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Hatay was overran by Saudi and Qatari jihadi cadres, pampered by the US, EU and Turkish logistics, support, weaponry and cash. The terror these people have been spreading in this historically peaceful, multi-cultural and tolerant part of the world, could hardly be described in words.

the local elites, right now in January 2014, are doing whatever they can, to prevent the re election of Ms Dilma Roussef… You are an experienced Latin America´s observer, you know very well…

I witnessed President Morsi of Egypt (I was critical of his rule at first, as I was critical of the government of Mr. Shinawatra, before real horror swept both Egypt and Thailand), being overthrown by the military, which, while in its zealous over-drive, managed in the process to murder several thousands of mainly poor Egyptian people.

What was completely unexpected was the reaction in Istanbul. In the immediate aftermath of the shootings the Taksim Solidarity movement simply took to the streets, alongside Kurds.

From the beginning secular nationalists with their origins in military Kemalism have been an important component part of the protest movement. Once more they joined. But this time while they were waving their Turkish flags they were shouting for justice and repeating the name of a Kurdish boy – a Kurd killed by the very same army that the media ( and almost everybody else) would expect them to support.

Whatever promise of a peace process Erdogan comes up with in the months to follow, when he will try to salvage support in every way possible, it is not needed in the same way. He is no longer the only peace-maker on the Turkish side. A fundamental reconciliation has already happened. It's already taken to the streets of Turkey. It's among the people. And it's called solidarity. 

The GCC oil sheikhs ‘paid’ $15bn in aid for the July 2013 coup in Egypt, but the handouts were quickly used up on buttressing the Egyptian pound and on a dismal $4.9bn stimulus package. The Egyptian pound has continued its slide, economic growth has stalled (at best its 1% in the first quarter of 2014), the budget deficit stands at14% of GDP, unemployment is 13.4%, inflation is 10%, while public debt and foreign debt are accelerating. GCC aid is not just monetary, and includes fuel and natural gas, which Egypt was cavalierly exporting until last year.

Investors want to have their cake and eat it: no more corrupt Mubarakite officials, and at the same time no more challenges to corrupt investment deals (which often strip a state company of its assets and lay off workers, spiriting any profits abroad).

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) government tried to square the circle. It allowed the illegal privatisations to be challenged, turned back the massive corruption, and encouraged a new class of small and more devout businessmen to build a new Egypt, emulating the Turkish miracle which unfolded under the Islamists there. Egypt is ripe for such a development, but the paranoia of the secular elite and their unwillingness to make room for a less corrupt, more dynamic, more home-grown, non-Cairene strata of entrepreneurs means that the only way forward for Egypt has been crushed “in the near term”.

They could appear in West Asia as European conquerors, who see themselves as a bridgehead of the “white” man and as masters of the “natives”, like the Spanish conquistadores and the Anglo-Saxon colonialists in America. That is what the crusaders did in their time. The second way was to see themselves as an Asian people returning to their homeland, the heirs to the political and cultural traditions of the Semitic world, ready to take part, with the other peoples of the region, in the war of liberation from European exploitation.

The most common conclusion was that democratic elections would inevitably lead to the victory of “Islamist” fanatics, who would set up brutal Taliban-style theocracies, or worse. Part of this, of course, is deliberate propaganda, designed to convince the naïve Americans and Europeans that they must shore up the Mubaraks of the region or alternative military strongmen. But most of it was quite sincere: most Israelis really believe that the Arabs, left to their own devices, will set up murderous “Islamist” regimes, whose main aim would be to wipe Israel off the map.

Surely, by now, we have abundant practice in doing nothing at all–we must be a hardened people, with very thick skin, and an ability to ignore the screams coming from the basement whenever we like. So why must Libya be this exception? What made you wake up, and wake up in such a way that you wanted to be the hero of someone else’s story?

The Arab League’s decision to first call for a no fly zone can only invite the most scornful mockery. This is a club of dictators, who found the ideal opportunity to remove a competing dictator that they have long resented and detested.

When the UN passed the latest resolution against Libya, the Al Jazeera correspondent in Benghazi, Tony Birtley, engaged in obscene and undignified cheering and gloating.