Turkey: Move to block YouTube ahead of elections points to growing censorship

The Turkish authorities’ move today to block access to YouTube on the eve of Sunday’s elections, and not long after they restricted access to Twitter, smacks of a wider pre-meditated crackdown on freedom of expression, Amnesty International said.

According to media reports, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited national security concerns when it sought an administrative order to block the video-sharing platform – allegedly to prevent further circulation of a taped recording of discussions between senior Turkish officials on Syria.

“The Turkish government appears to be itching for pretexts to close down websites because of their capacity to mobilize dissenting opinion and broadcast embarrassing material,” said Andrew Gardner, Amnesty International's researcher on Turkey.

“Coming just days before Turkey goes to the polls and in the wake of Prime Minister Erdoðan’s strident criticism of YouTube, this is clearly nothing more than a crude attempt at government censorship that will only generate deeper distrust and frustration.

“Even if the Turkish authorities have legitimate concerns about some of the content that might appear, it is completely disproportionate to enforce a blanket YouTube ban in the entire country. Access to YouTube must be restored immediately and the authorities must stop blocking sites that expose abuses and provide a platform for dissenting views.”

Read more: Turkey: Move to block YouTube ahead of elections points to growing censorship | Amnesty International

Alternative Energy: Want a competitive Europe? Embrace renewables

Last week, on  March 19, one day ahead of the European Heads of States and Governments’ discussions on the 2030 climate and energy framework proposals, the European renewable energy associations jointly called on EU leaders to fully grasp the long-term benefits of an ambitious nationally binding EU renewable energy target. 

"The European economy is exposed to volatile fossil fuel prices and insecure fossil fuel imports, especially in these days of geopolitical turmoil at our borders. It must confront climate change. It is facing international competition in sectors of strategic importance for Europe’s growth. In view of the European Council meeting tomorrow, the renewable energy associations emphasise the need for a sustainable and cost-efficient energy mix that can help Europe tackle these challenges. According to the European Commission’s own Impact Assessment, the proposals that the Heads of States will discuss tomorrow are not the ones that would bring the most benefits by 2030. 

While a 2030 framework based on a truly ambitious and binding renewable energy target would deliver major savings, such as an additional €260 billion in avoided fossil fuel imports, and 568,000 more jobs1, the discussion has been pre-formatted to only consider the least ambitious pathway. 

An ambitious 2030 climate and energy framework based on a binding national renewable EU energy target is not only justified from a macro-economic viewpoint, but it is also crucial for businesses and investors. Both 

Europe’s economy and its citizens would greatly benefit from a strong commitment of EU leaders towards the energy transition. Such commitment needs to go beyond a simple volatile CO2 price and thus drive investments into clean energy technologies. EU citizens would this way benefit from a secure and clean energy supply, healthier living conditions and a boosted job market, while the European economy would enjoy a competitive and stable energy framework for the years to come. 

The European renewable energy associations thus call on the Heads of States and Governments to fully reap the benefits of a more sustainable energy system and to agree on an ambitious nationally binding EU renewable energy target for 2030."

Read more: 2030-Joint-Press-Release.pdf

Capitalism: Has Anglo-American Capitalism Run Out of Steam? - by George Irvin

The Real News Network has published an interesting interview with SEJ author George Irvin about inequality in the UK and the US and the wider question of whether Anglo-American Capitalism has run out of steam. Watch the full interview : click on the link below below.

Read more: Has Anglo-American Capitalism Run Out of Steam?

Turkey: Local elections to determine Erdogan's future

Turkish citizens going to the polls for local elections will decide on far more than new mayors. After corruption and censorship scandals, they are also going to vote on the future of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Istanbul, the 15-million-metropolis where Recep Tayyip Erdogan started his political career as the city's mayor 20 years ago, is going to play a decisive role in Turkey's local elections on Sunday (30.03.2014). If Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) were to lose here, it would translate to a serious blow to the prime minister's power.

Mustafa Sarigul is prepared to deal that blow to Erdogan. The 57-year-old mayor of Istanbul's wealthy district of Sisli is on the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) ticket and faces Erdogan's fellow party member and ruling city mayor Kadi Topbas in elections.

 Polls suggest it's going to be a neck-and-neck contest. During the campaign, Sarigul has promised to introduce free Wi-Fi across the city and provide free public transport for students - a clear signal that he wants to win over Turkey's young generation. According to Erdogan, Sarigul is an "anarchist."

Recent corruption allegations have taken their toll on Erdogan. Every other day, new embarrassing recordings of phone conversations have been leaked online - taped conversations between Erdogan and other government officials on bribery or how to put pressure on the media.

Erdogan has called it a conspiracy orchestrated by the movement of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is currently living in the United States. The Gulen movement used to support the AKP but is now at odds with the government.

Erdogan has blamed Gulen supporters for launching a major corruption probe and sacked several thousand police officials, judges and prosecutors believed to be linked to the Gulen movement. Last week Erdogan shut down popular micro-blogging site Twitter to prevent further revelations. Telecommunications authorities on Thursday also enacted "administrative measures" against the YouTube video site. Erdogan's supporters have said such steps are necessary to protect the state while his opponents argue Erdogan launched an attack on democracy and that his actions represent a sign of panic and an increasingly authoritative style of politics.

Fethi Acikel, a professor of political science at Ankara University, said Erdogan's harsh and polarizing demeanor was a carefully calculated strategy. After the protests in Gezi Park last summer, the prime minister tried to aim for a strong Turkish presidential system by applying "controlled pressure" on society, Acikel told DW. Instead of the current, rather weak presidential position, Erdogan was pushing for a powerful head of state, similar to the French or US system - with himself at the helm.

But his plan didn't work out as he intended as more and more Turkish citizens turned away from him. Eight people died during the Gezi protests and polarization in society continued to increase. Corruption allegations fueled the anger even more, because they pointed to the party's alleged dark side. "That's why the local elections are a referendum so to speak on the AKP's nepotistic, corrupt and authoritarian politics," Acikel said.

Read more: Local elections to determine Erdogan's future | Europe | DW.DE | 27.03.2014

The Netherlands: Geert Wilders compared with Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels -

Wilders a reborn Goebbels?

The German Press Agency (DPA) has compared the statements that Wilders made during a speech, to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.


Last week, Wilders gave a speech at a PVV campaign event, in The Hague. During his speech he asked the audience: "In this city...and in the Netherlands...do you want more or less Moroccans?". The audience replied with: "Less, less, less!" while applauding loudly. The DPA claims that Wilders rhetoric is comparable to the same statements that Goebbels made during his Sportpalast speech, in 1943.

During Goebbels speech, he averted from his written textand began to mention the complete "extermination" of the Jews. In his written text of the speech, he wrote the word "solution" and fittingly stopped himself before completing his statement. "Solution" referred to the term "final solution" and was seen as a less harsher term to describe the true intentions of the Nazi regime.

After basking in the applause from his PVV party supporters, Wilders said: "Good, we can arrange that.". Last week, Wilders had also stated during a visit to The Hague that with PVV leadership, the city would
have "with less expense and if possible less Moroccans.".

Read more: Geert Wilders compared with Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels - Minneapolis Community Activism | Examiner.com

EU: Why Europeans should think Big and think Bold "instead of harnessed by outdated capitalism" by Yanis Varoufakis

After the United States had lost its surpluses, some time in the late 1960s, the system of fixed exchange rates and highly regulated capital movements, which had nurtured capitalism’s Golden Age, was condemned. Its inevitable collapse could not but push the dollar down, release the bankers from their thirty-year-old restraints, and wind back rights and services that labour had wrestled from capital since the war.

In 2008, the pyramids of private money, that Wall Street and the City of London had built on the back of this constant tsunami of capital, crashed and burned. At first, continental Europeans smiled, allowing themselves an ‘I told you so’ moment, directed at the Anglo-saxons who had spent a decade or two sneering at the Continent’s antiquated commitment to manufacturing. Alas, that moment proved very brief. Soon, they realised that their own banks were replete with toxic assets and that their bankers had been allowed to run debts (or ‘leverage’) twice as great as those in the Anglo-sphere. Put simply, Mrs. Thatcher bubble had been surreptitiously exported to Frankfurt, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Brussels etc. As had the ‘model’ of building up competitiveness by squeezing wages until the local economies, behind the glitzy suburbs and the globalised jet set, were in a permanent state of slow-burning recession.

Post-2008, while the United States and Britain sought to bailout the bankers with a combination of taxpayers’ money and quantitative easing that aggressively sought to re-inflated the deflated toxic assets, Europe was making a meal of the same project. Having rid themselves of their central banks, the Eurozone’s politicians did their utmost to shift all the stressed bank assets onto the shoulders of the weakest amongst the taxpayers, thus causing a horrid recession and putting the European Union on a path leading toward certain disintegration.

Nevertheless, and despite the significant differences between Britain and the Eurozone, the broad picture remains the same: The establishment responded to the financial crisis by inflating bank and real estate assets (that were best left alone) and squeezing the majority of the population with soul and income sapping austerity. In short, the Thatcher model on steroids.

Growth is not the issue. The Left understands that there are many things whose growth must be stumped: toxic waste, toxic derivatives, ponzi finance, coal production, consumption that leaves the consumer unfulfilled and the planet worse for ware, etc. No, the issue is eclectic growth in the technologies and goods that contribute to a more successful life on a sustainable planet. The Left has always known that markets are terrible at providing these technologies and goods sustainably, and in a manner that sets prices at a level reflecting their value to humanity. What the Left was never very good at was in the conversion of that gut feeling into workable policy that the beneficiaries of this policy (i.e. the vast majority) would back.

A spectre is haunting Europe. It is the spectre of Bankruptocracy. A curious regime of rule by the bankrupt banks. A remarkable political arrangement in which the greatest extractive power (vis-à-vis other people’s income and achievements) lies in the hands of the bankers in control of the financial institutions with the largest ‘black holes’ on their asset books. It is a regime that quick-marches the majority of innocents into the trap of austerity-driven hardship that serves the guilty few, while Parliament and civil society are held at ransom. While 2008 was meant to raise ‘regulatory standards,’ we now know that nothing of substance has been done to reform finance.

This is not to say that we are anywhere near ready to replace capitalism. Indeed, realism commands us to recognise that, if anything, Bankruptocracy is well and truly in command of the European continent and the only political forces on the march are those of the bigoted, ultra Right. The Left must not err again, as it did in the 1930s, thinking that capitalism’s great crisis will naturally lead to something better. It may very well bring about the most hideous dystopia. This is why it is of the essence to stabilise capitalism (through banking regulation, a link between central banks and public investment, and a wider social safety net) while struggling to revive democracy at the local, national and European levels. Our success in this limited but crucial goal is a prerequisite for forging a sustainable future in which most people are gainfully employed in innovative enterprises of which they are the sole shareholders.

Read more: Why Europeans should think Big and think Bold

Turkey - let's get real - a far bigger and more serious problem than Crimea - by RM

 








While the world  focuses on Crimea and the comical  "tick-tac-toe" between President's Obama and Putin,  there is another geo-political  problem, which in terms of scope and strategic importance to the West, is far more critical than Crimea.

That problem is called Turkey, on the opposite side of Crimea, with the Black Sea in between .

Here we are now facing a corrupt and paranoid PM and his government, who have gone power crazy and totally out of control, taking Turkey down the road of potentially violent public disturbances and economic meltdown.

Even though, in all fairness Erdogan's accession on to Turkey's political scene more than 10 years ago "raised many eyebrows right from the start, most Turks gave him the benefit of the doubt and overlooked Erdogan's hard-line reputation, and the religious undertone of his AKParty given the apparent prosperity the country was experiencing under his leadership. 

Then came a change, the "Genie got out of the bottle", and the AKparty and Erdogan became more and more dictatorial, eliminating all forces of opposition, including those in the powerful Turkish military, the press and many other organizations.

The situation got even worse after Erdogan  got into a "spat" with his Guru and Mentor, Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania, USA, as an exile and from there also  controls a global network of schools and organizations under the banner  "Moderate and Peaceful Islam.".   

Obviously back in Pennsylvania Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, was not very happy his "pupil"  Erdogan had stopped listening to him and rumors and evidence began circulating about the billions Erdogan and his croonies in government had swindled.

Erdogan pointed his finger at his former buddy Muhammed Fethullah Gülen claiiming that it was him who had created a  parallel state within the state that wanted to topple his government. 

Unfortunately for Erdogan despite his illegitimate reshuffling of thousands of police officers and hundreds of judges and prosecutors, he nor his government were able to track down a single piece of evidence of what he called a "parallel state".

In light of all these signs of corruption, it has also become evident to many people in Turkey that the whole parallel state argument by Erdogan  was an imagined enemy that Erdogan, like Don Quixote, used in his fight against the "windmills".

But Erdogan still has quite a few cards to play. As a result of the Turkish electoral and voting system Erdogan and his party still control the Turkish parliament.  Consequently Erdogan's AKParty is approving new laws on a daily basis to consolidate and strengthen his grip on every level of the Turkish  society. 

Mr Erdogan's other major fobia is that he is totally intolerant of criticism from whatever source it comes and has not hesitated to use his powers to have anyone he considers "a threat to the Republic" thrown into jail.

Turkey now has more journalists in prison than just about any other country in the world.

Turkey ranked 154th out of 180 countries surveyed in the World Press Freedom Index released by the Reporters Without Borders Association on Feb. 12, even behind China and  war-torn nations such as Afghanistan and Iraq.  The report noted further that “the Gezi Park revolt highlighted the repressive methods used by the security forces, the increase in self-censorship and the dangers of the prime minister’s populist discourse,”

More recently, audio recordings that appear to be of Erdogan have shown how deeply he is involved in government corruption, were posted on Twitter by an anonymous account holder, just weeks before the March 30 local elections in the country.

 Even though Erdogan denied that these recordings were legitimate he apparently decided it was better to be 'safe than sorry' and just get rid of Twitter altogether.

On Thursday, March 20 Erdogan made good on his promise to wipe out Twitter in his country, and Turkish tweeters are now reporting that they are unable to access the service.

Twitter published a message on its service that same day advising users in Turkey that it was still possible to send Tweets on twitter using mobile phone text messaging. 

Erdogan has previously also called social media a "menace to society" and threatened to ban YouTube and Facebook.  Last year, at least 25 people were arrested for tweeting messages of protests against Erdogan and his government. It now also appears that Facebook is being shut down in Turkey.

Indeed, the world, and particularly the EU should wake up and "smell the roses"  about the situation in Turkey, 

Like it or not, Turkey is a powerful economic ally of the West, a member of NATO and a candidate member of the EU with a population of 81.7 million. 

In contrast Crimea and its  2.3 million people, which since 700 BC  has been changing hands many times including being part of the Cimmerians, Bulgars, Greeks, Scythians, Romans, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Kievan Rus, the Byzantine Empire, Venice, Genoa, Kipchaks, the Golden Horde, the Ottaman Empire, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, Germany, Ukraine and now Russia again. 

Crimea or Turkey - Come on EU Commission and EU-Parliament - You don't need to be Einstein to figure that one out ?

As to Crimea, let's be frank - Crimeans voted fair and square they don't want to be part of Ukraine anymore. Maybe the simple solution would be for President Obama to shake hands with President Putin, wish Crimea well, and tell  President Putin not to start messing with Ukraine in the future,  or else. 

Let's get real - its time to focus on Turkey. .

EU-Digest