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Vatican silent as verdict triggers geopolitical tremorsISTANBUL (ChurchMilitant.com) - In a historic verdict, Turkey's top court has returned the world's greatest Byzantine basilica to its previous status as a mosque after it abolished President Atatürk's 1934 decision to turn Hagia Sophia into a museum. Turkey's highest administrative court, the Council of State, reached a unanimous verdict declaring that president Kemal Atatürk's cabinet had no right to turn Hagia Sophia into a museum as part of his secularist reforms and has rendered the decision unlawful. The court is expected to deliver its judgment Friday, but Turkish journalist Mehmet Ardıç, a close...

July 7 (UPI) -- New York regulators announced Tuesday a $150 million penalty on Deutsche Bank tied to suspicious transactions involving Jeffrey Epstein and two foreign banks, Danske Estonia and FBME Bank. Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $150 million as a result of "significant compliance failures," Linda Lacewell, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, said in a statement. These failures were related to its banking relationships with Epstein and the two foreign banks. The statement said the settlement marks the first enforcement action by a regulator against a financial institution for dealings with registered sex...

In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018 file photo, released by Oman News Agency, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, left, receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Muscat, Oman. (Oman News Agency via AP, File) The “last decade,� notes James Sinkinson in a perceptive article, has seen a “sea change� in Israel’s ties with “key Arab states.� And that last decade is also the one in which Benjamin Netanyahu (again, after a stint in the 1990s) has been Israel’s prime minister — specifically since March 2009.True, conditions for enhanced Arab-Israeli ties have been propitious — particularly the behavior of regional bully Iran, a...

BEIRUT, LEBANON (10:30 A.M.) – On Saturday, the Greek Army announced its readiness to respond to any steps by Turkey, threatening to “burn everyone who sets foot on Greek soil.” A Greek news website quoted the statements of the Chief of Staff of the Greek Army, Constantius Florus, who did not rule out the occurrence of a “military conflict with Turkey in the event that Ankara proceeded to cross the red lines,” noting that “the military conflict is possible, and no one can exclude this possibility. And if anything like that happens, this will not be limited to one point,...

The announcement Thursday that the partners of the Leviathan gas reservoir will invest $3.75 billion in its development is a devastating blow to the BDS movement, Eli Groner, director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. The development of Leviathan, which is scheduled to take about three years, constitutes both the largest energy project and financial investment in Israel in the country's history.

Putin and Netanyahu to strike deal on Leviathan gas field The Australian October 20, 2015 12:00AM Russia wants to be the major partner in Israel’s offshore ­Leviathan natural gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, a top ­Israeli foreign affairs analyst said in Sydney yesterday. Ehud Yaari, the senior Middle East commentator for ­Israel’s Channel Two news, said “everybody regrets� a deal was not done with Woodside and that until now Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ruled out a Gazprom deal. Gazprom bid for a stake in the project in 2012 but was beaten by Woodside, which pulled out of...

Israel made another discovery off its coast. The newly discovered field, Royee, may hold up to 3.2 Tcf of natural gas according to a statement made by the Israeli partners in the field Ratio and Israel Opportunity who hold respectively 70%, and 10% stakes. The remaining 20% of the field are held by Edison. Royee is located about 150 kilometers offshore Israel close to its maritime borders with Cyprus and Egypt. The field’s size is yet to be confirmed, but current estimates suggest it is the third largest field discovered to date in Israeli waters after the Leviathan discovered by...

While the Middle East may have a reputation for instability and occasional violence, there's no denying the vast riches it has to offer patient investors. Just months after the announcement of $1 trillion worth of minerals in Afghanistan comes word of oil discoveries in Israel... Israel may finally be able to tell its Middle Eastern neighbors where they can stick their oil — something the United States has wanted to do for years. In one of the most sought-after parts of the world, 4.3 billion barrels of oil could be sitting in the Leviathan project beneath the Mediterranean, according to...

In continuation of the detailed underwater survey and mapping of the seabed in the wider area of the Subsea Greek - Italian Interconnection Pipeline ("Poseidon" Pipeline) in the period from 11 to 17 May 2012, the scheduled archaeological investigation was carried out. The above survey was carried out by the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) under the supervision and coordination of the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities in the part of the programmed routing of the pipeline on the Greek seabed up to the boundaries of the Greek Exclusive Economic Zone with Italy. The survey revealed three ancient shipwrecks, two...

Egypt has announced an anti-Turkey alliance that includes Greece, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and France to confront Turkish moves in Libya and the Mediterranean. The announcement was made during a virtual meeting with the foreign ministers of these countries on May 11. In a joint statement issued shortly after the meeting, the five-party alliance said it will focus on confronting the Turkish moves in the territorial waters in Cyprus, where Turkey has been carrying out “illegal” excavations in the Mediterranean under Cyprus sovereignty. The alliance also condemned Turkey’s escalated violations of Greek airspace.  The European Union condemned May 16...

The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Jerome Powell says more stimulus spending is needed to prevent a slow and painful economic recovery...... In Washington state authorities are gearing up for testing, contact tracing and quarantine efforts that will include children's "camps" in the name of fighting Covid-19..... More clashes tonight in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem as Orthodox Jewish residents sought to meet publicly in spite of Israeli government restrictions.... "Gestapo" was the message shouted at police in Lakewood, New Jersey Monday..... Police in Ukraine asking for the addresses of all the Jews in one community.... The family...

Following a police investigation, 20 people, including a priest, will be charged with breaking the lockdown decree for allegedly attending a Church service in Erimi in the southwestern Limassol District on St. George’s Day, April 23. Police were tipped off that a service was being held at the Church of St. George on its patronal feast day and arrived to find 16 cars parked outside, reports in-cyprus. However, when the police entered the church, they found only the priest and two members of the public, who were charged that day. Tracing the license plates on the cars outside the church,...

The campaign of Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden has issued a denial of the sexual assault allegation of former aide Tara Reade...... The 'stimulus' money electronically deposited into millions of bank accounts today..... And the checks will bear the signature of Donald J. Trump on them...... Iranian speed boats harassing a formation of US Navy and Coast Guard vessels in the Persian Gulf today...... The US Space Command says that Russia conducted a test of a system designed to shoot down satellites today.... The British defense contractor BAE Systems has sold some 18.9 billion dollars worth of arms to Saudi...

When it comes to precautions against catching the coronavirus, the sky’s the limit — as a Cyprus man shows by using a drone to walk his dog. Vakis Demetriou stood on his balcony during the government-mandated lockdown and operated his drone, which walked Oliver using a leash from several feet above, according to Storyful.

ATHENS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th February, 2020) Greece on Friday evening vetoed a NATO statement in support of Ankara after an attack on Turkish troops in Syria's Idlib, which killed more than 30 soldiers, To Vima newspaper reported. The situation in Idlib escalated after on February 27 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (banned in Russia) terrorists launched a large-scale attack on the positions of the Syrian government forces. The Syrian army opened return fire. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Turkish soldiers, who should not have been there, came under fire too.

The theatre of ancient Nea Paphos is one of the most significant Hellenistic-Roman structures in Cyprus; it was in use for more than six centuries between its construction in c. 300 BC and its final destruction by earthquake around 365 AD. It was initially used for dramatic performances, but in its final Roman phases the theatre was converted to an arena and could be flooded for water spectacles... the Hellenistic-Roman theatre, located in the north-east corner of the ancient capital of Cyprus. A number of trenches were opened by the Australian team with the intention of exposing the continuation of...

BREAKING RUDY NEWS - He just scooped on Bannon’s podcast today! NOBODY here seems to listen to the Steven Bannon, Raheem Kassam, Jason Miller podcast called War Room Impeachment. So just today I’m listening to Rudy on with them and he just broke big news he was waiting for tomorrow because he’s I think he said 80% proven it and was going to break tomorrow. That the blower was at the meeting in January 2016 with other NSC members talking to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Manafort and Trump campaign. To keep him from being elected and then later...

POSTED BY: DEAN JAMES From Mark Sidney at We Are Biased OPINION Blog OPINION – Why do I suspect that the President’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has the goods on the DS? Well, the answer is pretty simple really, the DS has been doing everything in their power to destroy the man. take our poll - story continues below From a Washington Post article trying to claim some nonsense about Rudy helping a middle eastern Princess regain custody of her child, to his efforts to exonerate his client while in the Ukraine, you name it, the DS has tried to use...

The US Central Command announcing on the first day of the impeachment trial opened in Washington that more US troops serving at the Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq when Iranian missile struck the base earlier this month have been taken to Germany for treatment of concussion related injuries.... A former inspector with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) told the UN Security Council that the group's report about an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018 ran contrary to the findings of its own fact finding mission....... Speaking to the UN Conference on Disarmament...

In a letter seen by German media, the EU has unveiled cuts in aid to Turkey over illegal gas drilling off Cyprus' coast and military operations in Syria. But Brussels stopped short of ending democracy promotion projects. The EU has cut pre-accession aid to Turkey by 75%, according to a letter sent to the European Parliament by EU foreign affairs commissioner Josep Borrell and seen by the Essen-based Funke Mediengruppe.Turkey will now only receive €168 million ($186 million) of which €150 million will be spent on strengthening democracy and rule of law. The rest is earmarked for rural development.Borrell justified...