Category: News

Photo: DHA

 

Several thousand people gathered Tuesday at the site in Istanbul where Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was gunned down nine years ago, recalling a notorious killing that only recently led to charges against Turkey’s security forces, Agence France-Presse reports.

The crowd — estimated at around 2,000 people according to an AFP journalist — marched to the offices of the bilingual Agos weekly in downtown Istanbul where Dink was editor-in-chief.

With Turkish riot police out in force, the crowd chanted anti-government slogans: “Murderer state will account for this,” “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism.”

“We are all Hrant Dink,” “We are all Armenians” read black-and-white placards written in Armenian on one side and Turkish on the other.

“We won’t forget, we won’t forgive” read another at the memorial rally that has become an annual event since the murder of Dink on January 19, 2007.

Dink, 52, was shot dead with two bullets in the back of the head in by a teenage ultranationalist in broad daylight on a busy street outside Agos, but questions still linger about the circumstances of his death.

Ogun Samast, then a 17-year-old jobless high-school dropout, confessed to the murder and was sentenced to nearly 23 years in jail in 2011.

Dink’s assassination sent shockwaves through Turkey and grew into a wider scandal after it emerged that the security forces had known of the murder plot, but failed to act.

An Istanbul court last month finally accepted an indictment against 25 public officials, including former police and intelligence chiefs, on charges of “forming a criminal organisation,” as well as voluntary manslaughter and negligence.

The accused, including former Istanbul police chief Celalettin Cerrah, may face a trial.

Every year since Dink’s murder thousands have rallied to remember the journalist, whose life-long campaign for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians won him as many enemies as admirers.

Turkish nationalists especially resented that he qualified the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman empire, the precursor of modern Turkey, as a genocide, a term Ankara has always rejected.

Almost a decade after Dink’s death, activists express growing alarm over the limits on freedom of expression under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Prosecutors last week began a vast investigation into over 1,200 academics for engaging in “terrorist propaganda” by signing a petition condemning the military crackdown in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.

Memorial rallies were also held in Ankara as well as Armenian capital of Yerevan and a few European cities on Tuesday.

Photo: Getty Images

 

The world’s oldest man has died at the age of 112 in the Japanese city of Nagoya, local officials say, the BBC reports.

Yasutaro Koide, who was born on 13 March 1903, was officially named the oldest man by Guinness World Records in August this year.

At the time he was quoted as saying his secret to long life was not smoking or drinking, not to overdo things and to “live with joy”.

Officials said he died of heart failure and pneumonia early on Tuesday.

It is not yet clear who succeeds him as the oldest man.

The title of world’s oldest person is held by American woman Susannah Mushatt Jones, who is 116 years old.

She took the title last year after the death of Misao Okawa in Japan at the age of 117.

The oldest person who has ever lived according to Guinness was Jeanne Calment of France, who lived 122 years and 164 days. She died in August 1997.

Azerbaijan imposed some limits on foreign currency outflows in a package of measures adopted by parliament on Tuesday to prop up the oil producer’s depreciating manat currency, reports.

Rising prices have stirred protests rarely seen in a country where oil money and well-equipped security forces have long ensured public loyalty to President Ilham Aliyev.

The manat has lost about a third of its value against the dollar in the past month and the central bank has burned through more than half its foreign currency reserves, which now stand at about $5 billion, trying to protect its value from low oil prices. Oil and gas account for 75 percent of the Azeri state’s revenues.

Azerbaijan’s 10-year dollar bond, which matures in 2024, rose 0.45 cents to trade at 90.08 cents as the government acted to contain the crisis. The bond’s yield premium over safe-haven U.S. Treasuries narrowed 11 basis points to 582 bps.

Central bank chief Elman Rustamov said the government would impose limits on foreign currency outflows and introduce a 20 percent tax on currency exports related to direct investment, the purchase of real estate or securities abroad.

The problems may spur consolidation in Azerbaijan’s banking sector and Rustamov said five or seven of the country’s banks may have to merge.

The central bank had already received requests to approve several mergers, he told reporters, saying international financial institutions had shown some interest in getting involved. There are 42 lenders with banking licences in Azerbaijan.

A total of 3,030 people have signed a petition that has been delivered to the Şişli Municipality in Istanbul on Monday morning demanding that it change street names with Turkish nationalist connotations in the district’s Kurtuluş neighborhood, reports.

The delegation from the HDP that delivered the petition met with Hacı Kuru, the director for culture and society in Şişli Municipality, which is governed by the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The 159-page petition calls for the changing of name of Ergenekon Avenue to Hrant Dink Avenue, after the Turkish-Armenian journalist who was murdered on the adjacent Halâskârgazi Street, the location of the former headquarters of the Armenian-Turkish language weekly newspaper Agos.

Tuesday’s meeting was held one day before the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Dink, which has been commemorated every year since with a march and demonstration in the district, with hundreds holding black signs that read, “We are all Hrant, we are all Armenian!”

IHA Photo

 

A feature-length documentary film on the life of Ara Güler, the prominent Turkish-Armenian photographer, or “photo journalist” as he likes to call himself, has been nominated for the Washington Film Festival, reports.

Taking its name from Güler’s nickname, “The Eye of Istanbul” will make its U.S. premiere at the festival in March.

The movie is a cinematic portrait on the life and photographs of Güler. The documentary centers on the preparations of his retrospective photography exhibition in Istanbul and follows Güler as he selects his photographs for the exhibition and ponders the question of the future of his archives. The legendary photographer’s personality traits are also showcased in the film.

Commonly referred to as “Istanbul’s eye” – a term he does not like as he refuses to claim ownership of the historical city, Güler made his name mainly with his black-and white nostalgic photos of Istanbul that depict the city’s wide range of emotions. Many of his photos have also been turned into paintings.

With his gray hair and beard, the 87-year-old Istanbulite looks like a character in one of his famous photos. Despite his age, he is still sharp, funny and philosophical. Suffering from renal failure, the legendary photographer is full of stories about dialysis since he has to receive the treatment three times a week.

When he was 22, Güler received his first camera, a Rolleicord II. His career as a photographer started when he joined a local newspaper called Yeni Istanbul in 1950.

The team members behind “Eye of Istanbul” include Executive Producer Ümran Safter, Co-directors Binnur Karaevli and Fatih Kaymak, Director of Photography Zafer Bir, Project Consultant Nezih Tavlas, Script Writer Ahsen Diner, Researcher Işıl Sarıyüce, Video Editor Engin Yıldız and Composer Derya Türkan.

The Armenian Evangelical Emmanuel Church in Aleppo came under heavy rocket attack Sunday, hours after the morning service, the Lebanon-based Kantsasar weekly reports.

According to the source, no casualties were reported, but the church was seriously damaged.

Head of the Armenian evangelical community of Syria, Rev. Haroutioun Selimian visited the church to assess the damage.

The investigative journalism drama “Spotlight” won the top prize at the Critics’ Choice Awards on Sunday, while awards favourites Brie Larson and Leonardo DiCaprio won the top acting prizes for “Room” and “The Revenant,” the Associated Press reports.

Both actors won Golden Globe Awards and are considered front-runners for the Academy Awards, too.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” was the most nominated film of the evening with 13 nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics’ Association. While it lost out for the top prize, it did win a number of awards, including Best Director for George Miller, best action movie, and best action movie actor and actress for Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.

The financial crisis dramedy “The Big Short,” meanwhile, won for best comedy and best comedic actor for star Christian Bale, who kissed both his wife and director Adam McKay on his way up to the stage to accept his award.

Both were up for best picture Oscar heavyweights like “Spotlight,” ”The Revenant” and “The Martian,” as well as “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which was added after initial nominees were announced and went home empty handed on Sunday.

Photo: Oxfam International

The world’s 62 richest billionaires have as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population, according to a new report from Oxfam International, the CNN reports. 

The wealthiest have seen their net worth soar over the five years ending in 2015. Back in 2010, it took 388 mega-rich people to own as much as half the world.

And the Top 1% own more than everyone else combined — a milestone reached in 2015, a year earlier than Oxfam had predicted.

Oxfam released its annual report ahead of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss city of Davos, a yearly gathering of political and financial leaders. The study draws from the Forbes annual list of billionaires and .

A historic Armenian church in eastern Turkey may be permitted to celebrate Mass more often, according to Anadolu Agency.

The Armenian Church of the Holy Cross on Lake Van’s Akhtamar Island currently must apply for permission to hold religious services.

The Turkish government allowed Mass to be celebrated for the first time in 95 years there in 2010.

According to the reports, the Turkish government plans to increase fundamental rights of ethnic and religious minorities in the country.

Among these proposed measures are the renaming of certain towns and villages to their original names.

Kurdish-language announcements could be introduced on flights to some regions.

Photo: Reuters

Oil prices hit their lowest since 2003 on Monday, as the market braced for a jump in Iranian exports after the lifting of sanctions against the country over the weekend, Business Today reports.

The UN nuclear watchdog on Saturday said Tehran had met its commitments to curtail its nuclear programme, and the United States immediately revoked sanctions that had slashed Iran’s oil exports by around 2 million barrels per day (bpd) since its pre-sanctions 2011 peak to little more than 1 million bpd.

On Sunday, Iran – a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) – said it was ready to increase its exports by 500,000 bpd.

“Iranian exports come at a very bad time,” said Barclays analysts. A chronic global surplus of a million barrels or more of crude daily has pulled down oil prices by over 75 per cent since mid-2014 and by over a quarter since the start of 2016.

Worries about Iran’s return to an already glutted oil market drove down Brent to $27.67 a barrel early on Monday, its lowest since 2003. The benchmark was at $28.55 by 0523 GMT, still down over 1 per cent from its settlement on Friday.

US crude was down 38 cents at $29.04 a barrel, not far from a 2003-low of $28.36 hit earlier in the session.