The Professor gives his take on a few international stories he thinks are of much greater significance this week than the droll domestic political drivel that is forced upon the American public on a daily basis. This week:
...floods in southern Pakistan, along with increased terror attacks
...flaring tensions on the Kosovo-Serbian border
...the big UN meeting meeting next week, wherein Palestinian sovereignty is a big issue
...Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s increasing influence in the world….
and how Recep and Obama are likely to have a pow-wow on the sidelines of the imminent UN meeting!
Military titillation in Turkey? All of the top generals in charge of all the major military divisions, including the Chief of Staff in charge of them all, just quit their jobs last Friday in a sign of protest against investigative actions of the government. Is the country on the brink of collapse or a coup or civil war? Not at all! Quite the contrary! What is happening right now in Turkey is the product of a decades long-transition to a full-on western style democracy, that at the same time is possibly problematic for them to maintain their secular state. In this spiel, the Professor explains just a bit of background into this Turkish situation, what is means for now, and for the future of Turkey, NATO, and the wider world.
The Professor gives a quick update on news stories in the past week that have interested him..
Turkey accepting Syrians refugees…
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan winning another term…he’s the man!...
The big SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) meeting and its impacts…
And please, please, please, if you don’t know what the SCO is all about, please watch this vid and get schooled: SCO Video
...and pass it on to others too! World citizens got to know this stuff! Be globally literate!
Synopsis: On April 12th and 13th, US President Barack Obama hosted the first-ever ‘Nuclear Security Summit’ which was attended by leaders from 47 states plus a handful of international organizations. This summit mostly focused on getting a handle on loose nuclear material around the world in order to eliminate the threat of possible ‘nuclear terrorism.’ However, in the bigger picture this move is just a warm-up to a revamping of the all important NPT, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is coming up soon. In Part 2 of this plaidcast, the Avenger does a roll call of important cats at the convention (as well as those not invited), and what the hell they actually agreed on to limit those loose nukes.
Keywords: US, Obama, Russia, Medvedev, Sarkozy, Hu, Gordon Brown, P5, P5 +1, Merkel, Germany, Singh, India, Netanyahu, Israel, Calderon, Lula, Harper, Kirchner, Zuma, Erdogan, Yakunovich, Hatoyama, Lee Myung-Bak, Ban Ki Moon, UN, Yukio Amano, IAEA, Iran, North Korea
Synopsis: A US House subcommittee narrowly passed a resolution (23 yay to 22 nay) to recognize something called the Armenian Genocide of 1915. This has infuriated Turkey, a strong US and NATO ally, and caused them to recall their ambassador. Say what? Why would a 95 year old historic event still cause such Turkish tantrums in today’s world…and why the hell would the US Congress be voting on it anyway? The Avenger details the event itself, the Turkish vs Armenian angles on it, and how this vote is impacting current (and even future) events between the Turks and the Americans.
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