LyrArc Article Gist
Chivers travels with a unit of the Free Syrian Army, the Tawhid Brigade, during the battles in Aleppo against the Assad regime. The unit's soldiers come from all parts of Syrian society, an accountant, a nurse, a real estate agent, farmers, construction workers and army defectors.

LyrArc Article Gist
Turkey increases security at its borders limiting the flow of refugees and to control terrorism.

LyrArc Article Gist
The slowing economy of Turkey as the wars in Syria and Iraq take their toll reducing demand for Turkey's exports. The conflict with Russia also affects Turkish exports. Growth slows to 2-3% a year in 2015-2016.

LyrArc Article Gist
Government GDP figures show the GDP shrank by 1.8% in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, the first such contraction in the economy since 2009. Household consumption was down 3.2%. The sharp decline in the value of the lira by 20% in 2016 makes imports costlier, in an economy dependent on consumption spending and tourism for higher GDP growth. Political uncertainty with instability in Turkey following a crackdown on opposition and media also leads to decline in foreign investment and investment by domestic firms.

LyrArc Article Gist
Asli Aydintasbas's thoughts on President Obama's visit to Turkey. He is a Turkish journalist for the newspaper Sabah. He says something useful. In Turkey's eternal identity crisis where the thinking is going on only in terms of opposites, either you are secular or religious, Kurd or Turk, European or Middle Eastern. Obama's visit and his careful remarks point to a more abiding truth he says, that Turks should remind themselves that they are all of those things, and much more.

LyrArc Article Gist
The AKP party loses its parliamentary majority in the 2015 general election. It wins 41% of the vote compared to 50% in the 2011 general election. This gives it 258 seats in the Turkish parliament, compared to 327 seats in the last election. Kurds, liberals and secular Turks were part of the antigovernment protests in 2013. This part of the electorate voted for the Kurdish People's Democratic Party, which won 13% of the vote. The traditional secular party in Turkey won 25% of the vote, giving the opposition to the AKP a combined 38% of the vote. Turnout was 86% for the election. The Kurdish People's Democratic Party is led by a 42 year old human rights lawyer, who told reporters: "As of this hour, the debate about the presidency, the debate about dictatorship, is over. Turkey narrowly averted a disaster."

LyrArc Article Gist
In the July 22nd Turkish election the Justice and Development party (AK) made big gains in Kurdish areas of Turkey at the expense of the Kurdish party DTP and in local elections next March the AK may win Diyarbakir Kurds unofficial capital in Turkey. Istanbul has 2 million Kurds and is by far the largest Kurdish city. And more ethnic Turks than Turkish Kurds do business in Northern Iraq. Its interesting that the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan pointed to all these facts in his remarks to questions posed at the national Press Club in November 2007 expressing surprise that ths Kurds were responding in the way they were considering his party;'s strong ties with Turkish Kurds. Thus the Kurdish Turkish situation is complex and changing rapidly and from the oil price standpoint Erdogan described the Turkish objective as a operation and not an intent to invade Northern Iraq. These very changes in one of the key areas of the Islamic world point to a rapidly changing world where its not possible to draw conclusions without visiting the issue very carefully and looking for deeper insights beyond superficial observations. zstandpoint Turkey may not be ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The battle for Aleppo moves into a decisive stage on October 1, 2012, as the Free Syria Army launches an offensive against neighborhoods where the Assad regime is entrenched, including minority Christian and Kurdish neighborhoods where some minority factions are siding with the Assad regime.

LyrArc Article Gist
Solomon and Lee of the WSJ describe the role played by Ayatollah Ali Khamanei in the talks, down to the final days- as late as July 14, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry is described as asking his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif, "do you have the mandate of the Supreme Leader?" Zarif replying that he was confident that he did. The media announcement of a deal came that same day July 14, 2015. The last weeks of the negotiations were conducted under the tension that if a deal was not reached quickly the Iranian military or some other factions could upset the deal. Even after the announcement of the deal in the media, Kerry was not certain, saying he never indicated he was confident, and it would all depend on its implementation. U.S. president Obama who initiated the contacts with Khamanei and his close advisors early in his presidency, said that the deal offered the U.S. and the world an opportunity to move in a new direction.

LyrArc Article Gist
Iran's Ahmadinejad's speaks to reporters and editors in New York before his address to the UN General Assembly. He says: "During a historical phase, the Israelis come into the picture and are then eliminated." This WSJ editorial finds President Obama's response and his address at the General Assembly of the United Nations inadequate to convince Iran's government and ruling mullahs that the program has to be ended. Sanctions have not produced the needed results and have only gradually been tightened showing a lack of resolve. President Obama failed to speak up for young people and university students in Iran who held demonstrations against the Ahmadinejad regime when it changed the election results- just as he did not speak up for the young people fighting a dictatorship in Libya and Egypt, or just as has failed to do for the young people fighting today in Syria. In this respect Obama has abandoned America's role as a beacon of hope for countries around the world. It is left to American media and public opinion to vigorously express these ideas in unison, as it has already done every step of the way. Clearly Ahmadinejad does not speak for the Iranian people, especially the young generation, and Egypt's president Morsi like every other Arab leader may have problems with Israeli policy but sees the need for peaceful coexistence. It would be more accurate to say that the Iranian people, like the people of Syria, are trapped as Morsi put it to the General Assembly, in "the tragedy of our era," moving from dictatorship to dictatorship....

LyrArc Article Gist
The UN security council document does not have sanctions against Iran's largest banks and is a watered down document after disagreements between members especially after the release of intelligence report from the USA that Iran gave up pursuing nuclear weapons in 2003. The goal appears to be to keep Iran on the right path even as direct negotiations take place.

LyrArc Article Gist
Differences betwee hardliners such as Ali Zafari, head of the Revolutionary Corps in Iran, and Javad Zarif, the foreign minister in the government of president Rouhani.