Infinite Unknown

FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2003 file photo, Turkish commanders, from left, Chief of Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, Land Forces commander Aytac Yalman, Navy Commander Ozden Ornek and Air Forces Commander Ibrahim Firtina seen during a meeting of the National Security Council in Ankara, Turkey. Police detained more than 40 high-ranking military commanders Monday, Feb. 22, 2010, for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government. Several high-ranking members of Turkey’s military, including Firtina and Ornek, were among those detained. The sweep highlighted the ongoing struggle between the secular establishment and the Islamic-oriented government, and left many wondering if the military no longer called the shots in a nation accustomed to viewing it as the pillar of the secular state. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici, File)

(AP) ANKARA, Turkey — Prosecutors on Tuesday interrogated 51 Turkish military commanders, including former Air Force and Navy chiefs, over alleged plans to destabilize the country by blowing up mosques to trigger a coup and topple the Islamic-rooted government.

It was the highest profile crackdown ever on the Turkish military, which has ousted four governments since 1960. For decades Turkey’s senior officers, self-appointed guardians of the country’s secular tradition, called the shots.

But the balance of power in this EU-candidate country appeared to have shifted Monday as police rounded up the 51 military commanders, following the gathering of wiretap evidence and discovery of an alleged secret coup plan, dubbed “the sledgehammer.”

The nationwide sweep has dramatically deepened a power struggle between the secular establishment and the government, which has strong electoral backing and the European Union’s support. Turkey’s elite military — known as “pashas,” a title of respect harking back to Ottoman times — were once deemed untouchable.

“The most heavy sledgehammer to military custody,” read banner headline of daily Taraf, which has published leaked military documents that lead to the detentions. Continue reading »

Tags: Global News, Government, Military, Politics, Terrorism, Terrorists, Turkey

The Fertile Crescent is left dry as Turkish dams reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle (AP)

Is it the final curtain for the Fertile Crescent? This summer, as Turkish dams reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle, farmers abandon their desiccated fields across Iraq and Syria, and efforts to revive the Mesopotamian marshes appear to be abandoned, climate modellers are warning that the current drought is likely to become permanent. The Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation seems to be returning to desert.

Last week, Iraqi ministers called for urgent talks with upstream neighbours Turkey and Syria, after the combination of a second year of drought and dams in those countries cut flow on the Euphrates as it enters Iraq to below 250 cubic metres a second. That is less than a quarter the flow needed to maintain Iraqi agriculture.

Tensions have been growing since May, when the Iraqi parliament refused to approve a new much-needed trade deal with Turkey unless it contained binding clauses on river flows. But Turkey appears in no mood to compromise. In July, it announced the final go-ahead for yet another dam, the Ilisu on the Tigris.

Meanwhile, according to Hassan Partow at the UN Environment Programme, Iraq’s hydrological misery is compounded by Iran, which is also building new dams on tributaries of the Tigris. “Some of these rivers have run completely dry,” he told New Scientist. And Iraq itself is set to worsen the problem with its own dam building, he says. This year construction is set to begin on another Tigris tributary at Bekhme Gorge in Iraq’s northern province of Kurdistan. At 230 metres it will be one of the world’s tallest dams.

Paradise lost

In ancient times, the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers through Iraq were bountiful - irrigating fields that sustained civilisations like Sumer and cities like Babylon. But the combination of drought, dams and Iraq’s own desire to revive its agriculture is placing huge pressure on the last remnant of that bounty, the Mesopotamian marshes, which form where the Tigris and Euphrates meet and flow to the sea.

Continue reading »

Tags: Environment, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Water, Water shortages

In 1963, an inhabitant of Derinkuyu (in the region of Cappadocia, central Anatolia, Turkey), knocking down a wall of his house cave, discovered amazed that behind it was a mysterious room that he had never seen, and this led him room to another and another and another to it … By chance he had discovered the underground city of Derinkuyu, whose first level could be excavated by the Hittites around 1400 BC

Archaeologists began to explore this fascinating underground city abandoned. Consiguieron llegar a los cuarenta metros de profundidad, aunque se cree que tiene un fondo de hasta 85 metros. It managed to forty meters deep, but is believed to have a fund of up to 85 meters.

At present 20 levels have been discovered underground. Sólo pueden visitarse los ocho niveles superiores; los demás están parcialmente obstruidos o reservados a los arqueólogos y antropólogos que estudian Derinkuyu. Only eight can be visited at the highest levels; others are partially blocked or restricted to archaeologists and anthropologists who study Derinkuyu.

The city was used as a refuge for thousands of people living in the basement for protection from the frequent invasions suffered Cappadocia, at various times of their occupation, and by the early Christians.

The enemies, aware of the danger that enclosed inside the city, usually the people who were trying to leave the area by poisoning wells.

The interior is striking: the underground galleries of Derinkuyu (where there is room for at least 10,000 people) could hang on three strategic points moving circular stone door. Were between 1 to 1.5 meters in height, about 50 centimeters wide and weighing up to 500 Kilos. Continue reading »

Tags: Archeology, Science, Turkey

Turkey is reported to be in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a $40 billion loan. Very shortly, the Baltic States and at least a dozen developing countries will be filing for IMF handouts. But how will the venerable lender of last resort fund itself?

According to a fact sheet posted on its website in October, the IMF had $200 million available for emergency loans to the third-world, and another $50 billion in “additional resources”. But the IMF’s liquidity is rapidly dwindling. Between the crisis facilities concluded with Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Iceland and Pakistan, and the expected spate of new loan requests, the IMF should be running out of money within the first quarter of next year. Quite simply, unless the rich nations (including American tax-payers) can add to the IMF’s funding capabilities, the global recession will cause unprecedented havoc, chaos, hunger and turmoil in the world’s poverty pockets.

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Tags: Derivatives, Derivatives market, Economy, Financial Crisis, Iceland, IMF, Pakistan, Politics, Recession, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine

The International Monetary Fund may soon lack the money to bail out an ever growing list of countries crumbling across Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, raising concerns that it will have to tap taxpayers in Western countries for a capital infusion or resort to the nuclear option of printing its own money.

IMF’s work in countries such as Turkey is only just beginning

The Fund is already close to committing a quarter of its $200bn (£130bn) reserve chest, with a loans to Iceland ($2bn), Ukraine ($16.5bn), and talks underway with Pakistan ($14.5bn), Hungary ($10bn), as well as Belarus and Serbia.

Neil Schering, emerging market strategist at Capital Economics, said the IMF’s work in the great arc of countries from the Baltic states to Turkey is only just beginning.

“When you tot up the countries across the region with external funding needs, you get to $500bn or $600bn very quickly, and that blows the IMF out of the water. The Fund may soon have to start calling on the West for additional funds,” he said.

Brad Setser, an expert on capital flows at the Council for Foreign Relations, said Russia, Mexico, Brazil and India have together spent $75bn of their reserves defending their currencies this month, and South Korea is grappling with a serious banking crisis.

“Right now the IMF is too small to meet the foreign currency liquidity needs of the larger emerging economies. We’re in a dangerous situation and there is the risk of extreme moves in the markets, as we have seen with the Brazilian real. I hope policy-makers understand how serious this is,” he said.

The IMF, led by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has the power to raise money on the capital markets by issuing `AAA’ bonds under its own name. It has never resorted to this option, preferring to tap members states for deposits.

The nuclear option is to print money by issuing Special Drawing Rights, in effect acting as if it were the world’s central bank. This was done briefly after the fall of the Soviet Union but has never been used as systematic tool of policy to head off a global financial crisis.

“The IMF can in theory create liquidity like a central bank,” said an informed source. “There are a lot of ideas kicking around.”

Continue reading »

Tags: Bank for International Settlements, Bankruptcy, Belarus, Bonds, Central Bank, Debt, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Economy, Financial Crisis, GDP, Government, Hungary, Iceland, IMF, Liquidity, Pakistan, Politics, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Taxpayers, Turkey, Ukraine

Ukraine, Hungary, and Serbia are all in emergency talks with the International Monetary Fund, raising fears that an exodus of foreign investors will set off a systemic crisis across Eastern Europe.

A team of IMF trouble-shooters rushed to Kiev on Wednesay to draw up a possible standby loan to help Ukraine stabilize its bank after a panic run on deposits this month. Continue reading »

Tags: Argentina, Bailout, BNP Paribas, Bulgaria, Credit Crisis, Credit Crunch, Derivatives, Derivatives market, Economy, Ecuador, Financial Crisis, Government, Hungary, IMF, Mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Pakistan, Politics, Romania, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine

Russia said U.S. ships could only stay in the Black Sea for 21 days according to the Montreux Convention, and warned if they do not leave by then Turkey would be responsible.

Russia’s deputy military chief Anatoly Nogovitsyn said the NATO warships’ entrance to the Black Sea is a “serious threat to our security,” Hurriyet daily reported on Thursday.

He said under the Montreux Convention, signed in 1936 on the status of the Turkish Straits, the warships can only stay in the Black Sea for 21 days.

“If the NATO ships continue to stay in the Black Sea after the expiration of 21 day-period, then I would like to remind you that Turkey would be responsible,” he added.

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Tags: Military, NATO, Russia, South Ossetia, Turkey, U.S.

INSTANBUL/MOSCOW, August 23 (RIA Novosti) - NATO has sent a Polish frigate and a U.S. destroyer through the Bosporus to boost its presence in the Black Sea, where it is delivering humanitarian cargoes to Georgia, a source in the Turkish navy said.

“Two more NATO ships passed through the strait and entered the Black Sea on Friday evening,” the source told RIA Novosti.

Continue reading »

Tags: Germany, Military, NATO, Navy, Russia, Spain, Turkey, U.S.

“Production has been halved to 300 kilos (661 pounds) per 1,000 square meters (250 acres), even in well-irrigated parts of the region, as rainfall declined to one-fortieth of normal levels, Referans daily said on Wednesday, citing farmers and farming associations.”

The government has selected 35 of its 81 provinces as eligible for financial assistance, Erdogan said. Farmers who have lost more than 30 percent of their harvest to drought can claim assistance and also postpone any agricultural loan payments by a year, he added. Continue reading »

Tags: Bankruptcy, Climate Change, Drought, Earth Changes, Environment, Farmers, Food, Food Prices, Food shortages, Global Warming, Government, livestock, Turkey

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey and Syria are considering setting up a joint energy company and could build joint nuclear power plants for electricity, Syria’s oil minister was quoted as saying on Friday.

Turkey’s state-run Antolian agency quoted Oil Minister Sufian Alao as saying that the two countries will announce the establishment of a joint energy company in the coming days, which could explore for oil in Turkey, Syria and in third countries.

“We could also enter into cooperation in the nuclear field. I spoke to (Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler) Mr. Guler on cooperation. In the future we could found joint nuclear power plants for electricity production,” he was quoted as saying.

Washington released intelligence in April which it said showed Syria secretly built an atomic reactor with North Korean help. Damascus, a U.S. foe and ally of Iran, denies any covert nuclear activity and has said it would cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the allegations.

Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States, is already under pressure from Washington because of its natural gas cooperation with Iran, whose secretive uranium enrichment program has been under scrutiny since 2003.

The general director of Turkish state energy firm TPAO, Mehmet Uysal, was also quoted as saying the two countries had decided to set up a joint energy company and that a deal could be signed by the end of the year, but did not mention cooperation on nuclear energy.

(So what now? Bomb them all? -The Infinite Unknown)

Fri Jun 13, 10:57 AM ET

Source: Reuters

Tags: Iran, NATO, Nuclear reactors, Syria, Turkey, U.N., U.S.