Israeli authorities will open King Herod’s palace-fortress in Herodium this Sunday, affording tourists the opportunity to peer back some 2,000 years and discover the lavish lifestyle of the tyrannical Roman-era leader. The already-popular tourist destination near Bethlehem has been undergoing excavation for the past 13 years, following the discovery of Herod’s grave. Archaeologists believe Herod... 

Relations between the Trump administration and Tehran have been especially strained since the US assassinated top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force, in Iraq on January 3, 2020. US President Donald Trump is said to be pulling out as many as half of America’s diplomats from the US embassy in Baghdad as tensions with... 

A drone strike killed one of the commanders of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Muslim Shahdan, in Iraq’s Al Anbar Province bordering Syria, Al Arabiya reported on Monday, citing Iraqi sources. According to the TV channel, Shahda’s car was targeted on Sunday evening after it passed Al Qa’im checkpoint. Three people who accompanied the IRGC commander also died in the drone... 

Iran’s senior nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was killed on 27 November in a shooting and bombing attack in the town of Absard. No country has claimed responsibility for his killing, but high-ranking Iranian officials have blamed the assault on Israel. An anonymous Israeli official, who has allegedly been involved in tracking Mohsen Fakhrizadeh for years, has told the New York Times that... 

Benjamin Netanyahu has subjected himself to a political thrashing after the Israeli prime minister issued a gaffe-riddled speech during an event raising awareness about violence against women. The Israeli leader spoke at a ceremony marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, but his remarks have been interpreted as less-than-sympathetic towards females. The trouble... 

A prominent British archaeologist has put forward a compelling case arguing that a well-preserved ancient house in Nazareth was the childhood home of Jesus. The building dates back to the first century and the site is now home to the Sisters of Nazareth Convent. In modern times, it was first identified as the house where Jesus grew up with Joseph and Mary in the 19th century, but the theory was dismissed... 

So now shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated his new best friend Joe Biden, Jews are calling Trump a lame duck who should give them West Bank before he goes away. Nice, isn’t it? America’s number 1 ally… :-D Here’s a small portion from Haaretz: This is the way the world of U.S. President Donald Trump ends: not with a bang but a whimper. For many months, he built his... 

A boat carrying 65 asylum seekers from Turkey was found to be carrying police officers, political party officials and even a member of parliament, according to reports. At least 20 passengers of a distressed vessel rescued in the Ionian Sea were police officers who identified themselves as allies of Fethullah Gülen, a leading figure opposing Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Members of the Kurdistan... 

A captured Syrian mercenary who was fighting for the Azerbaijani military against Artsakh has testified how he, along with hundreds others, were recruited and sent through Turkey. Yusuf Alaabet al-Hajji, a resident of the village of Ziyadiya in the Jisr al-Shughur region of Idlib province of Syria, told Armenian investigators that he was promised a 2000-dollar monthly payment to fight against Armenians. He... 

Moscow has promised to provide the “necessary assistance” to Armenia if ongoing fighting in the Azerbaijani breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region reaches the country’s territory, after Yerevan called on the Kremlin for help. Russia has signaled it is ready to get more involved in the conflict between Azerbaijan and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic, backed by Armenia. The “assistance”... 

Azerbaijan’s jihad war crimes will get little notice, because like the “Palestinians,” Azerbaijan has a well-funded PR machine. “One Greek killed fighting in Artsakh, Azerbaijan continues to commit war crimes,” by Paul Antonopoulos, Greek City Times, October 28, 2020: One ethnic Greek born in Armenia has been killed while defending Artsakh from a Turkish-sponsored invasion attempt. Osipov... 

Reports surfaced on 16 October that a teacher who had taught freedom of speech and showed cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad to his students had been decapitated in the north-west suburbs of Paris, and that police chased down and fatally shot the main suspect, a Moscow-born Chechen teenager. A Tunisian MP is being investigated for allegedly attempting to justify the decapitation of a... 

In late 2019, US President Donald Trump candidly admitted that Washington had “left troops behind” in Syria “only for the oil”. Damascus has blasted Trump for pillaging the Arab Republic’s resources, but President Bashar al-Assad also praised him for openly admitting the real reason US forces continue to occupy part of his country. A convoy of 20 tankers laden with oil pumped from wells... 

Israel has handed Azerbaijan the upper hand in its war with Armenia over the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh by selling it drone weapons Armenian forces have little defence against. In the recent flare-up of fighting, Azerbaijan has used Israeli-made ‘kamikaze drones’ that can take out Armenian tank and artillery positions dug into Nagorno-Karabakh’s mountainous terrain. Because they held... 

The clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh have entered their eleventh day, with both sides accusing each other of breaching the ceasefire. Russia, the US, France, Germany, and other countries have called for a return to negotiations. Turkey, meanwhile, has stated it will support Azerbaijan “both in talks and combat”. Stepanakert, the capital of the self-proclaimed...