Category: News

A rare bird may become extinct in Syria because of the capture of Palmyra by Islamic State, experts say, reports.

A tiny breeding colony of the northern bald ibis was found near the city in 2002.

Three birds held in captivity were abandoned last week after their guards fled the fighting. Their fate is unknown.

Officials have offered a reward of $1,000 (£646) for information about the whereabouts of a fourth bird.

The Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon told the BBC that finding the missing female, called Zenobia, is crucial.

She is the only bird who knows the migration routes to wintering grounds in Ethiopia and without her other captive birds cannot be released.

Then the species could go extinct in the wild in Syria, said ornithologists.

“Culture and nature they go hand in hand, and war stops, but nobody can bring back a species from extinction,” said head of the society Asaad Serhal.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has conceded the election to conservative challenger Andrzej Duda following the release of exit polls, BBC News reports.

They suggested Mr Duda had taken the run-off vote by 53% to 47%.

Mr Duda had edged Mr Komorowski, who had been the favourite, in the first round but did not gain the 50% needed to win outright.

The president has limited powers, but is head of the armed forces and can veto new laws.

The exit polls had been delayed after a woman died at a polling station on Sunday.

Official results are expected later on Monday.

On May 24, a delegation of the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund comprising trustees, representatives of affiliates worldwide, benefactors, and associates, began a series of project-site visits in Armenia, starting with the Tavush Region. The visits come on the heels of several others which the delegation made to the sites of current or newly completed projects in Artsakh, starting on May 20.

The delegation’s first stop in Tavush was the village of Khachardzan, where the fund is renovating the community’s school with the financial support of longtime benefactors Mr. and Mrs. Arto and Hilda Kalciyan of Argentina. With access to natural gas and equipped with a new central-heating system, the school will provide students with a comfortable learning environment year-around. The renovated and fully furnished campus will open its doors in September. Assistance to Khachardzan is also being provided by the Armenia branch of the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). After planting an orchard in the vicinity of the school, UMCOR is currently donating farm animals and beehives to 28 economically disadvantaged local families.

Also on May 24, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund delegation visited the community of Lusadzor, in Tavush, for a first-hand look at the activities of a farm established through the support of the fund’s French affiliate. For the past several years, a number of far-reaching agricultural-development programs have been implemented throughout Tavush, with the joint support of France’s Hauts-de-Seine General Council and the French-Armenian community.

US mathematician John Nash, who inspired the Oscar-winning film A Beautiful Mind, has died in a car crash with his wife, police have said, BBC News reports.

Nash, 86, and his 82-year-old wife Alicia were killed when their taxi crashed in New Jersey, they said.

The mathematician is renowned for his work in game theory, winning the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994.

His breakthroughs in maths – and his struggles with schizophrenia – were the focus of the 2001 film.

Russell Crowe, who played him, tweeted: “Stunned… My heart goes out to John & Alicia & family. An amazing partnership. Beautiful minds, beautiful hearts.”

The film’s director, Ron Howard, also tweeted his tribute to the “brilliant” John Nash and his “remarkable” wife.

Alicia Nash helped care for her husband, and the two later became prominent mental health advocates.

 

The owner of a historic Armenian orphanage in Istanbul has decided to donate it to the Armenian community after days of protests over its planned demolition,  reports. 

Camp Armen, a historic orphanage for Armenian children in Istanbul’s Tuzla district, may see its glory days again after the property’s owner, Fatih Ulusoy, announced he would donate it to the Armenian community.
The site, which has remained in ruins for years, was planned to be demolished by its current owner before activists, mostly from the Armenian community, rushed to stop the demolition earlier this month. The group camped out at the site for days, blocking bulldozers and later took to the streets for a rally against the destruction of the place that once housed orphaned Armenian children from all over Turkey.
Ulusoy issued a written statement announcing he has decided to donate the place to the Gedikpaşa Armenian Protestant Church Foundation that built the orphanage in 1962. Ulusoy said Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had asked Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbaş to help resolve the dispute, and he decided to donate it “to contribute to social peace and unity at a time of speculations over the 1915 incidents.” He was referring to the Armenian campaign to force Turkey to recognize the mass deaths of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I as genocide. Ulusoy said he was unaware that the orphanage was seized by the state in a controversial legal process when he bought it nine years ago.
Activists welcomed Ulusoy’s decision to halt the demolition and donate the land. Alexis Kalk, spokesman for Nor Zartonk (New Renaissance), an Armenian nongovernmental organization (NGO) whose members staged the sit-in strike for 18 days at the orphanage, announced the decision to the applause of activists. Kalk said they would continue their “struggle” until the formal process for the donation of the title deed to the foundation is completed. Kalk said the orphanage was not the only Armenian property seized by the state in the past and there were hundreds of others awaiting return to the Armenian community. He called on the government to draft a return policy for these properties and not to leave it to legal processes between current owners and the Armenian community.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Kalk said they were pleased that the matter was resolved “with the will of the government” and was not dragged down “despite it being a pre-election period,” referring to the upcoming general elections on June 7. He said Camp Armen would be restored and will likely be used as a center focused on children’s activities.
Camp Armen was confiscated after the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeals ruled in 1974 that foundations set up by those who are not Turkish cannot acquire properties, based on a controversial 1936 regulation that paved the way for the seizure of properties from non-Muslim communities. The title deed for the orphanage, where more than 1,500 Armenians spent their childhood before its closure, was canceled in 1979. It was returned to its former owner and changed hands several times since then. Among the orphans raised in the historic building was the late Hrant Dink, editor-in-chief of the Agos daily and a renowned figure from the Turkish-Armenian community who was assassinated in 2007. His wife Rakel Dink also spent time there.
Since 2011, in the wake of a landmark government decree paving the way for the return of properties seized from non-Muslim minorities, several historic buildings in Istanbul and other cities were returned to minority communities, including Armenians. Minority community foundations have been granted the return of properties forcibly confiscated by the state in the past under discriminatory policies through lawsuits.

Real Madrid has fired coach Carlo Ancelotti, one season after he led the club to its 10th European Cup title, the Associated Press reports.

Club president Florentino Perez said Monday that Ancelotti’s successor would be announced next week.

Madrid failed to win a trophy this season, finishing second in the Spanish league — two points behind archrival Barcelona — and losing in the Champions League semifinals to Juventus.

Speaking after a board meeting at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, Perez said it was time Madrid moved on and achieved “a new impetus.”

Ancelotti completed two years of the three-year contract he signed with Madrid in June 2013.

Ancelotti came to Madrid from Paris Saint-Germain, where he was replaced on the same day by former France coach Laurent Blanc.

 

 

 

Turkey will vote in parliamentary elections in two weeks. Expert of Turkish studies Gevorg Petrosyan says the elections are historic, as four Armenians representing three different parties are running for Parliament.

In particular, Armenian Margar Yesayan nominated by the ruling Justice and Development Party is the 12^th in the list and is likely to be represented in the Grand National Assembly. The expert says this is an expression of the Turkish cunning policy and does not exclude that Ankara will use the presence of Armenian MPs it the Turkish legislature for its own interests. He reminds that Margar Yesayan is a journalist and a proponent of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.

Petrosyan says Yesayan will always be in the center of discussions on Armenian-Turkish relations, and Turkey will use this to show it’s a democratic country.

The opposition Republican People’s Party has one Armenian in the list, while two Armenians are included in the list of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party.

Gevorg Petrosyan is confident we’ll have two or three MPs represented in the Turkish Parliament in June

Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan received Governor of Sweden’s Uppsala County Peter Egardt who is in Armenia to discuss the prospects of cooperation between Uppsala County and Lori Marz of Armenia.

Welcoming the Governor’s visit, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of enhancing cooperation between the regions in order to promote economic relations and tap the existing potential. The Premier noted that our country is eager to expand cooperation with the EU-member States, and in this respect, Sweden is an important partner for Armenia.

Thankful for the reception, Peter Egardt said it was the first time he had been visiting our country and that he was impressed by our people’s hospitality. Noting Sweden’s keen interest in developing relations with Armenia as an Eastern Partnership country, the Uppsala Governor assured that practical steps would be taken in this direction.

The interlocutors exchanged views on ways and programs of expanding cooperation in different areas. In particular, they discussed prospects of cooperation in the fields of education, agriculture, nuclear security, as well as possibilities for exchange of know-how relevant to regional and local self-government.

For his part, Lori Marz Governor Arthur Nalbandyan briefed the Premier on the outcome of his talks with the Governor of Uppsala County, which may give a new impetus to bilateral relations.

Daniel McLaughlin

High on an Armenian hillside, Gor Hovhannisyan eases a camouflage-green box from its hiding place in the trees and opens the back to see what he has caught.

This time, only a bird and a rabbit triggered the camera trap’s motion sensors. But far bigger beasts also roam the Caucasus Wildlife Refuge: lynx, bears, wolves and at least one of Europe’s last remaining leopards.

Across a deep gorge speckled with thyme and wildflowers, Hovhannisyan points to the snowy ridge where a Caucasian leopard was last captured here on camera; behind him, far below, a lush plain of farmland and fruit trees stretches away to Mount Ararat, an ice-clad 5,000m volcano just over the border in Turkey.

The refuge is breaking new ground in Armenia and the region, by leasing a large area of outstanding beauty and biodiversity and ensuring that local people contribute to and benefit from its protection.

The challenge is considerable in a country where environmental awareness is low, large predators are seen as a threat to life and livestock, and the rule of law is too weak to control either small-scale trappers or wealthy hunters.

Geopolitics doesn’t help, either. Barely 25km south of the refuge is Azerbaijan, which officially is still at war with Armenia after an early-1990s conflict. Some 10km further lies Iran. The leopard’s territory spans all three countries, further complicating conservation efforts.

Hovhannisyan is one of several local men who work as wardens in the refuge, patrolling its 4,000 hectares in a battered green 4×4 and on horseback.

Hunting ban

“All hunting is banned in the refuge,” he shouts, as the groaning 4×4 bounces beneath a troop of iridescent bee-eaters preening on a telephone line.

“We make sure no one’s in the refuge without permission, and we talk to the villagers. We tell them that if they hunt bezoar goats or boar or even rabbits, then there will be less food for the wolf and bear and lynx. And then they are more likely to come to our yards and fields and take a sheep or cow.”

People’s lives are intertwined with nature here, to a degree that is not always comfortable. In winter, hungry wolves sometimes come down from the mountains to snatch a sheep, chicken or dog from a yard; in spring and summer the shepherds take their flocks to the high meadows, into the domain of the big carnivores; and autumn is the bears’ favourite time to raid the valley’s orchards – though they also amble down in warmer months to feast on fruit.

“Last year a bear family ate lots of apples and damaged the trees, and they like to come for apricots,” says Ashot Manatsakanyan, who lives in Urtsadzor, a village on the edge of the refuge.

“And I’ve seen a bear sitting and eating watermelons like a man – splitting them open in his lap, eating the best bits, throwing away the rest and grabbing another,” he recalls.

“Sometimes a wolf comes into the village, but it’s the shepherds in the hills who have the most problems. Even with six or seven guard dogs, a pack of wolves can take a sheep or even a horse. They complain that the wolf is taking money from their pockets, but I’m glad the wolves are here – and they need to eat too.”

The refuge aims to boost and diversify the local economy through eco-tourism, and it helps villagers access clean and cost-saving technology such as solar panels, and runs classes for adults and children on nature and sustainability.

Conservation model

“We want this type of conservation model to be spread more widely through the Caucasus,” says Ruben Khachatryan, the founder of the refuge and director of Yerevan’s zoo.

Though it is barely an hour’s drive from Yerevan, there are few visitors to the refuge, which is supported by the UK-based World Land Trust.

Most that do make the trip dream of glimpsing a Caucasus – also know as Persian – leopard, but the chance is minuscule: only a handful survive in Armenia, and the entire population may be less than 1,000.

“In Armenia, people and leopards have co-existed since the early prehistoric times. Depictions of leopards can be found in many ancient petroglyphs . . . recounting origin myths and tribal traditions of ancient Armenia,” says Khachatryan.

“The inhabitants of Caucasus region should be proud of not killing the last of the species, and to have this amazing feline thrive in their territory.”

No one in Armenia has a better hope of seeing a leopard than refuge warden Hovhannisyan.

“Sometimes, when I’m alone on my horse in the hills, I wonder if it might attack me,” he says. “But I’d still love to see a leopard up close. It’s great to know that it’s out there.

A non-binding resolution, H.RES. 279, backed by 30 members of the US House of Representatives is urging Turkey to immediately “lift restrictions on freedom of expression” and respect universal human rights, adding fuel to already tense relations between the US Congress and Turkey’s embattled President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan< reports. 

The proposed resolution, sponsored by Rep. Alan Grayson, was introduced in the House last week. Congressional sources said it would be debated in the Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 2. It is highly unlikely that the resolution will be approved by the House before a key parliamentary election in Turkey slated for June 7, but it will join a chorus of international rights groups and Western governments expressing deep concern over Turkey’s increasingly intolerant stance toward critics.

“The House of Representatives calls on the Government of Turkey to immediately lift restrictions on freedom of expression, including expression online or in social media,” the first recommendation of the resolution said, recalling that prominent human rights monitors and the US government have expressed concern about the erosion of freedom of expression under Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) he founded.

 

The resolution notes that “respect for universal human rights, especially freedom of expression, is essential to maintain a democratic, open society” and urges the Turkish government to fully respect universal human rights consistent with Ankara’s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) commitments.

The resolution highlights that the Turkish government “has increasingly conducted widespread intimidation and manipulation of media, private companies and other civil society actors through a number of means, including active interference in their operations and regulatory action to compel government-friendly outcomes.”

It added that “criminal prosecution or intimidation based on overly broad terrorism laws and other measures taken by authorities in Turkey in recent years have been widely criticized as ideologically driven and unusually severe.” In February 90 members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to raise his voice more loudly to defend Turkey’s media freedom.