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Angela Merkel: to rescue her friend Erdogan with another 3 billion Euro for Syrian refugees

July 1, 2018 By administrator

European leaders struggled to overcome deep divisions on migration at a tense EU summit that dragged into the early morning hours of June 29 before yielding vague pledges to strengthen external borders, explore new migrant centres and give Turkey second tranche of 3 billion Euro for Syrian refugees.

 

The meeting in Brussels, dominated by a nine-hour dinner, underscored how Europe’s 2015 spike in immigration continues to haunt the bloc despite a sharp drop in arrivals of people fleeing conflict and economic hardship in the Middle East and Africa.

It took place in an atmosphere of political crisis, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel under intense political pressure at home and a new eurosceptic Italian government threatening to torpedo any deal that did not meet its demands, Hurriyet Daily News reports.A bleary-eyed Merkel, speaking to reporters at 5 a.m. (0300 GMT), tried to put a positive spin on the result, saying it was a good signal that leaders had been able to agree a common text on the controversial migration issue.

But she acknowledged that the bloc still had “a lot of work to do to bridge the different views.” “Italy is not alone anymore,” said Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

French President Emmanuel Macron said European cooperation had “won the day”.

In a final statement full of convoluted language meant to satisfy the divergent views, the leaders agreed to set up joint asylum processing sites and restrict migrant moves within the bloc, but they made clear that virtually all of their pledges would be carried out on a “voluntary basis” by member states.

They also agreed to tighten their external border and increase financing for Turkey, Morocco and other North African states to prevent migration to Europe.

It was unclear whether the deal would prove sufficient to appease Merkel’s coalition partner, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which has threatened to shut Bavaria’s border to migrants — a move which could trigger the collapse of her three-month-old government as well as the EU’s Schengen zone of free travel.

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Angela Merkel, Syrian refugees

The Syrian refugee restaurateurs spicing up Armenian cuisine

March 7, 2016 By administrator

Armenian Laham magonChefs and bakers fleeing the civil war are transforming Yerevan’s food culture with new eateries offering Middle Eastern recipes. Eurasianet.org reports

At his lahmajoon bistro in the centre of Yerevan, 28-year-old Gaidzak Jabakhtchurian is adding a layer of spiced meat paste to a dough base. Four years ago, Jabakhtchurian and his family left their two bakeries in Aleppo, home to many of Syria’s ethnic Armenians, and moved here to escape the fighting.

The Jabakhtchurians are among thousands of Syrian refugees in Armenia, bringing with them new flavours and cooking styles to a country more accustomed to milder cuisine.

Lahmajoon (thin crust pizza with ground beef or lamb), spicy muhammara (hot pepper dip), fattoush (a green salad topped with pieces of pita bread), falafel and other Middle Eastern dishes are becoming increasingly popular, although they are often adapted to suit local tastes.

“We made our most famous lahmajoon less spicy,” said Jabakhtchurian. “We use our eight types of spices … but in Armenia we are quite mild.”

One lahmajoon, big on the beef, is named after the capital, Yerevan. Another, made with onions and lots of parsley, after the northern city of Gyumri. The bistro’s menu also features a yogurt soup based on one served by Jabakhtchurian’s grandmother at the start and end of winter.

“That brings back very warm memories to me,” he said.

Although lahmajoon is not new to Armenia, locals note a clear difference to the Aleppo variety.

“It was not until I ate a Syrian-Armenian lahmajoon that I first understood what that dish was supposed to be,” says Yerevan resident Gayane Bilbulian. “It is a really crazy mix of flavours.”

The UN’s Yerevan-based refugees coordinator, Anahit Hayrapetian, said the number of Middle Eastern restaurants in Armenia had increased significantly since the war started in 2011. Where once there was a only handful of establishments serving Middle Eastern food, now there are more than 50 in the capital.

“Syrian-Armenians [have been] encouraged by the fact that locals warmly welcomed the tastes and the smells [of their cuisine],” said Hayrapetian.

Kiosks across the city have also started offering Middle Eastern specialities, with some butchers now also selling halal meat prepared according to Islamic law.

Fusion food

Chef Manushak Kirizian, a native of Aleppo, initially imported the spices necessary to season her traditional dishes from Syria. But as the war dragged on, she was forced to turn to Lebanon.

The chef then decided to set up her own restaurant in Yerevan’s downtown – something she says that, as a woman, she would never have been allowed to do in Aleppo.

Kirizian is now the head of a family-owned restaurant, called Liban. “It is a very unusual thing for our community, but we also are trying to overcome the difficulties and move forward step by step,” she said.

With multicoloured hookahs (smoking pipes) in the windows and Arabic music playing in the lobby, Liban – named after Lebanon – serves dishes such as kebab with cherry sauce, fusing the family’s traditional Syrian recipes with local ingredients.

For Kirizian, the restaurant allows her family to maintain a link with its past yet equips them all for the future. “We lost everything, and now we are trying to bring our life back on its feet from nothing,” she said. “Today, Armenia is our home and we feel safe here.”

For the dough

Two cups of warm water

One tablespoon of dry instant active yeast

Half a tablespoon of sugar

Two tablespoons of olive oil

Four cups of wheat flour

For the topping

600-700g of ground beef (preferably halal)

Can of diced tomatoes with juice

1 large onion, chopped

5 garlic cloves, minced

1 full tablespoon of tomato paste

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 teaspoon of paprika

Half a teaspoon of black pepper

Salt, according to taste

Parsley, according to taste

Chilli, cumin and baharat, according to taste (optional)

Mint, according to taste (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 230C. (Or to 200C for a slightly softer crust.)

Combine yeast and warm water and let stand for several minutes until frothy. Add to the flour, oil and sugar and combine to form a dough. It should have an elastic consistency. Moisten the dough with extra olive oil and cover. Let the dough rise for 40 minutes to one hour until it has doubled in size.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse briefly until a paste has formed. Alternatively, add the beef to the remaining ingredients in a bowl and combine by hand.

Punch the dough down, and separate into about 20 fist-sized portions. Keep under a damp cloth.

Roll out one lump of dough into a small, thin circle.

Apply a thin layer of the topping to the edges of the dough. Place on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes.

Serve folded over or face-up, topped with juice from a slice of lemon.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, cuisine, Syrian refugees

Canadian PM welcomes Syrian refugees, including Armenian family, in Toronto airport

December 11, 2015 By administrator

f566ad850a56ba_566ad850a56f4.thumbCanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has welcomed the first plane of Syrian refugees as they arrived in Toronto, the Daily Mail reports.
The country is pushing forward with a pledge to resettle 25,000 Syrians fleeing conflict by the end of February.
In contrast, the United States plan to take in just 10,000 over the next year, and even that is provoking opposition.
It comes as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump caused a worldwide uproar with a proposal to temporarily block Muslims from entering the U.S.
Protests erupted around the country against Donald Trump in the wake of his controversial remarks.
Crowds gathered outside his midtown hotel in New York and opposite a New Hampshire venue where he was speaking on Thursday to condemn his comments.
Meanwhile, Trudeau welcomed 163 refugees as they arrived on a military plane.
The flight from Jordan arrived just before midnight carrying the first of two large groups of
Syrian refugees to arrive in the country by government aircraft.
Trudeau greeted some of the families to come through processing. The first family was Kevork Jamkossian, a Syrian-Armenian gynecologist from Aleppo, his wife Georgina Zires, a lab technician, and their 16-month-old daughter Madeleine.
“We really would like to thank you for all this hospitality and the warm welcome,” the father said to Trudeau through an interpreter. “We felt ourselves at home.”
“You are home. Welcome home,” Trudeau responded.
“We suffered a lot. Now, we feel as if we got out of hell and we came to paradise,’ Jamkossian said later.
Families were given teddy bears and winter clothing. Trudeau earlier thanked staff and volunteers who were processing the refugees.
“This is a wonderful night, where we get to show not just a planeload of new Canadians what Canada is all about, we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations,” Trudeau said.
All 10 of Canada’s provincial premiers support taking in the refugees and members of the opposition, including the Conservative party, attended the welcoming late Thursday. Trudeau was also joined by the ministers of immigration, health and defense, as well as Ontario’s premier and Toronto’s mayor.
In the US, several Republican governors have tried to stop the arrival of Syrian refugees in their states in the wake of the deadly attacks blamed on Islamic extremists in Paris and California.

https://www.facebook.com/ShaamNetwork.Arabic/videos/1081982545185652/ 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Canada, Syrian refugees, welcome

How Turkey build its Economy on the back of Syrian refugees!

December 21, 2014 By administrator

Syrian refugees

Davutoglu Thesis, Turkey must establish economic hegemony over the Caucasus, the Balkans and the Middle East, bring to fruition,

Some 1,122 companies were founded by Syrians in Turkey this year. AA Photo

More than 26 percent of new companies started up in Turkey by foreigners in the first 11 months of this year were either set up by Syrians or partnered with Syrians, according to data from the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB). reported by Anadolu Agency

Over 53,329 new companies or associations were started up in Turkey within the first eleven months of this year, of which 4,249 were foreign-partnered. Some 1,122, over 26 percent, of the foreign-partnered companies were founded directly by Syrians or partnered with local businessmen by Syrians Out of the total number of foreign-funded companies in November, 118 were funded from Syria, 36 were Iranian-funded, and 23 were financed from Iraq.

Muhammed Shreem, from Aleppo, is only one of thousands of Syrians who have fled their war-torn country.

“We had a family import and export company in Aleppo. We have opened a new company in Mersin, where our family has been harbored. We export construction materials and stationery from Turkey to Aleppo, one of the largest cities in Syria, and Idlib province in northwestern Syria,” says the 43-year-old Shreem, who has been in business in Mersin for two years. However, local business owners have complained about the situation bringing unfair competition.

“Syrians who have escaped from the civil war and taken refuge in Turkey should obey the rules of law in the country,” Talat Dinçer from the Mersin Tradesmen and Artisans Association said.

Şerafettin Asut, president of the Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said Syrian firms are in every sector, from logistics to real estate.

December/21/2014

 

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: business, Syrian refugees, Turkey

Residents of Istanbul suburb in violent protest over Syrian refugees

August 25, 2014 By administrator

ISTANBUL – Agence France-Presse

 syrian-refugeesCars were smashed and turned upside down in the İkitelli neighborhood in the early hours of Aug. 25 following violent protests targeting Syrian refugees. DHA Photo

Hundreds of Istanbul residents angered by the presence of Syrian refugees clashed with police early Aug. 25 in a violent protest in a suburb of Turkey’s biggest city, reports said.

The clashes were the latest violence amid growing tensions between Turkish locals and Syrian refugees who fled the civil war in their country and whose numbers in Turkey have now swelled to 1.2 million according to the official figures.

The protest in the İkitelli neighborhood in the west of the European side of Istanbul was sparked by claims that young Syrian men had sexually harassed a teenage girl, Doğan news agency reported.

Television pictures showed a group of some 300 people, armed with sticks, knives and machetes, attacking shops and cars belonging to Syrians and shouting anti-Syrian slogans. Cars were smashed and turned upside down while the window panes of shops belonging to Syrians with Arabic lettering on the shopfronts were broken.

Riot police, using tear gas and water cannon, then moved in to disperse the protest. Private boradcaster CNNTürk said five Syrian women were injured in the protest.

There have been repeated protests against the presence of Syrian refugees in Turkey over the last weeks but the actions have until now been largely in the south and southeast, where most of the refugees are concentrated.

However the refugees are also a visible presence in Istanbul, with many seeking to make ends meet by begging. A similar protest sparked by allegations that a Syrian refugee had abused a Turkish child erupted last week in the city of İskenderun in the Hatay province on the Syrian border.

Following violent protests against the presence of Syrians in the southeastern city of Gaziantep earlier this month, the authorities moved hundreds of the refugees into refugee camps in a bid to calm tensions.

According to Turkey’s relief agency, some 285,000 Syrian refugees are living in camps in Turkey, but a far greater number of 912,0000 are living outside the camps in cities across the country.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: İstanbul, Syrian refugees

Crowd sets fire to Ankara building for Syrian refugees over rumors of beaten local

May 8, 2014 By administrator

ANKARA hurriyet daily news

The fire could only be extinguished after police intervened to disperse the crowd. DHA Photo
n_66161_1A building sheltering Syrian refugees in Ankara’s central district of Altındağ was set ablaze late May 7 over claims that a local passing in front of the building was beaten by a Syrian national.

Many people were injured due to the fire, which also caused significant material damage, while some locals among the group attacking the building were detained. The incident reveals the growing tension between refugees in Turkey’s main cities and locals living in central neighborhoods.

A large fight broke out between a group of residents and the Syrian refugees after rumors of the beating began to circulate. The angered crowed first threw stones at the three-floored building sheltering the Syrians, prompting the deployment of riot police.

However, the crowd reassembled after the police’s intervention, throwing flammable materials that ignited a fire on the second floor of the building. Part of the group also tried to block the fire brigades.

The fire could only be extinguished after police intervened to disperse the crowd. Some police officers were also among the injured, Doğan News Agency reported.

An investigation has been launched into the incident.

Numerous Syrian families can be now seen in the center of Turkey’s main cities, where evacuated old houses and cheap housing in central neighborhoods have become makeshift refugee camps.
May/08/2014

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Ankara, Syrian refugees

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