Free Republic

For decades his picture dominated Turkey, piercing blue eyes staring from hoardings, keeping watch over city streets and army barracks. Schoolyards echoed every morning to his oath: "Happy is he who can say 'I am a Turk!'" Now that oath rings out no more and the image of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the secular republic, seems for some to be retreating into the shadows, victim of a new ruling class they suspect of cherishing a new more 'Islamic' Turkey. Turkey's "Kemalists" flinch at Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan advising women on the number of children they should have, fostering restrictions...

By virtue of our unique geography”, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in a 2011 Foreign Policy article, “the United States is both an Atlantic and a Pacific power.” Russia, meanwhile, has seen itself as a Euro-Asian country, as Vladimir Putin has argued from the start of his first term in the Kremlin. The American attitude, which in Secretary Clinton’s locution is about as uncontroversial a statement as an American Secretary of State can make, reflects the country’s historic “maritime” vocation. The Russian one reflects the longstanding fascination with the country’s continental scale and reflects its traditional terrestrial focus....

<p>People in Japan are so averse to romantic relationships that the country's media even has a name for it: sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome," according to a widely circulated Guardian story on the country's low rates of marriage, childbearing and even sex.</p>

IRGC and the spiritual vacuum of Latin American leftists The following is a glimpse of the kind of thing I often see while researching the activities of the IRGC (writ large) in Latin America. Communism fails to provide for the spiritual needs of leftwing political activists, and the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to have done a pretty good job of inserting themselves and the Khomeinist version of Shiism into that void. (Either that or the IRI is throwing lots of money around and the leftists are whores, which is certainly possible, but for the moment I'll take the more...

On July 8, 2013, the pro-PRC Chinese-language newspaper, Wenweipo, published an article titled “????50????????? (Six Wars China Is Sure to Fight In the Next 50 Years)”. The anticipated six wars are all irredentist in purpose – the reclaiming of what the Chinese believe to be national territories lost since Imperial China was defeated by the Brits in the Opium War of 1840-42. That defeat, in the view of Chinese nationalists, began China’s “Hundred Years of Humiliation.” Below is the English translation of the article, from a Hong Kong blog, Midnight Express 2046. (The year 2046 is an allusion to what this blog believes will be the last year...

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev was elected to serve a third term on Wednesday evening but voting was marred by local media reports that suggested the results were released even before the polls opened. With counting soon to be completed, election officials said last night that Aliyev was one course to receive nearly 85 percent of the votes, with opposition candidate Jamil Hasanly receiving 5 percent. However, 24 hours beforehand, local media outlet Meydan TV reported that the results were accidentally pre-announced by the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan using a new mobile phone application that the organization has introduced. Users...

Young Chinese workers don’t want to work in factories anymore. Terry Gou, founder and Chief executive of Foxconn, China’s largest private employer and one of the manufacturers for the iPhone and iPad, claims that Chinese millennials aspire to more than the low-wage, mundane factory jobs which were held by so many in the previous generation and  which spurred China’s decades-long economic boom. Gau is now worried that the company will soon be unable to fill the low-wage factory positions that have been the bread and butter of employment in China for years. The FT reports: “The young generation don’t want to...

Obama canceled plans to attend summits in Indonesia and Brunei on Thursday, the White House said in a statement... will no longer visits to Malaysia and the Philippines... //snip// http://english.cri.cn/index.htm Chinese Premier to Attend East Asia Leaders Meetings, Visit Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam

With the prospects growing of a government shutdown on Tuesday, the White House said Thursday that President Obama has no intention of postponing a week-long trip to Asia that begins Oct. 6. “Our schedule remains as planned,” said White House press secretary Jay Carney. He said one of the president’s jobs is to ensure that promising economic markets “are exploited” for the benefit of Americans. “That’s one of his responsibilities. He’s going to fulfill it,” Mr. Carney said. The president will visit Indonesia, where he grew up as a boy, and the Philippines as part of a trip that will...

Wealth among the richest in the Asia-Pacific region could surpass that of North America as soon as next year, a joint report by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management showed on Wednesday. The total wealth of high net-worth individuals in the region – defined as those with investable assets of $1 million and above – is expected to rise to $15.9 trillion by 2015, compared with $12 trillion in 2012. Wealth of the equivalent group of individuals in North America stood at $12.7 trillion last year.

From India's Look-East policy emerges Vietnam an ally to tackle the Asian dragon By lashing out against India for its dealings with Vietnam and other states in East and Southeast Asia, China has shown it will try to deter strategic competitors from collaborating against it. Both India and Vietnam must stand firm.In a significant move India decided to offer a $100-million credit line to Vietnam to purchase military equipment which will be finalized during the visit of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam later this year. Usually, a privilege reserved for its immediate neighbours, this is the...

I was watching a cooking show and the cast preparing a Engagement Feast for a Guy and this Smoking 1/2 Korean Girl. I have known quite a few Koreans but she looked like a semi-round rye, Viet Nam term. It kicked me back to late 1967, when driving through the front gate of Cu Chi base camp, I saw a hot smoking young lady sitting out side the gate, as opposed to squatting, waiting for someone. I had done a tour through the cat houses of Cu Chi so I knew she wasn't one of the local talent. I asked...

A new documentary, which airs tonight on PBS, explores the psychology behind yellow fever - the phenomenon that sees white men attracted to, and sometimes even obsessed with, Asian women. Filmed and directed by Debbie Lum, a fourth-generation Chinese-American from St Louis, Missouri, Seeking Asian Female looks to discover why many men see Asians as ideal wives, a concept that is 'very painful for the Asian-American community,' Ms Lum told ABC News.

Japan on Tuesday unveiled its biggest warship since World War II, a huge flat-top destroyer that has raised eyebrows in China and elsewhere because it bears a strong resemblance to a conventional aircraft carrier. The ship, which has a flight deck that is nearly 250 meters (820 feet) long, is designed to carry up to 14 helicopters. Japanese officials say it will be used in national defense — particularly in anti-submarine warfare and border-area surveillance missions — and to bolster the nation’s ability to transport personnel and supplies in response to large-scale natural disasters, like the devastating earthquake and tsunami...

“And why shouldn’t we?” With a thumping Upper House election victory behind them, this question is likely on the minds of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his political allies as they contemplate a visit to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine on Aug. 15, the day Japan commemorates the end of World War II. If they do visit the shrine, they will probably insist that they are doing what politicians do in every other country with military conflicts in its past — proudly commemorating their war dead, with an utterance seemingly indifferent to the rights and wrongs of that past: “They sacrificed their...

A new defense paper published by Japan’s government today urges Tokyo to set up a rapid marine deployment force to counter threats to its territory and acquire offensive weapons, like surveillance drones and missiles that could strike enemy bases. Shinzo Abe’s government is clearly trucking on with plans to revamp Japan’s military and even considering changing the pacifist constitution, under which some of these new capabilities are questionable. The paper pushes the limits of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which states, “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use...

China's three-week border stand-off during April in Ladakh, in Indian-administered Kashmir, had misfired, an Indian security expert told a forum in Manila, saying Beijing's move galvanised Indian leaders into finally sealing an historic security deal with Japan. The dispute strained ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours, but both sides pulled troops back ahead of a visit to New Delhi by Premier Li Keqiang, who agreed to fresh talks to settle their long-running border row. [India could help provide] security architecture in the region to restrain China Retired army major general Vinod Saighal, saw the subsequent India-Japan deal last month as possibly...

Welcome to the strange -- and terrifying -- underground world of Chinese military fantasy novels. It is the year 2049. China's economic development has so disturbed the world's other major powers that the United States, Japan, and Russia form an alliance and invade China. Fierce battles break out on the plains of northeast China, where Japanese troops and U.S. fighter jets besiege Chinese infantry. Caught by surprise, China's army nonetheless stages a glorious counterattack by deploying levitating tanks, and employing a strategy based on lessons learned from the Anti-Japanese War and the Resist America War (better known in the West...

CANBERRA: Australian officials on Tuesday refused to confirm or deny whether Chinese hackers had stolen the blueprints of a new spy agency headquarters as a news report claims. A tiny party essential to the ruling coalition's government demanded an inquiry into how much damage may have been done. Australian Broadcasting Corp. television reported on Monday night that the plans for the 630 million Australian dollar ($608 million) Australian Security Intelligence Organization building had been stolen through a cyberattack on a building contractor. Blueprints that included details such as communications cabling, server locations and security systems had been traced to a...

Signalling the formation of a new strategic axis in the Indo-Pacific region, Defence Minister A K Antony will travel to Australia on Monday to forge new military ties between the two nations, both of which are seen by the US as linchpins to its “Asia Pivot” strategy. Canberra has accorded special status to Antony since he is India’s first defence minister to visit Australia. The defence minister will arrive in Perth where he would be received by his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith. Antony will lay a wreath at the State War Memorial and proceed to Canberra along with Smith in...