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Christian Armenia Loses Chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh
in Peace Deal With Muslim Azerbaijan
Armenians vent fury at West after truce in bloody war in Nagorno-Karabakh
Chris Brown · CBC News ·
Posted: Nov 11, 2020 4:00 AM ET
Armenian filmmaker Vardan Hovahnnisyan has been covering the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh from the front lines. (Submitted by Vardan Hovhannisyan)
Filmmaker Vardan Hovahnnisyan spent 25 of the last 40 days of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh on the front lines, coming under fire from drones and artillery as he sought to keep the world informed about the human cost of the conflict in this Armenian enclave of Azerbaijan.
Day after day, Hovahnnisyan and his film crews ducked into basements to stay safe, returning above ground to visit the Armenian trenches or travel with soldiers cataloguing the course of the war. Many of the images the world has seen from the Armenian side of the conflict were captured by Hovahnnisyan and his team, including video commissioned by CBC News.
The number of soldiers and civilians killed is still unclear, but Russian estimates put the toll from both sides at more than 5,000.
Exhausted and emotionally devastated, Hovahnnisyan said he returned to his home in the Armenian capital of Yerevan three days ago knowing that his country was losing and that the end was not far off.
Two weeks ago, he said he could tell from the exhausted faces of young Armenian soldiers that the relentless air bombardment from Turkish-made drones — many equipped with Canadian-made targeting systems — was crushing his country's ability to keep going.
"They sold us out," Hovahnnisyan said bitterly of the western nations, including Canada, claiming they either failed to take meaningful steps to help Armenia or didn't do enough to stop NATO ally Turkey from tipping the balance of power in favour of Azerbaijan.
A man stands near his burning car, which caught fire during the climb along the road to a mountain pass
near the border between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia on Nov. 8. (The Associated Press)
"We were just screwed by the international community."
Hovahnnisyan, 53, said he "lost hope" when it was evident that Azerbaijani troops were pushing deep into Armenian-held territory. He said he even considered putting down his video camera and picking up a machine gun to join the final days of the battle himself. He went as far as updating his will.
"I was ready to die," Hovahnnisyan said of his passion to prevent an Armenian defeat, following the news early on Tuesday that both sides had agreed to a Russian-negotiated truce.
The deal, brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, forces Armenia to turn over most of the territory around Karabakh that it has occupied since the last war between the two neighbours 30 years ago. The boundaries of Karabakh itself will be reduced from what they were when fighting started at the end of September.
Western nations exerted little influence
Although it appears ethnic Armenians will remain in control of the enclave, their security will now be guaranteed by a contingent of Russian peacekeepers, not the Armenian army.
The almost 2,000 Russian troops, who were arriving by the planeload on Tuesday, will play a crucial role in keeping the two warring sides apart and preserving a safe transportation corridor between Armenia and Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh.
Russian peacekeeping troops stand next to a tank near the border with Armenia following the signing of a deal to end the military conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh on Nov. 10. (REUTERS)
Hovahnnisyan's assessment, shared by many Armenians, is that the war over the long-disputed territory — which Armenians call Artsakh — was a fight between a democratic Armenia and an Azerbaijani dictatorship backed by Turkey, as well as thousands of Islamist fighters that the Turks imported from Syria.
Azerbaijanis are equally passionate that this was a war of liberation, fought to reclaim lands that had been lost in fighting 30 years ago. That conflict saw tens of thousands of people displaced, many of whom had settled in border regions and now plan to return to their former towns and villages in what were traditional Azerbaijani areas around the disputed enclave.
Western nations, including France and the United States, were members of the Minsk Process set up by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to find a permanent settlement to the conflict. However, once the fighting began in September, neither the French nor the Americans were able to make a ceasefire stick.
They also weren't able to exert much influence over their NATO partner Turkey, which threw its political and diplomatic weight behind helping Azerbaijan. During the U.S. election campaign, President Donald Trump said he would "straighten out" the conflict, but his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, accused Trump of being absent and allowing Russia to take leadership on the issue.
Observers say the Western alliance has been tarnished by the circumstances of the conflict.
"You saw a NATO ally [Turkey] provide support to an enemy of Armenia and all of NATO took a hit," said Paul Stronski, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D,C. "The Canadians took a hit, and the Americans — because there were Turkish F16s in Azerbaijan — took a hit."
However, Stronski argues Armenia's government, led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, also overplayed its hand by refusing to engage in serious discussions through the Minsk process, and that Pashinyan's fiery rhetoric contributed to escalation of the conflict.
"The Armenians are not completely blameless," he said.
Cheers in Azerbaijan, fury in Armenia
The roots of the conflict go back to Soviet times, when ethnic-Armenian Karabakh was legally incorporated into Muslim-majority Azerbaijan. At the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over the enclave that killed more than 30,000 and left Armenia in control of Karabakh, as well as other Azerbaijani territories surrounding it.
Over the decades, diplomatic efforts to find a permanent solution to the territory's status failed. Azerbaijan grew rich from oil revenues and built up its army until the military decided to strike with a full offensive almost six weeks ago.
News of the truce was greeted with jubilation across Azerbaijan, with night-long street celebrations and euphoria that historic lands would be coming back under their control. The truce spells out that tens of thousands of displaced Azerbaijani residents might finally be allowed to return to the region under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In a televised address, the country's president, Ilem Aliev, taunted the Armenian prime minister, saying Armenia "capitulated."
"Your status has gone to hell. There is no status, and there will be no status [for Nagorno-Karabakh]."
In Yerevan, Armenia's capital, there was fury at news of the deal, with protesters breaking into government offices and trashing furniture. The speaker of the parliament was beaten by the crowd.
A truce without the West
For Russia, the truce after six weeks of war, thousands of dead and wounded and two failed attempts by the Kremlin to negotiate ceasefires amounts to making the best of many poor possible outcomes.
Putin has attempted to maintain close relations with both Azerbaijan and Armenia, even though Russia is bound by a defence treaty to assist Armenia if its territory comes under direct attack. The Kremlin has insisted the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh did not compel Russia to join the conflict on the Armenian side.
Russian political scientist Alexey Malashenko said the fact that neither the U.S. nor Europe was involved in the eventual settlement means the Kremlin is probably satisfied with the result.
"The solutions to Nagorno-Karabakh could be solved in the context of relations between Moscow and Ankara. This is a new thing," Malashenko said.
People storm the parliament after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he had signed an agreement
with leaders of Russia and Azerbaijan to end the war on Nov. 10. (Vahram Baghdasaryan/Photolure/Reuters)
Whether Russia will use the truce to forge a more permanent settlement that can stop the cycle of war over the territory will be the key question going forward. Already, many Armenians are saying no.
Hovahnnisyan the filmmaker said he's already looking ahead to when the deal with the Russian peacekeeping force expires in five years.
"I hope Armenia will become stronger. We will be more prepared and lead the next attack."
12 Germans from ‘right-wing terrorist cell’ charged
with plotting mass murder at mosques
13 Nov, 2020 15:42
FILE PHOTO © AFP / Hauke-Christian Dittrich
German prosecutors have charged 12 alleged members of a right-wing terrorist group with plotting attacks on mosques, in which they wanted to kill or injure as many Muslims as possible.
The men aimed to “create conditions similar to civil war by attacks on mosques and the killing or injuring of the largest possible number of Muslim believers present,” said a spokesperson for the Federal Prosecutor's Office on Thursday.
They said that 11 alleged members of the “Group S” organization and one alleged supporter held several meetings and proposed to raise €50,000 ($59,000) in order to “procure firearms.”
Prosecutors added that the aim of the group’s founding members was to “shake the state and social order of the Federal Republic of Germany and ultimately to overcome it.”
The charges for the 12 German nationals include founding and membership of a right-wing terrorist association, and violations of the Weapons Act. All the suspects were arrested on February 14, apart from one man who remains “at large” in the southeastern city of Stuttgart.
Another man, who is not named among the 12 suspects, was arrested on February 14 but died in pre-trial detention, prosecutors said, although they did not specify more details.
One of the group’s “ringleaders,” named as Werner S., carried a “loaded pistol” that he would use for target practice at meetings, the indictment said, adding that he organized a gathering for members in September 2019.
During the meeting in Alfdorf, southern Germany, the 12 men threw axes at logs and shot arrows. Some attendees brought a bulletproof vest, weapons, and a dog trained to attack on demand, local media reported.
One of the men was reportedly in possession of footage of the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019, in which 51 people died.
A 36-year-old who is among the suspects reportedly has a thigh tattoo of Adolf Hitler in uniform and a swastika on his chest, as well as books on "racial studies" and an axe featuring the SS insignia and the word “Aryans.”
Germany has been hit by several right-wing terrorist attacks on minorities in recent years, including the murders of ethnic Turks by the so-called National Socialist Underground, who were convicted in 2018.
The charges in Germany on “Group S” come as right-wing and Islamic extremists were denounced by protesters in neighboring Austria after gunmen killed four people and wounded 23 in the capital Vienna last week.
Alfdorf, Germany
‘Founding principles HAVE BEEN LOST’: Macron blasts US media for legitimizing Islamist violence after wave of terror attacks
16 Nov, 2020 22:30
French President Emmanuel Macron is shown speaking last week at the Paris Peace Forum. © Reuters
French President Emmanuel Macron has accused the US media of “legitimizing” Islamist violence and smearing his country as racist after a series of terror attacks that began with the beheading of a Paris schoolteacher in October.
Macron reportedly called New York Times columnist Ben Smith on Thursday to complain about media coverage of France’s latest round of Islamist violence, contrasting reaction around the world to the outpouring of international support for France following the terror attacks that killed 130 people in November 2015.
“When I see, in that context, several newspapers which I believe are from countries that share our values – journalists who write in a country that is the heir to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution – when I see them legitimizing this violence and saying that the heart of the problem is that France is racist and Islamophobic, then I say the founding principles have been lost,” Macron told Smith in a column published on Saturday.
M Le President - Those newspapers don't exist anymore. They have been taken over by far-left, liberal, anti-Christian fanatics who would be happy to see the world overrun by Muslims with no fear of their granddaughters being forced to become invisible and marry old men when they are 10 or 12 years old. They are that stupid!
Islamist terrorists have killed more than 250 people in France since 2015, the most among Western countries. The latest wave began when teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded on Oct. 16 by an 18-year-old jihadist migrant in suburban Paris. Paty was allegedly targeted for showing his middle-school students cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed for a lesson on freedom of expression.
Macron responded by honoring Paty and defending free-speech rights and France’s culture of secularism. His government carried out dozens of raids on individuals and Islamic groups accused of radicalism. More attacks followed, including the stabbing murders of three people in Nice – including one who was decapitated -- by a Tunisian migrant. Angered by Macron’s aggressive response, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a boycott of French products.
As the crisis unfolded, Macron was stung as he saw Western media outlets appearing to blame France for the attacks. A Financial Times headline declared, “Macron’s war on Islamic separatism only divides France further,” while the Washington Post opined that “Instead of fighting systemic racism, France wants to reform Islam.” The New York Times published an opinion piece asking, “Is France fueling Muslim terrorism by trying to prevent it?” The Times’ first headline about the beheading of Paty also raised eyebrows in Paris: “French police shoot and kill man after a fatal knife attack on the street.”
Smith was largely dismissive of Macron’s complaints, noting that the French president is preparing for his 2022 re-election campaign and may be acting a “little Trumpian” by attacking the press to advance his agenda. He added that “picking fights with American media is also an old sport in France.”
Dutch journalist Heiko Jessayan said he found Macron’s arguments compelling. “Macron is right,” he tweeted. “The Anglo-Saxon world and NATO seem to justify Islamism and Turkish violence against Armenians.”
Another commenter agreed, saying “fanatical political correctness” has caused American media outlets to abandon the “basic foundations of Western culture and civil society.” The observer added, “American media, caught up in their kindergarten-level political scene and argumentation, have been supporting one side or the other of it no matter the cost.”
“American media, caught up in their kindergarten-level political scene and argumentation"
But writer Farrah Raja said criticism of France’s response was justified. “It is shocking to find a French president who is not open to the views of humanity, diversity and equality,” she said. “Yes, it brings challenges, too, and it is resolved through interfaith dialogues and social inclusion.”
We are talking about Islam here. Interfaith dialogues are a joke in Islam.
Local television anchor Travis Mayfield of Seattle said the raw with Macron was being overblown. “I’m 100 percent sure this entire New York Times article was written exclusively so the columnist could say, ‘So, President Emmanuel Macron of France called me on Thursday afternoon . . . .”
Smith noted that the Financial Times had deleted an online article in which it misquoted Macron, and Politico removed an opinion piece that critics attacked for allegedly blaming the victims of terrorism. Liz Goodwin, the Boston Globe’s Washington bureau chief, said those moves will lead to more controversy: “I’m sure the cancel-culture community will be up in arms over this,” she tweeted.
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Is this really what Brits should be doing?
How the British government secretly funded Syrian cartoons and comic books as anti-Assad propaganda aimed at children
16 Nov, 2020 18:16
Goal to Syria Dir: Amjad Wardeh © YouTube / Amjad Wardeh
By Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow Kit on Twitter @KitKlarenberg
Leaked documents show how the Foreign & Commonwealth Office spent millions setting up a clandestine network to churn out pro-rebel material, much of it aimed at winning the hearts and minds of kids.
A swath of internal UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) files have exposed a number of covert ways in which London sought to both propagandize Syrian children and turn them into weapons, in a vast, long-running information warfare campaign at home and abroad.
The documents are just some of the bombshell papers released by hacktivist collective Anonymous, outlining a variety of cloak-and-dagger actions undertaken by the UK government against the Syrian state over many years.
The overriding objective behind them all was to destabilize the government of Bashar Assad, convince Syrians, Western citizens, foreign governments, and international bodies that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was a legitimate alternative, and flood media the world over with pro-opposition propaganda.
Children figured prominently in a number of the plans, in more ways than one. ARK, a shadowy firm headed by veteran FCO operative Alistair Harris, was central to many of these covert efforts, which may have cost the FCO many millions in total.
Undermining government legitimacy
In one file, the company outlines pricing for runs of propaganda material including “public service announcement animations” (£4,570), “political cartoons” (£1,200), and “comic books (24 colored pages)” (£30,200).
A separate proposal submitted to the FCO by communications firm Albany details ways of offering clandestine support to “oppositionist grassroots media activism.” The company conducted numerous psyops in Syria – including managing the Syrian National Coalition’s communications during the 2014 Geneva II peace conference – and collaborated extensively with ARK in the process.
Creating “fictional material” such as radio dramas and “digital comic strips for internet deployment” was listed one of the key ways the firm would “bolster the values and reputation of the Syrian opposition,” and undermine the government’s “core narrative and legitimacy.”
Precisely which projects emerged from these pitches, if any, isn’t clear from the files themselves, but in May journalist Ian Cobain revealed Hentawi, a comic aimed at 9-to-15 year-old Syrians, was a clandestine creation of the FCO, and its founder Naji Jerf was an employee of a firm contracted by the department.
The files released by Anonymous indicate that the company in question was ARK, who provided Jerf’s CV – it reveals that from 2006 to 2007, he was Editor of a UAE-based magazine, Attfal Al Yaom (Children of Today).
There is much more on this article at RT.
French police forcibly evict 2,000 illegal migrants from camp
in Paris suburbs over Covid health threat
17 Nov, 2020 13:45
© Twitter / @Prefet93
French officials forced the evacuation of more than 2,000 migrants from an illegal, makeshift camp in the northern suburbs of Paris in the early hours of Tuesday morning, in a move that has been condemned by human rights groups.
Police began removing the migrants at around 4:30am local time, rounding individuals up and ordering them to line up and board buses to reception centers and gyms for processing. According to witnesses at the scene, the situation quickly escalated after a crush near the vehicles, with police deploying tear gas to control the crowds, affecting some children in the process.
Paris Police Prefect Didier Lallement told reporters at a briefing that "this operation aims to ensure that people with the right to be here are given shelter and those who do not have that right do not remain on French territory."
So, it appears unregistered migrants will be deported.
Authorities explained that the action had been taken to "guarantee the safety and health of all" in light of the Covid-19 threat in the area and unsanitary conditions in the camp. In early October, Doctors Without Borders published a survey that showed, out of more than 800 vulnerable migrants tested, emergency accommodation centers found that between 23 percent and 62 percent tested positive for coronavirus.
While France Terre d'Asile Director Pierre Henry praised the "vital" and "long-awaited" move, Solidarite Migrants Wilson criticized the approach taken, due to "more police officers than social workers" being used in the operation.
Following the dismantling of the camp on Tuesday, 30 migrant advocate organizations signed an open letter condemning the "endless and destructive cycle" of forced evictions.
There are 30 migrant advocate associations? Wow! I wonder who is behind them?
I would never have expected this from a bureaucrat in far-left Sweden
Burning Koran NOT a hate crime, Swedish prosecutor says,
after dropping probes into stunts that triggered rioting
17 Nov, 2020 10:50
FILE PHOTO. ©REUTERS / Goran Tomasevic
Desecration of the Koran by burning or kicking the book is not a hate crime in itself, a Swedish prosecutor has said, as investigations into two anti-Islam protests, which had triggered Muslim rioting in Malmo, were dropped.
Swedish authorities have decided to close preliminary probes into the actions of a far-right Danish political party, which caused rioting in the city of Malmo in August. The members of Stram Kurs (‘Hard Line’) were suspected of inciting hatred against an ethnic group. But prosecutors said the burning and kicking of copies of Islam’s holy book did not constitute a hate crime.
The two controversial stunts took place on Friday, August 28. The burning was staged and filmed in the Emilstorp neighborhood, while the kicking action, which organizers dubbed “Koran football,” happened shortly afterwards in the Stortorget square. Swedish police eventually arrested three party members on suspicion of inciting hatred. The videos of the two protests outraged the local Muslim community, triggering rioting in the city.
While desecrations of the Koran in itself did not constitute a hate crime, some of the chants that could be heard during the kicking session could be considered as such, Malmo prosecutor Sofia Syren told the newspaper Sydsvenskan on Monday. But investigators failed to identify who shouted these, making prosecution impossible. So last week the probes were closed.
The riots themselves, however, have left a more reliable body of evidence, it appears. Last week, six people were charged with various crimes related to the spree of violence. A 31-year-old man got busted thanks to videos he himself filmed and published on TikTok during the rioting. The five others are all teenagers, including four 16-year-old boys and a 17-year-old girl. Prosecutor Tomas Olvmyr said more indictments were likely to follow.
The Malmo rioting involved an estimated 300 participants, who vandalized property and clashed with the city police, leaving 15 officers injured and causing an estimated $465,000 in damage, most of it done to police vehicles.
Ironically, the person who instigated the Koran-defiling stunts in Malmo, didn’t participate in them personally. Rasmus Paludan, the head of Stram Kurs, was banned from entering Sweden for two years before the protests and got arrested for violating it before he could join fellow party members. Last week he was taken into custody again in Paris, as he was preparing to stage yet another Koran-burning near the Arc de Triomphe. He was ordered to leave France.
It seems to me that 'disturbing the peace', though a very minor charge, might be appropriate for those provoking the riots. Not that I am against what they are doing. Far-left Europeans need to be shown how volatile Muslims are.
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