Turkey
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The "Anatolian Jazz Orchestra"
"More feeling than form"
The Anatolian Jazz Orchestra jazzes up the haunting airs of traditional Anatolian folk songs to give them an authentic big band makeover. Ceyda Nurtsch on an unconventional orchestra with its own distinctive fusion sound
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Islamic State
A year of territorial losses
Although 2015 has been a bleak year, characterised by numerous casualties resulting from the terrorist activities of IS, the last twelve months have seen Islamic State relinquish rather than gain ground. By Chase Winters
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The Middle East
Preserving the Ottoman mosaic
With the international community striving to end the chaos and conflict racking the Middle East and establish a regional order than can sustain peace and stability, Sweden′s fomer prime minister, Carl Bildt makes a plea for working within the existing framework
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IS and the lessons learnt
Negotiating beyond time and space
The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, is a recruitment tool for the IS and has to go. Nevertheless, a successor government needs to be able to keep order and cannot allow the jihadists to exploit a power vacuum, as it has in Libya. An essay by Richard N. Haass
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″The Secret Handshake″
An Iranian and an Israeli band tour together
The political situation between their home countries may be tense, but that hasn't stopped an Iranian and an Israeli band from jamming together. Now the musicians are joining forces to tour Germany. By Heike Mund
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Chronicle of a war foretold
Redefining the "Syrian" conflict
The war waging in Syria, hijacked by opposing ideologies just months after it began, has had an irrevocable impact on the Syrian people. Although not much is heard of Syrians outside the refugee camps, Americans, Europeans, Russians, Turks, Iranians, and Arabs hold meeting after meeting to agree and disagree, coalesce and collide, in an attempt to halt the ″Syrian conflict″. By Hakim Khatib
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Stranded at the Bosphorus
In Istanbul, there are almost as many Syrian refugees as in whole Europe. Many of them feel stuck in the Turkish city, between the violence present in their homeland and the dream of getting to Europe.
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″Hasret – Yearning″: Istanbul by Ben Hopkins
A director is commissioned to make a documentary about Istanbul. He starts to film its everyday life... but soon becomes drawn to the darker side of the city... its past, its secrets, its ghosts. Gradually he succumbs to obsession.
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Turkish general election
Erdogan′s second chance
Can Recep Tayyip Erdogan distance himself from the paternalistic style of government he has favoured in the past? Having been granted a considerable mandate by the Turkish population at the beginning of November, those in the AKP administration can surely afford to take a more benign approach to minority groups and those advocating peaceful dissent. By Sinan Ulgen
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Turkey′s general election
"The AKP's nationalist strategy has paid off"
In conversation with Michael Martens, the Dutch expert on Turkey Joost Lagendijk analyses the election victory of President Tayyip Erdogan's AKP and the relationship between the "People's Democratic Party" (HDP) – with its Kurdish support base – and the Kurdish terrorist organisation the PKK
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Turkey's general election
Overshadowed by violence and political polarisation
Turkey is heading to a general election on 1 November in the aftermath of the country′s worst terror attack, renewed fighting with Kurdish rebels and with a society increasingly polarised. The snap election comes after the inconclusive June poll that ended the AKP Party′s 13-year parliamentary majority. But, as Dorian Jones writes from Istanbul, the country may be forced into entering a new era of political compromise
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Turkey′s general election
Peace a top priority
In elections in June, the AK Party lost its absolute majority in the Turkish parliament – and President Erdogan lost his grip on unrestrained power. His critics consider him one of the fomenters of the violent chaos now plaguing the country. By Timur Tinc