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Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders want Norway to facilitate future peace talks, says Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide, who met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. Søreide also met with Palestinian lead negotiator Saeb Erekat. Following the meetings, the foreign minister told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that leaders in both Palestine and Israel want Norway to facilitate future peace talks between the two countries. “Both Israeli and Palestinian leaders would like Norway to facilitate potential future peace talks,” she told NRK. Søreide also stressed that the situation remains difficult and that she was realistic about the peace process. The minister...

Iran declared Jerusalem the "capital of Palestine" on Wednesday following a parliamentary vote, according to the country's semi-official Fars news agency. Iran's announcement to recognize the holy city as the “Palestinian capital forever” comes in direct response to President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. “It comes in response to the recent U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in hopes of dealing a blow to Muslims,” said Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, according to Turkey's Anadolu news agency.

Macedonia's left-wing prime minister said he is ready to renounce his country's claim to be the sole heirs of the legacy of Alexander the Great to help solve a 26-year-old dispute with neighboring Greece over the country's name. "I give up (the claim) of Macedonia being the sole heir to Alexander. The history belongs not only to us, but also to Greece and many other countries," Zoran Zaev, in power since the spring, said in an interview to TV station Telma late Friday. Since its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, Macedonia has claimed at least part of the heritage of...

Archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have begun exploring a previously unknown ancient city at a village called Vlochós, five hours north of Athens. The archaeological remains are scattered on and around the Strongilovoúni hill on the great Thessalian plains and can be dated to several historical periods

Why the president's Jerusalem decision was the right thing to do. The Trump administration vetoed a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution last week that called on the U.S. to rescind its decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and ultimately move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the seat of Israel’s parliament (Knesset), the Supreme Court, and where the Prime Minister and President of the Jewish State reside.  The UNSC resolution drafted by Egypt and backed by 13 other members of the Security Council affirms that “any decision and actions which purport to have altered the character,...

For the first half of this century, during one of the longest active political careers in this country, Winston Churchill was interested and sympathetic to Zionism. Hating tyranny in all its forms, he had reacted strongly against the Tzarist pogroms in the first years of the century and always understood the desperate need of a haven for Jews. “I recognise,” he wrote in a private letter on 2 January 1906, “the supreme attraction to a scattered and persecuted people of a safe and settled home under the flag of tolerance and freedom.” Two years later, on 30 January 1908, he...

On December 6, Donald Trump “opened the gates of hell” and “set the Middle East aflame” by acknowledging Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or at least that’s what various prophets and practitioners of doom predicted. The reality was somewhat different. While violent demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza, and in various Muslim and European countries, followed Palestinian Authority and Hamas calls for “days of rage”, these were hardly of the magnitude expected. Indeed, Jerusalem itself was relatively quiet. The diplomatic storm from the Arab world also was less intense than predicted. This unexpectedly mild reaction was due to...

Goodness is contagious. The Trump presidency will go down in history as a triumph for American freedom and goodwill towards men, a return to America being a force for good across the world. Merry Christmas! Israel says 10 more countries in talks about moving embassies to Jerusalem Honduras reportedly next in line after Guatemala announces relocation of mission; Togo, Paraguay, Romania and Slovakia also floated Following Guatemala’s announcement Monday that it would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, at least 10 other countries are in talks to move their own missions, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said. In...

Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar says the group will shut down the U.S. embassy in Israel once it “liberates Palestine”. Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar recently threatened that the terrorist group will shut down the U.S. embassy in Israel once it “liberates Palestine”. In an interview on Al-Jazeera on December 17, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the Hamas leader also made clear that the group "would not relinquish a single gun, not even a single bullet." “Annihilation will be the fate not only of the Jews, but also of their helpers and of the people...

A new emergency decree in Turkey could allow vigilantes to carry out political violence with impunity against opponents of the government suspected of involvement in last year’s coup attempt, Turkey’s main lawyers’ groups said on Monday. snip A separate decree on Sunday dismissed 2,756 more people from their jobs, accusing them of links to terrorist organizations. snip In a joint statement, the Ankara and Istanbul bar associations called Sunday’s two decrees “the last two nails in the coffin of the law”.

The Hellenic Food Authority (EFET) on Tuesday warned consumers to avoid certain supermarket products after claims on an anarchist website that they had intentionally been contaminated with hydrochloric acid. The products concerned are plastic 1.5-liter bottles of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Light, Yfantis luncheon meat (“pariza”) in 500- and 350-gram packages, and blue 1-liter cartons of fresh milk from Delta. The products are being withdrawn from shelves by the companies as a precautionary measure. The move comes after a group calling itself Green Nemesis-Praxis 3 made the claim that the items had been contaminated. Similar incidents occurred before Christmas last year...

President Donald Trump is scheduled to publicize his administration’s national security doctrine on Monday, two years after then-President Barack Obama released his own strategy document, which emphasized global warming as a major threat to global security. The new doctrine, laid out in a 70-page document, includes significant departures from past American policy on the Middle East, including the Israeli-Arab conflict and the influence that conflict has had on Middle East stability. According to the Associated Press, which obtained a draft of the new national security document, the president is expected to emphasize that Israel is not the cause of the...

Cherry-picking bits and pieces of International law or even worse--making it up and refusing to acknowledge its falsity--is a recipe for continuing chaos and disorder The 57 member States of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are living in a legal fantasyland of their own creation where non-existent principles of international law supposedly apply. The final communique issued by the OIC following its Extraordinary Summit held in Turkey on 13 December 2017 makes their flight into legal unreality crystal-clear:

Israel Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon slammed the resolution submitted to the UN Security Council calling on it to rescind US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “In these days, when the Jewish nation is celebrating when Jerusalem was liberated thousands of years ago, the Palestinians continue to try and reinvent history,” Danon said. “No vote or discussion will change the clear facts: Jerusalem is and has always been the capital of Israel. This time, too, we will continue to defend our historical truth, together with our allies.” […] According to the draft, “any decisions...

The secrets of the Roman Empire's ancient and 'luxurious' harbour of Corinth have been revealed in a series of new underwater excavations. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of 'large-scale engineering' at the port of Lechaion, which was mostly destroyed in the 6th or early 7th century AD by a massive earthquake. Wooden foundations preserved so well they look new have been found at the site, as well as a host of Roman artefacts including fishing lines and hooks, wooden pulleys and ceramics imported from Tunisia and Turkey. These discoveries are helping researchers understand the infrastructure and layout of an ancient port...

Concerns about incidents of violence at university faculties peaked on Saturday after assailants wielding wooden sticks attacked students at an Athens University campus on Academias Street in central Athens, sending four of them to the hospital. There were around 15 assailants, according to witnesses who said they were all wearing crash helmets and holding wooden sticks. They barged into the theater studies faculty where students were holding a function at around 2 a.m., the witnesses said. Apart from beating up several students, four of them seriously, the attackers wreaked serious damage to the building. Before fleeing, they stole a box...

..."It is not possible to take seriously the allegations and accusations made by a mentality which massacred thousands of Palestinians, turned the lands of the Palestinians into an open-air prison, in order to suppress its guilt," Erdogan's spokesperson Ibrahim Kal?n said... Israel disregards international law, has "occupied Palestinian people's hundreds-of-years-old homeland and systematically violates United Nations resolutions," ...adding that Israel "must first account for its own actions." "Those, who think they will make Al-Quds, our first Qibla, the capital of the occupying state, are wasting their time. Israeli authorities should end the occupation of Palestinian lands instead of attacking our...

Have the ancient Christian communities in northern Iraq fallen prey to Iran’s radical Islamist aspirations?Will Iran be permitted to complete its “Shi’a Crescent” or “land bridge,” stretching from Tehran through Iraq, into Syria and on into Lebanon, where Iran’s proxy Hezbollah already asserts enormous power? Is President Donald Trump’s bold assertion that Iran will be denied hegemony in the Middle East being refuted by the facts on the ground? Just last week, I wrote about the renewed hope that surged across displaced Christian communities in Iraq’s Nineveh Plain following Vice President Mike Pence’s encouraging speech at an Washington D.C. event.

The full switch-on of a pipeline pumping water from Turkey to Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus will take place on October 28. Onder Sennaroglu, the official responsible for the project, confirmed the new date during meetings in Ankara. The project has been blighted by delays, due to bad weather and rough conditions in the Mediterranean. The grand opening of the multi-million euro project was supposed to take place last month, to coincide with the anniversary if the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974. However, the Turkish Minister of Forestry and Water Affairs Veysel Eroglu, did conduct a ceremonial 'fitting' of a...

Does Germany owe indeed Greeks billions of euros in World War II reparations for the damages and the enforced loan during the occupation of the country by the Nazis? So far, Berlin has vehemently rejected any Greek claims. However, two German researchers dug into the documents of the dispute. have discovered and calculated that the German state owes Greece 185 billion euros. Of this not even a 1% has been paid to Greece.