Author: Babken Chilingarian

FOX 11 – The last known survivor of the Armenian Genocide was a special guest at an event hosted by the Armenian Law Students’ Association at Loyola Law School.

Aleksan Markaryan shared his memories of the genocide.

He said he was fired from his childhood job at a pharmacy because he was a Christian.

Markaryan remembers being called an infidel. In order to save his life, he converted to Islam.

He remembers watching people in his village as they were taken away to never be again, the genocide ended a long eight years later in 1923.

During that time, up to 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated by the Ottoman Government – now modern Turkey.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has proposed expanding the World Cup finals to a 48-team tournament – a larger number than his election promise, the reports.

The Italian suggested 16 of those teams would be eliminated after one knockout match – before the group stages.

The rest of the tournament would be the same as it is now, with 32 teams competing in group stages followed by knockout rounds.

One of his election promises was to expand the finals to 40 teams.

Infantino said a decision would be taken by the governing body’s council in January.

“These are ideas to find the best solution, we will debate them this month and we will decide everything by 2017,” said the 46-year-old.

“They are ideas which we put forward to see which one is the best.”

Infantino took charge of football’s world governing body in February after the disgraced Sepp Blatter resigned.

Under his proposal, a preliminary knockout round in the host country would involve 32 teams with the winners reaching the groups, while a further 16 seeded teams would get a bye to that stage.

“It means we continue with a normal World Cup for 32 teams, but 48 teams go to the party,” he added.

“Fifa’s idea is to develop football in the whole world, and the World Cup is the biggest event there is. It’s more than a competition, it’s a social event.”

Photo: ESA

 

Europe’s Rosetta probe has ended its mission to Comet 67P by crash-landing on to the icy object’s surface, the BBC reports.

Mission control in Darmstadt, Germany, was able to confirm the impact had occurred when radio contact to the ageing spacecraft was lost abruptly.

The assumption is that the probe would have been damaged beyond use.

In the hours before the planned collision, Rosetta sent back a host of high-resolution pictures and other measurements of the icy dirt-ball.

“I can announce full success of this historic descent of Rosetta towards Comet 67P,” said European Space Agency mission manager Patrick Martin.

“Farewell Rosetta; you’ve done the job. That was space science at its best.”

Scientists expect all the data gathered at 67P in the past two years to keep them busy for decades to come.

President Serzh Sargsyan received participants of the Pan-Armenian scientific conference due on September 21-23 in Yerevan, among them renowned Armenian scientists from the US, Russia, Japan, Denmark, Germany, Spain and several other countries.

Held under the RA President-supported Young Scientists Support Program, the conference is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Armenia’s independence. Welcoming the scientists, the President congratulated them on the 25th anniversary of Armenia’s independence. Serzh Sargsyan stressed the importance of holding the conference in Armenian capital Yerevan with the participation of well-known Armenian scientists representing almost all the fields of fundamental research.

According to the President, events like that provide a good opportunity to not only bring together Armenian scientists from all over the world, but also to use their experience and contacts in order to properly represent young scientists of Armenian descent on international platforms and keep in touch with the development trends in modern science.

The scientists in attendance shared with the President their impressions and expectations of the conference. Serzh Sargsyan answered the questions of interest to scientists, outlining the main directions of State policy in the field of education and science. In particular, the President dwelt on the programs aimed at providing additional incentives in support of young researchers’ activities.

The Armenian scientists and the President exchanged views on ways of making joint efforts to help promote the development of science and education in our country.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire 20 times at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night, NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The rival used weapons of different calibers as it fired over 225 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army remained committed to the ceasefire regime and confidently continued with their military duty.

Photo: Reuters

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged Russia and the US to push all warring sides in Syria to allow safe passage for desperately needed aid, the BBC reports.

Lorries with a month’s food supply for 40,000 people are stuck at the Turkish border, 48 hours into a ceasefire.

Getting aid to civilians in besieged areas like the rebel-held eastern half of the city of Aleppo is a priority.

But disagreements between warring sides and concerns about safety are delaying emergency deliveries, the UN says.

“It’s crucially important [that] the necessary security arrangements” are made so the convoy can travel, Mr Ban said.

“I have been urging the Russian government to make sure that they exercise influence on the Syrian government, and also the American side to make sure that Syrian armed groups, they also fully co-operate.”

EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn has welcomed the signature of new political agreement on electoral reforms between Armenian government and opposition, consulted with the Civil Society.

“EU stands ready to assist, also financially, the implementation of this important agreement,” Commissioner Hahn said in a Twitter post.

Aleksander Ceferin has been elected as the new president of Uefa, European football’s governing body, the BBC reports.

Ceferin, head of the Football Association of Slovenia, polled 42 votes at Uefa’s congress in Athens, 29 more than Dutchman Michael van Praag.

The 48-year-old succeeds former France player Michel Platini, who resigned after being banned from all football activity last year.

Ceferin will take on the remainder of Platini’s term of office, until 2019.

The Raoul Wallenberg Foundation presents the ebook  an English version of the original in Spanish by the Argentinian author Sulim Granovsky.

Edited and published by the foundation in 2010 (Spanish ebook format), the research focuses on the tragic events that took place in 1915. As all the works that comprise the RWF Digital Library, this new ebook is freely accessible to all.

Sulim Granovsky comments on his creation in his own words: “Six hundred years of peaceful coexistence had elapsed within the empire, where Armenians shared in managing finance, business and the exports. Most of the buildings in Constantinople were built by Armenian architects. The main mosques were also the work of Armenian architects. Armenian officials advised the Turkish hierarchy. However, it was a false peace, because a series of vicissitudes anticipated the end of the precarious harmony, prior to the 1915 Genocide. In just a couple of years since 1895 Abdul Hamid, the Red Sultan, named after his bloodthirsty intentions, unleashed the annihilation of 300,000 Armenians. During the Hamidian era “any Muslim had permission to test the sharpness of his sword on the neck of an Armenian Christian.” Hamid’s murderous instinct was somewhat selective: he ordered the massacre of the Armenians in Anatolia, particularly if they had links to political parties and religious missions that could pose a threat to his regime because of the strong influence they had over the people. Truth is that in 1908 the rising movement of the Young Turks had overthrown Hamid, generating the support of the Armenians. However, the charm did not last long, because in the course of secret meetings of the Union and Progress Party, the Young Turks resolved that the Armenians were internal enemies of the Turkification process and should be persecuted and annihilated. The Interior Minister, Talaat Pasha, considered that, since the Armenians “had lost the right to life in the Ottoman Empire”, not a single bullet should be wasted in a holy war and, therefore, they should be killed with knives or drowned in the Euphrates. And this was what was done.”

This edition in English, commissioned to prestigious translator Elizabeth Birks, excels not only as a splendid translation, but also as a model of rhetorical precision.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan will be fit for the Manchester derby on Saturday, Jose Mourinho has confirmed, reports.

The £30million summer signing was injured on international duty in Armenia’s 3-0 loss to Czech Republic and returned to England early in a bid to regain fitness.

He had earlier this week told Manchester United fans that he was still “not sure” if he would be fit for the derby despite his best efforts, but Mourinho has told MUTV that Mkhitaryan and fellow doubt Luke Shaw will both be available.

Mourinho confirmed United have “no injuries” ahead of the derby. And on Mkhitaryan he said:

“He is available.

“I’m not saying he’s ready to play 90 minutes but he’s ready to try to help us.”