on Nov. 15 while addressing the first Latin American Muslim Leaders Religious Summit in Istanbul. "Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178. Christopher Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque on a hill along the Cuban coast. I will talk to my brothers in Cuba and a mosque would suit the top of that hill today as well. We would build it if they [the Cuban government] would let us. Islam had spread in the American continent before Columbus arrived."

Youssef Mroueh of the Sunnah Foundation discovered the purported existence of a pre-Columbian mosque in Cuba in 1996. He wrote that "Columbus admitted in his papers that on Monday, October 21, 1492 C.E., while his ship was sailing near Gibara on the northeast coast of Cuba, [that] he saw a mosque on top of a beautiful mountain." While the entry is usually interpreted as a metaphorical reference to a protuberance on the summit of a mountain that resembles a minaret, President Erdogan took Mroueh's claim to the next level. As usual, government-friendly journalists not only supported Erdogan, but took it even further: Islamic Yeni Akit columnist Abdurrahman Dilipak claimed on Twitter that "there were Native American brides in Istanbul before Columbus arrived in America."

Many articles from the international media mocked Erdogan's statement, but the Turkish president refused to recant it. Instead, he insisted that domestic critics who questioned his claim lack a sense of self worth. "These people have never believed that Muslims could achieve such a thing. They are also the people who do not believe that their ancestors [Ottomans] carried warships over land [during the conquest of Istanbul]. This is a matter of a lack of self-confidence," Erdogan said at a ceremony in Ankara on Nov. 18.

According to a U.S. State Department source who spoke on condition of anonymity, under President Erdogan, Turkey behaves more like a Middle Eastern country -- not a European one -- with every passing day, and this makes it tough for her Western friends to support Ankara. The Turkish government's strong ties with the Muslim factions and its divergence from Western politics (despite its NATO membership) has alienated Turkey from the Western world. The Western frustration with Erdogan is obvious. In private meetings, Westerners often use words like "hubris" and "narcissism" when they speak about Erdogan, while many question Turkey's allegiance to its Western allies. But the West, especially the United States, is not sin-free when it comes to Erdogan.

September 11 initiated profound changes in the United States' policies toward the Middle East. Under George W. Bush's leadership, the United States pursued the use of "soft power" in the region. In late 2003, U.S. officials launched the Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI), a plan aimed at fostering economic and political liberalization in the Muslim world to combat Islamist extremism. Washington increasingly started to identify Turkey as a state guided by "moderate Islam," as the country's new leaders unceremoniously shelved its highly esteemed secularism. U.S. analysts argued that supporting moderate Muslims across the Middle East was the key to defeating extremism, and used Turkey as a shining example of success. As then-Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz highlighted in a speech at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation: "To win the war against terrorism, and, in so doing, to shape a more peaceful world, we must reach out to the hundreds of millions of moderate and tolerant people in the Muslim world.... Turkey offers a compelling demonstration that these values are compatible with modern society -- that religious beliefs need not be sacrificed to build modern democratic institutions."

This view had many supporters in the West, and Turkey was seen as a Muslim country that could reconcile Islam with liberal democracy. After GMEI announcement, in 2005, the United Nations established its Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), a project co-sponsored by the governments of Spain and Turkey that aimed to assist in diminishing hostility and promoting harmony among nations and religions.

Erdogan, however, thinks the term "moderate Islam" offensive and considers it an insult -- indicating that his views may not have been as compatible with the West's goals as his allies believed. But he did not forego the many opportunities the term brought with it. In recent years, Erdogan has been often received by the White House under both the Bush and Obama administrations and has had many photo ops with high-level American officials. (The photo above shows Obama and Erdogan at a joint press conference in the White House's Rose Garden in 2013.) They seemed to have high hopes and expectations of him -- so it's unlikely that Bush or Obama foresaw Erdogan's growing self-esteem and unstoppable hubris. In their desperation to support Erdogan so wholeheartedly, the American leaders turned a blind eye to who Erdogan really is and gave far too much credit to Turkey's Islamist government. In the end, "moderate Islam" satisfied neither the Muslims nor the Americans.

Today, the poster-child of "moderate Islam" even frustrates his co-chair in the UNAOC. Understandably, Spain and the Spanish media are offended by Erdogan's Columbus remarks. If Erdogan's aim is to become an international trending Twitter topic week after week, he should continue this streak of controversial remarks. But if he is serious about Turkey's role in the Alliance of Civilizations, among the international community, he may want to reconsider.

Berivan Orucoglu is the Turkey blogger for Transitions and a fellow at the McCain Institute's Next Generation Leaders Program. You can read the rest of her posts here.

Muslims Discovered the Americas, Claims Turkish President

Turkish president Erdogan says gender equality 'contrary to nature' during women's rights meeting

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Photo: Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan says feminists do not recognise the importance of motherhood. (AFP: Adem Altan)

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Map: Turkey

Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan has said that gender equality is contrary to nature and feminists did not recognise the value of motherhood, at a meeting on women's rights.

The conservative president said women's "delicate" nature meant it was impossible to place them on an equal footing with men.

"You can't get a woman to work in every job that a man does, like they did in communist regimes in the past," he told the meeting of Turkey's Women and Democracy Association.

"You can't put a pickaxe and a shovel in their hand and get them to work. That's not the way."

He said women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law, but their different role in society had to be recognised.

Mr Erdogan's critics in the majority Muslim but constitutionally secular Turkey have regularly accused him of puritanical intrusiveness into private life, from his advice to women on the number of children they should have to his views on abortion.

But his divisive rhetoric has won him the support of the country's pious Anatolian heartlands, helping secure his victory in the first popular election for head of state in August after more than a decade as prime minister.

"Our religion gave woman a station. What station is this? The station of motherhood ... Motherhood is something different and is the most unobtainable, the highest station," he said.

"There are those who understand this, those who don't. You can't tell this to feminists, because they do not accept motherhood. They have no such concerns."

Economists cite the low numbers of women in the workforce as an obstacle to Turkey's development, while the European Union - which Turkey has been negotiating to join for over a decade - has urged the country to do more to improve gender equality.

"We know women are not physiologically equal. But equality is about having equal rights, equal status and equal opportunities," Gonul Karahanoglu, president of women's rights group KADER said.

"He defines women only as mothers. It is discriminating against all the women who don't have children. He always says the same things," she said.

Reuters

Turkish president Erdogan says gender equality 'contrary to nature' during women's rights meeting - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Israeli cabinet approves legislation defining nation-state of Jewish people

Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem The Guardian, Monday 24 November 2014

Opponents say proposed law would reserve ‘national rights’ for Jews and not for minorities that make up 20% of population

The Israeli PM, Binyamin Netanyahu, argues the law is needed because the notion of Israel as a Jewish homeland was being challenged. Photograph: Barcroft Media

A controversial bill that officially defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people has been approved by cabinet despite warnings that the move risks undermining the country’s democratic character.

Opponents, including some cabinet ministers, said the new legislation defined reserved “national rights” for Jews only and not for its minorities, and rights groups condemned it as racist.

The bill, which is intended to become part of Israel’s basic laws, would recognise Israel’s Jewish character, institutionalise Jewish law as an inspiration for legislation and delist Arabic as a second official language.

Arab Muslims and Christians make up 20% of Israel’s population.

The cabinet passed the bill by a 14-7 majority after reports of rancorous exchanges during the meeting, including between the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his justice minister, Tzipi Livni.

The bill, which still requires the Knesset’s approval to become a law, comes as tensions between Israelis and Palestinians rise sharply, and friction within Israel’s Arab minority grows.

Opponents include two of the more centrist parties in Netanyahu’s fragile coalition - which say the bill is being pushed through with forthcoming primaries in the prime minster’s right-wing Likud party in mind - and senior government officials including the attorney general.

According to many critics, the new wording would weaken the wording of Israel’s declaration of independence, which states that the new state would “be based on the principles of liberty, justice and freedom expressed by the prophets of Israel [and] affirm complete social and political equality for all its citizens, regardless of religion, race or gender”.

Among those to voice their opposition was the finance minister, Yair Lapid, who said he had spoken to the family of Zidan Saif, a Druze policeman killed in last week’s deadly attack on a Jerusalem synagogue.

“What will we tell his family? That he is a second-class citizen in the state of Israel because someone has primaries in the Likud?” he asked.

Netanyahu argued that the law was necessary because people were challenging the notion of Israel as a Jewish homeland.

“There are many who are challenging Israel’s character as the national state of the Jewish people. The Palestinians refuse to recognise this and there is also opposition from within.

“There are those, including those who deny our national rights, who would like to establish autonomy in the Galilee and the Negev.

“Neither do I understand those who are calling for two states for two peoples but who also oppose anchoring this in law. They are pleased to recognise a Palestinian national state but strongly oppose a Jewish national state.”

According to reports in the Hebrew media, the attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, has also expressed concern, shared by some ministers, that the new law would effectively give greater emphasis to Israel’s Jewish character at the expense of its democratic nature. A number of Israeli basic laws use the term “Jewish and democratic”, giving equal weight to both. The new law would enshrine only the Jewish character of the state.

Netanyahu appeared to confirm that there would be differential rights for Israeli Jews and other minorities. He said that while all could enjoy equal civil rights, “there are national rights only for the Jewish people - a flag, anthem, the right of every Jew to immigrate to Israel and other national symbols.”

Cabinet ministers, including Netanyahu, separately proposed stripping Palestinian attackers of their residency rights in occupied East Jerusalem in response to a wave of deadly violence.

“It cannot be that those who harm Israel, those who call for the destruction of the state of Israel, will enjoy rights like social security,” Netanyahu said, adding that the measure would complement house demolitions and serve as a deterrent.

Critics, however, have condemned the measures as racist said that they could further escalate tensions.

The cabinet met as fresh reports of continuing violence emerged. In Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces had shot dead a Palestinian on Sunday, the first such fatality since a 50-day Gaza war ended in August.

In the West Bank, a Palestinian home was torched on Sunday. No one was hurt in the fire, which gutted the home in the village of Khirbet Abu Falah near Ramallah, local residents said.

“The settlers came here and they hit the door, but I refused to open,” said Huda Hamaiel, who owns the house. She said they then broke a terrace window and hurled a petrol bomb inside.

“Death to Arabs” and another slogan calling for revenge were also painted on the walls of Hamaiel’s home, hallmarks of Jewish extremists’ so-called “price tag” attacks against Palestinian dwellings and mosques and Christian church property.

Israeli cabinet approves legislation defining nation-state of Jewish people | World news | The Guardian

Prince Charles will not be silenced when he is made king, say allies

Robert Booth The Guardian, Thursday 20 November 2014

Exclusive: Sources close to heir say he will break with Queen’s habit of discretion by continuing to speak out on issues that matter to him

The long read: what kind of king will Charles III be?

Prince Charles's allies say he believes he has a duty to relay public opinion to those in power. Photograph: David Levene

Prince Charles is ready to reshape the monarch’s role when he becomes king and make “heartfelt interventions” in national life in contrast to the Queen’s taciturn discretion on public affairs, his allies have said.

In signs of an emerging strategy that could risk carrying over the controversy about his alleged meddling in politics into his kingship, sources close to the heir say he is set to continue to express concerns and ask questions about issues that matter to him, such as the future of farming and the environment, partly because he believes he has a duty to relay public opinion to those in power.

“He will be true to his beliefs and contributions,” said a well-placed source who has known him for many years. “Rather than a complete reinvention to become a monarch in the mould of his mother, the strategy will be to try and continue with his heartfelt interventions, albeit checking each for tone and content to ensure it does not damage the monarchy. Speeches will have to pass the following test: would it seem odd because the Queen wouldn’t have said it or would it seem dangerous?”

In the past Charles has stirred controversy by lobbying politicians over issues such as genetic modification of crops, education and health. The government has already conceded that if the currently secret “black spider memos” he has written to ministers are ever made public, and readers concluded Prince Charles was disagreeing with government policy, that could “seriously damage” his future role as king.

“The prince understands the need to be careful about how he expresses concerns or asks questions, but I do think he will keep doing exactly that,” said Patrick Holden, an organic farmer, friend of the prince and adviser to him on sustainability. “He is part of an evolving monarchy that is changing all the time. He feels these issues are too serious to ignore.”

The comments came as part of a wide-ranging Guardian investigation into the possible shape of a King Charles III monarchy. Next week the supreme court will consider whether 27 letters between Charles and government ministers should be published following a nine-year freedom of information battle between the Guardian and Whitehall. The government and the palace argue correspondence and meetings with ministers are a necessary part of his preparation for kingship and in 2012, the then attorney general Dominic Grieve said they had to be kept confidential to protect Charles’s position of political neutrality.

Constitutional experts have frequently praised the Queen for almost completely keeping out of public debates on political matters and Charles is said to understand that his ability to speak on matters which have a political element to them will be in a different category to the freedom he enjoys in his current role. Courtiers also argue that his 40 years as heir carrying out thousands of engagements across the country and abroad mean he is uniquely well-placed to relay public opinion.

The Prince of Wales with the Queen, who has been praised for keeping out of public debates. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

“Speculation about the Prince of Wales’s future role as king has been around for decades but it is not something we have commented on and nor will we do so now,” said a Clarence House spokeswoman. “The Prince of Wales cares deeply about this country and has devoted most of his working life to helping individuals and organisations to make a difference for the better – and not for his personal gain. He takes an active interest in the issues and challenges facing the UK and around the world through his own work and that of his charities.

“Over the past 40 years in his role as heir to the throne, the Prince of Wales has visited countless places and met numerous people from every walk of life. He carries out over 600 engagements a year. This gives him a unique perspective which has often led to him identifying issues before others which might otherwise be overlooked. He is often described as being ahead of his time and the evidence for this has been well documented and includes leading the work on corporate social responsibility, from as early as the 1980s, demonstrating the benefits of organic farming, as well as finding ways to help young people who are not in employment, education or training through his Prince’s Trust.”

Paul Flynn, a Labour member of the Commons political and constitutional reform select committee, said continued interventions would not be compatible “with the serious job of the monarch to act as someone above politics and above controversy”.

“We know Prince Charles has deep-seated, passionate views, some of which are sensible, some eccentric and some barmy,” he said. “If he continues to be a controversial figure on issues like complementary medicine and country sports he could precipitate a constitutional crisis if he comes up against a government which is bent on some course of action and he disagrees and refuses to sign the act of parliament.”

Flynn said the Queen’s silence on controversial issues had secured the monarchy and made it acceptable in a democracy. He said that if Prince Charles decided to go outside those boundaries as king “he imperils the monarchy”. But one source said Charles got frustrated that people seemed to think he did not understand that being head of state was a different job.

Michael Meacher, the former environment secretary who Charles lobbied over genetically modified crops, suggested that if King Charles wanted to intervene, an unprecedented new system of transparency about his communications with government would be required.

“I would favour the arrangement whereby if letters are received it is made known either in response to a freedom of information request or without prompting so people will know if the king has taken an interest,” he said. “People will be watching to see if the action taken is in line with what is thought to be his view … People are sceptical and suspicious and they have a right to know if the king has taken an interest.”

The Freedom of Information Act protects the royal family’s correspondence from public exposure, so any FOI request would only work if parliament changed the law.

As king, Charles is likely continue to oversee some of the charity operations he has created. Under the auspices of the Prince’s Charities he built up a network of 21 charities, now reduced to 15, and has used several of them to lobby government ministers and officials over causes that matter to him ranging from complementary medicine to traditional architecture. The number of charities in the network may be reduced further but some will remain.

Prince Charles will not be silenced when he is made king, say allies | UK news | The Guardian

If you thought the Isis war couldn't get any worse, just wait for more of the CIA

Trevor Timm theguardian.com, Monday 17 November 2014

Even America’s top spies know that arming rebels is ‘doomed to failure’ – but that can’t stop Obama’s gun-running operation

Information on secret weapons already flowing into Syria has been kept in hiding from most of the people who approved paying for them. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty

As the war against the Islamic State in Syria has fallen into even more chaos – partially due to the United States government’s increasing involvement there – the White House’s bright new idea seems to be to ramping up the involvement of the intelligence agency that is notorious for making bad situations worse. As the Washington Post reported late Friday, “The Obama administration has been weighing plans to escalate the CIA’s role in arming and training fighters in Syria, a move aimed at accelerating covert U.S. support to moderate rebel factions while the Pentagon is preparing to establish its own training bases.”

Put aside for a minute that the Central Intelligence Agency has been secretly arming Syrian rebels with automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and antitank weapons since at least 2012 – and with almost nothing to show for it. Somehow the Post neglected to cite a front-page New York Times article from just one month ago alerting the public to the existence of a still-classified internal CIA study admitting that arming rebels with weapons has rarely – if ever – worked:

As the Times’ Mark Mazzetti reported:

‘One of the things that Obama wanted to know was: Did this ever work?’ said one former senior administration official who participated in the debate and spoke anonymously because he was discussing a classified report. The C.I.A. report, he said, ‘was pretty dour in its conclusions.’

The Times cited the most well-known of CIA failures, including the botched Bay of Pigs invasion and the arming of the Nicaraguan contra rebels that led to the disastrous Iran-Contra scandal. Even the agency’s most successful mission – slowly bleeding out the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s by arming the mujahedeen – paved the way for the worst terrorist attack on the US in its history.

But as anyone who has read journalist Tim Weiner’s comprehensive and engrossing history of the CIA knows, the agency’s past is a graveyard rife with literally dozens of catastrophic failures involving covert weapons deals to countless war criminals and con artists in an attempt to overthrow governments all over the world. Not only has the CIA failed repeatedly, but oftentimes its plan has completely backfired, solidifying the very power of the actor it sought to remove and leaving the people the agency claimed to be helping in a much, much worse-off spot than before the CIA gun-running mission began.

We’ve already seen Syrian fortunes turn for the worse as the US has stepped up involvement in the past few months, as Bashar al-Assad has gone on the offensive against the US-backed rebels, and as the US airstrikes have reportedly led to Isis and al-Qaida reuniting, after being sworn enemies for more than a year. The two terrorist groups then proceeded to route the “moderate” rebels in combat and are currently in possession of many of the US-made weapons previously owned by the rebels.

Two months ago, the US Congress voted to send hundreds of millions of dollars in more arms to Syria. Even the politicians voting on sending countless more US weapons into the middle of a civil war were kept in the dark about the CIA’s internal report. That should be a scandal, right up there with the torture report the CIA is trying to keep secret, too.

But at least a few in-the-know elected officials were aware of the dangers of insanity of Congress’ Syria vote. The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim and Sam Stein quoted an unnamed Democratic Congressman in September who was even more blunt, insisting that the CIA’s belief in arming rebels was “doomed to failure”:

‘I have heard it expressed, outside of classified contexts, that what you heard from your intelligence sources is correct, because the CIA regards the effort as doomed to failure,’ the congressman said in an email. ‘Specifically (again without referring to classified information), the CIA thinks that it is impossible to train and equip a force of pro-Western Syrian nationals that can fight and defeat Assad, al-Nusra and ISIS, regardless of whatever air support that force may receive.’

The unnamed Congressman added: “The CIA also believes that its previous assignment to accomplish this was basically a fool’s errand, and they are well aware of the fact that many of the arms that they provided ended up in the wrong hands.”

But the information on the secret weapons that were already flowing into Syria has been kept in hiding from most of Congress. John Kerry refused to answer any questions about the CIA’s activities in Syria when asked by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite the news of the agency’s involvement in Syria being on the front page of newspapers for years. “I hate to do this,” he said. “But I can’t confirm or deny whatever that’s been written about and I can’t really go into any kind of possible program.”

Perhaps the most shocking part is that we know Barack Obama himself has read the CIA study and knows that arming rebels in Syria – or anywhere – was an incredibly dangerous idea. Seemingly referencing the study, Obama told David Remnick of the New Yorker earlier this year:

Very early in this process, I actually asked the C.I.A. to analyse examples of America financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well. And they couldn’t come up with much.

So even though the CIA “couldn’t come up with much” proof of any time when sending tons of weapons into a war zone full of extremists has worked in the past, or that the agency itself has told Congressmen arming the rebels was “doomed to failure,” the Obama administration is ready to do just that.

No one doubts that Isis is a horrific terrorist group that’s terrible for the entire Middle East – as it proved over the weekend by barbarically beheading another innocent aid worker – but further entrenching the CIA and its weapons into an already awful situation can really only make things worse. Much worse.

If you thought the Isis war couldn't get any worse, just wait for more of the CIA | Trevor Timm | Comment is free | theguardian.com

MINA Breaking News - Dutch Intellectuals Apologize to Putin for Lies on MH17, Syria, Ukraine...

Wednesday, 27 August 2014

 

A letter sent by a prominent Dutch Professor to Russian president Vladimir Putin has attracted much media attention in Europe.  The letter was written by Professor Cees Hamelink and signed by dozens of Dutch intellectuals and professors. Below is the letter in its entirety.

Dear Mr President Putin,
Please accept our apologies on behalf of a great many people here in the Netherlands for our Government and our Media. The facts concerning MH17 are twisted to defame you and your country.
We are powerless onlookers, as we witness how the Western Nations, led by the United States, accuse Russia of crimes they commit themselves more than anybody else. We reject the double standards that are used for Russia and the West. In our societies, sufficient evidence is required for a conviction. The way you and your Nation are convicted for 'crimes' without evidence, is ruthless and despicable.
You have saved us from a conflict in Syria that could have escalated into a World War. The mass killing of innocent Syrian civilians through gassing by ‘Al-­‐Qaeda’ terrorists, trained and armed by the US and paid for by Saudi Arabia, was blamed on Assad. In doing so, the West hoped public opinion would turn against Assad, paving the way for an attack on Syria.
Not long after this, Western forces have built up, trained and armed an ‘opposition’ in the Ukraine, to prepare a coup against the legitimate Government in Kiev. The putschists taking over were quickly recognized by Western Governments. They were provided with loans from our tax money to prop their new Government up.
The people of the Crimea did not agree with this and showed this with peaceful demonstrations. Anonymous snipers and violence by Ukrainian troops turned these demonstrations into demands for independence from Kiev. Whether you support these separatist movements is immaterial, considering the blatant Imperialism of the West.
Russia is wrongly accused, without evidence or investigation, of delivering the weapons systems that allegedly brought down MH17. For this reason Western Governments claim they have a right to economically pressure Russia.
We, awake citizens of the West, who see the lies and machinations of our Governments, wish to offer you our apologies for what is done in our name.
It’s unfortunately true, that our media have lost all independence and are just mouthpieces for the Powers that Be. Because of this, Western people tend to have a warped view of reality and are unable to hold their politicians to account.

Our hopes are focused on your wisdom. We want Peace. We see that Western Governments do not serve the people but are working towards a New World Order. The destruction of sovereign nations and the killing of millions of innocent people is, seemingly, a price worth paying for them, to achieve this goal.
We, the people of the Netherlands, want Peace and Justice, also for and with Russia.
We hope to make clear that the Dutch Government speaks for itself only. We pray our efforts will help to diffuse the rising tensions between our Nations.
Sincerely,
Professor Cees Hamelink

MINA Breaking News - Dutch Intellectuals Apologize to Putin for Lies on MH17, Syria, Ukraine...

Rosetta landing: the billion dollar dart hits its target

By Alan Duffy  Thursday 13 November 2014

Photo: Comets represent a perfectly preserved frozen fossil from the messy business of planet formation. (Supplied: ESA/Rosetta/Navcam)

After a 6 billion kilometre journey, the Rosetta spacecraft has finally landed on a comet to send its discoveries back to Earth and send the mark of humanity through space, writes Alan Duffy.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has made history today with the first successful landing of a probe onto the surface of a comet.

It has taken incredible ambition and effort to achieve such a hazardous and unique landing, yet the scientific goals far outweighed the risks. We can now drill into a comet and directly sample material dating back billions of years, from a time when the planets of our Solar System first formed.

Comets represent a perfectly preserved frozen fossil from the messy business of planet formation. We will also discover if comets are responsible for bringing that all important ingredient of life itself to Earth - water.

After a 6 billion kilometre journey lasting over a decade, the Rosetta spacecraft chased down the 4km-long comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko/67P, coming to within 100km of the target.

This is equivalent to hitting the bullseye of a dartboard in Perth from Sydney. With a billion euro ($1.4bn) dart. While blindfolded (as the mission was powered down for almost the entire journey).

This was the precision with which ESA's Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt had calculated the gravity from all the objects in the Solar System to ensure that everything went to plan.

Yet it was still with relief that the automatic timer awoke Rosetta from hibernation on January 20, 2014, and sent a global wake-up tweet: "Hello, world!"

At such close range, Rosetta was able to take the most detailed pictures of Comet 67P ever, revealing the first of many surprises. The comet appeared to be made of two objects stuck together in what's called a contact-binary resembling a cosmic rubber duck.

The comet appeared to have dunes, rocky slopes, sharp jagged edges and enormous boulders strewn across the surface. It will take astronomers years to fully explain features that would be more familiar to a planet than a comet with low gravity and no weather to shape its features. This picture was a far cry from the benign 'dirty-snowball' picture of a comet and compounded the already difficult task of landing onto the surface.

Over the next few months, Rosetta orbited ever closer to the comet, taking ever more detailed images looking for a safe place to land the Philae probe. On September 15, 2014, landing site 'J' was chosen, roughly corresponding to the crown of the duck's head.

Even here the ground is rocky with potentially lander-destroying shards of ice or probe-tipping boulders within the expected landing site area. The entire mission hinged on perfect timing of when to detach the lander from Rosetta as it flew around the comet, as without thrusters the entire seven hours walking-speed fall couldn't be adjusted. Instead, after separation was confirmed at 20.03pm AEDT on November 12, 2014, ESA joined a worldwide online audience in watching a live stream of the fall, unable to do anything more.

In what will now be remembered as a historic first in space exploration the 100kg, the fridge-sized Philae lander confirmed at 3.05am AEDT on November 13, 2014, that it had landed safely - 500 million km from Earth.

It had planned to fire harpoons to attach itself to the comet to prevent it bouncing, but unfortunately the ground was so soft that it didn't trigger (much like an airbag won't if the car is only bumped gently) and the probe appears to have bounced at least once, meaning there were two landings this morning!

More worryingly, it's not clear if the screws on each leg have drilled into the surface to fix Philae in place. One of the major mission goals is to drill into the surface, and as any DIY-enthusiast knows, you have to apply pressure to your drill or else it skits across the wall. The same thing may happen to Philae if it's not securely fastened. In the next day a decision will be made as to whether to manually fire the harpoon, but regardless, the lander has made history by safely landing onto a comet.

Philae has batteries that will last for 2.5 days and after that will rely on solar panels to provide power for the next few months. As the comet approaches the Sun, its surface will heat up and sublime into gas, forming the famous comets tail, and potentially covering the panels in the process.

As a result of the limited time available, ESA has planned to undertake key science goals over the coming days. One of the main tasks will be to drill into the comet to take pristine samples of material dating back to a time when the planets themselves were first forming. Most excitingly, these samples can test if the ratio of water isotopes (heavier versions of the chemical) on the comet is similar to the oceans of Earth, revealing comets as the origin of at least some of the water on our planet, raining down as frozen ice to fill the seas over billions of years.

The future for Philae is not going to be a very long one - as the comet heats up, the craft may be destroyed by the gas rushing off the surface, starved of solar power by dirt covering its panels, or simply heated too much by the Sun to function any longer.

Yet Rosetta will continue to orbit this frozen world, and will follow its trajectory back into deep space towards Jupiter, slowly running out of power as the intensity of the Sun's light diminishes. The comet will have a silent companion for thousands if not millions of years into the future.

Although Rosetta has earned its place in space exploration history, it has one last mission to perform. Attached to the craft is a 7.5cm nickel disk with 1,000 different languages micro-etched onto the surface, meaning they can be read with nothing more advanced than a microscope, preserving this cultural archive for the future.

Dr Alan Duffy is a Research Fellow at Swinburne University of Technology in the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. View his full profile here.

Rosetta landing: the billion dollar dart hits its target - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Is Putin right wing? Not by Russian standards

By Matthew Dal Santo Wednesday 12 November 2014

 

Photo: To many Russians, Vladimir Putin's very virtue is that he stands at the centre of the country's competing political tendencies. (AFP: Kirill Kudryavtsev)

Internationally he might be seen as an unreformed reactionary, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is far from extreme in the spectrum of Russian politics. It would be wise not to back him into too narrow a corner, writes Matthew Dal Santo.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will arrive in Australia this week for the G20 meeting in Brisbane. Though it's become commonplace to present Putin as an unreformed reactionary, cynically "igniting a wave of Russian nationalism" to keep his political skin alive, it's worth remembering his views are far from extreme in the spectrum of Russian politics.

Take Alexander Prokhanov, former Pravda correspondent, member of the Russian Writers' Union, editor of the ultra-nationalist Zavtra newspaper, and outspoken ideologue of a fusion of Orthodox mysticism, Stalinist propaganda and Soviet nostalgia. He believes that the "imperial character is the code of Russia's history" and the revived Russian state Putin heads to be the most recent of five incarnations of empire on Russia's national territory.

"One of the major ideological goals of our time," he has said, "is to combine the nineteenth century of tsarist rule with the Soviet twentieth century, the Stalinist era."

Though Zavtra's readership is relatively small, Prokhanov's ideas reach a wider audience through regular op-eds in the more widely circulating Izvestia. He has revelled in the mounting estrangement between Russia and "the West".

In an op-ed entitled "The blazing icon" published in October, for example, Prokhanov described a recent visit to Kulikovo Field outside Moscow, where in 1380, having received the blessing of St Sergius of Radonezh, Prince Dimitrii (1359-89) of Muscovy defeated a band of Mongols, an event remembered as the founding of a sovereign Russian state. (In reality, Muscovy continued to pay tribute into the 1400s.)

The site hosts a monastery and Prokhanov tells enthusiastically of his discussions with its monks. Russia defeated its enemies, he says, "by the volition of the brave Prince Dimitrii, lit up by the mysterious, magical light of Russian Orthodoxy that the blessed Sergius had poured into the hearts of the prince and Russia's warriors". Kulikovo made Russian arms "holy".

To Prokhanov, Soviet victory in the Second World (or "Great Patriotic") War was another Kulikovo, "a holy victory won through holy arms", with Stalin its Dimitrii. The atheist Soviet state shot or sent to the Gulag thousands of priests in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet the Red Army's "numberless sacrifices", he says, can be "compared to Christ's sacrifice". They make "the Red Army, the Soviet and the Russian people" a "Christian people", a "holy people". "The Lord himself sat in the T-34 tanks and shot together with the crews," Prokhanov tells us: "Christ went on the attack and counter-attack at Stalingrad."

Prokhanov sees confrontation with NATO over Ukraine in the same religious-nationalist light, adding fuel to his cult of Russia's war machine. Inspired by Novorossiya's rebels, he acclaims "Russian arms" as "a blazing icon": "on them we pray, to them we press our lips; they deflect calamities away from our borders, the dark forces of the enemy."

In another op-ed, "Christ is risen in Novorossiya", he called the Donbass a New Nazareth, fulfilling the ancient prophecy of Moscow as the "Third Rome". "Who asks what good we might expect from Novorossiya? From Novorossiya, we are awaiting the future," he answers, "precious and magnificent."

Prokhanov doesn’t hide his admiration for Mr Putin and, especially since the annexation of Crimea in March, Prokhanov's star has reportedly been in the ascendant among hard-liners in the circle of presidential advisers.

Nonetheless, his flamboyant ideology is still thought to exercise little direct influence over the pragmatic Mr Putin.

While Putin has spoken of the need to knit Russia's history together ("Today, we are restoring the links in time, making our history a single flow once more," he said at the unveiling of a monument to Russia's forgotten WWI soldiers in August), his views aren't necessarily always what one might expect. (He has called Bolshevik propaganda "a complete con".) Though he was guest of honour at this summer's 700th anniversary celebrations of St Sergius's birth, he stuck to the holy man's moral virtues, omitting to name either Dimitrii or Kulikovo. Ideology, the distinctiveness of Russia's civilization from the West's, as opposed to raison d'état, was conspicuously absent from his recent speech on international relations at Valdai.

Despite projecting an impression of unquestioned power, in other words, Putin is playing something of a balancing act. To many Russians, the president's very virtue is that he stands at the centre of the country's competing political tendencies, preventing any from pulling it in an extreme direction. "On Putin rests," one has recently written, "apart from everything else, the heavy burden of preserving the balance between competing forces - between those who desperately hunger for the West and those who dream of the revenge of the USSR."

Like many mystics, Prokhanov has trouble knowing when to stop. "The history of the Russian state and its Christian meaning," he says, is "sacred history" to be compared to the Bible. "Leafing through its precious pages, we undergo the act of penitence that precedes Holy Communion." Russians are "a unique and messianic people", and "the sacrament of ancient Russian arms" has turned into "the weapons of the modern Russian army, planes, tanks, fighters". His conclusion, predictably, is that "[w]e must build up our army whatever the cost".

For now, it seems that the need to balance the diverse impulses of Russian politics and society, combined with his natural caution, will be enough to keep Putin away from fully playing the modern-day Prince Dimitrii which his admirer seems so anxious to cast him. That's no small comfort. The "light" of Russian arms, however "holy", is something the rest of the world can do without. It would be wise not to back him into too narrow a corner.

Matthew Dal Santo is a freelance writer and foreign affairs correspondent. He previously worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. View his full profile here.

Is Putin right wing? Not by Russian standards - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Four threats to Middle East stability

By Denis Dragovic Tuesday 11 November 2014

 

Photo: Australian special forces troops inside a Chinook helicopter. (Matt Brown: ABC, file photo)

With the US president in talks with coalition partners about increasing their commitment to the fight against Islamic State, Denis Dragovic outlines four events that could change the nature of the war.

In the ever-evolving Middle East crisis there are four possible game changers that will have a significant impact to the people of the region, foreign investors and travellers.

Australia's deployment of 600 personnel to the Middle East recognises the raised level of urgency that the threat of Islamic State poses to the region. Together with a coalition of regional and international forces military strikes, weapons supplies and humanitarian support are buttressing the efforts of local forces.

But the fluidity of the alliances, opaque interests of the key players, and the successes of Islamic State make the situation volatile and the risk for escalation high.

While the US president is in talks with coalition partners about increasing their commitment, here are four red flags that could signal a substantial escalation in the crisis.

 

1. PKK resumes insurgency within Turkey

The 30-year uprising of the Turkish Kurds that has killed an estimated 40,000 people has enjoyed a ceasefire for the past year as negotiations continue.

But the two groups most involved, the Turkish military and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), were both unimpressed by the Turkish government's recent stance towards the Syrian Kurds' Democratic Union Party (PYD) in the border town of Kobane.

Turkey's closing of the border precluding supplies and reinforcements entering along with a firm stance against any military support angered the PKK. The Turkish military was equally unimpressed when Turkey, under pressure from the international community, agreed to allow Iraqi Kurds to reinforce the Syrian Kurds. This mobilisation of reinforcements required the convoy of heavy weaponry and personnel to move through Turkey, but the military steadfastly refused to provide the necessary escort, which was instead managed by the internal intelligence agency.

An official or de facto resumption of the Kurdish uprising in Turkey will place pressure on Erdogan to end support to one of the few capable elements fighting Islamic State, the military arm of the PYD. The Turkish Kurds in turn may choose to expand their collaboration with the PYD to establish a Kurdish autonomous state in the border region of Syria and Turkey.

 

2. Islamists push into Lebanon

A silent front in the battle against the expansionist ambitions of Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) is being fought in Lebanon.

Surprisingly for a country that allows easy access to journalists, little has been said of the 30 kidnapped Lebanese soldiers, the execution of others, the small but significant number of defectors from the Lebanese army, and the rising death toll.

This is largely because the fighting has been limited to the border region and overshadowed by other events. With a million displaced Syrians living in Lebanon, 375km of shared border with Syria, and an aggrieved Sunni population, the country is ripe for an uprising of Sunni fundamentalists. Pockets of fundamentalists have fought against the Lebanese army, but their leaders have quickly been arrested, though the ideology and the political interests remain.

To date the uprising has largely been indigenous. But just as in Libya where IS sent a contingent led by a Yemeni deputy to consolidate the factions and successfully establish a toehold in the town of Darna, an appearance of foreign fighters will be an indicator of a shift by IS towards a more robust strategy targeting Lebanon.

 

3. Jabhat al-Nusra makes a play against Israel

Unusual for the history and context of the Middle East is that in this current crisis very little inflammatory rhetoric has been voiced against Israel. The enemies this time are Muslims wavering in their faith or alternative sects that don't abide by the true faith. Israel and more broadly Jews have largely been ignored.

But for how long can this last?

With the recent rise of IS as the perceived global successor to the jihadist movement, Al Qaeda is at risk of becoming an after thought. Its spectacular attacks in the past brought financial support and fighters to its affiliates around the world including JN.

Today, unable to sweep aside its rival rebels or the Syrian regime, the possibility exists for Al Qaeda's affiliate to make a play against Israel, not for tactical reasons, but driven by a global strategy to remain relevant.

To date Jabhat al-Nusra has been remarkably restrained in its actions on the Golan Heights, notwithstanding their attacks upon the Fijian and Philippine United Nations peacekeepers. Is this the calm before the storm?

 

4. Uprising in Jordan

Jordan is the Switzerland of the Middle East, it is where Saudi Arabian princes while away the hot summers, where Lebanese businessmen look for safe investments and Iraqi government officials move their families.

It is also the closest Arab friend that the United States has in the region.

At the same time, Jordan was home to the earliest incarnation of Islamic State, Jamat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 1999. According to the Jordanian Centre for Strategic Studies, 7 per cent of the population supports Islamic State and 17 per cent see Jabhat al-Nusra as a legitimate revolutionary force.

Increasing street protests, sit-ins or other public demonstrations would be indicative of an increased risk to Jordan's stability. Despite the effective infiltration of the various fundamentalist groups by the secret police, spectacular attacks have occurred in the past and a more coordinated uprising would cause considerable upheaval in the region.

Despite the headlines having moved on, the crisis in the Middle East is showing no signs of abeyance. These four red flags are warning signs for a potential deadly escalation.

Denis Dragovic is an international development expert and a lecturer at the University of Melbourne. View his full profile here.

Four threats to Middle East stability - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Top Islamic State leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reportedly targeted by US-led air strikes

 

US-led air strikes have targeted a gathering of Islamic State leaders in Iraq in a town near the Syrian border, the US military confirmed.

Photo: US-led air strikes reportedly targeted a gathering of Islamic State leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who is believed to have appeared in IS propaganda videos. (Photo: AFP/HO/al-Furqan Media)

The strikes, which destroyed a vehicle convoy of 10 Islamic State (IS) armed trucks late Friday, targeted a "gathering of leaders" near Mosul, US Central Command said.

Two witnesses said an air strike targeted a house where senior IS officers – possibly including the group's top commander, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – were meeting, near the western Iraqi border town of Al Qaim.

"We cannot confirm if ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was among those present," Central Command said in a statement using an alternative name for Islamic State.

"This strike demonstrates the pressure we continue to place on the ISIL terrorist network and the group's increasingly limited freedom to manoeuvre, communicate and command."

Witnesses said IS fighters had cleared a hospital so their wounded could be treated, and used loudspeakers to urge residents to donate blood.

Residents said there were unconfirmed reports Islamic State's local leader in the western Iraqi province of Anbar and his deputy were killed.

One US official said air strikes were carried out against a convoy near the northern city of Mosul, about 280 kilometres from Al Qaim, and against small IS units elsewhere, but could not confirm whether Baghdadi was at the gathering.

Jordanian daily newspaper Al-Hadath said dozens of people were killed and wounded in the strike in Al Qaim and Mr Baghdadi's fate was unclear.

Al Qaim and the neighbouring Syrian town of Albukamal are on a strategic supply route linking territory held by Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

More US troops committed to Iraq

The latest strikes came as US president Barack Obama approved sending 1,500 more troops to Iraq, roughly doubling the number of US forces on the ground to advise and retrain Iraqis in their battle against Islamic State.

Photo: US-led air strikes continue to target the Islamic State group, across Iraq and Syria. (AFP/Aris Messinis)

Western and Iraqi officials said Iraq had to improve the performance of its security forces to eliminate the threat from the fundamentalist group, which wants to redraw the map of the Middle East.

The Iraqi prime minister's media office said the additional US trainers were welcome, but the move, five months after IS seized much of northern Iraq, was belated, state television reported.

The United States spent $25 billion on the Iraqi military during the US occupation that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, and triggered an insurgency that included Al Qaeda.

Washington wants Iraq's Shiite-led government to revive an alliance with Sunni tribesmen in Anbar province which helped US Marines defeat Al Qaeda.

Such an alliance would face a more formidable enemy in Islamic State, which has more fire power and funding.

Reuters

Top Islamic State leaders, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reportedly targeted by US-led air strikes - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

What about Egypt? The forgotten revolution

By Diana B Sayed Thursday 6 November 2014

Photo: Luckily for president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the world's attention has been elsewhere. (AFP: Mohamed El-Shahed)

With the world's focus squarely on Islamic State, it's easy to forget about an Egypt still reeling in the post-Mubarak, post-Morsi era. But this week provides an opportunity to speak out against the continuing injustice, writes Diana B Sayed.

I met Yara Sallam in September 2012 to interview her for a series of profiles I was writing on the work of prominent human rights defenders following the Arab Spring.

Just 26 at the time, the well-spoken human rights lawyer bravely described to me her goal to build on the gains made during the 18 days of revolution in Cairo's Tahrir Square in 2011, especially in the realm of women's rights - an area of work she specialised in.

But despite the quiet confidence in her voice, Yara was well aware that her nation was still deeply unsettled.

"Working for human rights organisations is not as legal as everyone thinks it is in Egypt, everyone in this field is working knowing that he or she can be arrested for any random reason ranging from taking foreign funding, defamation or threatening national security," she told me.

Fast forward two years, and Yara's fears for human rights workers are being played out in reality.

Late last month, Yara, well-known activist Sanaa Ahmed Seif and 21 others were sentenced to three years in jail by an Egyptian criminal court.

Their alleged crime? Taking part in a peaceful protest march and therefore breaking Egypt's draconian protest laws - which give authorities the power to cancel or reroute proposed demonstrations, use excessive force during peaceful unauthorised protests, and detain peaceful demonstrators.

Yara was not even taking part in the protest - she says she was simply buying a bottle of water nearby when she was rounded up by a group of men in civilian clothes.

But her evidence and pleas were ignored when sentences were handed down by the Heliopolis Court of Misdemeanours, convened inside an annex of Cairo's Tora Prison.

Lawyers for the defendants said that during the final two court hearings, their clients could not hear the proceedings or communicate with their legal team because a tinted glass screen had been installed, cutting them off from the rest of the courtroom.

Which is an apt description of Egypt right now - screened off from reality.

Luckily for president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the world's attention has been squarely focused on Iraq, Syria and the rise of Islamic State as of late, meaning it has been easy to forget about an Egypt still reeling in the post-Mubarak, post-Morsi era.

Isolated cases, like the imprisonment of Australian journalist Peter Greste and his two Al Jazeera colleagues Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, have drawn international indignation - but Egypt has largely been off the world's agenda.

That will change to an extent this week, however, with Egypt's smaller voices having a chance to be heard on a global scale when the country comes before the United Nations Human Rights Council for its Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

One of the strongest reports made to the UPR comes from the Forum of Independent Egyptian Human Rights Organizations, comprising 19 organisations including the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights - Yara's employer.

The report states that despite Egyptians' repeated demands for freedom, social justice, and human dignity, a severe lack of political will continues to be the main reason for the deterioration of rights and freedoms.

According to the report, all of the successive governments since 2011 have violated various rights including freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, and freedom of expression:

In the four years covered ... the right to life was flagrantly violated due to the policies of arbitrary violence meted out by security sector forces, especially in their dispersion of sit-ins and protests and in their disproportionate use of lethal weapons, which resulted in the deaths of thousands.

Amnesty International's report to the UPR simply states: "Today, human rights in Egypt are in crisis".

For his part, President al-Sisi has given a nod to human rights, telling the United Nations earlier this year that the "new Egypt" would respect freedom of speech, enforce the rule of law, respect the constitution and ensure the independence of the judiciary.

Yara and the 22 others sentenced last month would probably beg to differ, as would the three imprisoned Al Jazeera journalists, Peter, Mohamed and Baher.

As occurred under former presidents Mubarak and Morsi, al-Sisi's government has undermined the rule of law by manipulating the legislative and judicial system, using it selectively to repress opponents and ensure impunity for offenders.

Which is why Western governments, including Australia, must use this week's UPR to resoundingly denounce Egypt's decision to unjustly prosecute and imprison human rights workers and journalists for merely doing their job.

Egypt must listen and finally learn the crucial lesson from the Arab Awakening: that the voices of the masses are too loud to be quashed.

Yara said it best to me in September 2012:

I dream of [an] Egypt that is free from torture, ruled by the law that is equally applied to all its citizens ... and I dream of Egypt that is inclusive [of] all its diversities.

Diana B Sayed is Amnesty International Australia's crisis campaigner. View her full profile here.

What about Egypt? The forgotten revolution - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)