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TOPIC: turkey earthquake

Geopolitics

Triumph Of Immunity: Why Assad's Return To The Arab League Matters

Two pressing factors have weighed on the Arab League to reintegrate the accused war criminal: refugees and narcotics. But it speaks to a larger weakness of the international community to see that justice is carried out.

-Analysis-

PARIS — Sweet revenge! That's how it looked for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, arriving Thursday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to attend the Arab League summit. It's a first appearance in more than a decade, since the exclusion of Damascus from the regional organization. Syria was reintegrated on May 7 and Assad’s presence at the Jeddah Summit marks his great return.

Syria had been excluded from the Arab League when Assad’s regime repressed what was initially a peaceful, popular uprising in 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. It's since been a decade in which he tortured and slaughtered, used chemical weapons, besieged cities. And yet, he’s still here, fundamentally thanks to the support of Russia and Iran.

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When Erdogan Hints At Not Accepting Defeat, He's Playing With Fire

President Erdogan and his allies have spent the final weeks of the campaign questioning the political legitimacy of their opponents' eventual victory ahead of the May 14 election. When the vote does come, the risk of setting off a veritable civil war is real.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — There’s a Turkish saying about how the words and sentences about a certain topic are worse than the topic itself. In other words, talking about something may be worse than it actually happening. The topic that I’m going to write about now is a little like that. And yet, the problem doesn't go away by not talking or writing about it.

Süleyman Soylu, Turkey’s Interior Minister, recently compared the upcoming May 14 elections to the coup attempt of June 15, 2016.

Can you comprehend this? The man who will be in charge of the security of the ballots is presenting the elections as a coup attempt before anyone has gone to vote.

Binali Yıldırım, another heavyweight of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), equated the elections to Turkey’s war of independence after World War I.

Yet another AKP official, Nurettin Canikli, claimed that Turkey would cease to exist as a nation if the opposition wins the elections.

Finally, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself said that a victory of his main opponent, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, would only happen with "the support of Qandil," a reference to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK which Turkey recognizes as a terrorist organization, and based in Iraq's Qandil Mountains.

All of these statements are a clear challenge to the nation’s will.

I believe the night of the upcoming elections will be one of the most critical nights in the history of modern Turkey.

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End Game For Erdogan? Millions In Turkey — And Beyond — Can Taste It

The result of Turkey's May 14 election is still very uncertain, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's significant failures put his leadership under threat for the first time in 20 years.

-Analysis-

Can elections put an end to the authoritarian drift of a man and ensure a return to democracy? In a few days, on May 14, the Turkish people will be able to answer this question with a double presidential and legislative election.

Indeed, for the first time since Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2003, the scenario of his defeat is conceivable, if not probable. The opposition finally united behind an experienced politician who does not shine with his charisma alone — Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the CHP, the Republican People’s Party.

And this is all the more true because everything suggests that the Kurds from the PKK (the third biggest party in Parliament today) will join the union of opposition parties, in a ballot that looks like a referendum against Erdogan.

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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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Ideas
Hector Zajac

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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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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In The News
Emma Albright, Ginevra Falciani Anne-Sophie Goninet and Bertrand Hauger

Putin State Of Nation Speech, New Turkey Quake, iPhone Antique

👋 اسلام عليكم*

Welcome to Tuesday, where Russian President Vladimir Putin lambasts the West in his much-awaited state of nation speech, a new 6.4-magnitude earthquake kills at least six in Turkey, and you’ll wish you’d held onto that old iPhone. Meanwhile, for Portuguese-language digital magazine Questão de Ciência, Natalia Pasternak gauges whether The Last of Us and its fungus-linked zombie apocalypse is actually so far-fetched.

[*Ssalamū ‘lekum - Darija, Morocco]

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In The News
Ginevra Falciani, Emma Albright and Anne-Sophie Goninet

Biden In Kyiv, Deadly Brazil Floods, Shattering Koons

👋 Bonos díes!*

Welcome to Monday, where U.S. President Joe Biden makes a surprise visit to Kyiv, dozens are killed in Brazil storms, and a Jeff Koons balloon sculpture popped into shards. Meanwhile, our latest edition of “Eyes on U.S.” focuses on the Republicans v. Democrats standoff over migrant buses — with a new Canadian angle.

[*Asturian, Spain]

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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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In The News
Renate Mattar & Inès Mermat

New Russia Sanctions, Scotland’s Sturgeon Quits, Quake Survivors

👋 Ke aal aee!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where the EU debates hitting Russia with a 10th sanctions package, Nicola Sturgeon announces her surprise resignation after eight years as Scotland’s leader and rescuers are still pulling survivors out alive nine days after the Turkey-Syria earthquake. We also feature a report on a group of anti-Putin Russians who are supplying drones to Ukraine’s army, convinced that neutrality and “pacifism” is not an option in this war.

[*Dogri, Jammu and Kashmir, India]

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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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