1453 İstanbul Fethi 563. Yıl Kutlamaları

‘1453 İstanbul’ un Fetih Töreni Kutlamalar, Cumhurbaşkanımız Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’ ın Konuşması 29 Mayıs 2016: Fetih kutlamaları Kur’an-ı Kerim Tilavetiyle başladı, Meclis başkanı ve Başbakan Binali Yıldırım’ ın tarihi konuşmasıyla devam etti ve beklenen an geldi, Cumhurbaşkanımız Recep Tayyip Erdoğan kütsüye çıktı ve tarihi bir konuşmaya daha imzasını attı, Peygamber Efendimiz Hazreti Muhammet Mustafa Sallallahu Aleyhi Veselllem’ in “istambul’ u (kostantiniye) fetheden asker ne güzel asker, İstanbulu Fetheden Kumandan ne Güzel Kumandan” şeklinde söylediği o mübarek cümleyi hatırlatırcasına bu mübarek zaferin öneminden bahseden Cumhurbaşkanımız Erdoğan, Türk Milletinin tüylerini diken diken yapan o güzel ifadeleri kullandı, (29 Mayıs 2016)’.

“İstanbul’u anmadan tarih yazmaya kalkarsanız mürekkebiniz kurur, kaleminiz körelir. İstanbul’u görmeden, İstanbul’u yaşamadan geçen ömür eksiktir. Onun için bu şehrin kıymetini çok iyi bilmeliyiz. İstanbul, bizim için sevgili Peygamberimizin övgüsüne, müjdesine mazhar olmasıyla ayrıca önemlidir. Çağ kapatıp çağ açan, tarihin gördüğü en muhteşem zaferlerden biri olan İstanbul’un fethinin 563. yıl dönümü mübarek olsun, kutlu olsun . . . “BU MEMLEKETİ BİZDEN KOPARMAYA KİMSENİN GÜCÜ YETMEYECEKTİR . . . Fetihten sonra bize artık ne İstanbul’dan ne Trakya’dan ne Anadolu’dan hicret yoktur . . . Sadece Akdeniz’e değil Avrupa’ya da bir kısrak başı gibi uzanan bu memleketi bizden koparmaya kimsenin gücü yetmeyecektir. Bölücü terör örgütünü koçbaşı gibi kullanıp ülkemize saldıranların derdi ne Kürt kardeşlerimizdir ne de o bölgedir. Onların derdi fethin intikamını almaktır. İşte gördünüz, kullandıkları kuklalar açtıkları çukurlara gömüldüler”.[1]

 

[1] “Büyük “Fetih” kutlaması bugün” HaberTürk (30 Mayıs 2016). http://www.haberturk.com/gundem/haber/1246243-buyuk-fetih-kutlamasi-bugun.

Terrorists in Belgium

‘Fusion’s Chief Investigative Reporter Mariana van Zeller spoke with a woman who says she warned authorities about terrorists in Molenbeek. Published on Mar 30, 2016’.

 

TRT World on the World Humanitarian Summit

‘This special edition is hosted from the first World Humanitarian Summit. The Newsmakers’ Imran Garda talks about disaster management and the global security challenge, and how it impacts what’s being described as the worst humanitarian situation in history.  DISASTER AID: The Newsmakers’ Francis Collings reports on how the international community responds to disasters. EU-TURKEY DEAL: The Newsmakers’ Yvette McCullough reports on the deal that critics say is on the brink of collapse. Published on May 24, 2016.

 

Another Talking Shop: World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at World Humanitarian Summit’s opening ceremony. Published on May 23, 2016.

 

 

Basic Income is a Necessity

 

‘Technical change turns Basic Income into a necessity. Future of Work – 04.05.2016, Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute.Keynote Yanis Varoufakis (GRE), former Greek Minister of Finance. Published on May 12, 2016’.

 

Chomsky on Democracy Now!

 

‘In this part of the programme, the world-renowned dissident Noam Chomsky, talks about the conflict in Syria, the rise of ISIS, Saudi Arabia, the political crisis in Brazil, the passing of the pioneering lawyer Michael Ratner, the U.S. relationship with Cuba, Obama’s visit to Hiroshima and today’s Republican Party. “If we were honest, we would say something that sounds utterly shocking and no doubt will be taken out of context and lead to hysteria on the part of the usual suspects,” Chomsky says, “but the fact of the matter is that today’s Republican Party qualify as candidates for the most dangerous organization in human history. Literally.” Published on May 17, 2016’.

Eren Erdem: AKP IŞİD Teröristlerine Bilerek Göz Yumuyor

‘İstanbul Mv. Eren Erdem, Meclis’te düzenlediği basın toplantısında, IŞİD militanlarına ilişkin çok önemli bilgi ve belgeleri kamuoyuyla paylaştı. AKP hükûmetinin IŞİD teröristlerine bilerek göz yumduğunu açıklayan Erdem, “demokratik bir ülkede bu skandallar ortaya çıksa hükûmet istifa eder” dedi. 12 Mayıs 2016’.

 

Naomi Klein on Global Neoliberalism

 

 

Naomi Klein on the end of “El Modelo”. Published on Apr 23, 2012.

 

Democracy Now: Top U.S. & World Headlines, 10-13 May 2016

 

Published on May 10, 2016

 

Published on May 11, 2016

 

Published on May 12, 2016

 

Published on May 13, 2016

 

Panama Papers: The Revolution Will Be Digitized

About a month ago, the Panama Papers were first revealed . . . and the world has never been the same, or rather, for a few days the whole world was abuzz but then the buzz died down and people went about their business as usual. In the coming days, the whole circus is set to start up anew: “On May 9 ICIJ will publish information about secret offshore companies and the people behind them, based on data from the Panama Papers investigation. The searchable database will include information about more than 200,000 companies, trusts, foundations and funds incorporated in 21 tax havens, from Hong Kong to Nevada in the United States”.

John Doe has now broken his silence and issued a public statement explaining himself: “Titled The Revolution Will Be Digitized the 1800-word statement gives justification for the leak, saying that “income inequality is one of the defining issues of our time” and says that government authorities need to do more to address it. Süddeutsche Zeitung has authenticated that the statement came from the Panama Papers source”.[i] And here are some of his words: “Income inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. It affects all of us, the world over. The debate over its sudden acceleration has raged for years, with politicians, academics and activists alike helpless to stop its steady growth despite countless speeches, statistical analyses, a few meagre protests, and the occasional documentary. Still, questions remain: why? And why now? The Panama Papers provide a compelling answer to these questions: massive, pervasive corruption. And it’s not a coincidence that the answer comes from a law firm. More than just a cog in the machine of ‘wealth management’, Mossack Fonseca used its influence to write and bend laws worldwide to favour the interests of criminals over a period of decades. In the case of the island of Niue, the firm essentially ran a tax haven from start to finish. Ramón Fonseca and Jürgen Mossack would have us believe that their firm’s shell companies, sometimes called ‘special purpose vehicles’, are just like cars. But used car salesmen don’t write laws. And the only ‘special purpose’ of the vehicles they produced was too often fraud, on a grand scale”.[2]

And then, John Doe goes on to explain himself: “For the record, I do not work for any government or intelligence agency, directly or as a contractor, and I never have. My viewpoint is entirely my own, as was my decision to share the documents with Süddeutsche Zeitung and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), not for any specific political purpose, but simply because I understood enough about their contents to realize the scale of the injustices they described. The prevailing media narrative thus far has focused on the scandal of what is legal and allowed in this system. What is allowed is indeed scandalous and must be changed. But we must not lose sight of another important fact: the law firm, its founders, and employees actually did knowingly violate myriad laws worldwide, repeatedly. Publicly they plead ignorance, but the documents show detailed knowledge and deliberate wrongdoing. At the very least we already know that Mossack personally perjured himself before a federal court in Nevada, and we also know that his information technology staff attempted to cover up the underlying lies. They should all be prosecuted accordingly with no special treatment. In the end, thousands of prosecutions could stem from the Panama Papers, if only law enforcement could access and evaluate the actual documents. ICIJ and its partner publications have rightly stated that they will not provide them to law enforcement agencies. I, however, would be willing to cooperate with law enforcement to the extent that I am able”.[3]

As an apparently self-conscious and strong-willed whistleblower and moral crusader, John Doe then goes on to make the following case: “I call on the European Commission, the British Parliament, the United States Congress, and all nations to take swift action not only to protect whistleblowers, but to put an end to the global abuse of corporate registers. In the European Union, every member state’s corporate register should be freely accessible, with detailed data plainly available on ultimate beneficial owners. The United Kingdom can be proud of its domestic initiatives thus far, but it still has a vital role to play by ending financial secrecy on its various island territories, which are unquestionably the cornerstone of institutional corruption worldwide. And the United States can clearly no longer trust its fifty states to make sound decisions about their own corporate data. It is long past time for Congress to step in and force transparency by setting standards for disclosure and public access. And while it’s one thing to extol the virtues of government transparency at summits and in sound bites, it’s quite another to actually implement it. It is an open secret that in the United States, elected representatives spend the majority of their time fundraising. Tax evasion cannot possibly be fixed while elected officials are pleading for money from the very elites who have the strongest incentives to avoid taxes relative to any other segment of the population. These unsavoury political practices have come full circle and they are irreconcilable. Reform of America’s broken campaign finance system cannot wait. Of course, those are hardly the only issues that need fixing. Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand has been curiously quiet about his country’s role in enabling the financial fraud Mecca that is the Cook Islands. In Britain, the Tories have been shameless about concealing their own practices involving offshore companies, while Jennifer Shasky Calvery, the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Treasury, just announced her resignation to work instead for HSBC, one of the most notorious banks on the planet (not coincidentally headquartered in London). And so the familiar swish of America’s revolving door echoes amidst deafening global silence from thousands of yet-to-be-discovered ultimate beneficial owners who are likely praying that her replacement is equally spineless. In the face of political cowardice, it’s tempting to yield to defeatism, to argue that the status quo remains fundamentally unchanged, while the Panama Papers are, if nothing else, a glaring symptom of our society’s progressively diseased and decaying moral”.[4]

Finally, John Doe calls for a revolution: “Democratic governance depends upon responsible individuals throughout the entire system who understand and uphold the law, not who understand and exploit it. On average, lawyers have become so deeply corrupt that it is imperative for major changes in the profession to take place, far beyond the meek proposals already on the table. To start, the term ‘legal ethics’, upon which codes of conduct and licensure are nominally based, has become an oxymoron. Mossack Fonseca did not work in a vacuum—despite repeated fines and documented regulatory violations, it found allies and clients at major law firms in virtually every nation. If the industry’s shattered economics were not already evidence enough, there is now no denying that lawyers can no longer be permitted to regulate one another. It simply doesn’t work. Those able to pay the most can always find a lawyer to serve their ends, whether that lawyer is at Mossack Fonseca or another firm of which we remain unaware. What about the rest of society? The collective impact of these failures has been a complete erosion of ethical standards, ultimately leading to a novel system we still call Capitalism, but which is tantamount to economic slavery. In this system—our system—the slaves are unaware both of their status and of their masters, who exist in a world apart where the intangible shackles are carefully hidden amongst reams of unreachable legalese. The horrific magnitude of detriment to the world should shock us all awake. But when it takes a whistleblower to sound the alarm, it is cause for even greater concern. It signals that democracy’s checks and balances have all failed, that the breakdown is systemic, and that severe instability could be just around the corner. So now is the time for real action, and that starts with asking questions. Historians can easily recount how issues involving taxation and imbalances of power have led to revolutions in ages past. Then, military might was necessary to subjugate peoples, whereas now, curtailing information access is just as effective or more so, since the act is often invisible. Yet we live in a time of inexpensive, limitless digital storage and fast internet connections that transcend national boundaries. It doesn’t take much to connect the dots: from start to finish, inception to global media distribution, the next revolution will be digitized. Or perhaps it has already begun”.[5]

[1] “Panama Papers Source Offers Documents To Governments, Hints At More To Come” ICIJ. https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160506-john-doe-statement.html.

[2] “Panama Papers Source Offers Documents To Governments, Hints At More To Come”.

[3] “Panama Papers Source Offers Documents To Governments, Hints At More To Come”.

[4] “Panama Papers Source Offers Documents To Governments, Hints At More To Come”.

[5] “Panama Papers Source Offers Documents To Governments, Hints At More To Come”.