Turkey and the US presidential election

Turkey called back its research vessel Oruç Reis to port in order to support efforts by Germany and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to facilitate dialogue with Greece. As Ankara and Athens continue to exchange statements, tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean will be discussed at the Special European Council on Sept. 24-25.

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Turkey and the US presidential election
The UAE-Israel agreement and the Arab world

The UAE-Israel agreement and the Arab world

After the formalization or normalization of bilateral relations between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel, many observers began to discuss the agreement's impact on Middle Eastern politics and the Arab World. It seems that the biggest impact will be on the future of the “political Arab world,” which collapsed in the wake of the Arab insurgencies and revolutions during the Arab Spring.

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The UAE-Israel deal is simple a formalization of bilateral relations under the auspices of the U.S.

Despotic Arab regimes must cooperate with western states, Israel to maintain power, says analyst

Most analysts call the explosion at the Port of Beirut Lebanon’s Chernobyl. It is the moment of truth that put the last nail in the coffin of the nation’s rotten and dysfunctional political system.

Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque after the conquest of Istanbul in 1453 by Sultan Mehmed II as a symbol of the Ottoman conquest of the city. It served as a mosque until 1934, when it was converted to a museum. Many other steps were taken during the first two decades of the Republic of Turkey, which solidified the rupture of the new regime from its past and were considered a necessity for the recognition of the new regime by the international community. Not only Muslims but also non-Muslims were deprived of many religious rights. For instance, many properties belonging to non-Muslim charitable foundations were appropriated by the government.

Jaws, COVID-19 and American tragedy

In a quote often credited to Winston Churchill, he said, "Americans will always do the right thing – after exhausting all the alternatives." For Churchill, what really mattered was "doing the right thing" at the end. That was a defining characteristic of America.

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Jaws COVID-19 and American tragedy
A moment of peace The Hagia Sophia decision

A moment of peace: The Hagia Sophia decision

Shortly after the Council of State annulled a 1934 decree that converted Hagia Sophia into a museum, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday issued a decree to open the facility to worshippers. After decades of calls "to break the chains and open Hagia Sophia," the people finally got what they wanted.

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It has become something ordinary to run into a headline nowadays indicating that the numbers of coronavirus cases hit a record high in the world and in some of the countries, most prominently the U.S. In the last week, on multiple days daily corona numbers passed 200,000 a day in the world. Since the beginning of the outbreak in the world, the hot spots of the pandemic have been shifting around the world.

Last week U.S. President Donald Trump officially launched his presidential campaign by speaking in different rallies in Oklahoma, Arizona and Wisconsin.

There are many debates among researchers and scientists regarding a potential “second wave” of COVID-19 in the fall. There are discussions about if and when it can emerge and what the implication of this second wave will be to the world. The destruction and damage the first round of coronavirus already caused has generated major concerns among the international community about more of those grim scenarios. While taking precautions against a potential second wave, however, the countries that went through the first wave and flattened their curves over the last few months need to help the nations that are going through their first spike in numbers.

Turkey and the European Union have worked closely in many areas and can also do so against racist anti-Muslim movements, Turkey's communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said Saturday.

The Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) will publish its yearly European Islamophobia Report (EIR) on June 20, which sets light to growing racism and anti-Islam sentiment on different fields such as media and politics in various regions.

On April 4, 2019, the putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar started his well-funded and well-supported campaign to take Libya's capital Tripoli and topple the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) run by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. Haftar's forces were initially successful in taking over many cities in Western Libya and encircled Tripoli.

As the world learns to live with the new normal in the post-pandemic period, all the ancient wars of words in Turkey’s political arena are already back. For days, the Turkish people have been talking about subtle hints from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) about a military coup, hate speech on social media, the future of political alliances and the prospect of newly established parties signing parliamentarians "on loan."

Scholars, analysts and experts of international relations and international political economy all agree that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed the world into one of its most significant and complicated crises since World War II.

Sooner or later life will return to normal, but that shouldn't mean forgetting coronavirus lessons

In the last couple of weeks, significant developments have been happening in the Libyan civil war. The Government of National Accord (GNA) and militia forces loyal to the GNA made remarkable military progress in their offensive in the western part of the nation's capital, Tripoli. Armed drones provided by Turkey conducted effective attacks against Haftar forces. Those drone attacks played critical roles in the GNA's military advances in those areas of the country. The GNA also increased its attacks to take back the Watiya Air Base from Haftar's militia.

If the coronavirus crisis were not at the top of the public agenda, today the most significant topic would be the U.S. presidential elections, with President Donald Trump having actually launched his campaign even before the outbreak.

Turkey’s top imam, Ali Erbaş, faces criticism for stating that “Islam condemns homosexuality” and warning that adultery is haram, or forbidden, in his Friday sermon. It is no secret that homosexuals around the world seek recognition and all Abrahamic religions view homosexuality as “perversion.”

The coronavirus pandemic has many different aspects that need to be scrutinized. Economic and political consequences and the problems concerning public health and medical services are being discussed and evaluated more frequently since the spread of the pandemic.