Category: News

Apple has officially announced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The new iPhone features a design that’s very similar to last year’s iPhone 6S (and the year prior’s iPhone 6), with a rounded aluminum body, according to The Verge.

But what’s entirely new is the phone’s water resistance, which means you can get the iPhone 7 or the larger iPhone 7 Plus wet without worry. Also new is the long-rumored dual camera system, stereo speakers, and a darker black color scheme. And, as expected, the iPhone 7 does not have a headphone jack, rendering countless 3.5mm headphones useless with the device (or requiring the use of an adapter).

The new phone may look very similar to last year’s models, but instead of the matte metal finish we’ve become used to, it has a glossy, mirrored design. The new color is called jet black and is much darker and richer than the space black of years past. Apple is also releasing a standard black model, along with gold, silver, and rose gold.

Apple has redesigned the iconic home button for the iPhone 7, making it force sensitive like the Force Touch trackpads used in recent MacBook laptops. The phone has also gained the Taptic Engine haptic feedback system from the Apple Watch, which provides different vibration feedback for various alerts.

Photo: Alexei Druzhinin/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been appointed Uzbekistan’s acting president, TASS reports.

Uzbekistan’s parliament recommended the Central Election Commission to organize presidential elections in accordance with the country’s law.

Uzbekistan’s first President Islam Karimov died after suffering a stroke at the age of 78 on September 2.

They took stock of the discussions underway to find a negotiated, peaceful and lasting solution to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, under the auspices of the co-chairs of the Minsk Group.

Harlem Désir and Elmar Mammadyarov also discussed the development of relations between Azerbaijan and France, as well as between Azerbaijan and the EU.

Photo: Yekaterina Shtukina/Russian government's press service/TASS

Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov was appointed chairman of the state security service on Thursday by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Reuters reports.

No new cabinet head was named. Deputy Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev will serve as acting prime minister, according to the order published by Nazarbayev’s office.

Under the constitution, Nazarbayev will now need to propose a new prime minister to the lower house of parliament, which is dominated by his supporters.

Masimov has run the government since April 2014, his second stint as prime minister after heading the cabinet in 2007-2012.

Germany’s foreign minister says Turkey has approved plans for German lawmakers to visit their country’s troops at a Turkish air base, ending a standoff that had strained relations, the Associated Press reports.

Turkey had refused to allow German lawmakers to visit personnel stationed at the Incirlik Air Base since the German Parliament’s June vote to label as genocide the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago.

Germany has troops and aircraft at the base to support the campaign against the Islamic State group.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday that Ankara has now approved a visit. He said that “with this decision by the Turkish government we have moved a step forward.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Turkey’s president Sunday at the Group of 20 summit in China.

Harut Sassounian
The California Courier

Syria has been the hub of shifting international military and political intrigues since the start of the ‘civil war’ in 2011. The diverse conflicting sides include: Hezbollah, Iran, Islamic State (ISIS), Israel, Jordan, Kurdish fighters, Lebanon, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, assorted terrorists from around the world, Syria, Syrian opposition groups, Turkey, the United States, and other NATO states.

The latest ominous development is the Turkish invasion of the Syrian border town Jarablus, which had been occupied by ISIS. However, contrary to Turkish propaganda, Turkey’s military did not invade Syria to chase out ISIS, and the U.S. Air Force did not drop any bombs on Jarablus to pave the way for the advancing Turkish troops, according to David Phillips, Director of the Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Phillips had served as a Senior Adviser and Foreign Affairs Expert to the U.S. Department of State under Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama.

Turkey’s actual plans were to prevent further inroads into North-West Syria by Kurdish YPG fighters (People’s Protection Forces) who have been the most reliable military allies of the United States in countering ISIS, while Erdogan calls the YPG ‘terrorists.’

Phillips revealed in his Huffington Post article that “Turkish-backed Islamists never engaged ISIS in the so-called battle for Jarablus. Before invading, Ankara made a deal with the Islamic State. Rather than resist, ISIS forces simply changed into FSA [Free Syrian Army] uniforms. Jarablus was ‘liberated’ from ISIS with barely a shot.” ISIS had evacuated all civilians from Jarablus prior to the Turkish invasion because it did not “want civilians to identify newly clad FSA members as hard core ISIS fighters,” Phillips wrote.

“It is not surprising that Erdogan and ISIS made a deal. ISIS and Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) are ideologically aligned,” Phillips asserted, since “they are both branches of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite official denials, there is a mountain of evidence that Turkey provided weapons, money, and logistical support to Islamists in Syria beginning in 2014. Turkey also underwrote the Islamic State by transporting its oil and selling it on the international market. About 500 Islamist fighters are still transiting from Turkey to Syria each month.”

Turkish leaders have made no secret of their true aim. Erdogan announced that his objective is to go after YPG and “terror groups that threaten our country.” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pledged that Ankara would “do what is necessary” to keep the Kurdish fighters away from the Turkish border.

Washington is not pleased with Turkey’s misdirected military actions in Northern Syria. Senior Pentagon official Brett McGurk told CNN that “the Turks never cared about Jarablus until the Kurds wanted to get there.” McGurk called the Turkish attacks on Kurdish fighters “unacceptable and a source of deep concern” for the United States.

The Editor of Veterans Today was also highly critical of the Turkish invasion of Syria as reflected in his cynical explanation: “Turkish troops who had been in Syria for years dressed up as ‘ISIS’ have simply gone home to Turkey, had a good wash and shave, put back on their Turkish uniforms then returned to Syria.”

Saadeddine Somaa, a Syrian Arab militant who joined the Turkish incursion into Syria, expressed to The New York Times his disappointment for being misled into fighting the Kurds instead of ISIS and the Syrian government. “Everyone is pursuing their own interests, not Syria’s,” Somaa complained.

The New York Times article stressed that due to in-fighting, the rebel groups “risk reinforcing criticism that they are Turkish and American proxies at best, de facto allies of ISIS at worst.” Furthermore, “Turkish airstrikes had killed 35 civilians in Kurdish-held villages. And there was a video online showing rebels kicking prisoners from the Kurdish-led militias.” Some of the fighters accompanying the Turkish troops’ incursion into Syria, such as members of Nooredine al-Zinki, “were accused of having ties to Qaeda-linked groups” and were “widely condemned when a group of its fighters videotaped themselves beheading a young prisoner…. Its participation in the Jarablus operation was an indication that it has not been completely shunned, at least by Turkey.”

David Phillips ended his revealing Huffington Post article with an ominous prediction: “Syria will be Erdogan’s Waterloo. The U.S. Government must not be tethered to Turkey’s sinking ship.”

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is joining this week with In Defense of Christians (IDC) and a broad array of faith-based and human rights coalition partners in seeking solutions to the challenges facing Christian communities in the Middle East and attaining justice for the genocide committed against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians from 1915-1923.

The third annual IDC National Advocacy Convention, titled “Beyond Genocide: Preserving Christianity in the Middle East,” is cosponsored by the ANCA, Philos Project, and Institute for Global Engagement and supported by many other DC-based and grassroots organizations.

“Recognizing that the profound challenges facing Christians in the Middle East require strong coalitions and a coordinated American response, the ANCA is pleased, once again, to team up with In Defense of Christians to help realign U.S. foreign policy with the American people’s commitment to human rights and religious liberty,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

Armenian Church and ANCA leaders will be offering insights throughout the three-day program starting on Wednesday, September 7th, with remarks by Hamparian at the opening press conference, which will also feature insights by Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF); Robert Nicholson, Executive Director of the Philos Project; Alexis Moukarzel, former Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of the Holy Spirit in Kaslik, Lebanon; Andrew Doran, journalist and expert on religious persecution in the Middle East; and IDC Executive Director Kirsten Evans.

Wednesday evening, His Eminence Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Prelate of the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of the Eastern U.S. will participate in an ecumenical prayer service for Christians in the Middle East at the historic Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Washington, DC.

Thursday’s day of Capitol Hill advocacy will be kicked off with a policy briefing by Raffi Karakashian, ANCA Government Affairs Director; Juliana Taimoorazy, founder and president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council; and Kristina Olney, IDC Director of Government Relations and Outreach – followed by Congressional office canvassing by conference participants.

In the afternoon, ANCA National Board Member Aida Dimejian will be offering remarks alongside a host of Senate and House members and organization leaders at the Congressional Visitor Center Auditorium.

On Friday, the ANCA Eastern Region’s Armen Sahakyan will be offering insights at a panel titled “Genocide and Persecution: Past and Present” alongside Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett; Andrew Walther, vice president for communications and strategic planning for the Knights of Columbus; and the IDC’s Kirsten Evans.

The complete schedule and listing of all speakers is available at:

Among the key policy issues advocated by the IDC conference participants is the Armenian Genocide Truth + Justice Resolution (H.Res.154) – which is now pending before Congress – calls on the President of the United States to work toward equitable, constructive, stable, and durable Armenian-Turkish relations based upon the Republic of Turkey’s full acknowledgment of the facts and ongoing consequences of the Armenian Genocide, and a fair, just, and comprehensive international resolution of this crime against humanity. The ANCA is strongly in support of congressional passage of H.Res.154.

The ANCA has worked closely with IDC and a coalition of over 100 organizations, including the Knights of Columbus, the International Religious Freedom Roundtable and the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in a grassroots campaign to have Congress and the Obama Administration declare the slaughter that Christians and other minorities in the Middle East are facing a modern-day genocide.

Earlier this year, on March 15th, with a vote of 393 to 0, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously condemned as genocide the ongoing ISIL/Da’esh crimes against Christians – including Armenians and Assyrians – as well as Yezidis and other religious minorities in the Middle East by adopting H.Con.Res.75, spearheaded by Representatives Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE).  Two days later, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry clearly and unequivocally characterized the ongoing ISIL / Da’esh attacks and killings of the Christians, Yezidis, and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East as genocide, with specific mention of the destruction of Armenian churches as part of the cultural destruction of these historic communities.  The Senate adopted a similar resolution (S.Res.340) on July 7th.

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, joined with Christian leaders from throughout the Middle East at the inaugural IDC conference in 2014, offering a powerful call for unity in the face of the existential threat against historic Middle Eastern Christian communities.

On 7 September Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited the Getavan village of the Martakert region and partook at a solemn opening ceremony of memorial complex devoted to the memory of freedom fighters from Getavan perished during the Artsakh Liberation struggle.

The Head of the State highlighted the significance of such initiatives from the viewpoints of keeping the nation’s devotees memory bright and patriotic upbringing of the younger generation.

On the same day Bako Sahakyan was present at a “Hrashapar” service held at the Gandzasar monastery with the participation of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos fo All Armenians.

National Assembly chairman Ashot Ghoulyan and other officials partook at the events.

Asbarez – The 6th World Doll Festival in Japan will display about 1,500 dolls from 71 countries, among them 14 dolls from Armenia. Various booths will provide tourist information about the countries as well.

The event will be held from October 28-30, 2016, at Izutsu Yashiki.

This year the exhibition is devoted to Germany and will harbour dolls from Bayern, hand-made Nutcrackers, smokers from the Harz Mountains made out wood, Christmas pyramids, doll houses, etc.

The Embassy of Germany to Japan, the German House in Naruto City, and Naruto City Tourism Association are patrons of the event.

The program will conclude with a performance of the 9th Symphony by Beethoven. Local restaurants will also offer their international dishes.

On a visit to Argentina, Vice-President of the Armenian National Assembly Edward Sharmazanov had a meeting with members of the Argentina-Armenia Friendship Groups of both chambers of the country’s Parliament.

Edward Sharmazanov emphasized the importance of establishing close ties between the friendship groups, noting that the cooperation could contribute to the development of interstate relations between Armenia and Argentina. He attached importance to reciprocal support on the international arena.

Edward Sharmazanov briefed the Argentine lawmakers on the situation at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan.

“We live in a region facing a number of challenges, where Turkey is upholding the 20-year-long illegal blockade of Armenia on one hand, and Azerbaijan is threatening the security and stability in the region with its criminal policy on the other hand,” he said.

“Everyone should realize that there is no alternative to the realization of the Artsakh people’s right to self-determination. Armenians of Artsakh share equal rights with the people of any other country. The international recognition of Artsakh is the imperative of the time,” Sharmazanov added.