EU disburses 467 million euros for Syrian refugees in Turkey

Hurriyet Daily News – The European Union announced on Oct. 17 the dispersal of 467 million of 3 billion euros in aid that has been pledged for over 3 million refugees living in Turkey.  “The total amount of funding allocated under the Facility [for Refugees in Turkey] now stands at over 2.2 billion euros, with over 1.2 billion euros already awarded via concrete contracts,” said Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, in a letter on the progress of the implementation of the funding. “Of this, 467 million euros has been disbursed to the implementing partners,” he said.

Debit-card aid seen insufficient for refugees in Turkey

MB – As many as one million refugees, or one third of those being sheltered across Turkey, will have pre-paid debit cards as part of the European Union’s multi-million-euro aid package. NGOs in Turkey welcomed this project with cautious optimism, arguing it is “insufficient” to cope with the refugees’ social and economic integration into local communities.

Refugees as Peons in Foreign Policy: Turkey, the EU and Reflections of Lasker and Nimzowitsch

Article by Nicolas Parent originally published for IN/WORDS MAGAZINE & PRESS

New York, 1927 – Edward Lasker and Aron Nimzowitsch, two of the greatest minds in chess at the time, went head to head in an off-hand game. At that time, smoking was almost synergetic with chess playing. Nimzowitsch, however, had a severe allergy to smoke and records show that he often requested tournament directors and ombudsmen to enforce a no smoking rule during game play. Lasker, on the other hand, was notorious for his strategy of ‘smoking out’ his opponents, typically burning cheap cigars with an unbearably foul scent. Before this specific match, Lasker agreed not to smoke whilst playing against Nimzowitsch. However, mid-game, Lasker pulled out a cigar and laid it on the table. Nimzowitsch furiously acalled upon the tournament director to intervene, but this was to no avail as Lasker had yet to light the cigar. Dissatisfied, Nimzowitsch responded by saying “(…) but he is threatening to smoke, and as an old player you must know that the threat is stronger than the execution” (Winter, 2015).

Albeit the comical exchange, a similar narrative has developed in respect to what European political circles and newspapers have called a ‘migration crisis’. Continue reading Refugees as Peons in Foreign Policy: Turkey, the EU and Reflections of Lasker and Nimzowitsch

Notes from the Back-Alleys of a Turkish Border City

billboard-woman
Syrian woman in front of a billboard reading “We are the nation! We shall not allow the wasting of Turkey by the coup and terror”

The Locals, the Syrians and the 15 July Coup Attempt in Gaziantep

By H. Pınar Şenoğuz

Turkish politics is full of surprises with intriguing conclusions – or perhaps we cannot talk about endings yet – and diverse social impact among its adherents. The 15 July coup attempt and the ‘resistance of Turkish people’ hailed by the national media, for instance, was such an extraordinary event as the anthropologist Lisa Malkki would coin (Malkki, 1997). Continue reading Notes from the Back-Alleys of a Turkish Border City

21 missing as new migrant boat disaster unfolds in the Aegean

Daily Sabah – During a renewed rise in the crossings of illegal immigrants to Greece from Turkey, a migrant boat disaster on Thursday fueled fears of a return to the period before a EU-Turkey deal to curb the migrant flow when migrant deaths were almost a daily occasion.
The Coast Guard and volunteers are scanning the Aegean Sea for 21 migrants who went missing after their boat traveling to Greece from Turkey’s Bodrum sank on Thursday. Six bodies were recovered from sea in two days of efforts while four others were rescued alive.

Reporting on the Turkish-EU Border Regime