Free Republic

The 70+ year alliance between the US and Turkey has finally come to a dramatic end. But this turn of events was nowhere near unforeseen. In fact, I have been writing about the progression of this calamity for over a year. In April, I even wrote that Turkey was getting ready for economic warfare by repatriating its gold from the Federal Reserve. Well, now we are here. As the US rolled out economic sanctions against Turkey in recent days, the Turkish currency (lira) lost 35% of its value against the US dollar. This has caused inflation to skyrocket, which is...

Cyprus extradites Egyptian hijacker Mustafa hijacked the EgyptAir flight in March 2016 using a fake suicide belt Nicosia - An Egyptian man who hijacked a domestic EgyptAir flight in 2016 and ordered it to land in Cyprus has been extradited to his homeland after giving up a drawn-out legal fight, authorities said Sunday. Saif Al Deen Mustafa was transferred to Egyptian custody and flown back to Egypt late Saturday, where prosecutors are investigating the incident. Cyprus Justice Minister Ionas Nicolaou told The Associated Press that Mustafa’s extradition went ahead after he dropped a three-year court battle to avoid extradition. On...

The Barak-8 missile is launched during a test. (photo credit: IAI) Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will provide advanced defense systems to Israel Navy’s new Sa’ar-6 corvettes to protect strategic maritime assets, the defense giant announced on Tuesday. The contract was led by the navy, the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D) and the procurement administration in Israel’s Defense Ministry. The Barak-8 system was chosen after it was demonstrated to meet the operational requirements and future challenges faced by Israel’s navy. The systems will be used to protect Israel’s exclusive economic zone and strategic facilities that are faced with diversified...

The discovery of one of the world's oldest shipwrecks shows that European trade was thriving even in the Bronze Age, according to experts. The vessel, carrying copper and tin ingots used to make weapons and jewellery, sank off the coast near Salcombe in Devon and is thought to date from 900BC. But it was only last year that the South West Maritime Archaeological Group, a team of amateur archaeologists, brought its cargo to the surface. The discovery was not announced until this month's International Shipwreck Conference, in Plymouth, Devon. It is thought that the goods - 259 copper ingots and...

n the first large-scale study of ancient feline DNA, the results reveal how our inscrutable friends were domesticated in the Near East and Egypt some 15,000 years ago, before spreading across the globe and into our hearts. The study was presented at the International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Oxford, UK back in 2016, and sequenced DNA from 209 cats that lived between 15,000 and 3,700 years ago - so from just before the advent of agriculture right up to the 18th century. Found in more than 30 archaeological sites in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, these ancient feline...

Israel is ramping up attacks against Iranian supply lines in Syria to block the flow of weapons to Hezbollah and other Tehran-backed militias, as it seeks to drive its foe away from its borders. In June Israel targeted a far-flung compound near the Syria-Iraq border, according to a security official, after carrying out multiple strikes closer to home against suspected Iranian military assets in Syria, where Iran is a key backer of President Bashar al-Assad. Israel, in accordance with its usual practice, didn’t confirm or deny it carried out the June airstrike. The U.S. denied responsibility, and a U.S. official...

Hamas’s former chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said during a meeting in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday that the movement had received information of a US plan to offer Palestinian leaders a state with its capital in Abu Dis, a Palestinian village near East Jerusalem... connected to the Al-Aqsa compound in East Jerusalem with a bridge. The plan also proposed dividing the West Bank into three sections and creating an autonomous region in the Gaza Strip. Abu Dis, a small rural community overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem to the southwest and the Jordan Valley to the east, had been...

Report says plan requires Hamas return soldiers' bodies, missing Israelis in exchange for port's establishment

GENEVA (Reuters) - Talks with the United States over how to reform the main U.N. rights body have failed to meet Washington’s demands, activists and diplomats say, suggesting that the Trump administration will quit the Geneva forum whose session opens on Monday. A U.S. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the withdrawal appeared to be “imminent” but had no details. Diplomatic sources said it was not a question of if but of when the United States retreats from the Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session through July 6. A separate U.S. official in Geneva had...

"Why is there not peace yet? How can we make peace when we have rabid murderers living among us? Instead of prosecuting them, we enable them to appear on TV and to boast about their murders.... If you do not even bring to account a murderer who says, 'killing was my art,' who will you bring to account?" — Şener Levent, the editor-in-chief of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika. So far, these "rabid murderers" have not been held accountable for the slaughter of innocent Greek Cypriots: the ethnic cleansing of northern Cyprus. The greater issue is that he and...

In the wake of the revelation that an FBI informant lured George Papadopoulos to London during the 2016 campaign, the former Trump campaign adviser has grown skeptical of many of his contacts during and after the election, his wife says. Papadopoulos’ contacts with the FBI informant — a former University of Cambridge professor named Stefan Halper — have been widely reported over the past several weeks. The 30-year-old Chicago native’s interactions with Joseph Mifsud and Alexander Downer, two diplomats who are key to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the election, are also well known. Simona Mangiante,...

... In Berlin, Macron’s proposals were met with a combination of skepticism and fear, especially among Merkel’s conservative base. Though no country has benefited more than Germany from the currency union, many Germans remain convinced that much of the rest of Europe — particularly the Mediterranean states — is trying to pick its pockets. The Greek bailouts, which cost Germany little in the grander scheme of things, only hardened that impression. In fact, for much of the German establishment, Macron’s ideas are nothing less than an open invitation to raid Berlin’s treasury.

TurkeyÂ’s Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) has ruled that a Kurdish candidate for the Turkish presidency cannot phone in to a talk programme from jail, opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet said . Selahattin DemirtaÅŸ was planning to use his weekly right to a 10-minute phone call to call in to Fox TV and take part in its election programme Leaders on Fox. However, his request was rejected on the basis that this was an internal Justice Ministry decision the YSK could not interfere with, even if it might affect the ongoing election. DemirtaÅŸ has been in pretrial detention since November 2016, and if...

Cyprus will host a ceremony on June 8 to mark the start of construction work on what is being billed as Europe's largest casino with more than a hundred gambling tables and over a thousand slot machines. The casino will be located in Limassol and is set to start operating in 2021. In the meantime a temporary facility is set to operate until works are completed on the City of Dreams Mediterranean casino-resort. It is being built by Melco Resorts and Entertainment, one of the biggest developer, owner and operator of casino gaming and entertainment casino resort facilities in Asia....

Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas blamed the new US embassy in Jerusalem and the US recognition of the holy city as Israel's capital for his recent hospitalization. Abbas released a statement attributing his hospitalization to stress from current events. “If the story of Jerusalem put me in the hospital, the I leave and say that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine.” "The health of the state is good, we will achieve our goal which is an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said. Abbas, 83, has a history of health problems and smokes heavily. He was discharged Monday...

Israel and Iran engaged over the weekend in indirect negotiations in Jordan regarding fighting in southwestern Syria, according to a Saudi-owned website. According to the Elaph website, the Iranians pledged not to participate in expected battles in southwestern Syria between President Bashar Assad’s forces and rebel groups, and Israel has made it clear that it will not intervene in the battles in the tri-border area, as long as Hezbollah and the Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias are not involved. The unconfirmed report said the negotiations were conducted last weekend between Iran’s ambassador to Jordan, who was in one hotel room in Amman...

ANKARA, May 27. /TASS/. Turkey is looking at buying Russian Su-57 fighter jets in case the United States refuses to sell its F-35 warplanes, Turkey’s YeniSafak reported on Sunday. Nevertheless, according to the newspaper, Ankara is not planning to abandon its right to US fighter jets, with deliveries expected to begin in June. Turkey has launched a discussion about a possible replacement to US planes and Russian-made Su-57 jets are seen as a good alternative as they are nearly half-price as compared with US F-35 planes, YeniSafak said, not specifying however the level of discussion. As of now, Ankara has...

Only in Turkey is the identity of a citizen a matter of national security. That’s why the population registry in Ankara was until now a closed book, its details a state secret. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s definition of “Turkishness” was “anyone who is attached to the Turkish state as a citizen”. Turks came from a clear ethnic identity, untainted by racial minorities or doubtful lineage. That’s one reason why the Nazis lavished praise on Ataturk’s republic, their newspapers mourning his death in black-bordered front pages. After all, as Hitler was to ask in several newspaper interviews – and to his generals...

Turkish President Recep Tayipp Erdogan said he would consider releasing the soldiers if eight Turkish servicemen, who sought assylum in Greece following the failed 2016 coup attempt, were sent home first."Blackmail" Athens has described this as "blackmail", with the Defence Ministry describing the soldiers as "hostages", and the Greek Supreme Court has sided with the government. President Prokopis Pavlopoulos of Greece said: "There was an unacceptable connection made between the Greek officers who were arbitrarily detained, and Turkish citizens who came to Greece, and requested asylum. Because Greece implemented - I emphasize this - implemented international law, it was granted....

Greece is to lease two French frigates by August to boost its defensive capabilities in the Aegean, according to Greek media reports. The acquisition of the FREMM-type vessels was confirmed after letters were exchanged between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and French President Emmanuel Macron, Greek daily Kathimerini reports. The decision by France to lease Greece the two vessels, equipped with high-accuracy anti-aircraft systems, for five years is seen as a firm message of support from Paris, the paper reports. It adds that at the end of the five-year lease, Greece is to take delivery of its first Belh@rra frigate. Greece...