Elections: Turkey’s Erdogan Should Listen to the Voters

Not so long ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister of Turkey from 2003 until 2014 and president since, was hailed as a model leader of an emerging economy with an admirably moderate Islamist bent.

At the helm of the Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.) he had created, Mr. Erdogan oversaw an economic recovery and introduced democratic reforms (part of an effort to win admission to the European Union), achieved a truce with Kurdish nationalists and curbed the power of an ambitious military. 

Yet today, on the eve of a second national election within five months, which Mr. Erdogan engineered after being battered in the first, many of those achievements have been undermined, in no small part because of Mr. Erdogan’s relentless drive to win and consolidate power.

The Turkish military is again bombing Kurdish separatists; opposition parties have trouble holding rallies or getting airtime; rivals are branded as terrorists; opposition media is intimidated or muzzled. The economy, which grew an impressive 9.2 percent in 2010, is now expected to grow by 3 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Read more: Turkey’s Erdogan Should Listen to the Voters - The New York Times

Post Capitalism: The Economy Of The Future? - by Paul Mason

Over the past two centuries or so, capitalism has undergone continual change – economic cycles that lurch from boom to bust – and has always emerged transformed and strengthened. Surveying this turbulent history, journalist and Channel 4 economics news editor Paul Mason wonders whether this time capitalism itself has reached its limits and is changing into something wholly new.

At the heart of this change is information technology: a revolution that has the potential to reshape utterly our familiar notions of work, production and value; and to destroy an economy based on markets and private ownership.

Almost unnoticed, in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swathes of economic life are changing. Goods and services that no longer respond to the dictates of neoliberalism are appearing, from parallel currencies and time banks, to cooperatives and self-managed online spaces.

Vast numbers of people are changing their behaviour, discovering new forms of ownership, lending and doing business that are distinct from, and contrary to, the current system of state-backed corporate capitalism.

Watch the video presentation: Post Capitalism: The Economy Of The Future?

Turkish Elections: Turkish police storm opposition Bugun TV during live broadcast

Is Erdogan holding on to power with brute force?

Police in the Turkish city of Istanbul stormed the offices of opposition television station Bugun TV during a live broadcast on Wednesday (October 28), just days before a general election.

The raid is part of a crackdown on companies linked to a preacher who is an arch enemy of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Footage showed police spraying water cannnon at people in front of Koza Ipek outlet Bugun TV, which is owned by cleric Fethullah Gulen who is accused of plotting to overthrow the president.

Authorities on Tuesday took over 22 companies owned by Koza Ipek in an investigation of alleged financial irregularities, including whether it funded Gulen. The company denies wrongdoing.

Erdogan has clamped down on commercial interests belonging to once-influential followers of Gulen, his former ally, after police and prosecutors considered sympathetic to the cleric opened a corruption investigation of Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013.

For the complete report: Turkish Elections: Turkish police storm opposition Bugun TV during live broadcast

EU votes to end roaming charges

The EU has voted to agree on revised rules on the telecoms market which will end unpopular roaming surcharges for mobile phone calls and data use.

Spanish MEP Vera del Castillo, of the European People's Party and rapporteur of the telecoms report, said today's vote brings about an end to roaming charges.

"We have eliminated a type of tax on people who live in the EU and we have eliminated a barrier to small companies and institutions accessing the single market."

Read more: EU votes to end roaming charges - RTÉ News

Netherlands Banking Industry - Dutch Banks even charge a fee when you put cash into your own account.

Whether it be out of laziness, ignorance, or on purpose, people and worst of all governments and politicians are not reacting to the fact that banks are ripping the public  off with charge's— and seem to forget that the seemingly insignificant charges can add up over time.

If you're using one of the traditional "big banks" you'll likely get hit with two fees if you don't use your own bank's teller machine: one  charge from the ATM for the privilege of withdrawing cash, and one from your own bank for going to another bank. It is rediculous, but no one does anything about it.

In the Netherlands, even when you go to your own bank and deposit cash at your own bank's teller machine (ATM) or over the counter, you will get charged a hefty fee after doing that 6 times. This is basically legalized "highway robbery" sanctioned by the government. When you dare to complain, however, to anyone at the your bank they will usually say: "those are our bank rules" en of story.

This is a situation which has gone completely out of hand. When will local governments or the EU finally establish some effective banking regulations, which serves the public and not only enrich the banking             industry ?

Insure-Digest

EU Migration Control Agreement: Juncker’s migration summit leads to 17-point plan - by Dan Alexe

After an exhausting leaders’ meeting on Sunday, just after midnight, Jean-Claude Juncker announced that the leaders agreed in Brussels on a 17-point plan of operational measures.

These start with a permanent exchange of information, including submitting joint needs assessments for EU support within 24 hours, going to increasing Greece’s reception capacity to 30,000 places by the end of the year, and to support UNHCR to provide rent subsidies and host family programmes for at least 20,000 more – a pre-condition to make the emergency relocation scheme work; Financial support for Greece and UNHCR is expected.

Attending the leaders’ meeting were the Heads of State or Government of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia.

The approved plan asks that Balkan and eastern European countries should stop allowing asylum seekers to pass through to other neighbouring countries without first securing agreement from those neighbours.

Countries should thus be asked to stop waving through migrants without the agreement of their neighbours. The question is how this could be done ensured on the ground, beyond the political declarations of good will and solidarity.

Some participants were very pessimistic. The EU will “start falling apart” if it fails to take concrete action to tackle the refugee crisis within the next few weeks, the Slovenian prime minister, Miro Cerar, warned. Slovenia, a country of 2 million people, has seen the arrival of more than 60,000 refugees in recent days.

At the press conference following the meeting, Jean-Claude Juncker and Angela Merkel did not give details how the transition, the flow of people, will be managed, and how will migrants be spread and divided among the EU member states “with dignity” and in a “humane manner”
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The final statement also reconfirmed the principle “that a country may refuse entry to third-country nationals who, when presenting themselves at border crossing points, do not confirm a wish to apply for international protection” — meaning that those who do not declare the intention to apply for the status of a refugee could be refused entry immediately at the border.

The EU has already dedicated four summits to migration since the summer but many member states are lagging behind on their promises.

Only around 80 asylum seekers from Italy out of a target total of 160,000 have so far been relocated. Greece has yet to dispatch any.

The President of the European Council, the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees also took part.

Read more: Juncker’s migration summit leads to 17-point plan

The Syrian Refugee Crises can only be solved through bi-lateral negotiations to include the Assad Government

The refugee crises Europe and other countries are facing can be directly attributed to the incapability and unwillingness of the major political powers to go sit around the table without any preset conditions.  

The Russian Foreign Minister called for full-scale negotiations between al-Assad and the "full spectrum" of the opposition, "both domestic and external, and with the active support of outside players."

Russian analysts see the talks as a measure of progress towards finding a solution for the Syrian crisis.

"It was clear that solutions will not be found during one meeting, but the differences are so great that even the fact that a meeting was held is a step forward,” says Yelena Suponina, head of the Center for Asia and Middle East at the Russian Strategic Studies Institute. “International players are indeed testing the waters for a prototype of a possible international coalition."

One of the main sticking points is still the political fate of the Syrian president.The most realistic option is to leave this topic out of the equation and focus on the fight against terrorism, Suponina says, adding that political will is required to solve “the problem of al-Asaad.”

Whether U.S. President Barack Obama has the political will or not, is a big question, especially since the United States has now entered the pre-election season, she added.

EU-Digest