Turkish Forum

Tag: Cairo

  • A Tale of Two New Cities for Cairo and Istanbul

    A Tale of Two New Cities for Cairo and Istanbul

    by Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey

    Rapid urban expansion has turned the historic cities of Cairo and Istanbul into overcrowded, traffic-clogged mega-metropolises full of blight, congestion, and pollution. To this problem, similar and unlikely sounding solutions have been proposed in both countries: Build two new Cairos and Istanbuls.

    Dense urban development in Cairo (left) and Istanbul (right). Photos: reibai / Creative Commons (L) and Jennifer Hattam (R).
    Dense urban development in Cairo (left) and Istanbul (right). Photos: reibai / Creative Commons (L) and Jennifer Hattam (R).

    The plans to build two new mixed-used developments east and west of Cairo — not so creatively named Eastown and Westown — drew praise from the Middle East environmental website Green Prophet:

    Initially conceived to absorb Cairo’s overflow, and to develop a more pedestrian-friendly model that will ease traffic congestion and pollution, these new metropolitan centers will both service 2.5 million people within 10 years.

    Moving away from the former development model that separated residential and commercial areas, forcing residents to own cars or use public transportation in order to maintain their daily lives, Eastown and Westown will knit all services into one urban fabric.

    The project also has been conceived with an eye toward sustainability, Green Prophet wrote: “In particular, many designers are considering glazing to reduce solar gain, responsible building materials, good insulation to improve energy efficiency, and passive design that will minimize energy dependency in the first place.”

    Plans for two new Istanbuls announced by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan prior to Turkey’s national election were more controversial. While Erdoğan claimed the two new satellite cities would alleviate overcrowding and earthquake danger, critics slammed the vagueness of the plans and the lack of environmental impact or feasibility studies. They said the new developments would only draw more migration to Istanbul while paving over some of the last forested areas around the city.

    via A Tale of Two New Cities for Cairo and Istanbul : TreeHugger.

  • Turkey’s President opens Embassy, Culture Center in Kazakhstan

    Turkey’s President opens Embassy, Culture Center in Kazakhstan

    Culture CenterTurkey’s President Abdullah Gul inaugurated Turkey’s Embassy and a Turkish Culture Center in the Kazakh capital Astana on Wednesday.

    Delivering a speech in the inauguration ceremony, Gul said, “we are very happy because we are opening the new building of the Turkish embassy.”

    Gul recalled that Turkey was the first country that recognized the independence of Kazakhstan.

    Later Gul and Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev visited the International Exhibition of Arms and Military-Technical Equipment KADEX-2010 in Astana.

    President Gul also met with Kazakh and Turkish businessmen over a luncheon.

    Yunus Emre Culture Center, named after a 13th century Turkish poet and Sufi mystic, has become the fifth culture center opened abroad. Yunus Emre Foundation had earlier opened centers in Sarajevo, Tirana, Cairo and Skopje. The foundation plans to open new culture centers in Cologne, London, Moscow, Paris and Damascus this year.

    President Gul also said that Yunus Emre Culture Center aims to keep Turkish language and culture alive, and also to spread it.

    He said that Turkish culture prevailed in the Balkans and Central Asia, adding that these culture centers would help those who want to learn Turkish.

    Following the inauguration ceremony, Gul also visited a Turkish-Kazakh high school in Astana.

    Later, Gul departed from Kazakhstan to return home.

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  • Milan: CIA chief given eight years for abduction

    Milan: CIA chief given eight years for abduction

    Rendition trial ends with Milan CIA chief given eight years

    • Italian court convicts Robert Lady and 23 others in absentia
    • First prosecution for US abduction of suspects to torture states

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    The former head of the CIA in Milan has been given an eight-year jail sentence for kidnapping at the end of the first trial anywhere in the world involving the agency’s “extraordinary rendition” programme.

    Robert Lady was tried in his absence and convicted of helping to organise the seizure of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street in February 2003. His superior, Jeff Castelli, the head of the CIA in Italy at the time, was acquitted on the grounds that he was covered by diplomatic immunity. Most of the other 23 alleged CIA operatives on trial were given five-year jail sentences in their absence.

    Extraordinary rendition involved the abduction of suspects and their forcible transfer for interrogation to third countries, often states in which torture was routinely employed.

    The judge ruled that neither the former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, nor his deputy could be convicted because the evidence against them was subject to official secrecy restrictions. Two other Italian intelligence officials were given three years’ jail.

    Successive Italian administrations avoided applying to the US for the extradition of the 26 American defendants, who included a senior US air force officer. Their lawyers, appointed by the court, had no contact with their clients, who were regarded in Italian law as being on the run.

    Eyewitnesses testified that Abu Omar was stopped, apparently by Italian police, and bundled into a van. The prosecution charged that he was driven to the US air base at Aviano near Venice, then transferred to another American military facility at Ramstein in Germany. He was allegedly flown from there to Egypt.

    Four years later he was released without charge. He said he had been reduced to a “human wreck” by torture in a Cairo jail.

    The prosecution alleged the Americans enjoyed co-operation from the Italian authorities. The head of the government when Abu Omar was kidnapped was Silvio Berlusconi, who returned to office as prime minister last year.

    More than two years after the trial opened, the judge, Oscar Magi, heard final submissions from the prosecution and defence before retiring to consider his verdict. He told the court: “This was not an easy trial and the mere fact of its having been held is a significant event.”

    The CIA has declined to comment on the case. Successive Italian governments have denied involvement in renditions.

    To build their case, prosecutors ordered police to tap intelligence officers’ telephones and seize documents from intelligence service archives. Earlier this year Italy’s constitutional court dealt the prosecution a heavy blow when it ruled that much of the evidence gathered was protected by official secrecy and could not be used in court. Magi ruled that the trial should continue regardless.

    In a reference to the two senior Italian intelligence officials, prosecutors told the court yesterday that the defendants included those who “by kidnapping Abu Omar compromised, rather than safeguarded, national security”.

    Italian investigators had been tapping the cleric’s calls before he was abducted. Court documents leaked to the media showed he was suspected of recruiting young Muslims for the Iraqi insurgency.

    The prosecution contended that his seizure not only violated Italian sovereignty but aborted an important anti-terrorist investigation.

    The Guardian