Excerpts: Turkey shuts weekly over offensive Moses cartoon. Russia want's a
'pragmatic' relationship with U.S. February 18, 2017

+++SOURCE:Naharnet(Lebanon) 18 Feb.’17:Publisher Shuts Turkey Weekly over
‘Offensive’Moses Cartoon”, by Agence France Presse

SUBJECT:Turkey shuts weekly over offensive Moses cartoon

FULL TEXT:The publisher of one of Turkey's most prominent cartoon magazines
on Friday[17 ]

shut down the weekly and fired all its staff after it published a cartoon of
the Prophet Moses deemed to be offensive.

Girgir had published in its latest edition a cartoon showing the bearded
Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt, with his companions complaining and
using vulgar curse words.

"The decision has been taken for the magazine to be closed and all the staff
laid off because of the distasteful cartoon," the publishers said in a
statement on the magazine's Facebook and Twitter feeds.

"The cartoon has disturbed society and disturbed us as a publishing
company," it said.

Girgir has since 2015 been published by the group of the Sozcu newspaper, a
secular nationalist daily which is staunchly opposed to President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.

The publishers blamed the cartoon on a deliberate attempt to "put the
company in a difficult situation" and said it would inform prosecutors of
which employees were behind it.

A statement by the magazine, before the closure was announced, apologized
for the cartoon, saying "it was not noticed before printing because of
tiredness and insomnia".

Moses is the holiest prophet of Jews for leading the Israelities out of
Egypt in the Exodus towards the Promised Land.

But he is also sacred to Christians as well as Muslims, featuring
prominently in the Islamic holy book the Koran.

Cartoons of holy figures, especially from Islam, are a near taboo in Turkey.

Two Turkish journalists from the Cumhuriyet daily were last year ordered to
serve two years in jail for illustrating their columns with a cartoon of the
Prophet Mohammed originally published by French satirical weekly Charlie
Hebdo.

Erdogan's spokesman Ibrahim Kalin tweeted after the publication of the
Girgir cartoon that "this has nothing to do with freedom of speech or humor.
This is immoral and a hate crime."

The cartoon was also angrily condemned by the editor in chief of Istanbul's
Jewish weekly Shalom Ivo Molinas who tweeted: "What a disgrace! What
disrespect!"

Turkey still has several satirical weekly cartoon magazines, including Leman
and Penguen, which are seen as bastions of satire amid growing criticism of
press freedom under Erdogan's rule.

+++SOURCE: Naharnet(Lebanon) 18 Feb.’17:”Russia Calls for ‘Post West’ World
Order”,by Agence France

SUBJECT: Russian F.M Moscow want’s a ‘pragmatic’ relationship with U.S.

FULL TEXT:Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called Saturday[18 Feb] for
an end to a world order dominated by the West and said Moscow wants to
establish a "pragmatic" relationship with the United States.

"I hope that (the world) will choose a democratic world order -- a post-West
one -- in which each country is defined by its sovereignty," he said.

Lavrov also said Moscow wanted build relations with Washington which are
"pragmatic with mutual respect and acknowledgement of our responsibility for
global stability".
================
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA