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Turkey could be America’s most important regional ally, above Iraq, even above Israel, if both sides manage the relationship correctly.

  • Obama fights ‘Jewish problem’

    Obama fights ‘Jewish problem’

    BY CHRIS MEGERIAN Cox News Service

    Illinois Senator Barack Obama appears to have less support from Jews than previous Democratic candidates.

    WASHINGTON — Halie Soifer is building an army.

    Assembled in her Delray Beach office are more than 20 people, mostly seniors and all Jewish, who have been drafted into the campaign to elect Barack Obama president.

    Each of them is armed with a series of talking points and a pin with the candidate’s name in Hebrew. Then they are deployed to the condominiums and gated communities of Palm Beach County.

    CRUCIAL VOTES

    For Soifer, the campaign’s Jewish vote director in Florida, these are some of her most crucial foot soldiers.

    Palm Beach County Jews are becoming a battleground demographic in a battleground state. That’s because Obama could have the least Jewish support of any Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter faced Ronald Reagan in 1980.

    A national poll released Thursday by the American Jewish Committee has him leading McCain 57 to 30 percent among Jewish voters, with 13 percent undecided.

    The numbers are evidence of how Jews have trended, if only slightly, to the political right in recent years.

    Republicans have been gaining ground in the last few presidential elections. From 1992 to 2004, the percentage of Jews voting Republican doubled to 22 percent.

    “With Obama polling at historic lows among Jewish voters, this kind of shift in a close election could have an important impact in the outcome of the race,” said Matthew Brooks, president of the Republican JewishCoalition.

    OBAMA’S ‘PROBLEM’

    Obama has been accused of having a “Jewish problem” ever since polls showed greater Jewishsupport for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in the primary battle. Conservative critics say his willingness to meet with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, an idea the RJC calls “naive and dangerous,” is evidence of his lax support for Israel. It’s an image he’s sought to dispel, repeatedly stating his opposition to a nuclear armed Iran.

    On Sept. 8, his campaign announced the launch of six Obama Jewish Community Leadership Committees in Florida to directly engage voters on a grass-roots level.

    Kenneth Wald, a political science professor at the University of Florida who studies Jewish voting behavior, said Jewish voters have simply been unfamiliar with Obama, some knowing little more than he has an Arabic middle name, Hussein. “There is a question [whether] someone of that background will be someone that Jews will feel comfortable with,” Wald said.

    Source: Miami Herald Sunday, 28 Sep 2008

  • PM urges financial responsibility

    PM urges financial responsibility

    Gordon Brown has called for an end to the “age of irresponsibility”, ahead of White House talks with President Bush on the global financial crisis.

    The prime minister told the UN General Assembly that “co-ordinated” solutions to the economic downturn were needed.

    Mr Brown advocated a “new global order, founded on transparency, not opacity”.

    US talks on a $700bn (£380bn) bail-out plan to revive the finance sector have ended in stalemate. Mr Brown is due to meet President Bush at 2120 BST.

    ‘Not just national’

    The prime minister has voiced his support for the proposals put forward by the US government.

    He told the UN: “This cannot just be national anymore. We must have global supervision…

    “The age of irresponsibility must be ended. We must now become that new global order founded on transparency, not opacity.”

    On Thursday, the prime minister urged world leaders not to use the financial crisis as an excuse to abandon efforts against global poverty.

    Desire for stability

    Mr Bush has proposed the US government take on the debts of struggling financial firms in an attempt to keep them afloat and also prevent a recession.

    The prime minister said quick action was needed to stabilise the economic situation and that longer-term reforms to the world’s financial system were also needed.

    “While the problem comes out of America, it has consequences for all of us and every family will want to know that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that there is stability,” he said.

    Other issues on the agenda for the White House meeting are thought to include Iraq, Afghanistan and the situation in Georgia.

    Meanwhile, a survey of 1,012 people for BBC Two’s Daily Politics show suggests 36% trust Mr Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling most to steer the UK’s economy through the downturn.

    Some 30% opted for Conservative leader David Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne, while 5% chose Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and Treasury spokesman Vince Cable.

    The poll, conducted ComRes on 24th and 25 September, suggests that 24% of people do not know which party offers the best option on the economy. 

    To watch Video: 7636165.stm

     

    BBC 26 September 2008

  • Rice Praises ‘Healing Reforms’ In Armenia

    Rice Praises ‘Healing Reforms’ In Armenia

     

     

     

     

     

    By Emil Danielyan

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised President Serzh Sarkisian for his efforts to end Armenia’s post-election political crisis and improve its relations with Turkey as they met in New York late Wednesday.

    In her opening remarks at the meeting released by the U.S. State Department, Rice spoke of “healing reforms” which she believes have been initiated by Sarkisian since the dramatic aftermath of the Armenian presidential election. “We believe that you have made some good steps to address this, and so I’m here to build on that and to move forward,” she said.

    Sarkisian, for his part, thanked the United States for its “financial assistance and non-financial help” to Armenia. “They are both important,” he said at the start of the talks held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

    Ever since he took office on April 9, Sarkisian has been under pressure from the U.S. and other Western powers to end his predecessor Robert Kocharian’s harsh crackdown on the Armenian opposition. The crackdown has involved mass arrests and the use of lethal force against opposition demonstrators demanding a re-run of the February 19 presidential election which Washington has described as “significantly flawed.”

    U.S. officials have repeatedly urged the new Armenian administrations to release all political prisoners, abolish severe restrictions on freedom of assembly and engage in dialogue with the opposition led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian. They have said that is essential for the provision of $235.6 million in additional U.S. assistance to Armenia, that was effectively frozen following the bloody suppression of the opposition protests in Yerevan.

    Earlier this month, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) again declined to disburse the first major installment of the five-year aid package earmarked for the reconstruction of Armenia’s rural roads. The $7.5 million tranche was due to be released in May. In a June statement, the MCC board said the Armenian government should do more to address U.S. concerns about the political situation in the country.

    In a statement, Sarkisian’s office quoted Rice as saying that the steps taken by the new Armenian president create a “good basis” for the continuation of U.S. aid. The statement said the two also spoke about U.S.-led international efforts to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, with Sarkisian reaffirming his declared commitment to a “compromise solution.”

    Visiting Baku and Yerevan earlier this month, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza indicated that the OSCE’s Minsk Group, which he co-heads together with senior Russian and French diplomats, will step up its efforts to broker a framework peace agreement on Karabakh before the end of this year. Bryza and the two other co-chairs met Sarkisian in New York earlier on Wednesday. Sarkisian’s office said they discussed the possibility of arranging another meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents.

    Armenia’s unprecedented rapprochement with Turkey, long championed by the U.S., was also on the agenda of Rice talks Sarkisian. According to the latter’s press service, Rice welcomed Yerevan’s overtures to Ankara and expressed hope that Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s historic visit to Armenia will lead to the normalization of relations between the two neighboring states.

    Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and his Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan were scheduled to meet in New York on Thursday in an effort to keep up momentum in the Turkish-Armenian dialogue. They were expected to discuss and possibly finalize a joint declaration that would call for the creation of Turkish-Armenian commissions dealing with economic and other issues of mutual interest. According to Turkish press reports, one of those commissions would be made up of historians tasked with studying the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

    The idea of conducting such a study is unpopular in Armenia and especially its worldwide Diaspora. Many Armenian politicians and Diaspora leaders fear that the Turks would exploit it to keep more foreign nations from recognizing the massacres as genocide.

    Sarkisian sought to allay these fears as he spoke before hundreds of Americans of Armenian descent in New York on Wednesday. He described Turkey’s current leadership as “courageous” and said many Turks are now ready to face up to their troubled Ottoman past.

    “We must now think about how we can help Turkish society be more objective towards its own history,” said Sarkisian. “A society of which hundreds of thousands representatives took to the streets [of Istanbul] with banners saying ‘We are all Hrant Dink’ and ‘We are all Armenians.’

    “One thing is clear to me: we must talk about all topics. Only those people who have nothing to say and suffer from complexes avoid contacts, conversations. We have no complexes and our message is clear.”

    Sarkisian also assured Armenian-American activists that Gul is genuinely committed to Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. “I am convinced that now is really the time to solve the problems in Turkish-Armenian relations, and I saw a readiness to do in my Turkish counterpart,” he said. “I felt that he has sufficient courage to make difficult decisions.”

  • Germany says U.S. to lose financial superpower status

    Germany says U.S. to lose financial superpower status

    By Noah Barkin Reuters

    BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany blamed the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis, saying the United States would lose its financial superpower status and have to accept greater market regulation.

    In unusually stark language, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told parliament the financial crisis would leave “deep marks” and proposed eight measures to address it, including a ban on speculative short-selling and an increase in bank capital requirements to offset credit risks.

    “The world will never be as it was before the crisis,” Steinbrueck, a deputy leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, told the Bundestag lower house.

    “The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar,” he said.

    Steinbrueck lay the blame for the crisis squarely on the United States and what he called an Anglo-Saxon drive for double-digit profits and massive bonuses for bankers and company executives.

    “Investment bankers and politicians in New York, Washington and London were not willing to give these up,” he said. “Wall Street will never be what it was.”

    The collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers and financial woes of other financial institutions like insurer AIG has prompted the U.S. government to unveil a $700 billion rescue package for the country’s financial sector.

    Steinbrueck said it was neither necessary nor wise for Germany to replicate the U.S. plan for its own institutions.

    The German Bundesbank said earlier this week that the financial market turbulence would hit the earnings of Germany’s big commercial lenders, its publicly-owned Landesbanks and its cooperative banks.

    Tighter credit in the wake of the crisis could also constrain household consumption and corporate investment, increasing the likelihood the German economy will fall into recession this year.

    But Steinbrueck said German regulator Bafin believed German banks could cope with losses and ensure the safety of private savings.

    He said the crisis showed the need for a greater state role in setting the rules for markets and called the turmoil primarily an American problem.

    “The financial crisis is above all an American problem. The other G7 financial ministers in continental Europe share this opinion,” he said.

    “This system, which is to a large degree insufficiently regulated, is now collapsing — with far-reaching consequences for the U.S. financial market and considerable contagion effects for the rest of the world,” Steinbrueck added.

    (Reporting by Noah Barkin and Kerstin Gehmlich)

    Source: uk.news.yahoo.com, 24 September 2008

  • Istanbul-Berkeley

    Istanbul-Berkeley

    REVIEW When veteran Istanbulite Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize in literature two years ago, the committee complimented his “quest for the melancholic soul of his native city.” Melancholic? The world’s third largest city has one big, melancholic soul? I think Pamuk, of all people, would disagree. The 10th International Istanbul Biennial, which was curated by über-busy San Francisco Art Institute faculty member Hou Hanru in 2007, took a more caustic if not realistic theme: “Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary: Optimism in the Age of Global War.” The organizers of the “Orienting Istanbul” conference at Berkeley this week have produced a truly interdisciplinary (and free to the public) conference that cuts through the jargon and confronts big ideas head-on. Nonetheless, I’m glad they snuck in some actual art, including “Istanbul-Berkeley,” Hanru’s selection of video works from the biennial.

    Much of Hanru’s curatorial work has focused on urbanization and living, breathing cities. The chosen videos do not disappoint. They address spatiality in radically different ways.

    San Francisco Bay Guardian : Article : Smuin Ballet.

  • Turkish Foreign Minister to Visit Atlanta for ‘Year of Turkey’ Program

    Turkish Foreign Minister to Visit Atlanta for ‘Year of Turkey’ Program

    Phil Bolton – Publisher
    Atlanta – 09.22.08

    Kennesaw State University’s “Year of Turkey” is to officially open on the week of Oct. 6 with the arrival in Atlanta of Kursad Tuzmen, the Turkish minister of state in charge of foreign trade and customs.

    Mr. Tuzmen will be arriving with a delegation of Turkish businessmen and politicians who will attend a variety of programs including a dinner at the Istanbul Center in Midtown and a breakfast at the Southern Center for International Studies in Buckhead.

    Tarik Celik, executive director of the Istanbul Center, told GlobalAtlanta that Turkish business and government leaders were focusing on Atlanta and the Southeast U.S. as a prime region with which to develop relations.

    Georgia is one of six states the Turkish government is targeting for increased investment.

    “This is the longest program they have ever had in the U.S.,” he said. The Istanbul Center was established in 2002 to improve relations between Turkey and the Southeast.

    The Istanbul Center, the Turkish American Chamber of Commerce and Kennesaw State have developed 60 programs to take place over the course of this academic year.

    Daniel S. Papp, president of Kennesaw State, traveled to Turkey with Mr. Celik to meet with academic, cultural, government and political leaders to set the agenda.

    Among the officials with whom they met were Hayati Yazici, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, and Kadir Topbas, the mayor of Istanbul.

    A series of meetings will be held with the visiting Turkish officials and business leaders with the possibility of one-on-one meetings.

    The programs scheduled at Kennesaw State over the course of the year are to include wide ranging cultural, economic and political presentations.

    But, according to Dr. Papp, a highlight of the year is to be a conference that is to be held with the support of the United Nations at the end of January.

    The Alliance of Civilization conference is to explore current conditions in Turkey as an example of how cultural and historical conflicts don’t have to degenerate into violence.

    Kofi Annan, the former U.N secretary-general, established the Alliance of Civilization initiative to provide practical recommendations for addressing the roots of polarization between societies and cultures.

    The U.N. program was launched in 2005 at the recommendation of the governments of Spain and Turkey.

    Mr. Tuzmen is a member of the Turkish parliament and has been serving as minister of state since 2002. Among the former positions he held are undersecretary and deputy undersecretary of foreign trade and general director of free zones.