Category: News

Boris Johnson has won a £1,000 prize for a rude poem about the Turkish president having sex with a goat, reports. 

The former mayor of London’s limerick, published by the Spectator as a rebuff to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to prosecute a German comedian’s offensive poem, also calls the president a “wankerer”.

Johnson, a former editor of the magazine, won the Spectator’s “President Erdogan offensive poetry competition.” The prize money has been donated by a reader.

The limerick was written off-the-cuff by the Conservative MP during an interview with the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche.

Johnson – whose great-grandfather was Turkish – called it “a scandal” that a German court had granted an injunction to prevent comedian Jan Böhmermann repeating his offensive skit about the Turkish president.

“If somebody wants to make a joke about the love that flowers between the Turkish president and a goat, he should be able to do so, in any European country, including Turkey,” Johnson told interviewer Nicholas Farrell, who then challenged him to enter the Spectator’s poetry prize.

Today, at the Yerevan Expo Exhibition Complex President Serzh Sargsyan attended the opening ceremony of the New Perspectives for the Syrian Armenians exhibition which is being held in the framework of the Week of Economic Opportunities business forum.

The exhibition presents over seventy companies and individuals entrepreneurs of the Armenian descent who have fled war in Syria and relocated to Armenia.

The President of Armenia familiarized with the results of the activities of the Syrian Armenians in different areas, observed goods and services presented at the exhibition, learned about existing problems and programs of development. At the exhibition, private companies of Armenia present to the Syrian Armenians existing jobs and services, while state and international institutions present their programs of assistance. President Serzh Sargsyan assessed as inspiring the efforts of our compatriots working in the area of publishing, printing, jewelry making, wood processing, tourism, embroidery, equipment and machinery production, as well as in other areas and highly praised the quality of the exhibited goods. The President discussed with the Syrian Armenian entrepreneurs issues related to the sales and export opportunities for their production.

The meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents earlier this week is the first good signal for launching further dialogue on settling the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia’s upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Thursday, TASS reports.

“This is the first such a good signal – the meeting of presidents of the two countries (Azerbaijan and Armenia). This has already laid the foundation of a dialogue,” Matviyenko said at the meeting with Speaker of Azerbaijan’s National Assembly Ogtay Asadov.

Matviyenko said it is now most important “to build trust and move towards solving the problem” in the Nagorno-Karabakh. She stressed that the conflict can be resolved only through resuming dialogue and talks.

The Russian side understands its responsibility as a member of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), she added. “We will provide every assistance both on bilateral basis and as part of the Minsk Group of the OSCE,” Matviyenko stressed.

An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo made two sharp turns before plunging into the Mediterranean Sea, Greece’s defence minister says, the BBC reports.

Panos Kammenos said the Airbus A320 had “turned 90 degrees left and a 360-degree turn to the right” and dropped more than 6,700m  before disappearing from radar.

Sixty-six people were on board, most of them from Egypt or France.

A major search is under way in seas south of the Greek island of Karpathos.

Greek and Egyptian armed forces are involved in the effort, and France has offered to send boats and planes.

Egypt’s Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathi told a news conference it was too early to rule out either terrorism or a technical failure as the reason behind the plane’s disappearance.

He said search efforts were concentrating on an area of the Mediterranean near the Greek island of Karpathos, but no wreckage had yet been found.

 

 

 

“The main emphasis of the Vienna meeting was the commitment of the parties to return to the ceasefire agreements signed in 1994 and 1995,” Speaker of the NKR National Assembly Ashot Ghulayn said in an interview with Public Radio of Armenia.

Therefore, he said, the initial basis of the process inspires hope that Artsakh will return to the negotiating table, as the 1994-1995 agreements were signed between Armenia, Artsakh and Azerbaijan.

The Speaker does not rule out that military actions could resume had there been no meeting in Vienna.

According to Ashot Ghulyan, there is no common attitude in Armenia towards the Minsk Group, as the non-active and non-adequate reaction of the Co-Chairs led to Azerbaijan’s aggression.

“Azerbaijan is aware that there can be no international support for a military solution to Karabakh conflict,” Ghulyan said. He added that “Azerbaijan had no political will to declare about its military aspirations in Vienna.”

As for Artsakh’s recognition by Armenia, the Speaker said: “Had the bill been brought to the Parliament floor during the four-day war, it would be more comprehensible, but the submission of the bill 20 days later brought about a number of concerns. It could harm the fragile negotiation process.”

The military actions in early April come to prove that any assault of the rival is doomed to fail, Mr. Ghulyan said.

The Speaker said “there are no guarantees that Azerbaijan will not violate its commitments in the future.” Therefore, he said, the Armenian side should develop a clear plan of actions and make necessary legislative amendments.

With a signature from Governor Rick Snyder some of the darkest chapters in human history may soon become required reading in Michigan classrooms, reports.

Both the House and Senate approved legislation that would make the Holocaust and the 1915 Armenian Genocide required subjects for students between 8th and 12th grade.

The bill also creates a 15 member Genocide Education Panel.

The Senate narrowly turned down an amendment that would have added more massacres to the requirements including those in Rwanda and Bosnia.

The Chamber of Deputies of Chile issued a historic passed unanimously that condemns the “armed attack of Azerbaijan to the Nagorno Karabakh Republic” on Wednesday 18 May, reports.

The resolution, introduced by DeputiesGustavo Hasbun Selume, Issa Kort Garriga, Denise Pascal Allende, Aldo Cornejo Gonzalez and Jorge Sabag Villalobos, sets a crucial precedent, since it is the first in South America that condemns the attacks of Azerbaijan and also call Nagorno-Karabakh a Republic.

The Chilean Chamber of Deputies “reaffirms its commitment to peace and urges the Republic of Azerbaijan for the immediate cessation of all acts of war against the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh and the strict observance of the truce signed by both countries in 1994” and “requests the Government of Chile to urge the parties to circumscribe the conflict settlement within the framework of the negotiations held in the Minsk Group, and thus avoiding a regional explosion with unpredictable consequences.”

“What Azerbaijan is doing undoubtedly marks a break not only of bilateral and international relations, but a permanent violation to the world peace and has to be condemned by the world, the citizenship and especially the countries like ours, that feel some degree of brotherhood with Armenia,” said Deputy Gustavo Hasbun Zelume, President of the Armenian-Chilean Group of Friendship and the one who presented the project, in an interview with Prensa Armenia agency. “This will allow Chile to take a more active role in defending the sovereignty of individual countries.”

The deputy admitted that they received pressures from Naciye Gökçen Kaya, Ambassador of Turkey in Chile, so that this resolution could not be approved, like the one last year, in which the Chamber of Deputies of Chile sympathized “with the Armenian nation condemning the genocide of its people that began in 1915.”

“The Chamber of Deputies is autonomous and will not allow pressures from any country to come and say how we as parliamentarians have to act in defense of justice, peace, human rights and in defense of people being oppressed,” added Hasbun Zelume.

“We welcome the courageous position of Chilean Deputies, who unanimously broke with the prevailing hypocrisy of not naming the aggressor in the conflict. We hope that this statement, in line with the Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OEA), Luis Almagro, on last 3 April, will mark a path for the countries of the region,” said Alfonso Tabakian, Director of the Armenian National Committe of South America.

The grounds for the decision say that “on the night of 1 to 2 of last April, ground forces and air of the Republic of Azerbaijan conducted a large-scale attack on the border with the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, with heavy artillery and last generation missiles” and that aggression represented “the most flagrant violation of the Ceasefire Agreement signed by both countries in May 1994 and a breach of UN rules on Pacific Settlement of Disputes.”

“Faced with this new escalation of violence that has already claimed numerous civilian and military casualties victims, Chile condemns the aggression, calls for the cessation of military operations and the continuation of the peace negotiations within the framework of the Minsk Group, whose co-presidents are the United States, Russia and France, sponsored by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).”

The sitting of the Council of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council will take place in Yerevan on May 20. The heads of government of the EEU member states will participate in the meeting.

A wide range of issues related to integration processes will be discussed.

The participants of the sitting will be hosted by President Serzh Sargsyan.