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Spain's ruling party has begun to crack under pressure, signalling for the first time that the country may need a European rescue to shore up its banking system. "A bail-out would not be the apocalypse," said José María Beneyto, foreign affairs spokesman in Spain's parliament. "You have to live with it. We have got to escape this or we'll go mad worrying about bonds spreads." Mr Benyeto accepted that it would mean cuts in salaries and pensions dictated by a Troika from the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. "Portugal is living with it relatively passively,...

State Dept.'s Disgraceful Censorship of Report Blacklisting Turkey By Harut Sassounian March 27, 2012 Each passing day brings new revelations of the Obama administration's shameful schemes to cover up Turkish misconduct. The latest scandal involves the State Department's covert attempt to alter the contents of a report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), condemning the Turkish government's violations of the religious rights of Christian minorities. USCIRF is an independent bipartisan federal agency established by the U.S. Congress to make "recommendations unburdened by foreign policy considerations other than the defense of religious freedom," according to a Commission member....

Turkey's relations with Russia have traditionally been characterized by cooperation and competition, as both sides navigate a complex regional and international environment with overlapping economic and political interests -- and larger geopolitical questions. Turkey and Russia compete -- and at times work together -- in their "near abroad": in the Caucasus, the Balkans and Central Asia. And as Turkey has played a more active role in the Middle East, it has come up against long established Russian interests dating from the Cold War, most notably in Syria. Meanwhile, the two countries are major trading partners. According to Turkey's Statistics authority,...

The European Parliament's chief criticised Turkey Monday for threatening to freeze ties with the EU when the bloc's rotating presidency shifts to Cyprus, which Ankara does not recognise as a sovereign state. "I criticise this. This is not possible," said Martin Schulz, the European Parliament's president, who is in Ankara for an official visit. "I take note that a candidate state says to us we will not negotiate during the presidency of a member state of the European Union," he said. Cyprus takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on July 1, and Turkey has threatened to freeze...

Israel denied Monday reports in the Turkish press that it planned to deploy thousands of troops in Cyprus to protect oil and gas interests in the sensitive region... Turkey's Anatolia news agency quoted a Greek Cypriot official saying that Israel planned to send 20,000 troops to the Greek part of the divided island to protect 30,000 Israelis to be employed in nascent joint oil and gas projects. Turkey on Friday threatened reprisals against companies bidding for oil and gas drilling projects off Cyprus, in the latest spat between Ankara and the island's internationally recognised government... Turkey's warning came after the...

Archaeologists have discovered what they believe is the earliest evidence yet of long distance seafaring in the eastern Mediterranean, undermining beliefs that ancient mariners never ventured into open seas... The flints are unlike anything found in the geological make-up of Cyprus, and more than 1,000 years older than the timing of the first permanent settlers to the island. The discovery adds to a body of evidence contradicting the widespread belief that ancient mariners would never venture out of sight of land or had limited navigational capabilities... Its earliest inhabitants, dated from the 9th millennium BC, are believed to be from...

The Neolithic preceramic period is represented by the settlement of Khirokitia and about 20 other similar settlements, spread throughout Cyprus... This, the earliest known culture in Cyprus, consisted of a well-organised, developed society mainly engaged in farming, hunting and herding. Farming was mainly of cereal crops. They also picked the fruit of trees growing wild in the surrounding area such as pistachio nuts, figs, olives and prunes. The four main species of animals whose remains were found on the site were deer, sheep, goats and pigs... The village of Khirokitia was suddenly abandoned for reasons unknown at around 6000 BC...

Previously it was believed that, due to the island's geographic isolation, the first Neolithic farming societies did not reach Cyprus until a thousand years after the birth of agriculture in the Middle East... However, the discovery of Klimonas, a village that dates from nearly 9000 years before Christ, proves that early cultivators migrated to Cyprus from the Middle Eastern continent shortly after the emergence of agriculture there, bringing with them wheat as well as dogs and cats... The archaeologists have found a few votive offerings inside the building, including flint arrowheads and green stone beads. A great many remnants of...

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Israeli energy officials have unveiled plans to lay an electric cable on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea that will connect Israel's energy grid with the small island nation of Cyprus. At the same time, Israel will join Cyprus in laying down another underwater line to Greece. Uzi LandauIn announcing the joint project, Israeli Energy and Water Minister Uzi Landau said, "Israel will be able to receive backup power from Cyprus and Europe, and in the future, we will be able to provide them with energy." The chairman of a large Cypriot energy company told reporters the electricity line will...

Turkey would consider annexing northern Cyprus, which is technically EU territory, if talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots fail to reach a deal on reunification of the island, Turkey's European Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış told a Turkish Cypriot newspaper. Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart Derviş Eroğlu have made little progress in negotiations to reunite the island, divided in 1974, since the United Nations persuaded them to renew efforts late last year. … Turkey has stationed troops in the north since invading in 1974, after a coup in Cyprus orchestrated by a military junta in Athens....

Once again the world economy has proved the naysayers wrong and there's been a "real rebound" so far this year, Barclays CEO Robert Diamond told CNBC Wednesday. "One of the lessons we’ve learned in the last couple of years is every time it’s doom and gloom ... the economy is far more resilient," he said. "We see China at 8 percent to 9 percent growth, and reduction in unemployment [cnbc explains] in the U.S. So we’ve seen a real rebound." That even extends to Europe, which was stabilized by the European Central Bank's [cnbc explains] second liquidity injection. President Mario...

Turkey-Greece engage in mock dogfights over Cyprus as Israeli PM arrives GREEK AND Turkish jets tangled in mock dogfights in Cypriot airspace yesterday just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arriving on the island, reports said. According to Sigma, around 11am three Greek Mirage-2000 fighters began shadowing two Turkish F-16 jets after the latter flew between Rhodes and Crete on their way from the eastern Mediterranean where Turkish ships were conducting wargames with live ammunition. The Turkish military exercise, the Foreign Minister said earlier, took place within Cyprus’ Exclusive Economic Zone, in waters south of the island and close...

Report: Israel will ask to station IAF jets in Cyprus Israeli officials tell Xinua news agency possibility of offshore airbase will be raised during Netanyahu's upcoming visit to neighboring island Ynet Israeli and Cypriot officials are planning to discuss allowing the Israeli Air Force to station jets in the neighboring island, Chinese news agency Xinua reported Tuesday. The issue will be raised during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled visit to Cyprus later this month, Xinua quoted Israeli officials as saying. According to the report, an Israeli embassy official told the Cyprus Mail in January that Netanyahu "will come to Cyprus...

-excerpt - Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted a Westberg spokesman as saying that the Chariot was ferrying cargo owned by Russia's state arms trader Rosoboronexport.

Russian ship, allegedly carrying tons of weapons, made a dash for Syria after Cypriot officials allowed it to leave their waters, Turkish officials said Thursday.

Turkey has been ordered to pay thousands of euro in damages to Greek Cypriots for violating their human right to peaceful enjoyment of their property in Cyprus’ northern Turkish occupied areas. The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday delivered its judgment regarding the allegation by 13 Greek Cypriot applicants (Lordos and Others v. Turkey) that “the Turkish occupation of the northern part of Cyprus following the 1974 conflict had deprived them of their homes and properties”. In its judgment today, the Court awarded each of the applicants between EUR 100,000 and EUR 8,000,000 “for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and...

A ship reportedly carrying ammunition to Syria will be allowed to leave Cyprus after giving authorities assurances it will change its destination, a government official said Wednesday. Media reports said the cargo ship was carrying up to 60 tonnes of ammunition.... -excerpt- ...the ship, which one newspaper said sailed from St. Petersburg about a month ago.

Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has warned Turkey to stop its warships shelling the strip of water dividing the Cypriot and Israeli gas exploration zones in the eastern Mediterranean. Debkafile's military sources report Wednesday that Turkish warships began turning their guns on the strip dividing Israel's Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ, where a large gas field was recently discovered. Neither Israel nor Cyprus reported the Turkish attacks, which are staged in international waters, but both reinforced their naval units around the gas fields. It was the Cypriot president who broke the silence Friday with a...

The Department of Antiquities has completed a second season of excavations of the Mazotos shipwreck. The team continued the systematic excavation of a trench, first opened in 2010, at the southern part of the assemblage, which the archaeologists have taken to be the bow of the ancient ship. Meanwhile, transport amphorae recovered at the site came from the island of Chios in the Aegean. One amphora from Cos was also found outside the main assemblage and it may have been part of the crew's provisions. Parts of two anchor stocks were also excavated which, added to the one found last...

Turkey's high-flying economy, which expanded at a 10 percent annual rate of gross domestic product growth during the first half of 2011,[1] will crash-land in 2012. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's "economic miracle," to use the Daily Telegraph's admiring words,[2] depended on a 40 percent annual rate of bank credit expansion, which in turn produced a balance of payments deficit as wide as that of southern Europe's crisis countries. Markets have already anticipated a sudden turnaround in the Turkish economy. The Turkish lira (TRY) fell by a quarter between November 2010 and September 2011, making it the world's worst performing...

French president Nicholas Sarkozy's party has introduced legislation in that nation's legislature that would make illegal the denial of the infamous genocide perpetrated against Armenians and other Christians by the government of Turkey during the Second World War in 1915. This would make it a crime on par with denying the historicity of the Holocaust, perpetrated by the Germany's National Socialist government before and during the Second World War. Historians estimate that approximately 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Turks, at the time ruled by the last of the Ottoman rulers. This was a planned and concerted...

The world court ruled Monday that Greece was wrong to block a bid by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to join NATO in 2008 because of a long-running dispute over the fledgling country's use of the name “Macedonia.” In a 15-1 ruling, the court found that Greece's veto breached a provisional 1995 deal under which Greece had agreed not to block membership of the country in international organizations if it used the name FYROM, while the matter was submitted to further negotiations. More than 15 years later, mediation over the name is still ongoing. The victory is partly...

T HE “Admiral Kuznetsov” class aircraft carrier is currently off the coast of Malta and heading for eastern Mediterranean from their base in the Barents Sea. Informed sources have said that the Russian navy and Israeli military will hold joint exercises next week close to Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone. The exercises are slated to begin on the 28th November and last a week. Commentators say that Russia is determined to send the message that they have invested interests in the region and will secure them. It is understood that the aircraft carrier is carrying 24-fixed wing planes and a number...

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There is an illegal occupation that has gone on for decades in the Middle East and it's not being enforced by the IDF. In August 1974, Turkey seized nearly 37% of the then-independent Cyprus. The pretext for the invasion was the protection of Turkish Cypriots, who made up about 18% of the island's population. On July 15, EOKA B, a Cypriot paramilitary organization supporting union with Greece, backed by the junta in Athens, overthrew the government of Archbishop Makarios. But the coup failed. Makarios survived and his thuggish replacement was ousted after eight days in office, when the regime of...

The Arab League voted to suspend SyriaÂ’s membership at its meeting on Saturday and said it would impose economic and political sanctions against the regime of Bashar al-Assad as well as call for the withdrawal of Arab ambassadors from Damascus. The Arab foreign ministers meeting at the LeagueÂ’s headquarters in Cairo also called on the Syrian army to cease its involvement in the killing of civilians and invited the Syrian opposition for transition talks. Opponents of Assad were hoping that the Arab League would suspend SyriaÂ’s membership after Assad pressed ahead with a military crackdown on the unrest despite an...

The FBI rounded up a network of deep-cover Russian spies last year after the group came close to placing an agent near a Cabinet official in the Obama administration, a senior FBI counterspy said Monday as the bureau released once-secret documents on the case. ...U.S. officials said it was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mr. Figliuzzi said in an interview that the FBI decided to end its more than 10-year-long counterspy investigation of the network because of concerns that the spies were “getting very close to their objective.” “These 10 Russian officers were sent to the U.S. on a...

The conflicts that engulfed the former Yugoslavia still remain unresolved in the political arena and open to Western political shenanigans and covert meddling from Turkey and Saudi Arabia in Bosnia and Kosovo. Orthodox Christianity faces many attacks and only a naïve individual would claim that America and the hands of Turkey and Saudi Arabia are clean. America and other Western nations did little to stop Turkey invading Cyprus in 1974 and creating a de-facto nation and altering the demographics of northern Cyprus and using this area for military purposes. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of Cyprus you have no...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish soldiers, air force bombers and helicopter gunships launched an incursion into Iraq on Wednesday, hours after Kurdish rebels killed 24 soldiers and wounded 18 others in multiple attacks along the border. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey had launched large-scale operations, including "a hot pursuit within the limits of international law." He did not elaborate, but added, "We will never bow to any attack from inside or outside Turkey." Erdogan canceled a visit to Kazakhstan after the attacks as the chief of the military as well as interior and defense ministers rushed to the...

Since World War Two you have had three major conflicts in the Balkans involving Orthodox Christian communities and Islamic communities; this applies to Cyprus, Bosnia and Kosovo respectively. On all three occasions the United States supported the followers of Islam and maybe one day the same will happen to Orthodox Christians in Macedonia? Yet unlike the large Christian communities of Bosnia and Cyprus, it is the land of Kosovo which is being Islamized and Albanianized under NATO, the UN, and other international institutions who are meant to be neutral. The media in the West is once more turning a 'blind...

Op-ed: Turkey’s recent military moves, rhetoric have shifted from cursing to war games Alex Fishman Published: 10.02.11, 18:15 / Israel Opinion The Turks are playing with fire. It appears that Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is crossing the fine line between verbal escalation coupled with a diplomatic fight against Israel and the facilitation of military confrontation. This man, whom everyone believed was engaged in methodical, well-planned anti-Israel conduct with clear aims, is starting to go with his gut. The psychiatric aspects in the Israel-Turkey crisis are starting to overcome logic. Over the holiday, the Turks published a report about...

Turkish media reports Israeli F-15 jets and helicopter "harassed" Turkish ship exploring for gas in disputed area of Mediterranean off Cyprus coast. Low-flying Israeli warplanes and helicopters "harassed" a Turkish ship exploring for natural gas reserves near Cyprus on Thursday night, according to Turkish media reports. Today's Zaman, citing accounts in Turkish daily Vatan and Greek Cyptrio daily Phileleftheros, reported that two F-15 jets took off from Tel Aviv and flew through the airspace of both Greek Cyprus and Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus. The jets reportedly ignored warnings from officials of Turkish Cyprus. RELATED: Region Watch: Storm clouds over eastern Mediterranean...

The Turkish-Israeli dispute over natural resources under the eastern Mediterranean’s seabed may soon enter a new and much more dangerous phase. Last week, it appeared Turkey was going to make good on its threats to stop a joint Israeli-Greek Cypriot venture to explore for natural gas in Greek Cypriot waters and at the same time, militarily challenge Israel’s presence in the Eastern Mediterranean. But as the Texas-based Noble Energy company moved a rig from Israeli waters into position off of Greek Cyprus’ south-eastern coast to begin drilling, Turkish naval vessels and warplanes limited their actions to shadowing the transfer operation,...

Russia is sending its northern fleet led by the country's only aircraft carrier, the "Admiral Kuznetsov," to the Mediterranean Sea for exercises, daily Hürriyet reported on its website Thursday.

Turkey and Turkish Cyprus signed a deal on Wednesday in New York to establish a ground for offshore gas exploration in a move set to escalate the already high regional tensions over Mediterranean energy reserves and border issues. On Tuesday, the Greek Cypriot administration confirmed that drilling had begun in a southeastern offshore block, adjoining a gas field in Israeli waters reputed to be the world's largest gas reserves find of the past decade. With the latest agreement the ethnic Turkish northern half of Cyprus, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, marked its marine borders with Turkey and will issue licenses...

For more than two decades, Houston has been home to a large pair of restored 13th-century Byzantine frescoes that Menil Collection founder Dominique de Menil purchased from art thieves in 1984. Now the Menil is working to return them to their rightful owner, the Holy Archbishopric of Cyprus. While that seemingly recalls recent decisions by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and others to return priceless artworks that improperly left their countries of origin, there's a difference: Neither de Menil nor the museum she founded ever claimed to own the frescoes.... READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT SOURCE LINK

A day after reports that Noble Energy had begun its natural gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus, amid threats from the Turkish government that it was considering deploying naval escort ships to protect exploration areas north of the country, an Israeli expert on the situation deemed the threats grave to both Cypriot and Israeli concerns. (Snip) Meanwhile, following a statement from Cypriot President Demetris Christofias that drilling was about to begin, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had threatened on Monday that Turkish aircraft, frigates and torpedo boats would be sent to watch over the eastern Mediterranean, Reuters said

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described offshore gas drilling by estranged ally Israel and Cyprus as "madness" on Wednesday, raising the stakes in a confrontation over potentially huge deposits in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The quarrel over gas has escalated in recent weeks, just as relations between Israel and Turkey abruptly broke down over Israel's refusal to apologize for its raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last year in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists died. (snip) "The Greek Cypriot administration and Israel are engaging in oil exploration madness in the Mediterranean," Turkish state news agency Anatolian quoted Erdogan as telling...

Russia has sent two nuclear-powered submarines to patrol Eastern Mediterranean waters around Cyprus and enforce the island's right to explore for undersea oil and gas in its territorial seas, according to information from Defencenet.gr, citing a Russian FM spokesman.

As regional powers attempt to rise, other regional powers will react. This is particularly true in this era of globalization. Turkey is now riding a learning curve. Here is how the latest is unfolding. Turkey warned Thursday it will declare a border on the continental shelf if the island of Cyprus proceeds with offshore oil and gas drilling activities. The Foreign Ministry's announcement came a day after Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias announced that U.S. firm Noble Energy will soon begin exploratory drilling to confirm deposits beneath the sea bed off Cyprus' southern coast despite Turkey's attempts to prevent such a...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, which aired on the Al-Jazeera network on September 11, 2011. Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan: The measures we have taken are only the beginning. As you know, we have taken five measures, and we will see the results of these measures in the days, weeks, and perhaps months to come. Israel must realize that it is accountable for its actions, past and present. It will realize this. We have seen that Israel has never observed any of the resolutions issued by the UN General Assembly or Security Council. Israel...

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad overshadowed his legitimacy. In a televised interview with the Al-Jazeera, Prime Minister Erdogan said, "when we came to the political power nine years ago, there was a 30-year resentment between Turkey and Syria. We made great efforts to improve relations with Syria with which we share 910 kilometres of border. We always proposed al-Assad to release political prisoners, make constitutional amendments and start multiparty system. Unfortunately, none of these reforms were made. I paid a visit to Aleppo earlier this year. I told al-Assad that we were...

*** The monument will be higher than the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the Statue of Liberty in USA and the Buddha Statue in ChinaMoscow, September 12, Interfax - 135-meter monument representing an angel with a dove will appear in southern shore of Cyprus near "fruit" capital of the island - town of Limassol. The idea of the project Good Angels of Peace symbolizing peace and charity has appeared in Russia five years ago. The monument will be higher than the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the Statue of Liberty in the USA and Statue of...

The Arab Spring and recent dramatic deterioration of Turkish-Israeli ties present Israel with a uniquely threatening security environment. Since 1949, Israel has always had the comfort of having Turkey, one of the two major Levantine powers, as its friend. This is no longer the case. In fact, conflict seems to be looming between Turkey and Israel. In the aftermath of the 2010 Flotilla Incident, Ankara attempted to intimidate Israel by saying its warships would escort missions to Gaza. Now Turkey and Israel are at dangerously opposing ends of Levantine politics. Not only is Ankara no longer a trusted friend of...

THE EUROPEAN Commission yesterday issued its strongest rebuke yet to Turkey over its threatening behaviour towards Cyprus’ efforts to drill for hydrocarbon reserves within its own Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Unfazed, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued to raise the stakes in his row with Israel and Cyprus over hydrocarbon explorations in the eastern Mediterranean, vowing yesterday to stop them from exploiting natural resources in the area while also pledging to send warships to escort aid to Gaza. The EU, through Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule yesterday “urged Turkey to refrain from any kind of threat, sources of friction or...

The eastern Mediterranean will no longer be a place where Israeli naval forces can freely exercise their “bullying” practices against civilian vessels, a Turkish official said Friday. The official said this would be the outcome of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s statement earlier in the day that “Turkey would take every precaution it deems necessary for the safety of maritime navigation in the eastern Mediterranean.” Davutoğlu’s statement about providing maritime safety in the eastern Mediterranean grabbed the most attention among the various sanctions against Israel the foreign minister announced Friday. He did not further elaborate, however, on what he meant by...

Turkey hopes that Poland's presidency of the European Council, which began 1 July, will accelerate the country's integration into the EU. At a meeting with Polish journalists in Istanbul, thanks were made for supporting Turkey thus far, while the country's Minister of European Affairs, Egeman Bagis, underlined the question of visas as a key question at accession talks. "We are expecting a strong position from the Polish side regarding the matter of these nonsensical visas for Turkish citizens," he said. "The European Commission is in talks with Ukraine, Russia, Georgia and Moldova about liberalizing the visa regime, but not with...

A large building dating as far back as 1200 BC and a female goddess figurine were only some of the fascinating finds following five-week long excavations at the Late Bronze harbour city of Hala Sultan Tekke in Larnaca. Inside the 30 by 20m building were both living and working spaces containing spindle whorls and loom weights, which indicate the production of textiles, as well as a plethora of high-quality pottery imported mainly from the Mycenaean world. Jugs, bowls and jars were among the pottery uncovered... According to Fischer some of the findings were imported from Egypt... Another significant find was...

A week after the resignation of the government at a time when the country is under fire from ratings agencies concerned about the scale of its public debt, President Dimitris Christofias has presented his new team. "Ministers already nominated immediately set to work," headlines the daily Politis, which notes that some ministerial posts had yet to be attributed on the morning of 5 August. Supported by the communist party (AKEL), which has also provided the new Finance Minister, Kyriacos Kazamias, (a former member of the European Court of Auditors) and mainly composed of technical experts, the new government will take...