[Akula]

Wow. 2 days of riots. Police seem to be tear gassing the hell out of Istanbul and people are scared and p*ssed off. Seems to be heating up down there in the wake of the increasing encroachment of conservative Islam into all walks of life and the breaking down of the Ataturk secular traditions. The economist at my firm is pretty worried and says although the protests started due to the plans to tear down a park and replace it with a shopping mall, the undercurrent is the secular crowd pushing back against Ergogan's increasingly Islamic government. Lots of discontent has created strange bedfellows all over the country, even Galatasary and Fenerbace football fans on the same side (!) protesting together.

Seems like the Turkish mainstream press are pretty much trying to tone it down in terms of reporting, but I think it's likely to get worse before it gets better. Apparently social media has spread the news like wildfire within the country and it's really on edge. Combine this with the tensions with Syria and it sure seems like it could get even more interesting.

Would like to know from those on the ground in Istanbul what it's really like, as last year the Russian riots were not really as bad as depicted in the western press, at least in my opinion, and they didn't really spread all over town or to other cites for the most part. This seems like a much worse situation.

Funnily enough, Turkey was just upgraded to investment grade by two of the major ratings agencies....