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Friday, December 27, 2013

Turkish Game Show Pulled After Hinting at Corruption Scandal

Video of the host of the Turkish quiz show “The Word Game” asking a guest a question about corruption.

Last Updated, 7:43 p.m. | A popular Turkish game show disappeared from the airwaves this week after its host appeared to make a veiled reference to a widening corruption scandal by asking a contestant to name a slang term for a person who takes bribes.

As the Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tufekci explained, Ali Ihsan Varol, the star of the quiz show “Kelime Oyunu,” or “The Word Game,” apparently crossed a line in an episode broadcast last week when he informed a stumped guest on the show that the word he was looking for was “yiyici,” a Turkish word for an “eater,” commonly used to describe a corrupt official.

This was the second time in six months that Mr. Varol has apparently been rebuked for introducing politics into his vocabulary quiz. The program was also halted in June, after he devoted an entire episode to words associated with the antigovernment protests in Gezi Park â€" like “Taksim,” “gas mask” and “dictator” â€" that the local news media had largely ignored.

As the journalist and blogger Sevgi Akarcesme noted in Today’s Zaman, an English-language news site, advocates of press freedom expressed concern that the show had been removed as part of a wider crackdown on media reporting on the scandal, “such as the restriction of certain newspapers on Turkish Airlines (THY) planes, blocking access to journalist Mehmet Baransu’s website and the decision to shut down press offices within the country’s police departments.”

The game show commentary came amid self-censorship in the Turkish media so widespread that a news channel’s website even failed to report that a government minister who resigned on the air during one of its own live broadcasts had also called for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to step down.

As Ms. Akarcesme also reported in Today’s Zaman, one of the country’s leading comedians, Cem Yilmaz, rallied to Mr. Varol’s defense. Writing on Twitter, the comedian told his five million followers: “The most decent TV program has stopped being broadcast. I once volunteered to be a contestant on the show. It was my favorite. I condemn the decision.”

The journalist Emre Kizilkaya also saluted the game show host in a post on his blog headlined, “On Turkish TV, Even Implied Criticism Is Not Allowed.” Mr. Varol, the blogger wrote, “pushed away a handsome salary and a chance to remain as a face on a popular TV to stake a claim on his right to criticize â€" although in a veiled way. He is a man of principles with a much better grade than many journalists.”



A Taste of the Social Web’s Turkey Legs

In this video posted to YouTube by Lisa Chen in May, a family shares a turkey leg at one of the Disney parks.

The web is studded with a perhaps surprising number of examples of Disney customers indulging in the massive drumsticks known as the Jumbo Turkey Leg â€" from otherwise mild-mannered seemingly nuclear families to all-female groups of carnivores to whole collections of Instagrams that depict man versus meat.

A screen grab from Statigram showing Instagram pictures of Disney turkey legs. A screen grab from Statigram showing Instagram pictures of Disney turkey legs.

As The Times’s Brooks Barnes writes, the turkey legs have been around since the 1980s. (David Jarrett, posting on the Unofficial Disney Turkey Leg Fan Club site in 2011, said that he first took the turkey leg to Magic Kingdom/Walt Disney World on Dec. 9, 1989. “I was the Frontierland/Adventureland/Liberty Square/King Stefan’s F&B Manager at the time and it was my idea to bring the legs to WDW,” he wrote on Nov. 11, 2012; F&B means food and beverage. “The food cart in front of Pecos Bill was the first location and the original spec size was 20-24 oz.”

But whatever its origins, the leg has become a part of Disney lore for many. For instance, Tonya Schadle posted on Instagram four months ago a nostalgic image of her son Skyler Harris eating one in 2000 at Magic Kingdom when he was a tyke: “Love him!!! ❤❤❤ He is still that sweet baby boy!!”

And yet, new converts are coming all the time. Someone who calls herself Piggy posted this message on Twitter on Friday:

Cathi Reed of Indiana reported that there was an hourlong line for turkey legs on Christmas Eve at Disney World.

The fever has spread beyond North America, with Shawn Acheson, who goes by the Twitter handle SHAWNofINDIA, reporting:

Fans celebrate such brand extensions:

Indeed, they demand more:

This lover of the leg recorded her 2011 encounter and, as she said, was so enraptured that she couldn’t turn off the camera: the clip is longer than 10 minutes. At one point she looked at the turkey leg next to her own and judged the two to be comparable in size.

“Be jealous,” she said, as she tore into the meat.



On Twitter, Documenting an Antarctic Journey and a Countdown to a Rescue

Prof. Chris Turney posted this video on YouTube on Dec. 27, talking about waiting for the icebreaker.

A Chinese vessel is battling severe weather and ice jams as it tries to make its way toward a research ship wedged in Antarctic ice, and the ordeal has been documented in social media postings by a professor on the ship, Chris Turney.

On his website and Twitter account, @ProfChrisTurney, Professor Turney is tracking the progress of the rescue, and describes what he and his colleagues are enduring and their surroundings: the penguins, the reflections of the water on the sky, and the efforts at keeping their spirits up since they became trapped.

Reuters reported that the Chinese icebreaker was expected to reach the ship, a Russian vessel called the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, by Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The research ship has been locked in Antarctic ice since just before Christmas with about 74 passengers and crew members on board.

“We are surrounded by sea ice, we just can’t get through,” Professor Turney said in a video posted on the day after Christmas.

Video posted on Dec. 26 showing the blizzard.

As the Chinese icebreaker appeared on Friday, the mood lightened.

Professor Turney, a climate scientist leading the Australasian Antarctic Expedition and a professor in Australia, said in a video at about 3 p.m. on Friday that those on board had just heard from the Chinese vessel Snow Dragon that it was en route to assist them, about 12 miles away.

An earlier video on Friday in which Professor Turney says that weather conditions have improved, but that the Chinese vessel is still in the distance.

In a later video, recorded at 9:30 p.m., he said that there were a lot of “happy faces” as he and the team spotted the Chinese icebreaker on the horizon. He said it was expected to draw alongside his ship in about two hours.

Professor Turney, on YouTube, posted a more than seven-minute-long video introducing the journey, which celebrates and retraces the voyage of the polar explorer Douglas Mawson.

Chris Turney gives an overview of the expedition.

Professor Turney told Sky News that before Christmas Day, the conditions changed when those on board had been conducting research, and they realized they could not get free of the ice. The ship was listing, and the captain put out an alert on Christmas Eve.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



On Twitter, Documenting an Antarctic Journey and a Countdown to a Rescue

Prof. Chris Turney posted this video on YouTube on Dec. 27, talking about waiting for the icebreaker.

A Chinese vessel is battling severe weather and ice jams as it tries to make its way toward a research ship wedged in Antarctic ice, and the ordeal has been documented in social media postings by a professor on the ship, Chris Turney.

On his website and Twitter account, @ProfChrisTurney, Professor Turney is tracking the progress of the rescue, and describes what he and his colleagues are enduring and their surroundings: the penguins, the reflections of the water on the sky, and the efforts at keeping their spirits up since they became trapped.

Reuters reported that the Chinese icebreaker was expected to reach the ship, a Russian vessel called the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, by Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The research ship has been locked in Antarctic ice since just before Christmas with about 74 passengers and crew members on board.

“We are surrounded by sea ice, we just can’t get through,” Professor Turney said in a video posted on the day after Christmas.

Video posted on Dec. 26 showing the blizzard.

As the Chinese icebreaker appeared on Friday, the mood lightened.

Professor Turney, a climate scientist leading the Australasian Antarctic Expedition and a professor in Australia, said in a video at about 3 p.m. on Friday that those on board had just heard from the Chinese vessel Snow Dragon that it was en route to assist them, about 12 miles away.

An earlier video on Friday in which Professor Turney says that weather conditions have improved, but that the Chinese vessel is still in the distance.

In a later video, recorded at 9:30 p.m., he said that there were a lot of “happy faces” as he and the team spotted the Chinese icebreaker on the horizon. He said it was expected to draw alongside his ship in about two hours.

Professor Turney, on YouTube, posted a more than seven-minute-long video introducing the journey, which celebrates and retraces the voyage of the polar explorer Douglas Mawson.

Chris Turney gives an overview of the expedition.

Professor Turney told Sky News that before Christmas Day, the conditions changed when those on board had been conducting research, and they realized they could not get free of the ice. The ship was listing, and the captain put out an alert on Christmas Eve.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



Last Words From a Beirut Bombing Victim

Mohamad B. Chatah in a recent interview in Arabic with Future TV of Lebanon.

Video and social media images of a bomb blast in downtown Beirut were widely shared online, highlighting the first such attack in several years to hit the capital’s business district as well as some of the final public remarks and writings of a prominent Lebanese politician who was among the six people killed.

While there has been no claim of responsibility for the attack, as my colleagues Anne Barnard and Dan Bilefsky reported, much of the attention in the aftermath settled on Hezbollah and the war in neighboring Syria.

The politician who was killed, Mohamad B. Chatah, was a former ambassador to the United States and former finance minister. While it was not clear whether he had been specifically targeted, he had been a vocal critic of the government in neighboring Syria and its ally, the Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah.

In an interview with the Future Television network last month, Mr. Chatah said, in part, that Hezbollah should be viewed more broadly than as just a domestic political party.

“It is bigger than that,” Mr. Chatah said in the interview. “We should look at Hezbollah’s speech on a broader context. Hezbollah is not like any other party. Hezbollah is playing an essential role on behalf of a grand coalition, based in Iran, of course. And we should look at the Republican Guards and the Iranian leadership to read Hezbollah stances here.”

On his Twitter account, @mohamad_chatah, his apparent final post just hours before the bombing was a single message about Hezbollah that was apparently intended for the widest possible audience, written both in English and in Arabic.

His timeline reflected a history of his thought on the subject of Syria and Hezbollah, a theme he also explored extensively on his blog, where he linked the conflict in Syria with Lebanon’s violent past.

Fact number 1: A united and peaceful Syria ruled by Assad is simply not possible anymore. It has been like that for some time. The status quo ante cannot be restored. Iran and Hezbollah realize this more than anyone else.

Fact number 2: The Assad regime is incapable of adapting to a power sharing arrangement as contemplated by the Geneva principles. The regime is brittle and fragile as it is brutal and ruthless. It can break but cannot bend. Assad knows it and Iran knows it.

Fact number 3: A free and democratic Syria would be a strategic disaster for Tehran. If given a choice, the Syrian people would be certain to sever their country’s geopolitical alliance with the Islamic Republic and stop providing a geographic corridor to Iran’s military arm in Lebanon..

Fact number 4: Iran’s second best alternative to the irretrievable status quo ante is simply a protracted war. This is now Iran’s victory strategy. A bloody and chaotic Syrian theater will still be usable by Iran and Hezbollah more flexibly and efficiently than their western enemies. Remember the civil war in Lebanon?

Fact number 5: A protracted war in Syria will help terrorism flourish even more. Both the kind manipulated used by the regime to blackmail the west and the “authentic” strain that festers and spreads in open wounds, like opportunistic parasites.

Conclusion: If Iran’s militant ideology and hegemonic ambitions and radical “Islamic” terrorism are the two strategic threats that need to be overcome, then the policy towards Syria should aim at bringing to a quick end both the devastating war and Assad’s rule. Humanitarian considerations aside, any policy that is based on the premise that a protracted conflict in Syria is costless is misguided and dangerous. It is exactly what Iran wants and it will help the scourge of terrorism to thrive.

As Ms. Barnard reported, Hezbollah issued a statement calling the bombing “a heinous crime” and calling for a full investigation by the security forces. On Twitter, she shared excerpts from her reporting, as did other journalists with firsthand material.

Images from journalists with The Associated Press showed some of the damage.

Footage from The Associated Press of the aftermath of the bomb attack in Beirut on Dec. 27.

Future TV posted dramatic and graphic footage on its YouTube account of the blast and rescue efforts of some of the casualties.

Future TV footage, including graphic images, of the aftermath of the Dec. 27 bomb blast in Beirut.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



Freed Pussy Riot Activists Stand Firm and Shift Focus

Radio Free Europe narrated remarks from Pussy Riot members as part of a Dec. 27 daily news roundup.

Four days after their release from a Russian prison, two members of the punk band Pussy Riot gave their first news conference to emphasize that they were starting a human rights organization, while sticking by the message that put them in jail: ending the presidency of Vladimir V. Putin.

The activists, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and another woman were arrested last year after they performed a crude anti-Putin song on the altar of a Moscow cathedral. Ms. Alyokhina and Ms. Tolokonnikova were later sentenced to two years in a penal colony. The third woman, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was released on appeal, with a two-year suspended sentence.

On Monday, Ms. Alyokhina and Ms. Tolokonnikova were freed from prison colonies under a new amnesty law, which they dismissed as a publicity stunt. According to Reuters, Ms. Tolokonnikova said “their release was aimed solely at improving Russia’s image before it hosts the Winter Olympic Games.”

The news agency added that Ms. Tolokonnikova called the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi “Putin’s pet project” and said that “anybody attending them would be supporting him.”

Excerpts of the news conference on Friday were provided by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as part of a news roundup. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was among several news organizations that reported that the women said they supported the idea of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, who was released from prison this week under a presidential pardon, becoming Russia’s president.

The women said they would shift their focus to human rights work, such as improving prison conditions, and The Associated Press quoted Ms. Tolokonnikova as saying, in part:

As for Vladimir Putin, we still feel the same about him. We still want to do what we said in our last performance for which we spent two years in prison: drive him away.

Follow Christine Hauser on Twitter @christineNYT.



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