Month: December 2023

Dec 6 2023

 Conan Daily

Dec 7 2023

Paolin Darbin-Ahangari is an Armenian model and beauty queen from Yerevan, Armenia. Aside from Armenia, she frequently visits other countries including Hungary, Iran and Italy.

Aside from modeling, Darbin is also into dancing. Here are 13 more things about her:

1. On July 7, 2017, she was in Nur, Iran.
2. On September 28, 2019, she was in Tehran, Iran.
3. On January 1, 2020, she was in Interlaken, Switzerland.
4. On December 2, 2020, she was at the BME Sport Center in Budapest, Hungary.
5. On March 11, 2021, she was in Budapest.
6. On April 13, 2021, she was in Tehran.
7. On May 17, 2021, she was in Rome, Italy.
8. On January 1, 2022, she was in Tehran.
9. On March 3, 2022, she was at the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, Italy.
10. On June 22, 2022, she was in Venaria Reale, Turin, Italy.
11. On September 9, 2022, she had a photo shoot in Yerevan with Albert Harutyunyan.
12. On November 30, she was officially appointed Miss Earth Armenia 2023.
13. She was 23 years old when she represented Armenia at Miss Earth 2023 and competed against 87 other candidates at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on December 22, 20223 in Vietnam.

https://conandaily.com/2023/12/07/paolin-ahangari-biography-13-things-miss-earth-armenia-2023/

Novinite, Bulgaria

Dec 6 2023

The Council of Ministers has greenlit a decision to extend humanitarian aid to Armenia in response to the country's plea for assistance through the European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism.

A humanitarian grant of BGN 59,440 (around 30,000 EUR), facilitated by the Bulgarian Red Cross, has been allocated to support the population displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh.

These individuals sought refuge in Armenia following the escalated hostilities in the region in late September 2023.

Dec 7 2023

Viken Abassian, a seminarian preparing to serve the Armenian Catholic Church in the US, speaks about his faith journey and how it is tied to Armenian history.

“Despite our history enduring the longest night, I want the world to not see us as simply victims… I want them to see and be inspired by our resilience.”

These words of hope and strength about the Armenian Catholic Church come from someone who is himself a sign of hope — Viken Abassian, seminarian and subdeacon of the Our Lady of Nareg Armenian Catholic Eparchy of the US and Canada. He is the first American-born Armenian who has continued in his formation thus far as a seminarian for the Armenian Catholic Church in the United States.

Viken’s story of faith is inextricably tied not only to the persecution of the Armenian people, but also to the long history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Viken was born in the United States for the same reason as many Armenian Americans — because his family was fleeing persecution.

His ancestors came from Adana and Mersin in historical Armenia (modern-day Eastern Turkey). In order to survive genocide, his family sought refuge in both Lebanon and the Holy Land. He recounts that from Jerusalem, “They escaped the Holy Land with the growing radicalism and aggression between Israel and Palestine and came to the US to build a new life.”

The suffering of his Armenian people is not covered heavily by secular media, yet is a striking story of repeated injustice. In his own words, Viken shares:

The history of our nation is saturated with suffering, which has been provoked by ethnic and religious persecution from many empires who wished to either subjugate us or eradicate us altogether.

This persecution has taken the form of two genocides, over one hundred years apart, but both targeted at destroying Armenian Christians.

[First came] the 1915 Genocide (the first of the 20th century) perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, which stripped 1.5 million souls from our people. The most recent is the ethnic cleansing by the Islamic regime of Azerbaijan. This country, which is a Soviet-Union fabricated state, initiated the cleansing of the ethnic majority of Armenians from the city of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) over the past three years, affecting the lives of 120,000 people.

This aggression, he explains, is motivated by a desire to create a two-nation state. Christians’ only “crime” is existing in these ancient lands for thousands of years.

Yet, in the midst of terrible suffering, there are signs of God’s accompaniment of Armenian Catholics. Viken’s eparchy has been a recent development — it became an eparchy is 2005, after being established as a mission in 1896 and an Apostolic Exarchate in 1981.

Vocations, as in the Latin Rite, have suffered somewhat in the modern era. “These were tumultuous years for the Armenian people, enduring the recent genocide, and then the subsequent rebuilding of our diaspora nation. Besides our ‘infancy,’ we too have been combating militant atheism and modernism — be it in our motherland as a post-soviet country, or the diaspora facing the growing anti-religious sentiment in their cultures.”

But here Viken is, in his 8th year of studying in Rome, preparing to serve the Armenian Catholic Church in America as a priest. He came from a devout Catholic family and says that he has always been drawn to the priesthood. Where he grew up in Fresno, California, there wasn’t a local Armenian Catholic Church, so he assumed he would discern becoming a Roman Catholic priest. Yet, when he was ready to apply for seminary, he was told that as an Armenian Catholic, he’d need to seek a dispensation from the Armenian Catholic Bishop.

Instead, the bishop encouraged Viken to consider becoming a priest in the Armenian Catholic Church. “He encouraged me to put my trust in God and take the leap of faith. Thanks be to God; I took that chance.”

God-willing, Viken will serve the faithful, suffering Armenian people. The story of his people, and of the Armenian people, is a tragic one. At the same time, their hope and faith is incredibly strong. Viken touches on the reason for their faith:

Even though we have been confronted by countless legions sent by Satan to extinguish the light of Christ, we have always known that to truly be defeated is to abandon the Holy Cross. In humility, we wear Christ’s admonishment on our shoulders, “Fear not those who kill the body; rather fear him who can destroy the soul and body in hell.”

https://aleteia.org/2023/12/07/armenian-catholics-inspire-by-their-faith-and-resilience/

Switzerland – Dec 7 2023

The Karabakh conflict, which has its roots in the great power struggles of the early 18th century, has escalated whenever the imperial control of the surrounding great powers – including Safavid Persia, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union – waned. In 1921, after the Red Army had conquered the entire South Caucasus, the Moscow controlled Caucasus Bureau of the Communist Party declared Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh an autonomous region. However, this region was administratively part of the newly created Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, which led to frequent tensions between Karabakh Armenians and Baku. The current phase of the conflict began during the perestroika era in
1987, when Karabakh Armenians attempted to join Soviet Armenia, prompting a violent response from Azerbaijan. Full-scale war broke out after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Tens of thousands died on both sides, and hundreds of thousands were displaced. When a cease-fire was reached in 1994, the Karabakh Armenians emerged victorious, controlling territories well beyond the original borders of the Soviet Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The search for a resolution to the conflict within the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the United States, Russia, and France, began almost simultaneously with the outbreak of the war in 1992. By the mid-2000s the sides had agreed on basic principles of conflict resolution, including ones for the non-use of force, Karabakh’s self-determination through a future referendum, and Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. The latter included the return to Azerbaijan of territories captured by Armenian forces outside of Nagorno-Karabakh during the war, with the provision of a land corridor linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, the return of displaced persons, and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force. 

None of these proposals has ever been implemented. For more than two decades, an asymmetrical military balance maintained relative peace. While Azerbaijan was the larger power overall, the Armenians benefited from a strategic geographic advantage, holding the higher ground. However, this balance was increasingly disrupted in Azerbaijan’s favor. One factor was the support Azerbaijan received from Turkey. Under their “one nation, two countries” formula, Turkey and Azerbaijan signed a comprehensive military agreement in August 2010 and have since held regular joint military exercises. An increasing number of Azerbaijan’s military officers are trained in Turkey – reaching approximately 85 percent by 2020. Ankara has also played a significant role for Azerbaijan in operational planning and military intelligence, and Turkey emerged as a key supplier of arms to Azerbaijan. In particular, the latter includes the supply of “Bayraktar” drones,which diminished Armenia’s strategic geographic advantage. Other major arms suppliers to the Azerbaijani military include Israel, Russia, and the United States.

https://css.ethz.ch/en/center/CSS-news/2023/12/geopolitical-echoes-of-the-karabakh-conflict.html

ALSO READ

Dec 7 2023

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Dec 7 2023

The city council of Cologne city in Germany has decided to remove the monument to the Armenian genocide in the city. The city council will now hold a meeting on 7th December 2023 to ponder a thought upon erecting a new memorial to “commemorate the victims of oppression, racism, violence and human rights violations”. 

The city council succumbed to the pressure of 60,000 Turkish Muslim migrants living in the city of a million people. Turkish Muslims deny the genocide of Armenian Christians by Turkey which took place from 1915 to 1918. The conflict still goes on. Notably, there are only 6,000 Armenians in Cologne.

This monument was first erected in 2018 to mark the centenary year of the Armenian genocide. It was initially installed on the left bank of the Hohenzollern Bridge, opposite the equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Unfortunately, it was dismantled in May 2022 and hasn’t yet found a permanent location. It faced vehement opposition from Turkish Muslims right from the inauguration.

The city had previously opted to dismantle the statue, citing reasons such as the planned construction of a cycle path or concerns about potential “social upheaval.” It was removed and restored multiple times before the final decision of the city council came after a recent demonstration by Turkish Muslims in Germany at the end of October 2023.

The steel sculpture stands at a height of approximately 1.80 meters. At the pinnacle of the three-sided pyramid, there is a bronze pomegranate featuring a notch, serving as a poignant symbol for the Armenian genocide. The inscription, titled “This Pain Affects Us All,” is eloquently expressed in Armenian, German, Turkish, and English.

Erected in April 2018 by the Cologne initiative “Remembering Genocide,” the monument commemorated the Armenian Genocide during World War I (1915-1918). It aimed to raise awareness about the genocide and acknowledge the responsibility of the Ottoman Empire. It also included information about the systematic displacement, deportation, and murder of over a million Armenian women, men, and children. The monument served as a powerful symbol of remembrance and a call for the prevention of future genocides.

Cologne’s mayor Reker justified the decision to remove this memorial by saying that the city needs to consider the “diverse interests of our pluralistic urban society”. The Turkish Muslims in Cologne staged protests against this memorial in October.

The political influence exerted by Turkish Muslims in Germany to achieve its objectives is not a new thing. An instance of this was observed in 2005 when, following the intervention of Turkish diplomats, Brandenburg removed the subject of the Armenian genocide from its curriculum. In 2011, the University of Stuttgart, citing Turkish “protests from Berlin,” declined to permit a lecture on the genocide, asserting a decision to “remain neutral.”

In 2014, protests emerged against a play by Edgar Hilsenrath titled “Das Märchen vom letzten Gedanken,” which addresses the Armenian genocide. In response, the theatre in Constance removed the event poster, and before each performance, a statement from the Turkish consul was read out. The premiere had to be conducted under police protection due to the heightened tensions.

The Armenian Genocide, a series of systemic killings of the minority population of Christians during the Ottoman Muslim rule in the region of Armenia, is one of the most horrific state-sponsored genocidal events of the 20th century.

Usually, the Armenian Genocide refers to a series of massacres of the Armenian Christian population carried out by officials of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 onwards. The genocide began in 1915 and lasted until 1923, killing an estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians, among other minority Christian groups.

Even years before 1915, a tragic event in Adana in April 1909 displays how the Ottoman Empire was prejudiced against the Christians under their rule and how an entire population was branded the enemy of the state, and subjected to tragic, horrific murder on an enormous scale. Details of the Armenian genocide can be read here.

Dec 5 2023

DEC 5, 2023 1:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER

“Cologne gives in to Islamists: monument to the Armenian genocide is finally being removed,” translated from “Köln knickt vor Islamisten ein: Denkmal für Genozid an Armeniern kommt endgültig weg,” by Jerome Wnuk, Apollo News, December 2, 2023 (thanks to Medforth):

urkish extremists rejoice: the Cologne monument to the Armenian genocide, which Turkey does not recognise, has been repeatedly erected and dismantled over the years. Sometimes the city had the statue removed on the grounds that a cycle path was to be built and sometimes for fear of “social upheaval”. After a march by Turkish nationalists, including supporters of the far-right Grey Wolves and DITIB associations, at the end of October, the city finally decided that the memorial should be removed.

The memorial was erected in Cologne in 2018 to commemorate the victims of the Armenian genocide between 1915 and 1918. At that time, between 300,000 and more than 1.5 million people were murdered in massacres and death marches under the responsibility of the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire, which was formed by the Committee for Unity and Progress. For international historians, the genocide is indisputable, but Turkey does not recognise the crime.
Since its inauguration next to the Kaiser Wilhelm equestrian statue, the memorial of the “Remember Genocide” initiative has repeatedly caused disputes with Turkish nationalists, who have successfully put pressure on the city. Following protests, the memorial was repeatedly removed by the city and rebuilt by activists from the initiative – although the city’s reasons for not granting the memorial permission and removing it often varied from time to time. Sometimes it was said that a cycle path was to be built and sometimes they were a little more frank – speaking of fear of “social upheaval”.

For example, Cologne’s mayor Reker recently justified herself with the “diverse interests of our pluralistic urban society”, which had to be taken into account. However, this did not stop the “Remember Genocide” initiative from putting the sculpture back up in the city centre on April 24 this year, Remembrance Day. The city then issued a special use permit until May 24. However, this was not sufficient for the campaign and they filed a legal complaint.

In addition to denying the genocide against the Armenians, the participants in the demonstration did not distance themselves from the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel and even denied them. The chairman of the youth organisation “Fatherland Party” spoke to public broadcaster WDR about the right of Palestinians to defend themselves, explicitly including Hamas terror.

Just weeks later, the city council decided to finally abolish the “This pain affects us all” memorial at the end of 2023. Instead, a new memorial is to be erected to “commemorate the victims of oppression, racism, violence and human rights violations”. At its meeting on December 7, the city council will decide on the funding for a dialogue process in which a new memorial is to be developed. This process is expected to take two years and cost up to 350,000 euros, according to the Kölner Stadtanzeiger.

For the Turkish right-wing extremists, who have been fighting against the memorial for years, the Cologne city government’s caving in is a complete success. On Facebook, nationalists euphorically wrote: “The defamation monument will now be removed. We congratulate the Cologne city council on their decision in favour of justice!”

This is not the first time that political pressure from Turkish nationalists or diplomats in Germany has led to success: in 2005, Brandenburg removed the topic of the Armenian genocide from the curriculum due to the intervention of Turkish diplomats. In 2011, the University of Stuttgart refused to allow a lecture on the genocide due to Turkish “protests from Berlin” – the university stated that it wanted to “remain neutral”.

In 2014, due to protests against a play by Edgar Hilsenrath, “Das Märchen vom letzten Gedanken”, which deals with the genocide, the event poster at the theatre in Constance was taken down and a statement from the Turkish consul was read out before each performance. The premiere had to take place under police protection.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/12/germany-cologne-gives-in-to-muslims-monument-to-the-armenian-genocide-is-finally-being-removed