Category: News

Three people have been released without charge by French police investigating a Paris jewellery robbery that targeted TV reality star Kim Kardashian West, the BBC reports.

They include her chauffeur in Paris, Michael Madar. The three were among 17 people arrested in co-ordinated raids across France on Monday.

The driver’s brother is still being questioned by police, reports say.

Kardashian West was held at gunpoint and tied up by the robbers while staying at a hotel in Paris in October.

She was targeted at the exclusive flat near Place de la Madeleine while her bodyguard looked after her sister at a nightclub.

The gang stole €9m of jewellery, including a diamond ring valued at around €4m.

Fierce debate has broken out after fans raised two Turkish flags at a Lebanese basketball match, apparently in an attempt to anger Armenian players and fans, reports.

The flags were photographed on Sunday during a game between the Riyadi and Homenetmen clubs in Lebanon’s basketball league. Homenetmen are a Lebanese-Armenian team, representing the estimated four percent of the Lebanese population who are of Armenian descent, according to Minority Rights Group.

The recent flag waving appears to have been pre-planned and deliberately provocative, as one Riyadi fan, Mohammed Khoder, tweeted on Sunday morning “Tonight we’ll be raising the turkish flag in the basketball game against homentmen ‘Armenian Lebanese team’! BURNNN”. The tweet was later taken down.

A Riyadi fan page posted the following unapologetic message on Facebook: “If you want to prevent us from raising the Turkish flag at the stadium, then prevent them from singing the Armenian national anthem at their stadium.”

Meanwhile, one Lebanese blogger called the flag-waving “disgusting, disgraceful, hurtful and despicable.”

Riyadi club issued a statement on their Facebook page, “denouncing” and “rejecting” the raising of the Turkish flag, emphasizing that no provocative chanting took place during the game, and that the flags were flown after it had finished. The club also offered assurances that it would increase its efforts to prevent a repeat of what happened.

Armenia agrees with the Co-Chairs that ceasefire violations are unacceptable, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said, commenting on the .

“The Co-Chairs refer to what we have been consistently talking about. We agree with them that the ceasefire violations are unacceptable. We agree that the agreements reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg should be unequivocally implemented. The mechanism of investigation of border incidents should be implemented as soon as possible,” Edward Nalbandian said in comments to Armenpress.

“The co-chairing countries have mentioned on many occasions which party has been turning down the implementation of the mechanism. Therefore, that party bears full responsibility for the incidents and ceasefire violations. Such mechanisms will allow, as the Co-Chairs say, to avoid reciprocal accusations. However, the fact of an Azerbaijani saboteur being neutralized at the Armenian military posts makes it clear who’s the attacker even without any mechanism,” Minister Nalbandian said.

“We hope the Co-Chairs will be consistent in strongly responding to any use of force or the threat of force in the conflict zone, especially considering that ceasefire violations result in human losses. We must not allow a delayed response to be accepted by the violators of the ceasefire as tolerance towards their actions. As the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs have mentioned on many occasions, the unconditional implementation of the 1994-1995 trilateral agreements on ceasefire is a must, the incidents that result from their violation are unacceptable and cause a huge damage to the settlement process,” Edward Nalbandian stated.

“Under the conditions, when Azerbaijan hampers the implementation of an investigation mechanism and the expansion of capacities of the team of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman0-in-Office, the Co-Chairs remain the only format, which can and should continue its preventive activity in compliance with its mandate,” the Armenian Foreign Minister stated.

There have been no changes in the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the process of settlement of the Karabakh issue, says Alexander Iskandaryan, Director of the Caucasus Institute.

“They are busy with minimizing the risks, rather than resolving the conflict,” Iskandaryan told a press conference today.

According to the political scientist, the reason is the difference between the stances of the parties on the conflict settlement, which makes it impossible to propose a solution acceptable to all.

“The latest fit into the logic of avoiding tension,” Iskandaryan said.

According to political scientist Stepan Grigoryan, the Co-Chairs’ statement can inspire Azerbaijan to resort to new provocations, because they see that their actions go unpunished.

According to Alexander Iskandaryan, there are two ways Azerbaijan can have an influence on the Karabakh conflict settlement. “The first option is lobbying and propaganda. The second means for Azerbaijan to attract the attention of Armenia and the international community is to shoot,” the political scientist said. Therefore, he’s concerned that the situation will still continue.

As for the perspectives of resumption of military actions, Alexander Iskandaryan says “it depends on oil prices, on whether Azerbaijan can afford it or not, because the country spent huge sums in April.”

The Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly) has called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to obtain the Attorney General nominee Senator Jeff Sessions’ (R-AL) commitment to enforce the letter and spirit of laws already on the books to end Azerbaijan’s caviar diplomacy tactics.

In a letter to United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on the upcoming nomination of Sen. Sessions for Attorney General, Assembly Board of Trustees Co-Chairs Anthony Barsamian and Van Krikorian identified several issues of concern, particularly as related “to the undue influence of foreign governments on America’s democratic institutions and the need to fully enforce the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and ensure compliance of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).” Assembly members and Armenian Americans are also pursuing this issue in their home states, considering the increasing commitment of President-Elect Donald J. Trump with the “drain the swamp” campaign.

“When it comes to the integrity of America’s constitutional system, the rule of law and our governance process, we must ensure that the law is duly enforced and that any attempt by foreign governments and their agents are roundly condemned and promptly prosecuted,” Assembly Co-Chairs added. “Both Turkey and Azerbaijan have circumvented our laws and bought influence without repercussion for many years now.  That has to stop.”

The Assembly stressed their concern about President Ilham Aliyev constantly buying foreign influence, citing many instances in the letter. For example, in a Bloomberg News article published last week entitled “Azeri Oil Money Got a Pass From This Ethics Committee,” the columnist writes about the illegally funded congressional trips to Baku discovered by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), which included expensive gifts given to U.S. legislators. Barsamian and Krikorian noted in the letter that such reported activities “constitute a flagrant disregard for the law and strike at the core of our constitutional government through blatant foreign influence peddling.”

The Assembly previously urged the Department of Justice to investigate these foreign trips illegally funded by Azerbaijan. “We respectfully request a full and thorough investigation by the Department of Justice into these groups and the full application of the law. The reported activities constitute plainly illegal behavior and strikes at the core of our Constitutional government through blatant foreign influence peddling,” the Assembly said in its letter to then Attorney General Loretta Lynch. A recent publication has tied Turkey to hacking of the Armenian National Institute website, and requests to the FBI since 2000 to follow up have not been effective in stopping that pattern of behavior.

The Justice Department has brought some cases involving Azerbaijan through the FCPA, but the Assembly points out that much more is needed. The Assembly Co-Chairs said, “We prefer not to think that Azerbaijan’s retention of the Podesta Group at hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to lobby for Azerbaijan is preventing such investigations.” The Bloomberg News columnist noted: “It’s hard to tell whether it’s this creativity and generosity or any real U.S. strategic interest that makes the U.S. overlook the country’s brutal dictatorship. A combination of both is likely: Without the ‘caviar diplomacy,’ Azerbaijan might be considered too small to defy declared U.S. values and principles for its sake.”

Last month, the European Stability Initiative (ESI) denounced Azerbaijan’s lobbying tactics and reported that expensive watches, jewelry, computers, and large sums of money, among other gifts, were provided to several politicians from a number of countries in Europe. ESI stated that “the ease with which democratic institutions and safeguards can be undermined has emerged as a fundamental threat to European democracy.”

“The Aliyev regime is also engaged in this type of foreign influence buying to distract from its efforts to continue violating its ceasefire agreements with the Republics of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh – to avoid democracy and human rights issues there by eliminating the Christian Armenians,” Assembly Co-Chairs said. “Azerbaijan’s activities in the United States come at a time when the Aliyev regime continues to deprive its citizens of basic human rights and freedoms,” they continued.

In the past year, additional news came to light indicating Azerbaijan’s violations to international human rights standards, which were reported by international organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Helsinki Commission.

Photo: Reuters/Omar Sobhani

The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for twin blasts near parliament offices in Kabul on Tuesday which they said had killed or wounded scores of people.

The attack targeted a minibus carrying staff from the NDS, Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency, and as many as 70 people were killed or wounded, the insurgents said.

There was no immediate confirmation of casualty numbers from the police.

The attack, which ended a period of relative calm in the Afghan capital, occurred in a crowded area during the afternoon rush hour as workers were returning home.

Officials said a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Darul Aman area of the city near the new Indian-financed parliament building and was followed immediately by a car bomber in an apparently coordinated operation.

Earlier on Tuesday, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded nine when he detonated his explosives in a house in the southern province of Helmand used by an NDS unit.

Georgia’s Energy Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Kakha Kaladze is set to hold another meeting with the leadership of Gazprom Export Company to discuss the transit of Russian gas to Armenia, RIA Novosti reports.

The meeting will be the third over the past month.

According to Kaladze, during the meetings the parties work on the conclusion of a new annual agreement, under which the parties will either shift to the financial reimbursement or will stick to the former conditions of the deal. No consensus has yet been reached.

The Energy Minister says Georgia should get an equivalent reimbursement in case the parties opt for financial payment.

Photo: AP Photo/ Burhan Ozbilici

Ankara’s Cagdas Sanat Merkezi modern arts center exhibition hall where Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was killed has been named after the diplomat, local media reported on Thursday, Sputnik reports.

Karlov was shot dead by off-duty police officer Mevlut Mert Altintas at the opening of an art gallery exhibition at the Cagdas Sanat Merkezi center in the heart of Ankara. The gunman was killed at the scene by the police.

“Terrorism is a crime against humanity. We condemn terrorists, who have no nationality or religion. This hall will always hold the memory of Karlov,” Ankara’s central Cankaya municipality Mayor Alper Tasdelen was quoted as saying by the Anadolu news agency commenting on the decision.

On Monday, Ankara authorities decided to rename the street where the Russian embassy is located after Karlov as well.