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Turkey’s lira briefly slipped on Friday after U.S. lawmakers included mandatory Turkish sanctions in a defense spending bill that moves Washington a step closer to punishing its NATO ally for buying Russian S-400 missile defenses last year. The final version of the $740 billion annual U.S. defense spending legislation would oblige the White House to select from a list of sanctions over the S-400s, which Washington says are incompatible with NATO operations. U.S. President Donald Trump, who is set to step down next month, has said he will veto the bill over separate provisions. But he may need some support...

Police deployed against mask mandate opponents in Boise, Idaho but first... The State of Washington leveling threats against businesses that remain open in spite of the coronavirus restrictions... A Jewish celebration broken by heavily armed police in Belgium for violating coronavirus restrictions... The Central Idaho District Health Board in Boise, Idaho meeting late in the afternoon on Newsdump Friday... At a time when many are dissatisfied with the election results here in Pennsylvania and want legislators to reverse what they see as election fraud and a stolen election, public access to the State Capitol complex is being shut off... Republican...

Another large-scale mosaic of a seraphim has been uncovered on the ceiling of Agia Sophia in Istanbul. The 6-winged angel of God was revealed when scaffolding set up 7 years ago to assist in restoration was finally dismantled, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency. Another of the four mosaics was uncovered in 2009. It had been hidden under plaster and metal for 160 years. The last person to see the mosaic was Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid and Swiss architects Guiseppe and Gaspare Fossati, who directed renovations at Agia Sophia from 1847 to 1849.

Democrats have continually pushed Americans to stay home and avoid gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas because of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. While they enforce mask mandates and lockdowns that kill small businesses and ruin people's livelihoods, many Americans have stood up and said, "enough." They're tired of Democratic politicians passing draconian lockdowns that they themselves don't follow. Just look at Gov. Gavin Newsom's French Laundry celebration or Gov. Andrew Cuomo's plans to spend Thanksgiving with his elderly mother. And who could forget D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser traveling to a "forbidden" state to celebrate Biden's presidential victory? The list goes on...

"Mr. Trump, I appeal to your greatness," began Hunter. "Please pardon me for drug use, human trafficking, bribery, extortion, espionage, and corruption. Er -- I mean... GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE!"

France has called European Union to impose financial & trade sanctions on Turkey & Pakistan. French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Jordan Bardella has expressed concerns over terrorism emanating from countries like Turkey and Pakistan.France demands EU sanctions after terror attacks in Paris, Nice & Vienna | Jordan Bardella

If Donald Trump doesn’t take the Oath of Office on January 20, 2021, one principal but little-noted reason for this may be that he crossed one of the most powerful and least accountable forces in the nation: the military-industrial complex. As Trump said last September, “the top people in the Pentagon…want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy. But we’re getting out of the endless wars, you know how we’re doing.” Now, however, that Joe Biden has been anointed “President-elect”...

MOSCOW (AP) — The president of Azerbaijan is promising that Christian churches will be protected when the strongly Muslim country takes possession of areas formerly controlled by Armenians. President Ilham Aliyev’s office said he made the promise in a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is deploying peacekeeping forces in the areas under an agreement that ended six weeks of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Ethnic Armenian forces had controlled Nagorno-Karabakh and sizeable adjacent territories since the 1994 end of a separatist war. Fighting resumed in late September and ended with an agreement that...

The decision by three Arab states to make peace with Israel can be credited both to efforts by the Trump administration and the recognition by these Sunni states that their security would improve against the ongoing threats they face from Turkey and Iran. Iran and its proxies interfere with Arab states while promoting their Shi’ite revolutionary ideology; likewise, Turkey pushes its Sunni revolutionary ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region. Turkey and Iran look to overthrow the Sunni Arab states that do not align with them, such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The normalization deals between the...

The latest spate of terror attacks in France and Austria will not hamper the cooperation between the government and Germany’s Muslim community, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Tuesday. “We won’t let terrorism and extremism derail us,” Seehofer said at the start of this year’s German Islam Conference. Seehofer praised an Islamic theology program for German-speaking imams in the city of Osnabrück as a significant contribution towards preventing radicalization. The interior ministry-funded project is “money well-spent for societal cohesion in our country,” Seehofer said. […] With many imams receiving their religious training abroad, very often in Turkey with the contentious...

The message was clearly aimed at Gulf states and others that are partnered with the US. Iran has sought to reach out to its Arab neighbors, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif warning them that US President Donald Trump will be leaving in 70 days, but Iran’s regime will remain “forever.” He urged them to realize that “betting on outsiders to provide security is never a good gamble.” In Arabic and English, he called for dialogue and to work together. The message was clearly aimed at Gulf states and others that are partnered with the US. Iran was offering them...

Israeli Settlements Minister Tzachi Hanegbi warns that a Biden presidency could ignite war in the Middle East, while Egypt fears Biden would aid the resurgence of Islamists in the region. Hanegbi pointed out that Biden has indicated he will resurrect America’s nuclear agreement with Iran which was cancelled by the Trump administration. For Israel, this would represent an existential threat to national security and drastically increase the chances of war with Tehran. “If Biden stays with that policy, there will, in the end, be a violent confrontation between Israel and Iran,” said Hanegbi. Meanwhile, other Middle Eastern countries such as...

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 vote counting continuing today here in Pennsylvania with 96 percent of the vote said to be counted statewide and 95 percent of the Philadelphia vote said to be counted... And to update the situation as of 11 pm Eastern US time with tens of thousands more votes added the claim remains 96 percent of the vote counted statewide and 95 percent in Philadelphia with Biden leading the President by 28,200 votes... The Supreme Court order tonight is that all mail-in ballots received after 8 pm tonight must be separated... Michigan Republican Chair Laura Cox says that a "software glitch"...

Descendants of the Ottoman genocide are volunteering to fight as Armenia and Azerbaijan remain locked in deadly conflict For many members of the Armenian diaspora, the war is about more than just territory: it is an assault on their ethnic identity BEIRUT: Kevork Hadjian was a much loved opera singer, famous for his mesmerizing voice and the allure he lent to patriotic Armenian anthems. Born and raised in southern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, the ethnic Armenian lived for a time in Kuwait before moving to Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, with his family in 2004. An ardent patriot, Hadjian held a special...

A Syrian mercenary recently captured while fighting for Azerbaijan against Armenia in its ongoing war over Nagorno-Karabakh said on Wednesday that his recruiters instructed him and fellow mercenaries to “slaughter all civilians and soldiers” of an Armenian village they attempted to capture. Armenian forces captured Syrian national Yusuf Alaabet al-Hajji in recent days and “is currently remanded into custody facing international terrorism charges, among others,” Armenian state news agency Armenpress reported on Wednesday. Hajji told Armenian investigators that Turkish forces recruited him in Syria to fight for Azerbaijan for “a 2000-dollar monthly payment.” In his testimony, Hajji detailed how Turkish...

Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister on Wednesday ordered the military to confront the country’s Tigray regional government after he accused it of a deadly attack on a military base, declaring “the last red line has been crossed” after months of alleged provocations. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s move against the well-armed Tigray People’s Liberation Front raised concerns that one of Africa’s most populous and powerful countries could plunge into civil war. That would send a shock wave through one of the world’s most turbulent regions, the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia’s neighbors include Somalia and Sudan, and the prospect of spreading...

Jihadist groups are believed to have been present in Azerbaijan since at least February, it was claimed on Oct. 27, with Turkey accused of shipping in militia, including a Uyghur Muslim terror group, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). The Islamist fighters are thought to have been mobilized from their bases in Syria to join Azeri forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where they are fighting against Armenia. Despite Turkey initially denying the presence of the jihadists, film footage and photographs have since corroborated reports which began circulating in the Syrian press in August. The mobilization of Turkish troops was reported in...

French military forces fighting Islamic extremists in West Africa killed more than 50 jihadists and detained four in an operation last week in Mali, French officials said. Defense Minister Florence Parly tweeted Monday night that the French force in the region also confiscated weapons and equipment from the fighters in the operation last Friday, which she said “shows once again that terrorist groups cannot act with impunity.” Drones monitoring the region in northern Mali spotted a convoy of suspected fighters on motorcycles, prompting France to launch the operation, first with airstrikes and then with a ground operation by French commandos,...

The Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood Remember when Obama said that Erdogan was his BFF and when Huma Abedin was Clinton's advisor? ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ARUTZ 7 CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE USING THE LINK BELOW https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/290403