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TOPIC: turkey

Society

Turkey's Space Agency Chief Has A Wild Idea About What Caused The Earthquake

What if the devastating earthquake was caused by a weapon fired from a satellite that pierced the earth's surface? How does someone like this wind up in charge of science in a great nation like Turkey?

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — The Turkish Space Agency runs the country's space program with the stated aim to: “prepare strategic planning on space and aeronautics science technologies." Serdar Hüseyin Yıldırım, an aviation engineer, chairs the agency. His existence came across my radar for the first time thanks to the recent earthquake that hit Turkey and the region.

We were flooded with conspiracy theories after the earthquake, but I'm awarding Yıldırım first prize for statements he made at a conference last year, in which he describes a satellite-based weapon.

In the video, Yıldırım says that the weapon is capable of firing 10-meter-long, arrow-shaped bars of titanium from satellites down to Earth, where he claims they can penetrate as deep as five kilometers, causing intense earthquakes.

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How Turkey's Jumbled Opposition Bloc Can Take Erdogan Down

Turkey heads to the polls in May, with a newly formed opposition bloc hoping to dislodge President Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Despite some party infighting, many remain hopeful they can bring an end to Erdogan's 20 years in power. But first, clarity from within a complicated coalition is needed.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — Turkey was hit by a political earthquake recently, at the same time that we were mourning the victims of the actual earthquakes. It was a crisis triggered among the main opposition coalition, the so-called “ the table of six,” by the inner dynamics of the nationalist Good Party (IYI) that resulted in a renewed understanding among the rearranged table.

The six-party coalition has been set up to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “one-man rule” and is looking to dislodge him after 20 years in power in the country’s upcoming national elections scheduled on May 14.

I am not a fan of analyses based on a who-said-or-did-what perspective, nor those focusing on the actors themselves either. I won’t attempt to analyze the political actors unless the daily agenda forces me to. They are not my priority: the condition of our society and our political system are what matters to me.

We were all told to follow the tabloid version of the story, articles based on hot gossip and anonymous statements full of conspiracy theories about the disagreements of the table of six, and the question of who would run against Erdoğan.

The truth is that there were three crises in one. The first is what we call the political crisis, which is actually shortcomings in collaboration and taking control of the process. The second is the structural problems of the political parties. And the third is the gap between politics and the vital needs of the society.

From day one, there were shortcomings in the general functioning of the table of the six — in their ability to act together in critical situations and, more importantly, in their ability to take control of the process. There were clues for these in recent times, such as the different stances the opposition parties took for the issue of providing constitutional protection for the headscarf.

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The Direct Link Between Turkey's Earthquake Toll And Global Real Estate Markets

The shoddy homes that collapse on their inhabitants in Turkey's recent earthquake were badly, and hastily, built as part of a worldwide real-estate fever typically fueled by greedy governments indifferent to safety norms and common sense.

-Analysis-

There is bitter irony in an earthquake striking a zone already decimated by terrorism and war, where the vulnerable must suffer from natural destruction on top of their rulers' cruelty or, at best, cynical indifference. Under such calamitous conditions, how is one to interpret the observation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the February quakes that killed more than 40,000 were fate's work?

The countries hit, Turkey and Syria, lie on a seismic powder keg. They have shaken before and will keep shaking, and nothing can be done about that. But much can be done to prevent the natural vulnerabilities that threaten so many countries becoming disasters of Biblical proportions. Something can always be done to mitigate the harm of even a 7.8-level quake and its aftershocks striking at the end of a freezing winter night.

Talking of the clash of tectonic plates is confusing, as the scale can boggle the mind. But it refers to the movements of vast plaques, 70 kilometers thick, that rub against each other while shifting in opposing directions. Even without a cataclysm like the earthquakes, such movements can push up the ground a few centimeters a year to form mountain ranges over millions of years.

In this process, rocks on their edges accumulate enormous amounts of pressure that are suddenly released in quakes as they snap, before moving.

Our short time on this planet has amply shown the impact of a shifting earth on our fragile civilization and socio-economic organization.

And while science has evolved and can better predict earthquakes, it has yet to do it well enough to allow for a city's evacuation.

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Why Are Survivors Of Italy's Shipwreck Being Held In Squalid Conditions?

After a visit to a holding facility, a group of lawyers and human rights activists have charged the Italian government is mistreating nearly 100 survivors of the tragic shipwreck 10 days ago.

CROTONE — At least 70 people: that's the death toll of the shipwreck 10 days ago of the Turkish boat that crashed near the southern Italian coast of Calabria. Sixteen were children.

But there is now also the fate of the 98 survivors to consider. And human rights lawyers have discovered that they are being housed in the former Reception Center for Asylum Seekers of Crotone. Some in Italy may remember that several years ago this same facility was discovered to be part of an investigation of misappropriation of European funds by the Calabrian mafia, the 'Ndrangheta. Investigators then found poor conditions in the center, including the serving of spoiled food to the migrants it housed.

Now the facility is back at the center of the storm because of the conditions of the survivors of the Feb. 26 shipwreck, which occurred on the coast near the city of Crotone.

“They are being held arbitrarily in two sheds that are inadequate not only for those who escaped a terrible shipwreck, but for any human being," says Alessandra Sciurba, professor at the University of Palermo and coordinator of the Migration and Rights Legal Clinic. "It must be closed."

Sciurba pointed out the paradox of the outpouring from Italians over the deaths, and the conditions of the survivors. “On one side there is a country that is moved by this tragedy, on the other side there are people who are denied their rights.”

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Society
Mehmet Yılmaz

In Turkey, Why The Public Is So Skeptical About Donating To Earthquake Relief

When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tried to reassure his fellow citizens that they could safely donate to help earthquake victims, many were skeptical. It's a sign of a longstanding mistrust of institutions that affects the nation on the deepest level.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — In the immediate aftermath of last month's earthquake, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was forced to speak up to dispel the doubts of those who worried about donating to help victims. “Making cash donations through [disasters and emergencies authority] AFAD is a method that would eliminate exploitation and doubts,” he said on Feb. 10.

Haluk Levent, founder of the largest Turkish charity AHBAP, followed that up two days later with a statement that the organization has signed contracts with two independent auditory firms which will inspect each transaction they make.

It was not a coincidence that these two people, the leader of Turkey and the chair of the charity that collects the largest number of donations, made these statements following the public rush to collect material and monetary aid after the earthquakes. Unfortunately, there are always doubts in Turkey about whether charitable donations are in fact used for the reason that they were collected for.

We are very lucky that people never stop donating in spite of their doubts.

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Italy
Niccoló Zancan

With Those Mourning Italy's Shipwreck Victims — A Double Immigrant Tragedy

The death toll from a shipwrecked migrant boat off the coast of Italy has reached 63. Relatives of the victims and survivors, who have begun to arrive in the southern town, are all mostly immigrants themselves.

CROTONE — His world is about to be shattered.

In front of the Reception Center for Asylum Seekers in this southern Italian city, a man has arrived from Germany. He is a Syrian refugee, and he is asking about his wife. “She was on that boat! Please tell me she is here. Let me in." The man shows a photograph: "She texted me that she was arriving. It was four o’clock in the morning. She could see the lights of Italy.”

But his wife is not among the rescued, so the man keeps looking. He rushes into the San Giovanni di Dio Hospital in Crotone, in Italy's southern Calabria region. “I need to see the wounded, tell me if my wife is there.”

His wife, 23, was the only traveler of Tunisian nationality on the barge that left Turkey five days ago and crashed 200 meters off the Italian coast before dawn on Sunday. He would later recognized her body among the 63 bodies lined up at the sports hall.

They were married. But their documents did not suffice to allow her a plane ride. “We couldn’t apply for family reunification,” says the widowed man. “We paid the smugglers so we could live together. It was the only way. I was here waiting for her.”

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Society
Altan Sancar

Listening For Voices, Losing Hope: A Turkish Earthquake Diary

After Turkey's devastating earthquakes, rescue workers continue to work in increasingly hopeless circumstances. Turkish news outlet Diken reports from the scene as survivors wait anxiously for news of loved ones. It's rarely good news.

ANTAKYA — Days after the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, and we are in the Antakya District in the province of Hatay in the south of the country, which borders both the Mediterranean and Syria. It’s one of the cities that was hit the hardest.

We have seen a lot of things and heard a lot of things, but there is a different story on Türkmenbaşı Street. There are people from three nationalities under the wreckage of the Maruf Cilli Apartment building: associate professor Betül Balıkçıoğlu; the mother, father, older brother and younger brothers and sisters of Syrian Husam Muaadm; and members of the Cilli Family.

There are a handful of people getting warm by a fire a small distance from the building. Their eyes take in the destruction.

The volunteer rescue crew have heard voices from the wreckage. There is tense expectation in the air mixed with hope. However, the work of the crew is thorough. Picture such a wreckage: the remains of three apartment buildings were merged into each other; people who are searched for in one building are being dug out of the next one; those who are searched on the higher floors are being found at the lower floors. The building is about to collapse.

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Ideas
Gaspard Koenig

The Human Factor, From Voltaire To Earthquake Volunteers In Turkey

The earthquake in Turkey and Syria teach us about humility in the face of what we can't control — but we also surprise ourselves in responding to crisis.

-Essay-

PARIS — A few months after the Lisbon earthquake of November 1755, which destroyed almost all of the Portuguese capital, Voltaire published a long poem meditating on the metaphysical consequences of the disaster.

"Lisbon is ruined, and they dance in Paris," he writes. Today, Turkey is devastated, and there are protests in Paris. An event of this magnitude, whose seismic wave was felt around the world, deserves more than just the grim daily count of victims — now above 45,000.

Yes, the fate of the Anatolia region, the cradle of our Indo-European languages is also ours.

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Society
Héctor Abad Faciolince

Earthquake Warnings And Risky Buildings, From Turkey To Colombia's Ring Of Fire

Colombia has a history of earthquakes, yet many of its buildings are not designed to withstand even moderate tremors. As Turkey and Syria reel from disaster, will other countries around the world learn any lessons?

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — As someone here in Colombia said last week, cutting your pinky finger is more painful than 100 people dying in an earthquake quake in Turkey. I imagine the Turkish people in the region of Antakya, which was hit by a devastating earthquake, likewise care more about a bleeding finger than any deaths in faraway quake-prone regions of Colombia — even if they have such quaintly Asiatic names as Armenia or Antioquia.

Indeed, Antakya and Antioquia both recall the ancient city of Antioch and, distance aside, people everywhere on the planet tend to be self-involved and oblivious to the plight of others.

Perhaps because my finger was feeling fine, I was sickened by the news of 20,000 or more people dying in the quakes in Turkey and Syria. But as we only truly are moved to sympathize when we are drawn close, a Colombian must see last week's event in terms of the Armero (volcano) disaster, which killed 23,000, or the 1999 quake that killed almost 2,000 people, around the Colombian city of Armenia.

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In The News
Ginevra Falciani, Bertrand Hauger, Hugo Perrin and Laure Gautherin

Quake Toll Keeps Rising, Russia Claims Gains, Rihanna Shines Bright

👋 Салом!*

Welcome to Monday, where the death toll surpasses 33,000 in Turkey and Syria a week after the earthquake hit, U.S. jets shoot down a fourth UFO in two weeks, and Rihanna (and the two teams) put on a memorable Super Bowl show. Meanwhile, Clemens Wergin for German daily Die Welt writes that the rushed Russian winter offensive thought to be underway in eastern Ukraine could actually play in Ukraine’s hands.

[*Salom - Uzbek]

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Geopolitics
Ali Yaycıoğlu

The Earthquake Will Change Turkey’s Future — And Could Tip Its Election

A reflection of what the Feb. 6 earthquake exposes deep problems in Turkish public life over the past two decades, and what we can expect in the coming months and years.

ISTANBUL — We are in great agony. The southern provinces of Turkey have suffered incalculable devastation with two major earthquakes in the Province of Kahramanmaraş.

Thousands of our siblings, children and grandparents, from Adana to Diyarbakır, Malatya to Hatay, met their final fate under wrecked buildings, awaiting to be dug out from the rubble and be buried with love and respect.

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This Happened

This Happened In Turkey — Photo Of The Week

The Feb. 6 earthquake, with a magnitude of at least Mww 7.8, has destroyed thousands of buildings in southern and central Turkey, as well as locations across the border in Syria. Many of the more than 20,000 dead were killed in those collapsing buildings.

Yet even as we try to tally to the toll of the disaster, each victim is a tragedy all on its own. And from far away, photographs help remind us of this truth.

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