That perfect moment of the triumph of the people happened again in Syria. The rebels captured another border crossing between Syria and Turkey, lowering the Syrian flag and raising their own banner. It is a symbolic moment of victory – and in a bloody civil war abundant with various factions and no real positive […]
A large part of advocating for human rights comes involves bearing witness. While we will never be able to prevent all the atrocities in the world, the hope is that by bringing these realities to light we can gather the political will to make them stop. In this regard, the media plays a huge role […]
Wednesday’s mishap by Syrian forces, which saw a mortar shell land in the Turkish town of Akcakale, killing five, has put international attention firmly on the Syrian crisis. For months analysts and diplomats have warned […]
Half of Yemenis “go to bed hungry,” says U.N. agency Rising costs for food and fuel have spurred a rise in malnutrition in Yemen, where five million people, or 22% of the population, simply do not have enough food — and another five million “go to bed hungry,” according to Barry Came of the World […]
The Syrian crisis has put Turkey’s influence over regional issues to a bitter test. Ankara’s response has failed to stop the escalating violence and now also exposes the growing democracy deficit in Turkey. Turkish-Syrian relations were once the showcase of Ankara’s “zero problems with neighbors” policy. Trade between the two countries tripled in the space […]
Ending illiteracy could also mean ending poverty, hopelessness An estimated 775 million adults and 122 million children are unable to read or write, missing out on the positives of globalization while disproportionately bearing its negatives, write Irina Bokova, director-general of UNESCO, and Laura Bush, an honorary ambassador with the U.N. agency, in recognition of […]
Since the announcement of the decision by Canada to sever ties with Iran and expel Iranian diplomats from the country, many Iranian-Canadians have found themselves immersed in heated debates over the issue. While these debates seem nearly fixated on the merits and faults of the decision and the potential it holds for the Iranian diaspora, […]
September 6, 2012 by H.A. Unver http://fikraforum.org/?p=2644 On August 20, a car bomb went off in the southern Turkish province of Gaziantep on the Syrian border, killing nine civilians, including four children. The Turkish government blamed the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group on the U.S. Department of State’s foreign terrorist organizations list, for […]
This film is almost a documentary. It follows two Israeli medics who are sent to the front lines during the 1973 Yom Kippur war that began when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. This movie, which is in Hebrew with English subtitles, is not political. Rather, it is a study of life in wartime and the […]
I have recently concluded an e-mail interview with the Southeast European Times on the kidnapped Turkish deputy; Mr. Hüseyin Aygün of the Republican People’s Party – CHP. Here is the full version of the interview: ————— August 14, 2012 What happens to the ones that are being kidnapped by PKK? PKK doesn’t have a monolithic […]
Recent concerns have sparked as child marriages spike among Syrian refugees in Jordan. Difficult conditions in Jordan have many parents pushing to have their daughters married at an earlier age. The issue has created a concern among many international aid organizations that the rise in child marriage has been brought on as a sort of coping […]
He simply could not resist. The addiction of power won over his pledge; Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made his return to political life by igniting a new controversy over the lack of action of French President François Hollande in Syria. In a joint statement with Abdulbaset Sieda, president of the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council […]
While Turkey argues that it has the capacity to address the increasing flow of Syrian refugees, several refugee advocacy groups have criticized Turkey’s policies and have called on Ankara to adhere to its obligations under international law. As the international community is struggling to find a solution to end the violence in Syria, the humanitarian […]
Syria appears to be reaching a boiling point. A series of significant events and trends have emerged in the past month. Heavy fighting has erupted in Damascus, the capital, and Aleppo, the largest city — both places of privilege and, until now, stability in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria. High-level officials have begun to defect. These have […]
As Russia vetoed a Western-backed UN resolution imposing non-military sanctions on Syria as “unilateral” and directed only against the regime, it once again demonstrated that its position on the Syrian crisis remains unchanged, emphasizing its split with the West. The repetitive pattern of the Kremlin’s refusal to pressure regime change is often explained by […]