EUROPEUS

Heard, when released, a lot about it. (Re)discovered those past days via a Turkish friend. Movie midday by Besiktas. Another look on Istanbul and Turkey than the one too often heard in France. Some won't probably care, stucked as they are in their (sad) believness. Some may see that city, the Turks, differently. Much closer from who they really are. Till then keep on meeting people, filming for Europeus and the Six35. Ten years I had had not been there. So many changes. Paris looks like an old village compared to Istanbul. Sarkozy... Well as we said, three years ago, in France about Bush, most of the Turkish know Sarkozy is not France, but French ignorance, irrationalism still hurts. But time will come to talk about it. Soon. pretty soon.

Watch the movie on Google Video

Anything new is of great interest to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), as you might have realized. �Little America� dreams of the 1950s are finally taking shape.Everywhere cities are transformed, as structures need renovations or worn out buildings are demolished eventually. This is inevitable. The question is how the transformation is undertaken, its methods and tools. More than that of its predecessors, the AKP's renewal concept is to have endless touch ups here and there, to engage in many unnecessary or wasteful projects, to market the city with no proper consultation, to commission ordinary building companies to restore priceless archaeological works, to see no harm in forcing old inhabitants out of the city and building luxurious slum houses to replace old slum areas without paying proper attention to legal and humanitarian concerns. Examples of this Turkish �kitsch,� of this visual pollution, can be seen not only in Istanbul but also everywhere in the county. Architecture, a profession of creativity, is being reduced to contracts of vested interests.

(Par JEROME BASTION / Source RFI – France, correspondance depuis Istanbul) En frappant l’un des centres touristiques les plus prisés de Turquie, les terroristes cherchaient bien à tuer, et visaient particulièrement des touristes étrangers. Sur la côte méditerranéenne, Marmaris est en effet, avec Bodrum, Kusadasi, Fethiye et Didymes, une des destinations préférées des vacanciers anglo-saxons, adeptes de stations balnéaires à petit budget où la vie nocturne est animée. En plaçant un sac piégé sous le fauteuil d’un minibus faisant la navette entre la vieille ville, sur le port, où sont situés l’essentiel des restaurants et des bars, et les hôtels, ils étaient sûr de frapper bon nombre de ces visiteurs européens qui rapportent tant de devises à la Turquie. Sur les 13 blessés de cette première explosion survenue à minuit, l’heure où l’on commence à rentrer se coucher, 10 étaient des ressortissants britanniques.