In regards to her economy, Turkey is the world’s seventeenth largest economy, Europe’s sixth largest economy², and from 2005 to 2008 she doubled her trade exchange with her eight nearest geographical neighbors, which encompasses countries such as Syria, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan and Georgia³. Turkey is also growing as an energetic corridor, with the Baku-Ceyhan gas pipeline and the oil pipelines from Iraq and Iran, in addition to becoming an exporter of water to other regional states, such as Libya⁴. Moreover, Turkish tourism is booming and the number of Arab and Persian tourists to Turkey has multiplied over the past few years, while Arab television channel are buying in large number Turkish television series, which are very popular among Arab viewers⁵.

In regards to military capabilities, as commonly known Turkey has the second largest army in NATO⁶. However, what is less known is Turkey current military upgrade, such as already having the second largest inventory of F-16 fighters in the world and the recent acquisition of modern frigates and submarines to update its Navy traditionally viewed as poor⁷. Moreover, Turkey has been developing domestic military building capabilities that make her independent from foreign suppliers⁸, such as the United States or Israel.

Besides, Turkey started playing an instrumental role in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, by mediating direct talks between Syria and Israel, diffusing tensions between Lebanon and Israel and holding talks with Saudi-Arabia on the matter.

Turkish military recent upgrade trend, combined with strong economic ties to the Middle East region and her active participation in the Israel-Palestinian conflict clearly indicate a desire to become a regional hegemon.

Sources
1. Chubin S. “Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions” Carnegie Endowment, Washington DC, 2006, P.15
2. Ahmet Davutoglu “Turkish Foreign Policy and the EU in 2010” Turkish Policy Quarterly, Fall 2009, p.15
3. Yigal Schleifer “The Ottoman Revival” Foreign Policy May – June 2009
4. Edward J. Erickson “Turkey as Regional Hegemon – 2014: Strategic Implications for the United States” Turkish Studies, Vol.5, No.3 Autumn 2004, p.37
5. Sahin Alpay “Turkey’s EU membership and the Muslim world” Turkish Weekly 5 March 2007 24
6. (Erickson , 2004, p.34)
7.Ibid
8.Ibid

In other news, last week, a five-week legal battle between oil trader Trafigura and the UK’s Guardian newspaper came to a close when Trafigura ended a secret injunction with the news organization. How did this all start?

In 2006, a scientific study eventually called the Minton Report began to collect evidence that Trafigura was dumping toxic waste in the waters of the Cote d’Ivoire. The report was commissioned when hundreds of people in the Cote d’Ivoire claimed to have been poisoned and flooded the hospitals. In more detail:

The Minton report – though it was preliminary in nature – made dismaying reading for Claude Dauphin, the Trafigura director in charge of oil preparations. It said the process had been so amateurish that it had probably left a high quantity of noxious sulphur compounds in the vast quantity of stinking black waste.

Minton went on to list half a dozen potentially unstable chemical compounds which could burn or poison people who came into contact with them. Some of them could also generate the killer gas hydrogen sulphide in certain conditions.

Minton said such waste could never have been dumped legally on a landfill in Europe and ought to have received specialist and expensive chemical treatment called “wet air oxidation” to make it safe. None of this had happened.

Among the effects of the sludge, Minton listed: severe burns to the skin and to the lungs; permanent ulceration; corneal damage; vomiting, diarrhoea, loss of consciousness and death. One of the chemicals was branded “very toxic to humans and dangerous to the environment”.

About a month ago, The Guardian got word of this report. Trafigura, claiming the report’s evidence was preliminary and inaccurate, went to lengths to file an injunction on The Guardian effectively prohibiting them from publishing the content and findings of the Minton Report. And not only that, but they also filed what has become known as a “super injunction” – a gag order banning The Guardian from even disclosing that they were under an injunction. News of the Minton Report still got out in cyberspace, particularly in Wikileaks, and was circulated madly on Twitter. (For a full story of how the news leaked all over the Internet, refer to the Online Journalism Blog).

But finally, largely under pressure by social media networks and blogging communities, Trafigura released The Guardian from the injunction, and the super injunction. They even admitted that the waste could have caused a “range of short term low level flu like symptoms and anxiety.”

The obvious takeaway – in a social media world, important news is becoming even tougher to suppress. But this is still food for thought about the current state of press freedom – even in the UK – and of course, about the role of companies like Trafigura and their environmental responsibility.

Related Links:

The Minton Report, in full

The Guardian’s clause-by-clause analysis of the super injunction

Hundreds of workers walked out of the Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Lincolnshire when the owner, Total, awarded a £200m contract to an Italian subcontractor, IREM. Over the last three days, “Sympathy strikes” spread across the country – in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Workers fear that they may become victims of rising unemployment in the UK.

A few years ago when the economy was thriving this would not have happened – but then the economy is not thriving now. During a period of high unemployment, the sight of foreign workers ‘taking British jobs’ is proving to be unacceptable, especially when they believe that qualified unemployed UK contractors are available. The workers are angry that Gordon Brown is not keeping a promise that he made at the Labour Party conference of providing “British jobs for British workers.”

Speaking from the World Economic Conference in Davos, Brown chastises that “Wildcat strikes are not defensible.” While he sympathizes with local workers, he emphasized that “we need people with the skills, developed in this country.”

So why was the business contract awarded to a foreign firm in the first place? Is this a case of relatively skilled versus unskilled labor, like Brown implied? Or is it just a matter of cheaper labor overseas? There is no way of knowing without looking at the business contract (which is confidential), but Total claims that they are paying the Italian workers the same as local workers.

The government has began an investigation into whether Total has illegally withheld jobs from British workers. The workers’ emotions are running high and some believe that this is a prelude to social unrest. Yet, students of international economics know that the mobility of labor across borders from a country with comparative advantage to one without, is in theory, beneficial to both countries. “Protectionism would be a sure-fire way of turning recession into depression.” Lord Mandelson could be right. Now it’s just a matter of convincing unemployed British workers of that.