Sunday, 3 January 2016

Why the Turkish people should be worried about their President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan


JANUARY 2, 201610:21AM

Two Aust climbers die on NZ mountain

Network writer and AFPNews Corp Australia Network
TURKISH President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler to defend his controversial push to expand the powers of the presidency, local media reported on Friday. 
Erdogan, the strongman of Turkish politics for more than a decade, is seeking a new constitution to transform his post into a powerful US-style executive “super-presidency,” which he says will provide more effective governance.
“In a unitary system (such as Turkey’s) a presidential system can work perfectly,” Erdogan was quoted as telling reporters in Istanbul on Thursday on his return from a visit to Saudi Arabia.
Controversial remarks ... Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler to defend his push to expand the powers of the presidency.
Controversial remarks ... Recep Tayyip Erdogan cited Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler to defend his push to expand the powers of the presidency.Source:AP
“There are already examples in the world and in history. You can see it when you look at Hitler’s Germany,” he was quoted as saying.
But in a press statement published later, the Turkish presidency said it was “unacceptable” to interpret Erdogan’s remarks as endorsement of Nazism.
“Our president ... has declared that the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, along with Islamophobia, are crimes against humanity,” it said.

Turkey: Erdogan cites Hitler's Germany as 'example' of presidential state

It added that Hitler’s Germany “had disastrous consequences” for the political system and could not be held up as a model.
Erdogan, emboldened by his Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) landslide election win in November, has suggested holding a referendum on the proposed constitutional reforms.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last week launched negotiations with other political parties on a new charter to replace the 1980 constitution drafted by the military after a coup that year.
Under scrutiny ... Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right), pictured with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, is seen by critics as increasingly authoritarian.
Under scrutiny ... Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right), pictured with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, is seen by critics as increasingly authoritarian.Source:AP
In his comments on Thursday, Erdogan — seen by critics as increasingly authoritarian — called for large-scale public consultations on the reforms to try to ensure a “full societal agreement”.
Despite regaining its majority in parliament in the November election, the AKP does not command the required two-thirds of seats needed to change the constitution without the support of other parties.

Posted by Seta at 14:47 0 comments

Armenian News... A Topalian... The Economist The Ottoman caliphate

The Economist

The Ottoman caliphate
Straddling two worlds 
Worldly, pluralist, hedonistic—and Muslim, too 
Dec 19th 2015 | ISTANBUL | From the print edition 


ORHAN OSMANOGLU cradles a French handkerchief embossed with the letter H. “This is all I have left that’s my great-great-grandfather’s, the caliph’s,” he says. His family has fallen far since those illustrious days. Abdulhamid II lived in a palace, Yildiz, in the heart of Ottoman Istanbul; Orhan lives in a high-rise at the end of an Istanbul bus route. Europe’s royals flocked to caliphal functions, but when Orhan’s daughter married, Turkey’s present rulers stayed away. Worst of all, an Iraqi impostor has stolen the title his family bore for hundreds of years. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s barbaric outfit, Islamic State (IS), promises to restore the caliphate. Does Mr Baghdadi know what he is talking about? 

For 1,300 years the caliphs, or “successors”, prided themselves on developing the Islamic community the Prophet Muhammad left behind. The Ottoman Empire, which rivalled the Roman one in longevity, came to include not only the Middle East, but north Africa, much of the north Black Sea coast, and south-eastern Europe all the way to the gates of Vienna. Ruling from Istanbul, the caliphs kept polyglot courts, reflecting the multiple religions and races represented there. French was a lingua franca at the Ottoman court; Persian, Armenian and Arabic were also spoken. 

The caliphs were far from doctrinaire. Abdulhamid II, who ruled from 1876 to 1909, was one of the more Islamist, but he loved music (forbidden by IS) with a passion. He grew up in a court where the princesses played a piano coated in gold leaf given by Napoleon III, and Layla Hanoum taught the princes the cello. On Thursday evenings he would accompany Sufi masters in reciting the dhikr (rhythmic repetition of the name of God), and his imperial orchestra would play Offenbach on the way back from Friday prayers at the mosque. At state banquets the orchestra would match each course to a different concerto, including some by “Pasha” Giuseppe Donizetti, Gaetano’s older brother, who was the court composer. The last caliph, Abdulmecid II, played the violin, entertaining a mixed audience of men and women at concerts. 

Far from reading only the Koran and the Muslim Sunnah, Abdulhamid II had a taste for spy novels and Sarah Bernhardt, the greatest actress of her age, whom he brought several times to his private theatre. “In politics Abdulhamid was conservative,” says Suraiya Farooqi, a professor of Ottoman history at Istanbul’s Bilgi University. “In private, his tastes were distinctly Verdi.” The Ottomans paraded in the latest fashions, often imported from Venice. Photographs in the vaults of the old Ottoman Bank show their clerks in pristine English frock-coats. In 1894 the governor of Smyrna, now Izmir, even banned the baggy trousers worn by mountain zeybeks (militias) because he found them uncouth. 

In their efforts to emulate other European rulers, the caliphs commissioned Europe’s leading architects to design new palaces. Abdulhamid II’s father, Abdulmecid I, abandoned the Topkapi Palace, perched on the heights overlooking the city, and moved to the Dolmabahce, a neo-baroque edifice with marble steps that were washed by the waves of the Bosporus. Passengers on liners sailing past could glimpse through the windows its crystal balustrades and its chandelier, the world’s largest, made in Birmingham. “The 19th-century caliph projected himself as a European emperor, like the Habsburgs or Romanovs,” says Mehmet Kentel, the head librarian at Koc University’s Research Centre for Anatolian Civilisations. Money was no object: Abdulhamid II’s descendants are seeking to recover a legacy, excluding his estates, that they estimate at $30 billion. 

The iconoclasts of IS sledgehammer human likenesses; the last caliphs fashioned them. Abdulhamid II appointed Pierre Désiré Guillemet, a French painter, and his wife to establish the empire’s first arts school, and Fausto Zonaro, an Italian, as his in-house palace painter. Zonaro’s students included Abdulhamid II, whose paintings are still in the Dolmabahce. In “The Pondering” Abdulmecid II painted his wife Sehsuvar reclining, unveiled, reading Goethe’s “Faust” (pictured above). Another of his paintings, “Beethoven in the Harem”, depicts her unveiled again, playing the violin, with a trio that includes one of his Circassian consorts on the piano and a male accompanist on the cello. The setting, again, is continental, with European furnishings and a bust of Beethoven. Neither the orientalist fantasy of the harem nor the zealously segregated purdah of the capital of IS, Raqqa, are anywhere to be seen. 

Nor was Western culture confined to the palace. Abdulmecid I hired two Swiss architects, the Fossati brothers, to renovate the Hagia Sophia—the former seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople that became a mosque and is now a museum—installing a gallery for non-Muslims to observe the worshippers below. They designed the country’s first opera house, its first university and new law courts, which are still in use. A Greek architect, Nikolai Kalfa, designed Abdulhamid II’s favourite mosque, Yildiz Hamidiye. So many playhouses, shadow-theatres and concert halls surfaced in the city that “The Encyclopaedia of Istanbul Theatres” fills three volumes. Despite traditional opposition to football, the last caliph’s son, Omer Faruk, was president of Istanbul’s premier team, Fenerbahce, while the city was under British occupation. Under the 19th-century caliphs Istanbul became a metropolis of modernisation 

Under the 19th-century caliphs, Istanbul became “a metropolis of modernisation”, says Philip Mansel in his book, “Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire, 1453-1924”, which spans the five centuries the Ottomans ruled the city. The first official newspaper, Moniteur Ottoman , appeared in 1831, first in French and then in Ottoman Turkish, as well as Greek, Armenian, Persian and Arabic. Abdulhamid II Westernised oriental concepts of time by erecting clocktowers across his empire, often at the entrance to mosques. He furnished Istanbul with an underground metro, the second in Europe. And he introduced the telegraph, an intelligence service and a rail network. The first Oriental Express steamed from Paris to Constantinople in 1889, almost two decades before the Ottomans completed their pilgrimage railway to Medina. 

Ottoman attitudes to religiosity could be disarmingly liberal, too. The caliphs maintained multi-tier legal codes for their different communities. From 1839 Abdulmecid I revamped the legal system, introducing secular law alongside sharia . He gave non-Muslims equal rights with Muslims, abolished the right of the sultan to execute members of his court without trial, banned the slave trade and allowed the opening of taverns, which filled with European painters and composers on court stipends. Diplomatic diaries from the time record caliphal scions enjoying a tipple, particularly of drinks that had not existed in the Prophet’s time and were therefore, according to more liberal readings, permitted. Mahmoud II was spotted sipping champagne at society balls. 

Enjoying a tipple 

Such practices were not aberrations. Drinking was a fundamental part of the pre-Ottoman early medieval caliphal courts, particularly Tamerlane’s, says Hugh Kennedy, a professor of Arabic at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, who is writing a book on their wanton ways. The greatest caliph of all, Harun al-Rashid (786-809), presided over an intellectual awakening and oversaw the translation of Greek Sophists in his House of Wisdom in Baghdad, but also partied with his debauched bard, Abu Nawwas, who composed drinking ditties as well as some of the Arab world’s finest classical verse. Drunken dervishes roam “The One Thousand and One Nights”, compiled during his reign. 

Occasionally puritans howled. Caliph Walid II was killed in 744 after allegations he had organised drinking parties in Mecca. But dissolution was mostly taken as par for the course. Selim II (1566-75), who conquered Cyprus and Tunisia, died in a drunken stupor, after smashing his head on his Turkish bath. 

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: less Goethe and champagne 

For all that, the caliphs could be profoundly reverential. They saw themselves as defenders of the multiple faiths that sought their protection, not just Islam. When Spain’s Christian rulers expelled their Jews, Bayezid, the then-caliph, sent boats to rescue them. Istanbul was an Armenian and Orthodox capital as well as an Islamic one. (In the Ottoman army, too, Iraqis fought alongside Albanians and Chechens.) Obedience was expected: Abdulhamid II is reputed to have slaughtered 30,000 Armenians to suppress a revolt around Adana, on the north-eastern Mediterranean. But those who proved docile and useful were welcome, whatever their origin. Abdulhamid II’s foreign minister for a quarter-century was Armenian, as were the architect of his palace and the designer, along with Jean-Paul Garnier, of the clocktowers that became his hallmark across the empire. 

Sisli’s Darulaceze, the hospice for the homeless Abdulhamid II built in 1896, is easily missed. A highway zips past above the Golden Horn, too fast to catch the golden Arabic herald over the mahogany doors. But for those who pause there, the long courtyard shaded with cypress trees offers not just an escape from modern Istanbul’s frenzy but a time capsule of caliphal values. It contains a mosque to the south, and a church and a synagogue, with stars of David, to the north. Even as Orthodox Christians and Zionists were seeking to slough off Ottoman rule and govern themselves, the caliph was still building them holy places. 

Ultimately, of course, the caliphate, along with eastern Europe’s other dynastic empires, the Habsburgs and Romanovs, was dissolved. After the first world war the British and French occupied Istanbul, along with all the caliph’s remaining Arab lands. Turkish nationalists under Mustafa Kemal, an army general, took the Anatolian rump that remained. Had Russia not fallen prey to its own revolution, its army too might have held eastern Anatolia. 

By that point, the caliphs were powerless. In 1923 Mustafa Kemal abolished the Ottoman Empire, proclaimed a republic and made himself president. A year later he abolished the title of caliph. Even a titular role was too threatening for the republicans—and for the British, who feared that a Muslim revival in the Middle East might have repercussions for their rule in India. He stripped the imperial family of its Turkish nationality and possessions, took the Dolmabahce for himself and went on to proclaim himself “Ataturk”, father of the Turks. 

Turkish history books ridiculed the country’s former leaders as anti-Western, anti-women, tyrannical and obscurantist. The family lived in penury, strewn across the world. Two became taxi-drivers in Beirut; another played the zither in Lebanese nightclubs. Only half a century later, in 1974, did Turkey let the first male relatives back. Mr Osmanoglu returned from Damascus, recovered his Turkish nationality in 1985, and opened an import-export business trading with bits of his forefathers’ former empire. When Hosni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt, thugs broke into the ports and pillaged his containers, leaving him bankrupt. 

Recently, under the Islamist-leaning president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has seemed to relent a little. Textbooks are less derisive. State television sometimes shows interviews with members of the clan. Mr Erdogan is pushing the country to reconnect with its Ottoman past. “Over the last decade people have begun to respect us more,” says Mr Osmanoglu. The day your correspondent met him he had come from Bursa, a four-hour drive away, where he had taken part in the opening of the mausoleum of Murad II, an ancestor who ruled in the 15th century, before the Ottomans had even taken Istanbul. Still, he worries about raising his profile too much, lest Mr Erdogan covet the caliphate for himself. “If the Christians can have their pope, why can’t we have our caliph?” asks the curator of Abdulmecid II’s study in the Dolmabahce. 

Mr Osmanoglu has toyed with forming a political party, if only he had the money. The last Ottoman leader stood for election in 1922, he notes, winning office for the first time in six centuries by the people’s formal consent. Perhaps, he says, a little nostalgia for the family and the stability they brought the region remains. 

In one of his last paintings, Abdulmecid II depicted a history tutorial. On the table lies a map of Rumelia, today’s Balkans. The tutor covers his face with his hand, too grief-stricken or embarrassed to account for its loss. A ginger-haired girl stares at the map and a boy in a starched collar, cravat and suit points at it, determined to win it back. Beneath the frame, the caliph has added the caution: “Forget those who have caused you personal problems, but don’t forgive the insult to your homeland.” 

When Mustafa Kemal dissolved the caliphate, the guards sent to give the household their marching orders are said to have found the caliph in his study beside his easel, perusing volumes of his favourite magazine. It was La Revue des Deux Mondes , exemplifying the Ottoman knack for straddling two worlds that has created such problems ever since. Within 24 hours he had boarded the Orient Express at Stambouli station, heading west to Europe.

Posted by Seta at 14:11 0 comments

Friday, 1 January 2016

To all the recipients of Armenian News: A Topalian




Best wishes for the new year that hopefully will see you all progress 
in your personal, family and working lives.

We have been through a tremendous year, even though it did not 
achieve all we would have desired, with the milestone of the 100th 
anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. In particular, there was the 
major event with the canonisation of the Armenian Martyrs.

There was a full commemorative program in most countries including 
 the UK . Here on these shores, we are left with two new permanent 
memorials erected in gratitude to the people and churches who 
truly recognise our history. These will serve to inform all and act as 
a focal point. for Armenians for the decades to come.

P1010476.jpegP1010434-2.jpeg

Posted by Seta at 09:28 0 comments

Armenian News ... A Topalian... St David's Cathedral


Dedication of St David's Cathedral Statue, Wales 
as reported on Armenian TV: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1m-HPv4oJaEMWVRbGlvaDBwS3M/view?pref=2&pli=1 


armenpress.am 

FIRST PART OF NORTH-SOUTH ROAD CORRIDOR OPENED
29 December, 2015

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 29. The opening of two-way traffic
of the first part of the road (tranche 1) Yerevan-Artashat and
Yerevan-Ashtarak has been held in the framework of "North-South Road
Corridor Investment Program". "Armenpress" reports that the overall
funding of the North-South Program, Tranche 1 amounted to 70 million
USD. It was realized by the loan funds secured by the Asian Development
Bank and cofinancing by the Republic of Armenia.

The President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan attended the
opening ceremony of the first part of the North-South Road Corridor.

According to Chief Executive Officer Artur Sargsyan of the "North-South
Road Corridor Investment Program" SNCO, the road is of international
level and it will have more than a 30-year life.

Regarding the criticism by some persons that the Georgia road of the
same kind is better and no noise is heard while driving, Sargsyan said
that there is no difference in terms of quality, and there is noise
while driving on the road, as the junctures have not integrated yet.

President of the Union of Manufacturers and Businessmen Arsen Ghazaryan
emphasizes that the highway will contribute not only to the development
of business, but will also make Armenia a transit country corresponding
to European standards.

"The road will bring speed, flexibility, European culture. It will
contribute not only to the development of business, but also will
turn Armenia into a country having a transit function," Ghazaryan said. 


armenpress.am
16 THOUSAND SYRIAN-ARMENIANS, 1000 IRAQI-ARMENIANS 
AND 130 UKRAINIANS HAVING REFUGEE STATUS SETTLED IN 
ARMENIA
29 December, 2015
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 29. The Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees is one of the primary organizations
in expressing support and assistance for integration for more than
16.000 persons who settled in Armenia because of the long war in Syria
according to the official data. The External Relations Associate at the
Armenian Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) Anahit Hayrapetyan, during the interview with "Armenpress",
mentioned that people, moved to Armenia from Syria, have got used to
the conditions here, got introduced to the market, as well as they
have a great potential for integration.

-How many persons moved to Armenia since the beginning of Syrian war
and how many of them were provided a citizenship and refugee status?

- The calculation is done through the principle how many people have
come in and come out. Overall, about 19 thousand people arrived
in Armenia from Syria from who 16.000 people settled here. 80% of
Syrian-Armenians have Armenian citizenship, about 20% - residency
status of various duration and only 500-600 persons - refugee status.

However, regardless of citizenship or refugee status, we equally
provide the same assistance to all of them if we see such need during
our planned visits.

-In general, what kinds of programs were implemented for displaced
persons from Syria in 2015?

- First, almost 90 percent of people settled in Armenia are from Syria
who receive assistance starting from basic first aid to the business
loans. For example, when a displaced family arrives in Armenia, they
get the necessary items for passing the first days: Children's diapers,
cooking and hygienic supplies, food and sleeping pad. Then, the family
is provided a bank account to which the flat fee reimbursement amount
is transferred, of course, if it is not located in the city center.

-How aid for displaced persons from other countries differs?

-there is a very big difference between the aid provided to displaced
persons from Syria and, for instance - from Iraq and Ukraine. A total
of about 1,000 persons emigrated from Iraq and we helped them to stand
up and with housing. Emergency assistance and integration programs
are being implemented for 130 Ukrainian emigrants who have a refugee
status in Armenia.


RFE/RL Report
Armenian PM Admits Slower-Than-Expected Growth
Sargis Harutyunyan
29.12.2015
Economic growth in Armenia in 2015 has fallen short of a 4.1 percent
target that was set by the government a year ago, Prime Minister Hovik
Abrahamian acknowledged on Tuesday.

"We are going to have a growth rate of about 3 percent or even
slightly more than that," he told reporters. "We will calculate and
present [precise growth data.] But that will not solve the issue of
ensuring the people's welfare."

Abrahamian blamed the slower-than-expected growth on external factors,
presumably including a recession in Russia that has significantly
reduced remittances from Armenian migrant workers. "We need to achieve
double-digit growth," he said. "But the existing realities do not
allow for such a possibility."

"If the government had been headed by someone else or if all our
ministers had been replaced nothing would have changed fundamentally,"
the premier added, defending his cabinet's economic record.

Abrahamian insisted in August that the government "will do everything"
to achieve the 4.1 percent growth target. He cited official statistics
showing that the Armenian economy expanded by 4.5 percent in the first
half of this year.

President Serzh Sarkisian similarly put a positive spin on Armenia's
macroeconomic performance in 2015 when he hosted an annual reception
for leading Armenian entrepreneurs last week. He argued that despite
adverse external influences the domestic economy has continued to grow
and the national currency has only slightly depreciated over the past
year.

Citing the economic situation in Russia, the International Monetary
and the World Bank said this spring that the Armenian economy will
barely grow or may even contract in 2015. Both institutions revised
their projections upwards in the following months.

The head of the World Bank office in Yerevan, Laura Bailey, said last
week that Armenia's Gross Domestic Product will increase by at least
3.2 percent in real terms in 2015. She forecast that growth will slow
down to 2.2 percent in 2016.

The Armenian government set the same growth target in its 2016 budget
proposal approved by the parliament earlier in December.


armradio.am
TOP 100 PLAYERS OF 2015: HENRIKH MKHITARYAN RANKED 
17TH
29 Dec 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan

Sky Sports has counted down the top 100 players of 2015 as ranked
by WhoScored.com.

After every game, WhoScored.com gives players competing in Europe's
top five leagues a mark out of 10 based on a wide range of statistical
data.

Each player received an average score for 2015, and to qualify for
the list, players had to have made at least 20 league appearances.

With an average rating of 7.618, Armenian midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan
is placed 17th.

"One of the most talented players in the world," according to Jurgen
Klopp, but the Armenian appears to have benefited from the appointment
of Thomas Tuchel at Dortmund.

The attacking midfielder is in WhoScored's Bundesliga team of the
season at the winter break with a rating of 7.9 and has provided the
joint-most assists along with Rafael. 


A Story from Assadour Guzelian, London
“Ararat” Armenian Brandy and Winston Churchill 
29 October 2015 was a special day for Sotheby’s Auction House.
Under the auspices and with the participation of Albert, the Crown
Prince of Monaco, an auction was organised on the occasion of
the 50 th anniversary of Winston Churchill.

The main organisers of the event were Prince Albert of Monaco, the
British Ambassador to Monaco and the former Prime Minister and
current Ambassador of Armenia Dr. Armen Sarkissian. The entire
proceeds of the auction was allocated to Prince Albert’s charities
related to climatic changes.

Items being auctioned were the drinks, cigars and menswear of
renowned brands and others objects favoured by Churchill.

During the auction the main attention was focused on the statue of
Churchill by the well-known sculptor Oscar Nemon and a decades old
bottle of “Ararat” Armenian brandy with an interesting background history.

Many years ago, this unique bottle of Armenian brandy was sold at an
auction by Christy’s for more than GBP15, 000. According to the
documents provided the bottle was filled from the same barrels from
which for many years Stalin supplied Churchill with “Ararat” Armenian
brandy.

The exclusive bottle of brandy was donated to the auction by former
Prime Minister and current Ambassador of Armenia Dr. Armen Sarkissian.

Sotheby’s auction house was filled with many high class aristocrats.
What happened at the auction next, surpassed everyone’s expectation;
The 70 year old “Ararat” was sold for GBP 80,000, which is equal to
USD 120,000!

The participants to the auction with amazement and admiration spoke
about Armenia and the Armenians. Hopefully the unprecedented
success of the Armenian brandy in misty Albion will help to promote
the fame of “Ararat” brand.

When and where did Churchill first drink the Armenian brandy?

My wife Vivienne and I had the pleasure of enjoying the friendship of
Winston Churchill’s daughter Sara for many years, starting from late
1960s. When for the first time she was invited to dinner, she noticed in
our sitting room on the piano, a bottle of “Ararat” Armenian brandy.
She looked at the bottle with amazement and said,

“From 1945 until his death, my father used to drink this brandy.”

Then Sara told us when and where did Churchill first drank the “Ararat”.
During the Yalta Conference In 1945 February, after the dinner Stalin
asks Churchill if he wishes to have a drink?

“I like a brandy with my cigar”, answers   the British Prime Minister.

The host offers Churchill “Ararat”, the best Armenian brandy.

According to Sara, Churchill “falls in love” with “Ararat” Armenian
brandy and asks Stalin;

“Where can I purchase few bottles of this brandy?

Stalin instructs the Soviet ambassador to the U. K to present Churchill
with a case (12 bottles) of “Ararat” every month.

“My father passed away, but we continued receiving every month a
case of “Ararat”. Many years later, someone realises that the Embassy
has been
 sending brandy to a “dead” Churchill for the past ten years!
Unfortunately from that day on our source of the Armenian brandy dried
up! By the way, added Sara, I used to enjoy “Ararat” as much as my
father”.

After the dinner only the empty bottle of ‘’Ararat’’ remained on the
dining table!

Posted by Seta at 08:45 0 comments

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