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SummaryKhamenei will be buried on Thursday in Mashhad, near Imam Reza's tomb Ceremonies are scheduled in Qom on Tuesday and Iraq's Najaf and Kerbala on Wednesday Iraqi, Armenian and Pakistani officials arrived in Tehran for the funeral DUBAI, July 3 (Reuters) - The body of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lay in state in a vast hall in Tehran on Friday as clerics, officials, foreign ​dignitaries and other mourners paid their respects to Iran's late Supreme Leader, slain by U.S. and Israeli bombs.Iran is staging a week of mass funeral processions for Khamenei, whose 37-year reign was brought to ‌an end in...

A massive wave of armed insurrections and targeted assassinations has erupted across western Iran, leaving multiple regime security forces dead as overstretched IRGC units struggle to contain internal rebellions while fighting a broader regional war. A fresh wave of violence is shaking Iran’s Kurdish west, where Kurdish opposition fighters and Iranian regime forces are now clashing across multiple flashpoints from Mahabad and Baneh to Paveh and Marivan. The sudden intensification of domestic fighting comes at a critical moment for the Islamic Republic, as its elite military forces find themselves highly vulnerable to localized insurgencies. Tehran is forced to divert critical...

Turkey’s Hypocrisy Exposed by Israeli Recognition of Armenian Genocide Israel's recognition of the Armenian Genocide is an important step toward historical truth and exposes the profound hypocrisy of Turkey's genocide accusations against Israel while it continues to deny its own history. Turkey’s Hypocrisy Exposed by Israeli Recognition of Armenian Genocide Key Takeaways: Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide affirms an essential historical truth. Acknowledging one of the twentieth century’s first genocides reinforces the principle that mass atrocities must be remembered honestly, regardless of political convenience. Turkey’s genocide accusations against Israel are undermined by its own century-long denial of the Armenian...

The ongoing tensions between Turkey and Israel reached another high point on Sunday, after Israeli ministers reacted strongly to the suggestion of Turkey’s interior minister that Jerusalem could one day be reconquered by the successor state to the Ottoman Empire.Speaking at a party convention, Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said that “just as we witnessed the liberation of Damascus, Aleppo, and Karabakh, God willing, one day we will also witness the liberation of Jerusalem.”This is a reference to the defeat of the Assad regime at the hands of the Islamist alliance led by the now-defunct terror group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS),...

Europe will not submit to a more “brutal world”, and can instead be the base from which a new international order can be rebuilt, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has said. Carney was speaking as the first non-European leader to attend a meeting of the European Political Community, which opened on Monday amid high tensions in the strait of Hormuz and renewed doubts about the US commitment to Nato. “We don’t think that we’re destined to submit to a more transactional, insular and brutal world, and gatherings such as these point to a better way forward,” he said. In...

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has strongly condemned U.S. President Donald Trump for once again failing to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide in the White House’s annual April 24 statement, marking the 111th anniversary of the crime. The organization stated that the administration’s position reflects ongoing deference to Turkish pressure, despite longstanding recognition of the Armenian Genocide by the U.S. Congress, all 50 states, and previous administrations. It further stated that current U.S. policy is enabling broader regional dynamics that continue to endanger Armenians... ANCA also pointed to a February 2026 incident involving U.S. Vice President JD Vance,...

For decades, the Armenian American community has sought a simple action from the White House: Officially recognize the 1915 systematic annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. It is an event that the Turkish government continues to deny. Although Congress moved to recognize the genocide in 2019 and a formal presidential acknowledgment was made in 2021, the current administration has spent the past year retreating into the linguistic fogginess of “great calamity” and “historical tragedy” to describe this dark chapter in world history... The administration’s conduct in the Iran war is under intense global scrutiny......

Israel on Monday said it had uncovered an ‌Iranian network that had planned to attack a pipeline carrying crude oil from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean as well as Israeli and Jewish targets in Azerbaijan. In a joint statement, the Mossad and ‌Shin Bet intelligence agencies said a plan by ​Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to attack the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline through Georgia to Turkey several weeks ⁠ago had been thwarted. The cell had also planned attacks ​on Jewish and Israeli targets in Azerbaijan including the Israeli ⁠embassy and a synagogue in Baku, as well as leaders of the Jewish community in...

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has told Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi in a call that violation of Turkiye’s airspace by Iranian ballistic missiles was unacceptable, Reuters reports, citing a Turkish Foreign Ministry source. The source said Araqchi told Fidan that Tehran had conducted a wide investigation into the missiles, adding Fidan reiterated Turkey’s demand for all sides to refrain from steps that could put civilians at risk and told Araqchi that Ankara would take measures against missiles targeting it.

Thousands of Kurdish fighters have a launched a ground invasion in Iran, according to a US official. The Kurdish militias, based across the border in Iraq, began the offensive in northwestern Iran on Wednesday. President Donald Trump on Sunday night spoke with the heads of Kurdish militant groups in Iraq to discuss the situation in Iran. The CIA was exploring plans to arm the Kurdish forces with the aim of sparking a popular uprising, CNN reported Tuesday. The Kurdish groups are widely seen as the most well-organized faction of the fragmented Iranian opposition and are believed to have thousands of...

President Donald Trump announced Sunday that member states of his newly-formed Board of Peace have pledged more than $5 billion toward humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Gaza. Trump said the commitment will be formally unveiled on Thursday, February 19, at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. In addition to financial pledges, Trump said participating nations have committed thousands of personnel to both an International Stabilization Force and to local police units to maintain security and peace for Gazans. “On February 19th, 2026, I will again be joined by Board of Peace Members at the Donald J....

'US Special Envoy Tom Barrack plays a key role in reshaping a policy in the Middle East...'See comments there.Here is an example:Darias @Yosefewz2: Tom Berrak works only for the interests of Turkey and turns the Middle East into hell by defending ISIS number 2, Ahmad al-Shara and the terrorism of Turkish Islamic Arabism. Feb 11, 2026 [https://x.com/Yosefewz2/status/2021611202384666739]

Washington’s answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative begins in Armenia, and Vice President JD Vance is in the South Caucasus to pave the way. The Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) may serve as the foundation stone of a broader network of transportation and economic corridors designed to secure critical Eurasian supply chains for the United States and to counter Chinese and Russian influence. However, the region lies on the periphery of U.S. geopolitical engagement; therefore, TRIPP’s implementation will require pragmatic solutions and a return to realpolitik in order to avoid aggressive countermeasures by other regional powers....

Orthodox Christmas will be observed on January 7, by millions of Christians across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. While much of the world celebrates Christmas on December 25, Orthodox Christians follow a different liturgical calendar, making their celebration fall 13 days later... The difference in dates arises from the use of two calendars. Most Western Christian churches follow the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct inaccuracies in the older Julian calendar. This reform fixed the date of Christmas as December 25. However, many Orthodox churches chose not to adopt the Gregorian calendar for...

Iranians begrudgingly accepted Islam but refused to accept Arabic as its supposedly divine language. Scholars have argued that it took almost four hundred years before Arabs conquered the entire Iranian empire. In those centuries of turmoil, Iranian Christians and Jews—like Zoroastrians who had been the dominant faith in the empire—were often subjected to the terrors of a local pious Muslim bully. By the fifteenth century, Shiism—one of the main branches of Islam—forcefully became the “state” religion of Iran, but even that did not altogether destroy Christian life in the country. Assyrians and Armenians continued to live in parts of the...

Kim Kardashian posted a video on her Instagram account lamenting her recent failure of the bar exam, and images she included of her study notes revealed her grasp of the material may not be as strong as she had hoped. Kardashian, 45, began the process of “reading law,” an unusual path to becoming an attorney that is only available in a few states and involves studying as an apprentice under a licensed lawyer as a prerequisite for taking the bar exam instead of law school. According to interviews she gave at the time, she started this process in 2019, planning...

The potential for a military clash between Turkey and Israel is growing. There are several colliding points, and each one of them has the potential to become a full-scale war, despite mechanisms designed to avoid conflict. The most obvious is the Syrian front. Reports indicate that Turkey plans to help Syria’s transitional government develop a military force of approximately 200,000 personnel (approximately 10–15 divisions). Turkey has assumed the role of protector of Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (al-Jolani, his nom de guerre). Israel, for its part, has assumed the role of protector of the Druze minority in southwestern Syria, an area...

The Armenian presence in Jerusalem dates back to 301 AD, when Armenia adopted Christianity as its national religion, and Armenian monks and pilgrims subsequently settled there. Today, Jerusalem is home to a small Armenian community comprised of descendants of Armenians whose ancestors came to the Holy Land after 301 AD, and descendants of Armenians who survived the Ottoman genocide and immigrated to Palestine in large numbers between 1915 and 1923, before the establishment of the Jewish state. On Tuesday, August 26, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Patrick Bet-David — an American media personality — on his podcast, that...

When President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan arrived in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, it was not merely another state visit - it was a statement of purpose. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, two key pillars of the Turkic world, reaffirmed their shared vision for a future built on unity, connectivity, and strength. The visit symbolized the natural deepening of economic and cultural integration among Turkic nations, while sending a clear message that regional cooperation can serve as the foundation of global influence.As the strategic ties between Baku and Astana strengthen, Israel naturally perceives new opportunities for economic and security engagement across Central...

La Brújula Verde reports that Argishtikhinili, a 2,500-year-old Urartian fortress in western Armenia, is being studied by a team of Armenian and Polish archaeologists. The excavation has yielded living areas, a storage room or pantry, and a one-and-one-half-foot-tall stone carved with human features. Mateusz Iskra of the University of Warsaw said that the well-preserved dwellings were made of earth and have intact floors made of adobe bricks and stone slabs. A room with several large vessels for storing food embedded in the floor was found within one of these large residences. An adjoining room held a stone carved with human...