Category: News

Anti-Mafia police in Naples have recovered two Van Gogh paintings stolen from Amsterdam in 2002, the Van Gogh Museum and organized crime investigators said Friday, the Associated Press reports.

The museum in a statement on its website Friday said the paintings, found without their frames, are in “relatively good condition.” It said the two paintings are the 1882 work “Seascape at Scheveningen” and a later work, “Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen.”

Police in Naples said the paintings, of “priceless value,” were discovered during a raid as part of a crackdown against a Naples-based Camorra crime clan suspected of cocaine trafficking. Naples prosecutors said more details will be given later at a news conference in the southern Italian city.

The paintings were sequestered along with other property, worth “tens of millions of euros,” said the police. The Financial Guard, a branch of the Italian police, often sequesters financial assets of suspected criminals.

“After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return,” the museum quoted its director Alex Rueger as saying, and expressed gratitude to Italian investigators and police.

The museum said the paintings, inspected by a curator, do show “some damage” and it is unclear when they will return to Amsterdam. The museum director was planning to attend the news conference.

Turkey has ordered the closure of 20 television and radio stations, including one that airs children’s programmes, on charges they spread “terrorist propaganda”, adding to fears that emergency rule is being used to stifle the media, Reuters reports.

President Tayyip Erdogan has said he wants a three-month state of emergency, imposed after a failed coup attempt in July, to be prolonged past October so authorities can eradicate the threat posed by a religious movement blamed for the attempt, as well as Kurdish militants who have waged a 32-year insurgency.

The banned channels are owned or operated by Kurds or the Alevi religious minority, according to Hamza Aktan, news editor at IMC TV, a news broadcaster slated for closure. He cited a copy of the decision obtained by his channel, which was based on powers given the government in a decree issued in July.

“This has nothing to do with the coup. It is an effort to silence the last independent media covering the Kurdish issue and violations committed by the state,” Aktan told Reuters.

IMC has aired reports looking at security forces’ conduct during 14 months of military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has killed thousands.

Among the 12 shuttered television channels are Govend TV, which plays folk music, and Zarok TV, which airs Kurdish-language children’s cartoons. The decision also shut 11 radio stations for harming national security, Aktan said.

“Turkey is targeting a wide swath of cultural and political expression by shuttering minority broadcasters,” Robert Mahoney of the Committee to Protect Journalists said. “When the government sees even children’s programming as a threat to national security, it is clearly abusing its emergency powers.”

The Balyan family was one of the most well-known Armenian families during the Ottoman era. Family members served as imperial architects for years and are remembered as the masterminds behind many palaces, mosques and barracks like the Dolmabahce Mosque and the Beylerbeyi Palace, Daily Sabah writes.
An Armenian family coming from the province of Kayseri was the origin of nine craftsmen consecutively, and they left their marks on many buildings in Istanbul and its surroundings during the 18th and 19th centuries such as palaces, mosques, churches, mansions, waterfront residences, barracks, schools, hospitals, towers, fountains, weirs and theater halls.

The Balyan Family developed a unique architectural style by blending Europe’s baroque and imperial styles with Oriental ornamental style. Apart from passing down their knowledge and experience from one generation to another, the Balyan Family succeeded in modernizing themselves and making sure they were not forgotten.

Not many people who perform their prayers at the mosques in the Bosporus are aware that some of these mosques have been built by an Armenian.

On September 29, Edward Nalbandian, the Acting Foreign Minister, delivered a speech on Armenia’s foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington D.C.

The U.S. State Department and National Security Council officials, leading experts and diplomats accredited in Washington D.C. attended the meeting with the Foreign Minister of Armenia, chaired by Andrew S. Weiss, the Vice President of the Carnegie Endowment.

In his remarks, Edward Nalbandian presented the priorities of Armenia’s foreign policy, country’s path during these 25 years since the declaration of independence, Armenia’s stance on a number of regional issues and the ways to resolve them.

The Head of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia presented to the leading U.S. experts the consequences of April aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and the efforts exerted by Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group countries to overcome those consequences, the current stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process; he presented the agreements reached during the summits held in Vienna and St. Petersburg aimed at creating necessary conditions for the advancement of negotiation process and Azerbaijan’s destructive stance, attempts to reject the reached agreements.

While answering the numerous questions of the attendees, Edward Nalbandian touched upon the gross violations of the international humanitarian law by Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the April war, Armenia’s membership at the Eurasian Economic Union, the Armenia-European Union cooperation, the Armenian-Iranian relations.

A Regional Center for Restoration of Monuments will be established in Armenia within the framework of Armenian-Italian cultural cooperation. Architect Rita Gonelli from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gaianè Casnati, head of the “Preserving Cultural Heritage in Armenia” program, and Maria Cristina Zambrano of the Politecnico di Milano have arrived in Armenia to discuss the details with officials and experts. Members of the delegation have already held a meeting with Minister of Culture Armen Amiryan.

The “Preserving Cultural Heritage in Armenia” program co-financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Politecnico di Milano became the winner of a Europa Nostra Award 2015. The establishment of the Regional Center for Restoration of Monuments will be the next step.

“Armenia’s rich cultural legacy lies in the basis of the program. Your cultural field is truly broad and requires huge efforts and work,” said architect Rita Gonelli, an expert at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Huge work has been done in the field of restoration of monuments within the framework of Armenian-Italian cooperation, but there is still a lot to be done,” she added.

Italian experts say the Armenian policy of restoration of monuments is closest to that ofItaly, this is the reason behind the idea of establishing a reconstruction center in Armenia.

The National Postal Operator of Armenia “HayPost” CJSC today announced the launch of an unprecedented service in the history of Armenia. Starting from the 1^st of October 2016, HayPost will carry out regular scheduled mail and cargo transportations to and from Europe.

The new program and the vehicles imported for the program implementation were presented on the 29^th of September in the Republic Square, Yerevan. The Minister of Transport and Communication of the Republic of Armenia Vahan Martirosyan and the Managing Director of “HayPost Trust Management” B.V. Juan Pablo Gechidjian handed the symbolic keys to the drivers, wishing them a good journey.

The new service is meant to expand the connectivity of Armenia, by means of weekly mail and cargo transportations from Yerevan to the hub in Frankfurt and vice versa. This innovative reliable, fast and secure service facilitates the process of export and import of products to and from Armenia, enabling the Armenian companies to expand their business. At the same time, the new service will help to dramatically increase the volumes of the online commerce in Armenia.

In order to provide the new service, HayPost introduced 2 brand-new Mercedes-Benz Actros 2530 GigaSpace 6×4 trucks with 530 horsepower, with the capacity to carry 27 tonnes of cargo each one, and with their extra fuel tanks they have a range of 4,500 km with no refueling.

The trucks dispose of the latest equipments from the industry leaders and provide the drivers with the most comfortable conditions for long distance drive. The flexible configuration of the refrigerated cargo holds allows the transportation both of perishable and of general cargo. The trucks correspond to the highest European Euro-6 emission standards, ensuring the lowest level of CO emissions up today.

Together with the mentioned trucks, today HayPost adds to its fleet 12 brand-new Renault Dokker vans, the routes of which will reinforce the connectivity within Armenia. The vans are eco-friendly, they run with compressed natural gas, minimizing the level of CO emissions.

The total amount invested in these 14 new vehicles made about 1.000.000 USD.

This new service continues the series of innovations made by the Trust Manager of HayPost. During the last 7 years HayPost with the leadership of “HayPost Trust Management” B.V. has added 140 new vehicles to its fleet. This enlarged fleet runs 3.500.000 km per year, interconnecting the whole territory of Armenia up to Nagorno Karabakh. The Company has also renovated 250 Post Offices all over the country and created the largest online network in Armenia, with more than 700 Post Offices connected up today.

More than 20 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were reported at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces overnight.

The rival used firearms of different calibers as it fired about 500 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions, the NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army remain committed to the ceasefire regime and confidently continue with their military duty, the Ministry said.

On September 28, political consultations between the Foreign Ministries of Armenia and Georgia were held at the MFA of Georgia. The Armenian and Georgian delegations were headed by Shavarsh Kocharyan, Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia, and Gigi Gigiadze, Deputy Foreign Minister of Georgia, respectively.

In the course of political consultations the sides discussed a wide spector of issues related to the current situation of bilateral political, trade and economic relations and perspectives of their development. The agenda of the consultations focused on the deepening of cooperation in the areas of transport, energy, culture and education. Moreover, the necessity of inventory of the existing legal field was emphasized.

The interlocutors also touched upon the intensification of cooperation within the framework of international organizations, as well as exchanged views on a wide range of international and regional issues.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) should broaden cooperation in defense and security, Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov said on Thursday, TASS reports.

“Taking into consideration that the situation on the external borders of the Commonwealth is far from being stable, we have a common task not to allow the spread of terrorism to the CIS space,” Gerasimov told a meeting of the Committee of Chiefs of Staff of CIS member states.

“In this uneasy situation it is necessary to broaden cooperation in the sphere of defense and security,” the general said, adding that the military cooperation in the CIS format “allows successful cooperation in a broad range of areas.”

The International Army Games, the International military-technical forum “ARMY-2016” and other joint events held earlier this year show great possibilities and prospects of the military cooperation of the CIS countries, he said.

The legal basis for this is a concept of military cooperation of the CIS member-states up to 2020 approved by the CIS Council of Heads of State, he reminded. “The concept envisages strengthening our armed forces, maintaining national security and developing good neighborly relations.”

The CIS, a regional organization formed during the collapse of the Soviet Union, now consists of nine countries – Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan and Ukraine are associate members.