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Excerpt from:
Learn How to Get More Traffic to Your Website By Becoming An SEO Expert - IGN Nordic

The United Nations General Assembly, which meets every September, offers authoritarian heads of state their favorite platform for trolling the world. For this year's 75th annual session, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his trademark mockery of multilateralism by lecturing members that "the world is bigger than five," his euphemism for reshuffling the UN Security Council to get Turkey a permanent seat. Erdogan's calls to reform the United Nations might have found a sympathetic audience had it not come from a strongman who institutionalized one-man rule at home by destroying democratic governance and the rule of law during his nearly 18 years in office.

Between his annual pitches to redesign the United Nations to his own advantage, Erdogan found time to hurl anti-Semitic remarks. This year, he referred to Israel as "the dirty hand that reaches the privacy of Jerusalem," prompting a walkout from Israeli envoy Gilad Erdan, who accused the Turkish president of continuing "to spout anti-Semitic and false statements against Israel." Last year, Erdogan compared developments in Gaza to the Holocaust, eliciting a similar response from Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz via Twitter: "There is no other way to interpret Erdogan's crude and vile wordsit is antisemitism, clear cut."

Rather than represent a genuine desire to fix the United Nations, where authoritarian regimes have secured clout over the last decade to shield themselves from international scrutiny, Erdogan offers a classic example of a strongman bent on exploiting intergovernmental organizations.

The Turkish president's disregard for UN conventions, resolutions and sanctions is well documented. For example, a 376-page report the UN Panel of Experts on Libya issued in December 2019 found that Turkey, among others, violated a 2011 embargo by delivering arms and fighters to the war-torn North African country. The panel stated that the transfers to Libya were "repeated and sometimes blatant, with scant regard paid to compliance with the sanctions measures."

Erdogan's record is even more disconcerting in northern Syria. In a report the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria released on September 15, the panel accused Turkey's jihadist proxies of committing war crimes, including hostage-taking, cruel treatment, torture, rape and pillaging. The panel also accused Ankara's proxies of violating international humanitarian law by looting and destroying cultural property. Such violations, the report stated, "may entail criminal responsibility for [Turkish] commanders who knew or should have known about the crimes, or failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or repress their commission."

Erdogan's Syria policies prompted criticism from another UN agencythe United Nations Children's Fundin March, after Turkey-backed armed groups interrupted the flow of water from the Alouk water station to regions of northeast Syria, where close to 500,000 reside, including tens of thousands of internally displaced persons sheltered at camps. The agency warned that the "interruption of water supply during the current efforts to curb the spread of the Coronavirus disease puts children and families at unacceptable risk."

The latest UN agency to clash with Erdogan was the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which expressed its deep regrets for the Turkish president's conversion of Istanbul's sixth-century Byzantine church, Hagia Sophia, into a mosque. The conversion breached Ankara's legal commitments in accordance with the monument's status as a museum on the World Heritage List.

The Turkish president's abuse of the United Nations also extends to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In June 2016, 230 NGOs from around the world penned an open letter to ECOSOC criticizing the politicization of the United Nations' Committee on NGOs. Over the years, Turkey has received criticism for playing a large role in that politicization by using procedural tactics to block the granting of consultative status to NGOs, or withdraw that status from NGOs as a form of reprisal.

Both the United States and the European Union have expressed concern over the number of deferred applicants and called for an end to arbitrary questioning of NGOs at the committee. In February 2018, Geneva-based human rights watchdog UN Watch condemned the election of Turkey as the vice chair of the committee that accredits and oversees the work of human rights groups at the world body.

Erdogan's lofty general assembly speech and calls for reform and multilateral cooperation will not find a sympathetic audience beyond fellow authoritarians who share an interest in making a mockery of international norms. The Turkish president's key motivation for "fixing" the United Nations is to open it and other intergovernmental organizations to further abuse. Erdogan and others hope to bully their neighbors and trample upon vulnerable individuals and communities around the world without international scrutiny. It is imperative for democratic nations to join forces for genuine reform at international institutions, to deny impunity to autocrats and prevent them from adding insult to injury from their podiums.

Aykan Erdemir (@aykan_erdemir) is the senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of the Turkish parliament. Philip Kowalski (@philip_kowalski) is a research associate at the Turkey Program of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.

See the article here:
The United Nations: Erdogan's Favorite Platform for Trolling the World | Opinion - Newsweek

Not satisfied with his efforts to extend Turkeys influence into the Aegean Sea and the eastern Mediterranean, which has proved harder than similar efforts on land in Libya and Syria, President Erdogan has backed President Ilham Aliyevs efforts in Azerbaijans decades long simmering conflict with Armenia.

Given Armenias dearth of Western political supporters, and its peripheral status within the Wests religio-cultural community, Erdogan only has to face down Russian interests to extend Turkeys influence into the Caucasus.

Media reports allege that as Turkey did in Libya, it has moved allied irregular fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan. It has sold arms to Azerbaijan, reaping profits for the Turkish defense industry. In parallel, it has been fomenting the notion of pan-Turkism, calling for Azeris to recognize and embrace their natural affinity with Turks, a call aided by the closeness of the two languages, both now written in Latin script.

Now with the outbreak of hostilities, Erdoan has expressed full support for the Azerbaijani position, eschewing the role of mediator or honest broker between the warring parties. While the United States calls for the Minsk group to mediate, China offers its good offices, Russia calls for calm and an end to fighting, and Iran offers to broker talks, Turkey stands out as having placed itself fully on the side of one party to the conflict. Erdoan has no interest in a resolution of the conflict that does not enhance his prestige in Azerbaijan and political influence in the Caucasus region.

And he may get his wish. China is too far away to play much of a role, and it has few diplomats trained to be honest brokers instead of discerning and advocating forcefully for Chinas interest. Iran, with a population that is one-quarter ethnic Azeris and relatively few ethnic Armenians, would likely be seen as tilting towards Baku over Yerevan. The Minsk group would need substantial political capital invested by the U.S. to be effective as a mediator, and with the U.S. election in full-swing, there is little expectation the White House will back the Minsk group, or intervene itself, to bring a halt to the fighting. And while the UN will pass resolutions calling for cease fires, action to stop the fighting is unlikely.

Which leaves Russia on the side of Armenia, and Turkey on the side of Azerbaijan. It is unlikely the two greater powers will allow their clients to go so far as to pull their big brothers into the conflict, but the risk is there.

The greater danger is that, Aliyev, backed by Erdoan, wrapping his actions in calls for justice, will not seek a compromise and extend the fighting over time and terrain.Unlike specific identified territorial or other material goals, throwing the mantel of justice on war efforts leaves little room for horse-trading and compromise to settle a dispute in which each party gets less than what they desire, yet accepts that because they know the other party got the same. To satisfy the demands of justice or honor or similar concepts increases the likelihood that the conflict will only be resolved at great cost, for how can one relent when injustice is still occurring? And since each side will insist its cause is just, where is the room for sensible, realistic compromise?

President Erdoan likely views a protracted conflict as contrary to his interests. A short demonstration of support for Aliyevand Azerbaijan via the provision of arms, air support, military intelligence, and the transportation of irregular fighters (but not regular Turkish soldiers) will serve to cement his image as the defender of all Turkic peoples against the anti-Turkish Westerners. Linked to this will be the subtle message, and not so subtle suggestions from his acolytes, that Erdoan defends the Muslim Azeris against the Christian Armenians, a Sultan wielding the sword to defend the faithful.

Hell have to be careful. Putin may not so willingly cooperate with Turkey over the division of influence in Russias near abroad as it has done in Syria and to a lesser degree in Libya.

In the U.S. Congress, Erdoans full-throated support for Azerbaijan will not go down well with many members, particularly those with strong ties to the well-organized and well-to-do Armenian-American communities. Erdoans standing with the Democrat-dominated U.S. House of Representatives could not get much lower, so the voices of the Armenian-American lobby will find receptive ears.

Likewise with the White House, which has shown increasing impatience, or at least a less supportive attitude, towards Erdoan. Yet, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is not likely to push the U.S. forward as a mediator between the two Caucasus rivals, instead advocating a greater role for the Minsk group, in part to buy time until after the Nov. 3 election.

In sum, President Erdoan is likely to realize his goal of increasing his and Turkeys prestige among the Azeris and most other Turkic peoples of the region, as well as further convincing himself that he is the pre-eminent protector and defender of Turkic/Muslim peoples wherever they live. Like imperial leaders of all times, his reliance on client states and subordinate allies is no surprise and spares him the risk of losing votes if Turkish soldiers were to be killed fighting for others and not the motherland. His actions regarding Nagorno-Karabakh are another step in the process of undoing Ataturks secular and Western orientation of Turkey.

View post:
Is Erdoan extending his influence into the Caucasus? - Ahval

On Thursday afternoon, the third-party candidate with arguably the single greatest chance of being labeled a "spoiler" in battle to control the U.S. Senate abruptly dropped out to endorse his embattled competitor, the reliably anti-libertarian Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.).

"President Trump has asked that conservatives stand together and reelect Lindsey Graham in order to help make America great again, and I agree," Constitution Party nominee Bill Bledsoe explained in a statement.

Bledsoe, a veterinarian, ran for Senate in 2016 under both the Constitution Party and Libertarian Party banners, winning 1.8 percent of the vote. He averaged 3.5 percent in the two polls this year on which his name appeared. (Deep-funded Democratic challenger Jamie Harrison averaged 44.5 percent, compared to Graham's 44 percent.) The race is projected by nine of 10 prognosticators to be at least leaning Republican, with the tenth calling it even.

The pressure on nonconformist candidates and voters alike to join the Manichean political war of 2020 is intense, contributing to significantly lower support for independent and third-party candidates over the past two years. While the headline focus in our presidentially obsessed culture is on how this flight from experimentation affects the contest for the White House, the fact is that even after Bledsoe's abdication, several independent and third-party campaigns have the potential to affect one of the most difficult-to-predict political questions in the country right now: Which of the two major parties will have control of the Senate in 2021?

The GOP currently holds a slim 5345 advantage in the upper chamber (with the two independents caucusing with Democrats), but prognosticators unanimously see that margin shrinking or even reversing after the election for 35 seats this November. FiveThirtyEight currently gives Democrats a 63 percent chance of winning a majority.

Eight of the 10 forecasting agencies Wikipedia collects on its Senate elections page project the parties to be either tied or within one seat of each other after the dust from the election settles. With nine individual races at or near "tossup" status, look for a mixture of arm-twisting and backroom sweeteners to persuade potential spoilers to pull a Bledsoe.

Here are five Senate races where third-party candidates are likeliest to receive more votes than the margin between the Democrat and Republican. They are ranked by the percentage-point distance between their own polling numbers and the top-two gap, with the usual caveats that there frequently aren't many polls and that third-party candidates routinely undershoot their pre-election projections.

1) Shannon Bray (L), North Carolina, +0.9.

Field, polling percentages: Cal Cunningham (D), 42.6; Thom Tillis (R, incumbent), 40.5; Bray, 3.0; Kevin Hayes (Constitution), 1.6; other/not voting/undecided, 12.3 (14 polls).

Forecast: Six out of 10 election forecasters classify this race as a tossup; three say leans toward the Democrats; one says it's a likely Dem win. Analyzes Vox's Dylan Scott: "Everybody I spoke to expects an extraordinarily tight Senate race. The outcome could very well decide which party controls the Senate in 2021, going bythe Sabato's Crystal Ball ratings. Assuming Democrats lose in the Alabama Senate race but win in Arizona, Colorado, and Mainewhich forecasters say is a fairly likely scenariothen they just need a win in either North Carolina or Iowa. With one of those toss-up states, by Sabato's reckoning, Democrats can secure 50 Senate seats."

Know your "spoiler": Bray is a Navy vet who currently works in cybersecurity for the Defense Department. He is campaigning on the cybersecurity issue, plus improving health care for veterans and fighting for "equal rights under the law for all American citizens."

2) Shane Hazel (L), Georgia, +0.3.

Field, polling percentages: David Perdue (R, incumbent), 46.0; Jon Ossoff (D, 42.6); Hazel, 3.9; other/not voting/undecided, 7.6 (7 polls).

Forecast: Five of 10 outfits say the race leans toward the Republican; four say it's a tossup. "A sure sign the outcome is in doubt," reported the Athens Banner-Herald on September 18, "is how much the candidates and the national super PACs backing them are spending to bomb the airwaves, to the dismay of political ad-weary TV viewers. Total TV/radio ad spending in the race, including future bookings, is now more than $83.4 million." An important note: Georgia requires runoffs if no candidate wins a majority, which means (as University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock told the Banner-Herald), "We may not know which party controls the Senate until January."

Know your "spoiler": Hazel is a former Marine and current podcaster who wants to "#EndTheWars," "#EndTheFed," and "#EndTheEmpire." Mission statement: "[T]o bring people together while preserving the freedom of every individual, regardless of skin color, age, faith, gender, love and every other nuance which make us unique. We must come together and remove the government/corporate cabals from the lives of peaceful people here in the US and around the world."

3) Lisa Savage (i), Maine, 0.0. (Max Linn, another independent, is right behind at -0.6.)

Field, polling percentages: Sara Gideon (D), 44.2; Susan Collins (R, incumbent), 41.6; Savage, 2.6; Linn 2.0; other/not voting/undecided, 9.8 (5 polls).

Forecast: Six out of 10 agencies rate this one a tossup, others are "likely" or "lean" Democrat. BUT THERE'S A TWIST. Maine will at long last this year use ranked choice voting in a federal race, which means that if no candidate wins a plurality, the low man/woman will be tossed out, with his/her votes redistributed based on who those voters listed as their second choice. This process will be repeated for as long as it takes for someone to win a majority.

Know your "spoilers": Savage, a teacher and grandmother from rural Maine, is a Green in everything but name. "I believe we deserve a government that works for us, not the big banks, weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel giants and corporate lobbyists who are calling the shots in Washington," she told Ballotpedia. Linn, an eccentric, Trumpy financial planner who has mounted runs for office previously as a Republican, a Democrat, and a member of the Reform Party, favors a five-year ban on all immigration; he answered a recent debate question about coronavirus policy by theatrically cutting up a mask.

4) Rick Stewart (L), Iowa, -0.3.

Field, polling percentages: Theresa Greenfield (D), 45.7; Joni Ernst (R, incumbent), 43.7; Stewart, 1.7; Suzanne Herzog (i), 1.0; other/not voting/undecided, 7.3 (3 polls).

Forecast: All 10 election prognosticators rate Ernst's re-election bid as a tossup. The Washington Post says: "So far, $155million has beenspentin Iowa on the Senate race alone. The TV is filled with dark messages of political rot. Greenfield, thedaughterof a crop-duster, hasraised more moneythan Ernst. She is wearing well,attracting10percent of voters who supported Trump four years ago."

Know your "spoiler": Stewart, a former cop, retired entrepreneur, and Calvin Coolidge aficionado, ran against Ernst in 2014 as an independent, earning 2.4 percent of the vote to her 52.1 percent. (Libertarian Douglas Butzier got 0.7 percent.) As a Libertarian, he won 26.2 percent of the vote in a losing contest for Linn County sheriff, and he got 3 percent in 2018 when running for secretary of agriculture. He is campaigning to "End all wars" (including "the racist Drug War"), "end all economic nonsense," and "keep government simple."

5) John Wayne Howe (Alaskan Independence Party), Alaska, +/-?

The question mark is there because Howe, a Ron Swansonesque machinist who wants to eliminate taxes, privatize public land, and make government functions voluntary, has not yet been included in any poll against the Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and the Democrat-backed independent challenger Al Gross.

Alaska is traditionally one of the most third-party-friendly terrains, and non-major-party candidates have received at least 6 percent combined in every election for this Senate seat since 1996. As for the 2020 race, seven out of 10 forecasters rate the headline race a likely Republican win and two say it leans R, but there is a tossup forecast in there too.

And Howe is a real humdinger: "The governmentfederal, state, borough, cityall are thieves. Even when the spending comes from a vote of the people it is stealing, the only difference is those that voted for spending are now also guilty. How do we fund government without theft?"

See the article here:
The 5 (Mostly Libertarian) Candidates Who Might Get Blamed for Tipping Control of the Senate - Reason

Keith MacIntyre has made the cut to stand as an official candidate in the provincial election.

He has surpassed the required number of signatures required ahead of the Oct. 2 deadline with Elections BC for candidates.

MacIntyre is running as a candidate for the BC Libertarian Party, and he is calling on those who dont want to support the larger parties to support him.

We have an opportunity this election to show Victoria that we dont feel heard. If you dont like politics, if you dont vote because its a waste of time, if you feel disheartened by the state of politics, vote Libertarian.

MacIntyre has experience running a tech company for 17 years as owner of Big Bear Software and has seen firsthand the waste in government procurement federally and provincially in the defense, medical and provincial ministries.

The signatures were gathered from citizens across the Penticton riding, including in Peachland, Summerland, and Naramata. It was in conversations with people that MacIntyre came to the decision to run for MLA.

I was inspired by the conversations I had in the riding with people who feel frustrated and angry at the state of politics in B.C., MacIntyre said in a release. Many are frustrated that this election has been called, including myself.

The partys platforms will be announced in the upcoming weeks, with one core principle being the support of peoples personal freedoms.

To report a typo, email: editor@pentictonwesternnews.com.

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Keith MacIntyre recognized as official Libertarian candidate for Penticton - Pentiction Western News