Tag: Europe

  • ‘Europe backs PKK terrorists, affiliates’

    ‘Europe backs PKK terrorists, affiliates’

    Turkish EmbassadorTurkish Ambassador to Iran Umit Yardim says various groups affiliated to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) are stationed in Europe and are being funded and organized there.

    PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist group by much of the international community, has been fighting the central government in Turkey since 1984 in quest for an independent state in southwestern Turkey.

    “The arrest of [PKK leader Abdullah] Ocalan shows the extent of foreign support for the terrorist group. He was arrested in the house of Greek ambassador to Kenya while holding a Southern Cyprus passport,” Fars News Agency quoted Yardim as saying on Sunday.

    Stressing that PKK and its offshoot, the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), are both “problematic” entities for Iran and Turkey, Yardim said, “We understand better than anyone else the situation of our Iranian friends in combating terrorist groups.”

    PJAK terrorists regularly engage in armed clashes with Iranian security forces along the country’s western borders with Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

    Press TV

  • Anonymous hacker group members arrested in all over Europe

    Anonymous hacker group members arrested in all over Europe

    Anonymous11

    Police in Italy and Switzerland searched more than 30 apartments as part of an investigation into online activist collective “Anonymous,” amid a growing global law-enforcement crackdown on high-profile computer attacks claimed by the group’s followers.

    The move is the latest enforcement activity in a probe that since December has netted more than 40 arrests of individuals authorities in the U.K., Netherlands, Spain and Turkey have linked to Anonymous.

    In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation is continuing a probe that has involved dozens of searches over recent months.

    That includes the raid last week of the home of a Hamilton, Ohio, man believed to have links to an Anonymous splinter group called LulzSec.

    Italian police said they suspect some 20 people, five of whom are ages 16 or 17, are behind so-called denial-of-service attacks, in which websites are bombarded with data with the aim of knocking them offline.

    The searches conducted on Tuesday included the home of someone the police identified as a leader of Anonymous’s Italian cell, a 26-year-old man who goes by the nickname “Phre” and lives in Switzerland.

    According to Italian authorities, the attacks targeted the websites of the Italian Parliament and top companies including Enel SpA, ENI SpA and Mediaset SpA, the country’s largest commercial broadcaster, which is owned by Silvio Berlusconi. No arrests were made.

    Anonymous grew out of an online message forum formed in 2003 called 4chan, a popular destination with hackers and gamers.

    It entered the spotlight late last year, claiming cyberattacks against companies and individuals the group said tried to impede the work of document-sharing website WikiLeaks. That included MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc.

    Over recent months, followers of Anonymous and LulzSec—which takes its name from Internet slang for laughter—have claimed responsibility for a number of denial-of-service attacks and computer breaches of a number of high-profile targets, ranging from corporations like Sony Corp. to the FBI and other government organizations.

    British police, who are cooperating with the FBI, have arrested seven individuals this year. That includes 19-year old Ryan Cleary, who had been a prominent figure in Anonymous and then LulzSec.

    U.K. prosecutors late last month charged him with five computer-related offenses.

    Authorities allege he infected computers in order to form a computer network, called a botnet, which he then used to launch online attacks against websites including that of the U.K. Serious Organised Crime Agency.

    Essex-based Mr. Cleary, who is out on bail, is cooperating with police, his lawyer has said. The other six individuals arrested in the U.K. have been released on bail and haven’t been charged.


    The Wall Street Journal

     

  • Cyprus the most racist country in Europe among other negative aspects

    Cyprus the most racist country in Europe among other negative aspects

    blackandwhite

    In a research study that was done by the European University in 30 countries *Cyprus topped the list in most of the negative categories including: racism, low trust in others, selfishness, negative attitude towards immigrants, possessive individualism, being passive and detached from a set of important issues, and obsession with television while at the same time we are the slowest at becoming an information society. Among our few positive aspects of our society it was found that we are the most satisfied by the public health system, the tax system, the standard of living and trust in state institutions.

    In 2006 the 30% of the population was watching more than 3 hours of TV per day and sadly by 2008 this increased to 50%. Considering the quality of TV programmes that are popular in Cyprus this is indeed an alarming issue. At the same time, we have the lowest use of Internet with just 20% of the population engaging into daily Internet activities compared to 40% in case of Nordic countries. On the xenophobia side more than any other European country we do not like people from different cultural backgrounds. More surprisingly Cypriots even present racist tendencies towards fellow Cypriots who have different sexual preferences or different attitudes than themselves.

    Cyprus Updates

    *Greek part

  • 12 months warning about the signs of an impending Ice Age

    12 months warning about the signs of an impending Ice Age

    Immediate Ice Gigantic Icelandic Volcano Could Plunge Europe Into Age…

    Volcano1

    A plethora of scientists have come out in the past 12 months warning about the signs of an impending Ice Age.

    (CHICAGO) – Another mammoth Icelandic volcano, Baroarbunga, is ready to erupt. This one could dwarf the Eyjafjallajokull glacier volcano that blew in 2010 causing havoc throughout Europe.

    That’s the word that’s streaming out of the northern island nation as geophysicists around the globe hold their breaths to see what will happen next.

    The Eyjafjallajokull eruption galvanized Europe and stunned the world with its unrelenting ferocity. It caused billionsVolcano2 of dollars in loss, paralyzed European air travel and caused food and other commodities to spike upwards.

    Worried experts warn that this eruption could be much, much worse.

    University of Iceland geophysicists have warned of a significant rise in seismic activity in the area of Vatnajökull, the largest of Iceland’s glaciers. A swarm of earthquakes has erupted signaling the likely eruption of Bardarbunga, Iceland’s second biggest volcano and one that sits directly above a major lava conduit.

    Baroarbunga, a stratovolcano towering 6,600 feet, is part of the island nation’s largest volcanic system. The huge volcano’s crater covers 43 square miles and is completely encased under glacial ice.

    Devastation in the 15th Century

    Baroarbunga’s last major eruption was horrendous. It changed the weather pattern in northern Europe and darkened the skies for months during 1477. That gigantic eruption generated the largest lava flow in 10,000 years and significantly expanded Iceland’s land mass.

    Volcano3Grim experts concede that if the volcano’s current activity culminates in an eruption equal to that of 1477, all of Scandinavia and much of northern Russia and Europe will be left reeling. The UK will be slammed by choking volcanic dust, grit and poisonous superheated gases. Commerce will grind to a halt, the skies will blacken for weeks, perhaps months, and agriculture would be severely affected.

    The late Cornell University professor, astronomer Carl Sagan, used the consequences of large volcanic eruptions impact on global cooling as part of his theoretical model for the frightening prospect of a nuclear winter.

    Ken Caldeira, an earth scientist at Stanford University, California, and member of Britain’s prestigious Royal Society working group on geo-engineering, explained that “dust sprayed into the stratosphere in volcanic eruptions is known to cool the Earth by reflecting light back into space.”

    That simple process has led to the starvation of whole nations in the past. Volcanic gases and dust suspended in the atmosphere cool the Earth to a point where the growing seasons significantly shrink and crops cannot reach maturity.

    Speaking to Icelandic TV about the danger the re-activating volcano posed to the country and the Northern Hemisphere, Einarsson said, “This is the most active area of the country if we look at the whole country together. There is no doubt that lava there is slowly growing, and the seismicity of the last few days is a sign of it.”

    Vulcanologists confirm they have great concern, but the region prevents them from detecting earth movements more accurately.

    “We need better measurements because it is difficult to determine the depth of earthquakes because it is in the middle of the country and much of the area is covered with glaciers,” Einarsson added.

    The UK and the Baroarbunga Ice Age

    Volcano4A plethora of scientists have come out in the past 12 months warning about the signs of an impending Ice Age. Some believe it will be a mini-Ice Age, others argue it will be a major one.

    Ice Ages are caused by a number of factors. Not all of the factors are fully understood.

    But a consensus of scientists agree that more than anything else what dominates the climate is the sun’s activity, the Earth’s core, volcanic action and water vapor in the atmosphere.

    Adding to Earth’s shivering woes: NASA has confirmed the sun will be going into an extended cooling period after 2012.

    The cool down is expected to last from 30 to 50 years.

    At one time geophysicists believed it took hundreds or thousands of years for an Ice Age to begin, but during the past few decades evidence has emerged that the planet can slip into an Ice Age in under a decade.

    Events like a giant volcano erupting…

    Salem News

  • Istanbul thrives as the new party capital of Europe

    Istanbul thrives as the new party capital of Europe

    The Golden Horn is booming as the world’s most dynamic city transforms its skyline and artists and students help make it buzz

    Istanbul Beyoglu

    In the run-up to New Year, the tourists were haggling over Louis Vuitton and Prada rip-offs in Istanbul‘s fabled grand bazaar. But in the high-rise shopping centres on the other side of town, bargain hunters in the winter sales are battling to get their hands on the real thing.

    Istanbul’s covered market, an early shrine to shopaholism, is about to celebrate its 550th anniversary with a multimillion-pound facelift. In fact, the entire city is in the throes of a multibillion-pound makeover, as what was once an outpost on the edge of Europe rebrands itself as a regional magnet.

    The city is buzzing. Only a few years ago, when residents spoke of millennium domes it was not the O2 venue for the latest Lady Gaga concert they had in mind, but the thousand years separating the Church of Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque on the skyline of the city’s historic peninsula. But now there are new skylines. At the European entrance to the Bosphorus bridge, work goes on through the night on the Zorlu Centre, a hotel-arts-shopping-residential-office complex. It is just down the road from the Sapphire skyscraper, which advertises itself as Istanbul’s tallest building, and with a strong arm you could throw a stone at the new Trump Towers.

    “Istanbul is a country, not a city,” says its mayor, Kadir Topbas, and the explanation of its modern boom is buried in the history of the past 30 years. In 1980 Istanbul could not afford the electricity to illuminate that famous skyline. The city, along with the rest of Turkey, was under martial law and there were midnight curfews and even shortages of Turkish coffee.

    Since then the city has elbowed its way into the global economy. The backstreet clip joints in the European neighbourhood of Beyoglu have turned into boutique hotels, fusion eateries and world music clubs. The smoke-filled coffee houses whose patrons once scrounged for the price of a glass of tea, now serve lattes – and if you try to light up, there is a £30 fine.

    At the end of the second world war, when the iron curtain came down to isolate Istanbul from the rest of Europe, only a million people lived here. Since then, the city has increased its population by that amount every 10 years. “Today’s Istanbul is above all an immigrant city,” says Murat Guvenc, city planner and curator of Istanbul 1910-2010, a remarkable exhibition that explains the pace of change. It is housed in santralistanbul – a converted power station more brutally chic than London’s Tate Modern.

    Turkey is already a young country – the average age is 29 – but Istanbul is even younger. People come there to work and often retire somewhere else. And if Turkey is notoriously poor at getting women into formal employment, nearly half of them work in Istanbul.

    A recent study by the Washington-based Brookings Institution, in a joint investigation with the LSE Cities project, judged that Istanbul had beaten Beijing and Shanghai to claim the title of 2010’s most dynamic city.

    “Istanbul takes the top ranking for economic growth in the past year,” wrote Alan Berube, director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Programme. “Its economy expanded by 5.5% on a per capita basis, and employment rose an astonishing 7.3% between 2009 and 2010. Turkey’s banking sector, which was less invested in risky financial instruments, became a safe haven for global capital fleeing established (and exposed) markets during the downturn.”

    Economists may be just realising that Istanbul is the place to be. Couch surfers and Erasmus exchange students have known this for some time. If emerging markets are kick-starting the global economy, creative dynamism is ebbing away from the old centres to the new. Istanbul is fast resembling Henry Miller’s Paris or the post-Soviet city-wide party in Prague where western twentysomethings can spend that critical time between university and life. “You just can’t just show up in New York or London and hope to fit in,” says Katherine Ammirati, 23, from Berkeley, California. “At least not without a plan bankrolled by well-heeled parents.”

    She came to Istanbul, doing tutoring jobs and then clerical work at a law firm and will go home one day to become a lawyer herself. “Istanbul still has rich and poor side by side, and that makes it feel like a real city,” she says.

    The international art community, too, has put the city on its nomadic route, drawn in large measure by the success of the privately organisedIstanbul Biennial, which will be held again this September. Sotheby’s recently set up shop in Istanbul, motivated by a new generation of Turkish artists and the new purchasing power of Turkish patrons. In the opening-night crush at Contemporary Istanbul, the city’s late autumn art fair, there was hardly elbow room to lift a glass.

    The frontiers are disappearing. New York galleries are opening up in Istanbul and Turkish collectors go abroad. Art Basel Miami Beach might not feel the competition yet, but the city founded by Constantine as the new Rome in 330 wasn’t built in a day.

    “Istanbul’s biggest problem is that we don’t know what we’re doing right,” says Kasim Zoto, a hotel keeper who sits on the board of the Turkish Hotel Association. In 1955 a Hilton hotel opened up a new modernist skyline across from the Golden Horn and the hillside was soon littered with convention centres, concert halls and more five-star hotels. In the next two years, the number of hotel rooms in the city will rise by a third and two new Hiltons will open.

    Not everyone approves of the consequences of such vertiginous growth. To some, gentrification appears out of control as “real” neighbourhoods, whether those of the Roma community by the old city walls, or the working-class districts around Beyoglu, are bulldozed for redevelopment. Only high-level lobbying last year stopped the city from being defrocked by Unesco as a world heritage site, as a row blew up over plans for an overland rail link for the city’s metro system that would slice the view of the Suleymaniye Mosque.

    The city has so far failed to meet an undertaking to produce an inventory of historic buildings and a master plan to manage the peninsula – all measures that would get in the way of the developers’ axe. Environmentalists feel powerless to stop the construction of a third Bosphorus bridge which, if the precedents of bridges one and two are anything to go by, will lead to the destruction of the city’s remaining green belt.

    Optimists and pessimists over Istanbul’s future tend to be divided along political lines, according to Hakan Yilmaz, a political scientist at the city’s Bosphorus University.

    Those who support the current religious-leaning government are inclined to see the glass half full. It is Turkey’s ardent secularists, now losing their status, who feel less hopeful about the future.

    And while some Istanbulites might see themselves caught up in a clash of civilisations, between the pious and religious and a western-oriented elite, for others it is precisely this tension that makes the city come alive.

    “There is a new culture being born,” says Kutlug Ataman, a Turner prize finalist. The “usual suspects” – the food and the nightlife – are what make Istanbul such an attractive place, he argues, but it’s the pace of change that makes the city so addictive. Having fled the country after the 1980 military coup, he sees Turkey’s transformation evolving, however imperfectly, in the right direction.

    As if to make his point, alongside a retrospective of Ataman’s own work in the Istanbul Modern museum is a celebration of the contribution of Armenian architects to the 19th and early 20th century city, an important step in allowing the city’s remaining Armenian community to reclaim the space they created. “We are becoming more democratic and you feel as an artist that you can make an impact,” Ataman says.

    And if Istanbul feels despondent about surrendering its European capital of culture crown to Turku in Finland, it knows the cloud has a silver lining. In 2012, it will become European capital of sport.

    Andrew Finkel is the author of the forthcoming book Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by OUP

    URBAN RENEWAL

    667 BC City of Byzantium established by Greek colonists from Megara. Named after their king Byzas.

    AD 73 Byzantium incorporated into the Roman Empire.

    330 Byzantium becomes the capital city of the Roman Empire and is renamed Constantinople after the Emperor Constantine, pictured.

    1453 Constantinople captured by the Ottoman Turks, who call it Istanbul after the Greek meaning “to the city”.

    1923 Upon the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the capital city is moved from Istanbul to Ankara.

    1930 Constantinople is officially renamed Istanbul.

    2010 Istanbul named as one of the European capitals of culture.

    The Guardian

  • Babacan Confident Turkey Will Be Europe’s Fastest Growing Economy In 2010

    Babacan Confident Turkey Will Be Europe’s Fastest Growing Economy In 2010

    Turkey

    ANKARA (A.A) – Turkish State Minister for economy Ali Babacan said the 9.8% rise in Turkey’s October industrial production showed it was time to make an upward revision in Turkish Government’s 2010 annual growth projections.

    In his address at the 5th Sectoral Economy Council meeting, Babacan said Turkey’s industrial production index saw a higher than expected surge in October, a major indicator in his words promising an annual growth surpassing the government’s projections.

    Babacan who pointed out that the Turkish economy grew 11% in H1, said OECD projected an annual growth of 8.2% for Turkey in 2010. He said IMF expected Turkey to grow 7.8% while EU projected an 7.5% annual growth.

    “Regardless of from which point you look at, Turkey will be the fastest growing economy in Europe this year and the next year,” said Babacan.

    Turkey’s statistical board, TurkStat, announced Wednesday that the country’s industrial production index rose 9.8% year-on-year in October.


    Wednesday, 8 December 2010

    A.A

    Turkish Weekly