Renewed talks w PKK after end of hunger strike

As good an ending to the recent hunger strike by hundreds of Kurdish prisoners in Turkey as one could have hoped for. Renewed talks.

"International academic live talk show"?

Check out Crosstalks - a spanking new live and interactive "academic talk show". It is a joint project between Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH):

Crosstalks is a high quality and new form of international academic live talk show. Two of Sweden’s leading universities – KTH and Stockholm University – are working together to highlight cutting-edge content from the academic, business and cultural life. The website allows people from all over the world to comment and interact with each other based on content and program participants. It is always possible to start an interesting discussion online and the content is always available.

The premiere tomorrow features three topics: "How to save capitalism", "The battle for entrepreneurs", and "How to save the world." (I got the answer to all three but tune in to find out for yourselves.)

This has nothing to do with Turkey but you could change that. At the website you can suggest new topics and speakers. Go ahead!

Erdoğan proposes a Lira-zone

From the Atlantic Sentinel:

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged the European Union on Tuesday to grant his nation membership by 2023 and suggested that it could set up a currency union of its own instead of joining the euro.

The talk of a currency union is surely more of a dig against an economically weakened EU than a serious proposal. Talking tough to the Union plays well in Turkey now, and a deadline is probably popular in a country that has been waiting for membership since 1959.

I suspect that this is domestic politics more than anything else. With local and Presidential elections coming up in 2014, expect more of it.