Author: Taner Selim

If European countries don’t see defeat coming, we can’t turn the wheel to avoid it I left my meeting with a senior French officer feeling that the west is so weak it scarcely exists any more. “The West”, a longtime object of obsession for anti-westerners from Egypt’s President Nasser to Vladimir Putin, has shrivelled to a small rump of countries squabbling with each other. At times they seem willing to let Ukraine lose its war. I share the emotional impulse to keep intoning that Ukraine will win. But Panglossian war propaganda is becoming counterproductive. We need to see a possible…

Brussels (4/11 – 25) It’s an old story, a broken record: war crimes in the Middle East, encouraged and stoked by outsiders with their own agenda. Israel, offended and humiliated by the 7 October attacks (for which they had repeatedly been warned by Egypt. Hamas, encouraged and bankrolled by Israel initially, in its effort to undercut the appeal of Al-Fatah, has turned into Frankenstein’s Monster, breaching a border that was trumpeted as the most invincible in the world, with 24/7 surveillance, sensors to detect tunnels, full camera coverage and on and on – yet several thousand Hamas warriors parachuted in…

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the lethal shooting of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer in Athens in December 2008. Over 9,000 people took to the streets across Greece to pay tribute to the killed teenager and protest instances of police brutality. The massive turnout proves that the shocking killing remains etched in the psyche of many Greeks, particularly the country’s “millennials” who were of a similar age as Grigoropoulos when he was murdered. However, there is another legacy of that fateful December. Across Greece, a wave of rage and violence was unleashed, primarily by young people,…

London (06/11 – 58) France and the United Kingdom (UK) have jointly made a request in favour of Sri Lanka to the court of the Southern District of New York, for a six-month freeze on any litigation in the Hamilton Reserve Bank case until Sri Lanka’s external debt restructuring is completed, the Financial Times reported. Accordingly, last week the two countries filed a joint “amicus curiae” to the New York judge hearing the case, arguing in favour of Sri Lanka’s request for a six-month freeze on any litigation. The co-signatories in their “amicus curiae” want the judge to grant Sri…

The impact of the conflict in the Middle East on Greek tourism will be limited, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday. Mitsotakis predicted that, just as the war in Ukraine had has a limited impact on Greece’s tourism sector, which had no problem handling the loss of visitors from Russia, the same will be true for the war in the Middle East. “Greek tourism proved to be exceptionally resilient. I must say that after the pandemic, what we saw as a global trend and I think will continue is people’s need to travel more. And in choosing between spending…

The cost of keeping a pet in Greece has increased to unbearable levels for some animal lovers with the result that some owners are unable to meet the cost for food and visits to the vet. They often seek a new loving home for their 4-legged pal or they dump them on the streets. Pet food increases are up by 40% compared to 2021, while charges at the vet increased by 15%. Speaking to daily ethnos.gr, pet owners said that they ask animal welfare organizations to find another home for their beloved pet, while some do not hesitate to abandon…

The opening of the ‘Ata Training Center’, which was implemented by Mersin Metropolitan Municipality in a first to strengthen the fire brigade, was held. To the opening; Metropolitan Mayor Vahap Seçer, Republican People’s Party (CHP) Mersin Provincial Chairman Koral Ömür, CHP Youth Branch Deputy Chairman İzzet Kırılmaz, CHP Mersin Provincial Women’s Branch Chairman Gülşah Yıldırım Genç, former CHP Mersin Deputy Cengiz Gökçel, CHP district heads, Mersin Metropolitan Municipality and MESKİ bureaucrats and department heads, representatives of political parties, NGOs and headmen, fearless heroes of the Metropolitan Municipality and many citizens attended. ‘Ata Training Center’, where fire brigade personnel will be…

Frankfurt, Atlanta (23/11 – 10) Potatoes are a serious matter. The lowly potato does in fact have a lengthy and exotic history, being grown as a food crop, or domesticated, around the border of Peru and Bolivia over 7000 years ago. Maybe you just purchased some of those 7500-year-old taters and wondered why they taste funny. The potato was brought to Europe in the 16th Century, following other such appealing imports as bananas, cacao, tomatoes, maize, corn and squash. Ask an average European and he or she would likely claim these as native to their country. A wholesome tuber rich in…

Turkey’s central bank on Thursday surprised the market with a larger-than-expected interest hike as it ramped up its fight against inflation and efforts to support the slumping lira, Agence France-Presse reported. The bank lifted its policy rate by 5.0 percentage points to 40 percent on the sixth month of a belt-tightening cycle that has more than quadrupled borrowing costs. Most analysts had expected the bank to raise its rate by 2.5 percentage points. “Really impressive move by the (central bank) … getting well ahead of expectations,” emerging markets economist Timothy Ash remarked in an emailed note. But the bank also…

NASA announced Wednesday that it will send two scientific spacecraft to Mars aboard Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin rocket in August 2024. Musk’s SpaceX company was initially set to carry the NASA payload on a Falcon Heavy rocket in October of this year, alongside NASA’s Psyche mission, which was bound for an asteroid. However, the space agency pulled the additional crafts from the launch because the Falcon Heavy would not put them on the proper trajectory to insert them into Mars’ orbit. Last week SpaceX’s next-generation Starship Rocket the largest ever built launched on its second-ever test flight but the vehicle…