25 gegen 20 Millionen

Also ich habe jetzt immer eine Tafel Schokolade und Mandeln und Nüsse in der Tasche, just in case:

Analyse der Taktik der Terroristen in Mumbay auf SPIEGEL ONLINE

Stell dir vor, es ist Revolution und keiner geht hin

Rachel hat sich inzwischen mit einem sehr lesenswerten Blog von den Philippinen gemeldet!

Dort geht es wohl doch viel besorgniserregender zu, als CNN, BBC und Der Spiegel sich in der Einschätzung des Putsches lasen bzw. anhörten. 35 Oppositionelle im Knast ist jedenfalls nicht der halbwegs unspektakuläre Abmarsch, der auf Euronews gezeigt wurde.

Heute geht/ging es vor Gericht weiter, und die taz berichtet darüber in ihrem Artikel Wähler wollen keine Revolutionäre sein.

Ach ja: Die BBC hat hier ein Dossier über die Philippinen.

An Alice-in-Wonderland talent of sliding into dangerous situations

There's many things Rachel and me do share - not only the appartment. It's a slight taste for dangerous travel destinations. 2 days after I visited Moscow the Nord-Ost siege happened. (OK, I wasn't attending the Dubrovka theatre at all.)

Now right on the day when Rachel arrives in the Phillipines , the military stages a mutiny. Being welcomed by the police - that's ironic!

Anyway, good luck, girl!

The news in English
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Manila rebel soldiers surrender

and in German
SPIEGEL ONLINE - Philippinen: Militär stürmt Hotel - rebellierende Offiziere geben auf

Lessons in policy. Lesson One: Stubbornness

"I have no recipe except one in politics: to continue, to continue, to be obstinate, to be obstinate, to never abandon an issue as long as there remains a small shred of hope."

The new French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner in an interview with the New York Times.

Also remarkable: The portrait on BBC News.

The Scarfs are vanishing from Konya?

Might Hell as well freeze over?

Today I read this article in the New York Times - and I had to read it twice and thrice:

Have you ever been to Konya? I have been, early in the Nineties and BEFORE the most significant rise of Necmettin Erbakans party. At that time you could go wherever you wanted in Turkey - and it was mostly forbidden in the cities to wear a headscarf as a woman. And no one would have come to that idea anyway. You could rather go to Essen-Altenessen to see more women covered in a headscarf than in all the cities of Turkey altogether.

With one prominent exception: Konya.

But now it seems like the times they are a-changing of all things under the rule of the AKP. Very interesting phenomenon. Seems like it's time to visit Mevlana's tomb again!

I already miss Kofi Annan...

The News: Ban Ki-Moon runs into trouble on

The future is wide open

Just a short thing to read:

The Blog | Trey Ellis: 2007 Utopia or Dystopia? | The Huffington Post

Was hat Sie 2006 zu einem anderen Menschen gemacht?

There are the usual "end of year polls" - and there is German daily newspaper die tageszeitung. Their 2006 poll is called What changed you in 2006?. But... it is entirely German, and the fun within would be lost in translation. Here's my non-translated answers:

Was hat Sie in 2006 zu einem anderen Menschen gemacht?

Meine Bandscheibe - und meine Iliosakralfugen.
Zumindest ein bißchen - es dauert doch ein bißchen, bis man dumme Gewohnheiten zugunsten von Sport und Gesundheit ändert. Immerhin hat die Krankengymnastik beim Abnehmen geholfen!

Bleibende Schäden?

Körperlich zum Glück noch keine. Siehe -> Krankengymnastik.
Mental: Zu wenig zum Bloggen, Tagebuchschreiben und zu Live-Reviews gekommen. Leidtragende: Rotz auf der Wiese, das legendäre MME-Digitalo-Treffen for jetzt fast nem Jahr. Schwamm drüber.

Menschen des Jahres?

Dörte (Danke, Frau Doktor). Frederik ("Wenn du nicht kommst, heirate ich Sonni"). FD + Jörg Michael (Donnerstag überlebt). Omid Nouripour. smh (danke an The Gathering!;-)

Wort?

FIFA Fanfest. Zum Glück direkt vor unserem Büro.

Mord?

Pierre Gemayel

Ort

Stockholm. Immer wieder Istanbul. Nicht Venedig.

Ökobilanz?

Zweischneidig

• Weniger Auto gefahren
• viel das Fahrrad benutzt (Schönes Fahrad!)
• Wir haben immer noch Nachtspeicher-Heizung,
• bekommen aber spätestens im Frühjahr 2007 endlich Fernwärme
• ABER: 2 Reisen mit Ryanair hin und zurück hauen rein.
• ich fülle den "WWF Footprint wohl erst nächstes Jahr aus...

Welches Buch haben Sie weggeschmissen?

Bücher schmeißt man nicht weg, die entsorgt man bei Amazon.de. Schlechte CDs ebenso... Obwohl: Da habe ich so manche schlimmen Demos in 2006 weggeschmissen...

Was neues entdeckt?

• Das allerneueste: siehe Iliosakralfuge
• Meine Liebe zu Beirut
• ich kann tatsächlich genug Türkisch sprechen, um auf dem Bazar zu überleben!
• Yahoo Widgets und Google Desktop (manche Funktionen hier besser, andere dort)
• dass Amazon jetzt auch neue Möglichkeit an "internen" Shops bietet
• Meine absolute Leistungsgranze und
• meinen inneren Schweinehund

My Turkey pics got published!

Wow. My pics got published! The editor of Now Public found my Turkey pics on FLickr and asked me to publish them in his semi-web2.0 page. I got proper copyright - so why not. Even though the message is rather scary. Here it is: Turkey fears new homegrown terror threat at NowPublic.com.

... and thank you for the fish! About Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)

This is about something which is really important to me: Some of my friends regard my interest in the protection of endangered species as a peculiar attitude or a spleenish hobby. But I actually care. A recent essay by Canadian scientists in Science Magazine proved, most of the fish eaten by mankind will be erased from the oceans by 2048, if big fishing trawlers the size of a factory carry on like this.

As I have not time enough to go to the specialized fishmonger's whenever I have appetite for fish to buy non-endangered or ecologically bred fish (we don't speak about the money in this blog), I wanna support a good solution:
WWF and some of the big players helped giving birth to the independent Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) already 9 years ago - and to my surprise it's pretty well spread in German supermarkets. So, give Codfish a chance to survive and buy MSC!

Info in German: WWF-Deutschland: Der Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)

Speech of the pope in Regensburg (German)

I hate it to build prejudices only on what I get cited in the news. Here's the "long text" for all those interested in what Joseph Ratzinger really said in Regensburg - in German, of course:

Papst Benedikt XVI. in Regensburg am 12.09.2006 Begegnung mit Wissenschaftlern in der Aula der Universität Regensburg - Rede des Heiligen Vaters

The red list - endangered cities you have to visit as long as they are

There is the book "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" by Patricia Schultz. But - my main focus of travelling is and was never what oh-how-cute I could do and which "neat and exciting" experience I could miss. So if you're looking for an "In" and hip travel tip, go to the next blog.

The aim of this list is rather, to preserve endangered cities from changing so much that you can't recognize them anymore and that the quality of life in them diminishes. Or, even worse, that they're in danger of extinction.

The "Red List of Endangered Cities" is an appeal to save them. Visit them to see how people actually live. Bring money there and attention.

I'm gonna add to this list whenever I hear about a city which is "endangered" in my very subjective criteria. City Number One is gonna be revealed on Monday.

Appendix:
I don't care about buildings and architecture, at least not in the first line. This is about the socio-structures and way of life that make the character of a city, the people that build and change it - and which are gonna be affected by the circumstances of urban life.
So in short: This is about the people that make a city what it is.

Define "hot" for German measures:

Note: Measurement in Celsius.

Two and six weeks ago in Beirut...

Today the current issue of Germany's Rock Hard Megazine has reached the subscribers and will be on sale by tomorrow. Some weeks ago the magazine's editor Holger Stratmann has accompanied Finnish metal-classic innovators Apocalyptica to Beirut/Lebanon. Four weeks later I was about to follow their steps with a band of ours, but unfortunately the festival got cancelled.

I should be glad it got cancelled some ppl told me. But of course I am not! I feel like I've had the chance to visit Beirut right before the missiles destroyed what's left over from and renewed after the war. I feel compassion for all the people who would have come to the concert and wish that all of them will be able to come to the concert unhurt next year (that's where it was postponed to in the first place).

I was already making detailed plans for going out in Ashrafiya and sightseeing in Hamra. Perdu!

The Rock Hard report is ending with the words of the local scout for Apocalytica: "...provided that the peace will last. The seed for the civil war is already sown... A TV station aired some jokes about the Hezbollah and only the next days some cars burned, arsoned by young men, heated by their leaders."

In this more than fragile situation Israel seeks the solution in bombing the different fractions of the Lebanese society together. Together in one boat with Hezbollah, solidarity is a strange power and you can calculate it almost as precise as mathematics. No, I don't really agree with the German minister with the tongue-breaking name Wieczorek-Zeul, who is quoted "Israel's actions are beyond the pale according to international law". Don't get me wrong, my thoughts are with every Israelian citizen who has to hide in bunker not to get his head off by a Hezbollah grenade, and I'm pretty sure that the Hezbollah is the organization who forced this outbreak of war in the first place and which has to be cut off it's supporters and to be run dry. But I'm also afraid that the current action taken is moving the situation in the opposite direction.

The Lebanon & Israel in the news:
Six Days Of War: 200 Killed, 715 Wounded... | The Huffington Post

What's your polical philosophy?

This is quite surprising in the first case: There's a big discussion in the German blogosphere after Dr. Dean classified a bunch of blogs as "left-wing liberal". Well, let's say 10 years ago no one in Germany would have had a second thought about it. Being liberal was rather normal - even conservative used it to describe their standing within the wide range of the conservative spectrum in Germany, f.e. Heiner Geißler was called liberal in comparison to Helmut Kohl.

Nowadays "liberal" is the label of the German party FDP. Note: The FDP is rather on the conservative than on the left-wing part of German policies. Since they got a make-over of their political beliefs under their current chairman the words "left wing" and "liberal" are antagonists in their use. To relativize the meaning of it again, Cynx has found some funny but scientifical games about it:
What's Your Political Philosophy? and The Political Compass. Test yaself.

International press review about Azerbaijan pt. II

Again a rough listed overview on what the international press is writing about Azerbaijan. Maybe I'm commenting on it as soon as an essay for University is done. Maybe not.

• International Relations and Security Network ISN
• Mushy Fruit Has a Meaning For Azerbaijani Democracy
• It's Azerbaijan's turn - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune
• Independent Candidates Court Anger in Azerbaijan Campaign
• ABC News: Police Disperse Protesters in Azerbaijan
• RIA Nowosti - International - Politologe besorgt über Entwicklung in Aserbaidschan und Georgien - an article critically reviewed by Rappo.
• azerbaijan.youngeurasia.net

Already cought in May 2006:

• Bakus neuer Öl-Rausch | tagesschau.de
• BBC NEWS | Europe | Azeri opposition rally thwarted
• Baku–Ceyhan: Gro?projekt von geostrategischer Bedeutung | Fokus Ost-S?dost | Deutsche Welle |
• Ölstaaten: Opposition beklagt Wahlf?lschung in Aserbaidschan - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten
• Aserbaidschan: Opposition k?ndigt Protest gegen Wahlergebnisse an - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten