Read all posts for ‘turkey’

The article responds to the Secrets of Transformation multimedia series, a joint project of Bertelsmann Transformation Index and Deutsche Welle.  Comparison is an art. Just as statistics is the art of lying, comparison is the art of demoralizing. Theodore Roosevelt, often seen as one of the best U.S. presidents, once famously said, “comparison is the […]

Ayşe[1] is a poor woman living in Ankara. Born in a rural area in Eastern Anatolia, she immigrated to the capital with her family when she was a child. She has only received a basic education as higher education was unthinkable for her poor rural family. She is an Alevi, […]

Last summer, I went to pick up a backpacking German friend in Ankara’s busy bus station. After exchanging greetings and talking about how life had been, I asked about his initial impressions of Turkey. “The countryside is impressive,” he said, “but the cities are quite weird”. When I asked him […]

South of Ciudad Real in Central Spain lies a brand new airport with one of the longest runways in Europe, state of the art facilities and a capacity of 10 million passengers a year. Its only problem is that it is closed. The airport ceased operations in April 2012, less […]

Protests, Poverty and Prosperity in Perspective 2012 started with a bang in Bucharest. The usually sedate Romanian capital erupted with protests the likes of which had not been seen for at least a decade. At first glance it seemed that people were angry with new healthcare legislation and the ousting of a […]