Worldcrunch
👋 Hay!* Welcome to Friday, where two people are killed in Russia by overnight drone attacks launched by Ukraine, the Kurdish rebels of the PKK are set to lay down their weapons after 40 years of conflict with the Turkish state, and our daily quiz question is about a futuristic restaurant in Dubai. Meanwhile, Bernard […]
In Syria, the Muslim Brotherhoods and the Kurds have long suffered from repression more than other factions in Syrian society. They suffered not only because of their opposition to the regime but also their identities. Rebuilding a functional Syrian state requires deep reflection and hard compromise on what the nation’s identity and laws will be.
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — Turkey’s government and the media that support it have an odd attitude when it comes to violent acts carried out by ISIS: It’s as if the “cultural/ideological dialects” of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government somehow malfunction. For starters, the government has a hard time condemning the vicious massacres carried […]
Two days after an earthquake tore through central Italy, the dust is settling on the razed buildings, and the hope of finding survivors in the rubble is fading away. The first burials of victims took place this morning, only hours after Prime Minister Matteo Renzi declared a state of emergency for the worst-hit areas and […]
SPOTLIGHT: LOST IN BRAZIL, DILMA CAN WAIT Brazil has won its first gold medal in Rio (courtesy of judoka Rafaela Silva), and other national athletes — especially soccer players after the 2014 World Cup fiasco — will obviously be looking to add to that tally. But one area where the hosts certainly won’t be claiming […]
-OpEd- Turkey has never been a stranger to terror attacks. But it seems that the spiral of violence we have entered since the June 7, 2015, general election is so severe that it cannot be compared to anything that came before. Worse: There’s no resolution in sight, no sign of an end to this violent […]
CRUZ AND KASICH TEAM UP AGAINST TRUMP U.S. Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich have announced their plan to team up against rival Donald Trump in order to prevent him from gathering the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination outright, The Washington Post reports. Sen. Cruz (Texas) is set to stop […]
Turkish political leaders and ordinary citizens are blind as ever to why Kurds continue to fight for freedom. It recalls another open chapter in the nation’s troubled history.
EU UNVEILS “BOLD” MIGRANT QUOTA PLAN In his first State of the European Union speech, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled a plan to deal with the ongoing migrant crisis and urged EU member states to take “bold, determined action.” Among his proposals were the emergency relocation of 120,000 migrants now in Italy, Greece and […]
GERMANY CAN TAKE 500,000 REFUGEES A YEAR Photo: Paul Hackett/London News Pictures/ZUMA Germany can cope with at least 500,000 asylum seekers a year for several years, Die Welt quoted German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel as saying today, as authorities there expect to receive more than 800,000 this year alone (four times the 2014 figure). TURKEY […]
Two British reporters for VICE news, and their translator, have been charged as supporters of Kurdish group PKK, though they were first accused of being pro-ISIS.
GOOGLE ANNOUNCES MAJOR SHAKEUP Google, arguably the most recognizable company in the world, has announced a surprising rebranding in which all of its business entities will exist under a new parent company called Alphabet. As part of the restructuring, Google senior vice president Sundar Pichai will become CEO of Google, and company founder Larry Page […]
GUNFIRE AT FERGUSON ANNIVERSARY MARCH Police officers in Ferguson, Mo., shot and wounded a young man who reportedly fired his gun at them during an otherwise peaceful protest march to commemorate Sunday’s one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s death at the hands of officer Darren Wilson. The suspect, who reportedly unleashed a “remarkable amount of gunfire,” […]
ISTANBUL — The end of the ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK (The Kurdistan Worker’s Party) is a development that will undermine both sides’ bigger plans in the region. The Turkish government may be hoping to gain the nationalist vote and weaken the legal pro-Kurdish party (The People’s Democratic Party or HDP) by going after […]
QAMISHLI — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad“s smiling face beams down from a large billboard on the central artery of Qamishli, a city in northeast Syria. But further down the road towards the city’s eastern suburbs, what looks imposingly over the avenue is a portrait of a triumphant-looking Abdullah Ocalan, the anointed leader of Turkey’s Kurdish […]
A Swiss NGO convenes representatives of 35 rebel groups in Geneva to talk about the mechanics, and great difficulties, of respecting humanitarian laws when fighting civil wars.
Diyarbakir, the “Kurdish capital” of Turkey, is living in fear of the ISIS jihadists who have gained ground across the Syrian border in Kobani. But there is also the old enemy: Ankara.
As Islamic terrorists press forward in Syria, female fighters and commanders now make up a third of Kurdish forces. “Women can fight better than men,” one says.
ISTANBUL — A one-page document. That’s it. All right, let’s include the appendix — that makes a total of two and a half pages. And with a big font too. I am talking about the Draft Law for Ending Terrorism and Increasing Social Unity, which the government recently presented to Parliament. Five articles in total, […]
ISTANBUL — The Republican era of Turkey began with the rejection of the Ottoman past by those destined to fill the ranks of the civilian and military cadres under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This new establishment was keen on modernization and Westernization, with the ultimate goal of creating a modern nation-state from the […]
REUTERS, AFP, BBC Worldcrunch ANKARA — Militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced in a statement Monday that they are halting their withdrawal from Turkey, citing the Turkish government’s failure to keep its part of the peace deal, Reuters reports. The militants said their decision did not affect the ceasefire it announced in March. […]
The conflict in Syria has reshuffled the deck for Kurds across the region, from Turkey to Iraq. A recent mass exodus from Syria is just one sympton of a deeper problem.
Though Kurdish Syrians have largely avoided any involvement in the country’s civil war, they are now caught in the middle and fleeing in droves. A visit to the refugee camp in Iraq.
ISTANBUL – To understand the current stage of Turkey’s so-called “Kurdish problem,” rather than political analysis we are better off relying on the fundamentals of chemistry: The law of conservation of mass tells us that “nothing can be created out of nothing, and nothing can ever be completely destroyed.” Therefore, promoting the concept that “there […]
TUNCELI – The recent death of two Turkish soldiers by a mine blast has brought the land mine issue to the country’s agenda once more – and at a moment ripe with hope for lasting peace with Kurdish minority. Turkey, a signatory of the Ottawa Treaty in 2003 was supposed to clear its territory of […]
After jailed rebel leader Ocalan’s call for Kurds to lay down their arms, a closer inspection of his words show real signs of hope to end three decades of bloodshed.
With the announcement this week of a historic ceasefire from jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, a look at the feminist side of the Kurdish fight for greater autonomy.
AL-JAZEERA, HURRIYET, TODAYS ZAMAN (Turkey) Worldcrunch ISTANBUL – Jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Öcalan has called upon the armed PKK forces to recognize a ceasefire and withdraw from Turkey, reports Hürriyet. In what may turn out to be a historic announcement in the nearly three-decade-long conflict between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish government, Ocalan’s written […]
ISTANBUL – Turkey has finally passed a hotly-debated law that will allow Kurdish criminal defendants to speak their mother tongue in court. The drama leading up to Thursday’s vote is a reminder of how complicated — and charged — the broader “Kurdish Question” continues to be in Turkey. The final round of debate on pitting […]
The killing of three Kurdish activists in Paris shines new light on a longstanding fact of a millions of people spread across large swaths of terrritory, but with no nation of their own.
LE PARISIEN, EUROPE 1, FRANCE INFO (France) Worldcrunch PARIS – Three Kurdish women activists, including a founding member of the militant group PKK, have been found dead inside a Kurdish cultural center in Paris, each with gunshot wounds. The bodies of the women were found early on Thursday inside the information center of the Kurdish […]
ISTANBUL – Members of the Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have joined more than 700 Turkish citizens on the 60th day of a hunger strike aimed at drawing attention to the imprisonment of Kurds linked to an alleged terrorist organization. Some 65 prisoners linked to the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), which Turkey, the […]