Category: News

Archbishop Raphael Minassian hopes that the Papal visit to Azerbaijan and Georgia will promote peace in the region. The small Catholic community in Georgia, which Pope Francis is visiting on Friday and Saturday, is made up of Latin, Chaldean and Armenian rites.

The Armenian presence in Tbilisi and the region on the border with the republic of Armenia dates back to the 4th century. Today the community is under the care of the Ordinary for Armenians in Eastern Europe, Archbishop Raphael Minassian.

Ahead of the Pope’s trip to Georgia, the Archbishop talked to Philippa Hitchen of about the relationship of the Armenian community between Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Archbishop Raphael Minassian discusses the history of Armenians in Georgia: “The relationship with this country is very old and very constant because Tbilisi was the culture and the city of the Armenians for centuries. It is very normal to see the presence of the Armenians in this country.” He says that the presence in Georgia, “of Armenians is over 200,000 and Armenian Catholics are over 150,000.”

The Archbishop says that the Armenian community in Georgia can act as a bridge for peaceful relations. “In the relationship between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches, the friendship remains as a base of all kinds of relations.” He also mentions that the Georgian government has been assisting the Catholic Churches, the Chaldean, Latin, and Armenian Catholics, for two years.

Although the Armenian community and the Georgian government are able to maintain a positive relationship, the Archbishop admits that they do experience problems. He says that “Both of them are working strongly for the propaganda of faith and the consolation that we have to encourage and accept it. Even if we are not working together we should work for the same case.” He also says that they are proud to be Christians in this country.

Archbishop Minassian says that Pope Francis has a hard situation on his shoulders: “He is obliged to work with a society where they preach liberty and they are in the situation of domination. They speak about rights and they are the people that strip the rights of human society and at the end if I were to say the word peace, they are the war makers. I am talking about presidents, kings, societies, governments, and all of these, the Holy Father has to pass by and say the reality, defend the rights, defend the liberty, and give peace to everybody. We lost the meaning of these three words and have to rebuild again.”

The Archbishop discusses his thoughts on the Pope’s appeal for peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan: “You know, in a way they used the religion for political issues and the possibility to have peace is very easy. The most important point is between the two nations or the two presidents who have to forget the people because they are the minority of the minorities that are leading the country. I think that if you take out all of the governments all of the people would live in peace.”

Although the governments are taking steps towards peace, the Archbishop hopes that more can be done. “There is work going on for peace, but I hope that also in the visit of his Holiness to Azerbaijan would encourage them also accept the realities because all of us in this world are passengers. No one owns anything in this Earth. So it is not useful to have these wars between people that can live peacefully and very happily.”

Photo: AFP

France has begun air strikes against so-called Islamic State in Iraq from the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, reports say, the BBC repots.

A number of Rafale fighter planes took off from the carrier early on Friday, news agency AFP said.

It quoted an officer on board, who said the planes would take part in an attack on Mosul, an IS stronghold in Iraq.

The Charles de Gaulle, France’s only aircraft carrier, was sent to the region earlier in September.

This is the ship’s third mission with the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria, since February 2015, when France stepped up its military operations following the attacks in Paris.

Pope Francis has arrived in Georgia at the start of a three day trip to the Caucasus which will also take him Sunday for a brief visit to Azerbaijan, Radio Vatican reports.

On Friday, Georgian government, civil and religious leaders and members of the Catholic community turned out at Tbilisi’s international airport to greet the pontiff, whose plane touched down shortly before 3:00 pm local time.

Meeting national authorities and members of the diplomatic corps in Tbilisi, Georgia Friday, Pope Francis described the Caucasus nation as a “blessed land, a place of encounter and vital exchange among cultures and civilizations” which, since the 4th century, “discovered in Christianity its deepest identity and the solid foundation of its values.”

The Pope was speaking at the Presidential palace shortly after his arrival in the Georgian capital.  In his address, he recalled his meeting in the Vatican last year with President Giorgi Margvelashvili and thanked him for the invitation to visit his country whose values, expressed “in culture, language and traditions,” he said, place it fully “within the bedrock of European civilization.”

Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region (ANCA-WR) announced that it will bestow its 2016 Advocate for Justice Award to Congressman Brad Sherman for consistently being one of the strongest voices in our nation’s capital on many issues important to the Armenian community, including justice for the Armenian Genocide, and the security and prosperity of the Republics of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh Republic.  Congressman Sherman will personally accept the award at the organization’s Annual Gala to be held on October 16, 2016 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

“Congressman Brad Sherman has been one of our staunchest and most consistent advocates in the United States Congress for a period of twenty years, and we are so gratified to work with him on so many issues important to the advancement of the Armenian Cause. With his vast knowledge of geopolitics in the Near East and Caucasus region, his legal expertise on a wide array of issues facing us, and his commitment to justice, we are fortunate to have Congressman Sherman represent us with such passion and unwavering persistence.  The ANCA-WR Board of Directors is proud to honor Congressman Brad Sherman with its 2016 Advocate for Justice award, and we look forward to continuing our close and productive relationship with him,”  stated ANCA-WR Chair Nora Hovsepian.

“I am honored to be recognized by the Armenian National Committee of America as the 2016 Advocate for Justice.  In collaboration with the ANCA, I have consistently focused on recognizing the Armenian Genocide and increasing aid to Armenia, Artsakh, and Javakh.  I look forward to continuing my work on these issues in support of a stronger U.S-Armenia relationship. The ANCA has done a tremendous job representing the interests of the Armenian community.  I want to extend my best wishes for a most memorable event and continued success in all your future endeavors,” noted Congressman Sherman.

First elected in 1996, Rep. Brad Sherman has, over the past two decades, consistently and effectively championed the views, values and policy priorities of Armenian Americans throughout California and across the United States.  His perfect A+ grades reflect his unfailing support for our homeland and heritage, as does the prestigious Mkhitar Gosh Award he received from the Republic of Armenia.

Congressman Sherman’s leadership on issues of special concern to Americans of Armenian heritage encompasses the full array of our community’s foreign policy priorities – from a just resolution of the Armenian Genocide, security for the independent Nagorno Karabakh Republic, increasingly strong U.S.-Armenia bilateral relations, and humanitarian support for at-risk Armenians across the Middle East.

Since taking office he has co-sponsored every Armenian Genocide Resolution, leveraging his seniority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee to secure the adoption of this human rights measure by the panel on a number of occasions, including high-profile legislative battles in 2007 and 2010.  Additionally, Congressman Sherman has openly and aggressively pressed Presidents of both parties – from Clinton and Bush to Obama – to end U.S. complicity in Turkey’s obstruction of justice for this crime.  He has, as well, worked to block U.S. arms sales and transfers to Turkey that potentially threaten the security of Armenia, Greece, or Cyprus.

Long an ardent defender of Artsakh’s freedom and security, Congressman Sherman – along with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce – earlier this year spearheaded the Royce-Sherman letter. This bipartisan Congressional letter, signed by more than 50 legislators, called on President Obama to press Azerbaijan to stop blocking the implementation of proposals to strengthen the Nagorno Karabakh ceasefire. Among these proposals (backed by the U.S. and the OSCE, endorsed by both Armenia and Artsakh, but rejected by Azerbaijan) is the deployment of gunfire locators, the addition of observers, and the withdrawal of snipers and heavy arms from the line of contact.  Parallel to his work supporting the ceasefire, he has – in the wake of Baku’s April 2016 offensive – formally called upon the Obama Administration to launch a “Leahy Law” investigation to determine if Azerbaijani forces that committed human rights abuses against Artsakh citizens and soldiers had received any military assistance from the U.S. government.

As early as 2012, Congressman Sherman began advocating for the right of Nagorno Karabakh to begin operating the Stepanakert airport, publicly condemning Baku’s threats to shoot down civilian planes using this facility. In that same year, he was among the most vocal U.S. legislators to protest Azerbaijan’s release and pardon of unrepentant anti-Armenian axe-killer Ramil Safarov.  In 2011, he was the key to securing written assurances from the Export-Import Bank that its financing of satellite purchase by Baku would not add any military capability to the Azerbaijani armed forces.  He has, consistently, marked anniversaries of the Baku/Sumgait pogroms, always protested publicly against Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian aggression, and consistently defended the Section 907 restrictions on direct U.S. aid to the Azerbaijani government.

On foreign aid, Representative Sherman – long a strong champion of robust levels of economic development assistance to Armenia, frequently questioning USAID and State Department officials when they appeared before Congress.  On issues of international development, he is, though, perhaps best known for his pioneering “Sherman Amendment” during consideration of the Fiscal Year 1998 foreign aid bill.  His leadership, within the Foreign Affairs Committee and with his House colleagues, developed the bipartisan consensus needed to launch the U.S. aid program to Nagorno Karabakh – an unprecedented effort that has, over the past two decades, provided tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to Nagorno Karabakh.  Congressman Sherman has been a legislative leader in seeking targeted U.S. aid to the Armenian-populated Samtskhe-Javakheti region of Georgia, and also supports U.S. and international assistance to help Armenia settle refugees from the Middle East.

As a legislative leader of Armenia’s aid to trade transition, Representative Sherman was a driving force behind 2015’s signing of a U.S.-Armenia Trade and Investment Framework Agreement.  He is currently the leading Congressional voice in support of a U.S.-Armenia Tax Treaty, having twice questioned Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew during hearings about the urgent necessity of removing the threat of double taxation as an obstacle to the growth of bilateral commercial relations.

Congressman Brad Sherman, from Sherman Oaks, was born and raised in southern California and represents California’s San Fernando Valley. He has been in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1997, serving his tenth term in Congress. Congressman Sherman is a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Previously, the organization announced that it will honor California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson with the Man of the Year Award, Varoujan Koundakjian posthumously with the Legacy Award, California State Assemblymember Adrin Nazarian with the Legislator of the Year Award, Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr and the Kerr family with the Humanitarian Award, and German Parliament Member Cem Ozdemir and the German Bundestag with the Freedom Award.  As a part of the program that evening, a special recognition and presentation will be made to and by filmmakers of the newly-completed Armenian Genocide-era film, “The Promise, which will include a short clip from the film with behind-the-scenes footage compiled especially for this event.

Photo: ESA

 

Europe’s Rosetta probe has ended its mission to Comet 67P by crash-landing on to the icy object’s surface, the BBC reports.

Mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, was able to confirm the impact had occurred when radio contact to the ageing spacecraft was lost abruptly.

The assumption is that the probe would have been damaged beyond use.

In the hours before the planned collision, Rosetta sent back a host of high-resolution pictures and other measurements of the icy dirt-ball.

“I can announce full success of this historic descent of Rosetta towards Comet 67P,” said European Space Agency mission manager Patrick Martin.

“Farewell Rosetta; you’ve done the job. That was space science at its best.”

Scientists expect all the data gathered at 67P in the past two years to keep them busy for decades to come.

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.”

A commuter train has crashed into a rail station in the city of Hoboken, in the US state of New Jersey, the BBC reports.

The New Jersey emergency management system reports more than 100 people have been injured and others are trapped.

Emergency crews have arrived. Photos on social media show extensive damage to the train carriage and station.

A local radio station anchor said the train went through ticket barriers and “into the reception area”.

Hoboken is seven miles outside New York City. Many use the station to travel into Manhattan.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan has broken his silence on his absence from Manchester United’s squad by revealing that he is still working towards regaining full fitness.

Mkhitaryan last featured for United in their 2-1 defeat to Manchester City on September 10. The Armenia international has been sidelined with a thigh problem since then.

And now, Mkhitaryan has revealed via Facebook that he has returned to training ahead of his return: ‘Really happy to have started training with team and I am on my way to getting fully fit!

Pope Francis is wrapping up a Caucasus pilgrimage that began in June in Armenia and ends this weekend with a visit to two other countries with tiny Catholic communities: the Orthodox Christian bastion of Georgia and the largely Shiite Muslim nation of Azerbaijan.

Given the itinerary, Catholic-Orthodox and Christian-Muslim relations will be high on Francis’ agenda. But geopolitical concerns will also lurk behind the scenes during the three-day trip starting Friday in Georgia, one of the world’s oldest Christian lands, the Associated Press reports.

According to the source, Georgia is keen to use the trip to highlight its European and Western aspirations, and also draw attention to what it considers the Russian “occupation” of the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Francis is unlikely to get involved beyond general calls for peace and reconciliation, given a reluctance to offend Russia or the Russian Orthodox Church after his historic meeting with the Russian patriarch in Cuba earlier this year.

The Georgian ambassador to the Vatican, Tamara Grdzelidze, said she wasn’t optimistic Francis would use the term “occupation.”

“But in Armenia he spoke about ‘genocide,’ so you never know with this pope,” she said, referring to the Ottoman-era slaughter of Armenians.

Adding to the geopolitical mix, Francis will make a strong appeal for peace in Syria and Iraq, where Christians are being attacked and driven from their homes by Islamic extremists. A special event is planned Friday in the Chaldean Catholic church in Tbilisi.

“The message is going to be a message of peace,” said Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.

A more subtle message is one of steadily improving ties between the Holy See and the two former Soviet republics.

Ramaz Sakvarelidze, an independent political analyst in Tbilisi, said the papal visit should help to underscore Georgia’s aspirations for greater Western integration, including its sought-after membership in the European Union and NATO.

“The visit will certainly have a positive impact on Georgia’s image, it will help underline its Euro-Atlantic aspirations and a desire to embrace the principles of the Western world,” he said.

After Georgia, Francis heads to Azerbaijan, completing the visit he had hoped would have begun in Armenia and ended in Azerbaijan to show a symbolic bridge between neighbors bitterly divided over Nagorno-Karabakh.

While in Armenia in June, Francis called for reconciliation and for all sides to “resist being caught up in the illusory power of vengeance.”

Francis will spend only about 10 hours in the Azeri capital of Baku, using the time to highlight the country’s interfaith mix, meeting with the sheik of Caucasus Muslims, as well as representatives of Azeri Jews and other religious communities.

And he will celebrate Mass for the Catholic community which represents less than 1 percent of the population: There are about 200 Azeri-born Catholics and about 15,000 Catholic foreigners who live in Baku.