Germany’s foreign minister voiced the OSCE’s concerns over the developments in Nagorno-Karabakh, calling for urgent efforts towards strengthening peace on the frontline.
In a speech at the organization’s Ministerial Council, Frank Walter Steienmeier highlighted particularly the heavy fighting in April as a real hazard. “The discussions demonstrate how urgent it is to strengthen the ceasefire; hence, we must properly continue the negotiations to settle the [conflict],” he said.
Steienmeier, whose country this year assumed the OSCE presidency, said the organization will continue assisting in the Minsk Group efforts towards achieving peace.
“My impression is that we need to improve the humanitarian situation to build trustworthy relations and security,” he said, stressing the importance of further action.
Karabakh readies restoration project for Persian mosque
A restoration project for the Upper Mosque in the Nagorno Karabakh city of Shushi has been completed. The program was ordered by the Ministry of Economy and implemented by a group of Iranian experts.
According to Deputy Economy Minister Sergey Shahverdyan, the renovation of the mosque is essential in terms of protecting the cultural heritage of Karabakh, as “any monument on its territory, regardless of it being a religious or cultural site, is the historic property of the people of Artsakh.”
The repair project of the Persian mosque, according to Karabakh experts, is well-prepared and fully complies with all the norms of heritage conservation.
Shahverdyan said picking an Iranian company for the project was not accidental, given the mosque’s connection with Persian culture and history.
Golden Globes: Three Armenian films submitted for consideration
Armenia has submitted three movies for consideration for Best Foreign Film at the 74th annual Golden Globe Awards – “The Last Inhabitant,” “Hot Country, Cold Winter,” and “Earthquake,” the The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s official website says.
“As a filmmaker raised in Nagorno Karabakh I have listened to stories of hardships endured by my family and villagers, and of their struggles into dealing with such a devastating inter-ethnic conflict.” So says Jivan Avetisyan, a prolific 35 year-old Armenian director with a solid documentary background, who was born in this mountainous landlocked region in the Southwestern tip of Armenia bordering with Azerbaijan. He even had to do his mandatory military service there, in the province’s Defense Army from 1999 to 2001.
It is not surprising that he decided to make it the setting of “The Last Inhabitant,” his eighth feature film, which centers around Abgar, the only Armenian of Christian faith left in the village of Gyurjevan, now devastated and in near ruins, after everyone else has been deported. Because of his skills as a stonemason, he is assigned to help build a mosque by the Azeri occupants. He also has to take care of his daughter Yurga, traumatized after witnessing her husband’s murder. As the situation deteriorates around them with increasing enemy danger and lack of food, they find solace in their memories of an idealized past, when peace and happiness still prevailed. The last resort for those who have not much to hope for. With its often elegiac and poetic approach the film is able to achieve a touching portrait of survival and at the same time humanizing the protagonists and their fate, how tragic it may be.
Another of the movies sent for consideration is “Earthquake”, which is based on the real events surrounding the disastrous earthquake which struck Armenia in 1988. The terrible earthquake claimed at least 25,000 lives and left about half a million people homeless. For director Sarik Andreasyan it was a very special project, in which he wanted, after almost 30 years, to tell the story not only of death and destruction but also to show the hope and community spirit in the face of the nightmare.
The story is built around a Russian family living in the Armenian city of Leninankan. Anna Berezhnaya (Maria Mironova) with her son Vanya (Daniil Izotov) and daughter Katya (Anastasia Savkina) awaits the return from prison of her husband (Konstantin Lavronenko) who eight years prior was sentenced to prison for the death of two people in a car accident.
“Hot Country, Cold Winter” tells about the situation in Armenia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Some of the most suffering people there were the members of intelligentsia, who found themselves without means of existence and no sense of purpose. In his film “Hot Country, Cold Winter” Armenian director David Sarafian mixes realism and poetry to explore another dark period in the history of his long-suffering people. But don’t expect to get all the answers to the many questions asked by this film.
On the surface it is a story of a man and a woman from artistic circles who are suffering through circumstances of a total winter energy crisis. But in some ways this is merely a pretext to delve deeper into the problem of an artist living through hard times. Their recollections and their imagination are used here to help understand not only the story as such, but to appeal to core human values which are universal.
“Hot Country, Cold Winter” was an official selection for the main competition of the 2015 Tallinn International Film Festival in Estonia.
Source: PanARMENIAN.Net
Update: Turkish economy collapsing, $2.5 billion in cash alone has flown out of Turkey less than a month
Erdoğan: Currency speculators trying to bring down Turkish economy
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has claimed Turkey’s struggling economy is under attack from foreign exchange speculators, while also praising citizens who have converted their foreign currencies into liras.
“They are trying to destroy our economy through foreign exchange speculation. Are there no problems with our economy? Yes, there are. But our government has been taking the required measures and will continue to do so,” Erdoğan said in a speech to neighborhood leaders in the presidential palace in Ankara on Dec. 7.
He noted that he saw “no economic reason” for the Turkish Lira’s recent plunge, after the lira lost as much as one fifth of its value against the U.S. dollar this year before rebounding slightly on Dec. 6.
Casting recent weakness in the Turkish currency as a plot by outside powers to destroy the economy, Erdoğan has repeatedly called for Turkish citizens to convert any dollars under their mattresses into liras or gold, while urging businesses to conduct more transactions in the local currency.
Turkey has lost 2.5 billion dollars in cash in one month: CHP
Some $2.5 billion is cash alone has flown out of Turkey in less than a month, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chair Selin Sayek Böke has said, criticizing the government for creating “structural problems” with its draconian state of emergency decrees.
“The net outflow of cash since the beginning of November alone is $2.5 billion,” Böke said on Dec. 7, speaking after her party’s central executive board meeting.
She also rejected President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s claim that Turkey was being targeted in an economic war by shady outside forces, saying the government’s state of emergency decrees after the failed July 15 coup attempt had created “structural problems” that paved the way for economic strife.
“In the process that started with the extension of the state of emergency, the discussions on presidential system shift, and the deterioration of relations with the EU, the Turkish Lira became one of four currencies that have lost the most value,” Böke said.
“In addition to structural problems, there are political problems in Turkey. With the state of emergency, democracy has been abolished. The law has been destroyed by decree laws … For the sake of its own political power, the government is engaging in fights with the whole world. Political risks are leading Turkey to break away from the world,” she added.
Turkey: HDP Co-chair Demirtaş is being overtly tortured in prison: HDP lawmaker
The co-chair of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is being overtly subjected to torture in prison, a HDP lawmaker has said, commenting on the imprisonment of HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş.
“Isolation is a form of torture and our lawmakers and co-chairs are being overtly subjected to torture,” HDP deputy Meral Danış Beştaş said before visiting Demirtaş in the prison in the northwestern province of Edirne, adding that “lawlessness is being implemented.”
“There is isolation, restrictions and lawlessness in every sense,” she said.
Nine lawmakers from the HDP, as well its co-chairs, Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, were arrested on Nov. 4 in a probe that was launched against 14 of the party’s lawmakers over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Saying that Turkey should rectify its mistake, Beştaş noted that “no good can come to Turkey with it.”
“The fact that the co-chair of Turkey’s third biggest party is kept under torture and restrictions doesn’t do anything to benefit Turkey, and Turkey needs to rectify its mistake as soon as possible,” she said.
After being imprisoned, Demirtaş requested to serve his prison sentence in the same cell as one of the party’s lawmakers from the eastern province of Hakkari, Abdullah Zeydan, who was arrested on Nov. 6 and brought to the same prison in Edirne. Demirtaş’s request was rejected.
Accompanied by HDP lawmakers Burcu Çelik Özkan and Erol Dora, Beştaş said the fact that Demirtaş’s aforementioned request was rejected was against decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
“We are here today for Demirtaş’s prison conditions. Unfortunately, he is still being kept in isolation alone. Despite the fact that Zeydan is also serving here, Demirtaş’s and his requests to stay together were rejected,” she said.
Beştaş also said the prison staff were restricting the number of letters that Demirtaş can write.
“We filed applications on three matters and one concerned the letters. Mr. Demirtaş’s parliamentary group meeting talk wasn’t given. It was given after two weeks and it was censored. His letters to European parliamentarians were also not given. This is not acceptable,” she added.
Turkish forestry minister: Gülen will die in US and be buried in Jewish cemetery
By Nuray Babacan – ANKARA,
Forestry Minister Veysel Eroğlu has predicted that the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen will “end up dying in the U.S. and be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”
“There is nothing left for FETÖ. The U.S. is also saying farewell to it. Gülen will end up dying in the U.S and he will be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Apparently there are fights over who will replace him [in the Gülen movement] but they cannot rise again,” said Eroğlu, referring to the group widely believed to be behind Turkey’s July 15 coup attempt.
Speaking at parliament on Dec. 7, he dismissed speculation of a “second coup attempt” as the government had landed a fateful glow on what it calls the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ).
Eroğlu also said he had been personally targeted since 2011, after firing one of his employees who he found was working for the Gülenists.
“After this incident they said, ‘who is this minister? We will publish stories on Samanyolu TV and in daily Zaman [media outlets formally leaning toward the Gülen movement] and we will finish him.’ They were threatening a minister of state,” he said, claiming that he subsequently “cleared most Gülenists from the ministry.”
December/07/2016
Breaking News: A retired general John F. Kelly, to lead the department of homeland security
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump has settled on Gen. John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general whose son was killed in combat in Afghanistan, as his choice for secretary of homeland security, placing defense of American territory from terrorism in the hands of a seasoned commander with personal exposure to the costs of war.
General Kelly, 66, who led the United States Southern Command, had a 40-year career in the Marine Corps, and led troops in intense combat in western Iraq. In 2003, he became the first Marine colonel since 1951 to be promoted to brigadier general while in active combat.
Mr. Trump, a person briefed on the decision said, has not yet formally offered the job to General Kelly, in part because the general is out of the country this week. The president-elect plans to roll out the appointment next week, along with his remaining national security positions, including secretary of state.
Syrian army soldiers take full control over Aleppo’s Old City
Syrian government forces have reportedly liberated the entire neighborhoods in Old City of Aleppo as part of a large-scale military operation to flush foreign-backed Takfiri militants out of the strategic northwestern city.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that Syrian soldiers had established complete control over the historic area after militants withdrew in the face of army advances overnight.
The Britain-based monitoring group noted that the Takfiri terrorists “were forced to withdraw from the Old City neighborhoods of Aleppo for fear of being besieged.”
The Observatory said the militants withdrew from the last parts of the Old City after Syrian army units, in cooperation with allied fighters, restored security to Agyul and Bab al-Hadid neighborhoods of Aleppo, located some 355 kilometers north of the capital, Damascus, late on Tuesday.
The Syrian forces also secured the safe departure of more than 200 civilians from the liberated areas, and captured a number of terrorists there.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Syrian army had liberated Karm al-Dada, al-Sha’ar, al-Marjeh and al-Sheikh Lutfi districts in Aleppo as well as Tallet al-Shurta hill east of Aleppo.
The Syrian army and allied fighters from popular defense groups are now in control of more than 75 percent of eastern Aleppo.
Armenian Defense Minister holds meeting with members of U.S. and U.K. expert group
YEREVAN. – Defense Minister of Armenia Vigen Sargsyan on Wednesday held a meeting with the members of the joint U.S. and U.K expert group of cooperation in defense strategy reconsideration process. The meeting was also attended by the U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills.
At the meeting, the process of reconsidering the defense strategy was discussed and the further steps of cooperation were identified, the press-service of the Defense Ministry reports. Furthermore, special attention was attached to management and military education.
Istanbul: Paylan Question Deputy Prime Minister On His ‘Infidel’ Remarks
Istanbul—Garo Paylan, an Armenian member of the Turkish Parliament representing the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) on Monday took issue with recent comments by Turkey’s deputy prime minister, who used a derogatory term to describe non-Muslims living in Turkey as a hindrance to independence, prompting Paylan to raise the issue in parliament, reported Agos.
On December 3, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said, “For us, independence means to stand against the giavurs (infidels or non-believers) and to be able to call them ‘giavurs.’”
In his inquiry to parliament, Paylan urged Kurtulmus to personally take responsibility for his statement and provide a response.
Paylan said that according to Turkish Language Association (TDK), giavur means “1. a nonbeliever person, 2. non-Muslim.” He also cited linguist Sevan Nisanyan, who defined the term to mean “1. Zoroastrian, fire-worshiper, 2. non-Muslim, heretic.”
“Do you think that you insulted the Christians and non-Muslim people of Turkey by using the word of ‘giavur,’ which is used in a derogatory manner in many Turkish idioms and proverbs and which people often use to insult or defame certain groups or individuals?” asked Paylan in his parliamentary inquiry.
“Given that hate speech is defined as ‘speaking in an insulting or threatening manner on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability or sexual orientation,’ do you think that your statement is a form of hate speech?” added Paylan.
“Regarding the fact that such statements often lead to hate crimes, do you think that your statement may cause hate crimes?” said Paylan.
Last month, Paylan, in a similar question, appealed to Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim about the rise of hate crimes against Armenians and other minorities, suspects who threatened the Agos newspaper by placing black wreaths in front of its offices. That inquiry has yet to be answered.