Author: Tambiyan Samvel

On 24 October Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan received OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Igor Popov (Russian Federation), Pierre Andrieu (France), James Warlick (USA), personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and accompanying them officials.

Issues related to the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement and recent developments were discussed during the meeting.
President Sahakyan noted that Azerbaijan maintains its non-constructive stance of violating the ceasefire regime and continues to pursue an anti-Armenian policy.

The President highlighted the necessity of elaborating the mechanisms of maintaining the ceasefire regime and revealing the violations,  considering it among pivotal components of the peace process.
President Sahakyan expressed gratitude to retired co-chairman Pierre Andrieu for honest and efficient work wishing him successes in life and future career.

About 40 cases of ceasefie violations by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night, the NKR Defense Army reports.

The rival used firearms of differenet calibes as it fied more than 600 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army keep control of the situation at the frontline and confidently continue with their military duty.

Photo: AP

 

A man named Vladimir Putin – who is not the Russian president – has been arrested in a Florida supermarket on trespassing charges.

The 48-year-old man, who shares the same name as the Russian leader, was arrested on charges of trespassing and resisting an officer without violence at a Publix supermarket in downtown West Palm Beach last week.

Police said Mr Putin was screaming at employees and refused to leave the supermarket. He then left and returned again to scream some more.

Mr Putin was asked to leave the property again but sat outside on its patio instead, 

A police report said Mr Putin initially refused to give officers his name.

Mr Putin appeared in court on Monday morning and was released with another court date set for September.

Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan had a phone conversation with Iran’s First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri today.

The interlocutors hailed the relations between the two countries, which keep developing in an atmosphere of mutual trust.

The parties discussed a wide range of issues related to the further expansion and deepening of economic cooperation between Armenia an Iran.

PM Abrahamyan asked Eshaq Jahangiri to increase the volume of gas supply to Armenia, considering that the delivery of Russian natural gas to Armenia has been halted for a month because of reconstruction works  on the damaged parts of the pipeline on the Georgian territory. The response from the Iranian side was positive.

Other issue of mutual interest were also discussed.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has issued a message on World Population Day:

The international community has committed to a new sustainable development agenda built on the principles of equity and human rights.  A central objective of the Sustainable Development Goals is to leave no one behind.

Despite significant gains made in reducing poverty and improving opportunity and well-being for many people around the world, hundreds of millions remain desperate for a chance of a better future.  Among those least served by previous development initiatives are girls, particularly those in their formative teenage years.

Just when girls should be in school and imagining the possibilities ahead, too many are held back from pursuing their ambitions by social and cultural traps.  While a boy’s options and opportunities tend to expand when he becomes an adolescent, those of a girl too often shrink.  Half of all sexual assaults worldwide are committed against girls aged 15 or younger.  In developing countries, one in three girls is married before she reaches 18.  And teenage girls are less likely than teenage boys to start or finish secondary school.

Rectifying these inequalities is critical for the success of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  That is why it includes the specific Goal of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.  On this World Population Day, I urge all Governments, businesses and civil society to support and invest in teenage girls.  Everyone deserves the benefits of economic growth and social progress.  Let us work together to ensure a life of security, dignity and opportunity for all.

Photo: AFP

 

Two Palestinian gunmen killed four people and wounded six others after opening fire at a popular open-air shopping and restaurant area of central Tel Aviv, Israeli authorities say, the BBC reports.

The attacks took place in two locations in Sarona Market, close to Israel’s defence ministry and main army HQ.

Police said the gunmen were from Yatta, a Palestinian village near the West Bank town of Hebron.

Both are in custody. One is undergoing surgery in hospital, police added.

There has been a rise in Palestinian attacks on Israelis since last year, with a series of shootings, stabbings and car rammings, although the number of incidents had dropped in recent months.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the scene of the attack late on Wednesday, called it “a savage crime of murder and terrorism”.

DHA photo

 

At least fourteen people were killed in southern Turkey on June 5 when a bus carrying schoolchildren on an excursion plunged off the road and into a canal, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

The bus had been bringing the pupils back from an excursion to the well-known archaeological site of Karatepe outside the city of Osmaniye when it flipped over into the canal.

It said that the driver had lost control of the vehicle and an investigation was underway.

Twenty four people were being treated for injuries in hospital. Of those killed, three were female pupils, three were boys and eight were adults.

Pictures showed a crane hoisting the bus out of the water watched by horrified onlookers.

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.

Lusine Avanesyan
Public Radio of Armenia
Stepanakert

The Last Bell rang in all Artsakh schools today except those in war-affected Talish and Mataghis. Children from the two villages now attend schools in neighboring settlements.

The heroes of the April war, who are only a few years older than today’s graduates, were special guests in all schools.

The soldiers, who protect the border just several kilometers away, congratulated the parents, students and teachers for organizing the graduation ceremony, which symbolizes the return to peaceful life.

For the full report in Armenian click .

The Foreign Ministry of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic issued the following statement today:

On May 17, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry voiced another farfetched accusation of the alleged use of prohibited ammunition, including shells with white phosphorus, during the military operations on April 2-5, 2016.

Continuing its usual campaign of disinformation of the international community, Azerbaijan does not disdain resorting to fraud and outright manipulation. To add weight to its propaganda, the Azerbaijani side tries to involve foreign diplomats and military attaches accredited in Azerbaijan.

Falsification and distortion of the reality have long become regular, constituting an integral part of Azerbaijan’s foreign policy. Back in 1992, the Azerbaijani side made similar accusations of the alleged use of chemical weapons, which were then denied by the UN special fact-finding mission. Based on the findings and conclusions of the UN experts set forth in the UN Security Council document S/24344 dated July 24, 1992, the UN Secretary-General noted that “no evidence of the use of chemical weapons had been presented to the team”.

In subsequent years, the Azerbaijani side has been making similar absurd and unconfirmed accusations of the use of nuclear weapons against Azerbaijan in 1993 and disposal of nuclear wastes in the NKR (PACE document N 9444 dated May 7, 2002), transformation of Armenia and the NKR to a depot of bacteriological weapons (PACE document N9336 dated January 31, 2002), cultivation and production of drugs, etc. In doing so, the Azerbaijani side referred to nonexistent scientific journals, reports, organizations, and laboratories.

Resurrecting its old allegations, Azerbaijan does not only try to justify its policy of use of force and denial of full and strict compliance with the ceasefire agreements of 1994 and 1995, on which the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairing countries insist, but also aims to distract the attention from the real war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani army against the military servicemen and civilian population of the NKR.

In this regard, we call on the international community to treat the unfounded statements of the Azerbaijani side with utmost criticism.

For its part, the NKR is ready to host a special monitoring mission for an on-site study of all the facts and investigation of the circumstances of the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan on April 2-5, 2016, as well as the violations of the norms of international humanitarian law committed during that period.