'When Western journalists note in a casual aside that press freedom has experienced certain setbacks under the AKP, they are failing to do justice to the severity of this calamity and its ramifications for Turkey and the region'

'I would like to think that all the politically correct Brits who lined up to condemn me for "juxtapositional racism" might say a word or two about the extinction of media freedom in a major Commonwealth country, but I am not holding my breath'

"Why would a country that is both an ally of the United States and Nato as well as an aspiring member of the European Union brazenly declare its solidarity with a terrorist group outlawed by both? The answer lies in the increasingly Islamist nature of Erodgan's regime as well as the complicated relationship his party AKP has enjoyed with I.H.H."

'The Tajiks are unnervingly friendly. They take the Islamic injunction of hospitality with grave seriousness. The hungry often sacrifice their only cow for a backpacker with a camera, and the regime has liberally welcomed boots and bases on its soil.'