See the accompanying slideshow for this story at GlobalPost.com
ISTANBUL — They lived for almost 1,000 years around the remains of Istanbul's Byzantine walls. But when they were forced to leave, the gypsies of Sulukule only found out about their eviction from the journalists flocking to their shantytowns to cover the story.
In the 1920's Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's founder, forged the country in a strictly secular model, despite its largely Muslim population. Today traditional and Western influences vie for the hearts and minds of youth. Nowhere is this more apparent than in popular music here in Istanbul, the city that literally bridges Europe and Asia.
Produced by: Iason Athanasiadis and Sevin Turan
Videographer: Gokhan Acun
Editor: Seyfettin Tokmak
Brutal wars in Chechnya and now trouble in places such as Ossetia and Ingushetia have shown the world that ethnic conflict and Islamic separatism are seen as serious threats to Russia, even as it tries to regain some of the power it wielded during the Cold War.
But not all of Russia's Muslim republics are so restive. Welcome to sunny Tatarstan.
Produced by Jason Maloney & Zygmunt Dzieciolowski
Field Producer: Oleg Pavlov
Associate Producer: Aidar Galyautdinov
ISTANBUL | Israel's Gaza offensive has created fractures in the Israeli-Turkish alliance and deepened ties between Ankara and Tehran in what analysts fear could be the start of a major realignment in the region.
ISTANBUL — A gay peasant, a nymphomaniac and a lecherous imam all figure in a bawdy theatrical play about Turkey highlighting contemporary issues such as consumerism, emigration and the proliferation of a confessional talk-show culture.
Istanbul is an overpopulated metropolis whose estimated 14 million inhabitants are straining it at its seams. Centuries of events in arguably the world's most historical city have shaped an urban environment so varied that it regularly throws up baffling scene changes for the traveler caring to venture a little beyond the Sultanahmet-Taksim-Bebek triangle that delineates most foreign visitors' trips. The common denominator is a rush to build and modernize, often at the expense of the layers of history lying underneath or – often – right on the surface.
Whether Istanbul or Constantinople, this solitary city that straddles both Europe and Asia and was the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, has always exerted a splendor that bequeathed it its Greek epithet, the Vasilevousa (the Reigning/Majestic One).
Istanbul, Turkey - A GAGGLE OF EMIRATI art curators clad head to toe in black hijab paused in front of "Odalisque," British painter Frederick Leighton's sensuous portrait of a partially exposed Oriental beauty gazing indulgently at a long-beaked swan.
Kristine Von Oehsen, the British Council exhibition curator guiding the group, tried to persuade the delegation there was little scandal in the discreet nudity, but the all-female group of Emiratis looked unconvinced.
Iason Athanasiadis, for the Pulitzer Center
Istanbul, Turkey
For president-elect Barack Obama, his arrival on the international scene has been one of near-universal acclaim. Around the world, he is seen as the man who can transform the perception of an ailing America and reclaim that country's ideal of being "the shining city upon a hill". Except in Turkey.
As the recent war between Russia and Georgia shows, the aftershocks of the collapse of the Soviet Union are still being felt today. 15 years ago, trouble started when two parts of Georgia, itself newly independent, tried to break away. War followed and entire communities were uprooted. Today over 200,000 refugees live in political limbo, unable to forget the place they once called home.
Aired the week of October 24 on Foreign Exchange.
Produced by Kira Kay, Jason Maloney and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
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