Movement toward peace in the Middle East is at a critical juncture. The seeming intent of the Obama Administration to reinvigorate negotiations with new focus, energy, and players may well be undercut by continued Hamas-inspired missile attacks on Israel from Gaza, by Jewish settler extremism that magnifies the usual vagaries of Israeli election politics, and [...]
“we offer hospitality and accept with infinite love and sympathy the others that come here, the foreigners…. but they had better not interfere with our domestic issues”. This comment was made by the MP presiding the Greek parliament on Friday the 12th of December; on the day that a much contested bill article for the [...]
The riots, which shook Athens and a number of other Greek cities last week, understandably attracted considerable attention by Turkish media. Detailed reports appeared on several newspapers, and columnists attempted to explain the events and link them to developments in Turkey. In the past, Turkish media interest in such news originating from Greece would have [...]
As the child of Greeks who migrated to Australia in the 1950s, I grew up knowing I am Australian. It was something that I acknowledged, accepted and in fact took for granted at some very deep level. Citizenship was crucial to shaping my identity, connecting me at the local/community level, the social level, the institutional [...]
Pirates, terrorists, distributors of weapons of mass destruction, tyrants who engage in genocide — all are certainly what Elizabethan English jurist Edward Coke, echoing Cicero’s ringing phrase hostis humani generis, would call “enemies of the human race.” For over 2,000 years, piracy has been recognized as a crime against civilization and thus pirates could be [...]
Much has been made in the media about President-elect Barack Obama’s cabinet nominees as a “team of rivals,” echoing Doris Kearns Goodwin’s excellent study of how Abraham Lincoln co-opted his opponents for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination. A facile characterization, it allows sharp comparisons with the major Bush appointments, which reflected above all a premium [...]
Illegal immigration is not only a US concern. In the first 9 months of 2008, the number of illegals landing on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a short but dangerous 65-mile Mediterranean Sea crossing from Libya, doubled over the 2007 totals. This has swamped its facilities but also raised both humanitarian and political concerns in [...]
The election of Obama to the US presidency may well mean a shift of USpolicy in Iraq in the near future. This will inevitably involve Iraqi Kurdsand Turkey. Finding common ground with Iraqi Kurds in the framework of apost-conflict Iraq solution will be a golden opportunity for Turkey toundercut the lifeline of the PKK. To [...]
