THEY’RE BOUND TO WIELD IT BETTER THAN THEIR NEIGHBORS: Turkey’s Kurds find themselves on threshold of unprecedented power. “Turkey will hold elections Sunday for the 550 seats in its Grand National Assembly, the country’s parliament. The vote will determine whether the governing Justice and Development Party – known as the AKP – will win enough of a mandate to be able to push through a new constitution and give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unprecedented executive powers. Erdogan’s main obstacle? The Kurds. If the HDP, a Kurdish-dominated party, wins at least 10 percent of the electorate — a minimum requirement for a party to enter parliament — it will command enough seats to check Erdogan’s ambitions, and enough clout to push its own agenda.”

Plus: “Erdogan has the mind set of an Ottoman emperor.”