Author: Kajoyan Gevork

KIM KARDASHIAN DIVORCE APRÈS 72 JOURS DE MARIAGE
Stephane

armenews.com
mercredi 2 novembre 2011

La vedette de la telerealite Kim Kardashian, 31 ans, a annonce hier (31
octobre) qu’elle avait demande le divorce a son mari, Kris Humphries,
seulement 72 jours après leur mariage qui a coûte 10 millions de
dollars, rapporte le magazine Us.

Kardashian a depose sa demande de divorce tôt hier matin a Los Angeles,
peu de temps après avoir epouse le joueur de basket-ball de la NBA,
le 20 août dernier, après neuf mois de frequentation.

Alors que de nombreuses speculations circulent, voulant que leur
relation ait ete inventee de toutes pièces seulement pour attirer
l’attention mediatique, des sources près de Kardashian affirment
maintenant qu’il s’agit d’une histoire beaucoup plus compliquee.

Une source declare : ” Elle est sincèrement amoureuse de l’amour. Elle
est toujours la fille qui griffonne le nom de son futur mari dans son
cahier de notes. Et c’est ce qui s’est produit. Elle est tombee très
amoureuse de lui alors qu’elle ne le connaissait pas reellement. Elle
a ete frappee très fort. ”

Alors que de nombreuses personnes continuent de croire que Kardashian
a peut-etre precipite les choses en demandant aussi rapidement le
divorce, la source insiste sur le fait qu’elle n’avait pas d’autre
choix.

” Elle ne voulait pas rester la et continuer a mentir en disant a quel
point elle etait heureuse dans son mariage alors qu’elle ne l’etait
pas. Elle a beaucoup de regrets “, declare la source. Soulignons
qu’après l’annonce du divorce de Kim, sa jeune s~ur Khloe a rapidement
pris sa defense en ecrivant sur sa page Twitter : ” Lire certains de
ces commentaires est tellement douloureux. Je suis reconnaissante
envers nos fans qui comprennent et qui sont respectueux. La haine
est degoutante. L’amour est tout. Dieu merci pour notre famille. Nous
sommes forts et nous deviendrons encore plus proches ! Je t’aime. ”

GEORGIE : UN OPPOSANT MILLIARDAIRE DENONCE DES PRESSIONS DES AUTORITES
Stephane

armenews.com
mercredi 2 novembre 2011

Un milliardaire georgien, qui a ete prive de sa nationalite georgienne
après s’etre lance en politique afin de defier le regime en place,
a accuse mardi les autorites d’exercer des pressions contre lui et
son entourage pour l’empecher de mener a bien sa carrière politique.

Le president Mikheïl “Saakachvili a annule ma citoyennete de manière
absolument illegale”, a declare cet homme d’affaires, Bidzina
Ivanichvili, lors de sa première conference de presse, retransmise
en direct a la television georgienne.

Il a ajoute qu’il allait contester la perte de sa citoyennete, sans
laquelle il ne peut creer un parti politique.

“Il y a des pressions a l’encontre de mes proches et des gens qui
partagent mes opinions”, a-t-il egalement indique.

Ce collectionneur d’art et philanthrope, dont la fortune est estimee
par le magazine Forbes a 4 milliards d’euros, a annonce le 7 octobre
son intention de creer un parti politique d’opposition.

Depuis, il s’est vu retirer sa citoyennete, en raison de l’obtention
d’un passeport francais, selon le service de l’Etat civil georgien,
et la police a saisi plusieurs millions de dollars a la banque qu’il
detient dans le cadre d’une enquete pour blanchiment d’argent.

M. Ivanichvili accuse le president Saakachvili d’avoir commis beaucoup
d'”erreurs impardonnables” et l’appelle a demissionner. De son côte,
le parti du president a accuse M. Ivanichvili, qui a fait fortune
en Russie et possède egalement la nationalite russe, d’etre “une
marionnette” de la Russie, pays avec lequel la Georgie a des relations
très tendues depuis un conflit arme en août 2008.

Mikheïl Saakachvili, un pro-occidental, elu pour un deuxième mandat en
janvier 2008 après avoir ete porte au pouvoir a la fin 2003 a l’issue
d’une mobilisation pacifique baptisee “Revolution de la rose”, doit
rester a la tete de la Georgie jusqu’en 2013.

MINORITIES RETRIEVE THEIR PROPERTY

Hurriyet
Oct 31 2011
Turkey

Representatives of Turkey’s minority communities have begun filing
lawsuits to retrieve confiscated property, following the recent
enactment of a new foundation law.

“We have had numerous gains due to the government of the Justice and
Development Party (AKP). We are going to solve our problems regarding
[our] appropriated lands through dialogue,” Bedros Å~^irinoglu,
president of Yedikule Surp Pırgic Hospital Foundation, told the
Hurriyet Daily News.

Certain Armenian and Anatolian Greek foundations, however, had already
started recovering some of their property before the new law went
into effect.

Turkey’s Armenian community took the lion’s share in retrieved
property, including the Selamet Han building in Istanbul’s Eminönu
district, which was granted to the Yedikule Surp Pırgic Hospital
Foundation by Kalust Gulbenkyan, the founder of the Gulbenkyan Museum
in Lisbon.

“There is nothing to be done about it, even if only a miniscule
payment was made during nationalization. We are only going to request
compensation for [property that was confiscated] without following
due legal processes,” Å~^irinoglu said.

The Anatolian Greek community also retrieved a historical school
building in Istanbul’s Galata district, while Anatolian Greek schools
that remained shut due to lack of attendance were also allowed to
obtain revenue before the law went into effect.

“Many more appeals have to be issued for all the minority foundations
to retrieve their rights,” Laki Vingas, the spokesman for Anatolian
Greek foundations and a member of the Foundations General Council,
told the Hurriyet Daily News.

The process for retrieving confiscated property is taking shape
normally, as it should be, Vingas said.

Members of the Syriac Christian and Bulgarian foundations also followed
suit and took legal action, even though the new law is relevant only
for Turkey’s Armenian, Jewish and Anatolian Greek communities, which
constitute the three officially recognized minorities as defined by
the Lausanne Treaty of 1923.

OSCE SECRETARY-GENERAL: TURKEY COULD PLAY A ROLE IN KARABAKH CONFLICT

Today’s Zaman

Nov 1 2011
Turkey

The newly elected secretary-general of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said on Tuesday that Turkey could
play an important role in the decades-long conflict in the disputed
area of Nagorno-Karabakh.

OSCE Secretary-General Lamberto Zannier, in an exclusive interview
with Today’s Zaman during the sixth trilateral summit between Turkey,
Afghanistan and Pakistan, said: “Turkey is an important player in
the region. It has a political contribution to offer.” In the early
1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh (predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians)
and seven adjacent regions (without any Armenian populations), which
were an integral part of Azerbaijan, became occupied by neighboring
country Armenia.

The historic conflict is especially important to Turkey in its
relations with neighbors Azerbaijan and Armenia. The current stalemate
is nothing new — the OSCE Minsk Group has been working to facilitate
negotiations since 1994 but to no avail. “I am stating a fact — it
[progress] is not happening. Something is missing,” said Zannier.

According to Zannier, Turkey’s involvement need not be an official
one. “I am not talking about a formal role in the negotiations,
but in real terms. Turkey is bordering both countries involved in
the conflict,” he said.

Zannier, emphasizing the importance of dialogue in solving any
conflict, ventured, “My very personal view is that Turkey needs to
create conditions to promote dialogue on both sides.”

But how Turkey goes about this specifically is “Turkey’s call,”
Zannier added. “I am not saying we have a monopoly, but why shouldn’t
it be the OSCE? It is a regional organization that deals with security
issues. There is a debate that we should move the issues somewhere
else but I am not convinced that moving it elsewhere would solve the
problem. There is nothing wrong with the organization dealing with
the problem. The problem is the substance of the issue,” he said in
response to criticisms of the OSCE’s handling of the conflict.

While the OSCE is doing the best it can, Zannier said it is up to the
parties involved in the conflict to step up to the plate. Zannier
stressed there must be political will on behalf of the parties to
end the historic conflict. “What I said this morning was there is a
lot of focus on the mechanism, but there is also an issue of whether
the parties are ready to make a deal,” he said.

While Zannier said that the mechanism could perhaps be improved,
he also emphasized that in the end the power lies with the member
countries. “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot force
the horse to drink. It is a bit the same. We are trying to create
the necessary conditions in the meantime. We are trying to manage
the situation on the ground, but the situation becomes problematic
in security terms,” he said. The next step, according to the OSCE
secretary general, is ensuring the problem does not escalate further.

“[In general,] if we cannot line up all of the conditions and solve
the conflict, then the next best thing we can do is manage the problem
so it does not grow worse. So that is our next step. It is up to
everyone to keep making efforts from different angles,” he stressed.

GREAT GAME REVISITED

Hurriyet
Nov 1 2011
Turkey

The Great Game is the name given to the strategic rivalry between
the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central
Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the British
novelist Rudyard Kipling who named that rivalry the “Great Game”
in his famous novel “Kim” published in 1907.

The Great Game between the two superpowers of the time roughly
starts with the 1813 Turkmenchay treaty between Russia and Persia,
after which Yerevan fell under Russian control. In a wider sense,
the Greek independence of 1821, the Baltalimanı agreement between
Turkey, Russia and Britain in 1838, the Crimean War of 1853-56, the
fall of Kars to Russia in 1856, the Turco-Russian war of 1877-78,
where the advance of the Russian army over Romania and Bulgaria
was literally only stopped at the gates of Istanbul at YeÅ~_ilköy
(where the Istanbul airport stands today) by a British ultimatum,
were the game’s developments on the western front.

The Russian army then turned its face to the east. There, the
British East India Company had already organized Indians to topple
the 300-year-old Turkic-origin Mughal Empire in 1857 at the same time
that the British had begun an advance toward the north, mainly in the
direction of Afghanistan. If Afghanistan could be reached, the vast
resources of Central Asia would be under British control. Russia did
not want that and saw Afghanistan as its backyard. So the eastern
advance of the Russian Army to conquer Central Asia and Siberia
started. Afghanistan was the point where they came to a stalemate.

The game entered a new stage when Mahatma Gandhi’s movement succeeded
in winning India’s independence from Britain in 1947. The same year,
Pakistan was founded by the Muslims of India. The United Kingdom
supported this partition. Pakistan was a strong territory between
India under (Soviet-ruled) Moscow control and Afghanistan. The conflict
between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir region is a remnant of the
Great Game over Central Asia, because the geographical key is there.

The third stage came with the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979,
which led to two things: It sped up the collapse of the Soviet Union
and it supported the rise of Islamist fundamentalism. The latter was
an American bright idea made possible with the help of Pakistan against
the Russians, but it backfired badly as we can see today in many ways.

Now, Pakistan is being pressed by the West not to support Islamists
in Afghanistan. It is accused of sponsoring terrorism under the
protection of nuclear missiles it keeps against its rival India.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul met with Pakistan President Asif Ali
Zardari and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai yesterday in Istanbul
to convince them to find a face-saving solution for both prior to an
international conference there.

What is going on can be named as the Great Game revisited; but perhaps
it has never ended in the first place.

GEORGIA-ARMENIA RIFT DENIED

news.az
Nov 1 2011
Azerbaijan

Georgia’s deputy foreign minister has dismissed media reports of
deterioration in relations with Armenia.

Nino Kalandadze told a press conference in Tbilisi on Monday that
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan had had to reschedule, not cancel,
a visit to Georgia planned for early November.

The media speculated that the trip had been cancelled because of
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s criticism of the Armenian
response to a fatal landslide near the border with Georgia.

Two Georgian citizens were among the five people killed by the
landslide.

“Information that a certain state was outraged by statements by
another state is not true,” Kalandadze said. “Georgia and Armenia
are on good terms, while the presidents of the two countries have
especially good relations.”

She said that the date for Sargsyan’s visit to Tbilisi was being
sorted out.

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER MAY RESIGN

news.am
Nov 1 2011
Armenia

YEREVAN.- Armenian Parliament Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan will resign,
spokesperson for the ruling Republican Party Eduard Sharmazaov told
Armenian News-NEWS.am.

He said that on Tuesday the meeting of executive body of Republican
Party took place. Leader of the ruling party President Serzh Sargsyan
put forward candidacy of Abrahamyan for the post of head of campaign
office during the forthcoming elections.

Hovik Abrahamyan accepted the offer and suggested to hand in
resignation on his own initiative to manage to concentrate on the
election process.

CLINTON BELIEVES TURKEY WILL RATIFY PROTOCOLS WITH ARMENIA

news.am
Nov 1 2011
Armenia

WASHINGTON. – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton participated
in dinner devoted to the Turkish-American conference. Clinton touched
upon the regulation process of Armenian-Turkish relations.

She stated that the progress in Armenian-Turkish relations would be
a positive step. She believes that the current government will ratify
the Armenian-Turkish protocols, Turkish Anadolu agency reports.

State Secretary also spoke on regional issues stressing Turkey’s role.

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT SPEAKER RESIGNS ON THE EVE OF ELECTIONS

Vestnik Kavkaza
Nov 1 2011

The speaker of the Armenian parliament, Hovik Abrahamyan, will
resign on the eve of elections, NEWS.am reports, referring to the
press secretary of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA),
Eduard Sharmazanov.

Sharmazanov said that Serzh Sargsyan, the President of Armenia and
the leader of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, has nominated
Hovik Abrahamyan as the chief of staff at the upcoming elections at
a meeting of the executive body of the Republican Party. Abrahamyan
will resign from the post of speaker of parliament in order to attract
all attention to the elections.

‘INSTABILITY ROOTED IN EXTERNAL SUPPORT OF EXTREMISM’

Russia Today

Nov 1 2011

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has named regions
forming an “arc of instability” in the Caucasus and Middle East and,
consequently, causing major concerns for the body.

The organization is made up of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

“Events in Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria and
Karachaevo-Cherkessia have had a destabilizing impact on the
situation in the Caucasus,” stated CSTO Deputy Secretary-General
Valery Semerikov during a round-table discussion on Tuesday. He went
on to say that those Russian republics have become the “epicenter
of externally-supported criminal extremist activities” which shifted
there from Chechnya.

“In particular, serious problems that determine the state of security
in the Caucasus region are the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and efforts
to deal with the aftermath of the August 2008 crisis,” Semerikov added.

The territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and the unrecognized
republic of Nagorny-Karabakh dates back to 1991. When Nagorny-Karabakh,
which used to be part of the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, declared
independence, a deadly military conflict broke OUT. THE END OF THE
WAR THREE YEARS LATER DID NOT LEAD TO A settlement.

Recent developments, namely Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia
in 2008, added to the unstable security situation in the Caucasus.

Afghanistan, which is in close proximity to the CSTO area of
responsibility, is another part of the “instability arc”, according
to the body’s deputy head.

“There’s been no progress in Afghanistan,” Semerikov noted. “Only
last year around 7,000 civilians were killed.”

The country remains a major stronghold of terrorism, he stressed,
adding that the withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan will
have “a direct impact on the situation in Central Asia”. Together
with Pakistan, which possesses nuclear weapons, they could become an
“extremely dangerous source of tension.”