Köyde Hamsi Izgara Keyfi - too bad that I cannot understand what they are saying
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbZbw8ybSPE

Geld regiert die Welt,Keith. Schrecklich.

URBAN TRANSFORMATION: One of Istanbul's biggest districts Beşiktaş is facing a rapid urban transformation. The old tobacco factory located right at the harbor seen with scaffolding will be turned into a seven-star luxury hotel.

One of Istanbul’s largest districts, Beşiktaş is facing a rapid urban transformation. Following the Akaretler Sıravler project, an old tobacco depot will be turned into a seven-star luxury hotel. Owners of small shops in Beşiktaş and students fear being estranged

Beşiktaş Mayor İsmail Ãœnal The municipality aims to carry out all these works by taking all people's views and contributions into consideration. We have always worked according to this approach since we took office.

Tayfun Kahraman, Secretary General of the Chamber of Urban Planners In terms of urban planning rules, the works in Beşiktaş are not the worst. A demographic change is unavoidable and the newly created space will not be one in which students or people from low-income backgrounds can live.

Beginning in the 1950s, cities have grown rapidly and great changes have occurred in urban areas. One of Europe's largest cities, Istanbul, with a population that exceeds the population of many European Union countries, is no stranger to this growth and change.

The demographic structure and face of the city's districts have been transformed – sometimes in the name of urban planning, sometimes as a part of development projects.

One of Istanbul's largest districts, Beşiktaş, located on the European side of the city on the Bosporus coast, is one of the areas experiencing this rapid transformation.

The urban planning works carried out throughout the district by the Beşiktaş Municipality and supported by the Greater Istanbul Municipality have been criticized by experts and have been met with concern by shopkeepers and residents.

The changes around the district can be seen mainly in the continuing works around Beşiktaş Square with newly laid tiles, the public bazaar area left empty following its demolition, restored harbor buildings for intercity boat lines and finally the conversion of the old tobacco depot into a seven-star luxury hotel, still under construction and covered in scaffolding.

But the transformation efforts attracted attention after the municipality teams, as part of the Beşiktaş Square Harmonization Project, demolished the 23-year-old local public bazaar on Aug. 1, 2007. It its place are brand new tiles on the floor and a few trees.

In terms of urban planning rules, the works in Beşiktaş are not the worst, according to the secretary general of the Chamber of Urban Planners, Tayfun Kahraman. However, a demographic change is unavoidable and the newly created space will not be one in which students or people from low-income backgrounds can live.

Nevertheless, the municipality aims to carry out all these works by taking all people's views and contributions into consideration, Beşiktaş Mayor İsmail Ãœnal told the Turkish Daily News. “We have always worked according to this approach since we took office,” he said.

Whenever rumors of relocating one of the universities circulated, students from that university would begin talking about moving into the depot and dreamed of studying there.

“I started thinking that Beşiktaş was on an irreversible path when I saw the old tobacco depot covered in scaffolding,” said Murat Yalçıntan, assistant professor at Mimar Sinan University's urban planning department, who has written extensively on the issue.

“Probably urged by an emotional outbreak,” Yalçıntan said in one of his articles about the ongoing planning work, “I wrote a scenario about what will happen in our district.”

According to his scenario, the area surrounding the hotel will be given to private businesses. Further, the tea garden opposite the hotel will perish with Adnan, the owner of the little teahouse by the sea. Buildings that have been used for administrative or cultural purposes will be converted into restaurants, bars and cafes, the prices of which will be astronomic. Therefore, the residents of Beşiktaş will not even come close to these places, he said.

As Yalçıntan's scenario unfolds, the traders in the district, particularly those who have shops around the square, are similarly concerned. Many experts, as well as the residents of Beşiktaş, feel like they are somehow being excluded from this transformation process and the way their district turns out will make it impossible for them to live there.

“There will be luxury hotels, private universities, expensive bars and restaurants and big shopping malls. Maybe the municipality will not remove us from here, but among these strong rivals we do not know how much of a chance we have,” said Murtaza Sarıça, a shop owner who has worked and lived in Beşiktaş for 15 years.

Beşiktaş has always been a student district. Since the campuses of eight universities are located in Beşiktaş, students prefer to live close by. Moreover, there are those who do not want to leave their favorite areas, bars, or neighbors and want to continue living in Beşiktaş. All these factors make Beşiktaş a colorful area and more people enjoy spending their time here. The district has always suited people of low- and middle-income backgrounds, however, the new project seems extreme to them and is creating concerns.

“I have seen the project once. A plain, tiled urban center, little green islands, no traffic flowing,” said Besime Şen, from Mimar Sinan University's urban planning department. Şen is also one of the experts who believe this transformation will cause a demographic change in the district and who believe the district is being redesigned for high-income groups. “People with low incomes, students, and the small traders are being estranged,” she said.

Şen also warned the municipality about cities that are always replicas of each other and that this is not a social, but a mistaken commercial project. “They are copying each other and each city becomes assimilated.”

Public areas are decomposing and this creates inequalities, which leads to conflict between the social classes, according to Şen. “The ways these projects are undertaken only shifts the problems but can never solve them.”

“We would like to highlight that most of the concerns that came up with this report are made of mere speculations,” said Ãœnal. “Bahçeşehir University continues to operate in the buildings as a tenant of the state. The works continuing in the Sıraevler houses in Akaretler and the tobacco depot in the square are undertaken in accordance with the decisions of the Supreme Commission for Protecting Cultural and Natural Assets. Apart from these subjects, the rest of the arguments are not on the agenda and all are speculative.”

“With all the historical and cultural assets, our district should be considered a very special part of metropolitan planning,” Ünal told the TDN.

Looking at it today, Beşiktaş is an area with few construction works and can be considered as complete in its development, even if some parts are worn out, he said. The areas open for new development are limited, he said, and its historical structures are registered and declared protected sites.

Ãœnal noted that the transformation will occur within the current construction conditions and on an aesthetic basis.

Responding to the concerns of local traders, Ãœnal said that precautions should be taken to maintain the liveliness of commercial development and retailers' operations.

Nice to see that you posted Kazim Koyuncu's music again, as I did some months ago:
kazım koyuncu ayrılık şarkısı
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nu9ovUWgU4o&feature=related

Would you please translate the Turkish lyrics into English, ...... "MADAME".....??

with charming Sevval Sam

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0IkCNHHU6ag

Urfa Turkusu
http://www.last.fm/music/Yavuz+Bingol/+videos/+1-jU8DvYbQXjs

A Palestinian refugee in the Dehaishe refugee camp holds the original key and title deeds to
the home his family abandoned during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence [GALLO/GETTY]

According to some analysts, there are at least four-and-a-half million reasons why peace continues to elude the Middle East.

That is how many Palestinians have become refugees since the creation of Israel in 1948. And until their plight is addressed, there can be no resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, say aid groups, political leaders and Palestinian officials.

Christopher Gunner of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is charged with Palestinian refugee care, told Al Jazeera: "They are an absolute integral part of the search for peace because it is quite clear having 4.5 million homeless and stateless refugees in this region makes it inherently unstable."

Right of return

Though the right of return has not been a focus of recent talks, an overwhelming majority of Palestinians believe that refugee rights must be fulfilled for any peace initiative with Israel to endure.

According to an August 2007 poll by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, nearly 70 per cent believe that refugees should be allowed to return to "their original land".

This belief is based on a right of return clause found in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which declares that "Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country."

But because flooding Israel with millions of Muslim Arabs would change the country's demographics, Israeli officials across the political spectrum warn that the "right of return" is code for the destruction of the Jewish state.


Many leaders blamed Yasser Arafat for
Camp David's failure in 2001 [AFP]

"I don't think you can wish them away and I don't think you can pretend they don't exist," Dennis Ross, former US peace envoy, said of the refugees.

"What I think they don't have the option to do is return to Israel because that's a one-state solution and not a two-state solution," Ross, who led Middle East peace negotiations in the 1990s, told Al Jazeera.

In his book The Missing Peace, Ross blamed Yasser Arafat, then Palestinian Authority chairman, for the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit.

It is believed that the talks fell apart because of disagreement over the right of return issue.

"When we were looking at the choices, we looked at the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, third countries as being one of the possibilities for resettlement and we were talking about creating a $30 billion fund for compensation or for support and repatriation and settlement," Ross said.

But the proposed compromise offer ultimately proved unsatisfactory.

Igniting the war

The Palestinian refugee problem came into being in 1947, when Britain handed the increasingly vexing issue of a Zionist claim to Palestine over to the UN.

The UN plan to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states was, not surprisingly, met with opposition by the Palestinians but warmly received by many of the nation's Jewish residents.

The November 29, 1947 vote of partition, backed by the US and the Soviet Union while Britain abstained, ignited the war for Palestine.

Arab opposition to the partition erupted into war between Palestine's Arab and Jewish inhabitants, which spread as the surrounding Arab countries attempted to defeat the newly established state of Israel following Britain's departure from the country in 1948.

When the mandate expired, the Jews declared a state in accordance with the partition resolution, and the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq invaded Palestine.

The subsequent defeat of the Arab armies led to the exodus of 700,000 Palestinian and Arab forces. Palestinians refer to the 1948 events as al Nakba, meaning disaster. Most migrated to Gaza, which was under Egyptian occupation; to the West Bank, then part of the Hashemite Emirate of Transjordan (later the Kingdom of Jordan); to Syria; and to Lebanon.

Speaking on their behalf


Many Israeli scholars argue that a right of return
would destroy the Jewish state [GALLO/GETTY]

On May 14, 1948, a Jewish state was declared. The pattern of Palestinian flight continued during the Six-Day War in 1967 and through today.

Those who left are not allowed to return and are now classified as "displaced" persons.

Attempts were made to resolve the problem through political discussions between Israel and its Arab neighbors during the spring and summer of 1949 and during the fall and winter of 1951, but they proved futile.

At that time, the Arab states were the principal guardians of Palestinian interests - the Palestinians themselves were not a party to these talks as official participants.

Various delegations of refugees tried to raise their concerns at the time, but were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the number of refugees continued to grow, as did the funds UNRWA needed to take care of them.

Since partition, the UN has accepted responsibility for care and maintenance of the Palestinian refugees. Today, UNRWA operates with a biennial cash and in-kind regular budget of more than $600 million.

The agency's annual expenditure per refugee, however, has dropped from $200 to $70 because of rising costs of living and providing services, and the high growth rate of the refugee population.

Out of focus

In recent years, with attention focused on the question of a Palestinian state or other political entity, less emphasis has been placed on long-term prospects of resolving the refugee problem.

But some observers, like Julie Peteet, an expert in refugee studies and Palestine at Louisville University in Kentucky, believe that the establishment of a two-state solution will lead to no resolution at all.

"I think the only solution is a one-state solution," she told Al Jazeera.

"Do I think it's possible? Almost impossible – but if only to resolve the issue with justice, it's to have one state, the state of its citizens, and that would include all the Muslims, Jews and Christians, all the Palestinians as well as the Israelis."



Source: Al Jazeera

The Cekul foundation is an unusual non-for-profit organization in that it does not have a roster of donors and does not actively recruit volunteers. “For us a volunteer is a proactive person who comes to us and expresses her or his genuine willingness to work with us,” says Deniz Ozesmi, Project Coordinator of the Cekul foundation. The Cekul foundation’s ‘work’ consists of educating the public about the environment and culture through hands on participation. It does this through community outreach and organized projects in which community members play an active role.

Cekul’s ongoing activities are organized around five core programs: natural environment, cultural environment, education, promotion and community outreach. But the organization’s most important mission, according to Ozesmi, is “Building a national awareness about the pressing and urgent need for natural and cultural preservation; protecting our identity and our future, and mobilizing all available resources to do so.” For example, since 1993, Cekul, with the help of 700,000 volunteers, has planted 2.5 million trees throughout Turkey under its “Seven Tree Forests” program. The program, which derives its name from the fact that each person during his or her lifetime consumes seven trees, aims to increase awareness about deforestation and desertification. The environmentally conscious gift-giver can purchase a 'gift certificate' for seven trees and each year gift receivers and givers may visit forestation areas which are located in Istanbul, Marmaris, Antalya and Urfa-Harran.
The “Beriköy - Communities Building Communities” project is developing 50 homes and 3 community centers in the earthquake ravaged city of Adapazari, Turkey.

The primary aim of this project is empower the disenfranchised, creating jobs and promoting future sustainable development. Beriköy is a pilot project to create permanent and sustainable communities while empowering its members.

Ultimately, the “Beriköy - Communities Building Communities” project in Adapazari will sow a seed that will grow into a realistic, obtainable, well balanced community development concept for all of Turkey


http://www.turkey-now.org/default.aspx?pgID=465

Religious police in Saudi Arabia arrest mother for sitting with a man:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3321637.ece

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/04/saudi-woman-beaten-murdered

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3667349.stm

http://dankprofessor.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/saudi-psychology-professor-chained-beaten-and-to-receive-lashing-and-jail-time-for-having-coffee-with-a-female-student/

The Republic of Altai is located in Central Asia and borders on Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia. It is comparable in size with Portugal. The region is dominated by mountains with eternal snow and glaciers, similar to the European Alps. The highest peak, Ak-Sümer, is 4,506 metres (nearly 15,000 feet) high. Altai has a population of about 200,000 souls of various nationalities: Altais, Russians and Germans.

The Turkish peoples in Altai were hunters and nomadic shepherds tending sheep, horses and sometimes camels. The bequeathed an extremely interesting culture to their descendants, the basic features of which have been handed down from the early beginnings all the way to the present day.

One of the most important forms of Altai art, apart from painting and poetry, is the narration of epics in the falsetto voice to the accompaniment of the topshur, a lute-like string instrument. Texts are usually enunciated in the low bass register.
These narratives enjoyed great popularity amongst the people of the steppes. One of the legendary narrators, Deley, knew 77 of them by heart and the longest took seven days and nights. Altai has produced a number of masters of this art, such as N. Ulagashev and P. Kutshiyak and today the tradition is still kept alive by such people as Aleksey Kalkin, S. Aetenov, Shunu Yalatov, Tovar Tchetsiyakov and Tanishpai Shinshin.

They preserve a traditional heritage of popular literature and sing of their secret dreams and expectations. These epics contain the aesthetic ideas of this nation in its truest form of expression and tell of the everyday world and the world of spirits and myths. Most of them are pentatonic and melismatics play an important role in the development of the melodies. There are songs of congratulations, for each of the seasons, lullabies, songs for all sorts of animals and even insects, songs of travel, modern philosophical songs, ballads, and improvisations. Many are a kind of oral philosophy and, at the same time, textbooks designed to guide mankind to a higher level of consciousness.

With "Üch Sümer", a first album is now appearing with two folk-singers from Altai. Bolot Bayrishev and Nohon Shumarov sing of the beauty of their homeland Altai, of the "golden lakes", the Katun River, the Ak-Sümer (the highest peak in the Altai mountains), and the old "Pazyryk" - these are the hill graves where the defenders of the Altai are buried. Then they sing of their people, small though it is in number, and of mankind, Nature, the cosmos, and the entity they all form. They open the hidden depths of their souls and combine poetry with music.

One of the oldest legends of these inhabitants of the Altai tells of the origin of the Turkish tribe of Rükü, which is even chronicled in China. The Rükü lived in the southern Altai in the 5th century and mined iron ore. They consisted of 70 brothers, the oldest of whom had been born by a wolf and ruled over the winds and granted blessings. He even had power over summer and winter.

http://www.face-music.ch/inform/history_altai.html

Palestinian In this heartbreaking and enraging documentary, director Antonia Caccia invites Muslim women in the Gaza Strip to tell the stories of their curtailed lives. With unflinching frankness, they speak of abductions into marriage at 12 years of age, of dreams of education and career smashed by annual pregnancy, of weaning daughters early so as to conceive a coveted boychild, of acid thrown in the faces of women who go out unveiled, of a husband shared by several wives, one of them a "feminist." The women in Stories are seared into the mind's eye, unforgettable in their dignity and force of character -- against all odds.

DIRECTOR: Antonia Caccia
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jonathan Collinson
EDITOR: Brand Thumim

1996


Stories of Honor and Shame completes Antonio Caccia's trilogy of films devoted to Palestinian lives and the difficult issues which consume them in both Israel and the occupied territories. A graduate of the National Film School, Caccia made her film debut in 1970 with End of the Dialogue, one of the earliest documentaries to expose life in the black townships of South Africa. On Our Land (1981), her first film about the Palestinians, was made in 1981 and largely featured the Arab village of al-Fahun in northern Israel. It remains one of the most eloquent films made on the subject of Palestinian dispossession. Voices From Gaza (1989), Caccia's second film, was made during the first year of the intifada and inevitably reflects the events of the period. Stories of Honor and Shame is Caccia's most recent work, and she returns to Gaza where she touches on the deep cultural differences between the Middle East and the West. The film is her most intimate work yet.

Caccia and her Palestinian team, assistant director Marwan Darweish and research Norwraz Abu Mustafa from Gaza's Women Affaires Center, interviewed nearly fifty women before shooting began. They had been warned that while women would speak to them face-to-face, when confronted with a camera, they might not want to be filmed. In the end, only one woman was too frightened to talk on camera. Caccia recalls, "You can have an idea that things are bad for women and perhaps you should make a film about this, but when you are actually confronted with the detailed stories of peoples' lives, it always felt so much worse than anything one had imagined. I used to think, how could they bear it?"

"A lot of people call Gaza 'the big prison' because it is so difficult to get in and out. I remember speaking to somebody about this, and this person said, 'Yes, the men are the prisoners and the women are the prisoners' prisoners.' Before the occupation, there were women who traveled, women swam and played tennis, there was a middle class women's community who were involved in women's struggles so I think there is a feeling that the concentration of the struggle against the occupation put all women's issues on to the side so there wasn't a natural development as there might have been. The only thing one can say against the theory is that there hasn't been much natural development in the Arab world."

Caccia maintains that her social documentaries have been an attempt to "bridge gaps of information." She felt strongly that people must be heard in their own voices, and this is the reason why the stories in Honor and Shame are told mainly in an interview setting. Despite Caccia's own feeling of pessimism when she was making the film, she is not without hope. "Many of the things the women talk about may seen very strange and different from our experience but I found if I want to draw parallels with my grandmother's life or women's lives in the past in the west they would not be so dissimilar. Women often married because things were arranged in some way, and things have changed. So I feel it must change there equally, especially because the women there are so articulate and so conscious. They are not saying, 'This is our culture, this is the way it is and this is the way it should be.' There are many women here who are very oppressed and they accept it completely. So I think a lot has changed in a way and it is small and imperceptible. I just don't see how you keep everyone down forever."

Caccia has devoted more the 15 years to the making of her films and with each she delivers another layer of meaning to the lives of Palestinians.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL