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    #51
    Turkey

    The latest ban seems to have been sparked by a leaked tape purporting to show plans to fake an attack on a shrine and blame it on Syria. Thus provoking a response and possible war.

    I really fear for Turkey now. Whatever happens on Sunday the response will be brutal. If he wins or maintains support he can justify anything as he has an electoral mandate. Any defeat or drop in support will be matched by desperate attempts to cling onto power.

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      #52
      Turkey

      He's become dangerously unhinged which combined with being so incredibly thin-skinned is making for a worrisome situation.

      If this tape is genuine then the purpose of this false-flag operation (tin-foil hat associations aside that's what it is) would have been for a military response against ISIL, NOT the Syrian regime forces. Despite all this the Turkish government have been remarkably tolerant of Islamist militants operating across it's border with Syria, which can't be pleasing it's fellow NATO members one must assume.

      What a cluster-fuck.

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        #53
        Turkey

        Turkey has a history of using extreme Islam against its enemies. In the civil war they created a Hezbollah movement among the Kurds as a counterweight to the PKK. This is where the four suicide bombers of the British Consulate, HSBC, and the two synagogues came from.

        I did not read the latest leak as anti ISIL but rather as anti Assad but i Stand corrected.

        The man has become unstable and this is my greatest concern. However we shouldn't underestimate both his support and his capacity to use it. He is a political survivor. Remember who was one of the witnesses at his daughter's wedding. A certain former corrupt ex Italian PM.

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          #54
          Turkey

          So Turkey votes today in local elections, I dread to think what will happen, especially if RTE doesn't lose much of the vote.

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            #55
            Turkey

            http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line

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              #56
              Turkey

              Hundreds dead in mine blast This is horrific, the main opposition has frequently raised concerns over this mine, most recently 20 days ago. The ruling party said their concerns were politically motivated and did nothing.

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                #57
                Turkey

                Live Updates

                Protests taking place outside the company's HQ in Istanbul.

                Comment


                  #58
                  Turkey

                  http://www.sendika.org/2014/05/turkeys-neoliberal-death-roll-hundreds-of-miner-died-in-great-soma-massacre/

                  Comment


                    #59
                    Turkey

                    ad hoc wrote: http://www.sendika.org/2014/05/turkeys-neoliberal-death-roll-hundreds-of-miner-died-in-great-soma-massacre/
                    From the article:

                    Soma Coal also provided the infamous charity coal bags which were distributed by the AKP during the previous local elections
                    An excellent piece ad hoc.

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                      #60
                      Turkey

                      https://mobile.twitter.com/nickimyokbenim/status/466622475665956864/photo/1

                      https://mobile.twitter.com/dicle_b/status/466625736309489664/photo/1

                      The photos apparently show an advisor to Erdogan this morning and the same man, Yusuf Yerkel, kicking a protester in Soma today.

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                        #61
                        Turkey

                        http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/turkey-mine-explosion-2014-05-14

                        The view of Amnesty on yesterday's disaster.

                        Erdogan says accidents happen, he really is being an absolute fucker with this.

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                          #62
                          Turkey

                          Erdogan has also been comparing this tragedy with the loss of life in the mining industry in Victorian Britain.

                          This fucker has no shame.

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                            #63
                            Turkey

                            Seems like Erdogan has assaulted protesters too

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                              #64
                              Turkey

                              (I'd seen reports it was "one of his aides".)

                              Anyhoo.

                              My question - listening to news reports this morning they "didn't know exactly how many people were in the mine as the shift was changing"

                              Eh?

                              How can you not know how many people are in there?

                              You take a token in when you go in, and return it when you come out.

                              No token at the pit-head = "in the mine" QED.

                              Comment


                                #65
                                Turkey

                                (I'd seen reports it was "one of his aides".)

                                Both of them got in on the act, many more photos of his aide giving a protester a kicking, then there is a video on youtube of Tayyip slapping or punching a different protester. That video keeps getting removed an reuploaded.

                                The aide is/was apparently a PhD student from SOAS.

                                Comment


                                  #66
                                  Turkey

                                  I think the reason for the confusion is that they were employing casual labour so they may not know, also I feel that they wanted to downplay the number to make it appear not as bad.

                                  They did this for the Istanbul earthquake where the recorded official death toll was about 20,000 yet unofficial estimates are around 50,000.

                                  An interesting comparison has been made between how Latvia dealt with the roof collapse that killed 50+ people and how Turkey has dealt with this, Victorian England was worse etc.

                                  Comment


                                    #67
                                    Turkey

                                    What surprises me on OTF is that about 400 people are either dead or missing and there has been so little comment.

                                    The coal from this mine, owned by Soma, has been distributed for free by the AKP to buy votes. The regulations for private mines have been eased to allow AKP supporting companies to exploit workers on a scale unseen in Turkey and that any opposition to this is labelled as meddling, interfering or politically motivated.

                                    This is a classic example of crony capitalism and corruption in operation in a way that I cannot remember.

                                    Perhaps a comparison could be made here to the Bangladesh garment factory fires that killed thousands.

                                    This is corporate murder and Erdogan will somehow manage to survive this as well despite the blood of the 400 being firmly on his hands.

                                    Comment


                                      #68
                                      Turkey

                                      He'll survive because he controls the media and he's convinced his support base that any attacks on him are unfounded and just dirty politics from the opposition. However this disaster has killed people from the rural poor (though in the industrial sector) rather than the middle classes from the city, so it is his support base most affected. He'll still find some way of convincing the non-mining community that he's blameless and that any links to him are being placed there by his enemies

                                      Comment


                                        #69
                                        Turkey

                                        Agreed, and this rural poor is not the AKP voters but either CHP or MHP.

                                        I wish I was in Turkey to see how the media is reporting this.

                                        Abdullah Gul has also taken some stick for arriving and stopping the rescue effort.

                                        Demirel did the same thing in the 1999 earthquake but on a much wider scale.

                                        Comment


                                          #70
                                          Turkey

                                          It's an absolutely horrific story that just keeps getting worse.

                                          Ad hoc's point about control of the media (and especially television) is an element that for me unifies many of these "strongmen", and one which I had personal experience of when we lived in Italy.

                                          It is somewhat paradoxical, but notwithstanding the explosion of information sources associated with the internet, very large percentages of citizens in many countries (and an even larger percentage of reliable voters who tend to be older and less urban) rely almost entirely on television (and gossip fueled by television) for information.

                                          Berlusconi was one of the first to realize the tremendous power that comes from controlling television, and it is no coincidence that the likes of Putin (especially) and Erdogan are following in his footsteps.

                                          Comment


                                            #71
                                            Turkey

                                            ursus arctos wrote:
                                            It is somewhat paradoxical, but notwithstanding the explosion of information sources associated with the internet, very large percentages of citizens in many countries (and an even larger percentage of reliable voters who tend to be older and less urban) rely almost entirely on television (and gossip fueled by television) for information.
                                            This is fascinating (in a fairly bleak way, sadly). The power of TV, and to a lesser extent, print, is immense (and almost seems to be growing). Erdogan can shut down twitter and youtube and so on, and yes the urban elite get around it, but when it comes down to it it doesn't matter because nobody who matters (the vast majority of voters) is not seeing what's up there anyway. Some of the stuff that came out in the last couple of months about him and his son and the money they had stashed everywhere, the sheer staggering levels of corruption, no theft from the country, and in the end it made almost o difference. You get the feeling that Erdogan could be caught on film murdering someone and he'd get away with it.

                                            Comment


                                              #72
                                              Turkey

                                              It appears that the victim of Erdogan's punch was a 17 year old.

                                              UA, Erdogan's daughter got married and one of the two witnesses was Berlusconi. Guess he picked up many tips from him then.

                                              Before the massive corruption scandals it was expected that Erdogan and Gul would change jobs despite Gul being allied with the Hizmet group. Gul recently said this was no longer on. Very much like Putin.

                                              Gul has been frozen out by Erdogan's media though with very little coverage of anything he did. Perhaps his high profile trip to Soma has backfired or more likely Erdogan's cronies orchestrated the booing to further discredit Gul.

                                              Comment


                                                #73
                                                Turkey

                                                The punch is clear enough ad hoc yet it's foreign conspirators to blame.

                                                The corruption is at astounding levels and again not denied but blamed on foreign elements trying to destabilise the country.

                                                In one of the last tapes released Erdogan's so says, dad I managed to get rid of all the money except 20 million euros.

                                                Erdogan is also becoming increasingly paranoid, in the past year he has changed his bodyguards five times to try to stop the leaks. His behaviour is one of a deeply paranoid and erratic sultan, his policies match that.

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                                                  #74
                                                  Turkey

                                                  http://m.aljazeera.com/story/20145572540804183

                                                  This is all I could find about the alleged involvement of Turkey in Western Thrace, I've been told that they are stirring up trouble by trying to unite the three Muslim groups in the region, Turk, Pomak and Roma.

                                                  Does anybody know anything more about this?

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                                                    #75
                                                    Turkey

                                                    The Turkish miners are merely unfortunate collateral damage in what has otherwise been an overwhelming success story for Turkey’s mine owners. The privatization and deregulation of Turkey’s mines in 2005 have seen production costs drop from $120 under state ownership to a miraculous $23.80. This was achieved by forcing down wages, casualizing labour and drastically cutting back on safety measures. Erdogan was quite right to compare Turkey's mining safety record with Britain's in the 19th Century as the safety measures and conditions in both are fast converging.

                                                    The miner’s deaths and injuries are unfortunate, but in the long run the profits earned more than makes up for the temporary bad press. Miners are expendable and they’ll be forgotten soon enough.

                                                    If anyone has the time, this jaw dropping report on the structural factors behind the South Korean ferry disaster shares similar themes with the mining disaster. Including the fact that the ferry Captain was on the South Korean equivalent of a zero hours contract.

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