Author: Jhanna Virabian

Russian billionaire German Sterligov has promised to explain the reasons of his decision to move to Nagorno Karabakh at a press conference Monday.

“I will tell the simple, clear truth, which many may dislike, but it’s better than all the wild guesses about my family and me,” Sterligov told Russian

He said Nagorno Karabakh is a marvelous land with a wonderful people. “Happy are those Armenians, who have such a Motherlland, such history and beauties.  I have traveled all over the world, but have not seen a place like this – such a beauty, such fertility, and, most importantly, such kind relations between people,” the businessman said.

“I’m happy to have brought my children here, because I told them how people should treat each other theoretically. Unfortunately, there is no such attitude in Russia, practically. Here they see it in practice. This is an extremely useful lesson for them,” Sterligov said.

He invited everyone to visit Nagorno Karabakh to understand what he’s talking about. “This is a unique place. This is a cradle of ancient human relations, which the Armenian nation preserves,”

The Prime Ministers of Armenia and Russia Hovik Abrahamyan and Dmitry Medvedev had a phone conversation at the initiative of the Armenian side, according to the Russian Government’s website.

The Prime Ministers discussed urgent issues of Armenian-Russian relations, including the results of the sitting of the Inter-Governemntal Commission on Economic Cooperation held in Yerevan June 25-26.

The parties stressed the importance of intensification of bilateral cooperation in different spheres.

Former Turkish Colonel Dursun Çiçek, who spent years in jail for allegedly masterminding a plan to defame the ruling party and Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, admitted that the army had been running web-sites to defame and discredit the government as well as Kurds, Armenians and the Gülen movement, reports. 

The web-sites, which date back to early 2000s, were seen as part of an Internet campaign to discredit the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Islamist politicians before it came to power. The military had intensified its campaign to defame the government led by late Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and eventually forced him to resign in 1997.

Most of the 42 web-sites were shut down in 2007, but the investigation into these propaganda sites were launched in 2011, when at least 22 army personnel, including generals, were taken into custody. Ret. Col. Çiçek was among the chief suspects. He is now a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

Çiçek told reporters on Tuesday that the propaganda websites document was “authentic” and that military intelligence chief İsmail Hakkı Pekin, who earlier accused Çiçek of masterminding the plot, approved the document.

The propaganda web-sites were mostly run by Çiçek since 2007 and the military allegedly spent a lot of time and effort to run them. Most of them included contents that are aimed at defaming the government, Gülen, Armenians and Kurds.

An Egyptian court has upheld the death sentence imposed on ousted ex-President Mohammed Morsi over a mass jailbreak, the BBC reports.

The sentence was initially passed in May, but was confirmed after consultation with Egypt’s highest religious figure, the Grand Mufti.

The death sentences of five other leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including its supreme guide Mohammed Badie, were also upheld.

Morsi’s supporters have described the sentence as “farcical”.

The verdict is subject to appeal. One hundred and one other defendants were also sentenced to death in absentia.

Morsi escaped from Wadi Natroun prison in January 2011 and was accused of colluding with foreign militants in a plot to free Islamists during mass prison breaks.

The 2011 uprising brought an end to Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule and Morsi was elected president a year later.

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West reportedly want to give their second baby a “traditional” name.

The couple, who already have a 23-month-old daughter named North West, are expecting their second child. Insiders have dismissed speculation that the new arrival will also have a directional moniker, such as South, East or Easton, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

A source explained to that the couple opted for North because of a power element; that it is always on top or pointing up, and other points can’t match that.

Instead, the insider claims the 34-year-old reality star and her 37-year-old husband would prefer something more traditional, with a family-related influence, likely connected to Kim’s late father Robert or Kanye’s deceased mother Donda.

Though the couple don’t yet know the gender of their unborn child, which is due in December, it was recently claimed the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star and the rapper are hoping for a little boy and are planning a blue nursery for the youngster.

“They want a son,” said a source.

A plaque honoring the late William Saroyan has been stolen from his last residence,  reports.

The new owners say they noticed the plaque was taken along with tools in the garage this week.

The plaque has been on the front of the house for 25 years and details some of the work the Pulitzer Prize winning author did the last 17 years of his life in the house.

Neighbor Ernie Baca lives next door and knew Saroyan as a kid.

“He gave me my first book when I was five years old and he signed it to read to my little sister,” Garza said.

Few neighbors on West Griffith Way have such fond memories of the home. They know it for going into foreclosure, attracting squatters and falling into disrepair.

“We’ve been broken into. Everyone has been broken into. It’s the times. Everyone is down on their luck,” Deborah Robles said.

The new owners say they just want the plaque returned. They are in the process of selling the house to a nonprofit which plans to restore the house and make it a historical place.

“That would be nice if they could do something with that house and raise the property values that would be wonderful. That is the worst house in the neighborhood,” Robles said.

Many have speculated it was stolen for the metal. But Baca says it is a piece of Armenian Heritage and Fresno History.

“If the person is watching who took this it should mean nothing to them. You can bring it to my house and put it on the porch,” he said.

The 10th Congress of the Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP) adopted a Resolution recognizing and condemning the genocides of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.

In the Resolution the YEPP calls on the member states of the European Union and the Council of Europe, as well as the international organizations to recognize and restore the historic justice in memory of the victims of the genocides of Armenians, Pontic Greeks and Assyrians.

“All interested parties recognize the genocide of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians, and accept April 24 and May 19 as the Days of Remembrance of the Armenian and Greek Genocides,” the document reads.

The 10th Congress of the Youth of the European People’s Party was attended by more than 250 young leaders from more than 40 countries, including the Youth Organization of the Republican Party of Armenia headed by its President Karen Avagyan.

The Resolution submitted by the Greek party was adopted unanimously and was backed by delegates of the countries that have not yet recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Global realities and challenges were in the spotlight of the YEPP Congress held under the slogan “A stronger Europe in a Changing World.

YEPP is the largest youth organization in Europe, which brings together more than 1.6 million young people from 57 political parties representing 40 countries.

By Mark Swed

Armenia’s struggle for international acknowledgment that the extermination of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War was genocide has been the work of historians and politicians. But it is also a job for art, especially with the recent 100th anniversary of the first deportations from Turkey.

On Tuesday, Armenia was awarded the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for best national pavilion, “Armenity,” which addresses the Armenian diaspora. Armenia is also a musical nation, and on Tuesday, the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra made its first appearance in Walt Disney Concert Hall with “A Concert of Remembrance.”

Founded in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan 90 years ago, shortly after the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union, the orchestra had the reputation as a solid Soviet band while still maintaining its spirited national identity.

Nearly all of its artistic directors and principal conductors, as well as its players, have been and continue to be Armenian. An important exception was the twentysomething Valery Gergiev, who led the orchestra in the early 1980s.

The Disney Hall program, conducted by Eduard Topchjan (artistic director and principal conductor since 2000), represented both the orchestra’s Armenian and Soviet heritage. Splashy potboilers — the most popular numbers from Khachaturian’s ballet “Spartacus” and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony — opened and closed the concert.

It was a notably less ambitious, or commemorative, occasion than the imaginative and comprehensive all-Armenian gala program given last week in Washington, D.C., the orchestra’s only other U.S. stop on its first North American tour in 19 years.

But there was also Tigran Mansurian’s significantly somber Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra, featuring an eloquent young soloist, Anush Nikoghosyan. The 76-year-old composer, who divides his time between Yerevan and Glendale, represents both to his country, where he is a national figure, and the international music community, the soul of Armenia.

The state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan secretly funded an all-expenses-paid trip to a conference at Baku on the Caspian Sea in 2013 for 10 members of Congress and 32 staff members, according to a confidential ethics report obtained by The Washington Post. Three former top aides to President Obama appeared as speakers at the conference, The reports.

Lawmakers and their staff members received hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of travel expenses, silk scarves, crystal tea sets and Azerbaijani rugs valued at $2,500 to $10,000, according to the ethics report. Airfare for the lawmakers and some of their spouses cost $112,899, travel invoices show.

The State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, known as SOCAR, allegedly funneled $750,000 through nonprofit corporations based in the United States to conceal the source of the funding for the conference in the former Soviet nation, according to the 70-page report by the , an independent investigative arm of the House.

The report reflects the most extensive investigation undertaken by the ethics office, which was created seven years ago in response to a number of scandals on Capitol Hill, including lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s illegal funding of lawmakers’ trips.

The conference, titled U.S.-Azerbaijan Convention: Vision for the Future, took place on May 28 and 29, 2013. During the previous year, SOCAR and several large energy companies sought exemptions for a $28 billion natural gas pipeline project in the Caspian Sea from U.S. economic sanctions being imposed on Iran.

The congressional investigators could not determine whether lawmakers used their official positions to benefit SOCAR or the pipeline project. They also found no evidence that the lawmakers or their staffers knew that the conference was being funded by a foreign government.

The investigators noted that the lawmakers relied on representations made to them by two Houston-based nonprofit corporations, theTurquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians (TCAE) and the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ). The lawmakers told investigators that they had obtained approval for the trip from the ethics committee.

The report said members of the House Ethics Committee wrote to the Office of Congressional Ethics requesting a halt to their investigation so that the matter could be taken up by their own committee. OCE officials declined the request.

The lawmakers who took the trip were Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.), Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), Gregory W. Meeks (D-N.Y.), Ted Poe (R-Tex.) and then-Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.).

Clarke is a member of the Ethics Committee.

Another lawmaker, Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), attended as part of a separate congressional delegation and his expenses were not paid by the conference, according to the report.