Articles On Information

One Woman’s Mission to Free Laos From Millions of Unexploded Bombs

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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Disposal experts prepared to blow up unexploded ordnance in a field littered with cluster bomblets in Xieng Khoang Province, Laos. From 1964 to 1973, American warplanes conducted 580,000 bombing missions over Laos, one of the most intensive air campaigns in the history of warfare.</a></span></span></figcaption><div style="text-align: justify;">
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HOUAYKHAY,
 Laos —  Thao Kae and his friends were foraging for their dinner, 
collecting the bamboo shoots that grow in the jungle a half-hour’s walk 
from their remote hamlet along the Mekong River. As they dug and sifted 
the soil, one of the boys found a small metal sphere and brought it back
 to a house in the village.</div>
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“They
 thought it was a pétanque ball,” said Khamsing Wilaikaew, a 59-year-old
 farmer, referring to the French bowling game similar to bocce. “They 
were throwing it against the ground.”</div>
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Four decades after it was dropped from a warplane, the metal ball, an American-made <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cluster_munitions/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about cluster munitions.">cluster bomb</a>,
 did what it was designed to do. Thao Kae, 8, was killed on the spot. 
Mr. Khamsing’s wife and a 9-year-old boy died of their injuries days 
later.</div>
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The
 accident in Houaykhay happened a year and a half ago, but two boys are 
still limping from untreated and painful injuries to their feet, and the
 villagers are still traumatized.</div>
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They
 recounted the story on a recent morning to a visitor, Channapha 
Khamvongsa, an irrepressibly cheery Lao-American woman who for the past 
decade has led a single-minded effort to rid her native land of millions
 of bombs still buried here, the legacy of a nine-year American air 
campaign that made <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/laos/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Laos.">Laos</a> one of the most heavily bombed places on earth.</div>
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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">“There are many, many problems in this world that might not be able to be solved in a lifetime,” she said. “But this is one that can be fixed. Given that it was ignored for so long, we need to redouble our efforts and finish the job.”</a></div>
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From 1964 to 1973, American warplanes conducted 580,000 bombing missions over <a class="meta-loc" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/laos/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Laos.">Laos</a>,
 one of the most intensive air campaigns in the history of warfare. The 
campaign is often called the Secret War because the United States did 
not publicly acknowledge waging it.</div>
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The
 targets were North Vietnamese troops — especially along the Ho Chi Minh
 Trail, a large part of which passed through Laos — as well as North 
Vietnam’s Laotian Communist allies.</div>
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Since the war’s end, more than 8,000 people have been killed and about 12,000 wounded in Laos by <a class="meta-classifier" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cluster_munitions/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about cluster munitions.">cluster bombs</a> and other live, leftover ordnance.</div>
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Thanks
 largely to Ms. Channapha’s lobbying, annual United States spending on 
the removal of unexploded bombs in Laos increased to $12 million this 
year from $2.5 million a decade ago.</div>
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“The
 funding increase is almost single-handedly due to the dogged efforts of
 Channapha,” said Murray Hiebert, an expert on Southeast Asia at the 
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “She 
operates from a tiny shoe-box operation in Washington with almost no 
budget. Her only tools are her charm, conviction and persistence.”</div>
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Sam
 Perez, a deputy assistant secretary of state, called Ms. Channapha “a 
driving force behind the awareness raised and attention gained for 
unexploded ordnance removal efforts in Laos.”</div>
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A
 vast amount of unexploded ordnance remains in Laos, a mountainous and 
landlocked former French colony. Clearance teams working across the 
country pull hundreds of unexploded munitions and bomb fragments from 
rice paddies and jungles every week. Last year alone, 56,400 munitions 
were found and destroyed.</div>
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“This
 country, every time I’ve been here, blows my mind,” said Tim Lardner, a
 former British Army bomb disposal officer who has worked on clearing 
unexploded ordnance from Laos and other countries for 25 years. “The 
scale of the contamination is horrendous.”</div>
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Having
 worked in many war-torn countries, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, 
Angola and Mozambique, he added, “In terms of the amount still in the 
ground, Laos is worse than any other country I’ve seen.”</div>
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Kingphet
 Phimmavong, the coordinator of the Laotian government’s bomb clearance 
efforts in Xieng Khouang Province, one of the most heavily bombed areas,
 said he had found bombs in riverbeds, termite mounds and tangled in the
 roots of a tree.</div>
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“They are everywhere,” he said.</div>
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Tragic
 stories of bombs unexpectedly detonating are distressingly common. Mr. 
Kingphet’s mother and brother were killed in 1976 when they were tilling
 a rice paddy and struck a bomb with a hoe.</div>
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These
 days bombs are most often detonated by children who play with them, 
scavengers seeking scrap metal to sell and villagers who unwittingly 
build cooking fires near where they are buried.</div>
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Three
 years ago, Nengyong Yang, a farmer in a remote village in Xieng 
Khouang, was chopping down a tree when a bomblet embedded in the tree 
trunk exploded and blinded him.</div>
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Unable to farm, he later hanged himself, said Maw Khang, 32, his widow, who was left to raise their four children.</div>
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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Channapha Khamvongsa has led a single-minded effort to rid Laos of the live ordnance still buried here, the legacy of a nine-year American air&nbsp;campaign." data-mediaviewer-credit="Adam Dean for The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/03/31/world/asia/31laos-inline/31laos-inline-superJumbo.jpg" height="266" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/03/31/world/asia/31laos-inline/31laos-inline-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/03/31/world/asia/31laos-inline/31laos-inline-articleLarge.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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                <a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Channapha Khamvongsa has led a single-minded effort to rid Laos of the live ordnance still buried here, the legacy of a nine-year American air campaign.                                    Credit            Adam Dean for The New York Times        </a>
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“I have to work in the fields, and there is no one to take care of the children,” she said.</div>
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Designed
 to cause maximum casualties to troops, a cluster bomb splits in midair 
and sprays hundreds of bomblets onto the ground. In Laos, many of these 
bomblets did not explode for a variety of reasons, including muddy soil 
that cushioned the impact. Experts estimate that around 30 percent of 
the American cluster bombs dropped in Laos remain unexploded.</div>
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Despite
 the scale of the bombing campaign, Ms. Channapha, 42, said she became 
aware of it only as an adult. It was not discussed by her family, who 
fled Laos in 1979 when she was 6, or in the Laotian community where she 
grew up in Virginia.</div>
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“I
 considered myself somewhat well-read and conscious of right and wrong,”
 she said. “Yet this major piece of Lao-American history was unknown to 
me.”</div>
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Ms.
 Channapha said she was spurred into action when she came across a 
collection of drawings of the bombings made by refugees and collected by
 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/us/fred-branfman-laos-activist-dies-at-72.html" title="Times obituary.">Fred Branfman</a>, an antiwar activist who helped expose the Secret War.</div>
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In 2004, when Ms. Channapha founded an organization to raise awareness about unexploded ordnance, <a href="http://legaciesofwar.org/" title="Organization website.">Legacies of War</a>, she used the drawings in a traveling exhibition.</div>
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Her campaign was initially met with resistance, especially from within the Laotian diaspora in the United States.</div>
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Lao-Americans,
 many of them aristocrats and high-ranking soldiers forced to flee after
 the United States withdrew, were not inclined to help Communist-run 
Laos. Many also wanted to leave the past behind.</div>
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“The
 elders in the community were not supportive,” Ms. Channapha said. “They
 had lost their land, their country, their homes and their status.”</div>
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So
 she rebranded her campaign. Instead of describing it as “a project on 
the secret U.S. bombing in Laos,” she called its mission “history, 
healing, hope.”</div>
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She
 brought over a young amputee from Laos who was born after the war and 
who delivered a message of humanitarian need free from politics.</div>
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She
 targeted members of Congress with large Laotian populations in their 
districts. In 2010, she testified before Congress, urging more funding 
for bomb clearance and assistance for victims.</div>
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And
 the attitudes of Lao-Americans have changed in recent years as more 
have returned to Laos, Ms. Channapha said. “As their own personal 
relationship with the country was evolving and changing, so did their 
opinion about what we were doing,” she said. “They were starting to 
understand that it wasn’t about taking sides.”</div>
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Mr.
 Kingphet, the ordnance clearance manager, praises Ms. Channapha’s 
efforts, but he said the United States should do more. Many Americans 
are still unaware of the war in Laos, he said.</div>
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“Some Americans come here and they are shocked at how many bombs were dropped,” he said.</div>
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The
 United States provided roughly 30 percent of the $40 million that 
charities and governments — including those of Australia, Ireland, 
Japan, Norway and Switzerland — are contributing to clearance efforts 
this year. But even with a surge of money, it will be decades before all
 the unexploded bombs are removed from the Laotian countryside. In the 
meantime, officials are traveling to remote corners of the impoverished 
country and urging caution.</div>
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Houmphanh
 Chanthavong, a government official who was among the group visiting 
Houaykhay village, told residents of the painstaking process to remove 
ordnance from the ground, the metal detectors and the clearance experts 
who delicately dig for them.</div>
“We keep on digging,” he said, “and we keep on finding more.”<br />
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One Woman’s Mission to Free Laos From Millions of Unexploded Bombs

Disposal experts prepared to blow up unexploded ordnance in a field littered with cluster bomblets in Xieng Khoang Province, ...

9:16 AM

Old Haunt of U.S. Spies Becomes a Playground for Istanbul’s Elite

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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="The mansion that once served as the United States Consulate in Istanbul has been reborn as an outpost of Soho House, a network of clubs across Europe and North America." data-mediaviewer-credit="Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/06/world/ISTANBUL1/ISTANBUL1-superJumbo.jpg" height="271" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/06/world/ISTANBUL1/ISTANBUL1-master675.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/06/world/ISTANBUL1/ISTANBUL1-master675.jpg" width="400" /><span class="caption-text"></span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span class="caption-text">The mansion that once served 
as the United States Consulate in Istanbul has been reborn as an outpost
 of Soho House, a network of clubs across Europe and North America.</span>
                        <span class="credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">
            <span class="visually-hidden">Credit</span>
            Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">ISTANBUL
 — For more than a century, the grand Italianate mansion that serves as 
an anchor of this city’s European quarter was a beehive of American 
diplomacy and espionage. Spies toiled within and met their agents at the
 bar across the street, reporters dropped by for after-work drinks, and 
any Turk could walk in off the street to see the latest art exhibition 
or browse the library. There seemed to be a celebration every night.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">“We
 were partying all the time,” said Ayse Ozakinci, who was a librarian 
for four decades in the imposing structure, the American Consulate in 
Istanbul. “There was a festive mood for everyone.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="224" data-total-count="860" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">And
 then, a dozen years ago, the party stopped and security walls enclosed 
the mansion, as the threat of terrorism sent American diplomats to a 
fortified hillside compound on the city’s outskirts, overlooking the 
Bosporus.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="233" data-total-count="1093" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">That
 put the American government in the real estate business, thanks to a 
law that required the State Department to keep ownership of the historic
 building as a space to foster relations between the United States and 
the Middle East.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><img alt="" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="Ayse Ozakinci, who was a librarian at the consulate for four decades, said the renovations had restored much of the original grandeur." data-mediaviewer-credit="Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times" data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/06/world/ISTANBUL2/ISTANBUL2-superJumbo.jpg" height="273" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/06/world/ISTANBUL2/ISTANBUL2-articleLarge.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/06/world/ISTANBUL2/ISTANBUL2-articleLarge.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></a></div>
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                <a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Ayse Ozakinci, who was a librarian at the consulate for four decades, said the renovations had restored much of the original grandeur.                                    Credit            Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times        </a>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now the party is back on, but not exactly in the way lawmakers had intended.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
 walls came down recently, offering breathing room to a crammed 
neighborhood and unveiling the building’s rebirth as an opulent 
clubhouse for Istanbul’s social elite. With a new luxury hotel beside 
it, the mansion, under a 51-year, roughly $25 million lease with the 
United States government, is the latest outpost of the private club 
empire Soho House.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
 2004, Congress, through the efforts of the former Senator Ernest F. 
Hollings and backed by onetime Istanbul diplomats who wanted the United 
States to preserve the building’s history, created the<a href="http://www.hollingscenter.org/" title="Center’s website"> Hollings Center for International Dialogue</a>.
 The idea was to use the mansion as a place to “reinforce communication 
and understanding between the U.S. and the Muslim world,” according to 
the center’s website.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="461" data-total-count="2403" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But
 the cost of renovations and upkeep eventually made it necessary to find
 a commercial use for the structure, known as the Palazzo Corpi for the 
rich shipbuilder who had it constructed in the 19th century as his home.
 Soho House, with its Turkish partner Bilgili Holding, has invested 
nearly $110 million in the project and is now the primary tenant, while 
the Hollings Center will have an office in the building and run its 
programs and workshops from there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Walking
 through the building recently for the first time in years, Ms. 
Ozakinci, who is not a member of the new club, marveled at the 
renovations, saying they had restored much of the original grandeur, 
even as she lamented that the mansion was not open to the public.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="195" data-total-count="2866" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">She
 described how the modest wife of one former ambassador had ordered that
 ceiling murals depicting nude goddesses be painted over. The murals 
have now been rescued from layers of oil and paint.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="88" data-total-count="2954" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">She said there had been a “secret floor” up top for the <a class="meta-org" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/central_intelligence_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the Central Intelligence Agency.">Central Intelligence Agency</a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="52" data-total-count="3006" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">“We pretended not to know about that,” she said.</span></span></div>
<div class="ad ad-placeholder nocontent robots-nocontent" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/world/europe/american-consulate-in-istanbul-becomes-a-soho-house.html?ref=world#story-continues-5">Continue reading the main story</a></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">A
 rooftop pool, flanked by yellow-and-white striped beds and with a 
sweeping view of the Golden Horn waterway and the minarets of the old 
city, is a fresh touch. Inside, a layered approach to interior design 
creates a “Downton Abbey”-meets-“Mad Men” effect, mixing late 
19th-century with midcentury modern furniture. There are vintage club 
chairs and old chesterfield sofas, and many new pieces manufactured in <a class="meta-loc" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/turkey/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Turkey.">Turkey</a> and made to look antique by workers banging away with hammers and chains.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="327" data-total-count="3832" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nick
 Jones, the founder and chief executive of Soho House, a growing network
 of private clubs across Europe and North America, decided on an 
Istanbul location after visiting the city several years ago. “I just 
fell in love with it,” he said. “Wow. I was taken with the place. It 
sort of reminded me of New York energy.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="340" data-total-count="4172" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mr.
 Jones committed to Istanbul before violent antigovernment protests 
swept Turkey in 2013, and before the economy slowed, diminishing an 
image of the country as a rising global power that took hold in the 
earlier years of the Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who 
was prime minister for more than a decade and is now president.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="219" data-total-count="4391" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mr.
 Jones said he watched the unfolding political turmoil closely but was 
not scared away. “In my experience, 20 to 25 years now, whatever 
happens, people still want to eat and drink and have a bit of fun,” he 
said.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="261" data-total-count="4652" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">A
 committee decides whom to admit and whom to reject, and careful 
attention is paid to artists, writers and filmmakers, or as Mr. Jones 
put it, the “creative soul” of Istanbul. “The struggling scriptwriter is
 still one of our favorite members,” he said.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="102" data-total-count="4754" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But having money is important, too, and plenty of bankers and lawyers make their way through the door.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="398" data-total-count="5152" id="story-continues-6" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Amid
 the opulence, the drinking and the networking among the elite, there is
 also an inescapable sense of separateness: Those who gather here, 
despite their pretensions, represent a stratum of society far from the 
center of things in Turkey these days. Mr. Erdogan’s government has 
pushed for more religion in public life, cracked down on alcohol and 
made Islamic schooling more widely available.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="305" data-total-count="5457" id="story-continues-7" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
 mansion sits as a testament to a bygone — some would say more innocent —
 era of American diplomacy, when Foreign Service officers and spies, in 
Istanbul but also around the world, could interact freely and casually 
with locals, without the barriers of high walls and intricate security 
procedures.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="285" data-total-count="5742" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Here
 in the middle of the city, everyone came in,” said Ms. Ozakinci, who 
added that “relations flourished” between Americans and Turks. When the 
consulate moved to the fortified compound in 2003, she said, “suddenly 
we were far from everything and no one wanted to come.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="391" data-total-count="6133" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Graham
 Fuller, who as a young C.I.A. officer was stationed in Istanbul in the 
1960s, recalled the time in an email as “truly a bygone era when 
American diplomats were still welcomed and part of the inner city life 
with only a lazy guard or two keeping watch over the consulate. The 
magic of the neighborhood still lingers in those back streets, but the 
American presence no longer does.”</span></span></div>
<div class="ad ad-placeholder nocontent robots-nocontent" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/world/europe/american-consulate-in-istanbul-becomes-a-soho-house.html?ref=world#story-continues-8">Continue reading the main story</a>
<a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/world/europe/american-consulate-in-istanbul-becomes-a-soho-house.html?ref=world#story-continues-8">Continue reading the main story</a></span></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
     </div>
<div class="ad text-ad middle-right-ad nocontent robots-nocontent" id="MiddleRightN" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/world/europe/american-consulate-in-istanbul-becomes-a-soho-house.html?ref=world#story-continues-8">Continue reading the main story</a></span></span>
</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="212" data-total-count="6345" id="story-continues-8" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Things
 began to change after the Persian Gulf war, Ms. Ozakinci said. Sandbags
 were piled near the windows, and eventually the street in front was 
closed to traffic and visitors had to be cleared days in advance.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="361" data-total-count="6706" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
 building was bought by the United States in 1907 — the first real 
estate it owned in Europe and the second worldwide, after a facility in 
Tangier, Morocco, a gift from the ruler of the country. The mansion was 
the American Embassy in the late years of the Ottoman Empire and became 
the consulate after Ankara was named the capital of the Turkish 
republic.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="204" data-total-count="6910" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">If
 the walls could speak, they might tell of the ghost of a Genoese 
shipping magnate’s mistress, once said to haunt the halls and ornate 
rooms, or of the time the building changed hands in a poker game.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="527" data-total-count="7437" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
 latter tale goes like this: The rich American ambassador posted in the 
early 1900s to what was then called Constantinople bought the building 
with money out of his own pocket, for 28,000 Ottoman liras, or the 
equivalent of $123,200 at the time, on the assumption that he would be 
reimbursed by Congress. Washington lawmakers refused. Then, as recounted
 in a memoir by an American teacher who lived here then and as passed 
down through generations of diplomats, the ambassador organized a party 
for senators and congressmen.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="165" data-total-count="7602" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">“There
 were rich meats, there were unlimited quantities of first class drinks,
 and finally there was poker which lasted deep in to the night,” the 
teacher wrote.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="216" data-total-count="7818" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">At
 some point, having lost “conspicuous sums,” the ambassador proposed the
 embassy as a bet. If he lost, he would pay for it. But he won, and 
Congress, it is said, appropriated the funds and acquired the mansion.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="119" data-total-count="7937" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The story may be apocryphal, but it has persisted, lending the mansion’s majestic history an extra glint of intrigue.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>

Old Haunt of U.S. Spies Becomes a Playground for Istanbul’s Elite

The mansion that once served as the United States Consulate in Istanbul has been reborn as an outpost of Soho House, a network of club...

9:10 AM

Turkey Blocks Twitter, YouTube and Sites That Published Hostage Photo

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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">ISTANBUL
 — As a hostage crisis at the central courthouse gripped this city last 
week, a photograph coursing through social media conveyed the situation 
more concisely than any words: a beret-wearing militant, face obscured 
by a red scarf, holding a gun to the head of a well-known prosecutor.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="228" data-total-count="522" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">After an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/world/europe/turkish-extremists-abduct-prosecutor-from-istanbul-courthouse.html" title="Times article">evening raid</a>
 by Turkish special forces ended in a shootout, leaving the two militant
 hostage-takers and the hostage dead, the debate that ensued was not 
over the wisdom of the raid but the publication of the photograph.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="285" data-total-count="807" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Prime
 Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the outlets that circulated the 
photograph “tools of terrorist propaganda.” The day after the crisis, 
reporters representing Turkish newspapers that had published the 
photograph were barred from covering the prosecutor’s funeral in 
Istanbul.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="369" data-total-count="1176" id="story-continues-2" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">On
 Monday, the Turkish authorities went further: An Istanbul court issued a
 ruling blocking Twitter and YouTube, which the semiofficial Anadolu 
News Agency said had failed to remove images of the dead prosecutor, as 
well as 166 other websites that had distributed the photograph, 
including the individual pages of several prominent Turkish newspapers 
that contained it.</span></span></div>
<figure class="media photo embedded has-adjacency has-lede-adjacency layout-small-horizontal media-100000003613553 ratio-tall" data-media-action="modal" id="media-100000003613553" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/07/world/07Turkey/07Turkey-master315.jpg" itemprop="associatedMedia" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" role="group" style="text-align: left;">
    
    <div class="image">
            <div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" class="media-viewer-candidate" data-mediaviewer-caption="A photograph circulated on social media showing Mehmet Selim Kiraz, the prosecutor taken hostage and killed in Istanbul on Tuesday." data-mediaviewer-credit="via Reuters " data-mediaviewer-src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/07/world/07Turkey/07Turkey-superJumbo.jpg" height="266" itemid="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/07/world/07Turkey/07Turkey-master315.jpg" itemprop="url" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/07/world/07Turkey/07Turkey-master315.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
<div class="media-action-overlay">

</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<figcaption class="caption" itemprop="caption description">
                <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">A photograph circulated on social media showing Mehmet Selim Kiraz, the prosecutor taken hostage and killed in Istanbul on Tuesday.                                    Credit            via Reuters         </a></span></span>
            </figcaption></div>
</figure><div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="128" data-total-count="1304" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Several Turkish newspapers chose to publish the photograph, and so, too, did some foreign outlets, including The New York Times.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="331" data-total-count="1635" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ibrahim Kalin, the spokesman for <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/recep_tayyip_erdogan/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Recep Tayyip Erdogan.">Recep Tayyip Erdogan</a>, <a class="meta-loc" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/turkey/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Turkey.">Turkey</a>’s
 president, said in a news conference on Monday: “Media groups that 
should be acting responsibly in publishing these photos are almost doing
 the propaganda of a terrorist organization. And continuing to do so 
despite all warnings and criticisms is unacceptable.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="163" data-total-count="1798" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mr.
 Kalin continued: “For one moment, put yourself in the shoes of the 
family and children of our slain prosecutor. What would you gain by 
sharing that photo?”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="126" data-total-count="1924" id="story-continues-3" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">He added, “There is an effort to present the demands within the context of a violation of freedoms. This is unacceptable.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="198" data-total-count="2122" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
 photograph was first distributed over social media by the Revolutionary
 People’s Liberation Party-Front, a militant Marxist group that claimed 
responsibility for having carried out the attack.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="396" data-total-count="2518" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
 any other country with a tradition of freedom of the press, the 
photograph might have set off a discussion within the news media about 
the ethics of publishing it. But in Turkey, where an intensified 
crackdown on expression has fueled discontent with the government, the 
tough reaction of the authorities has become another chapter in the 
long-running struggle between the state and the press.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="100" data-total-count="2618" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Still, some experts said the decision to publish the photograph raised legitimate ethical questions.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="334" data-total-count="2952" id="story-continues-4" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ahmet
 Sik, a reporter at Cumhuriyet, a secular daily newspaper, and a former 
journalism professor at Bilgi University in Istanbul, said he believed 
the photograph should have been published but the prosecutor’s face 
should have been blurred, “because he was confined against his will and 
it’s important to respect his family.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="166" data-total-count="3118" id="story-continues-5" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Though
 Mr. Sik called the social media ban “disproportionate,” he said, “there
 are ethical problems with the fact that it was published in its 
original form.”</span></span></div>
<div class="ad ad-placeholder nocontent robots-nocontent" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/world/europe/turkey-blocks-twitter-youtube-and-sites-that-published-hostage-photo.html?ref=world#story-continues-6">Continue reading the main story</a>
<a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/world/europe/turkey-blocks-twitter-youtube-and-sites-that-published-hostage-photo.html?ref=world#story-continues-6">Continue reading the main story</a></span></span>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
     </div>
<div class="ad text-ad middle-right-ad nocontent robots-nocontent" id="MiddleRightN" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a class="visually-hidden skip-to-text-link" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/world/europe/turkey-blocks-twitter-youtube-and-sites-that-published-hostage-photo.html?ref=world#story-continues-6">Continue reading the main story</a></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In a short statement, Twitter said, <a href="https://twitter.com/policy/status/585065372686143488" title="The post">on Twitter</a>,
 “We are aware of reports of interruption of our service in #Turkey, and
 we are working to restore access for our users as soon as possible.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="442" data-total-count="3752" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
 an editorial after its reporter was banned from covering the 
prosecutor’s funeral, Hurriyet, a daily newspaper, wrote, “We think that
 a democracy with the freedom of the press cannot accommodate a prime 
minister allocating himself the authority to punish newspapers, 
correspondents, photojournalists and cameramen or be busy with the 
process of accreditation. This is more reminiscent of practices 
particular to Third World regimes.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="580" data-total-count="4332" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Turkey
 has become one of the most aggressive censors of the Internet. Mr. 
Erdogan has called Twitter “the worst menace to society,” and last year 
Turkey <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/world/europe/turkish-officials-block-twitter-in-leak-inquiry.html" title="Times article">blocked Twitter</a>
 after it was used to disseminate leaked audio recordings that purported
 to implicate government officials in a corruption investigation. The 
government has also blocked websites that it regarded as an assault on 
Islamic values, including that of a Turkish atheist association and the 
Paris newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which published cartoons depicting the 
Prophet Muhammad and was targeted in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html" title="Times article">deadly attack</a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="376" data-total-count="4708" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Turkey’s
 crackdown on expression has further distanced the country from the 
European Union, which it has long aspired to join. In a message posted 
on Twitter on Monday, Carl Bildt, the former foreign minister and prime 
minister of Sweden, <a href="https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/585067509696618496" title="Twitter post">wrote</a>, “Turkey is really damaging itself by laws that allow prosecutors to shut down Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Simply stupid.”</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="211" data-total-count="4919" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
 the conclusion of its editorial, Hurriyet wrote: “We just want to do 
journalism. We do not want to face bans with policemen waiting on street
 corners, trying to prevent our colleagues from doing their work.</span></span></div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="285" data-total-count="807" itemprop="articleBody" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Furthermore, we will not let anyone question our love for the homeland.”</span></span></div>
</div>

Turkey Blocks Twitter, YouTube and Sites That Published Hostage Photo

ISTANBUL — As a hostage crisis at the central courthouse gripped this city last week, a photograph coursing through social media conveye...

9:07 AM

President Obama Calls Preliminary Iran Nuclear Deal ‘Our Best Bet’

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<a href="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/05/opinion/06friedman1web/06friedman1web-videoSixteenByNine540.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="http://articlesoninformation.blogspot.com/" border="0" height="225" src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/04/05/opinion/06friedman1web/06friedman1web-videoSixteenByNine540.jpg" width="400" /></a><span id="goog_1635317912"></span>WASHINGTON —  <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Barack Obama">President Obama</a> strongly defended last week’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/03/world/middleeast/iran-nuclear-talks.html">preliminary agreement </a>with <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Iran.">Iran</a> as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to curb the spread of <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/atomic_weapons/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about nuclear weapons.">nuclear weapons</a> in a dangerous region while reassuring critics that he would keep all options available if Tehran ultimately cheated.</div>
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As
 he sought in an interview with The New York Times to sell the tentative
 deal to skeptics accusing him of giving away too much, Mr. Obama 
emphasized to Israel
 that “we’ve got their backs” in the face of Iranian hostility. And he 
suggested that he could accept some sort of vote in Congress if it did 
not block his ability to carry out the agreement.</div>
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“This is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Obama said in an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/06/opinion/thomas-friedman-the-obama-doctrine-and-iran-interview.html" title="The interview.">interview with Thomas L. Friedman</a>,
 an Op-Ed columnist for The Times, published on Sunday. “What we will be
 doing even as we enter into this deal is sending a very clear message 
to the Iranians and to the entire region that if anybody messes with 
Israel, America will be there.” </div>
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In
 the interview, held Saturday, Mr. Obama provided new details about how 
international inspectors would try to access suspected covert nuclear 
sites and about the sequence that would lead to sanctions being lifted. 
Both were major issues in the last days of negotiations in Switzerland, 
and Mr. Obama’s descriptions differed in key respects from Iran’s 
interpretations.</div>
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That
 gap suggested the hardest moments in the negotiations may yet be ahead,
 given that commitments made last week must still be enshrined in a 
written document signed by all parties by June 30. But Mr. Obama seemed 
to gain breathing space as Republicans signaled they would give him 
until then to see what the final deal looks like before directly 
intervening.</div>
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The president’s comments came as the White House embarked on a campaign to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/04/world/middleeast/with-iran-deal-in-hand-white-house-makes-sales-pitch-to-preserve-it.html" title="Times article">sell</a>
 a preliminary agreement that he hopes will transform security in the 
Middle East. Under the framework, negotiated with the United States and 
five other world powers, Iran agreed to scale back its <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iran/nuclear_program/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival news about Iran’s nuclear program.">nuclear program</a>
 significantly for 10 to 15 years and accept intense international 
inspections. In exchange, the United States and the international 
community would lift sanctions that have punished the Iranian economy.</div>
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While
 in theory preventing Iran from being able to quickly build a bomb, the 
agreement leaves it with a nuclear program in place, even if much 
diminished, drawing criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of 
Israel and Republican leaders in Congress as well as skepticism from 
Arab allies and many Democrats.</div>
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“Not
 a single centrifuge is destroyed,” Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday on “State 
of the Union” on CNN. “Not a single nuclear facility is shut down, 
including the underground facilities that they build illicitly. 
Thousands of centrifuges will keep spinning, enriching uranium. That’s a
 very bad deal.”</div>
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Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a possible Republican 
presidential candidate, said it was “probably the best deal that Barack 
Obama could get with the Iranians because the Iranians don’t fear” him. 
“Hillary Clinton could do better,” he added, as could all the Republican
 candidates, “except maybe Rand Paul.” But Mr. Graham said he would wait
 to see how the final agreement looked. “I don’t mind giving the 
administration the time between now and June to put this deal together,”
 he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. </div>
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President Obama Calls Preliminary Iran Nuclear Deal ‘Our Best Bet’

WASHINGTON — President Obama strongly defended last week’s preliminary agreement with Iran as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to cur...