NEWS,01.06.2013

Turkey Protests: Erdogan Calls For Immediate End To Demonstrations As Clashes Flare

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan made a defiant call for an end to the fiercest anti-government demonstrations in years on Saturday, as thousands of protesters clashed with riot police in Istanbul and Ankara for a second day.

The unrest was triggered by government plans for a replica Ottoman-era barracks housing shops or apartments in Istanbul's Taksim Square, long a venue for political protest, but has widened into a broader show of defiance against Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Police fired teargas and water cannon down a major shopping street as crowds of protesters chanting "shoulder to shoulder against fascism" and "government resign" marched towards Taksim, where hundreds were injured in clashes on Friday.

A police helicopter buzzed overhead as groups of mostly young men and women, bandanas or surgical masks tied around their mouths, used Facebook and Twitter on mobile phones to try to organise and regroup in side streets.

"If this is about holding meetings, if this is a social movement, where they gather 20, I will get up and gather 200,000 people. Where they gather 100,000, I will bring together one million from my party," Erdogan said in a televised speech.

"Every four years we hold elections and this nation makes its choice ... Those who have a problem with government's policies can express their opinions within the framework of law and democracy," he said.

Police later pulled back from Gezi Park in Taksim, where the demonstration started peacefully on Monday with people pitching tents in protest at trees being torn up for the redevelopment.

Waiters scurried out of luxury hotels lining the square, on what should be a busy weekend for tourists in one of the world's most visited cities, ferrying lemons to protesters, who squirted the juice in their eyes to mitigate the effects of tear gas.

"People from different backgrounds are coming together. This has become a protest against the government, against Erdogan taking decisions like a king," said Oral Goktas, a 31-year old architect among a peaceful crowd walking towards Taksim.


MODERN-DAY SULTAN

Stone-throwing protesters also clashed with police in the Kizilay district of central Ankara as a helicopter fired tear gas into the crowds. Riot police with electric shock batons chased demonstrators into side streets and shops.

Protests also broke out in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir late on Friday.

Erdogan said the redevelopment of Gezi Park was being used as an excuse for the unrest and warned the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which had been given permission to hold a rally in Istanbul, against stoking tensions.

But the protests included a broad spectrum of people opposed to Erdogan and were not organised by any political party.

CHP officials called on its members not to take party flags with them to the protests, apparently concerned they would be held responsible for the violence, and party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu accused Erdogan of behaving like a dictator.

"Tens of thousands are saying no, they are opposing the dictator ... The fact that you are the ruling party doesn't mean you can do whatever you want," he said.

Erdogan has overseen a transformation in Turkey during his decade in power, turning its once crisis-prone economy into the fastest-growing in Europe.

He remains by far the country's most popular politician, but critics point to what they see as his authoritarianism and the religiously conservative government's meddling in private life in the secular republic, accusing him of behaving like a modern-day sultan.

Tighter restrictions on alcohol sales and warnings against public displays of affection in recent weeks have also led to protests. Concern that government policy is allowing Turkey to be dragged into the conflict in neighbouring Syria by the West has also sparked peaceful demonstrations.


REASONABLE FORCE

Residents hung out of windows and balconies banging pots and pans in support of the protesters in the streets below.

Medics said around 1,000 people had been injured in the clashes in Istanbul. At least four lost their eyesight after being hit by gas canisters, while four more were being treated for fractured skulls, the Turkish Doctors' Association said.

The U.S. State Department said it was concerned by the number of injuries while Amnesty International and the European parliament raised concern about excessive use of police force.

Erdogan acknowledged mistakes had been made in the use of tear gas and said the government was investigating, but said the police reserved the right to use reasonable force and vowed that the redevelopment plans for Taksim would go ahead.

"Taksim Square can't be a place where extremist groups hang around," Erdogan said of a location which has long been a venue for mass demonstrations.

First-Ever Study of Global Economic Inequality: Richest 8% Earn 50% of Earth's Incomes

The lead research economist at the World Bank, Branko Milanovic, will be reporting soon, in the journal Global Policy, the first calculation of global income-inequality, and he has found that the top 8% of global earners are drawing 50% of all of this planet's income. He notes: "Global inequality is much greater than inequality within any individual country," because the stark inequality between countries adds to the inequality within any one of them, and because most people live in extremely poor countries, largely the nations within three thousand miles of the Equator, where it's already too hot, even without the global warming that scientists say will heat the world much more from now on.
For example, the World Bank's list of "GDP per capita (current US$)" shows that in 2011 this annual-income figure ranged from $231 in Democratic Republic of Congo at the Equator, to $171,465 in Monaco within Europe. The second-poorest and second-richest countries respectively were $271 in Burundi at the Equator, and $114,232 in Luxembourg within Europe. For comparisons, the U.S. was $48,112, and China was $5,445. Those few examples indicate how widely per-capita income ranges between nations, and how more heat means more poverty.
Wealth-inequality is always far higher than income-inequality, and therefore a reasonable estimate of personal wealth throughout the world would probably be somewhere on the order of the wealthiest 1% of people owning roughly half of all personal assets. These individuals might be considered the current aristocracy, insofar as their economic clout is about equal to that of all of the remaining 99% of the world's population.
Milanovich says: "Among the global top 1 per cent, we find the richest 12 per cent of Americans, ... and between 3 and 6 per cent of the richest Britons, Japanese, Germans and French. It is a 'club' that is still overwhelmingly composed of the 'old rich'," who pass on to their children (tax-free in the many countries that have no estate-taxes) the fortunes that they have accumulated, and who help set them up in businesses of their own - often after having sent them first to the most prestigious universities (many in the United States), where those children meet and make friends of others who are similarly situated as themselves.
For example, on 22 April 2004, The New York Times headlined "As Wealthy Fill Top Colleges, Concerns Grow Over Fairness," and reported that 55% of freshman students at the nation's 250 most selective colleges and universities came from parents in the top 25% of this nation's income. Only 12% of students had parents in the bottom 25% of income. Even at an elite public, state, college, the University of Michigan, "more members of this year's freshman class ... have parents making at least $200,000 a year [then America's top 2%] than have parents making less than the national median of about $53,000 [America's bottom 50%].'"
Most of the redistribution that favors more than just the top 1% has occurred in the "developing" countries, such as China. However, a larger proportion of the world's population live in nations of Central and South America, Africa, etc., where today's leading families tend overwhelmingly to be the same as in the previous generation. They, too, near the Equator, are members of the "club," but there are fewer of them.
Milanovic finds that globally, "The top 1 per cent has seen its real income rise by more than 60 per cent over those two decades [1988-2008]," while "the poorest 5 per cent" have received incomes which "have remained the same" - the desperately poor are simply remaining desperately poor. Maybe there's too much heat where they live.
This study, in Global Policy, to be titled "Global Income Inequality in Numbers: In History and Now," reports that economic developments of the past twenty years have caused "the top 1 per cent to pull ahead of the other rich and to reaffirm in fact - and even more so in public perception - its preponderant role as a winner of globalization."

Europe: A Leaning Tower of Babel

The eurozone today has become a leaning Tower of Babel. The sovereign debt crisis and the high social costs of austerity have severely weakened its foundation. Whether this tottering edifice designed to thread diversity through the needle eye of a single currency finally collapses and falls, or is able to right itself, will depend on re-founding a European narrative for the 21st century.
The project of European unity was born out of the fear of war, which devastated the continent twice in the 20th century, and the promise of prosperity. Precisely because of the last few decades of step-by-step integration, war is no longer a danger -- and thus has lost its force as the compelling raison d'etre of unity. On the other hand, if, as the current situation suggests, integration means more pain than gain, the "lost generation" of youth facing a jobless future can be forgiven for asking, "why Europe?"
At the recent town hall meeting organized in Paris by the Berggruen Institute, French President Francois Hollande called for a "new narrative" for Europe that would appeal to the "post-crisis" generation of today as the "post-war" narrative appealed to the generation that founded the European Union. Jacques Attali, the former top aide to Francois Mitterrand and mentor to Hollande, told the students of Sciences Po, where the town hall meeting was held: "Young people today are faced with three options if the current eurocrisis is not resolved -- leaving Europe, staying in Europe without hope or going into politics and starting a revolution."
As Attali's comment suggests, the despair of youth today is destroying their faith in the promise of Europe, as we see with the success of the left-populist blogger-comedian Beppe Grillo in Italy. Right-wing movements across Europe from the True Finns to the neo-fascist Golden Dawn in Greece yearn for the days before globalization, Muslim immigration, gay marriage and the Growth and Stability Pact.
The great danger is that the despair and alienation over the failure of Europe to deliver a future for its next generation will conjoin with the backward-looking, reactionary right in one great anti-European eruption. That would finally bring the historical project of European integration crashing to the ground.
In this context, pro-Europeans need to heed a truth of the human condition that Charles de Gaulle fully understood: Identity is rooted in the nation that is, belonging to a unique way of life; what Johann Gottfried Herder called "volksgeist." Papering over this truth with a currency managed (or mismanaged) by distant bureaucrats with functional acronyms in Brussels only suppressed this reality, not diminished it.
Unless de Gaulle's "certain idea of France" and its equivalent in other nations is replaced with an "a certain idea of Europe," the whole thing will shatter into shards of a once-vibrant dream.
The challenge for pro-Europeans is not to dismiss national sentiment, but seek to forge a common identity that leaves plenty of room for diversity while delivering opportunity and security through a strong but limited European government.
At the Berggruen Institute meeting in Paris, students from Sciences Po, the London School of Economics and the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin proposed a narrative for their post-crisis generation founded in "freedom and solidarity." The European identity for their generation, they argued, would be bound up with the founding idea of European civilization -- the universality of reason and the free individual combined with a social model that doesn't let fellow citizens fall into the cracks as Europe faces the competitive winds of globalization.
It remains to be seen if such a narrative is convincing. Many fear that the 2014 European Parliament elections will become a platform that will give full voice to the nationalist and populist anti-European backlash. Perhaps such an eventuality ought to be welcomed, not feared, because it would force a strong redefinition of the pro-European identity in the face of an existential challenge.
When al-Qaeda took down the Twin Towers in New York in 2001, Samuel Huntington, the Harvard theorist who wrote "The Clash of Civilizations," argued that the attacks had "given back to the West its common identity." The same dynamic will take place if the European idea is thoroughly challenged in 2014.
Whether or not "a certain idea of Europe" triumphs, however, will be determined by how quickly and effectively the present European leaders and institutions stem the current crisis. The announcement in Paris of a concerted "offensive" against youth unemployment by the French, German, Spanish and Italian governments is a propitious start.
What matters now is whether they will deliver hope through concrete action instead of more empty promises between now and the 2014 election. The fate of Europe is in their hands.

 

Facing the Climate Crisis

On May 9th, NOAA reported a significant milestone: CO2 emissions had crossed 400 parts per million (ppm), a level not seen for three million years. Although this figure has since been revised to 399.89 ppm, even this lower number paints a grim picture. Heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase 50 percent by 2050, primarily due to a 70 percent growth in energy-related CO2 emissions. Average global temperature is expected to rise by 3-6 °C by the end of the century, exceeding the internationally agreed upon goal of limiting it to 2 °C above preindustrial levels. The Global Warming Potential of methane, the second most prevalent greenhouse gas after CO2, is expected to be more than 50 times greater than that of carbon dioxide over the next 20 years. The primary source of methane is industrial animal agriculture, which supports global meat consumption. Meat production has tripled during the last 40 years, up by 20 percent in the last decade alone.
Scientists warn that if current patterns of energy use continue, planetary biophysical systems could be destabilized, triggering "abrupt or irreversible environmental changes that would be deleterious or even catastrophic for human well-being." Yet even as the climate crisis intensifies, minimal efforts to address climate change through the Kyoto Protocol the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have been derailed by international economic competition. The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 failed to extract a binding agreement to limit emissions of greenhouse gases from even a single country. The 117 countries that endorsed the target of 350 ppm were the poorest and most vulnerable countries, not rapidly industrializing countries like India and China or the "rich, powerful, and deeply fossil-fuel addicted" countries of the Global North. Developing countries want these industrial juggernauts to take the lead in sharply reducing emissions. Conversely, fearing the erosion of their competitive advantage, developed countries are retreating from earlier targets and obligations. The United States has never been a member to the Kyoto Protocol. Canada, Japan, and Russia will not take part in the second commitment period of the Protocol starting in 2013. Australia and New Zealand also remain uncommitted.
About 80 percent of the world's environmental damage is attributed to the wealthiest 20 percent of the world's population the "overconsumers" of the industrialized North, whose lives are "organized around [individually owned] cars, meat-based diets, use of packaged and disposable products." At the bottom is the poorest 20 percent, who live predominantly in the Global South in "absolute deprivation," travelling mostly by foot, eating nutritionally poor diets, drinking contaminated water, using local biomass, and producing negligible wastes. The overconsumption of the top rung and the under consumption of the bottom are both unsustainable. The middle rung, the 60 percent also living mostly in the Global South -- who travel mostly by bicycle and public surface transportation, eat healthy diets of grains, vegetables and some meat, use unpackaged goods, and recycle wastes -- represent a balanced middle that should become the global norm. Unfortunately, however, more and more countries are adopting the Western model of development and its accordant hyperconsumerism.
Renewable, clean sources of energy and solar, wind, and biomass technologies must become the means for economic growth. The average person in the developed world must "cut meat consumption in half by the year 2050" to meet the emissions reduction targets set by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Political will is necessary to effect such sweeping changes in production and consumption. However, as Dr. James Hansen, the NASA scientist who is leading the effort to reverse climate change states, "greenwash" is a "near universal response of politicians to the climate change issue." As he goes on to point out, energy lobbyists in Washington receive handsome payouts from energy companies.
At the crux of the problem is the dualism of self and other. Ultimately, all of us, self-absorbed individuals pursuing narrow self-interest over environmental sustainability and human well-being are accountable for the climate crisis to varying degrees. If we are seriously concerned about planetary survival, and thus human survival, we need to reflect more deeply on our uncritical internalization of dominant values and worldview.
Although current environmental and social collapse are attributable largely to the excesses of modern technology and economic growth, the roots of these crises go all the way back to the pre-capitalist era and the psychological and social evolution of hierarchy and domination. Over the course of history, a way of viewing reality and guiding social action defined by human domination of nature and each other has intensified; in fact, it is now being realized on a global scale. Sustainability and well-being require a shift from the prevailing system of domination and extremism to a global consciousness and a socioeconomic system based on interdependence and partnership. Adoption of appropriate technology, rational allocation of resources, and balanced and equitable consumption require a partnership ethic based on cultivating the values of moderation, tolerance, nonviolence, and compassion.

NEWS,11.05.2013

Turkey car blast death toll rises to 43

The death toll of twin car bombs in a Turkish town near the Syrian border rose to 43 and wounded many more on Saturday and the government said it suspected Syrian involvement.

The bombing increased fears that Syria's civil war was dragging in neighbouring states despite renewed diplomatic moves towards ending two years of fighting in which more than 70 000 people have been killed.

The bombs ripped into crowded streets near Reyhanli's shopping district in the early afternoon, scattering concrete blocks and smashing cars in the town in Turkey's southern Hatay province, home to thousands of Syrian refugees.

Restaurants and cafes were destroyed and body parts were strewn across the streets. The damage went at least three blocks deep from the site of the blasts.

President Bashar Assad's administration was the "usual suspect" in the attacks, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said.

"We know that the people taking refuge in Hatay have become targets for the Syrian regime," Arinc said in comments broadcast on Turkish television. "We think of them as the usual suspects when it comes to planning such a horrific attack."

Condemned

Another deputy prime minister, Besir Atalay, was quoted by NTV as saying initial findings suggested the attackers came from inside Turkey, but had links to Syria's intelligence agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Nor was there any comment from Damascus.

The United States strongly condemned the attacks and vowed support in identifying those responsible, while Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius voiced "full solidarity" with Turkey.

Nato member Turkey supports the uprising against Assad and violence has crossed the border before, but not on the same scale. The bombings were the bloodiest incident on Turkish soil since Syria's conflict began more than two years ago.

War fears

Turkey is far from alone in fearing the impact of Syria's war, which is already helping inflame the Middle East's tangle of sectarian, religious and nationalist struggles.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was no coincidence the bombings came as diplomatic moves to end the Syrian conflict intensify.

"There may be those who want to sabotage Turkey's peace, but we will not allow that," Davutoglu told reporters during a trip to Berlin. "No one should attempt to test Turkey's power."

Prospects appeared to improve this week for diplomacy to try to end the civil war, now in its third year, after Moscow and Washington announced a joint effort to bring government and rebels to an international conference.

But a Russian official said on Saturday that there was already disagreement over who would take part and he doubted whether a meeting could happen this month.

As well as disputes over who would represent the rebels and government at any talks, there have also been questions over possible participation by Assad's Shi'ite ally Iran. The rebels are backed by the largely Sunni Gulf states.

Diplomats in New York said the Syria meeting would likely slip into June and it was unclear who would participate.
Death toll may rise

In Reyhanli, smoke poured from charred ruins after the blasts outside administrative buildings.

"My children were so scared because it reminded them of the bombings when we were in Aleppo. God help us," said one refugee from the northern Syrian city, a mother of three who gave her name as Kolsum.

Atalay said 43 people had been killed, while Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned the toll could rise. Officials said more than 100 people were injured, many of them critically.

Erdogan said the bombings might have been related to Turkey's own peace process with Kurdish militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who began a withdrawal this week to end a three decade conflict.

Syrian refugees

But the PKK's main area of operation was hundreds of kilometres further east and Erdogan said the blasts could also have been aimed at provoking sensitivities in a region that is home to so many Syrian refugees.

Turkey is sheltering more than 300 000 Syrians, most of them in camps along the 900km frontier, and is struggling to keep up with the influx.

Protests erupted in Reyhanli after the blasts, with some locals blaming Syrian there for bringing violence over the frontier and smashing their car windows, while others railed against Turkey's foreign policy, chanting for Erdogan to resign.

The main opposition Syrian National Coalition said the attacks were a failed attempt to "destroy the brotherhood" between Syrians and Turks and were intended as a punishment for Turkey's support of the uprising.

Erdogan said this week Turkey would support a US-enforced no-fly zone in Syria and warned that Damascus crossed President Barack Obama's "red line" on chemical weapons use long ago.

A no-fly zone to prohibit Syrian military aircraft from hitting rebel targets has been mentioned by American lawmakers as one option the United States could use to pressure Assad.

Erdogan is due to meet Obama in Washington on May 16.

Violence also crossed the border in February, when a minibus blew up at a border crossing near Reyhanli, killing 14 people.

The Syrian opposition said one of its delegations appeared to have been the target of that attack, but there has been no confirmation of this from the Turkish authorities.

In October, five Turkish civilians were killed in Akcakale when a mortar bomb fired from Syria landed on their house, prompting Turkey to fire back across the frontier.

Sharif claims victory in Pakistan vote

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif late on Saturday declared victory for his centre-right opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) party and invited other parties to work with him.

"We should thank Allah that he has given PML-N another chance to serve you and Pakistan," he said in a speech to jubilant supporters, who shouted "prime minister Nawaz Sharif" in his powerbase Lahore.

"Whatever promises we made with our youth, I assure you that we fulfil each of them. Results are still coming but there is a confirmation that PML-N will emerge as the largest party," Sharif said.

According to the unofficial, partial results it appeared that no single party would win a simple majority of 172 seats in the national assembly, raising the prospect of protracted talks to form a coalition government.

"I appeal for all parties to come to the table and sit with me and solve the country's problems," Sharif said.

"I'm doing this only because of you. If it had been only myself, I would not talk to them but it's for you and for the survival of your future generations," he added.

Iran ex-leader Rafsanjani to stand again

Iran's moderate conservative former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Saturday registered his candidacy to stand for the office again in the election on 14 June, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

Rafsanjani, who will be 79 in August, filed his papers at the interior ministry during the final minutes of the five-day registration process which wrapped up on Saturday.

"I came to serve. It is the right of the people to choose me or not," Iranian media quoted him as saying.

Rafsanjani has been isolated since the 2009 presidential election, which saw massive street protests against the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He then called for the release of people rounded up during the demonstrations.

Rafsanjani, president between 1989 and 1997, currently chairs the Expediency Council, the highest political arbitration body, whose members are appointed by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Heavyweight

Also on Saturday, Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator and close figure to all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, unexpectedly showed up at the ministry and registered his candidacy.

A veteran of the 1980s war with Iraq in which he lost his lower right leg, Jalili, 47, did not speak to reporters, an AFP correspondent said.

Jalili heads the team in negotiations with world powers over Tehran's controversial atomic activities which the West fears are aimed at developing a military capacity, a claim denied by Iran.

According to the interior ministry, more than 450 people have registered, including 14 women. Approved candidates will have three weeks to campaign before polling day on 14 June.

Milan: Man kills 1 in pickaxe rampage

An immigrant from Ghana went on a rampage with a pickaxe in Milan at dawn on Saturday, killing a passerby and wounding four others in an apparently random attack, police said.

Carabinieri paramilitary police in Milan said the 21-year-old attacker was taken into custody shortly after the attacks in a residential area on the northern outskirts of the city.

People working in cafes and other businesses near the attack told Sky TG24 TV that the man wildly swung a pickaxe, running down streets and ferociously striking passersby, mainly on the head. Pools of blood stained the streets.

A 40-year-old man died after being struck on the head with the pickaxe and suffering further blows to the abdomen while he lay on the ground, police said. The victim was described as an unemployed man who was heading to a cafe near his home.

Among those wounded was a man in his 20s who was helping his father deliver newspapers to newsstands; another was a man walking his dog.

Motive

At first it appeared five people had been wounded, but police later said the sixth person the attacker swung at darted into a doorway in the nick of time and escaped injury.

Two of the wounded were in critical condition.

Police said the motive was unclear.

"Police blocked him with difficulty. He was in an evident state of marked psychological stress," Colonel Biagio Storniolo told reporters. Asked about the motive, Storniolo said the suspect "was not being co-operative. He says only that he is hungry and has no home".

The man, identified as Mada Kabobo, 21, was jailed while he is investigated for murder and two counts of attempted murder for the two persons who were most critically wounded, police said.

Previous arrest

First media reports said the man had ignored a 2011 expulsion order because he was not legally in the country, but police later clarified that the expulsion papers had not yet been issued because legal proceedings in southern Italy were pending.

Police said they identified the suspect, who had no documents on him, from fingerprints.

Police said he was in the country illegally, and had previously been arrested in the Puglia region for alleged, theft, robbery, property damage and resisting public authorities.

Milan Mayor Giuliano Pisapia said the entire city was shocked that a man would go on such a rampage, "killing one and wounding several, even gravely, just because he ran into them on his path".

Cleveland women face long road to healing

Year after year, the clock ticked by and the calendar marched forward, carrying the three women further from the real world and pulling them deeper into an isolated nightmare.

Now, for the women freed from captivity inside a Cleveland house, the ordeal is not over. Next comes recovery - from sexual abuse and their sudden, jarring re-entry into a world much different from the one they were snatched from a decade ago.

Therapists say that with extensive treatment and support, healing is likely for the women, who were 14, 16 and 21 when they were abducted. But it is often a long and difficult process.

"It's sort of like coming out of a coma," says Dr Barbara Greenberg, a psychologist who specialises in treating abused teenagers. "It's a very isolating and bewildering experience."

In the world the women left behind, a gallon of gas cost about $1.80. Barack Obama was a state senator. Phones were barely taking pictures. Things did not "go viral". There was no YouTube, no Facebook, no iPhone.

Adolescence taken

Emerging into the future is difficult enough. The two younger Cleveland women are doing it without the benefit of crucial formative years.

"By taking away their adolescence, they weren't able to develop emotional and psychological and social skills," says Duane Bowers, who counsels traumatised families through the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

"They're 10 years behind in these skills. Those need to be caught up before they can work on reintegrating into society," he says.

That society can be terrifying. As freed captive Georgina DeJesus arrived home from the hospital, watched by a media horde, she hid herself beneath a hooded sweatshirt. The freed Amanda Berry slipped into her home without being seen.

"They weren't hiding from the press, from the cameras," Bowers says. "They were hiding from the freedom, from the expansiveness."

Control

In the house owned by Ariel Castro, who is charged with kidnapping and raping the women, claustrophobic control ruled.

Police say Castro kept them chained in a basement and locked in upstairs rooms, that he fathered a child with one of them, and that he starved and beat his captives into multiple miscarriages.

In all those years, they only set foot outside of the house twice - and then only as far as the garage.

"Something as simple as walking into a Target is going to be a major problem for them," Bowers says.

Jessica Donohue-Dioh, who works with survivors of human trafficking as a social work instructor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, says the freedom to make decisions can be one of the hardest parts of recovery.

"'How should I respond? What do they really want from me?'" Donohue-Dioh says, describing a typical reaction. "They may feel they may not have a choice in giving the right answer."

Kidnap survivors

That has been a challenge for Jaycee Dugard, who is now an advocate for trauma victims after surviving 18 years in captivity - "learning how to speak up, how to say what I want instead of finding out what everybody else wants," Dugard told ABC News.

Like Berry, Dugard was impregnated by her captor and is now raising the two children. She still feels anger about her ordeal.

"But then on the other hand, I have two beautiful daughters that I can never be sorry about," Dugard says.

Another step toward normalcy for the three women will be accepting something that seems obvious to the rest of the world: They have no reason to feel guilty.

"First of all, I'd make sure these young women know that nothing that happened to them is their fault," Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at age 14 and held in sexual captivity for nine months, told People magazine.

Guilt
Donohue-Dioh says that even for people victimised by monstrous criminals, guilt is a common reaction. The Cleveland women told police they were snatched after accepting rides from Castro.

"They need to recognise that what happened as a result of that choice is not the rightful or due punishment. That's really difficult sometimes," Donohue-Dioh says.
Family support will be crucial, the therapists say. But what does family mean when one member has spent a decade trapped with strangers?

"The family has to be ready to include a stranger into its sphere," Bowers says. "Because if they try to reintegrate the 14-year-old girl who went missing, that's not going to work. That 14-year-old girl doesn't exist anymore. They have to accept this stranger as someone they don't know."

Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped in Austria at age 10 and spent eight years in captivity, has said that her 2006 reunion with her family was both euphoric and awkward.

"I had lived for too long in a nightmare, the psychological prison was still there and stood between me and my family," Kampusch wrote in 3096 Days, her account of the ordeal.

Kampusch, now 25, said in a German television interview that she was struggling to form normal relationships, partly because many people seem to shy away from her.

"What a lot of these people say is, what's more important than what happened is how people react," says Greenberg, the psychologist.

Sympathy, support

The world has reacted to the Cleveland women with an outpouring of sympathy and support. This reaction will live on, amplified by the technologies that rose while the women were locked away.

Yet these women are more than the sum of their Wikipedia pages. Dugard, Smart and other survivors often speak of not being defined by their tragedies - another challenge for the Cleveland survivors.

"A classmate will hear their name, or a co-worker, and will put them in this box: This is who you are and what happened to you," Donohue-Dioh says. "Our job as society is to move beyond what they are and what they've experienced."

"This isn't who they are," Dugard told People. "It is only what happened to them."

Still, for the three Cleveland women, their journey forward will always include that horrifying lost decade.

"We can't escape our past," Donohue-Dioh says, "so how are we able to manage how much it influences our present and our future?"

NEWS,02.04.2012.

Attack On Iran Would Be 'Disastrous' For Middle East, Turkish Prime Minister Warns

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned over the weekend that an Israeli strike on Iran would have "disastrous" consequences for the Middle East, likely sparking a regional war, Turkish newspapers reported on Sunday. Turkey is a major U.S. ally in the region and Erdogan indicated that he had expressed his concerns to President Barack Obama.Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Erdogan was quoted by the Turkish daily Hurriyet as warning against the "disastrous" outcome of a possible Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, saying: "The entire region would be devastated if Israel strikes Iran."Erdogan also criticized the international community for keeping mum on Israel's alleged nuclear weapons, while threatening Iran over what he said was a peaceful nuclear program."Israel has between 250 to 300 nuclear warheads. Nobody is discussing that," Erdogan said, adding: "Iran says they would not produce nuclear weapons. They are saying that they would produce a specific amount of enriched uranium rods and stop after that."Turkey is set to host a new round of diplomatic talks between Iran and a group of world powers -- the U.S., France, Britain, China, Russia, and Germany -- beginning on April 13.On Monday, Russia's foreign minister also strongly warned against a military attack on Iran, saying that a pre-emptive strike would violate international law. Sergey Lavrov said on a visit to Armenia that an attack on Iran would destabilize the region.Israel and the U.S. have warned that all options remain open, including military action, to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.Iran insists its uranium enrichment program is aimed at civilian power generation and research, but Israel and Western nations believe it is a cover for a nuclear weapons bid.Russia, which built Iran's first nuclear power plant, backed some of the previous U.N. sanctions against Tehran, but in recent months has firmly rejected imposing new sanctions and called for dialogue.An end to a nearly decade-long nuclear standoff between Iran and major world powers will be possible if the United States and its European allies recognize Tehran's right to enrich uranium, a former Iranian negotiator said in an editorial. "Talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1), scheduled for next month, provide the best opportunity to break the nine-year deadlock over Iran's nuclear program," Hossein Mousavian, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator, wrote in an editorial in the Boston Globe. Mousavian, now a visiting scholar at Princeton University in New Jersey, had been seen as a moderate when in the Iranian government. Although he is not currently a policymaker, such public presentations of Iranian thinking is rare. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and rejects U.S. and European allegations that it is secretly amassing the capability to produce atomic weapons. Iran has rejected Security Council demands that it halt enrichment and other sensitive nuclear work, saying it has a sovereign right to atomic energy. This has led to four rounds of increasingly stringent U.N. Security Council sanctions, mostly focusing on its nuclear and missile industries, but also targeting some financial institutions, a few subsidiaries of its major shipping firm, and companies linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. In recent months there has been increased speculation about possible Israeli air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites - which some analysts fear could spark a Middle East war. For the talks, expected to take place in mid-April, to open the door to a resolution of the standoff with Iran, Mousavian said the United States and its European allies must make clear that war and coercion are not the only options. They should seek enhanced engagement with Tehran, as U.S. President Barack Obama has repeatedly called for. "This could work - since 2003, Iran has been looking for a viable and durable solution to the diplomatic standoff," wrote Mousavian. Mousavian was Iran's chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005 before conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over from his reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami. According to Western envoys familiar with Mousavian, he appeared at the time to be genuinely interested in reaching a deal with the West. After he was removed from the nuclear negotiating team, Mousavian was arrested and briefly jailed in 2007 on accusations of espionage. He was acquitted of that charge, which could have carried the death penalty, but was found guilty of "propaganda against the system." Analysts and diplomats said the charges against Mousavian were really a reflection of an internal Iranian dispute over how to handle Iran's atomic dispute with the West. Some Iranians favor the moderate line adopted by Mousavian while others have backed Ahmadinejad's more confrontational approach. Mousavian writes that if a deal that is acceptable to both parties is to be reached, the two sides' "bottom lines" should be identified. "For Iran, this is the recognition of its legitimate right to create a nuclear program - including enrichment - and a backing off by the P5+1 from its zero-enrichment position." "For the P5+1, it is an absolute prohibition on Iran from creating a nuclear bomb, and having Iran clear up ambiguities in its nuclear program to the satisfaction of the International Atomic Energy Agency," Mousavian writes. The West also needs to abandon calls for regime change and accept that "crippling sanctions, covert actions, and military strikes might slow down Iran's nuclear program but will not stop it." "In fact, it is too late to demand that Iran suspend enrichment activities," Mousavian writes. "It mastered enrichment technology and reached break-out capability in 2002 and continues to steadily improve its uranium-enrichment capabilities." The so-called "break-out" capability refers to the ability of a country to construct a nuclear weapon. A U.S. think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), has said that capping Iranian uranium enrichment at 5 percent purity level compared with the 90 percent needed for a bomb could form part of an interim deal that would give time for more substantial negotiations. This and other priority measures would "limit Iran's capability to break out quickly," ISIS said in a report. Among the things the West should offer to Iran is a package that includes recognition of its nuclear rights, ending sanctions, and "normalization of Iran's nuclear file." In return, Iran should offer the IAEA full transparency and permit the most intrusive inspections possible.