Author: Antonian Lara

Pope Francis will hold a historic first meeting with Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russian Orthodox Church, in Cuba next week, the BBC reports.

The Russian Orthodox Church said the “persecution of Christians” would be the central theme of the meeting.

Pope Francis will stop over in Cuba on his way to Mexico.

It is the first meeting of its kind since a schism between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity emerged in the 11th Century.

The meeting is due to take place at Havana airport, where the two leaders will sign a joint declaration.

Patriarch Kirill is due in Cuba for an official visit at the same time as Pope Francis’ stopover in Havana.

In a joint statement, the two churches said the meeting would “mark an important stage in relations between the two churches”.

They invited ” all Christians to pray fervently for God to bless this meeting, that it may bear good fruits.”

Since becoming Pope in 2013, Pope Francis has called for better relations between the different branches of Christianity.

Photo: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

– Investigative reporter Dawn Anahid MacKeen’s latest story is one her mother always wanted her to tell. It’s about her grandfather and how he survived the 1915 Armenian genocide in which 1.5 million Armenians living in modern-day Turkey were killed. (Turkey doesn’t recognize the slaughter as a genocide, but says they were the result of widespread conflict across the region.) In journals that became the seeds of MacKeen’s new book, The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey, her grandfather told the story of how he escaped a forced march through the desert.

Before she read those journals, MacKeen’s knowledge of her grandfather was limited to what her mother had shared. She tells NPR’s Ari Shapiro, “They were very sad stories of this man who was struggling across a desert and was just fighting for his survival and was so thirsty he had to drink his own urine, which is a very strange thing to hear as a child and it just sounded really gross. And of course it was history that I couldn’t comprehend until I was in my 30s and I could finally read his first-hand testimony.”

Interview Highlights

On her decision to retrace her grandfather’s steps through Turkey and the Syrian desert

I had to see the land that he wrote about. You know, the desert that he was driven across with his caravans, it became a prison to him because it was inhospitable and there weren’t many people around. And as I traveled from west to east and the land grew more stark — it was a hard moment to see that, to think of my grandfather outside in the elements. You know, at one point when he was in a makeshift camp in what is now Western Syria, a thousand people died from disease in just one month. So this was the kind of thing he was up against and he really had to summon heroic strength inside to have the courage to continue each day.

On visiting the Syrian city of Raqqa before it was controlled by ISIS and decades after her grandfather was there

My experience in Raqqa … was the complete opposite of what you’re hearing now from there. It was, in a way, a haven for me just like it was for my grandfather. … When I arrived there, I met this Bedouin sheikh and he took me into his home and gave me his daughter’s room and that night hosted this dinner on the Euphrates. And there were Armenians there, there were Bedouins, Arabs — everyone was around a table enjoying each other’s company. There wasn’t this religious divide or hatred that you see. And it just breaks my heart seeing what’s happening to Raqqa and also that many people are learning of Raqqa for the first time through this message of hate.

On finding the clan that had saved her grandfather in Raqqa

This sheikh also, when I met him, I told him about what happened to my grandfather. And the people in this region know what happened to the Armenians. These stories have been handed down in their families of, you know, the mass graves that have been in that area or the Armenians that were taken in by the different clans. And when I told this Bedouin sheikh in Raqqa that I wanted to find the clan that saved my grandfather’s life and it was somewhere in the region, this sheikh all of the sudden called someone else and this person came over and all of the sudden had two phone lines and started calling all over the region to try and find this clan. And it was an incredible moment for me to watch this happen because it was really a pipe dream to try to find this clan and all of the sudden they narrowed it down and they said, “We found them. Can you go tomorrow?” And I said, “Yes! Please, please, take me to them.”

On how the war in Syria has put that clan in the same position her grandfather was in

I do keep in touch with the clan that saved my grandfather’s life. And now, since the war began, communication has become really difficult but one of them has left the region and became a refugee just like my grandfather. … He made it to Europe and was part of the sea of refugees, you know, going … from Turkey to Greece. … And he’s trying to start his life anew there, just like my grandfather did when he came to [the U.S.] many years ago. …

I could never have predicted this. First of all, finding them was one of the most wonderful moments of my life. But then when the war broke out and one of them told me — dealing with famine and seeing corpses in the street — he said, “We now know what your grandfather went through.” … And it just — I don’t even know what to say. It’s heartbreaking because I don’t want anyone else to ever have to go through what my grandfather went through. … We have to stop having history repeat itself.

On what her grandfather did after the genocide

He came to New York with my mother and my aunt in 1930 and he opened a candy store on 133rd [Street] and Amsterdam [Avenue] and he worked around the clock. And then during World War II, he moved to Los Angeles and they kind of steadily started investing. He bought a few apartment buildings, and by the time he was in his 80s he was still climbing onto the roof and fixing things. … He achieved his dream in the United States and was always so happy to be here, he would play God Bless America on his accordion.

Borussia Dortmund are the most attended football team on the planet, according to ‘Sports Venues 2016’, with 1.36 million people coming through the gates at Westfalenstadion last season, Goal.com reports.

The average attendance of 80,410 is only bettered in the sporting world by Dallas Cowboys with 90,069, though the NFL outfit trail the Bundesliga side with an overall figure of 720,558 due to hosting less home games at the AT&T Stadium.

And with Thomas Tuchel’s BVB going strong in the Bundesliga once again, it doesn’t look like the famous Yellow Wall at the Westfalenstadion will be shrinking any time soon.

Photo: US Air Force

The finance chief of so-called Islamic State has been killed in air strikes by the US-led coalition, a US military spokesman has said, the BBC reports.

Muwaffaq Mustafa Mohammed al-Karmoush, aka Abu Salah, and two other senior leaders were killed in the strikes which took place in “recent weeks”.

No details were immediately given.

The coalition has been carrying out air strikes against IS militants in Iraq and Syria for over a year. One recently also killed an IS leader in Libya.

US military spokesman Col Steve Warren confirmed the deaths in a video call from the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

Abu Salah is the code name for Muwaffaq Mustafa Mohammed al-Karmoush.

Col Warren called Abu Salah “one of the most senior and experienced members” of the militant group’s financial network.

On Twitter, Brett McGurk, special US presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, said the three were killed “as part of the coalition campaign to destroy Isil’s (Islamic State’s) financial infrastructure”.

On Monday, the Pentagon confirmed a US air strike had killed a senior leader of the Islamic State group in Libya.

Abu Nabil died after an F-15 jet targeted a compound in the eastern city of Derna on 13 November, it said.

A group of organizations aimed at preventing genocide have welcomed the United Nations General Assembly’s designation of December 9 as theInternational Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime.

On September 11 of this year, UN member states unanimously voted to establish this commemorative day and chose December 9 as it is the anniversary of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

“Slaughtering people not for anything they do, but simply for who they are – their national, ethnic, racial, religious, or political identity – is morally as bad as it gets,” commented Professor Gareth Evans, President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group and former Australian Foreign Minister. “The Genocide Convention, adopted on December 9, 1948, should have been a circuit breaker. It wasn’t. This commemorative day presents a moment to take stock of how far we have come – and have yet to go – in translating into reality the moral aspiration expressed seven decades ago.”

To mark the occasion, 100 LIVES will publish a with leading humanitarian and human rights organizations calling on the world to remember the millions who have been affected by the crime of genocide. The statement is co-signed by fellow organizations Not On Our Watch, the Enough Project, United to End Genocide, Foundation Rwanda, Survivors Fund, International Association of Genocide Scholars, International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (a Division of the Zoryan Institute), Armenian Genocide Museum Institute, and Waging Peace.

Genocide is an issue that transcends the bounds of any one religion, ethnic group, geography or era and the effects of this crime throughout history are still felt by its victims and their descendants. This year alone, the world observed the Armenian Genocide Centennial, the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, the 50^th anniversary of the Indonesian massacres and the 20^th anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide. 100 LIVES and its partners remember the victims of these and all atrocities, continue to demand that governments protect citizens, and use this commemoration to honor those who intervened to save lives— often at great personal risk.

“As a descendant of a genocide survivor myself, I am grateful to those that continue to dedicate themselves to saving lives,” states Ruben Vardanyan, 100 LIVES co-founder. “I hope that this occasion will focus attention on the collective responsibility of governments to safeguard human lives, uphold the universal right to live with dignity, and support humanitarian work.”

Chairman of the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (IIGHRS), Professor Roger W. Smith, commented, “The human cost of genocide and its wider consequences – mass migration of refugees, societal collapse and economic disruption – is far greater than the cost of early prevention. To save lives, states must expand their concept of national interest and act on their responsibility to protect.” IIGHRS is a signatory of the joint statement.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian had a meeting with OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zanier on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial meeting in Belgrade.

The interlocutors exchanged views on issues on OSCE agenda, as well as urgent international and regional developments.

The parties referred to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and the negotiations on its settlement. Edward Nalbandian and Lamberto Zanier agreed that there was no alternative to the peaceful settlement.

Edward Nalbandian and Lamberto Zanier referred to the activity of the OSCE Office in Yerevan and the programs it implements.

Australian Member of Parliament, John Alexander MP welcomed Nagorno Karabakh Republic Member of Parliament, Davit Ishkhanyan to Australia’s Parliament while he was on a visit with a delegation as part of Armenian National Committee of Australia Advocacy Week.

Alexander mentioned the 24th anniversary of Artsakh’s Independence, and said: “With its significant majority of ethnic Armenians, it enjoys a democratic system of government and a commitment to human rights and free press that lies in stark contrast to its closest neighbour, Azerbaijan.”

Alexander, the Member for Bennelong, also acknowledged Kaylar Michaelian, the newly-appointed Nagorno Karabakh Republic Representative to Australia, who was also part of the delegation.

He said: “Earlier today, I was fortunate to meet with a delegation including representatives from the Armenian National Committee and Mr Kaylar Michaelian, a former principal of Galstaun College, who has recently been appointed as the new permanent representative of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh to Australia.”

“With them was Mr Davit Ishkhanyan, a member of the parliament from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is also known as Artsakh.”

Alexander added: “This republic recently celebrated 24 years of independence.”

The ANC Australia-led delegation, accompanied by Ishkhanyan and Michaelian, met with over 25 MPs over two days in the nation’s capital, and raised awareness for the security of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, as well as advocating for its Independence to be recognised.

published by the Institute for Economics and Peace rates Armenia as one of the safest countries in the world in terms of potential terrorist threats.

Armenia is ranked 116th among 162 countries, where a lower place means less danger in terms of terrorism.

Armenia’s neighbors in the region are placed as follows: Georgia – 71th, Turkey – 27th, Azerbaijan – 93rd and Iran – 39th.

Armenia’s partners in the Eurasian Economic Union Russia and Belarus are ranked 23rd and 77th respectively, Kazakhstan is 83rd, Kyrgyzstan is 86th.

The Global Terrorism Index provides a detailed analysis of the changing trends in terrorism across 162 countries over the last 15 years. It investigates the patterns of terrorism by geographic activity, methods of attack, organizations involved and national economic and political contexts.

According to the report, the number of lives lost to terrorism increased by 80% in 2014, reaching the highest level ever recorded at 32,658. This compares to 18,111 in 2013. According to the third edition of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), out today, this increase represents the largest yearly increase in deaths ever recorded. The report also highlights the dramatic rise in terrorism over time, with deaths increasing by nine-fold since the year 2000.

The report, developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace and based on data from the Global Terrorism Database of START, reveals that just two terrorist groups, ISIL and Boko Haram, are now jointly responsible for 51% of all global fatalities from claimed terrorist attacks. Boko Haram, which pledged its allegiance to ISIL as the Islamic State’s West Africa Province (ISWAP) in March 2015, has become the world’s deadliest terrorist group, causing 6,644 deaths compared to ISIL’s 6,073.

The parents of Lola Ouzounian, a 17-year-old Armenian girl who was attending the concert at Bataclan when the venue was attacked by terrorists on Friday, confirmed her death, adding they had identified her remains, Asbarez reports.

Lola was attending the Eagles of Death Metal concert at Bataclan when the terrorists stormed the venue. During the commotion the father and daughter were separated. There has been search for Lola since Friday.

Paris became the latest target of attacks by groups affiliated with the Islamic State. French officials put the death toll at 129, with 352 injured, 99 of them critically when terrorists attacked several sites in Paris on Friday, one of them the Stade de France, where French President Francois Hollande was attending a friendly match between France and Germany.

A date for Ouzounian’s funeral services has not been announced.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday against French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala, deciding that freedom of speech did not protect “racist and anti-Semitic performances,” reports.

Dieudonne, as he is commonly known, was protesting a fine he received from a French court in 2009 for inviting a Holocaust-denier on stage.

He was fined 10,000 euros ($11,000) for what that court referred to as “racist insults”.

Dieudonne argued the fine amounted to an infringement of his freedom of speech.

During a show in December 2008, Dieudonne appeared on stage with Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson at the Zenith theatre in Paris and presented him with an award. He later defended himself in court, saying: “It was very funny.”