European Politics

The plot thickens....
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In this new report Bellingcat examines satellite images released by the Russian Ministry of Defence as part of the July 21st 2014 press conference on the downing of Flight MH17.

The Russian MoD stated at the press conference that the satellite photos show the activities of Ukraine’s air defences on the day that Flight MH17 was shot down. In particular, the position of two Ukrainian Buk missile launchers south of the village Zaroschinskoe were shown to be within firing range of MH17. The Bellingcat investigation has found the following –

– Satellite images presented by the Russian Ministry of Defence claiming to shown Ukrainian Buks linked to the downing of MH17 on July 14th and 17th are in fact older images from June 2014.
– The discrepancies visible in the Russian MoD satellite map imagery which shows they are incorrectly dated are visible in publicly available imagery on Google Earth.
– Error level analysis of the images also reveal the images have been edited.
– This includes a Buk missile launcher that was removed to make it appear the Buk missile launcher was active on July 17th, and imagery where Buk missile launchers were added to make it appear they were within attack range of Flight MH17.

An example of incorrectly dated imagery used by the Russian Ministry of Defence

Full versions of the report are available in Russian, German, and English. Images used in this report can be found here, and here without text..

With this new report all four major claims made at the Russian Ministry of Defence press conference have now been shown to be false:

– The flight path was not altered in the way claimed by the Russian Ministry of Defence. Data from the Dutch Safety Board’s preliminary report and other sources show Flight MH17 made no major course changes such as the one described in the Russian Ministry of Defence press conference.

– The Russian Ministry of Defence claimed the video of the Buk missile launcher presented by the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior was filmed in the Ukrainian government control town of Krasnoarmeisk. This has been proven to be untrue, with analysis of the video showing it was filmed in the separatists controlled city of Luhansk.

– Radar imagery was described as showing an aircraft close to Flight MH17 after it was shot down. Experts interviewed by various media organisations have stated this is almost certainly debris from Flight MH17 as it broke up over Eastern Ukraine.

– Satellite imagery shows Ukrainian Buk activity around July 17th. As this report shows, those claims are untrue, and were based on fabricated satellite imagery.

These claims, representing the majority of information publicly presented by the Russian government since the downing of Flight MH17, are a clear attempt by the Russian government to deceive the public, global community, and the families of the Flight MH17 victims, only days after Flight MH17 was shot down.
 
Election day is here. This election likely effects my future in this country in a drastic way and I'm actually hopeful of a change. Let's see what happens.
 
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The Flash said:
Election day is here. This election likely effects my future in this country in a drastic way and I'm actually hopeful of a change. Let's see what happens.
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You mean, this election can lead to you having to make a decision about whether to stay in Turkey or move elsewhere?
 
Yes. I'm already contemplating a possible move after I'm done with university, but I'm definitely gone if the ruling party wins the election.
 
Forostar said:
Will they have absolute majority...
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That's what I mean by "winning the election". They've always had absolute majority since the first election they entered. They'll without a doubt come out on top again, but if they don't get absolute majority, that likely means falling apart no matter the MP count because other parties won't form a coalition with them. AKP prides itself on its ability to get absolute majority in every election, calling it "National Will".

The absolute majority question almost entirely depends on the 4th party. We have a %10 election threshold (which is an absolute joke), any party that is under the threshold cannot be represented in the parliament and the party with the biggest percentage of votes claims most of the remaining seats. 4th strongest party, HDP, is on the fence. Either they barely make it, or they barely don't. And it's crucial.
 
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10%? That's a high cut-off limit. And especially when it means a total cut-off from being represented in parliament.

For comparison, the Norwegian electoral system is one where the seats are distributed county by county, and there are 19 seats (out of a total of 169) that are used to make the overall distribution of seats more proportional to the overall distribution of votes. The cut-off for these 19 seats is 4%.

"National Will"? FFS ... Sounds like Erdogan thinks that if 51% vote for him, he can just ignore the other 49% totally. That's not how democracy is supposed to work. Yes, the majority gets to decide, but they are supposed to remember they're not alone in the country.
 
Technically, Erdoğan is no longer the leader of AKP, he's currently the President of the country. Ahmet Davutoğlu is his successor. But in essence, he's still the leader. He held rallies under the name of "Opening Ceremony" in various cities and asked people to vote for AKP, despite it being illegal. Since the country's judicial system is fucked, nothing happened.

Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
Sounds like Erdogan thinks that if 51% vote for him, he can just ignore the other 49% totally.
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That's exactly what's going on. Erdoğan and AKP have had this "Us vs. Them" attitude for years now. Pretty big reason why this election is as crucial as it is.
 
Just as you say, technicalities. Just like when Putin wasn't allowed to race for the presidency of Russia for the third successive period, he made sure his buddy Medvedev got elected. And during Medvedev's presidency, the presidential election interval was extended to six years. Who would've thought such a thing would happen? :ninja:
 
I've got some great news. The fourth strongest party, HDP, absolutely crushed the election. Not only did they go above the threshold, they actually managed to grab %12 of the vote and will be part of the parliament. Which means the end of AKP's absolute majority era. The not so great news is that the count of MPs for the opposing parties isn't enough to get vote of confidence, therefore this likely means another election in a couple of months.

But this is a great day for Turkey. The so-called "National Will" has broken down.
 
Excellent. I was hoping for this. I thought it would be hard to reach the needed 10% (10%: I find that unfairly high).

@The Flash does this mean that the president won't get more authority (for now)?
 
Forostar said:
@The Flash does this mean that the president won't get more authority (for now)?
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Probably. It's quite unclear where we're going to be headed for now.

The second party (CHP), the third party (MHP) and the fourth party (HDP) aren't likely to form a coalition with AKP. Meaning it'll be CHP's turn to form the government. CHP-MHP coalition is a probability but AKP+HDP votes would make sure they don't get the vote of confidence. The only way a coalition would get the vote of confidence is a CHP-MHP-HDP one, but that's a far-fetched idea since MHP and HDP are parties of direct opposite ideologies. MHP is a Turkish nationalistic party while HDP is Kurdish nationalistic with strong ties to PKK.

Chances are we'll have AKP as the government party without the majority in the parliament for a couple of months and have another election. I'm hopeful of AKP's strength deteriorating even further with this disappointing result.
 
It may not be an issue often discussed but this is actually the "biggest" thing in (political) EU:
This year, 102,000 migrants from Africa and the Middle-East have arrived in the EU, across the Mediterranean Sea.

In Italy 54,660 arrived, almost all from Libya. Greece counted 46,150, especially from Turkey. For Greece that's a huge increase (last year 34,000 in the total previous year).

Also in Spain and Malta migrants have landed, but these numbers were much smaller.

Approximately 1,800 people have died during the crossing.

In April, at least five boats carrying almost two thousand migrants to Europe sank in the Mediterranean Sea, with a combined death toll estimated at more than 1,200 people.

Italy has been ringing the alarm bells in Europe for a long time and now all EU nations need to host migrants. Up til now, it was just a handful countries doing (relatively) "a lot". Others did less, hardly anything or nothing.

EU divided over migrant quotas proposal
Some countries support a quota system, particularly Germany, which received over 200,000 applications for asylum last year, as well as countries which are struggling to cope with record numbers of migrants turning up on their shores, like Italy and Malta.

There is anger that some countries carry more of the burden than others. According to Eurostat, France and Italy had almost twice as many applicants for asylum as the UK, and Germany had more than twice as many as any other EU country. The UK had a total of 31,945 applicants last year - six times fewer than Germany. Germany expects 450,000 applications this year.
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