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Home destroyed by Azerbaijan but christianity survived, Karabakh family wants peace to return to native village

April 9, 2016 by administrator

By Gayane Mkrtchyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

Residents of a northeastern Karabakh village were awakened from their sleep on the night of April 2 to face a new reality: the dark sky was lit up by Azeri shells, which turned into a downpour within seconds causing vast devastation to the peaceful community.

“I did not feel very well that night. A sound from outside woke me up. I got up to take medicine for blood pressure. I opened the door to get a cup of water, and heard shots, sounds of explosion,” Safura Iskandaryan, a 52-year-old resident of the village of Talish in the NKR’s Martakert region, emotionally gives her account of the events.

“My husband also got up. We saw that they were shelling the village. They first struck the military unit, and our house is 300 meters away from it. The second strike was further down. Bomb fragments were landing in our garden. We hardly managed to dress my disabled mother and hide in the bathhouse, which we used as a bomb shelter.”

The woman says their family hid in “the temporary shelter” for four and a half hours. She remembers their house being hailed with shots and how they narrowly escaped. Later, she says at the front gate they met Armenian soldiers who ordered them to immediately leave the village.

“You cannot imagine how fast we got in our car, and took with us as many of the villagers as we could: most of them were children, my brother with his grandchild. We already knew that the Azeris were in the village, in the upper district. Those poor people, who were brutally murdered, were living in a house in the upper part. We took 30 people in our car and my husband drove to the village of Mataghis,” says a mother of four kids, repeatedly mixing sequence of events, because of her emotions.

The Iskandaryan family is one of many in Talish who experienced déjà vu on April 2, again feeling the pain and loss of the war on their own skin: they were displaced from their own houses for the second time in 23 years.

Recalling harrowing details of the night, the woman says that they got into a terrible bombardment in the village of Mataghis. They saw how the Mataghis power station was blown up by a Grad multiple rocket launcher system used by Azerbaijanis.

“It was like watching a movie. Children were crying and adults were screaming: ‘Edo jan, save us, drive forward, they are shooting.’ My poor husband was shouting: ‘I am not worrying about me, what shall I do with these children?…” We hid around a hill in our car, and when the enemy soldiers were busy with charging their guns, we were able to flee. We looked back at the houses for soldiers’ families and saw them collapsing like in a movie. We reached the village of Maghavuz, where gunshots were heard, too. Cars were rushing out of the village. Everyone was trying to save their families,” she says.

The Iskandaryans, together with other villagers, moved to Armenia, and got to their relatives’ homes.

The village of Talish, which is home to about 500 people, is one of the oldest villages of Artsakh. As a result of hostilities, most of the village, which is not far from the line of contact, was destroyed. The village’s administrative building, its school, kindergarten, and other infrastructures were bombed. Dozens of houses were leveled to the ground. It was on the night of April 2 that the rival soldiers shot dead two Talish civilians, Valera Khalapyan and his wife Razmelay, and cut their ears. They also killed 92-year-old Marusya Khalapyan.

Iskandaryan says that they robbed the houses of the village, took away computers, different electrical gadgets, the mobile phones of the villagers.

“There were people, who managed to escape just in pajamas. At such critical moments people just want to flee and save their life. The largest shop in the village was mine. Now my husband is there and says that they have taken everything. The villagers of Talish need help to be able to get back on their feet,” she says.

NKR Prime Minister Ara Harutyunyan, visiting the town of Martakert, and the villages of Mataghis and Talish on April 6, said that the government will do its utmost to help to quickly reconstruct the residents’ houses and community infrastructure damaged in the bombardment. The prime minister said that within a few days Ministry of Urban Development specialists will inventory all the damage in order to start the restoration work as soon as possible.

Iskandaryan says that farmers are constantly calling each other to ask whether they are going to return to the village or not.

“The answer is one: if the village is reconstructed, they will be happy to return. The village had been destroyed during the war, but during those 23 years we re-built Talish. The village guests used to say: ‘what a lovely and rich village it is’. We were accustomed to living under the shootings, but not like this. We were afraid of only commando raids that had become frequent, but not of shootings,” she says.

The villagers of Talish dream to return to their homes, to live, to create. Iskandaryan is worried: her daughter and husband plowed the land and they were going to start sowing maize in a few days.

“How can it be? We’re so happy with our soldiers. We knew that if they were there, then we were safe and could sleep tight. But now I cannot imagine that I can go there again, and go to bed peacefully. I do not believe that there is a ceasefire. One cannot trust an Azeri. Today, they say that everything is alright, but later they fire at you in the back. I will go and check myself how strong the positions are, and only then I will return to Talish. We want peace,” says Iskandaryan.

London law firm helped Azerbaijan’s first family set up secret offshore firm

April 6, 2016 by administrator

The daughters of Azerbaijan’s president have a secret offshore company in the British Virgin Islands that was set up last year to help manage their multimillion-pound property portfolio in Britain, The Guardian reports.

Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva – who have cultivated high profiles inside and outside their home country – are shareholders in Exaltation Limited, leaked documents reveal. The company was incorporated in April 2015 with the purpose of “holding UK property”. The London law firm that set it up, Child & Child, claimed – wrongly – that the two women had no political connections.

The business interests and property portfolios of President Ilham Aliyev and his family have been the subject of extensive reporting in recent years.

These fresh revelations come amid growing concern in government that house price inflation – particularly in London – is being fuelled by rich foreign investors, who are now estimated to own more than £170bn of UK property.

Three years ago, David Cameron launched a campaign to demand more transparency about the ownership of offshore vehicles.

The network of companies used by Azerbaijan’s ruling family and their associates are set out in the Panama Papers, a leak of the database of the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. It was shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in Washington with the Guardian, the BBC and other media around the world.

President Aliyev has ruled the country since 2003. During this time his daughters have reportedly amassed vast personal business empires. They own luxury apartments in the UAE, as well as interests in telecoms and gold mining.

It was already known that Leyla Aliyeva owned a £17m mansion on Hampstead Lane in north London, next door to Kenwood House and overlooking Hampstead Heath. She is an artist and socialite, with friends said to include Prince Andrew, Lord Mandelson and Elisabeth Murdoch.

The papers show that she set up a new offshore firm at the time of her 2015 divorce from Emin Agalarov, an ethnic Azerbaijani businessman and pop star. The couple lived in Moscow and also reportedly owned a luxury penthouse overlooking Hyde Park. Aliyeva, 30, is said to prefer Britain to Russia.

Under the British government rules, Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva are classified as “PEPs” – politically exposed persons. The term encompasses anybody with links to top political leaders, including family members and close associates. It is not illegal for people classified as PEPs to own offshore businesses, but those companies are supposed to be subject to greater scrutiny and due diligence checks by banks.

However, it appears that Child & Child, the firm of London solicitors that acted on behalf of Aliyev’s daughters, did not declare their high-profile status. Asked on company formation documents in January 2015 if the two women were PEPs, Child & Child ticked “no” rather than “yes”.

It is not clear whether their status as PEPs was overlooked. The Guardian repeatedly asked Child & Child to comment but it declined to do so.

Child & Child, whose Knightsbridge office overlooks the gardens of Buckingham Palace, bought Exaltation Ltd on behalf of the Aliyev daughters from the Jersey branch of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Child & Child requested nominee directors for the new company, at the cost of $550 each.

The total value of Exaltation Ltd’s assets is unclear, but is put in documents at “over $1m”. The money is said to come from “personal savings”.

EU ambassador: Armenia has very strong family values

February 15, 2016 by administrator

YEREVAN. – Orphaned children are relatively few in Armenia, and family values are very strong in the country.

Head of the European Union (EU) Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Piotr Świtalski, on Monday told the above-said to reporters.

He noted this within the framework of the first awareness conference regarding the EU-funded “Equal Opportunities of Personal Development for Orphaned Children” program, which is implemented in Armenia.

In his words, the EU has adopted several strategic documents which underscore children’s rights.

Świtalski stressed, however, that Armenia is a special case, the respective situation is quite different in the country, and he urged not to do anything to change this situation in Armenia.

The ambassador noted that there are two very important relevant factors for the EU. First, civic awareness needs to be conducted as to how to work with children and how to protect them. And second, activity opportunities should be given to children.

Armenia News – NEWS.am

A Tchankaya in the Ankara region, a photo exhibition of an Armenian family evokes genocide and creates anger nationalists

November 12, 2015 by administrator

A Tchankaya in the Ankara region, a photo exhibition of an Armenian family organized by the city authorities in the cultural center of modern art created anger among the Turkish nationalist organizations.

According to the Turkish website Memurlar.net telling through pictures the history of the Armenian family the exhibition presents the Armenian Genocide, which has angered some of the population of Tchankaya.

The opening of the exhibition was done by the deputy chairman of the party “Republican People” Sezkin Tanrekoulou, a former member of the same party Atila Kart, Professor Oran and former Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertogrul Gunay. Everensel The website writes that the exhibition represents the family of brothers and Tsolak Aram tells Dildilian genocide, exodus of Armenians and the life of the Armenian community from 1872 to 1973. The exhibition entitled “testimonies of the past defunct Armenian family “will continue until November 22, despite the anger of some Turkish nationalist circles.

Krikor Amirzayan

UK: Royals told: open archives on family ties to Nazi regime

July 19, 2015 by administrator

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor meet with Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1937. Photograph: PA

Historian urges that secret correspondence be made public to reveal the truth after Queen’s Nazi salute footage released

Buckingham Palace has been urged to disclose documents that would finally reveal the truth about the relationship between the royal family and the Nazi regime of the 1930s.

The Sun’s decision to publish footage of the Queen at six or seven years old performing a Nazi salute, held in the royal archives and hitherto unavailable for public viewing, has triggered concerns that the palace has for years sought to suppress the release of damaging material confirming the links between leading royals and the Third Reich.

Unlike the National Archives, the royal archives, which are known to contain large volumes of correspondence between members of the royal family and Nazi politicians and aristocrats, are not compelled to release material on a regular basis. Now, as that relationship becomes the subject of global debate, historians and MPs have called for the archives to be opened up so that the correspondence can be put into context. report The Guardian

“The royal family can’t suppress their own history for ever,” said Karina Urbach of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London. “This is censorship. Censorship is not a democratic value. They have to face their past. I’m coming from a country, Germany, where we all have to face our past.”

The Sun was subjected to a backlash on social media, after publishing 80-year-old home movie footage from the grounds of Balmoral Castle, in which a laughing Elizabeth, her mother, Prince Edward (later Edward VIII) and Princess Margaret, were shown making Nazi salutes. Barbara Keeley, Labour MP for Worsley and Eccles South, retweeted a message that read: “Hey @TheSun, if you want to stir up some moral outrage about a misjudgement in history, look a bit closer to home.”

Many expressed incredulity that the paper had published the actions of a child. But the managing editor, Stig Abell, defended publication. “It is an important and interesting issue, the extent to which the British aristocracy – notably Edward VIII, in this case – in the 1930s, were sympathetic towards fascism,” he said. The paper declined to comment on how it acquired the footage. Legal experts suggested a police investigation was unlikely, especially given the collapse of recent cases in which Sun reporters walked free after being accused of paying public officials for information.

“On the face of it, this information has been obtained legitimately and used in accordance with what the newspaper feels is appropriate interest,” said John Cooper, QC.

“It’s really a question not so much on the law but whether it’s in the public interest for this material to find its way into a newspaper. The public interest in this document being produced is nothing to do with the royal family but how startling it is that in 1933 people were so naive about the evils of Nazism.”

Urbach, author of Go-Betweens for Hitler, a new book about the relationship between the royals and the Nazis, has spent years trying to gain access to documents relating to Nazi Germany held in the royal archives. She described the archives, in Windsor Castle’s Round Tower, as “a beautiful place to work but not if you want to work on 20th-century material … you don’t get any access to anything political after 1918”.

She described seeing shelves of boxes containing material relating to the 1930s that no one is allowed to research. She suggested that much of the archives’ interwar material no longer existed.

“We know that after ’45 there was a big cleanup operation,” Urbach said. “The royals were very worried about correspondence resurfacing and so it was destroyed.”

Helen McCarthy, a historian of modern Britain at Queen Mary University of London, echoed Urbach’s comments, tweeting that “if Royal Archives were more accessible & welcoming to researchers, ‘shock’ discoveries like Sun’s front page could be put in better context”.

Historian Alex von Tunzelmann suggested on Twitter that the lack of access to the royal archives for historians and the public “is profoundly undemocratic. We need much greater access. We need to be grown up about it. The history of this country belongs to the public”.

Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, a member of parliament’s influential political and constitutional reform committee and a prominent supporter of the recent release of Prince Charles’s confidential memos to politicians, said the royal family needed to allow full access to its archives, including those relating to Germany in the 1930s.

“It was a very interesting part of our history, when we had a future king who was flirting with the Nazis and the Blackshirts, and we need to know the truth of it,” Flynn said. “We need more openness. The royals have great influence still. Charles is still the most important lobbyist in the land.”

The Sun’s decision to publish the 17 seconds of footage, thought to have been shot in 1933 or 1934, has served as an unwelcome reminder for the royal family of its past links to the Nazis. The Queen, then aged six or seven, joins her mother, then Duchess of York, and her uncle Edward, the Prince of Wales, in raising an arm in salute as she plays alongside her younger sister, Princess Margaret. Her mother then raises her arm in the style of a Nazi salute and, after glancing towards her mother, the Queen copies the gesture. Prince Edward is also seen raising his arm.

Edward, who abdicated to marry the American socialite Wallis Simpson, faced numerous accusations of being a Nazi sympathiser. The couple were photographed meeting Hitler in Munich in October 1937.

A palace spokesman said: “It is disappointing that film, shot eight decades ago and apparently from Her Majesty’s personal family archive, has been obtained and exploited in this manner.”

Last Armenian families from Kobane fleeing Syria do not intend to return

June 30, 2015 by administrator

By İdris Emen – ŞANLIURFA,

Just like their ancestors forced from their homes in Eastern Anatolia in 1915-16, the last Armenian families living in the embattled northern Syrian town of Kobane have fled after the repeated jihadist attacks – and they do not intend to go back.

Agop Tomasyon, an Armenian from Kobane close to the Turkish border, who fled his hometown for Turkey around nine months ago when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched an attack, said the last eight Armenian families had left Syria for good and would not return.

“There were only eight families left before the ISIL attack [in October 2014]. All of these families left Kobane after the attack,” said Tomasyon.

Syrian Kurdish forces expelled ISIL fighters from Kobane on June 27 and retook full control after three days under siege, after a group of ISIL militants stormed into the border town. ISIL had also failed to capture Kobane at the start of 2015 after four months of deadly clashes.

Tomasyan, who belongs to one of the three families in the Suruç refugee camp, said they had to leave their hometown after ISIL’s attack because they knew that the jihadists would kill them once they learned that they were Christians.

“We understood that it was time for us to go. We decided to come to Turkey after a discussion between the last Armenians left. Eventually we came to Suruç,” he said. From Suruç, the eight families had spread to various other places.

“One family settled in Şanlıurfa, another in Hatay, and another in Aleppo. Two of the families who had passports went to Armenia. The remaining three families were placed in refugee camps in Suruç,” Tomasyan said.

He added that they had at one point decided to return to Kobane but changed their minds after his brother was killed by jihadists in front of his son’s eyes during ISIL’s latest attack.

“Before the recent ISIL assault, my brother wanted to return to Kobane to see how his house and store was. He took his 14-year-old son with him, but later he was killed by ISIL in front of his son,” Tomasyan said.

“Kobane is not our homeland anymore.”

The 14-year-old Aram Tomasyan, who is Agop Tomasyan’s nephew, said four ISIL members wearing uniforms of the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) had shot his father on the morning of June 24.

“My father was bleeding from his heart when he fell on the ground. Despite this he still raised his hand and said, ‘Son, run, they are ISIL.’ I ran. If I hadn’t run, I would have been shot too,” the boy said.

The elder Tomasyon said the ancestral roots of Kobane’s Armenians could be traced back to Southern and Central Anatolia, but his ancestors were exiled during the massacre and deportation of Ottoman Armenians in 1915-16. They fled to Kobane and settled there to start a new life.

“We had said that we would never leave Kobane, no matter what,” said Tomasyan, adding that they had two churches in the town and lived in harmony with everyone around them.

During the YPG’s battles against ISIL last year over Kobane, tens of people died in street unrest launched in a number of Turkish cities on Oct. 6 and 7, 2014, amid calls from Turkish Kurds for Ankara to do more to prevent the town from falling to ISIL.

Source: Hurriyetdailynews

July/01/2015

Tsipras’ family deported to Greece from western Turkey: Report

January 29, 2015 by administrator

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras smiles as he attends the first meeting of the new cabinet in the parliament building in Athens January 28, 2015. REUTERS Photo

A local newspaper in Turkey’s Thracian province of Edirne has reported that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ family was originally from the nearby town of Kırklareli.

In its Jan. 29 report, daily Hudut quoted the provincial head of the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) in Edirne who claimed that Tsipras had visited the city in 2010 for a joint event between his SYRIZA coalition and the ÖDP.

According to Nevzat Çolak, the new Greek prime minister said during their meetings in Edirne that “he feels at home” when he visits the Thrace region in Turkey, as his family was originally from Babaeski, a village in the nearby Kırklareli province.

“He is a smiling person. He was very happy at the interest we showed, and we ate meals of liver together,” Çolak added.

It is not immediately clear when the Tsipras family migrated from Turkey to Greece. The population exchange between Turkey and Greece, agreed in the Swiss lakeside town of Lausanne in January 1923, came after the two states sought to fix their borders after the Turkish War of Independence. Around 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and around 500,000 Muslims from Greece were “exchanged” in accordance with the treaty.

Tsipras’ relatives in the Athamania village, near the western Greek city of Arta, told Hürriyet that his father, Pavlos, is from Arta, as well as his parents. His mother Aristi, however, is from Kavala, a northern Greek city near the border with Turkey.

“I don’t know if her family were migrants from Turkey,” Dmitris Tsipras said.

Putin Vows Justice In Armenian Family Massacre

January 19, 2015 by administrator

Armenia — President Serzh Sarkisian (R) with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin visit the 102nd Russian Military Base in Gyumri, December 2, 2013.

By Emil Danielyan,

Signaling concerns over unprecedented anti-Russian protests in Gyumri, President Vladimir Putin reportedly assured his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarkisian on Sunday that Moscow will help to punish those responsible for the killing of six members of a local Armenian family. Report azatutyun.am

According to official Russian and Armenian sources, Putin telephoned Sarkisian to “once again express condolences to the relatives of the victims and the entire Armenian people” in connection with the slaughter allegedly perpetrated by a Russian soldier.

“The president of Russia expressed confidence that all necessary investigative actions will be taken within shortest time frames and that all the guilty will receive punishment envisaged by the law,” read a statement released by the Kremlin.

The statement said Putin also expressed hope that Russian medics who have arrived in Yerevan will help their Armenian colleagues save the life of the 6-month-old Seryozha Avetisian, the only survivor of the January 12 shooting spree. He said the Russian government is ready to transport the baby boy remaining in critical condition to Moscow for further treatment.

The Kremlin did not specify whether the two leaders discussed growing demands in Armenia for the Russian military to turn over the detained soldier, Valery Permyakov, to Armenian law-enforcement authorities. Moscow’s failure to do so has sparked angry protesters in Gyumri.

Many local residents fear that Russian authorities will cover up the shock crime if they handle the case. Hundreds of them clashed with riot police near the Russian consulate in Gyumri on Thursday. A larger number of Armenians protested outside the Gyumri headquarters of a Russian military base in Armenia the previous day.

A separate statement on the phone call issued by the Armenian presidential press service said Sarkisian and Putin stressed the need for “maximally close cooperation” between Russian and Armenian bodies investigating the killings. It said Sarkisian made clear that Armenian law-enforcement authorities will carry on with their efforts to “fully uncover all circumstances of the case.”

It was not clear whether the Armenian leader urged Putin to make sure that Permyakov, who has confessed to the killings, is tried in an Armenian court.

Both Armenian and Russian officials have indicated until now that the case will be taken up by a Russian military court located in Yerevan. The court has already remanded the 18-year-old conscript in pre-trial custody on charges of multiple murder and desertion.

On Thursday, Armenia’s Prosecutor-General Gevorg Kostanian promised, under pressure from the furious Gyumri protesters, to ask his Russian counterpart to transfer the suspect to Armenian jurisdiction. The pledge did not satisfy many in the crowd of about 2,000 people, resulting in a march to the Russian consulate, which was forcibly stopped by Armenian security forces.

Significantly, the Russian government has not yet officially condemned or criticized the unprecedented unrest in a country where public opinion has traditionally been in favor of close links with Russia. But many pundits in Moscow, including those close to the Kremlin, have rung alarm bells, warning of serious damage to Russian-Armenian ties. Some of them have even suggested that continued Russian military presence in the South Caucasus state may now be at risk.

This might explain why Putin decided to phone Sarkisian almost one week after the tragedy. He made no official statements on the matter until then, a fact contrasting with the Kremlin’s claim that the Russian president “once again” offered his condolences.

The Russian news agency RBK on Friday quoted an unnamed Russian security official as saying that Moscow has not yet made a final decision regarding Permyakov’s extradition to the Armenian side. The official said the suspect’s fate will be determined by Russia’s political leadership.

Under a bilateral treaty signed in 1997, soldiers of the Russian military base in Gyumri accused of crimes committed outside their units shall be dealt with by Armenian law-enforcement and judicial bodies. At the same time, Russia’s constitution prohibits the extradition of Russian nationals to any foreign state. This is the official reason why Permyakov remains in Russian military custody.

The soldier was reportedly caught by Russian border guards in Armenia while attempting to cross into Turkey more than 12 hours after the family massacre. They are said to have sent him back to the Russian base, which he deserted while being at a guard post overnight. Some Armenian government critics question this official theory, saying that Yerevan may have deliberately let the Russians capture their fugitive soldier.

Despite keeping custody of Permyakov, the Russian military has not only allowed Armenian investigators to question the suspect but also assigned him an Armenian defense attorney. The lawyer, Tamara Yayloyan, told the “168 Zham” newspaper on Saturday that she decided to abandon the case after attending an interrogation of her client.

“My refusal was unprofessional, but I just couldn’t control my emotions,” explained Yayloyan. “True, I have dealt with many murder cases for the past 17-18 years … But never before have I dealt with a case involving the murder of an infant. That had a big emotional impact on me.”

According to Yayloyan, Permyakov told his interrogators that he had never had contact with any of the murdered members of the Avetisian family before breaking into their Gyumri house early on January 12. He said he randomly picked the modest house to ask its residents for water.

The resulting shooting spree left a middle-aged couple, their daughter, son, daughter-in-law and 2-year-old granddaughter dead.

“[Permyakov] was asked, ‘Why did you shoot?’” the lawyer revealed to “168 Zham.” “He said, ‘I don’t know, they made noise, one of them reached for a mobile phone and I opened fire.’ When asked why he stabbed the babies he said, ‘I don’t know.’ He responded to almost every question with ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t explain.’”

Update: Serena Family We do not believe she died in car accident: Video

October 20, 2014 by administrator

Family members of Press TV’s American-Lebanese correspondent, Serena Shim, say they do not believe their daughter died in a normal accident in Turkey.

Serena’s family made the remarks during a visit by the news network’s Beirut Bureau team in Lebanon.

The family members refused to appear on camera but said they suspected the Turkish authorities were somehow responsible for her death.

Her parents said they would pursue the matter legally.

On Friday, Shim, an American citizen of Lebanese origin, told Press TV that the Turkish intelligence agency had accused her of spying probably due to some of the stories she had covered about Turkey’s stance on the ISIL terrorists in Kobani and its surroundings, adding that she feared being arrested.

Earlier, Press TV news director Hamid Reza Emadi called on the Turkish government “to find out exactly what happened” to Serena.

Shim, a mother of two, covered reports for Press TV in Lebanon, Iraq, and Ukraine.

She was on a mission on the Turkish side of the border across Syria’s strategic town of Kobani to cover the ongoing war there between the ISIL terrorists and Kurdish fighters.

Her car collided with a heavy vehicle upon return from a report scene in Suruç, a rural district of Şanlıurfa province of Turkey.

The identity and the whereabouts of the truck driver remain unknown.

Shim said she was among the few journalists who had obtained stories about Takfiri militants’ infiltration into Syria through the Turkish border, adding she had gained access to images showing militants crossing the border in trucks belonging to the World Food Organization and other NGOs.

One Family, Three Flags atop Mt. Ararat

August 7, 2014 by administrator

Berj and Christine (Balekian) Bedoyan have climbed Mt. Ararat, reaching it peak.

A member of the Armenian Relief Society Pasadena “Sose” chapter, Christine had brought a flag of her beloved organization with her on the trip. Berj packed the Homentmen flag, as well as one of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. They raised the flags of the beloved organizations, in which they have served for most of their lives.

In a Facebook post, Christine reflects that it took the couple three years to prepare and train for the arduous climb.

On their trip, the Bedoyans took the remains of Christine’s father to scatter on Mt. Ararat. The ARF flag that Berj raised adorned the coffin of his late father, while ARS flag Christine brought contained prayers hand-written by her mother.

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