Author: Kanayan Tamar

Cher has tweeted the poster of the Armenian Genocide film “The Promise.

Debut of the poster ~ See on April 21 and watch the trailer

— Cher (@cher)

“This film broke my heart,” Cher said.

Empires fall, love survives. When Michael (Oscar Isaac), a brilliant medical student, meets Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), their shared Armenian heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between Michael and Ana’s boyfriend Chris (Christian Bale), a famous American photojournalist dedicated to exposing political truth.

As the Ottoman Empire crumbles into war-torn chaos, their conflicting passions must be deferred while they join forces to get their people to safety and survive themselves. The Promise is directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Terry George.

The Promise hits theaters April 21.

Azeri human rights activists, journalists and political dissidents have been the targets of a fraudulent and sustained ‘spear phishing’ campaign using emails and Facebook chat, apparently aimed at gaining access to their personal information and private communications, said Amnesty International in a new report launched today.

The investigation reveals that the attacks, which can compromise passwords and contacts, have been directed at various government critics for the past 13 months. Victims told Amnesty International they believed the Azerbaijani authorities are behind the attacks.

“Our research reveals that a targeted and coordinated cyber campaign is being waged against critical voices in Azerbaijan, many of whom are long-time victims of government repression,” said Claudio Guarnieri, Senior Technologist at Amnesty International.

“The malware used has been designed with the express intention of gathering as much private information as possible about a target. Given the profiles of those targeted, it is not hard to see why victims believe the authorities are responsible.”

The report, , details how victims have been targeted using a practice known as ‘spear phishing’, which involves an email with an attachment containing a virus – known as malware – being sent to a target from a fake address.

New South Wealth Premier Gladys Berejiklian has posed for a fashion spread in The Australian Women’s Weekly, the reports.

According to the source, Berejiklian chose to wear a black dress by her close friend Carla Zampatti in the shot obtained by Fairfax Media. She also turned down a Giorgio Armani ensemble that had been borrowed for the shoot, instead preferring to be photographed in her own pink jacket bought from fast-fashion chain Zara.

“This is my lucky dress. I bought it on sale,” she told the magazine.

The Premier was interviewed for the corresponding feature twice and opens up about her father, her relatives in war-torn Aleppo and the decision to remain childless, an issue that is framed as her “life choice”.

“I’ve never made a conscious decision to choose work over other considerations. It’s just the way it’s happened in my life and I’m very happy with where I am,” she said.

“Although we are a national magazine, we chose to profile Gladys because she is only the 10th female state government leader ever and the second in NSW. We are fierce supporters of all women, whatever their politics,” The Australian Women’s Weekly’s editor-in-chief Kim Doherty told Fairfax Media.

“Gladys has a classic Australian story to tell. In these days of division over immigration, she is an inspiring success story. As she told us, she only spoke Armenian until the age of five.”

In a video shared on You Tube, Manchester United’s Paul Pogba says a phrase in Armenian.

“What’s up, man?” Pogba says in the video.

On June 2, 1915 Ottoman Interior Minister Talaat Pasha sent a secret telegram to the Governor of Ankara, instructing to hand over the arrested Armenian intellectuals to the Military Court of Diyarbakir.

Despite the telegram, the Armenian intellectuals arrested and exiled to the city of Ayas were brutally killed without any judicial proceedings.

US-based researcher Gevorg Hakobyan has provided the copy of the document to .

 

– Armenian institutions in Argentina have issued a joint statement “rejecting” the visit of the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, to Argentina and South America.

“Not only is Çavuşoğlu the representative of the State that committed the crime against humanity, but his figure constitutes the executing arm of the negationist policy historically adopted by Turkey,” denounces the text, noting that as Minister of Foreign Affairs “Çavuşoğlu devoted his work to intimidate anyone who recognizes or even names the Armenian Genocide, as were the cases of Russia, the European Parliament and the Vatican in 2015 and Germany and the United States in 2016.”

“On several occasions, Çavuşoğlu repeated that any pronouncement on the matter not coming from the parties (Armenia-Turkey) prejudices the reconciliation between the two peoples. However, they only criticize the statements that are not ‘favorable’ to Turkey, as they do not issue statements when the Azerbaijani denialist president, Ilham Aliyev, speaks of the ‘Armenian lies’, for example. Another pattern of double standard and lies of Çavuşoğlu are seen in what they call ‘just memory,’ a concept very similar to the infamous ‘theory of the two demons’ in Argentina, when they appeal to ‘the sufferings of all parties’ as a new stage of negationism. This implies that Armenians and Turks were two different parties to a conflict, and did not constitute a State-citizen relationship. Çavuşoğlu went on to say that Pope Francis ‘discriminated between the sufferings’ when he spoke of the Armenian Genocide.”

“We consider that his work as Minister of Foreign Affairs consists solely in exporting the model of censorship to freedom of expression maintained by the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan against his own people,” said the statement. “This is evidenced in the many occasions when Turkish diplomacy lobbied to block resolutions of solidarity with the Armenian people throughout the region of South America.”

“Law 13.326 of Uruguay and Law 26.199 of Argentina, as well as resolution 550/2015 of the Federal Senate of Brazil are pillars of the Human Rights policy in our region, and they form an indispensable standard. In this context, we urge the authorities responsible for the foreign policy of our countries to avoid joining any of the manifold manifestations of the negationism and totalitarianism of the Turkish State,” finished the statement.

A petition to stop US President Donald Trump’s UK state visit has gathered more than a million signatures, the BBC reports.

Numbers of signatories have been rising rapidly since a US clampdown on immigration came into effect over the weekend, causing anger worldwide.

PM Theresa May announced the visit during her recent US trip. Downing Street has rejected calls for it to be cancelled as a “populist gesture.”

On Saturday afternoon the petition had just 60 signatures but reached 100,000 needed to be considered for debate by Parliament just after midday on Sunday.

MPs will discuss the debate on Tuesday.

Two postage stamps dedicated to the 25^th anniversary of formation of the Armenian Army were cancelled and put into circulation today.

The postage stamps with nominal values of 280 AMD have been printed at “Cartor” printing house in France.

One of the postage stamps depicts some types of the RA Armed Forces troops and the second stamp depicts a row of the Armenian soldiers in combination with the waving Armenian tricolor. Both postage stamps carry the coat of arms of RA Armed Forces. The author of the stamps’ design is the designer of “HayPost” CJSC, Vahagn Mkrtchyan.

The postage stamps were cancelled by the RA Minster of Defense Vigen Sargsyan, the RA Minister of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies Vahan Martirosyan, the Managing Director of “HayPost Trust Management” B.V. Juan Pablo Gechidjian and the holder of the second-class Order of the Combat Cross, soldier Narek Malkhasyan.

Date of issue: January 27, 2017

Designer: Vahagn Mkrtchyan

Printing house: Cartor, France

Size: 40,0 x 30,0 mm

Print run: 40 000 pcs x 2

The situation was relatively calm at the line of contact between the armed force of Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh last night, the NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The rival violated the ceasefire about 15 times in due period, firing over 140 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The Azeri forces used an antitank grenade launcher in the eastern direction, the Ministry said.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army refrained from response actions and continued with the reliable protection of the military posts.

Photo: Reuters/Fatih Saribas

 

Turkish authorities must intensify their efforts to find the masterminds behind the killing of prominent Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, said today.

“Year after year, we remember the anniversary of Hrant Dink’s murder, honouring his brave words advocating for minority rights, and paying tribute to his exceptional efforts to create peace,” said the Representative. “But we do so knowing that even a decade on, the masterminds behind this tragedy are still at large.”

On 19 January 2007, Dink, the editor of the Armenian-Turkish bilingual Agos magazine, was shot dead in front of the weekly’s Istanbul offices. Although his murderer was arrested and sentenced to more than 22 years in prison, the investigation into uncovering the masterminds of the crime remains open.

“I urge the authorities of Turkey to increase their efforts to ensure that justice is served and to provide closure for the friends and family of Hrant Dink after an agonizing decade of questions. Authorities must reinforce the vital message to society that those who commit violence against journalists can not do so with impunity.”

The Representative has frequently called on OSCE participating States to end impunity for violence against and killing of journalists.