Stories Turkey

Armenian Bloggers Hail Power Return

  November 30, 2008

While most people know Samantha Power as an Obama adviser who has called Hillary Clinton a “monster,” many genocide awareness and prevention activists consider the Harvard professor a hope they can believe in. The Associated Press has noticed that Power, who officially resigned from Obama’s campaign during the Democratic primaries, is on US President-elect Obama’s transition team. This news has encouraged several Armenian bloggers who now feel assured that the author of “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” (2002) will remind President-elect Barack Obama to keep his promise of officially recognizing the WWI Armenian Genocide committed by Ottoman Turks.

International bloggers weigh in on Powell endorsement

  October 20, 2008

International bloggers have begun registering their feelings and opinions on Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Speaking during a Sunday morning public affairs program, Powell, Secretary of State during President George W. Bush’s first term, called Obama “a transformational figure” who would reach out in a more diverse, inclusive way across the United States.

Global: Scenes from a bailout

  September 22, 2008

In what U.S. Treasury Secretary admitted was a “humbling, humbling time” for the country, Congressional members of America’s two major political parties spent the weekend hammering out a rescue package for the nation’s financial beleaguered system. The plan, if ratified as expected by Congress, calls on the U.S. government to spend up to $700 billion purchasing “troubled mortgage assets of crippled financial firms.”

The World Reacts to Sarah Palin's VP Nomination

  August 29, 2008

Less than twelve hours after Democratic presidential nomination Barack Obama made waves with his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, John McCain made tsunami with his selection of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as running mate. Palin was the youngest person ever, and the first woman to be elected to...

Global: Looking inside the world of Michelle Obama

  August 26, 2008

Before yesterday, here’s a list of things most of us knew about Michelle Obama. But on the first night of Democratic Convention, she spoke to a packed Pepsi Center and helped fill us in on her world and her thinking. One may ask: Why should we focus so much on a candidate’s wife? The answer to that question, in some minds, is easy.

Global: The dust settles on the Biden pick

  August 25, 2008

It’s morning in America. After the initial shock, the dust seems to have settled. The United States -- and the rest of the world -- has come to terms with the fact that presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama has named Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. The Obama-Biden ticket will now face presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and his as-yet-unnamed sidekick to see who will become the next President of the United States. Bloggers of all stripes have moved passed their initial gut reactions on the freshly minted Democratic ticket and have started to formulate more solid opinions based on fact. That’s what covering politics is all about, isn’t it?

Armenia: Oil, Genocide and Obama

  August 8, 2008

Writing for Voices Without Votes in June, Jillian York introduced readers to Facebook's Armenians for Obama and some of what was being said on the social networking site. Since then, however, other Facebook Groups have sprung up which seem to identify a strong backing from Armenians, both inside and outside the republic, for the Democratic candidate in the November 4 U.S. Presidential Election.

What About Obama's Race? The Turkish (and Other) Perception of Obama

  June 16, 2008

On June 6, 2008, Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in which he referred to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as “Turkey's Putin” and a dictator. The piece, re-posted on the Middle East Forum, refers to the...

Turkey, anti-Americanism and Obama

  June 14, 2008

Michael Rubin’s WSJ op-ed on why the US should support the removal of Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan is bothersome. Having followed Turkey for the last two years somewhat closely (I make a conscious effort to listen to Turks in Boston and to look at Turkish newspapers and websites in my...