On 23 July President Bako Sahakyan signed a decree according to which the medal “For Service in Battle” was posthumously awarded to serviceman of the NKR Defense Army’s N military unit Arsen Arakelyan for courage shown during the defence of the NKR state border.
Arsen Arakelyan was killed as a result of shooting from the Azerbaijani side this morning.
Turkey will temporarily suspend the implementation of its obligations emanating from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in line with the declaration of a state of emergency in the country, a senior government official has said, while assuring that fundamental rights and freedoms will not be affected during this period, the reports.
“France proclaimed a state of emergency, too. And they have suspended the ECHR upon article 15 of the convention,” Numan Kurtulmuş, deputy prime minister and government spokesperson, told a group of Ankara bureau chiefs of media outlets on July 21.
“A declaration of a state of emergency is not against the ECHR,” he said, adding Turkey would announce its decision to suspend the ECHR through a statement.
Article 15 of the ECHR stipulates: “In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation any High Contracting Party may take measures derogating from its obligations under this Convention to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation, provided that such measures are not inconsistent with its other obligations under international law.”
The state of emergency will give the government a good opportunity to fight against coup plotters and clean the state apparatus fully of the members of the Gülenist organization, Kurtulmuş said. “I want to guarantee that fundamental rights and freedoms and normal daily life will not be affected by this. Our citizens should feel comfortable about that.”
Photo: AP
The bodies of 22 people have been found on a migrant dinghy in the Mediterranean, the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said, the BBC reports.
The 21 women and one man were found “in a pool of fuel and water” at the bottom of the boat, off the coast of Libya.
They had been on the dinghy “for hours”, the aid group said.
More than 200 survivors who were on the dinghy have been transferred to a boat operated by MSF. There were 50 children among them.
Former Turkish Ambassador to Germany Hüseyin Avni Karslioglu was injured in his leg after being hit by a helicopter in Ankara during the July 15 coup attempt, the reports.
He is reported to be in a good condition and is able to walk. He has now left hospital after receiving initial treatment.
Ankara’s ambassador in Berlin until recently, Karslioglu was recalled to the Turkish Foreign Ministry for a consultation after the German Parliament recognized the 1915 killings of Armenians as genocide on June 2.
Manchester United has announced that Henrikh Mkhitaryan has completed his transfer from Borussia Dortmund. Henrikh joins on a four-year contract with the option to extend for a further year.
Mkhitaryan, 27, made 140 appearances and scored 41 goals for Borussia Dortmund after joining them in 2013. Last season he scored 23 goals and registered an impressive 32 assists across all competitions. Henrikh was voted Bundesliga Player of the Season for 2015/16 in a poll of his fellow professionals, and he was named in the Team of the Season following votes by the players’ union in Germany, VDV.
The midfielder is Armenia’s all-time top scorer, with 19 goals in 59 appearances since his international debut in January 2007. Henrikh captains his national team and has received the Armenian Footballer of the Year award on five occasions.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan said: “I am very proud to join Manchester United, this move is a dream come true for me. I am excited to play for a club with such an illustrious history and hope to be part of it for a long time. I thank the trust the club and Jose Mourinho have put in me. Finally, I believe playing for such a great club honours my father’s memory, and the inspiration and drive he gave to me when I was young.”
José Mourinho said: “Henrikh is a very talented footballer who has been in such prolific form for both his club and his country. He is a real team player with great skill, vision and also has a good eye for goal. I am delighted he has chosen to sign for United. I believe he will make an impact on the team very quickly as his style of play is suited to the Premier League. We are all looking forward to working with him.”
Photo: Reuters
A suicide bomber has killed four security officers and injured five others near one of Islam’s holiest sites in the Saudi city of Medina, according to the interior ministry, the BBC reports.
The bomber detonated his explosives after being stopped outside the Prophet’s Mosque, a statement said.
The mosque is the burial place of the Prophet Muhammad and Medina the second-holiest city in Islam after Mecca.
Suicide blasts also struck two other Saudi cities on Monday.
Photo: Getty Images
More than 180 people have been killed in flooding along the Yangtze River in China following torrential rain, officials say, the BBC reports.
Between 10cm and 50cm of rain has fallen in seven provinces, and storms stretching 1,600km are sweeping across central and southern China.
At least 45 people are missing and 33m have been affected, officials say.
The rain has also washed away railway lines and shut down road networks.
The dead included 23 people who were killed in a mudslide in Guizhou Province and eight who died in the city of Wuhan in Hubei Province when a section of a wall collapsed, state media said.
Heavy rain is forecast to continue until Wednesday across parts of southern and western China, the South China Morning Post reported.
Artak Barseghyan
Public Radio of Armenia
“NATO views the countries of the South Caucasus as potential partners with Georgia being an aspirant for membership. I do not see NATO membership as realistic for Georgia any time soon, however. There is no consensus in the Alliance on Georgia’s membership,” Paul Stronski, Senior Associate at Carnegie Foundation, said in an internet press conference for Armenian media.
“On Armenia, as an ally of Russia, it is firmly in Russia’s security orbit. But, NATO will still continue to engage with Armenia and appreciates the partnership it has had with NATO throughout the past twenty years. I’d also note that Armenian military reform is generally modeled after NATO and the United States, so there are clear incentives on the Armenian side to keep good ties with NATO despite Yerevan’s security alliance with Moscow. However, I do not see the relationship between NATO and Armenia getting any closer in the immediate future,” he said.
“I do not see any prospects for NATO membership for Armenia or Azerbaijan. Neither country seems interested in membership. NATO says the door is always open, but many NATO members are not keen to enlarge the alliance any further east,” he added.
Is there a possibility for exclusion of Turkey from the Alliance, considering that Turkey is playing back-door games with ISIS and in light of deterioration of relations between Ankara and Brussels?
“I am neither an expert on Turkey nor ISIS, so I cannot really answer this question. I think many governments in the West are frustrated with Turkey right now given Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism, and unpredictable foreign and domestic politics. But, Turkey is a long-standing and important member of the NATO alliance. The goal of the alliance is to increase the security of its members, and I still think that most NATO members believe that Turkish membership in NATO enhances their security. I do not see their exclusion from the alliance anytime soon,” the expert said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian will visit Tehran June 5-6 at the invitation of Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Minister Nalbandian is scheduled to have meetings with Iranian leadership, Press Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports.
From June 13 to July 2, 2016, the entire Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (ACCEA) in Yerevan will be subsumed with ethnographic photography and documentation touching upon the little known world of diaspora Armenians during their ‘great’ repatriation to Soviet Armenia after World War II to the early 1970s in an exhibition entitled, Stream of Light. Equally, viewers of the ACCEA will have an opportunity to learn about one of the oldest settlements of Armenians in the diaspora: Mexico from 1632 to 1950s, in a side exhibition entitled, Armenians of Mexico. The opening reception will be held on Friday, June 17 at 18:00, with a special film screening at 19:30.
Armenians of Mexico
While the numbers are not many, Armenians traveling or doing business in Colonial Mexico (New Spain) has a history of over three hundred years ago. By the nineteenth century, some Armenians became well known in Mexican society, such as Jacobo Harootian, who was the first Armenian to be given status as a General in the army. The vast majority of Armenians who settled in Mexico were not there to search for adventure, but were victims of persecution, stemming from the genocide.
Over the years, the Armenians in Mexico failed to create the necessary institutions to preserve their identity, but some members of community kept their dreams of returning to their homeland very much alive. They considered their displacement in Mexico to be temporary and maintained strong bonds to other Armenian communities, especially in the United States. Today, the assimilated Armenian community has re-started a connection with their past and their identity. This exhibition is part of their process to maintain their memory and reconstruct their connection to their Armenian identity.
Major sponsorship for Armenians of Mexico comes from the Chitjian Foundation, the Embassy of the Republic of Armenia in Mexico, and CIESAS.
Stream of Light: Post-WWII Repatriation to Soviet Armenia
The post-WWII repatriation to Soviet Armenia indelibly changed the lives of those Armenians from the diaspora who entered the communist country in 1946 to 1949. As a young child I never fully understood my place within this anthropological phenomenon, born in Soviet Armenia to an American-Armenian father and a French-Armenian mother at the height of the cold war. This exhibition documents the historic and ethnographic path of Armenians in the Diaspora from the 1940s to the early 1970s with photographs from surviving repatriates and documents from national archives.
At great cost, the collective cultural and economic contribution of the repatriates illuminated a country placed in darkness during the Stalin years. Based on research of survivors, including interviews, and the collection of documents and photographs, the exhibition aims to enlighten those unaware of the sacrifices made, the lives shortened, and the lies endured in what was essentially a life-altering decision to ‘go home’ and live at the foot of Mount Ararat. Major sponsorship for Stream of Light: Post WWII-Repatriation to Soviet Armenia comes from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
About Carlos Antaramían
After studying International Affairs at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), Carlos Antaramián got an M.A. (2001) and a PhD (2006) in Social Anthropology from El Colegio de Michoacán (México). His research interests focus on migration and transnational communities, genocides, Armenian communities and the commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. He has published the book From Ararat to Popocatepetl. Armenians in Mexico (2011), and a documentary related to the settlement of Armenians in Mexico City after the genocide The Armenians in La Merced (2012). He was the curator of the Exhibition Armenia, an Open Wound in Museo Memoria and Tolerancia in Mexico City (2015) and at the Brand Library in Glendale (2016).
About Hazel Antaramian Hofman
With a background in both the sciences and arts, Hazel Antaramian Hofman has a M.Sc. in Environmental Policy and Planning (1994) and an M.A. in Art and Design (2011). She is an adjunct art instructor at Fresno City College, an independent scholar, and an artist with Fig Tree Gallery in Fresno, California. Her current independent project encompasses a six-year ethnographic project on the post-WWII repatriation to Soviet Armenia. She has presented her illustrated lectures on the topic nationally and internationally, and published work on the repatriation in the Paris publication, Nouvelles d’Arménie. Her latest article on the topic was published in a special edition of the Spanish publication, ISTOR, Armenia Una Historia.
More recently, Antaramian Hofman has been working with other visual artists as a videographer in documenting the making and philosophy of their art. She was a contributing art writer to the art catalogue, Body/Land: A 25-Year Retrospective of Anne Scheid (2016); the photograph catalogue of Saroyan: His Heart in the Highlands (2008), and the Fresno Art Museum art catalogue, Vostanik Adoian: aka Arshile Gorky (2006). She is a board member of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research and the College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State University.