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Turkish armed forces began the largest naval exercise in the country's history on Wednesday, with 103 military vessels and thousands of soldiers conducting operations in three seas surrounding the country. The drill, dubbed “Blue Homeland”, will be held until Saturday, covering over 462,000 square metres in the Black Sea, Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean.

tensions have been building in the waters to Turkey's west with its neighbours Greece and Cyprus, as the countries vie over subterranean energy resources, particularly natural gas

Blue Homeland has already caused disturbance in neighbouring countries, as Greek media reports suggest Athens has perceived it as a source of “renewed concern given the recent tension in bilateral relations”.

By assisting Egypt to protect its western border, Moscow has re-forged the military links of its former alliance with Cairo

The 75-year-old Haftar, who retains the loyalty of the parliament in Tobruk, is a central actor in the Libyan civil war. A former ally of deposed Libyan strong man Moammar Gadhafi who received his military training in the Soviet Union, Haftar maintains deep ties with Russia. Haftar’s forces control most of Libya’s oil facilities, particularly after they captured the ports along Libya’s “Oil Crescent” in September 2016, resulting in a rise in oil production from 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) to over 700,000 bpd in January 2017.  On February 21, 2018 Russian oil giant Rosneft signed an investment and crude oil purchasing agreement with Libya’s National Oil Corporation, paving the way for a major Russian role in Libya’s oil industry.

In January 2017, Haftar was invited aboard Russia’s aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean in order to conduct a video conference with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu

November a new protest movement spread, quite unexpectedly, across Italy. At first glance its participants seemed rather silly. The ‘sardines’, as they called themselves, occupied to overflowing Bologna’s famous Piazza Grande, bearing images and placards of the eponymous fish, a symbol which, according to the organisers was to represent togetherness, non-violence and freedom on a massive scale.

90 piazzas were briefly occupied, the overall numbers involved in spontaneous protest being the greatest since the Second World War

Why this movement in particular has been picked up I don’t know. They’ve certainly used social media to the maximum. But if we are uncertain about causes, there can be no doubt about effects. They’ve interrupted the polls. They’ve already made Salvini dip a whole percentage point, which is big. Clearly, they’re serving some purpose.

President Emmanuel Macron’s administration has just released a new report on the memory of colonization and the Algerian War, firmly placing the presidential seal of approval on a woefully one-sided document.

The report is already hugely controversial because of what it has failed to recommend: an apology. Despite losing the jewel in their empire following more than a century of lethal subjugation, including nonstop crimes against humanity, the French apparently do not think they were barbaric enough to show any contrition.

Introducing the new 146-page document, a spokesman for Macron was adamant that there would be “no repentance, nor apologies.” The express political purpose of this statement was ostensibly to prevent history being used to open up further division. But in reality, it allows France to evade responsibility.

From Tripoli to Tyre, and Beirut to Baalbek, Lebanese have been chanting the same slogan: “All of them means all of them.” Since its independence, Lebanon has been ruled by a clique of politicians and political families who have used sectarianism, corruption and clientelism to cling to power and amass incredible wealth. Now protesters are calling for them all to be removed, from Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah to Prime Minister Saad Hariri, with nervous responses from the leaders themselves. Middle East Eye takes a quick look at some of the more prominent figures and parties in the protesters’ sights.

The Hariri family was once the darling of Saudi Arabia, but apparently no longer

Aoun is one of Lebanon’s many leaders who played an active and violent part in the country’s 1975-90 civil war. As head of the army in the war’s latter years, Aoun fought bitter conflicts with the occupying Syrian military and the Lebanese Forces paramilitary headed by his rival, Samir Geagea. In 1989, Aoun found himself besieged in the presidential palace in Baabda, where he now resides as president, and fled Syrian troops to the French embassy, which granted him exile.

The odd weather phenomenon that many blame for the suffering here — the drought and sudden storm pattern known as El Niño — is expected to become more frequent as the planet warms. Many semiarid parts of Guatemala will soon be more like a desert. Rainfall is expected to decrease by 60% in some parts of the country, and the amount of water replenishing streams and keeping soil moist will drop by as much as 83%. Researchers project that by 2070, yields of some staple crops in the state where Jorge lives will decline by nearly a third.

As their land fails them, hundreds of millions of people from Central America to Sudan to the Mekong Delta will be forced to choose between flight or death. The result will almost certainly be the greatest wave of global migration the world has seen.

For most of human history, people have lived within a surprisingly narrow range of temperatures, in the places where the climate supported abundant food production. But as the planet warms, that band is suddenly shifting north.

the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, most observers agree, has not triggered a major debate on racism or police violence against black Africans within the Maghreb region itself.Only Tunis saw a small demonstration in early June of around 200 locals and foreigners, at the call of the association Mnemty.The protest was "a message for African Americans from Mother Africa to say 'We are with you'," said its leader, Saadia Mosbah, a dark-skinned Tunisian.

a long-standing culture of silence about race.

"We have to wage a permanent struggle against these verbal abuses," said Algerian sociologist Mohamed Saib Musette."Some Algerians forget that they themselves are Africans." Interracial marriages are rare in North Africa, he said, and "very few TV stars, civil servants or political leaders are dark-skinned".

No one who has visited Jerusalem over the past few years will be surprised by the preponderance of red Turkish flags with their crescent and star, fluttering over the city’s eastern Palestinian neighborhoods. These flags are just one visible manifestation of a major effort by the Turkish government to establish a presence in the Israeli capital. Investigative reports in the press, conducted over the last few years, have revealed the scope of Turkish activity in Jerusalem, which includes the renovation of homes, restoration of mosques and efforts to expose the residents of East Jerusalem to Turkish culture, including cooking workshops and Turkish-language classes. These efforts also include increasing involvement in the affairs of Al-Aqsa Mosque, as described by Ben Caspit in July 2018.

Israel has decided to put an end to this Turkish involvement in Jerusalem affairs

Israel intends to revoke the head of TIKA’s diplomatic status in Jerusalem, effectively making his presence in Israel illegal. “The era of the Ottoman Empire is over. Turkey has no reason to be in Jerusalem,” said the Foreign Ministry in an especially bellicose statement. “[Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan’s declarations that Jerusalem belongs to all Muslims are absolutely baseless and ridiculous. Israel maintains sovereignty in Jerusalem, while ensuring freedom of worship for all religions. We will not allow anyone to interrupt this sovereignty.”

The Synagogue Street, a narrow pathway with a mishmash of colors and smells from fishmongers and spice-sellers, lies at the heart of Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city. The street starts at a stone’s throw from the Hellenistic-era agora and snakes through the historical commercial center. It derives its name from the nine synagogues in its vicinity, four of which were in ruins until half a decade ago. “Unlike many cities of Europe, the Synagogue Street — or better, the Synagogue District — is right at the heart of town,” Nesim Bencoya, the coordinator of the Izmir Jewish Heritage Project, told Al-Monitor. “It is a compact neighborhood with its synagogues, cortejos [houses where families lived together], a rabbinate and numerous shops and businesses on the crisscrossing streets of Kemeralti, the commercial center. It is also an area where synagogues stand side by side with mosques, where businessmen from the Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox community engage in trade and songs in Turkish, Greek and Ladino are sung one after the other from the nearby taverns.” For the last 12 years, Bencoya has been going door to door to drum up support for his plans to revive the area and build a Jewish heritage center that would draw in locals and tourists.

At its zenith in the mid-19th century, the 50,000-strong Jewish population made up the second largest community after the Greeks in the city known in the Ottoman Empire as “Izmir, the infidel.” The city had 34 synagogues, a sophisticated hospital, local Torah schools and a posh college offering a curriculum in French. The city’s first printing press was a Jewish one, printing books in Hebrew, Ladino and eventually in English, and boyoz, the Jewish pastry whose name "bollos" means “little bread” in Ladino, became one of the city’s staple foods. 

Today, thanks to support from German Consulate of Izmir and the  Israel-based Mordechai Kiriaty Foundation, the elaborate wooden carvings at the ceiling of Ets Hayim Synagogue, the sumptuous floor mosaics of Hevra and the corridors of the Foresteros that tie several synagogues to each other have reemerged.