Author: Greg Madatian

The terrorist acts in Paris showed that there is no security anywhere in the world, not even Europe, expert of Turkish studies Hakob Chakryan told reporters today.

Chakryan said “the evil of terrorism has become a global threat since September 11, which is a consequence of the incorrect policy of the United States.”

Turkey, along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, supported the jihadists of the Islamic State from the very beginning, the expert said, adding that “Ankara is playing a ‘double game’ today.”

“Turkey pretends to be fighting against IS, while continuing to support the terrorist group, providing weapons,” he said.

To what extent is Turkey-backed ISIS dangerous to Armenia? Hakob Chakryan believes “Ankara will not engage in confrontation with Moscow.”

Besides, he said, the developments in Syria provide ground for optimism. “The Syrian authorities have regained control over Lattakia, the ISIS links to its stronghold in Raqqa will soon be cut and Aleppo will be completely cleared of terrorists.”

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit North Korea this week, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap, the BBC reports.

Yonhap cited a senior UN source for its claim, which the UN has declined to comment on.

If it goes ahead, it will be the first visit by a UN chief to the country in more than two decades.

In May, North Korea abruptly cancelled a visit by Mr Ban just one day before he was due to arrive.

North Korea faces heavy UN, EU and US sanctions for its nuclear tests.

The report said it was likely he would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un during his trip. No exact date was given for the visit.

Mr Ban, a former South Korean foreign minister, would be only the third secretary general to ever visit the North.

The United Nations fought on the side of the South during the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 until 1953 and led to the division of the peninsula.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s agent Mino Raiola has accused former Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp of playing the Armenian midfielder out of position, ESPN FC reports.

Borussia Dortmund star Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been hailed as one of the best midfielders in Europe by his agent Mino Raiola.

Mkhitaryan, 26, joined Dortmund from Shakthar Donetsk in a club-record €27.5 million deal in the summer of 2013.

Last season, the Armenia international failed to find top form for most of the campaign, scoring only four goals and assisting seven in 41 games over all competitions.

But he has been transformed under new Dortmund boss Thomas Tuchel this season, already being involved in 23 goals across 18 games in all competitions. He has scored 11, and set up a dozen from Dortmund’s impressive total of 64 goals in 20 games.

Former boss Jurgen Klopp had said that the player’s performances often seemed to suggest the pressure might be much, but Raiola disagrees.

“Micki never had a mental problem,” he . “Micki just plays in his position now. That’s it.

“He’s one of the best players in Europe in it. You just have to play players where they are best. When you play [Lionel] Messi at right-back, he also wouldn’t be that good.”

Klopp, left Dortmund at the end of last season and has since taken charge of Liverpool, played Mkhitaryan on the right wing in several games last season, while Tuchel has used him in a more central role or on the left wing.

In 1937, hundreds of volunteers from around the world travelled to Spain to fight Franco’s nationalists. Among them was Misak Chelebian. Eight decades later, his American grandson visited the battlefield where he died, reports. 

On Christmas Day 1936, Francisco Franco was wrestling with a problem. Before the decade was over, he would be Spain’s fascist dictator and would rule for almost four decades. But at that moment, as a mere army general at the centre of a plot to unseat the democratically elected Republican government, his troops were stuck outside Madrid, unable to take the Spanish capital – it was crucial if the coup d’état was to succeed.

At the same moment, 3,500 miles away, Misak Chelebian was boarding a steam ship in New York. It was bound for Le Havre on the north coast of France. From there, the 47-year-old American of Armenian descent would travel, along with hundreds of other anti-fascist Americans, to the Pyrenees, cross the border into Spain and after a few rudimentary instructions on how to use their simple rifles, would be pitted against Franco’s forces.

Six weeks later the fates  of these two men crossed in the valley of Jarama, in what became one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish civil war. After weeks stuck without progress to the west of Madrid, Franco opened a new front to try to cut the capital’s Mediterranean supply lines. Misak, along with thousands of his comrades-in-arms, members of the volunteer International Brigade, had come to stop him.

“I would like to think that this is his final resting place,” says Barton “Rocky” Chelbian (the family surname was later simplified) indicating an olive grove on a hillside.

A retired businessman from New Jersey, Rocky knows little of what happened to his grandfather, but almost eight decades after the two-week battle, which cost the lives of as many as 45,000 men on both sides, he has come to Spain to find out more about Misak and, as he says, to pay his respects.

At 47, Misak was not a typical recruit. Born in what is now Turkey, he had escaped the Armenian genocide of 1915. He returned to Europe to fight in the French Foreign Legion during the First World War, and then again in the mid-1930s to fight Franco’s Nationalists, which were supported by Hitler’s Nazis.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif will attend multilateral talks on finding a political solution to the conflict in Syria in Vienna this week, a government spokeswoman has said, the BBC reports.

It will be the first time Iran – an ally of President Bashar al-Assad – has attended such a summit with the US.

Representatives of Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will also attend the talks.

The main round of talks is expected to take place on Friday, but diplomats say some preparatory meetings could happen on Thursday evening.

“We have reviewed the invitation, and it was decided that the foreign minister would attend the talks,” Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said.

Egypt and Iraq also confirmed they had accepted invitations to the meeting.

By Jenny Yuen

Zouvig Baghjajian may never have participated in a Thanksgiving dinner before, but she feels extremely grateful to be in Canada.

Baghjajian, 33, and her family escaped their home in the Syrian city of Aleppo in July after their home was bombed multiple times and she and her husband decided their three young children could not safely grow up there.

In July, through a refugee program offered by the Canadian government, the family of five arrived in Toronto. On Monday, they were among 50 newcomers from Syria and Armenia celebrating their first Thanksgiving turkey dinner at a condo building near the Don Valley Parkway and Sheppard Ave. E.

“I’m thankful for the Canadian government to open their arms to us,” she said. “My son, he’s nine and he when he comes to Canada he says, ‘It’s kind of like a paradise.’”

One of her twin four-year-old daughters suffers from muscle and nerve problems with her legs and finding a specialist in Syria was next to impossible, Baghjajian said.

“I’m happy to be here but my family is still back there and I’m worried for them,” she said. “Sometimes I use the phone card to reach them and they cannot be reached. I want to bring them over but it’s a dream for now. There’s no life in Aleppo.”

Her biggest challenge is overcoming the English language barrier, she said.

Another Aleppo refugee, 46-year-old Leon Danayan, said he also applied for the sponsorship opportunity for him and his family after their house was repeatedly bombed. After arriving in June, he now works in an export food company in the Warden-St. Clair Aves. area.

“It was a disaster living in Syria,” he said. “It’s death there and we needed to escape the war. We were searching for a safe place. Here, it’s multicultural in Toronto and we try to make family within the Armenian community here.”

The 50 permanent residents carved into several turkeys at the beginning of dinner and some even had a double helping of cranberry sauce and stuffing. Lots were glued to the Blue Jays game playing in the corner of the party room.

“These are all family and friends who put this together,” said Aris Babikian, a volunteer at the event organized by the local Armenian community. “These people are survivors but could have been killed at any moment by bombings, kidnapping, booby-trapped cars or beheadings.”

Photo by CBC News

Iraq may request Russian air strikes against Islamic State on its soil soon and wants Moscow to have a bigger role than the United States in the war against the militant group, the head of parliament’s defence and security committee said on Wednesday, Reurers reports.

“We might be forced to ask Russia to launch air strikes in Iraq soon. I think the upcoming few days or weeks Iraq will be forced to ask Russia to launch air strikes and that depends on their success in Syria,” Hakim al-Zamili told Reuters.

Iraq’s government and powerful Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias question the United States’ resolve in fighting Islamic State militants, who control a third of the country, saying U.S.-led coalition air strikes are ineffective.

Russian air strikes against the government’s opponents in Syria have raised hopes in Baghdad that Russia could become an effective partner against the ultra-hardline group.

“We are seeking to see Russia have a bigger role in Iraq. … Yes, definitely a bigger role than the Americans,” Zamili said.

A British Airways plane bound for London caught fire at Las Vegas airport, forcing the evacuation of 172 people on board on emergency slides, the BBC reports.

Airport officials said at least 13 people were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

US Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the left engine of the Boeing 777-200 caught fire before take-off.

The plane was seen engulfed in flames and smoke. The fire was later put out.

There were 159 passengers and 13 crew members on board.

Divers of “AYAS” Nautical Research Club have discovered a bone of a prehistoric animal in the bottom of Lake Sevan, at the depth of 5 meters.

Results of anthropological research reveal that the stone is a part of the backbone of an aurochs that lived before the ice age.

Hundreds of artifacts found in the coastal zones of Lake Sevan are kept in the Institutes of Biology and Zoology of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, but the latest finding is the first to be recovered from the bottom of Lake Sevan.

Photos by Anna Martikyan