President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and President of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan visited a number of military units located in the northeastern and southern parts of Artsakh and held consultations with the command staff.
A wide range of issues related to the current situation and the course of service was on the agenda of the consultations.
The Defense Ministers of the two Armenian states and representatives of supreme command staff accompanied the Presidents.
AFP/Getty ImagesImage
At least 413 people are now known to have died in the earthquake that struck Ecuador, the country’s government says, the BBC reports.
The 7.8-magnitude quake struck Ecuador’s Pacific coast on Saturday, and the search for survivors continues.
The cost of rebuilding is likely to be in the billions of dollars, President Rafael Correa said during a visit to the worst-affected region.
He said it was the biggest tragedy to hit Ecuador in the past seven decades. Some 2,500 people were injured.
Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist from Azerbaijan, has been chosen to receive the 2016 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, according to .
An independent international jury of media professionals recommended Ms Ismayilova in recognition of her outstanding contribution to press freedom in difficult circumstances.
“Khadija Ismayilova highly deserves the Prize and I am happy to see that her courage and professionalism are recognized,” said Ljiljana Zurovac, President of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2016 Jury.
Ms Ismayilova, a freelance journalist and contributor to the Azerbaijani service of Radio Free Europe, was detained in December 2014, and, in September 2015, was sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment on charges relating to abuse of power and tax evasion.
The Prize will be awarded during the celebration of World Press Freedom Day, 3 May, hosted by Finland this year.
Created by UNESCO’s Executive Board in 1997, the annual UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize honours a person, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and, or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, and especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger.
The $25,000 Prize is named in honour of Guillermo Cano Isaza, a Colombian journalist who was assassinated in front of the offices of his newspaper, El Espectador, in Bogotá, on 17 December 1986. It is funded by the Cano Foundation (Colombia) and the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (Finland).
An Azeri drone had attacked a bus carrying Armenian volunteers to Nagorno-Karabakh, killing five people, Armenpess quotes Defensy Ministry Spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan as saying.
The bus carrying volunteers from Sisian came under Azeri fire on its way to Martakert. The heads of Darbas and Akhlatyan communities were among the victims.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin has urged the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to step up efforts towards settlement of the Karabakh conflict.
“Concerned about the serious aggravation of the situation in Nagorno Karabakh. I urge the OSCE MG co-chairs to step up negotiations for a settlement,” Klimkin said in a Twitter post.
Concerned about the serious aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. I call on the co-chairs of the OSCE MG to intensify negotiations for a settlement.
— Pavlo Klimkin (@PavloKlimkin)
The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will meet in Vienna on Monday, US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick said in a Twitter post.
“The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will meet in Vienna on Monday and convene the Minsk Group on Tuesday to address violence in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Warlick tweeted.
The Co-Chairs will meet in Vienna on Monday and convene the Minsk Group on Tuesday to address violence in Nagorno-.
— James Warlick (@AmbJamesWarlick)
Armenia firmly supports Russia’s position on the Syrian issue, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I reiterate that we firmly support Russia’s stance on the Syrian issue, welcome the agreements with the United States on the cessation of hostilities and commitment to a political settlement in this matter,” Sargsyan said.
The leaders of the two countries discussed a wide range of issues on bilateral agenda, referred to the perspectives of development of integration processes within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union and exchanged views on international and regional challenges.
Presidents Sargsyan and Putin discussed issues related to the current stage of settlement of the Karabakh conflict and the perspectives of furthering the process.
President Sargsyan thanked Putin for the efforts towards the resolution of the Karabakh conflict and assured of Armenia’s commitment to the peace process.
Massis Post – Four outstanding scholars and researchers will speak at “From Musa Dagh to the Warsaw Ghetto: Armenian and Jewish Armed Resistance to Genocide,” on Thursday, March 31, 2016, at 8:00 p.m. at Harvard University, Science Center Auditorium D, 1 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA.
The featured speakers are Eric Bogosian, actor, playwright, and author of Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot That Avenged the Armenian Genocide; Dr. Deborah Dwork, Rose Professor of Holocaust History and Director, Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University; Dr. Dikran Kaligian, Managing Editor, Armenian Review, and author of Armenian Organization and Ideology Under Ottoman Rule, 1908-1914; and Dr. James R. Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University. Marc A. Mamigonian, Director of Academic Affairs at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), will serve as moderator.
This special symposium is co-sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University, the Mashtots Chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research. The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served during an intermission.
Professor Salo Baron famously bemoaned what he called the “lachrymose” approach to Jewish history—a focus on powerlessness, homelessness, victimhood, and catastrophe. As the study of the Holocaust has developed we know that the image of the Jews of Europe as sheep to the slaughter is at best inaccurate. There were many instances of organized resistance (ghetto fighters and forest partisans), and of retaliation (the killing of SS prisoners) at the end of World War II. The same situation obtains for the study of the Armenian Genocide of 1915: as well as exploring the events and commemorating the martyrs, we now know much more than before about self-defense (at Van, for instance) and retribution (Operation Nemesis).
The Armenian Genocide was a precursor to the Holocaust: the Nazis admired both the Ottoman “final solution” of the Armenian Question and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s subsequent corporate nationalist régime, which completed that process and retroactively cleansed the historical record. In the interwar years and during the Holocaust, Jews knew of the Armenians’ fate and compared it to their own, even drawing inspiration during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel’s novel about a desperate act of Armenian self-defense a generation before.
Although there are many affinities between Armenians and Jews there are also historical and present geo-political factors that divide them. The conference is intended not only to shed light on the modern historical affinities, but to bring students, faculty, and community members into a positive dialogue about the future. The resistance of under-armed and outnumbered civilians to the overwhelming force of totalitarian states with genocidal ideologies also raises important questions about the relation of the individual to the system; the nature of the rule of law, and of international relations; strategies for overcoming conformity, passivity, and fear; and the parameters of human moral responsibility. All of these are as immediate now as they were in the two fateful conflicts of the past century.
The German Bundestag held a debate on the Armenian Genocide today but did not vote on the bill proposed by the Alliance 90/The Greens. The ruling coalition said it’s not the proper time to adopt the bill and proposed to continue the discussions in the coming weeks to prepare a new finalized document until April 24, 2016.
Chairman of the Alliance 90/The Greens Cem Ozdemir agreed to withdraw his bill on condition that the new document to be agreed before April 24 clearly mentions the events of 1915 as genocide, accepts Germany’s role in the massacre and contributes to the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations.
The issue was brought to the agenda by the Alliance 90/The Greens, which has always urged to describe the events of 1915 as ‘genocide.’
Addressing the Bundestag today, Ozdemir said “the authorities have no common stance on the issue out of the fear to irritate Erdogan. “I don’t understand why we cannot vote for this bill. We should do that for the simple reason of clearing our conscience,” he said.
“Turkey is distorting its own history, while our goal is to establish the truth. A clear message on the part of Germany could change a lot,” Ozdemir said.
Klaus Brähmig of CDU/CSU said, in turn, that “the current Turkish authorities are not responsible for their ancestors, but can take steps to improve relations with Armenia.”
“Today we need no reports criticizing Turkey. Instead, we need steps that will contribute to the settlement of the migrants’ issue. Judging from our own history, we can say that no matter how actively we invite Turkey to assess their own past, their people must be ready for it. It will happen, when there is no pressure from the outside. Therefore, we cannot vote in favor of this resolution,” he said.
“We need to respect ourselves and refrain from kissing Turkey’s eyes every time. You asked for time, and we gave you plenty,” Ozdemir told the coalition. “Turkey speaks of civilized society, but persecutes journalists who dare speak openly,” he added.
“If we really manage to work out a new document before April 24 on the basis of the three above-mentioned points, we’ll say “We are with you.” But when time comes, you’ll find other obstacles,” Chairman of the Greens Party said.
The bill debated today noted that “the German Bundestag bows to the victims of forced displacement and massacre of the Armenians and Aramaeans, Assyrians and other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire, which began 100 years ago. It deplored the actions of the then Turkish government, almost full annihilation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
The resolution noted that “the fate of the Armenians stands as exemplary in the history of mass exterminations, ethnic cleansing, deportations and yes, genocide, which marked the 20th century in such a terrible way.” German President Joachim Gauck used the same wording as he addressed a commemoration ceremony on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
The bill stated that “An honest appraisal of history is the most important basis for reconciliation.”
The bill also referred to the German role in the Armenian Genocide, noting that “today’s German authorities are obliged to contribute to the resumption of the Armenian-Turkish relations, opening of the shared border.”
Unlike the resolution adopted by the Bundestag in 2005, the bill considered today clearly described the events as “genocide.”
US President Barack Obama is to visit Cuba in the coming weeks as part of a broader trip to Latin America, the BBC reports.
He will be only the second sitting US president in history to travel to the island, after Calvin Coolidge in 1928.
US Republicans have criticised the visit, saying it should not take place while the Castro family is in power.
Washington and Havana restored diplomatic ties last July and the US relaxed travel and trade restrictions after a 54-year freeze.