Riot police in Istanbul used water cannons against demonstrators Feb. 9 in the latest protest against a bill that would increase government control over the Internet. Last month, demonstrators attempted to occupy Istanbul's main Taksim Square in protest of the law, before being evicted by riot police with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets. The bill, granting Turkey's telecommunications authority the ability to block websites or remove content without a court order, has been approved by parliament and awaits the signature of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey made almost 1,700 requests for Google to remove material from the web in the first six months of 2013—more than three times any other country, and a rise of nearly 1,000% in one year. Google says most of the requests were turned down. (AFP, Feb. 9; Jurist, Feb. 7; Euronews, Jan. 18)

The Turkish armed forces on Jan. 29 attacked a convoy of al-Qaeda-linked rebel group ISIS in Syria in, destroying three vehicles, according to Turkish media reports. Turkish F-16s apparently struck the convoy "after militants opened fire on a military outpost" on the Turkey-Syria border. (Al Jazeera, Jan. 29) The skirmish comes amid reports that both ISIS and the Nusra Front, both al-Qaeda affiliates, have seized control of most of Syria's oil and gas resources, which lie in the country's north near the Turkish border, and are using the proceeds to underwrite their wars against both rival rebels and the Bashar Assad regime. While the oil and gas fields are in decline, control over them has been key to the growing power of the two groups. ISIS is even said to be selling fuel to the Assad government—lending weight to claims by opposition leaders that the regime is secretly backing the Qaedists to weaken the other rebel armies and discourage international support for their cause. (NYT, Jan. 28; The Telegraph, Jan. 20) 

Spain's El Mundo and El Periodico on Jan. 17 reported the heartening news that after weeks of angry protests, Burgos Mayor Javier Lacalle announced a definitive end to his planned redevelopment of one of the city's main traffic arteries, citing the "impossibility" of moving ahead with the plan. Protesters had opposed the 8 million euro project both as a waste of money better spent on social programs and as a scheme to accelerate the city's gentrification. BBC News reports that the project to trasnform Calle Vitoria into a new boulevard called for a bike lane and green spaces to replace two of the thoroughfare's four traffic lanes. Free parking spaces were also to be replaced with a paid underground car lot.

Ahmet Ataka, a 22-year-old protester, died Sept. 10 two days after being wounded in a clash with police in Antakya (Antioch), provincial capital of Turkey's Hatay province. The march was called to show solidarity with students and local residents in Ankara protesting the construction of a road through the Middle Eastern Technical University (ODTÜ) campus, which would destroy a green area—a reprise to June's massive protests sparked by plans to bulldoze Gezi Park in Istanbul's Taksim Square. Authorities are maintianing that Ataka suffered a head injury when he fell from a building, and that police were not involved. Protesters contest this, and say he was hit in the head with a tear-gas cannister. (BIANet, Setp. 10: Doğan News Agency, Sept. 8)

Turkish security forces killed one and wounded nine as villagers armed with improvised petrol bombs attacked a construction site of the gendarmerie at Kayacik in the Kurdish-majority province of Diyarbakir June 29. The attack came amid a protest against the new police station. Officers used tear-gas and live fire against the attackers. (Euronews, Focus Information Agency, June 29) The incident came two weeks after a conference in Diyarbakir openly broached the independence of Turkey's Kurdish areas, a topic long taboo in the country. The Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and the Congress of Democratic Society (KCD) have held many conferences on Kurdish issues in the past, but this was the first where leaders discussed possible secession from Turkey and an independent Kurdish state. Organizers referred to the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan as "the president of the Kurdish nation." (Rudaw, June 26)

The Los Angeles Times reported June 19, citing anonymous sources, that "CIA operatives and US special operations troops have been secretly training Syrian rebels with anti-tank and antiaircraft weapons since late last year, months before President Obama approved plans to begin directly arming them, according to US officials and rebel commanders." The training is supposedly taking place at bases in Jordan and Turkey. The "directly military aid" that the US has now openly pledged to the Syrian rebels may also be reaching them, as BBC News quotes Free Syrian Army spokesman Louay Meqdad boasting of having received new weapons shipments that "we believe will change the course of the battle on the ground." However, he denied the new weapons came from the US, implying other powers are also arming the FSA. The Friends of Syria group is scheduled to meet in Qatar next week, to discuss coordinating aid to the rebels. But in Russia, Vladimir Putin said he feared a "political void" in Syria would be filled by "terrorist organizations."

Some 5,000 US troops are in Jordan this week to participate in the multi-national exercise dubbed Eager Lion. The US forces include an Army unit with a Patriot missile battery, and the Navy's Expeditionary Strike Group 5. Other participating nations include the UK, France, Canada, Turkey, Bahrain, Iraq, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Turkey's interior minister on June 17 declared a nationwide one-day general strike "illegal" and threatened to suppress it. Unions called the stoppage to protest the forced eviction of Istanbul's Gezi Park over the weekend, which saw widespread street-fighting, with access to the area now restricted. Thousands of workers are expected to march on Taksim Square, the plaza surrounding Gezi Park, in defiance of authorities. On June 14, before ordering police to clear the plaza, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with representatives of the Taksim Solidarity coalition, including Arzu Çerkezolu, general secretary of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK). But the meeting turned hostile, and afterwards Erdogan publically attacked Arzu—the first woman to lead the DISK—as an "ultra-unionist." The government says it will honor a court decision halting construction of the shopping mall at Gezi Park, the only green public place in central Istanbul. But DISK has joined wth protesters in demanding that Erdogan step down. In the 20 days of the uprising, five have been killed and thousands injured.