A bluff gone sour!

I believe Turkey is playing her last round at the Cyprus poker table. Cyprus, over the years, played her game well given the prevailing power balance. Today we sit on a UN ID, an EU membership, and a potential treasure. We have every reason to be cautiously optimistic. By July 1st 2012 all players will show their hand. Choosing sides means that they all have to state unequivocally their support for the RoC. The alternative means siding with Turkey. Extremely doubtful given the present power balance & Turkey's Islamic tendencies and flirting in all the wrong places.

Kaizen

My favorite Japanese word is neither Toyota nor sushi. It's kaizen. It stuck with me since my MBA days. It is a philosophy of constant, meticulous improvement, in quality and process.

Most of us think revolutions happen overnight because of the abrupt way they manifest themselves. The fact is they happen in kaizen sort of ways, either positive or negative countless steps in the same direction, daily, person to person, soul to soul ... signature to signature.

Be part of our revolution and claim an equal share in its success!
Help us translate the message to even more languages.

tCypriot imperfections!

tCypriots have felt stuck between a rock and a hard place for a long time. Inaction used to be an option. No longer. Turks treat them condescendingly, accusing them of being lesser, imperfect Turks. Their "imperfections" however are exactly what make them Cypriots. It is those "imperfections" that make us all Cypriots, regardless of language. I say to tCypriots: Choose with your heart and the last 50 years will feel like a bad dream in less than 12 months! Vote your agreement or disagreement here (you need to be logged on Facebook).

Daniel Pipes: Is Turkey going rogue?

Daniel Pipes: Is Turkey going rogue?
Daniel Pipes Sep 27, 2011 – 7:30 AM ET | Last Updated: Sep 26, 2011 5:14 PM ET

In a Middle East wracked by coups d’état and civil insurrections, the Republic of Turkey credibly offers itself as a model thanks to its impressive economic growth, democratic system, political control of the military, and secular order.

But, in reality, Turkey may be, along with Iran, the most dangerous state of the region. Count the reasons:

Turkish Cypriot isolation: another neo-Ottoman myth!

   

Civil war

Emre Uslu "Two things have changed. The perception of “Kurds” among Turks has changed. In the 1990s Turks differentiated the Kurds from the PKK. Therefore, they did not associate their Kurdish neighbor with the PKK. Now, however, there is an increasing tendency for Turks not to separate ordinary Kurds from the Kurdish nationalist PKK and its sympathizers. Second of all, the recruitment pool of the PKK has shifted from the southeastern Kurdish-dominated cities to the major metropolitan centers such as İzmir, İstanbul, Mersin and other Aegean coastal cities. Therefore, the new generation of PKK militants now knows how to operate within the urban centers and is able to hit and hide...Its new war strategy is to trigger a civil war between the ordinary Kurds and Turks."

Cyprus' Ithaca in sight?

Cyprus is at long last finding her way in the arms of friends, of nations that share the same western philosophy and outlook on life. The same values of truth and reason. Cyprus is slowly getting where she should have always been.

'Free Cyprus' petition is LIVE

Find here the petition

We, Cypriots & friends of Cyprus from all over the world,

wish to empower the Cypriot political leaders to seek a solution to the problem of Cyprus with Turkey based on international law & to seek to upgrade the Republic's state structures in accordance with universal truth and logic:


no community should be granted special status in the reunited Cyprus Republic. Instead, every legal citizen of the country, whether of Latin, Armenian, Maronite, Turkish, Greek or other heritage, should be able to enjoy equality on a 'one-person, one-vote basis', with full respect of her/his human and cultural rights, as a proud citizen of the European Union.

The Petition We Must All Sign

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freecyprus/

We, Cypriots & friends of Cyprus from all over the world,

wish to empower the Cypriot political leaders to demand a solution to the problem of Cyprus with Turkey based on international law & to seek to upgrade the Republic's constitution in accordance with universal truth and logic:

no community should be granted special status in the reunited Cyprus Republic. Instead, every legal citizen of the country, whether of Latin, Armenian, Maronite, Turkish, Greek or other heritage, should be able to enjoy equality on a 'one-person, one-vote basis', with full respect of her/his human and cultural rights, as a proud citizen of the European Union.

Vote YES to western common sense!

Turkish Cypriots should not be granted community status in reunited Cyprus, but rather enjoy equality as every Latin, Armenian, Maronite or Greek citizen of the Republic on a one-person-one-vote basis, with full respect of their human and cultural rights. CLICK HERE TO SIGN.

Your signature captures the 76% of 'NO' votes in the Anan plan by people from all walks of life, from the left to the right and beyond. It captures plain common sense, western common sense.

We need a simple message to give our party leaders, regardless who they may be for any of us. We need to lead them and for this we must not antagonize them. 

But a mandate we must give them.

From Super to Sub Cypriot

Talos Samson: "To be greedy is part of how people are, so for Turkish Cypriots they think " Why be just Cypriot?", when they can be "Super Cypriot" and they can get super privileges and disproportionately more power. This will change when the Turkish Cypriots realize that they cannot be "Super Cypriot" and the separation actually makes them "Sub Cypriot" to settlers. Therefore eventually they will realize to demand to be just Cypriot without any racial discrimination." about an hour ago near East Los Angeles, CA

I just want to add, that if tCypriots do not come to their senses soon, the only status they may end up with in Cyprus is that of 'Gone Cypriot'!

Kurds pursue tCypriot-style self-segregation

Erdoğan: “But if they [Kurds] do not come [back to parliament], that’s not a deficiency for Turkish democracy... That’s their deficiency, they are the losers,” Erdoğan said. “And let me put it very openly and clearly – sooner or later they will come to this parliament.”

tCypriots in the 60s removed themselves from Cypriot parliament & pursued a policy of self-segregation, ending in the 1974 invasion, division, occupation and colonization of Cyprus, against the UN charter and the Geneva conventions. How "successful" will Kurds be without outside support?

Cyprus bolsters EU's energy security

The President of the European People's Party (EPP), Wilfried Martens, reacted today to the unprecedented military threats from Turkish officials regarding the start of oil and gas exploration by the Republic of Cyprus in its southmost exclusive economic zone (EEZ), by the American contractor 'Noble':

How different really?

How different are the country's leaders from back then?

Ask any Kurd or any Cypriot if in doubt.

Negotiations no more at snail's pace

Patroclos | Cyprus Mail "THE INTENISFIED talks, we are happy to report, are no longer moving at snail’s pace. The two leaders have heeded Ban Ki-moon and upped the tempo to a turtle’s pace according to talks’ insiders who wished to remain anonymous."

"At last Wednesday’s meeting, which lasted five hours, Tof and Ero discussed territory. We can reveal today what happened at the meeting. For the first half hour the two leaders and their entourages exchanged social pleasantries in the foyer. Then they proceeded to the meeting room where Tof read out a document with his positions. This lasted 30 minutes. Then, Ero needed about 28 minutes to read out the document with his positions."

The perils of boob jobs

"Turkey is incorrect, since drilling procedures are in line and thus legally protected by the UN Convention for Sea, Palmer Report, which Turkey has never signed, and cannot claim. The European Union and its members are legally bound by European Law."

"Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons or countries for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them, in accord to the United Nations Assembly."

Flag of Republic of Cyprus v2.0

Our new flag, [1] moving us away from the two branches that wish to communicate equality between 82% and 18% [2] retaining the colors of the Republic of Cyprus (1960), thus emphasizing continuity, and [3] one stripe for each of the French revolution's motto, liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, fraternity [brotherhood]), for all legal Cypriot citizens regardless of creed or first language.

I first considered the stripes to be vertical, as per the French flag, but I decided against it for two reasons: [1] it would be almost identical with the Irish flag, a divided country with a similar problem, thus unavoidably screaming 'division' [2] the parallel stripes seem a more logical transition from the current flag, as if each color simply flows to fill the nearest to it available stripe.

Turkish clown culture

How Turkish of Bağış, Turkey's Minister of EU Affairs, to issue military threats! How rich of him to invoke international law when Turkey grossly violates international law!

Q. Greek Cyprus has declared that it will begin oil exploration in the Mediterranean on Oct. 1. Can you comment on this?

Cyprus, the whale

Because of Cypriot gas, if indeed found, the EU and its allies [USA, Russia, Israel] will pay much closer attention to Turkey's bullying tactics. I predict a tsunami of positive decisions and actions for the Cyprus Republic. Let us prepare our ideal solution of re-integrating back whatever population of authentic tCypriots still remain in Cyprus, as well as those who wish to return.

A Celt with Bouboulina's soul

I would be willing to bet that most of Greeks and gCypriots have no idea of the unconditional love for Hellenism emanating from Scotland. A comment by Aine O'Neill, our Laskarina Bouboulina from "Darkland" (Σκωτία), made an impression on me and I wish to share it with you.

Understanding leverage for dummies

The picture says it all, dummies et al.

Credit to m and his post at Cyprus Mail's New Turkish threats over drilling | September 3, 2011 which is also listed in full below.