Photo: AFP
French centre-right presidential candidate Francois Fillon has said he will fight on, as he announced that a judge was placing him under formal investigation, the BBC reports.
For weeks, he has fought allegations that his wife was paid for years for work she did not do.
He has now been summoned to appear before the judge, Serge Tournaire, on 15 March.
“It’s a political assassination,” Mr Fillon complained.
The Azerbaijani forces used Spike anti-tank guided missile in the eastern (Martuni) direction of the line of contact around 15:40 today, Artsakh Defense Ministry reports.
“This comes to prove that the rival is escalating the situation on purpose,” the Ministry said, adding that “it’s fraught with unpredictable consequences.”
The Artsakh Defense Army has incurred no losses
The rival also used weapons of different calibers, including automatic grenade launcher and 60 mm mortar as it kept violating the ceasefire throughout the day.
The Artsakh Defense Ministry declares it’s ready for any development of events and noted that “Azerbaijani military-political leadership will bear full responsibility for further escalation.
Sajjad Karim Co-Chair of the Delegation to the EU-Armenia and EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Association Committees, has issued the following statement:
Azerbaijani Prosecutor General has issued three international arrest warrants, this week, against MEPs Eleni Theocharous, Frank Engel and Jaromir Štětina for having visited Nagorno Karabakh and having, through their behaviour, supported the self-proclaimed local statehood. On 20 February, the MEPs named above carried out “observations” of a process organised locally in Nagorno Karabakh.
No official European Parliament observation mission has been organized in Nagorno Karabakh. Any impression given contrary to this is therefore without merit and completely unfounded.
Whilst MEPs are free to visit areas of their choosing and promote their individual beliefs. At the same time the MEPs should responsibly pay attention to the obvious fragility of the ceasefire and the need to support the political mediation processes in Nagorno-Karabakh and be clear of their unofficial individual status for all such visits.
The issuing of an international arrest order is unwelcome, unhelpful and undesirable, it also exaggerates the importance to be attached to this individual MEPs visit.
What is needed is the re-invigoration of the Minsk Group process and a political mediation to take the peoples living in the area, and the states concerned, from the current, too long, protracted conflict to stable peace, economic revitalisation and decent living conditions. This should be the drive of our political activity, when we conduct it openly and transparently via the official bodies of the EP.
We look forward to all three named MEPs declaring the basis of this visit as per declaration requirements for all MEPs.
The escalation of tension on the Line of Contact, provoked by the Azerbaijani side, only deepens the distrust and postpones the prospects for a final resolution of the conflict, the Artsakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Lack of international response fuels Azeri aggression
The full text of the statement is below:
“In the early hours of February 25, 2017, the Azerbaijani armed forces attempted an attack on the positions of the Defense Army of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), which was neutralized by the military units of Artsakh. The incident was the most serious violation of the ceasefire by Azerbaijan after the April war of 2016. Like in last April, it followed the systematic and deliberate steps by the Azerbaijani side on the gradual escalation of tensions, to which the mediators responded by untargeted appeals for restraint.
The incident of February 25, 2017 is another proof of total disregard for the commitments assumed by Azerbaijan in the frameworks of the agreements of 1994 and 1995, as well as the agreements reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg. It is obvious that by increasing the degree of tensions on the Line of Contact the Azerbaijani side tries to check not only the combat capability of the Defense Army of Artsakh, but also the reaction of the international community to the use of force.
It was the absence of international community’s strong and targeted assessment of actions of Azerbaijani authorities on disrupting the process of peaceful settlement of the conflict and preparing for war that to a certain extent, created a situation, taking an advantage of which, Baku considered it possible to unleash a military aggression against Artsakh in April 2016.
The escalation of tension on the Line of Contact, provoked by the Azerbaijani side, only deepens the distrust and postpones the prospects for a final resolution of the conflict. We believe that the response to the provocative policy of Azerbaijan must be refraining from making untargeted appeals to the parties of the conflict and increased efforts on the practical implementation of the agreements reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg on strengthening the ceasefire and creating conditions for the resumption of the negotiation process.
On February 28, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Artsakh Karen Mirzoyan received Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk.
During the meeting, a range of issues related to the current situation on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of the Republic of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, as well as the monitoring conducted by the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office was discussed.
The sides touched upon the issues related to the attempted attack by the Azerbaijani armed forces on the positions of the Defense Army of Artsakh in the early hours of February 25 and to the consequent situation.
Karen Mirzoyan stressed that the noted incident confirmed once again the necessity of the full restoration of the ceasefire set in the agreements of 1994 and 1995, as well as the practical implementation of the arrangements on creating conditions for the resumption of the negotiation process reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg.
On March 1, 2017, in accordance with the arrangement reached with the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh, the OSCE Mission will conduct a planned monitoring of the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, in the direction of the Askeran region, near the settlement of Shykhlyar.
From the positions of the Defense Army of the Artsakh Republic, the monitoring will be conducted by Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his Field Assistants Ghenadie Petrica (Moldova) and Khristo Khristov (Bulgaria).
The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh have expressed their readiness to assist in conducting the monitoring and to ensure the security of the OSCE Mission members.
On 28 February Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan received personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk.
The meeting addressed a number of issues related to the situation along the contact line between the Nagorno Karabagh and Azerbaijan armed forces.
Special attention was paid to the penetration attempt made by the Azerbaijani subversion unit on 25 February. The President described it as a provocative policy aimed at undermining peace and stability in the region.
Within this context the President highlighted the need for targeted and tough response by the international community, considering it an important component in containing the destructive policy waged by the adversary.
On February 27, the Armenian National Institute (ANI) launched a Turkish-language version of its popular website documenting the facts and acknowledgments of the Armenian Genocide available at .
The ANI site is visited over four million times a year and the number of people accessing from Turkey is substantial. As Turkey regularly censors foreign and domestic websites and the ANI English site has been hacked by denialists, the new ANI Turkish site was designed to give access to broader Turkish-language audiences, both in the Republic of Turkey and outside. The Turkish-language site will parallel many of the most commonly used features of the ANI site. For its first phase, the Turkish site features translations of official documents from countries around the world that formally recognize the Armenian Genocide.
The resolutions, laws, and declarations from countries that have historically recognized the Armenian Genocide can now be read in Turkish. They range from the May 24, 1915 Joint Allied Declaration that invoked crimes against humanity at the time the genocide was being committed to more recent parliamentary resolutions, including the 2016 German Parliament resolution that recognized the historic events and admitted German responsibility in the matter. Earlier this month the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany upheld the validity of the resolution.
“The Turkish-language ANI site looks forward to contributing toward dialogue by paving one more path to a common understanding of history and by taking one more step toward a reconciliation cognizant of the consequences of the past while building forward toward a future where neighboring nations live in peace,” stated ANI Chairman Van Z. Krikorian.
Audiences in Turkey are also unaware of the voluminous Turkish records that confirm the facts of the Armenian Genocide. In 2004 the proceedings and legal analysis by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), commissioned by the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission, was published in Turkish and several books have appeared in print since, but there is a massive gap in resources for Turkish speakers.
The ICTJ legal opinion in Turkish is available on the new website, which also includes a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section and a photographic collection. Additionally, a section for entries from the Encyclopedia of Genocide addressing several aspects of the Armenian Genocide is currently under construction.
The site will have new features that will be of particular interest to Turkish readers. The Institute is looking forward to expanding the site in the same systematic manner and by the same objective standards by which the ANI site was created.
“Many courageous individuals have spoken up and some brave scholars have pioneered groundbreaking research documenting the Armenian Genocide on the basis of official Ottoman records. Despite the broad-ranging global dialogue on the historical importance and dark precedent of the Armenian Genocide, more progress in Turkey is necessary for Turks to understand and reconcile with their own real history,” Krikorian added.
This policy continues to have serious domestic consequences. Recently Turkish parliamentarian of Armenian origin Garo Paylan was penalized with suspension from participation in three sessions of the legislature for daring to reference the consequences of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey itself.
His suspension in January arrived almost to the day of the tenth anniversary of the assassination of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, a crime that remains in many ways unsolved. Dink’s courage in raising awareness of the legacy of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey emboldened many others in the Turkish media to re-examine the issue, while it infuriated ultranationalists who took the law into their own hands.
The new site also features the ANI map keyed in Turkish, and links to other popular features, such as its digital exhibits and online museum.
ANI Director Dr. Rouben Adalian stated: “The Turkish site was created thanks to the support and encouragement of many contributors, including translators, consultants and web designers who helped to make this information on the Armenian Genocide accessible to readers in Turkey and elsewhere. New translations will be added very soon and we look forward to enhancing the site to reflect the vast amount of information on the Armenian Genocide already available on the ANI site.”
The four-day war unleashed by Azerbaijan in April 2016 was the was the reflections of Baku’s long-term belligerent policy and propaganda, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said, speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“It caused a great harm to the conflict settlementprocess. Azerbaijan’s aggression came to confirm that there is no alternative to the Artsakh people’s struggle to live in safety and freedom on their own land. This is not an opinion, but a reality imposed on us as a result of Azerbaijani policy,” President Sargsyan said.
President Sargsyan blamed Azerbaijan for the failure to implement the agreements reached at Vienna and St. Petersburg summits. “If Azerbaijan is truly interested in changing the status quo, there is one way to do this – recognize the right of the people of Nagorno Karabakh to self-determination,” he said.
The President said Baku apparently uses the Karabakh conflict to solve issues inside the country – to divert attention from pressing social-economic problems and the growing discontent with the gross violations of human rights.
Serzh Sargsyan stressed that “both Armenia and Artsakh stand against use of force and support the peaceful settlement of the conflict through negotiations.” “New attempts of military adventurism on the part of Azerbaijan are fraught with unpredictable consequences for Azerbaijan itself. Armenia, as a guarantor of Artsakh’s security, has said on many occasions that it is ready to give an adequate response to any attempt of use of force,” he noted.
“Despite Azerbaijan’s continuous threats, the people of Artsakh continue to build their future,” the President said.
He emphasized that Artsakh shares equal rights with the democratic world to enjoy all universal Freedoms, President Sargsyan said, adding that “Artsakh is better aware of the cost of living in freedom and has paid for it with the blood of its sons.”
“While Artsakh is taking decisive steps towards a stronger democracy, its neighbor Azerbaijan is taking steps to ensure full dictatorship with power inherited from generation to generation,” President Sargsyan stated.
Photo: AFP
US private rocket company SpaceX has announced that two private citizens have paid to be sent around the Moon, the BBC reports.
The mission is planned for late 2018, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said, adding that the tourists “have already paid a significant deposit”.
“This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years,” he said.
The two unnamed people will fly aboard a spaceship which is set for its first unmanned test flight later this year.
Mr Musk said the co-operation of America’s Nasa space agency had made the plan possible.
He said the two passengers “will travel faster and further into the solar system than any before them”.
Mr Musk declined to reveal their identities, only saying that they knew each other and that “it’s nobody from Hollywood”.