Author: Emma Nadirian

Three Armenian companies are participating in the WTM 2016 international tourism fair in London November 7-9 with the support of the Development Foundation of Armenia.

The World Travel Market is the second largest tourism fair in the world, where the Armenian booth presents the country’s tourism opportunities, introduces the directions for pilgrimage to the first Christian nation.

The Armenian companies have left for London to meet partners, establish new ties and sign new contracts.

“By participating in international tourism exhibitions we help raise awareness about our country on the international market. In particular, the London fair will allow to present the attractive tourism destinations in Armenia and Artsakh to more than 180 tourism organizations of the world, agents and visitors,” Executive Director of the Armenian Development Foundation Karen Mkrtichian said.

The London travel show, held for  the 37th time, has brought together more than 5,000 companies and 50,000 visitors over the past years.

Photo: AFP

 

Russian and Syrian government forces have begun a 10-hour ceasefire in the city of Aleppo to allow rebels and civilians to leave besieged areas, the BBC reports.

Russia has said this pause will be the last chance for rebels to leave eastern districts in safety.

The rebels have rejected the offer and have been continuing a counter-offensive aimed at breaking the siege.

About 250,000 people remain trapped and are enduring food and medical shortages as well as intensive bombing.

Rebels can leave unharmed and with their weapons using two specially created corridors between 09:00 and 19:00 (06:00 and 16:00 GMT), the Russian defence ministry said. Six other routes were to be opened for civilians.

Russian and Syrian warplanes are expected to resume attacks on rebel areas when the truce ends.

Anti-Mafia police in Naples have recovered two Van Gogh paintings stolen from Amsterdam in 2002, the Van Gogh Museum and organized crime investigators said Friday, the Associated Press reports.

The museum in a statement on its website Friday said the paintings, found without their frames, are in “relatively good condition.” It said the two paintings are the 1882 work “Seascape at Scheveningen” and a later work, “Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen.”

Police in Naples said the paintings, of “priceless value,” were discovered during a raid as part of a crackdown against a Naples-based Camorra crime clan suspected of cocaine trafficking. Naples prosecutors said more details will be given later at a news conference in the southern Italian city.

The paintings were sequestered along with other property, worth “tens of millions of euros,” said the police. The Financial Guard, a branch of the Italian police, often sequesters financial assets of suspected criminals.

“After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return,” the museum quoted its director Alex Rueger as saying, and expressed gratitude to Italian investigators and police.

The museum said the paintings, inspected by a curator, do show “some damage” and it is unclear when they will return to Amsterdam. The museum director was planning to attend the news conference.

The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) will host a three-day international conference “After Genocide: From Trauma to Rebirth, a Gendered Perspective” on Saturday, September 17 to Monday, September 19 at AGBU Armenia Hall in Yerevan.

The conference is organized by conflict and gender think-tank Women in War (France) in partnership with the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Armenia, DVV International, and AGBU Armenia. The three-day event brings together over fifty speakers from around the world to discuss the gendered nature of personal, political and social consequences of genocide. Feminist thinkers and activists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and lawyers will share differing perspectives on how genocide victims and descendants have been affected by their trauma.

Conference panelists will examine genocides and mass killings, including the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, Nanking, Bosnian genocide, Rwandan genocide, mass killings during the Democratic Republic of the Congo Civil War, Cambodian genocide, and mass killings in Central America and the Middle East. The fate of persecuted people today, including Yazidis, Christians in the Middle East and Kurds, will also be examined as will questions on reparations and possibilities of reconciliation in preventing the recurrence of genocide.

This project was made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (France), DVV International, Swedish non-governmental organization Kvinna till Kvinna (Women for Women), and the Academic Swiss Caucasus Net (ASCN). The conference will be livestreamed at www.agbu.am.

The Exhibit: “Mapping Identity: Figures, Borders, and Nations”

Artist books, paintings and works on paper by Dana Walrath for AGBU Exhibitions

“Mapping Identity: Figures, Borders, and Nations” is a solo exhibition of select works by renowned artist, author and anthropologist Dana Walrath comprised of artists’ books, paintings and works of art on paper. The series consists of handmade books on nine of the genocides of the past 500 years: American Indians, African Americans, Australian Aborigines, Armenians, the Holocaust, Cambodians, Rwandans, Bosnians and the Rohingya people of Myanmar. One of Walrath’s installations in the exhibition, “View from the High Ground,” renders dehumanization—the fourth stage of genocide—as an interactive process. The handmade books are interactive, forcing the viewer to experience dehumanization literally through the sense of touch as participants page through the images. Two of the nine original books—comprised of hand drawings and an old zoology text embedded within slate—will be on view at AGBU along with larger works on paper from Walrath’s “Armenian Maps” series which explores borders, identity and the fetishizing of nationalism.

Manchester United have announced their 20-man travelling squad for the Europa League clash with Feyenoord, with Wayne Rooney and Henrikh Mkhitaryan the stand-out names to have been left out, Goal.com reports.

Jesse Lingard, who, along with Mkhitaryan, was withdrawn at half-time of the Manchester derby defeat on Saturday is also absent, while Antonio Valencia is another to have not been included.

Jose Mourinho has already confirmed that Marcus Rashford is all set to start the meeting with the Eredivisie side, while the likes of Timothy Fosu-Mensah and Memphis Depay could also get the nod.

Mkhitaryan, who reportedly has become unhappy at life at Old Trafford due to his role in the team, did not take part in training prior to the squad flying to Rotterdam, while Phil Jones was another who didn’t take part.

Photo: AFP

Turkish state broadcaster TRT has gone off air in the last few minutes, Reuters reports. Earlier, soldiers reportedly took control of its offices and an announcer read out a statement declaring martial law.

In his first comments today, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told CNN Turk, in a webcam interview, that this was an act encouraged by a “parallel structure”. He said the coup attempt will be given the “necessary response” and called on Turkish people to go out on the streets.

Access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube was blocked in Turkey soon after reports of a coup emerged, according to Reuters.

“Turkey Blocks, a group that monitors internet shutdowns in the country, and Dyn, which monitors internet performance and traffic globally, both reported it was difficult or impossible to access social media services in Turkey,” it says.

 

 

 

 

 

The Unicum Engineering Company will start producing night vision and thermal imaging cameras in Armenia.

The production will be organized on the territory of the Alliance Free Trade Zone, Minister of Economy Artsvik Minasyan said at the government sitting today.

The company is expected to produce up to 1,000 devises in the first year and increase the number to 5,500 in the future.

“The volume of production is expected to reach $5 mln by 2017 and exceed $12 mln in five years,” the Minister said.

The production will be mostly exported to Russia, he informed.

About $31 mln will be invested within the framework of the program (5 years), 10 new jobs will be created in the first year with an average salary of 150 AMD. The number of jobs is expected to reach 35 with 350 AMD average salary.

By Yair Auron

On May 31, a few days before the lower house of the German Bundestag recognized the murder of the Armenian people – an act that reverberated worldwide – there was supposed to be a discussion of the subject in the Knesset. However, it was postponed under pressure from the Foreign Ministry (which is headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu). The discussion is due to take place in the Knesset on Wednesday.

This is a discussion of great importance for the battle that has been waged for years for Israeli recognition of the Armenian genocide. In the past year I hoped that if not the Israeli government, at least the Knesset would finally recognize it. But apparently there is very little chance of that, in light of the rapprochement agreement signed with Turkey. After all, who would endanger the agreement because of a negligible thing like whether or not there was a genocide of another nation.

There’s no chance that the Israeli government will recognize the Armenian genocide, but during the course of the year commemorating the 100th anniversary of the murder of the Armenian people, there was nevertheless a hope that perhaps the Knesset would do so. But apparently that hope is also evaporating.President Reuven Rivlin has in the past expressed profound identification with the suffering of the Armenians. When he served as Knesset speaker he even said that Israel should recognize the Armenian genocide. It’s a shame that he has refrained from repeating that since being elected president, saying only “I haven’t changed my mind.”

In a discussion in the Knesset Education Committee in July 2015, in which Edelstein participated, all the speakers from the coalition and the opposition supported recognition. Only a representative of the Foreign Ministry had reservations, claiming that the concept of “genocide” has become politicized, and therefore Israel should not use it. Imagine if any European government were to claim that the “Holocaust” is a political concept, and therefore their government should not use it.

At the conclusion of the discussion the Education Committee called on the Knesset to recognize the genocide and on the Education Ministry to teach about it, but nothing happened. The annual discussion to take place in the coming days is the moment of truth: The thawing of relations with Turkey and the weapons deals between the governments of Israel and Azerbaijan, worth billions of dollars – weapons designated for clashes with the Armenians – are not glad tidings for the chances of recognition.

Even if people and institutions in Israel won’t be happy to hear these words, they must be said: Israel denies the Armenian genocide. We are one of the only democratic countries in the world, if not the only one, to do so, and to support Turkey’s stubborn policy of denial. The United States neither recognizes nor denies the genocide. When we deny the Armenian genocide, we are desecrating the memory of its victims. In my opinion, in so doing we are also desecrating the memory and the victims of the Holocaust.

Because of this last sentence, which I refused to omit, the administration of Yad Vashem rejected a scientific article that I was invited to write for the institution’s newsletter, Teaching the Legacy. But I will continue to say and to write that sentence until the State of Israel, if only via the Knesset, recognizes the Armenian genocide.

Today it’s already known and has been proven: When we deny a genocide that took place in the past, we are preparing the ground for a future genocide.

The discussion in the Knesset should arouse great interest in the world, and of course among the Armenians in Armenia and in the Diaspora, and hopefully here too. Those who are fighting for recognition are requesting “a vote now.” Transferring the discussion to the committee was an important step for years, but it has become a cynical political means to conceal the truth. We continue to deny.

Israeli recognition (which is not anticipated, to my regret) would probably lead to recognition of the Armenian genocide by the entire world. If Israel recognizes it, U.S. President Barack Obama won’t be able to continue to remain on the sidelines either. What is true of genocide is also true of the battle against its denial: Anyone who is not on the side of the victims is on the side of the deniers.

Prof. Auron is a genocide scholar who has been working for years for recognition by Israel and the world of the Armenian genocide.

Pope Francis and Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II drove around the Vartanants Square in Gyumri in Papamobile following a Holy Mass in Armenia’s second largest city.

Vatican Radio – Pope Francis has sent the following telegram to the President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

Flying over Turkey on my pastoral visit to Armenia, I extend best wishes to Your Excellency and your fellow citizens, with prayers that the Most High will bestow upon all in the nation His choicest blessings.