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Google Erases Kurdistan From Maps in Compliance With Turkish Government (kurdistan24.net)
schwit1 shares a report: Google has removed a map outlining the geographical extent of the Greater Kurdistan after the Turkish state asked it to do so, a simple inquiry on the Internet giant's search engine from Wednesday on can show. "Unavailable. This map is no longer available due to a violation of our Terms of Service and/or policies," a note on the page that the map was previously on read. Google did not provide further details on how the Kurdistan map violated its rules.
The map in question, available for years, used to be on Google's My Maps service, a feature of Google Maps that enables users to create custom maps for personal use or sharing through search. Maps drawn by ancient Greeks, Islamic historians, Ottomans, and Westerners showing Kurdistan with alternative names such as "Corduene" or "Karduchi" have existed since antiquity. The use of the name "Kurdistan" was banned by the administration of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the immediate aftermath of the crushed Sheikh Said uprising for Kurdish statehood in 1925. Further reading: Local media report. "Turkish officials outraged by Google map showing the unofficial border of Kurdistan. Turkey demands the removal of the map. There are around 40 million Kurds divided between 4 main countries," Jiyar Gol, a BBC correspondent tweeted.
The map in question, available for years, used to be on Google's My Maps service, a feature of Google Maps that enables users to create custom maps for personal use or sharing through search. Maps drawn by ancient Greeks, Islamic historians, Ottomans, and Westerners showing Kurdistan with alternative names such as "Corduene" or "Karduchi" have existed since antiquity. The use of the name "Kurdistan" was banned by the administration of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the immediate aftermath of the crushed Sheikh Said uprising for Kurdish statehood in 1925. Further reading: Local media report. "Turkish officials outraged by Google map showing the unofficial border of Kurdistan. Turkey demands the removal of the map. There are around 40 million Kurds divided between 4 main countries," Jiyar Gol, a BBC correspondent tweeted.
There was no country called Israel for 1900 years either. The last long-term ruler of the area was the Ottoman Empire so the former citizens of that have a far better claim on the area than a bunch of European refugees.
Sorry, but your bible is a work of fiction. Do you have a real source?
If you read the summary, no need to even go to TFA, you will see that Google deleted a personal map created by an individual on a service that exists for exactly that purpose - MyMaps.
If someone created a MyMap showing an ethnic region where there are many Latinos which extended into the U.S. and labelled it "LatinoLand" of something, why would the U.S. care, and why would it have any standing to demand that the personal map be deleted?
This is treating a personal map, showing a real ethnic group's real distribution, as if it were, say, child pornography -- something inherently criminal and illegal in all contexts.
And what should the Kurds call the region where Kurds actually live? "Place where the Kurd's live"? Seems reasonable, wouldn't you think? That is exactly what "Kurdistan" literally means.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The state of Israel ceased to exist under the Roman Empire. I didn't say it never existed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
The Kurds are in deep economic trouble because they're practically under an embargo both from the central government in Baghdad as well as from Turkey, with Syria and Iran being absolutely no help. They do try to run a welfare state that they can't really afford, but the rest is you smoking crack. Capitalism is very much alive and well in Kurdistan.
Turkey is becoming another Islamic theocracy under Erdogan, the territory is strategically important but as allies they're in the "they're bastards, but they're our bastards" category. They're pissed off about the West and EU and is looking east to Russia for more dictator-friendly regimes. The Iraqi government can barely keep the country together, if it hadn't been for foreign military support and the Peshmerga most the country would be lost to IS.
They do seem to be one of the territories with a history of female genital mutilation though, I'll give you that. But hey they have women in the armed forces, this is not "stay at home and pop out babies in a burka"-Islam. The problem is that the creation of any Kurdistan - even just the independence of the Iraqi region - would set off a helluva chain reaction nobody wants to see where leads. But I think they've earned it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In a nutshell, a large part of the Middle East including part of modern-day Turkey used to be part of the Ottoman Empire. One of the less-known facts about WWI was that the Ottoman Empire was on the losing side, which eventually led to its dissolution. The European victors then carved it up with little regard for the cultural and religious boundaries of the indigenous people. The modern countries there - Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Israel - Palestine, Jordan were drawn with these arbitrary borders. The instability in the region is partially (mostly) due to the cultural borders not coinciding with the political borders. The Kurds (about 40 million of them) were the biggest ethnicity screwed out of a country to call their own. They're spread between Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey, and all of those countries are paranoid that the Kurds will try to declare independence and secede.