If my friends are to be believed, doctors occupy the same hated position in China that lawyers occupy in the United States; they are the white-collar workers who represent all that is wrong… Read More →
↧
Shenzhen Noted: what is the price of a human life?
↧
Language Log: English in China #2
Whenever there's a major gathering in Beijing, such as the 12th Chinese People's Political Consultative Congress National Committee that has been going on these days, some top figure (politician, educator, or scholar) will be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to lambaste English as a threat to the stability of the People's Republic. For examples, see here on the dangers of Westernization (mainly English words) and here on language purity and the threat of creeping Romanization.
Now, in an article entitled "English-language studies 'destructive' to China's education, says CPPCC deputy", we read:
=========
The head of a national research institute in China said English-language studies were "destructive" to education, which is facing an "unprecedented crisis".
Schools are placing too much emphasis on English, said Zhang Shuhua, head of the Intelligence Research Academy, adding that language studies should be treated as a means for social reform and development, but, instead, they are seen as an end.
He called it putting the cart before the horse. Zhang made the remarks on Monday at a discussion session during an annual gathering of China's political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Zhang said many students with good academic performance have been blocked from universities because of poor English test scores, government news portal China.com.cn reported on Monday.
He added that recent “English enthusiasm” in China has taken up a large chunk of educational resources, at a high cost but with little gains.
Zhang argued it was “absolutely unnecessary” to impose English-language studies on students who pursue professions in Chinese medicine, ancient Chinese language, Chinese history and others that do not require the use of a foreign language.
In China, children start to learn English as early as kindergarten. In middle school, it is seen as the most important subject next to Chinese and mathematics. University students must pass a language test before they can graduate; some also take a more difficult test to pursue post-graduate studies.
Because students devote more effort into passing English tests, they spend less time studying for courses for their major, dealing a "heavy blow" to overall education, Zhang said.
In any case, Zhang continued, despite their efforts, Chinese students may be mastering useless "mute English", referring to poor oral language skills.
The CPPCC deputy cited a 2010 survey by China Youth Daily that showed 80 per cent of people polled agreed that there is a language crisis and that Chinese skills are deteriorating. Of those, more than half blamed the emphasis on foreign language study.
Zhang suggested elementary and middle schools focus on teaching Chinese and maths and reduce other subjects such as biology and chemistry, which should be non-required courses. He urged that English-language programmes be reformed to move away from exams and adopt more applicable lessons.
Founded in 2011 by national think tank Chinese Academy of Science, the Intelligence Research Institute mainly gathers, arranges and reports on domestic and global academic research and theory.
============
There is little doubt that people believe Chinese language skills are deteriorating, but in what way, and can the deterioration be attributed to the spread of English? The problem of "character amnesia" is due to Romanized inputting in computers and cell phones, rather than because of learning English. This phenomenon has been described in detail in numerous articles going back more than a decade (see, for example, here, here, and here).
As for spoken language, there's no evidence that Chinese youths today are any worse at talking intelligibly than they were ten or twenty years ago, before the supposed onslaught of English. On the other hand, the modes of expression, both in written and spoken Chinese, have changed tremendously, with many new terms and constructions being used. This has actually, to my mind, made Chinese languages much more lively and interesting than they were before the opening up of China that started after President Nixon's visit in 1972.
[My first post on "English in China" was in 2006 and may be found here]
[Thanks to Gordon Chang, John Rohsenow, Stefan Krasowski, David Moser, and Mark Swofford]
↧
↧
Open Anthropology Cooperative Blog Posts: Selling the Sea, fishing for Power: A study of Conflict over Marine Tenure in Kei Islands, Eastern Indonesia
Dear all,
I would like to share my book, Selling the Sea, fishing for Power: A Study of Conflict over Marine Tenure in Kei Islands, Eastern Indonesia. It has just came out from ANU E-Press in Canberra, Australia. The book is available for free download at: [epress.anu.edu.au] By analysing various conflicts, this book discusses the social, political, economic and legal attributes that are attached to the practice of traditional (communal) marine tenure. Selling the Sea pushes the discourse beyond the conventional approach which looks at marine tenure only as a means of resource management, and offers a more comprehensive understanding of what marine tenure is. For those working in the areas of marine resource management and fisheries, this book is a critical but also complementary reading to the conventional discourse on the issue.
Happy reading!
Looking forward to receiving your comments.
Regards,
Dedi Adhuri
↧
hawgblawg: Madrid demonstrators, Wednesday March 13, 2013
Madrid demonstrators, Wednesday March 13, 2013, a photo by tsweden on Flickr.on the plane from Paris to Beirut on March 15, I got the IHT and spotted this. I'll be talking about kufiyas at AUB on Thursday.
↧
tabsir.net: Mind your manures…
A villager makes cow dung cakes used as cooking fuel at Maloya village on the outskirts of the northern Indian city of Chandigarh on January 31, 2011; photograph by Ajay Verma / Reuters
[Webshaykh’s note: Here is a great story coming out of Indonesia about two young female science students contributing to society. I believe Marvin Harris would love this, as would anyone appreciates the Hindu doctrine of ahimsa. Yet another sacred cow sacrificed in the interest of science.]
Fermented Cow Dung Air Freshener Wins Two Students Top Science Prize
by Kimberley Mok, Care2.com, March 16, 2013
Conventional air fresheners are known for their toxic soup of chemicals that may be linked with asthma, reproductive disorders and even lung disease. While there’s no shortage of environmentally-friendly and human-healthy air fresheners on the market, two Indonesian science students are behind a rather bizarre concoction that you may be seeing soon: an affordable air freshener made from cow dung.
Yes, cow dung — as weird as it sounds, the formulation actually has a pleasant herbal smell, and has won Dwi Nailul Izzah and Rintya Aprianti Miki a gold medal at Indonesia’s Science Project Olympiad (ISPO). According to Oddity Central, the young women overcame 1,000 other competitors with their surprising freshener, which was painstakingly created by collecting unused cow manure from a cattle farm and fermenting it for three days:
Then they extracted the water from the fermented manure and mixed it with coconut water. Finally, they distilled the liquid to eliminate all impurities. The whole process took 7 days, which is pretty long, but in the end they obtained what they were looking for – a liquid air freshener with an herbal aroma from digested cow food. (more…)
↧
↧
C L O S E R: Closing the week 11 – Sectarianism, Syria, Europe, Dutch
Closer Blog: A weekly round up of writings on the Internet, some relevant for my research, some political, some funny but all of them interesting (Dutch/English). (As usual to a large extent based upon suggestions from Dutch, other European, American and Middle Eastern readers. Thank you all.) (As usual to a large extent based upon suggestions from Dutch, other European, American and Middle Eastern readers. Thank you all.)Read more: Closing the week 11 – Sectarianism, Syria, Europe, Dutch
↧
Language Log: Teppanyaki
If you like Japanese food, you are undoubtedly familiar with "teppanyaki", so you probably wouldn't be surprised to see a sign like this in your neighborhood, as did Jim Breen near his home in Melbourne:
The difference is that Jim Breen is a specialist on electronic Japanese / English dictionaries, so the sign made him do a double-take. Before explaining why the sign struck Jim as particularly odd, I should point out that the name "teppanyaki" consists of three elements meaning literally "iron-board-grilled/broiled/pan-fried", i.e., an iron griddle or grill for cooking food.
What we see on this sign are the following three characters: 鐡板焼, though the top right portion of the last character as represented in the font I'm using here is semi-abbreviated; the full (traditional) form, as in the photograph, would look like this: 燒. In Chinese simplified characters the entire name of this type of cooking would appear thus: 铁板烧. In Mandarin, whether written 鐡板燒 or 铁板烧, that would be pronounced tiěbǎnshāo.
In Japanese, the name for this style of cooking — which is, after all, a Japanese type of cuisine — is written 鉄板焼き or just 鉄板焼 without the final kana. in Japan, it would be extremely rare (if ever) to find the 鐡 kanji used to write the first syllable of teppanyaki. 鐡, along with 銕, 鐵 and 鋨 are known in Japan as variants (itaiji 異体字) of 鉄, but they are really only in the kanji standards because they appear sometimes in names such as 鐡男 (Tetsuo) and 鐡穴 (Kanna).
It would seem that what has happened with that Teppanyaki restaurant in Melbourne is that its proprietors (who are Chinese-Australian) simply went to their regular signage supplier and specified what was (for them) the way of writing Teppanyaki in characters, without considering that the result would be quite un-Japanese. If you Google on 鉄板焼(き) you'll get about 30 million hits. 鐡板焼 gets around 60, most of which are referring to establishments in Taiwan, etc.
I would only add that most sushi shops and Japanese restaurants I go to outside of Japan are operated by Chinese. And last week when I want to the Philadelphia Flower Show, all the people working in the big bonsai shop were speaking Chinese!
↧
Erkan in the Army now...: EFD Rights Watch: Doubtful Uludere massacre report… Peaceful Newroz celebrations this year…
Doubts about report on Uludere massacre
from Journalist in Turkey, background articles, news and weblog about by Fréderike Geerdink
ISTANBUL – A commission in the Turkish parliament has finalized its report on the Uludere massacre, in which 34 civilians were killed at the end of 2011. According to the report the bombing of civilians was unintentional, and it was caused by communication flaws between civilian and military authorities. Nobody is guilty, according to the
Nevruz festivites start in Turkish cities
from Hurriyet Daily News
Thousands flocked to set locations nationwide to join in Nevruz celebrations and..
Minister calls on Christian and Jewish minorities to return to Turkey
from Hurriyet Daily News
Christian and Jewish minorities who have left Turkey can come back to their home country, said Culture and Tourism Minister Ömer Çelik.
CHP wants fundamental reform in Turkish prisons
from Hurriyet Daily News
Turkey needs to make fundamental reforms of the country’s prisons in order to increase prison conditions.
Fantasies fined by RTÜK
from Hurriyet Daily News
Famous singer and TV star Seda Sayan was once again fined by the Radio and Television.
CHP acts for Armenian migrants’ life standards
from Hurriyet Daily News
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) yesterday tabled a motion demanding a parliamentary.
Students face two-year jail sentence for throwing darts at Turkish PM’s photo
from Hurriyet Daily News
A local prosecutor has demanded two years in jail for two Samsun
Turkish army, gov’t produced Uludere report: Main opposition
from Hurriyet Daily News
A draft report on the Uludere incident that claimed a flaw in coordination between military
Euro court fines Turkey 85,000 euros for violating right to life
from Hurriyet Daily News
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) March.12 fined Turkey 85,000 euros
“Alternative” Report on Uludere Massacre
from Bianet :: English
An MP of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has presented his party’s disagreements with the report prepared by the Uludere Subcommittee to the Parliamentary Human Rights Investigating Committee.
Death in a Transphobic Attack in Istanbul
from Bianet :: English
LGBT organisations have protested with a press statement after an attack in Avcılar, Istanbul, has left trans woman Seda dead.
Gov’t tries to cover up Uludere: Main opposition
from Hurriyet Daily News
The government is trying to cover up the Uludere incident of December 2011 and a draft report by a parliamentary panel on the incident.
Ergenekon lawyer sues gendarmerie
Hurriyet Daily News
“For the first time in the Ergenekon case we saw that judges directed gendarmerie personnel to intervene against the lawyers. You allowed our friends to be thrown out of the courthouse,” Ersöz said. Ersöz, with fellow lawyer Zeynep Küçük, also
Related posts:
EFD Rights Watch: the PM forcing the journalist to reveal sources.. Unsatisfying Uludere Massacre report… In the last 16 years 366 women abused in custody…
Turkish authorities continue to be silent on the Uludere/Roboski massacre..
Peaceful Newroz this year…
Cover-up for Uludere massacre continues… some might one day shout back at the PM? “you know how to kill well*
EFD Rights Watch: 4 jailed journalists released, Sivas massacre case dropped due to statute of limitations, Şafak Pavey as “woman of courage”
↧
Fieldnotes & Footnotes: The Moths, by anthropologist Michael Jackson
I often carry a thin poetry volume around with me, tucked in between draft chapters I am currently editing. I’ve been carrying Michael Jackson’s, Duty Free: Selected Poems 1965-1988, around for a while now. He is quite a … Continue reading →
↧
↧
tabsir.net: Yemen’s National Dialogue
Yemen’s President Rabu Mansour Hadi has issued decree No. (12) for 2013 on Sunday, March 17, forming the presidium of the Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference, which starts today. The officers are listed below:
1- President Abdo Rabu Mansour Hadi as president of the conference.
2- Abdul-Kareem al-Iriani as a vice-president for the conference.
3- Yasin Saeed No’man as a vice-president for the conference.
4- Abdul-Wahab Ahmed al-Anisi as a vice-president for the conference.
5- Sultan Hizam al-Atwani as a vice-president for the conference.
6- Ahmed Bin Fareed al-Sorimah as a vice-president for the conference.
7- Saleh Ahmed Habrah as a vice-president for the conference.
8- Abdullah Salem Lamlas as the conference’s reporter.
9- Nadia Abdul-Aziz al-Sakkaf as a deputy for the reporter.
For a complete list of the 565 participants in Arabic, go here.
The term “dialogue” is ambitious, given the general disrespect held in Yemen for the UN, which is sponsoring this 6-month long exercise. It is hard to imagine how over 500 people can engage in a meaningful dialogue. Is the six months so they can each take the floor and filibuster? While a wide net has been cast, there is still major grievance from the southern secessionists, who staged a strike in Aden on Sunday. Although none of the former major political players will be physically present (including former President Salih, General Ali Mohsen and Sheikh al-Ahmar), they will certainly be represented by some of the participants. One is always hopeful that a path to national reconciliation can be forged. Yemenis did it themselves after the bitter civil war in the 1960s, but that was before decades of military rule eroded most Yemeni support for the central government. Still, talk is always better than bullets, so let the dialogue begin.
↧
C L O S E R: European foreign fighters in Syria
Closer Blog: In the last months there have been numerous reports of Europeans going to Syria to fight against the Al-Assad regime. In this post I will monitor the main news reports and analysis on this issue.Read more: European foreign fighters in Syria
↧
Comment is free: The Joris Luyendijk banking blog | guardian.co.uk: The bankers who traded the City for Oxfam | Joris Luyendijk
Two charity sector workers speak about the difficulty of leaving the City, and the untapped potential of those they left behindImagine you work for a multinational corporation or global bank and one day you go over to the other side? Today's interviewees did just that. For eight years Will Martindale (30) worked at JP Morgan and then BNP Paribas, only to jump ship and join Oxfam. He was joined by Erinch Sahan (31) from Australia, who left Procter & Gamble for Oxfam. Their mission: to bring their knowledge and expertise to bear on finance and the corporate world.This is controversial stuff in the NGO world and both are very happy to come into the comment thread below to answer your questions. Here are their answers to mine:WillWhen I handed in my resignation, my colleagues didn't quite know how to respond. Usually in an investment bank when you announce you're leaving, it's because you got a more lucrative job offer. So they will go: "Okay, how much?" [to make you stay]. But when I told them I was going to work for Oxfam for a fraction my salary, well, what do you say to that? They did ask: "Can't we send you to Singapore? Give a good relocation package?" But I didn't want to go Singapore. I wanted to work for Oxfam in London.People always knew that I was relatively leftwing, so in that sense it probably didn't come as a complete surprise. A couple of colleagues called me a tree hugger but most expressed support. Some suddenly told me about their own projects. Turned out that one of the bank's guys in emerging markets research had a wife who ran an ethical tea plantation. I had no idea.I started JP Morgan's graduate scheme in 2006. I never intended to work there for more than a year, but you get caught up and the job becomes a lifestyle. You work very long hours, surrounded by people who do the same, and they become your friends. You are all on a similar income, you eat at the same type of restaurants, go on the same kind of holidays, live in the same kind of apartments, develop the same hobbies. In all you get a slightly distorted view of the challenges other people face. You don't see poverty, if only because you go to work very early, and come home late, often taking a cab provided by the bank. Where I live in Battersea there are increasingly two communities, one very rich and one very poor. The only places the two might meet is at Clapham Junction and the odd shop.Many investment bankers will be in this life for 20 years, then a few more years at a hedge fund, and that'll be it. I always knew that was not for me.When I had been with JP Morgan for nine or ten months, they sent me to New York to run a CDO trading platform there. I would be working trades with exposures of hundreds of millions of dollars. I was so junior, 23 or so!I remember when someone from the American regulatory agency the Securities and Exchange Commission came over to shadow me for a day. He was very young, too, and had no real understanding of what I was doing. There was no way that he could challenge even a green junior banker like me. Back then, the quality of regulators was so weak.My Damascene conversion, if you will, came during the financial crisis when Bear Stearns fell. There were a number of trades outstanding between JP Morgan and Bear Stearns and we went over to price them up. Now, usually when there's a trade of the kind I was in, if I am 5 million up, you must be 5 million down. It's zero sum. But when we looked at it up-close, it turned out that while our models said that we were say 3.5 million up, their models stated that they were up, too, by 2.5 million! That drove home the point for me how flimsy risk management structures really were.Moving to an NGO wasn't always easy. First there's the vernacular. I would get asked what I thought of the rights-based approach to development? I had no idea. I could tell you about the delta on CDSs, though. Also, you make sacrifices. Before taking this job I went on holiday to Vietnam, staying in very nice hotels ... I realised that this would no longer be possible, I had said goodbye to that kind of lifestyle.I remember thinking the first few weeks at Oxfam: wow, I can work from home, this is nice, have the cricket on ... Very soon I found myself working harder than I ever had in the bank, because now I cared. That's the big difference with banking in the end. Work becomes something very different if you believe in what you're doing.There are a lot more people like us making the change than outsiders might think. Oxfam's Rob Nash did the same as me. He left Lehman Brothers where he was on the stock-lending desk, to work in the non-profit sector on financial aspects of sustainable development and poverty reduction. One colleague at JP Morgan became a maths teacher, another at BNP Paribas set up a retirement home. Also, there are far more people inside corporations and banks who want to make the world a better place. So why don't they join Oxfam or other NGOs? One reason might be the golden handcuffs. They've settled into the lifestyle, sent their children to expensive schools ... Neither of us have kids.In finance, one factor is the absence of effective unions who could be a voice for the collective. Especially with the low job security, it becomes all about survival in the firm. Which may be why it is increasingly male as you go up in these organisations. I remember the structured credit desk at BNP Paribas had just one woman trader.There's this huge untapped potential in banks, and we should try to tap it. Why do lawyers have a pro bono system but bankers don't? So we are now working on a project where bankers help to empower people by making them more financially literate. At the same we are running a series of seminars for Oxfam employees called "banks, bankers, and banking", to improve the internal understanding of the sector.ErinchI escaped twice. I started professional life in financial law. That was the most boring thing on earth, I cannot imagine why anybody would want to become a corporate lawyer. Also, I just had no idea what it actually was I was doing. So I escaped to Procter & Gamble, where at least I understood the products we were selling. But then I discovered that I just couldn't motivate myself to do this, so I escaped again.When I announced I was leaving, I felt this instant reaction among colleagues like "you were always different from us.' They seemed to say, it was natural for you to leave, and natural for the rest of us to stay. Our world is not rocked.In a way they were right, I never really bought into the corporate culture at Procter & Gamble. I did haircare brands for the Australia and New Zealand market. The culture was super-competitive, all about crushing our competitor. I remember my colleague sitting next to me, who did Duracel. There he was, cheering when the new sales figures showed he had beaten Energizer. I didn't do fist pumps when we had sold more stuff than Unilever because I just didn't buy into the company's mission, that all that mattered was how to sell more stuff, how to design shampoo pumps that gave out more shampoo than the customer needed so that they'd end up buying more shampoo.I still have my farewell email, in which I told my colleagues, look, you can have a far greater impact from the inside than I could ever have from the outside. There are people who care working for these big multinational companies. The thing is: market structures mean that the ones who rise to the top are those who are focussed on short-term sales and profit.Before joining Oxfam I also worked for a government agency for a while, and it really hit me how political things were there, how important perception management is. So there it is: in business you work within very narrow profit parameters, while in government the politicians don't trust the bureaucrats so they won't give you much space to work in either. This is what I totally love about Oxfam, there aren't these paths laid out for you. I have been working for months now on this "behind the brands" scorecard for food companies, ranking them for how they manage land, women, farmers, workers, climate, transparency and water in their supply chains. I found myself reading company's CSR reports on weekends, even during my holiday. When I have a good idea now, I can act on it. For example, we now have an indicator for how transparent corporations are about their lobbying activities.Some corporations present corporate social responsibility (CSR) simply as the smart thing to do. But there is certainly not always a business case for ethical behaviour. Pressure is needed. We have to work with corporations that want to change, but even more so, we must call out those who don't.It's messy. I have been to farms in Africa where female workers have to trade sexual favours for jobs. As a multinational corporation, why would you want to get involved in that? But if you're buying that farm's products, you have a responsibility.There is this buffer in banks made up of the people doing CSR. What we want is not only engage with them, but beyond them, with the actual bankers making the decisions. We believe it could help that we speak their language, and understand how finance and business work.Yes, there will always be people saying about corporations and banks, "what's the point of engaging with them? They're all evil anyway." Some in the NGO world tend to see companies as one whole, but it's a collection of individuals embroiled in all sorts of debates and conflicts. NGOs could help set-off internal debates in these companies, help shape the internal political economy of these corporations. We must empower insiders. Provide them with evidence to help them in their internal battles, work out how we can best push from the outside to help those on the inside. We need to tap into internal debates in companies.For a number of years now Oxfam has worked with parliamentarians to help them see what life is like for poor communities. Why not do the same for bankers? That would be quite something, imagine twenty white guys in a refugee camp in east Congo, all of them connected to trade in the minerals mined there? I wonder about the impact of that. My first night in a refugee camp was unforgettable. The smells, the air of intimidation. I thought to myself, "I am never going to survive this, and I am leaving first thing in the morning." But I did survive, I stayed on and it changed me forever.Financial sectorCharitiesVoluntary sectorBankingJoris Luyendijkguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
↧
Erkan in the Army now...: Peace negotiations behind the doors continue…PKK head proposes withdrawal from Turkey
PKK head proposes withdrawal from Turkey
from Yahoo news
ANKARA, Turkey , March 16 (UPI) — The head of a Kurdish separatist party has proposed completing a withdrawal of its fighters from Turkey this summer.
New BDP delegation visits PKK leader Öcalan on İmralı
from Hurriyet Daily News
A delegation of Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) lawmakers, consisting of BDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş.
Turkey’s government mulls taking peace process to Parliament
from Hurriyet Daily News
Turkey’s government could consider allowing Parliament to participate in a peace process
Turkey’s future: Presidential dreaming
by Acturca
The Economist (UK) no. 950 Saturday, March 16, 2013 How a peace deal with the Kurds could pave the way for a new Turkish constitution Zehra Cacan sits on the edge of a fresh grave strewn with flowers and prays quietly. In it lies her 30-year-old son, whose nom de guerre, Serxwebun, means insurrection in
En Turquie, le grand pari de la paix kurde
by Acturca
Libération (France) samedi 16 mars 2013, p. 6-7 Marc Semo Les négociations avancent à grand pas avec le leader emprisonné du PKK. Le Premier ministre Erdogan compte en sortir renforcé. En pleine mer de Marmara, à une bonne heure de navigation au sud d’Istanbul, se dresse un îlot rocheux devenu une prison de haute sécurité
Turkish main opposition CHP voices four concerns regarding peace process
from Hurriyet Daily News
The Turkish main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) announced four conditions for giving their support to the ongoing peace process.
General Staff denies reports that pilots were interrogated for Kandil raid
from Hurriyet Daily News
The Turkish General Staff has denied on March 16 reports claiming that 12 pilots operating in Turkey’s border region
Total retreat of militants from Turkey to be complete before June 16 deadline: Report
from Hurriyet Daily News
The imprisoned leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has called on the senior leaders..
Let the sun shine in on Turkey’s Constitution process
from Hurriyet Daily News
Slowly but surely, Turkey is crafting its new Constitution.
Peace in Turkey ‘will be model for Mideast’
from Hurriyet Daily News
The Middle East will witness a “domino effect” of peace if Turkey can successfully solve.
PKK free Turkish hostages to reinforce peace talks with Erdogan government
from World news: Turkey | guardian.co.uk by Constanze Letsch, Ian Traynor
Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq free eight hostages on orders of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan as hopes rise of ceasefire next week
The fresh initiative to settle the 30-year-old Kurdish insurgency in Turkey yielded its first dividend on Wednesday when the PKK fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ party released eight hostages in a gesture aimed at reinforcing a fragile peace process.
Letters reached PKK leader Öcalan: BDP co-chair
from Hurriyet Daily News
Letters sent by the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), the alleged urban wing of the the…
The PKK and negotiations à la Turca
from Hurriyet Daily News
You can have both covert and overt negotiations in order to solve the problems
Turkey ‘s Kurds see best hope yet of end to three-decade war
from Yahoo news
By Nick Tattersall DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – Kurdish politician Abdullah Demirbas is haunted by the nightmare vision of his two sons meeting in the hills of southeastern Turkey . The first left home at 16 to join Kurdish rebels fighting the Turkish army, and now his older brother is signing up on the government side. Like many Kurds weary of a war that has killed 40,000, he prays talks
The PKK and negotiations alla Turca
from Hurriyet Daily News
You can have both covert and overt negotiations in order to solve the problems.
Turkey’s Cold Wars
by Acturca
German Marshall Fund of the United States, March 13, 2013 Ian Lesser * Turkey is no stranger to cold wars. Over the past decade, Turkey’s foreign policy has been directed toward breaking its pattern of crisis-prone relations, with some real success in the Balkans, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East. The end of large-scale
Local hero Erdogan struts national stage after decade as PM
by Acturca
Financial Times (UK) Thursday, March 14, 2013, p. 5 By Daniel Dombey in Istanbul Far beyond his old neighbourhood the prime minister has conquered a country, writes Daniel Dombey In the working class Istanbul district of Kasimpasha, they remember Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an indomitable force – in the classroom, on the street and on
Time For A Turkish Peace
from Kamil Pasha by Jenny White
Didem Aykel Collinsworth of the International Crisis Group reported on a recent Kurdish movement conference in Switzerland. What were the portends within the Kurdish activist community that recent talks between the Turkish government and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan would actually lead to peace after decades of violence? What was necessary for this to happen? Would the Kurdish movement, particularly the armed PKK forces in northern Iraq under the command of Murat Karayılan, follow Öcalan’s lead in his island prison? Will the Turkish public, that is still fed vitriolic anti-PKK rhetoric in the media (“terrorist gang chieftain”, “baby killer”) and that until recently reacted violently against any revelations of talks between the state and the PKK, accede to this new round of talks?
AKP-BDP Constitution begins to take shape
from Hurriyet Daily News
The working period of the Constitution Conciliation Commission has been prolonged.
Related posts:
Öcalan says finalization in 2-3 weeks, Erdoğan says peace process starts after PKK militans leave Turkey…
The Peace Process in Turkey goes like this: PM criticizes media/threatenes media freedom, slams opposition leaders, Opposition insults back and labels him as traitor…
Heavy snow, earthquake in the Agean region..While gov’t-PKK peace talks continue.. Politics roundup…
Assassinations in Paris as Peace talks in Turkey continue…
As “Turkey enters key week in Kurdish solution bid”, “Angry Mob Winds Up Kurdish Deputies in Sinop…
↧
↧
Ethnography Matters: Performing Success: When mythologies about a technology dominate first impressions
Editor’s Note: We are lucky to have Morgan Ames @morgangames back from her fieldwork in South America to contribute a post to March edition of Stories to Action. Morgan gives us an insider’s view of a One Laptop Per Child’s (OLPC) project in Paraguay. Her insights reveal how ethnographic work creates a critical eye to reveal the [...]
↧
ACCESS DENIED: News Round Up In-Brief
U.S. News In a New York Times editorial, Wayne Cornelius argued that no further border enforcement will play a role in deterring potential migrants to the U.S., aiming to nullify claims that “border security” is required prior to immigration reform. An op-ed by Michael Dear addressed the harms to both people and the environment already [...]
↧
Ethno::log: Ethno:Log - Stammtisch
Kommenden Donnerstag (21.3.)
20:00
Schall & Rauch
Ethno::Log-Stammtisch
Getränke frei!
↧
Jason Baird Jackson: 2013 Cultural Heritage Informatics (CHI) Fieldschool
Sharing below information on the 2013 Cultural Heritage Informatics Fieldschool. … The 2013 Cultural Heritage Informatics (CHI) Fieldschool introduces students to the tools and methods required to creatively apply information and computing technologies to cultural heritage materials and questions. The CHl Fieldschool is a unique experience in which students come together for 5 weeks to [...]
↧
↧
hawgblawg: Relative calm هدوء نسبي
This song, the title track to Ziad al Rahbani's 1985 album, Houdou Nisbi (relative calm), speaks to the situation in Lebanon right now. Deadly civil war right next door in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in the country. Sectarian strife threatening to spill across the border into Lebanon. Etc.The album simply brilliant, and it at times reminds me of Serge Gainsbourg. I picked it up at the Virgin Megastore on Hamra St., Beirut, yesterday. And isn't the cover brilliant?
↧
hawgblawg: more kufiyas from Kanye and Hova
I never got around to posting about Jay Z & Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild" video from May 2012.It is full of kufiyas. The video is all street confrontations between police and a mixed-race, all-male bunch who look like (or are made to look like) anarchists. Since it's from corporate rappers, I think it's all about a commercialized exploitation of the energies of Occupy Wall Street and street battles in London. And aestheticizing the hell out of it, while at the same time trying to show just a little bit of sympathy for the rioters who get beat up by the cops. I don't know whether I'll have the energy to spend much more time thinking about it. Here are some kufiya shots. The vid is below.
↧
Language Log: Heterogulation
In a Library and Archives Canada presentation on "Values and Ethics", heterogulation might be a neologism:
But it's probably a typo for "heteroregulation", which is used to label an elaborated form of the same scale on the next slide:
(Note that heteroregulation is not exactly a familiar word — it has yet to have its Word Induction Ceremony at the OED or Merriam-Webster — but it's a more-or-less regular English compounding of morphemes borrowed from Greek and Latin.)
Anyhow, it's interesting that "morale" is presented as more heteroregulative than "morals", which in turn are more heteroregulative than "law".
Also, the column under "morale" seems to reflect an odd interpretation of that word: "authority", "respect for rules", "monitoring", "sanction", … (To paraphrase the old joke, "The monitoring and sanctions will continue until morale improves".) Perhaps because of the attitudes thus revealed, the whole exercise doesn't seem to be working out all that well for LAC, morale-wise.
[h/t Faith Jones]
↧