Author: Yeghisabet Arthur

Bomb equipment, weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found at the home of the San Bernardino shooters, US police have said, the BBC reports.

Police found the weaponry following the shootout of the two suspects after they killed 14 people and wounded 21 more at a social services centre.

Authorities still have not found a motive in the attack by Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27.

Police said the attack indicated there had been “some degree of planning”.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said it appeared that the duo was prepared to carry out another attack.

Six people supporting the Movement for Muslim Unity have been detained by Azeri law enforcement bodies in the country’s western city of Ganja, Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry said in a statement, Interfax-Religion reports.

Automatic weapons, grenade launchers, a large number of bullets of various calibers, bulletproof vests and religious literature were confiscated from the suspects’ houses, it said.

Seven people, including two policemen, were killed in an armed clash in the village of Nardaran, which is part of Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, last Thursday. There were also reports of injured people. Fourteen people were arrested after those events.

The Turan news agency reported, citing sources in law enforcement agencies, that on November 26 police had conducted an operation to detain Movement for Muslim Unity leader Talekh Bagirzade, but his supporters had tried to prevent Bagirzade’s detention. According to some media reports, the operation was carried out at a mosque during a midday prayer, a circumstance that provoked a fierce response from worshippers.

The population of Nardaran is known for its extreme religious views.

Alleged representatives of the so-called Islamic State (IS) released a video yesterday, which showed fighters speaking Georgian addressing the Muslim population of Georgia. The fighters urged them to support the ‘Islamic Caliphate,’ reports.

The fighters threatened to establish a ‘Caliphate’ in Georgia. One of the extremists stated “I would like to address the faithless people living in Georgia that have been fighting Islam for a long time. Everybody who has acted against Islam, no matter in Iraq or Afghanistan, will be judged by God’s law.”

The address, published on , emphasized that “God is very strict,” and called on [you] to stop persecuting Muslims. “Your actions against the Muslim will be not remain unanswered. Everybody will be accountable for it.”

Another group of fighters threatened Muslim Khoja and Muftis living in Adjara (Georgia), accusing them of misleading people. “You will pay for what you have done. Be afraid of Allah but not the dirty leaders, don’t be afraid of their orders, you will fulfil them without hesitation,” the group has stated.

Soon after the address, the Georgian State Security Service announced it was launching an investigation into the case. The Security Service did not wish to speak about any possible additional measures surrounding the issue.

One of the parents of one of the fighters in the video commented yesterday that the video is aimed at spreading panic and intimidating people, Ilia Gobadze boldly declaring “no one will come and blow us up.”

The head of the Press and Public Relations Department of the State Security Service, Nino Giorgobiani posted an update on her Facebook page telling the Georgian Media not to contribute to spreading the video footage via the internet.

“I ask the media not to contribute to spreading threatening video footage via the internet due to public security. The State Security Service is working on the issue. An investigation has already been launched,” the update read.

Hong Kong businessman Joseph Lau renames gem ‘Blue Moon of Josephine’ after daughter, a day after spending $28.5m on rare 16.08-carat pink diamond

A Hong Kong billionaire spent a record $48.4m buying an 12.03-carat diamond dubbed “Blue Moon” for his seven-year-old daughter in an auction in Geneva, the reports.

Property tycoon Joseph Lau bought the rock at a Sotheby’s auction on Wednesday and immediately renamed it “Blue Moon of Josephine” after his daughter.

The sale comes the day after he spent $28.5m buying a rare 16.08-carat pink diamond – the largest of its kind to ever go under the hammer – from rival auction house Christie’s, which he rebaptised “Sweet Josephine”.

A Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Lau confirmed the two purchases. “The first was the pink one, ‘Sweet Josephine’, and the second one was the ‘Blue Moon of Josephine’,” she said.

David Bennett, the head of Sotheby’s international jewellery division, said the “Blue Moon” sale broke several records and made the gemstone the most expensive diamond, regardless of colour, and the most expensive jewel ever sold at auction. It also fetched the highest-ever price per carat, he said.

The previous world record for a jewel sold at auction was held by the 24.78-carat “Graff Pink” diamond, which was sold by Sotheby’s for $46.2m in November 2010.

This is not the first time Lau has bought rare jewels for his daughter. In 2009, he reportedly spent $9.5m on another blue diamond, which he renamed the “Star of Josephine”.

 

 

 

There is no inconsistency between Armenia’s membership in the CSTO and its cooperation with NATO, Steffen Elgersma, representative of NATO’s International Staff, said at an international conference in Yerevan on “NATO-Armenia Cooperation: New Objectives and Perspectives.”

The event was organized by the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation (ACGRC) with support from the German Embassy in Armenia, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

“We have good cooperation with Armenia and welcome Armenia’s participation in NATO missions both in Afghanistan and Kosovo. We have also launched a successful dialogue in the field of security,” Steffen Elgersma said.

Speaking about Turkey’s aspiration to play a greater role in the South Caucasus, he said “it’s natural for NATO member Turkey to be interested in the South Caucasus, as it is situated closest to the region.”

“We do hope that the relations between Armenia and Turkey will improve over time,” he added.

According to Koryun Nahapetyan, the Head of Armenia’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the relations between Armenia and NATO are developing dynamically.

Seven candidates will stand in FIFA’s presidential elections on 26 February, BBC reports.

The candidates are: Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, Musa Bility, Jerome Champagne, Gianni Infantino, Michel Platini, Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa and Tokyo Sexwale.

Trinidadian ex-footballer David Nakhid was not included on the list, despite saying he had submitted his candidacy.

The election is to find a successor to the suspended Sepp Blatter, who is under criminal investigation.

The Swiss 79-year-old announced he would be stepping down in June, with world football’s governing body at the centre of a corruption scandal.

Asbarez – In response to the recent escalation of violence and war threats by the government of Azerbaijan against Armenians in Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia, Councilmember Paul Krekorian, the first Armenian-American elected to public office in the City of Los Angeles, urged U.S. Congressional leaders to take immediate action to save Armenian lives. In an recent letter to Southern California Congressmembers, Krekorian asked leaders to sign the Royce-Engel letter and hold Azerbaijan accountable for its crimes, refrain from further violence and take measures toward establishing a lasting peace in the region. Krekorian’s letter is attached and reprinted below:

Dear Congressmember:
As you know, more than 20 years after Artsakh’s declaration of independence and the ceasefire in its subsequent war with Azerbaijan, ongoing tension in the Caucasus region continues to devastate innocent lives and threaten regional stability. In particular, the Republic of Azerbaijan has engaged in both increasingly bellicose rhetoric and an increasing willingness to engage in active violence in violation of the ceasefire agreement.

In the past few weeks, for example, Azerbaijan’s shelling of villages in the Tavoush region of Armenia has killed numerous civilians, including 83-year-old Paytsar Aghajanyan, Sona Revazyan, 41, and Shoushan Asadryan, 94, along with at least four Armenian soldiers. Many other innocent civilians have been wounded in separate unprovoked attacks. Shellings like these, as well as cross-border killings by Azeri snipers, have taken countless lives of civilian men, women and children.

The response from our government has been pathetically weak. U.S. Ambassador and OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair James Warlick has said that both sides should refrain from violence, but the United States refuses to state clearly that there is only one state that continues to be the predominant aggressor and provocateur, and that is Azerbaijan.

Any statement of moral equivalence in the face of continued aggression by the government of Azerbaijan is not an acceptable way forward. It could give the world the perception that the U.S. government sees no difference between the perpetrators of violence and the victims. Our government has an obligation to stand on the right side of this issue and should not give Baku cover for their crimes against the Armenian people in Artsakh and in the Republic of Armenia.

I urge you to join so many of your colleagues in signing the Royce-Engel letter, calling for a transition away from a failed policy of false parity to a constructive, accountability-based approach to peacekeeping. Renewed U.S. leadership in keeping the peace along the Nagorno Karabakh line of contact is absolutely necessary as Azerbaijan steps up its attacks.

This sensible, bipartisan letter proposes three concrete steps to help save lives, avert war, and reach a just and lasting peace:

1. An agreement from all sides not to deploy snipers along the line of contact;
2. The placement of OSCE-monitored, advanced gunfire-locator systems and sound-ranging equipment to determine the source of attacks along the line of contact; and
3. The deployment of additional OSCE observers along the line of contact to better monitor cease-fire violations.
Armenia has already agreed to abide by these principles, but the Aliyev regime continues to refuse to do so.

Please sign the Royce-Engel letter today. Azerbaijan’s unprovoked attacks will continue unless we stand together for justice and peace. The government of Azerbaijan must honor its OSCE obligations to refrain from violence and to undertake confidence-building measures toward a lasting peace.

Thank you for your attention to this critical issue. I am confident that your leadership will make a material difference in helping to prevent the destructive slide toward a new war.

Dan Yessian hopes his first classical music trilogy teaches an Armenian history lesson that leaves listeners wanting to learn more.

“Maybe, just maybe having listened to the work, they will be spurred on to dig a little deeper from a cultural perspective and historical perspective to see what it’s all about,” said Yessian, founder of Yessian Music, Inc., in Farmington Hills,  reports.

Yessian’s An Armenian Trilogy focuses on the Armenian massacre by the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1915. He wrote the 13 ¹/₂-minute piece for violin and piano, but plans to score it for orchestra next year. Its three movements reflect on freedom, fear and faith..

It will debut at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29, at the Macomb Center of the Performing Arts, 44575 Garfield, Clinton Township. Violinist Sonia Lee and pianist Shawn McDonald will perform the work during Hope Dies Last, a multidisciplinary program commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The Detroit Chamber Wind and Strings also will play a new composition for chamber ensemble by Alexandra du Bois, which will be accompanied by photographer Michelle Andonian’s works.

Yessian said he was at a concert in church when his parish priest, the Rev. Garabed Kochakian of St. John Armenian Church in Southfield, asked him to write the commemorative music.

“I said yes. It would be a tremendous challenge. It’s not in my wheelhouse of music that I’d customarily write. I started in January or February writing. I was writing that music in between writing apple pie, hot dogs and Chevrolet,” he said, referring to his commercial compositions. “I’ve written thousands of ads in 40-plus years of doing music. Although I’ve written serious music, this is more involved and complex. It was a labor of love.”

While growing up Yessian occasionally heard his grandparents talk about the massacre. He remembers hearing that his grandfather saw his spouse die. There were other stories of enforced marches, with women, children, and the elderly left to die in the desert. Children were stabbed, women were raped and bodies were thrown into the river.

”I told my wife of 43 years I didn’t feel like I was writing it myself. I felt like it was writing itself. Maybe God was in control,” said Yessian, who composed the piece mostly by ear at his Milford home on a piano formerly owned by Burt Bacharach.

Yessian studied classical and jazz clarinet and saxophone, but didn’t formally study piano. After he wrote and recorded the trilogy, one of his staff composers transcribed the work.

“I’m an ear musician and that is a good thing and not such a good thing. You worry less about technicalities of it and work off of emotion more than anything else,” he said, adding that the trilogy is influenced by jazz.

“The thing that grates me about Armenian hymns is that it’s sad stuff. It’s like funeral music. I wanted to take a western spin on it. I wanted to put myself through a reflection of history and bring some Americana into it.”

The European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) has a statement, urging the Turkish citizens living in Europe to vote for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halklarin Demokratik Partisi, HDP) on November 1, 2015 in the 25th general elections in Turkey. The statement reads:

HDP is a progressive force in Turkey which stands up for a well-functioning democracy and is actively struggling for peoples’ rights in their vernacular and with respect to their ethnic, cultural, religious beliefs and background.

The EAFJD’s support for the HDP is accounted for by the shared values and approaches towards several issues of mutual interest. The EAFJD has been in an ongoing dialogue with the HDP since the latter’s foundation in 2012, and has already supported the candidacy of several ethnic Armenians as candidates of the HDP.

The EAFJD expects the Turkish authorities to ensure a free and fair campaign. As during the elections in June of the current year, EAFJD is continuously and closely monitoring the course of events.

The European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy wishes the HDP further success in the upcoming parliamentary elections. A strong HDP parliamentary presence in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey would mean the presence of a party for freedom, equality, peace and justice.”

Moscow urges the parties to the Karabakh conflict to refuse form application of force and demonstrate political will to reach a compromise, official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova has declared, RIA Novosti reports.

“Unfortunately, the renewal of political dialogue gets more complicated because of escalation of situation in the conflict zone, increased number of victims, including civilians,” she said, adding that “further escalation is simply inadmissible.”

“We call on the parties to refuse from the use of force and demonstrate political will necessary for reaching a compromise,” she said.

According to her, the issue of Karabakh conflict settlement was discussed in detail during the visits of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers to Moscow in April-May.

“The topic is on the agenda of Russian FM Sergey Lavrov’s contacts with foreign counterparts. We are working in that direction in close cooperation with France and the United States. The Minister recently held a meeting with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on the sidelines of the 70^th session of the UN General Assembly, during which the parties referred to practical issues of conflict settlement ahead of the forthcoming visit of the mediators this month,” Zakharoca said.