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  • Temper tantrums

    Temper tantrums

    Temper tantrums

    Feb 5th 2009 | ANKARA
    From The Economist print edition

    A dramatic Davos walkout raises new questions about Recep Tayyip Erdogan

    WAS it premeditated? Or did Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, lose control? Mr Erdogan’s walkout from a debate with Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, in Davos has made him the most talked about Turkish leader since Kemal Ataturk. His audience of financiers and policy wonks was stunned. But Muslims worldwide cheered as Mr Erdogan scolded Mr Peres over Israel’s war in Gaza. “When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know well how you hit and kill children on beaches,” thundered a crimson-faced Mr Erdogan.

    The incident has led to new debate over Turkey’s strategic alliance with Israel, whether an increasingly erratic Mr Erdogan is fit to lead Turkey at all and, if so, in what direction: east or west? There is no question of Turkey walking away from NATO or the European Union, or scrapping military ties with Israel and America. Mr Erdogan’s critics say his outburst was a ploy to please voters. If so, it worked: his approval ratings have shot up. Polls suggest that 80% of Turks support Mr Erdogan’s actions. His mildly Islamist Justice and Development party will reap dividends in municipal elections on March 29th.

    Mr Erdogan’s defiance has also helped to assuage his people’s long-running feelings of humiliation and inferiority, which date back as far as the Ottoman defeat in the first world war. Many insist that Mr Erdogan’s reaction was spontaneous and utterly sincere. Turkey has assumed “moral leadership” based on Western values, opined Cengiz Candar, a liberal commentator. Mindful of the public mood, Turkey’s secular opposition leader, Deniz Baykal, grudgingly declared that his rival had done the right thing.

    Not everybody agrees, however. Mr Erdogan’s behaviour makes it less likely that Turkey can successfully mediate between Israel and Syria. His call to Barack Obama to “redefine” what terrorist means has been seen as an appeal to remove the label from Hamas. Although European and American reaction has been muted, in private officials are unhappy. “What [the Davos spat] does leave in Europe is the feeling that Mr Erdogan is unpredictable,” says a European diplomat. Mr Obama is highly unlikely now to pay Turkey an early visit.

    Mr Erdogan’s temper tantrums are not new. But they used to be reserved for his critics at home. The Davos affair, says another foreign diplomat, is further evidence of “Mr Erdogan’s conviction that the West needs Turkey more than Turkey needs it.” It is of a piece with Mr Erdogan’s threat to back out of the much-touted Nabucco pipeline to carry gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe via Turkey. In Brussels recently Mr Erdogan said that, if there were no progress on the energy chapter of Turkey’s EU accession talks then “we would of course review our position”. Meanwhile, Turkey sided with Saudi Arabia and the Vatican in opposing a UN statement suggested by the EU to call for the global decriminalisation of homosexuality.

    Mr Erdogan’s supporters argue that EU foot-dragging on Turkey’s membership bid explains why Turkey is now seeking new friends in the Middle East and beyond. Its growing regional clout is another reason why the EU should embrace Turkey. But the reverse is also true. It is because it is the sole Muslim country that is at once secular, democratic and allied with the West that Turkey commands such respect in the rest of the world. Growing numbers of Arab investors have flocked to Turkey, “because we see it as part of Europe, not the Middle East,” says an Arab banker in Istanbul.

    To retain its allure, Turkey will need to swallow its pride and make further concessions on Cyprus. The EU may suspend membership talks altogether unless Turkey meets a December 2009 deadline to open its ports to Greek-Cypriots. The hope is that Egemen Bagis, who was chosen as Turkey’s official EU negotiator in January, will remind Mr Erdogan that, at least in these talks, it is Turkey that is the supplicant not the other way round.

    Source:  Economist, Feb 5th 2009

  • MPs join Gaza protest against BBC

    MPs join Gaza protest against BBC

    By Mark Hookham
    Political Editor

    Fabian Hamilton, MP

    THREE Leeds MPs have added their voices to the mounting criticism of the BBC for its refusal to televise an appeal for victims of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

    John Battle (Leeds West, Lab), Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East, Lab) and Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West, Lib Dem) have joined more than 100 other MPs in signing a parliamentary motion urging the corporation to reverse its decision.

    The Disasters Emergency Committee’s two-minute Gaza Crisis Appeal was screened on Monday by ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

    However, BBC bosses have insisted that airing the film would threaten its impartiality and that the corporation should not give the impression it was “backing one side” over the other.

    Protests

    The decision has sparked more than 15,500 complaints and protests at BBC Broadcasting House.

    Mr Battle, a former junior minister, has also raised the issue with ministers at a Commons international development select committee.

    Relatives of his sister’s husband live in Gaza and have given him first hand reports of the intense suffering caused by the bombing.

    Fabian Hamilton, a member of Labour Friends of Israel, said: “To a child who has lost his parents and whose house is a pile of rubble it doesn’t matter whether it was Israelis or an earthquake. That child needs aid and our help. We have a duty to relieve that suffering.”

    Greg Mulholland said he thought the BBC’s reasoning was “utterly flawed.”

    A RALLY is to be staged outside the BBC’s regional HQ in Leeds to protest at the corporation’s refusal to broadcast a charity appeal for funds to help the people of Gaza.

    The rally takes place this evening from 5pm to 7pm outside BBC Broadcasting Centre in St Peter’s Square, near Leeds bus station.

    The BBC has refused to broadcast the appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee which includes charities such as Christian Aid and Oxfam.

    It says to do so might lead to accusations of “bias.”

    Source: Yorkshire Evening Post, 28 January 2009

  • Archbishop joins criticism of BBC refusal to screen Gaza appeal

    Archbishop joins criticism of BBC refusal to screen Gaza appeal

    Corporation receives 11,000 complaints and 50 MPs plan to back motion calling on BBC to change its mind over aid film

    Protesters demonstrate outside the BBC's Broadcasting House. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

    The Archbishop of Canterbury today added to criticism of the BBC over its refusal to broadcast a charity appeal for aid to Gaza.

    He spoke as it emerged the BBC had received some 11,000 complaints and more than 50 MPs planned to back a parliamentary motion urging the corporation to reverse its decision not to broadcast tomorrow’s appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).

     

    The early day motion to be tabled tomorrow by Labour’s Richard Burden has received the support of 51 MPs from across the Commons; ministers and some senior BBC staff have also called for the BBC to change its mind. The corporation today admitted it had received “approximately” 1,000 telephone complaints about the decision and a further 10,000 by email.

     

    Meanwhile, adding his voice to the calls for a U-turn while speaking after a church service in Cambridge, the Right Rev Rowan Williams said: “My feeling is that the BBC should broadcast an appeal.”

     

    But despite the increasing pressure, a BBC spokesman today said the situation remained unchanged.

     

    Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, has been left isolated as ITV and Channel 4 agreed to air the plea for aid.

     

    The BBC has decided that broadcasting the appeal might be seen as evidence of bias on a highly sensitive political issue.

     

    The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, said it was right that broadcasters made their own decisions, adding that the BBC faced a difficult choice because of the way it is funded.

    The communities secretary, Hazel Blears, said she hoped the BBC would “urgently review its decision”, and the Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, said the corporation had made the “wrong decision”.

    Yesterday, the Archbishop of York, the John Sentamu, accused the broadcaster of “taking sides” and said: “This is not a row about impartiality, but rather about humanity.

     

    “This situation is akin to that of British military hospitals who treat prisoners of war as a result of their duty under the Geneva convention,” he added.

    “They do so because they identify need rather than cause. This is not an appeal by Hamas asking for arms, but by the Disasters Emergency Committee asking for relief.

    “By declining their request, the BBC has already taken sides and forsaken impartiality.”

    Thompson received backing from the BBC Trust’s chairman, Sir Michael Lyons. He said he was “concerned” about the tone of some politicians’ comments on the issue, which he said came close to “undue interference” in the BBC’s editorial independence.

    The BBC’s unrepentant stance has stirred up rebellion in the ranks of it own reporters and editors. One senior BBC news presenter told the Observer: “I’ve been talking to colleagues, and everyone here is absolutely seething about this.

    “The notion that the decision to ban the appeal will seem impartial to the public at large is quite absurd.

    “Most of us feel that the BBC’s defence of its position is pathetic, and there’s a feeling of real anger, made worse by the fact that, contractually, we are unable to speak out.”

    Jon Snow, the journalist who presents Channel 4 news, said the BBC should have been prepared to accept the judgment of the aid experts of the DEC.

    “It is a ludicrous decision,” he said. “That is what public service broadcasting is for. I think it was a decision founded on complete ignorance and I am absolutely amazed they have stuck to it.”

    Snow said he suspected a BBC bureaucrat had “panicked” and urged Thompson to put the situation right.

    Martin Bell, the former BBC foreign correspondent, said the corporation should admit it had made a mistake and claimed “a culture of timidity had crept” in.

    “I am completely appalled,” he said. “It is a grave humanitarian crisis and the people who are suffering are children. They have been caught out on this question of balance.”

    But Greg Dyke, Thompson’s predecessor as director general, said the issue had put the BBC in a “no win situation”.

    “Outside of Iraq, the single biggest issue that caused complaints was the coverage of Israel,” he added. “I can understand why the BBC has taken this decision, because on a subject as sensitive as the Middle East it is absolutely essential that the audience cannot see any evidence at all of a bias.”

    The BBC also faces demands for an explanation from within the ­Commons international development select committee.

    Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, said: “We believe that they should allow the broadcast to proceed so that the British public, who have proved themselves so generous during recent emergencies in the Congo and Burma, can make their own judgment on the validity of the appeal.”

    The satellite broadcaster Sky said it was “considering” broadcasting the appeal.

    A BBC spokesman said: “We do accept that people are strongly guided in their view on this by the humanitarian emergency.

    “We are highlighting the situation in Gaza in every news bulletin, and that is one of the reasons the issue is so high on the agenda.”

    Guardian

  • Miliband regrets ‘war on terror’

    Miliband regrets ‘war on terror’

    The idea of a “war on terror” is a “mistake”, putting too much emphasis on military force, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.

    Mr Miliband seeks international co-operation to combat terrorism

    Writing in the Guardian, Mr Miliband said the idea had unified disparate “terrorist groups” against the West.

    He said the right response to the threat was to champion law and human rights – not subordinate it.

    Mr Miliband repeated the views in a speech in Mumbai, India, the scene of attacks by gunmen last year.

    Mr Miliband’s warning comes five days before the end of US President George Bush’s administration, which has led the so-called “war on terror”.

    The foreign secretary wrote that since 9/11 the phrase “war on terror” had “defined the terrain” when it came to tackling terrorism and that although it had merit, “ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken”.

    The phrase was first used by President Bush in an address to a joint session of Congress on 20 September 2001, in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington.

    Mr Miliband wrote that the phrase was all-encompassing and “gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda” when the situation was far more complex.

    Calling for groups to be treated as separate entities with differing motivations, he wrote that it was not a “simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil” and treating them as such was a mistake.

    “Historians will judge whether [the notion] has done more harm than good”, he said.

    The phrase, informally dropped from use by the UK government several years ago, “implied a belief that the correct response to the terrorist threat was primarily a military one – to track down and kill a hardcore of extremists”, he wrote.

    But the stance he now promoted was international “co-operation”.

    Highlighting US President-elect Barack Obama’s commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, Mr Miliband said it was time to ensure human rights and civil liberties were upheld.

    He suggested that the different organisations took advantage of the belief that they had one common enemy and a key way to tackle them was to stop this.

    “Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology.”

    Edward Davey, foreign affairs spokesman for the Lib Dems, said: “If the British foreign secretary had said this to President Bush many months, if not years ago, then it would have deserved some credit.

    “Mimicking President-elect Obama’s lines days before his inauguration does not show leadership.”

    The Scottish National Party leader at Westminster, Angus Robertson, accused Mr Miliband of hypocrisy: “This declaration by David Miliband and the Labour Party is rank hypocrisy. His government acted as a poodle to the Bush doctrine in Iraq and elsewhere.

    “People will not be misled by this wishful re-writing of history.”

    Mr Miliband repeated his views on the “war on terror” in a speech at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, in Mumbai, India. The hotel was among several sites attacked by gunmen in the city last November.

    He is in the country in an attempt to defuse tensions between India and Pakistan over the attacks which killed at least 173 people.

    Mr Miliband urged Pakistan’s government to take “urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil” and called for a resolution over the disputed region of Kashmir.

    BBC

  • UK: Ruling frees asylum seekers to work

    UK: Ruling frees asylum seekers to work

    Jamie Doward and Gaby Hinsliff

    The Observer, Sunday 14 December 2008

    A landmark legal ruling has paved the way for thousands of asylum seekers in the UK to be allowed to work. The High Court has ruled that current laws preventing an Eritrean asylum seeker from taking a job are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

    Last night legal experts said the test case would have major ramifications for others seeking asylum.

    The Eritrean man, called Tekle, who cannot be returned to his home country because it is considered too dangerous, has been in the UK for seven years while his case is considered. Thousands of asylum seekers from other countries also considered too dangerous to return to – including Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Zimbabwe – are in a similar position.

    The ruling has no bearing on the 300,000-plus asylum seekers whose applications are being fast-tracked because they do not come from countries considered no-go areas. But Caroline Slocock, chief executive of the Refugee Legal Centre, said the ruling would affect a significant category who found themselves destitute and in limbo. ‘We expect it to be in the thousands,’ she said.

    Mr Justice Blake ruled that a blanket ban was ‘unlawfully over-broad and unjustifiably detrimental to claimants who have had to wait as long as this claimant has’. He said the Home Office’s policy breached article 8 of the convention, which guarantees the ‘right to respect for private and family life’.

    The ruling comes as the former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, prepares to publish a report tomorrow suggesting that failed asylum seekers should be given the right to work here if they cannot return home.

    Source:  www.guardian.co.uk, 14 December 2008

  • Feature: Women in politics

    Feature: Women in politics

    Saturday, 13, Dec 2008 12:01

    On this day in 1918, women voted in a British general election for the first time.

    Ninety years later and things still aren’t rosy. Until 20 years ago women never made up more than five per cent of MPs in parliament. Now they’re 20 per cent. It’s an improvement, but it’s not exactly half-and-half.

    The UK has fewer female MPs than Cambodia. It comes 15th for representation in national parliaments compared to the other 27 EU member states. In a country that’s otherwise so progressive, why do we still have so few women MPs?

    “It’s not harder for women,” says Jo Swinson, Liberal Democrat equality spokesperson. “It’s just harder for carers.”

    “The division of family duties in society is still very unequal. This is what we find all the time. Women get involved in politics in their twenties and then in their thirties they say ‘I’ll take time out’. But men don’t take that time out.”

    Ann Cryer, the Labour MP who dedicated herself to a campaign against forced marriage, agrees. “By its nature it’s difficult, because parliament is usually two or four hundred miles from where people live. That’s a problem for women with young children. It’s also a problem for men with young children but I think women have a stronger emotional attachment to their children than men have. That’s not to deride men, but you’re not going to get rid of that emotional attachment just like that.”

    You can see the truth of that by the culture of parliament as well as its composition. The old adage was that it had a shooting range, but no creche. No-one seems to know if that shooting range is still there, but there’s certainly no creche. Even today, the atmosphere in the House, and to a lesser extent in the halls and corridors of Westminster, retain an unmistakably male character.

    Swinson cites the response to Nick Clegg’s performance during this week’s prime minister’s questions as an example. Clegg got up to ask about a single mother who came to his surgery as an example of lower-income groups facing criminal penalties for being unable to pay back money given to them mistakenly in tax credits. He probably wasn’t thinking about the interview he gave to Piers Morgan nearly a year ago in which he admitted sleeping with about 30 women. MPs were. He only managed to say: “This week a single mother came to my surgery in Sheffield…” before someone on the other benches shouted: “Thirty-one”. MPs laughed for a good long time.

    “I was appalled they started laughing and applauding,” says Swinson. “I know he made those ill-judged comments a year ago, but you hear the phrase single mother and the first thing you think is sex? And then I thought – if this room wasn’t 80 per cent male would it be the same reaction? It was puerile. And puerile comes from the Latin word for ‘boy’.”

    Some observers also find something a little masculine about the way parliament is set out. Call it over-analysing, but there are a few people who think that represents a masculine way of doing things; a politics based on conflict rather than consensus.

    “I think it’s significant,” says Katherine Rike, director of women’s rights group The Fawcett Society. “Most new administrations [such as Scotland or Wales] have chosen not to construct their parliament in that way – they’re circular. We’re trying to fit women into an institutional design which is very masculine and there are limits to how much can change within that complex.”

    “It’s adversarial,” Cryers agrees. “And I think it’s more difficult for women to cope with that adversarial nature. It took me a year or two to feel sufficiently confident to stand up and speak without notes and just talk. I did find it hard at first because I’m a naturally quiet person and when you’re speaking in the Commons people will just shout at you.”

    It’s tempting to draw a conclusion about the link between our old building and our shoddy ranking in the international league table of women’s representation, but things are rarely that simple. Whatever the reasons, women are still facing a mountain when they decide to go into politics.

    “I’ve been on the Council of Europe where you sit down in a semi-circle with a proper desk and water and a microphone. It’s a more civilised way of doing things,” Cryer says.

    “But I’m not going to knock our parliament. It’s the best job in the world. I hope women will still feel they have a place in it. It’s so important women feel they can get in there.

    “My grandmother worked with the Suffragettes. She gave a great chunk of her life up for that and I think what she did is just now coming to fruition. So whoever’s reading this please do try for parliament. Don’t lose sight of it. It’s important.”

    Ian Dunt

    Source: www.politics.co.uk, 13 Dec 2008