Author: Adrine Hakobian

An Ilyushin Il-76 plane that has been engaged in the forest fire extinguishing operation in the Irkutsk region does not go on the air for a radio contact, a source in the regional emergencies services told TASS on Friday, TASS reports.

“The plane flew to extinguish a fire and in some time communication with it was lost,” the source said. Its search is now underway.

“At 05:34 am, Moscow time, the plane flew to the Bayanderovsky district of the Irkutsk region. At an altitude of 3,000 meters the radio contact with it was lost,” the source said.

“There were a total of 11 people on board – the crew and fire-fighting experts,” the source said.

The Russian Emergencies Ministry’s main department for the Irkutsk region confirmed that an Il-76 plane of the ministry went missing.

Photo: Getty Images

In a triumphant win for the thousands of Yazidi women who have been enslaved by the Islamic State, Amal Clooney has confirmed that she will represent victims of the Yazidi genocide, including ISIS survivor and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Nadia Murad, the reports.

“The European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the U.S. government and the U.K. House of Commons have all recognized that there is a genocide being perpetrated by IS against the Yazidis in Iraq,” Clooney said in a statement to Women in the World.

“How can it be that the most serious crimes known to humanity are being carried out before our eyes but are not being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague?”

Clooney, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers specializing in international law and human rights law, will act as their counsel to achieve accountability for the genocide, sexual enslavement and trafficking of Yazidi girls and women by the Islamic State in Iraq. They plan to seek an International Criminal Court investigation and prosecution of the crimes committed against Nadia Murad and the Yazidi community.

After months of traveling around the globe and imploring political leaders to help her cause, Murad told Women in the World that Clooney has given her confidence. “Amal and George received me at their home and opened for me their hearts,” said Murad. “They listened passionately to my story, and Amal gifted me by representing my case. Amal gave me renewed hope by being my voice.” Murad also called Clooney “an incredible, passionate woman,” who embraced her story and her pain. “She did not talk to me as a well-known world figure that people would love to take a photo with, she talked to me as a sister and guardian. She has immense power that made me proud of being a woman.”

Murad views Clooney as a formidable legal force. “It is important to establish justice, and Amal being a life-long defender of justice, it was a natural bond between her and I to be established. We are both defenders of justice, and peace seekers through justice,” Murad said. “The final goal for us all is accountability to perpetrators of genocide, and justice for victims like myself.”

Clooney also represents Yazda, a non-profit organization that has been helping the Yazidi community since the genocide began during ISIS’s attacks in August of 2014. The raids led to the deaths of an estimated 5,000 civilians, the enslavement of more than 2,000 women and girls, and the displacement of 400,000 people from the Yazidi homelands in Sinjar, the Ninevah plain, and Syria.

Nadia Murad of Iraq to participate in the Second Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide

Armenia was the first to condemn the crimes against the Yazidis in Iraq and Armenians in Deir Zor and Kessab committed by the Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ashot Hovakimyan said at an anti-terror conference on “Preventing Terrorism and Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalization” in Berlin.

According to him, it’s necessary to pay greater attention to the prevention of crimes committed on the basis of hatred, since they immediately link violent radicalism to terrorism.

The Deputy Foreign Minister said ‘the existing conflicts create a fertile soil for violent extremism, especially when the state authorities use the conflicts to restrict human rights and seed hatred towards conflicting parties.

“Unfortunately, the recent developments in our region come to prove the concerns of the Armenian side. Following the example of Ramil Safarov and Islamic State, the Azerbaijani armed forces were beheading and torturing not only servicemen, but also civilians, including elderly people and women. The perpetrators of these crimes not only escaped criticism, but were also awarded by Azerbaijani President,” Ashot Hovakimyan said.

The Deputy FM stressed that any attempt on the part of states to make radicalism and terrorism serve their goals should be strongly condemned.

Private of the NKR Defense Army Vahe Argam Yeghoyan, born in 1997, was fatally wounded under unknown circumstances at one of the military units located in the northern direction of the NKR Defense Ministry at about 18:20, May 25.

Probe into the details of the incident is under way, the NKR Defense Ministry reports.

has presented the Armenian and Azerbaijani views on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.  The European Friends of Armenia has presented the Armenian perspective. 

It is more than 20 years since the cease-fire agreement between Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Yet, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is still simmering in the South Caucasus, disrupting the lives of thousands of people.

This landlocked mountainous region is still subject to an unresolved dispute between its ethnic Armenian population and its former Soviet colonial master – Azerbaijan.

Historical cultural monuments thousands of years old trace the Armenian heritage of this region.

At the early years of the Soviet regime the region of Nagorno Karabakh was annexed to Azerbaijan as an autonomous region (oblast) upon Stalin’s arbitrary decision, disregarding the will of the people of Karabakh and its history.

Nagorno Karabakh initiated its secession from Azerbaijan through the adoption of Declaration of Independence on September 2, 1991.

This act took place in full conformity with all the norms and principles of international law and the Soviet constitutional framework of that time, that granted oblasts the right to follow that path in a legally binding manner.

On December 10, 1991 the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh held its own referendum: 82.2% of all voters participated and 99% voted for independence. Thus, Nagorno-Karabakh got its independence in the same vein as Azerbaijan and all other former Soviet Republics.

The people of Nagorno Karabakh want to live in peace and exercise their right to self-determination.

By virtue of that right they want to freely determine their political status and pursue their development. Azerbaijan opposes that independence and wants to turn back the clock of history. Nevertheless, the only viable option for the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict is to let its people live independently, in safety and dignity.

Nagorno Karabakh itself is one of the most secure and stable regions in Europe. Despite the ongoing conflict and dire living conditions imposed by Azerbaijan, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh have succeeded in state-building and development: they established all the necessary elements of the State as required under the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, such as territory, population, government, and capacity to enter into legal relations.

The people of Nagorno Karabakh organise their political life through elections, democratic institutions, a well-established rule of law system and a vivid civil society.

Six parliamentary and five presidential elections have been conducted that were described by international observers as transparent, competitive, fair and in line with international standards.

Well-established and recognized international organizations such as Freedom House acknowledged that democratic governance in Nagorno-Karabakh has been much better established than in Azerbaijan, which suffers and exports high levels of corruption due to its ruling elite.

20 years of negotiations held by the leaderships of Armenia and Azerbaijan with mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the U.S., France and Russia, demonstrated that the irreconcilable positions of the parties and that no amount of additional talks would overcome the impasse.

Thus, independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic should be recognized in order to provide strong guarantees for the security of its people.

They fully deserved such recognition. Azerbaijan itself should participate in that process, but constructively and not just to block it. The democratic Nagorno Karabakh Republic deserved it much more than a fully-fledged UN,OSCE and Council of Europe member Azerbaijan that routinely violates all norms and principles of those organizations.

Indeed, to make such a decision on Karabakh would be difficult and hard first and foremost for the Azerbaijani elite.

However, it will not be harder for Azerbaijan than it was, to name just a one instance of secession, for such a staunch French patriot as President de Gaulle, who recognized the independence of Algeria.

Borussia Dortmund playmaker Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been named the Bundesliga Player of the Month for April.

April was a quite a month in the 2015/16 Bundesliga season, with the title race still on the boil, one of the relegation spots filled and several teams improving their position in the hunt for European qualification, but BVB’s Armenian was the standout performer according to the users.

VOTE!
April Player of the Month: or Julian

— Bundesliga (@Bundesliga_EN)

Today, the Royal Mail celebrates The Queen’s 90th birthday with the release of a photograph featuring four generations of the Royal Family. The image will appear on a special commemorative Stamp Sheet.

The Royal Mail celebrates its own special birthday this year: its 500th anniversary. The Queen will mark the anniversary with a visit to the Royal Mail Windsor delivery office this morning, the first of this year’s 90th birthday events.

“Azerbaijani military forces recently unleashed an aggression against the people of Nagorno Karabakh in what has been describes a four-day war,” member of the Armenian delegation to PACE Samvel Farmanyan said at the Assembly session today.

“Azerbaijani armed forces used deadly offensive weaponry obtained in the course of the past twenty years in a gross breach of all international norms set by the OSCE. Use of force by Azerbaijan goes contrary to the key documents of international law – the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and others. The Azerbaijani attack amounts to an act of aggression in line with international law,” the MP said.

“Azerbaijani army targeted civilian infrastructures and peaceful population. Twelve-years-old Vaghinak Grigoryan was killed and two other children were wounded heavily at the schoolyard bombarded by Azeri forces. And this is not the only case of violence against the civilian population. An elderly couple was shot in the home, with their ears being cut off by the Azerbaijani military. They also executed a 92-year-old Marusya Halabyan and tortured 104-year-old woman, who is six years older than Azerbaijani itself as a country,” Farmanyan noted.

“Moreover, soldiers of the Nagorno Karabakh Defense Army were beheaded by Azerbaijani troops, beheaded in ISIS way, and all the photos can be found in the social network. These are evidences of cruel treatment by Azerbaijani soldiers, posing with the head of Karam Sloyan as a trophy. Later the head was transferred to local Azerbaijani population, demonstrating it as a trophy and encouraging hatred and aggression against Armenians,” the Armenian lawmaker said.

“No action by official Baku has followed to punish the guilty. By doing so Azerbaijan once again violated numerous international treaties, namely the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the International convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Victims of War and others,” he stressed.

“Another episode includes torture of prisoners of war and mutilation of bodies of eighteen dead Karabakh soldiers handed over to Nagorno Karabakh authorities in presence of the representatives of the International committee of the Red Cross a week after the hostilities,” Farmanyan said.

“We can’t close our eyes on these crimes committed by Azerbaijani military,” he concluded.

 

 

Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court on Thursday sentenced prominent Armenian businessman Levon Hayrapetyan to 4 years in prison for embezzlement of $700,000, reports from the courtroom.

Hayrapetyan was found guilty of stealing $700,000 from the mother of former Bashkortostan senator Igor Izmestyev sentenced to life for terrorism.

According to investigators, the businessman has misled the woman by promising a reduced sentence for her son. In practice, he could not influence the judgment.

A prosecutor earlier asked the court to sentence Hayrapetyan to 7 years in jail and to collect from him 20.8 million rubles ($316,000) in damages in favor of the victims.

The businessman has pleaded not guilty. According to his lawyer, the case has been framed up.

Hayrapetyan also stands charged with involvement in an embezzlement case under which Ural Rakhimov, son of the former head of Bashkortostan Murtaza Rakhimov, sold Bashneft, a midsized oil company he headed for three years, to the oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Sistema in 2009 at a huge “discount” of $500 million.

Airapetyan holds dual citizenship, has assets abroad and was until recently living in Monaco. Prosecutors presented this information as grounds for arrest. In early October 2014, Airapetyan was placed under house arrest. His defense attorney asked the court to release him, citing health problems.

The NKR Defense Army has published photos of the uniforms, communications equipment and ammunition supplies the Azerbaijani forces left on the battlefield.