Stephen Zunes – Turkey’s Creeping Authoritarianism: Is the Resistance Enough?

Turkey’s march towards authoritarianism took another dangerous turn this past week with the forced resignation of moderate Islamist Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, apparently at the insistence of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Though constitutionally the Turkish prime minister wields executive authority and the president is largely a figurehead, Erdoğan—who served as prime minister for eleven years before term limits forced him …

Reynard Loki – World’s Biggest Economies Devise Plan That Spells Doom for Planet Earth

More than 80 of the world’s leading scientists, environmentalists, indigenous leaders, farmers, philanthropists and authors have signed a letter [3] to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, current president of the G20 group of the world’s major economies, saying that they are “deeply concerned” about the G20’s focus on mobilizing as much as $60-$70 trillion of investments in large infrastructure projects …

Michael Hudson – Whitewashing the IMF’s Destructive Role in Greece

This autumn may see anti-austerity coalitions gain power in Portugal, Spain and Italy, while Marine le Pen’s National Front in France presses for outright withdrawal from the eurozone. These countries face a common problem: how to resist the economic devastation that the European Central Bank (ECB), European Council and IMF “troika” has inflicted on Greece and is now intending to …

John Feffer – The Kurdish Elephant

Let’s mix some metaphors in the Middle East, all of them involving elephants. In the crisis zone that encompasses Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, the Kurds are the elephant in the room. They are the “problem” that no one really wants to talk about. Because it would be stitched together from bits and pieces of their territory, the countries of …