Category: News

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

Mans Zemerlow from Sweden won the 2015 edition of Eurovision Song Contest, beating Russia and Italy in the big international talent show which will be held in his home country next year.

Zelmerlow won with his upbeat pop track Heroes, which was accompanied by innovative animated visuals.

A record 27 countries took part, including Australia, which was invited to compete for the first time to mark the event’s 60th anniversary.

Mans Zelmerlow was the bookmakers’ favourite throughout the build-up to this year’s contest.

Armenia was represented at the contest by the Genealogy band.

The final outcome was decided by a 50:50 split between professional juries and televoting from all 40 participants. The jury votes were decided during the Jury Final last night and the televotes decided during tonight’s show. The 27 finalists were made up of 20 qualifiers from the first and second Semi-Finals held on the 19th and 21st of May and seven automatic qualifiers including the Big 5 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom), host country Austria and Australia.

An opera singer from Cardiff will perform in front of millions when she represents Armenia in the Eurovision Song Contest final this weekend.

Mary-Jean O’Doherty, 33, will sing Face The Shadow in Vienna on Saturday as part of the Armenian group Genealogy.

Speaking to , she praised the Welsh support which helped the group through the semi-final on Tuesday.

“It’s just one of those surreal moments where you just think ‘wow’,” she said.

“There was a lot of Armenian flags and Welsh flags as well which was great. There was so much positive energy.”

O’Doherty, born in the United States to an Australian father and a Greek-Armenian mother, has settled in Cardiff with her Welsh husband.

She was selected for this year’s contest by broadcaster Public Television of Armenia.

“I have never been to Armenia and I have always wanted to know about my heritage, about my genealogy,” she added.

“I couldn’t think of a more interesting or outstanding way to do both.”

A Turkish court fined a leading newspaper Thursday for insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan while a top model went on trial on similar charges, as controversy grows over eroding freedoms ahead of June elections, AFP reports.

An Ankara court deemed that a column last year by one of the Hurriyet daily’s star commentators, Mehmet Yilmaz, was an “attack on the personal rights” of Erdogan.

It ordered the newspaper’s chairwoman and Yilmaz himself to pay 20,000 lira ($7,760) in damages to Erdogan, whose lawyers had requested 100,000 lira in the civil case, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

The report gave no details on the nature of the column dated August 25, 2014. But on that day, Hurriyet had published a lengthy article by Yilmaz recalling extensive corruption accusations against Erdogan, two weeks after his victory in presidential elections.

 

The EU is ready to start talks with Armenia on a new agreement based on the developments we have had since 2013, i.e. the draft Association Agreement, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview with Russian Kommersant.

“The main difference will be the fact that Armenia is now a member of the Eurasian Economic Union. We’ll be looking for ways to ensure that Armenia’s commitments as an EEU member not contradict the development of relations with the European Union in certain areas,” he said.

The Minister said the EU provides all partners with an opportunity of visa liberalization. “We have certain progress with Armenia and Azerbaijan. We speak about facilitation, not liberalization of visa regime with Belarus, although the legal texts are not ready yet. If Armenia and Azerbaijan express the wish, I see no bases for denying them the opportunity,” Rinkevics said.