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For example, a 17th-century Persian textile contains fibers of silk thread that were individually wrapped with thin strips of metal. And the microstructure of a needle from Cyprus retains the touch of the person who shaped it, in traces of dark corrosion that emerged as the needle was rotated and hammered. In another striking image, a bit of basalt glitters in a ceramic roof tile from Gordion, a site in Turkey that was inhabited from at least 2300 B.C., during the early Bronze Age (the tile dates to the first half of the sixth century B.C.). Basalt, a volcanic rock,...

Former Google CEO and Clinton lackey Eric Schmidt is being considered to lead a key tech task force in a Biden administration, according to a report in the Financial Times. Even though the election result is still disputed by President Donald Trump and the Republicans, Joe Biden is already forming his transition team, which includes many former Silicon Valley employees, including Schmidt. According to the Financial Times (paywalled), presidential contender Biden has: hired both Jessica Hertz, former associate general counsel at Facebook, and Cynthia Hogan, former Apple vice-president for government affairs to his transition team. Eric Schmidt, the former Google...

The former CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, is finalizing a plan to become a citizen of the island of Cyprus, Recode has learned, becoming one of the highest-profile Americans to take advantage of one of the world’s most controversial “passport-for-sale” programs. Schmidt, one of America’s wealthiest people, and his family have won approval to become citizens of the Mediterranean nation, according to a previously unreported notice in a Cypriot publication in October. While it is not clear why exactly Schmidt has pursued this foreign citizenship, the new passport gives him the ability to travel to the European Union, along with...

The French cyber authority has announced that many government ministries, media outlets and financial institutions have been hit by a mysterious attack. In recent days, there has been an escalation in French-Turkish relations. According to reports published in the last hours of tonight (Sunday), it appears that a major and significant cyber attack has hit France. It is not yet clear the size of the attack and whether it has ended, but it has been reported that many government ministries, media outlets and financial institutions have been affected. The National Cyber Authority in France issued an official statement in which...

The electronic warfare system is known as “Belladonna”, a poisonous plant that gets its name from Renaissance women who used its extract for tinctures to dilate the pupils of their eyes, ostensibly to make them more attractive. While Belladonna translates to “beautiful woman” in English, in Russian it has a second meaning: it is the name of a Russian electronic jamming system now credited with knocking out at least nine Turkish Bayraktar armed drones used by Azerbaijan to target Armenia. If true – and no one has denied it – the system is now operating around the sensitive Russian military...

As forces mass in Europe, the biggest stumbling block to EuropeÂ’s future strategic independence as well as American grand strategy is once again Germany. North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies Turkey and Greece are embroiled in a dispute over Turkish oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, and Greece is backed by the French navy. After the French military conducted training exercises with Greek forces in the region on Thursday, Turkey warned France to retreat. Within a day, three things happened in rapid succession.First, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed a treaty to relocate troops out of Germany to...

The power shift in the Middle East over the past several years has reshaped the political challenges facing several of its constituent countries, and has led them to consider a possible expansion of their framework of relations. Considering Turkey’s repeated interventions in the affairs of more than one state and the potential threat its ambitions pose to the region’s future, the strategic interests of Israel and many Arab countries—especially the UAE and Saudi Arabia—necessitate a strengthening of relations among countries that can offset Ankara’s aggression. Advertisement Greece is perhaps uniquely suited to assist in this cooperation. Jerusalem boosted its ties...

d biological weapons, sought nuclear weapons, supported terrorism, and threatened peace. In October 2002, then-U.S. Sen. Biden voted in favor of a resolution that authorized Bush to enforce ''all relevant'' United Nations Security Council resolutions on Iraq and if needed, to use military force against Iraq. In a Senate floor speech before voting for the resolution, Biden said that "failure to overwhelmingly support" the resolution was "likely to enhance the prospects that war will occur." The objective of the resolution was to compel Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, Biden said. He left open the possibility that Hussein...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: ISIS was so successful in 2014 in part because President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan of Turkey is a vocal supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Any distance ErdoÄŸan has placed between himself and ISIS is attributable to pressure from Russia, the US, and Europe, not to his rejection of the groupÂ’s Islamist ideology. In view of TurkeyÂ’s increasingly divisive and destabilizing influence in the Middle East, the regionÂ’s biggest concern for the West could be President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸanÂ’s burgeoning Islamist tendencies. In order to understand the Turkish role in the threat of ISIS, borne from the Muslim Brotherhood, it...

Greece’s government says it has finalized plans to build a wall along its northeast border with Turkey, over concerns that migrants may try to stage mass crossings into the European Union country. Government spokesman Stelios Petsas said Monday that 26 kilometers (16 miles) of wall would be added to an existing 10-kilometer (six-mile) section of fence in a 63-million-euro ($74 million) project due to be completed by the end of April... Police officials on Monday told The Associated Press that a surveillance camera network was also planned to cover the entire 192-kilometer (120-mile) Greek-Turkish border, while police have already started...

A poster at a shop in Madinah announces its boycott of all Turkish products. RIYADH/JEDDAH: The popular campaign boycotting Turkish products in Saudi Arabia has gained further momentum over the past few days, attracting the support of commentators and businesses. “Turkish political mess-ups and interference in countries of the Middle East is the real reason behind this popular boycott of Turkish products,” said Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri, a political analyst and international relations scholar. “Turkish President Erdogan changed his previous policy of minimizing Turkish problems and instead exported it to the outside. Turkey has been threatening the region just as Iran...

A Russian fighter jet on Sunday reportedly came dangerously close to an Israeli passenger aircraft while on route from the Greek island of Rhodes to Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport. The incident occurred when the Israir flight entered Cypriot air space. No casualties or damage were reported. The Russian Sukhoi Su-27 came to within a mile from the Israir Airbus A320, a distance considered unsafe, for several minutes before air traffic controllers in Cyprus warned it away. Russia has fighter aircraft stationed in nearby Syria, where it is assisting the Assad regime in the civil war, leading to crowded skies in...

Turkey has “activated” a Russian-made S-400 anti-aircraft defense system to track F-16 fighter jets flown by several other NATO members, U.S. lawmakers and analysts suspect. “The whole problem with having the S-400 integrated is in order to do that, you have to betray some of the codes and some of the, basically, NATO technology to the Russians,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin said. “And it appears that that's what they've done.” Western officials have eyed Turkey’s turn to Russian arms dealers with alarm in recent years, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan defied the threat of U.S. sanctions to...

Today's top stories 13.10.20; 1) The Israeli Parliament, or Knesset in Hebrew, formally opened its winter session -- amid domestic reports of a reemerging political crisis that may yet again force the Jewish State into another round of national elections.2) A Cargo Vessel makes a first official maritime transport of Emirati goods to the state of Israel.3) Tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean are once again on the rise, after Turkey announced its decision to conduct exploration works for offshore energy sources in disputed waters, south of the Greek Island of Kastellorizo -- which is situated near Turkey's southern coast.Turkey-Greece tensions...

To a West where no one seems to want to fight anymore or care anymore about their own traditions, where they spit on their own history, topple their statues and erase their own culture, where the land no longer sends any echo, the Armenians, small, scattered around the world, forgotten and barricaded, now at war for Nagorno against the Islamic Ummah led by Turkey, show us a path in which we do not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed. Half of Nagorno's population, 75,000 people, has been displaced due to Turkish-backed Azerbaijan attacks. We must hope they resist. I have just...

INTERNATIONAL | President Recep Tayyip Erdogan works to Islamize Christian sites TURKEY: The Turkish Islamic Foundation destroyed the historic St. Georgios Greek Orthodox Church in Bursa on Wednesday, seven years after local officials transferred the property to the group’s control. Authorities emptied Bursa of its Greek Orthodox population a century ago, and the church became a mosque in the 1920s. But in 2006 it was restored and for years served as a focal point for Greek-Turkish exchange and reconciliation, then was closed and lapsed into disrepair once the foundation took over. It follows a campaign by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan...

Minutes after the truce took force, the Armenian military accused Azerbaijan of shelling the area near the town of Kapan in southeastern Armenia, killing one civilian. The Azerbaijani military, in turn, accused Armenia of striking the Terter and Agdam regions of Azerbaijan with missiles and then attempting to launch offensives in the Agdere-Terter and the Fizuli-Jabrail areas. Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov charged that “conditions for implementing the humanitarian cease-fire are currently missing” amid the continuing Armenian shelling. The latest outburst of fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces began Sept. 27 and left hundreds of people dead in the biggest...

MOSCOW - The Russian and Egyptian Navy are preparing to conduct maneuvers, the first of their kind in the Black Sea. According to the press office of the Russian Southern Military District, representatives of the two armies held a three-day conference in Novorossiysk on the preparation of the joint exercises "Friendship Bridge - 2020", which will be held for the first time in the Black Sea. The Black Sea is an inland sea located between the southeastern part of Europe and Asia Minor. It connects with the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus Strait and the Sea of ​​Marmara, and it...

Turkey supports efforts for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh as long as they account for Azerbaijan's legitimate demands, a spokesman for the Turkish presidency said. "We call on the Minsk Group to come up with a timetable and a new proposal that is actionable, that has specific guidelines to end the current round of hostilities but most importantly also a way to end the occupation of Azeri lands by Armenia, which has been the root cause of this problem," government spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin told Al Jazeera. "The Minsk Group, which was established almost 30 years ago, has...

Today in history, on October 7, 1571, one of the most cataclysmic clashes between Islam and the West — one where the latter for once crushed and humiliated the former — took place. In 1570, Muslim Turks — in the guise of the Ottoman Empire — invaded the island of Cyprus, prompting Pope Pius V to call for and form a "Holy League" of maritime Catholic nation-states, spearheaded by the Spanish Empire, in 1571. Before they could reach and relieve Cyprus, its last stronghold at Famagusta was taken through treachery. After promising the defenders safe passage if they surrendered, Ottoman...