On April 17, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Karen Mirzoyan received Member of the European Parliament Jaromir Štětina (Czech Republic). Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the Republic of Armenia Artak Zakaryan accompanied the guest on his visit to Artsakh.
The sides exchanged views on the large-scale military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan on April 2-5 against the NKR and its consequences.
The NKR Foreign Minister noted that it was a long prepared and deliberate attempt by Azerbaijan to disrupt the peace process and solve the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict by force, which had failed. He stressed that during the aggression Azerbaijani armed forces had committed war crimes which were accompanied by mass violations of laws and customs of war as well as the international humanitarian law.
During the meeting sides also touched upon a number of issues concerning the strengthening and development of ties between Artsakh and the European Union.
Armenia is ranked 121st among 156 countries in the released today. Denmark is still the happiest country in the world followed by Switzerland and Iceland. The top ten also includes Norway, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Sweden.
Armenia’s neighbors are ranked as follows: Georgia – 126th, Azerbaijan – 81st, Turkey – 78th, Iran – 105th.
Our partners in the Eurasian Economic Union Kazakhstan and Russia are placed 54th and 56th respectively, Belarus is 61st, Kyrgyzstan – 85th.
The World Happiness Report 2016 Update prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the Earth Institute at Columbia University looked at data recording how highly people evaluate their lives on a scale running from 0 to 10. The rankings are based on surveys in 156 countries covering the three years 2013-2015.
The World Happiness Report 2016 Update, which ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels, was released today in Rome in advance of UN World Happiness Day, March 20th.
Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who worked with the poor in the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta) is to be declared a saint on 4 September, Pope Francis has announced, the BBC reports.
She founded a sisterhood that runs 19 homes, and won the Nobel Peace Prize.
She died in 1997 aged 87 and was beatified in 2003, the first step to sainthood.
The Pope cleared the way for sainthood last year when he recognised a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa.
– Twenty-five years ago a new church was consecrated in the town of Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria, dedicated to the Armenians killed en masse in 1915. Ironically the building erected in memory of the victims of violence has now been destroyed by bombs.
In the basement of the Armenian Martyrs’ Memorial Church in Deir al-Zour lay a shrine – a sunken area filled with sand, and laid on top, a pile of human remains.
“I was so shocked. I just stood and looked at the bones,” says British-Armenian writer Nouritza Matossian, who visited the church in 2001.
“Everybody was hushed, it was silent in there. We were all lost in our thoughts. It was really quite an isolated moment. It wasn’t pulling at you to cry or weep. It was just very simple and dignified and noble.”
Photo: Fly Photography USA
A stone pillar rose up through the ceiling, into the church and up to the roof.
“I looked at this beautiful shrine and I thought, ‘What an amazing idea to have taken this column which was like a tree, rooted in the ground, and take it right up through the body of the church, right up into the cupola and up into the sky,’” she says.
It was not an old building – the Syrian government had approved its construction in the 1980s and it was consecrated in 1991 in memory of Armenians who died in 1915.
Matossian’s ancestors were among those caught up in the events a century ago. As the Ottoman Empire crumbled, hundreds of thousands of Armenians, mainly from eastern Anatolia, were rounded up and sent hundreds of miles away across the Syrian Desert.
Some were forced to walk, while others were taken in trains and caravans to the city of Deir al-Zour.
Photo: Nouritza Matossian
Matossian’s grandfather, Hovhannes, had already left Antep – now Gaziantep in Turkey – after an outbreak of violence in the 1890s. Although he had moved to Cyprus, the rest of his family stayed behind and were eventually deported.
They were “driven across these deserts starving, without water, stripped naked, their clothes were torn off their backs everything was taken from them,” says Matossian.
“Deir al- Zour was the end of the road, it was the last Ottoman outpost into the desert in the eastern part of Syria,” says Heghnar Watenpaugh, a Lebanese-Armenian historian at the University of California, Davis. “Beyond that there’s really nothing, no settlements.
“Very few people made it there, and once they made it they were killed outright, or just succumbed to disease and starvation.”
In 2014, it was blown up during fighting between the so-called Islamic State group and the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front. The central church of the complex was almost completely demolished.
“It’s a very dark moment in our life, in our history. I never thought this could be repeated,” says Matossian.
“It’s a very dark moment in our life, in our history. I never thought this could be repeated,” says Matossian.
Photo: Alamy
Before the Syrian civil war, there were an estimated 100,000 ethnic Armenians in Syria – most of them descendants of those who survived the deportations. There were small communities in cities across the country but the majority, more than 60,000, settled in Aleppo.
For many of them Aleppo “is like a sacred word, a magical incantation,” says Watenpaugh. “All of our families went through Aleppo at some point during the deportations. For some, it was a place where salvation was possible, where you could bribe your way out of the deportation or find some way to escape.”
She says Armenian women were often taken by Bedouin families, sometimes willingly and sometimes by force.
“They became part of extended Bedouin households and the concubines or wives of various Bedouin men.
“Today, when Bedouin come to Aleppo on business and go to a store run by an Armenian they will often call the Armenians of Aleppo khalo – brother of my mother. That’s because there is this very strong connection between the Bedouin who know that their mothers or grandmothers were Armenians.”
Nouritza Matossian’s great-aunt was one of the Armenian women picked up by local Bedouin. Years later, she was spotted in Aleppo.
Photo: Getty Images
“Our relations saw her in the bazaar, and they recognised her, they called out her name – Berjouhi,” says Matossian.
“She recognized them but there were children with her, and she swept up her children and disappeared into the crowd. She was married or she was living with these people and she didn’t want to leave her children behind.
“Her face was covered in tattoos. In order to assimilate them, the Bedouin made them change their religion, and they tattooed their women – it was a sort of tribal thing.”
Deir al-Zour made a deep impression on Matossian and she returned to the city in 2007.
She bought a small box there inside is a tiny cross made of olive wood, two ears of wheat, two little candles, incense, and a tube of soil.
“The priest told me that that is the earth of Deir al-Zour. Some people take earth from where they’re born and they spread it on their grave when they die. This soil has that significance,” she says.
“I always keep this box within eyesight, on my desk. I never expected that one day I would be looking at this box and that church would be gone, destroyed. It’s very hard to accept.”
Indian police said Monday a man has been charged with murdering his friend after a heated argument over whether Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s best footballer, Agence France-Presse reports.
They said the Nigerian national stabbed one of his countrymen to death after the two of them wrangled over whether the Barcelona star or the Real Madrid forward was better.
Police Inspector Kiran Kabadi told AFP an offence of murder had been registered against Michael Chukwuma, 21, over the death of 34-year-old Obina Durumchukwu on Sunday in the northern Mumbai suburb of Nallasopara.
The friends had apparently got together on Saturday night to celebrate Durumchukwu’s birthday. The following morning an argument over football turned to tragedy.
“The two Nigerian youngsters were discussing football players. One is a fan of Messi and the other was for Ronaldo,” the inspector said.
“During the conversation a quarrel has taken place. The deceased threw a glass into the face of the accused person. The glass broke and caused small injuries.
“After that the accused took the broken glass and assaulted the deceased person who died due to heavy bleeding,” added Kabadi.
NKR Defense Ministry reports rise of tensions at the line of contact between the armed forces of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan March 3-4.
The rival fired more than 1,800 shots from weapons of different caliber in the direction of the Armenian positioned in the reported time.
The adversary also used HAN-17 grenades in the eastern direction of the line of contact, the Ministry said.
Front divisions of the NKR Defense Army gave a worthy response to the attacking actions of the rival and continued to confidently perform their military duty.
The State of Georgia has adopted H.R. 1580, resolution recognizing the independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.
The resolution notes that “the Nagorno Karabakh Republic has a long and storied history, holding a cherished place in the Armenian people’s history and culture.”
The resolution takes note of the fact that the Nagorno Karabakh Republic declared its independence on December 10, 1991, after a long struggle that in some respects continues to this day, that the persistent demand for self-determination was an inspiration to people of many nationalities in the region, becoming one of the catalysts for the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
The document stresses that through the course of the last two decades, the people of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic have shown tenacity and perseverance in the face of war, massacres, economic deprivation, and other tremendous hardships; and for more than 20 years, the Nagorno Karabakh Republic has stayed true and faithful to its citizens by remaining independent while working to bring change and stability to the Caucasus region and by holding free and fair elections and referendums that were widely declared as a model for the region.”
“International observers, including the United States, have assessed the May 3, 2015, Parliamentary Elections in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic as free and transparent,” the document reads.
Therefore, members of the House of Representatives honor the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and its citizens; recognize the sacrifices, dedication, and resolve shown by the people of the republic in the face of extreme adversity; extend best wishes for peace, prosperity, and continuing success; and encourage the international community to give appropriate recognition to the Nagorno Karabakh Republic as a free, independent, and sovereign democracy.
US actor George Kennedy, who starred in movies including Cool Hand Luke and the Naked Gun series, has died at the age of 91, his grandson has announced.
Cory Schenkel said his grandfather died on Sunday morning in the city of Boise, Idaho, celebrity news website TMZ reported.
Kennedy won an Oscar in 1968 for Best Supporting Actor in Cool Hand Luke.
As well as the Naked Gun comedies, he also made memorable appearances in Earthquake and Airport 1975.
Mr Schenkel, quoted by TMZ, said the veteran actor had been in poor health since the death of his wife, Joan, more than a year ago, and had been in a hospice for the past month.
Kennedy was born in 1924 in New York where his father worked as a musician and his mother was a dancer.
He served with the US infantry during World War Two, winning several decorations, and in the 1950s he worked for Armed Forces Radio and Television before moving to Hollywood.
The actor quickly became well known for playing tough-guy characters.
Kennedy’s final film role was in The Gambler in 2014, TMZ added.
Fifa will get a new president on Friday when 207 delegates from around the world gather in Zurich, Switzerland to vote for a successor to Sepp Blatter, the BBC reports.
In charge of world football’s governing body since 1998, Blatter, 79, said last year he was standing down amid a growing corruption crisis.
Five candidates want to replace him.
They are Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, Gianni Infantino, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Tokyo Sexwale and Jerome Champagne.
The election process is expected to begin at 12:00 GMT, but several rounds of voting may be required before a winner is known.