12:57 am, Istanbul time

It's been so hot and sticky in Istanbul lately that I've taken to spending the entire day indoors, chilling in front of my brand-new 3-speed Cendix fan. In the evenings, however, I go out, walking all over the city and working up a ferocious, stinky sweat. Sometimes I walk up the Bosphorus, toward Emirgan and beyond, and other times into Taksim. Last night I walked to my old neighborhood, Muradiye—the little mahalle that could, situated over a couple of sidestreets stretching down between Tesvikiye and Besiktas.

I usually try to hit my old neighborhood at least once during the course of a visit to Istanbul. I spent six of the seven years I lived here in the 90s living in three apartments located within a few blocks of one another, spending four years by myself in the last of these places. That was the first apartment I'd ever lived in completely on my own, from 1994 up until I returned to the US in 1999.

It's weird standing outside that place, looking up at the fourth-floor balcony that I used to step out onto from my living room and bedroom—I used to think it was so cool that I could pass from one room to the other this way. I remember how young and stupid I was, then realize that some things haven't necessarily changed all that much. Chasing ghosts from the 90s on the streets of Muradiye, I realize that, while I'm a bit of a zombie myself, it's still good to have made it out of that 'hood.

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Anyway, here's the N & P:


Was it something I leaked? Former Pakistani army chief of staff disses Hillary, calls her "emotionally disturbed"....

Meanwhile, July was the deadliest month ever for US forces in Afghanistan.

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Bulgarian Muslims rally for the right to elect their own mufti. This was apparently a right they enjoyed until earlier this year.

Does anybody know, by the way, if Muftis in Bulgaria hold any sort of administrative power? I'm asking because the issue of electing Muftis, rather than having them appointed by the government, was a continuous bone of contention among Muslims in the Volga-Ural region of the Russian empire in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. But the position of the ulema was not simply religious in Russia, but also administrative, relating to issues such as Muslim education in the region. 

Anyway, if anyone has any info on this topic, please drop me a line.

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Wedge issue, 2010: NY Times article on (mainly) Republican opposition to proposals to construct a large mosque (including other facilities as well, like a gym and a swimming pool) in NYC. The reason? Too close to 9/11 site.

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To each his own: 148 parties —and counting—registered for Kyrgyz elections due to take place in October.

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When genocide means never having to say you're sorry: initiative launched in Serbia for Milosevic memorial park.

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There's a little bit of chatter in the Eurasia-related press regarding potential fallout stemming from the recent ruling by the international court of justice, the highest court of the United Nations, that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was legal. RFE has a rather silly piece on how the (moribund) Tatar nationalist movement has been 'encouraged' by the ruling. A somewhat more serious article appears courtesy of the Jamestown spooks regarding hopes for recognition by leaders in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

This ruling, and the independence of Kosovo (so far recognized by only 69 countries worldwide) could end up having serious repercussions in a number of places. Indeed, as I reported when I was in Russia during the 2008 S. Ossetia crisis, talking heads appearing on government-run TV in Russia routinely described Russia's recognition of S. Ossetian and Abkhaz independence in reference to American and European recognition of Kosovo earlier in the year.

Clearly, a number of countries are uncomfortable with the way in which Kosovo became independent. In 2008, Serbia proposed a resolution in the UN declaring that Kosovo's declaration was against international law—the only six countries to vote against this were Albania, the US, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Palau.

While the Russian government had always opposed the efforts of republics in the former Yugoslavia to be recognized as independent, the Russian government's embrace of this sort of unilateral independence logic with regard to Abkhazia and S. Ossetia is interesting, since Russia itself is composed of 83 federal units, including 21 republics.

Seems like a dangerous path to go down.

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Enbridge Energy, the company responsible for the recent spill of over one million gallons of oil into rivers in W. Michigan, was warned repeatedly by the Obama administration to take care of problems relating to corroding pipelines.

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"They never care whether we are Afghans or animals." Afghans protest vehicular homicides of civilians by mercenary contractors operating on behalf of US government.

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Not anymore: Yigal Schleifer outs Istanbul's best-kept culinary secrets.

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