ROME — Italy’s president on Friday denounced rising antisemitism and delivered a powerful speech in support of the Jewish people as he commemorated a Holocaust Remembrance Day overshadowed by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and a rise in anti-Israel acts here.
In a ceremony at the Quirinale Palace attended by the premier and leaders of Italy’s Jewish community, President Sergio Mattarella called the Holocaust “the most abominable of crimes” and recalled the complicity of Italians under Fascism in the deportation of Jews.
Also Friday, Rome’s police chief ordered pro-Palestinian activists to postpone a rally in the capital that had been scheduled for Saturday, the actual day of Holocaust Remembrance. Israel’s Jewish community has complained that such protests have become occasions for the memory of the Holocaust to be co-opted by anti-Israel forces and used against Jews.
Palestinian organizers said they would protest nonetheless, saying the potential for conflict with police was a small price to pay given the toll of Palestinian deaths in Gaza.
Mattarella’s tenure as president has been marked by strong affirmations in support of Jews, and he continued that Friday. He said the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against Israel were “a gruesome replica of the horrors of the Shoah.”
But Mattarella also expressed anguish for the mounting Palestinian death toll in Gaza as a result of Israel’s military campaign and called for fundamental human rights to be respected everywhere.
“Those who have suffered the vile attempt to erase their own people from the land know that one cannot deny another people the right to a state,” Mattarella said.
Antisemitic episodes in Italy hit an unprecedented high last year, with 216 incidents reported in the last three months of 2023 following the Oct. 7 attack, compared to 241 in all of the previous year, the Antisemitism Observatory reported. Overall, 454 incidents of antisemitism were reported last year, the biggest-ever increase.
“The dead of Auschwitz, scattered in the wind, continually warn us: Man’s path proceeds along rough and risky roads,” Mattarella said. “This is also manifested by the return, in the world, of dangerous instances of antisemitism: of prejudice that traces back to ancient anti-Jewish stereotypes, reinforced by social media without control or modesty.”
Mattarella also strongly condemned the Nazi-Fascist regimes that perpetrated the Holocaust. Sitting in the audience was Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots but who has strongly backed Israel and supported Italy’s Jewish community.
Mattarella said it must never be forgotten that Italy under Fascism adopted “despicable racist laws” which barred Jews from schools and the workplace. He called the laws “the opening chapter of the terrible book of extermination.”
Referring to Benito Mussolini’s final government in the Nazi puppet state in Salò, northern Italy, he added that “members of the Republic of Salò actively collaborated in the capture, deportation and even massacres of Jews.”
Significantly, he quoted Primo Levi, the Italian-born Auschwitz survivor whose memoir “If This is a Man” remains a standard work of Holocaust literature. Just this week, Italy’s Jewish community denounced that pro-Palestinian protesters had cited Levi in a flyer promoting Saturday’s planned protest, but in reference to Gaza, not the Holocaust.
It was one of several instances of pro-Palestinian advocates using the memory of the Holocaust against Israel and Jews. On Friday, nearly 50 small bronze stickers appeared on the sidewalk in front of the offices of the U.N. refugee agency in Rome with the names of Palestinians killed in Gaza. They were copies of one of the most potent symbols of Italy’s remembrance of the Holocaust: the bronze memorial plaques affixed to cobblestones around Rome in front of the homes of Jews who were deported during World War II.
Noemi Di Segni, president of the Union of the Jewish Communities in Italy, said such a demonstration offended the memory of Holocaust survivors and diminished their particular suffering and stories.
“Palestinians should invent other quotes, other writers, other forms of art,” she said.
The organizer of the sticker protest, who refused to be identified by name citing security concerns, defended the use of the same symbols as evidence that “something very serious is happening” to Palestinians.
NEW YORK — New York prosecutors on Friday returned two pieces of art they say were stolen by Nazis from a Jewish performer and collector murdered in the Holocaust.
The artworks were surrendered by museums in Pittsburgh and Ohio, but prosecutors are still fighting in court to recover third artwork by the same artist, Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele, that was seized from a Chicago museum at the same time.
On Friday in Manhattan, the estate of Holocaust victim Fritz Grünbaum accepted “Portrait of a Man,” which was surrendered by the Carnegie Museum of Art and “Girl with Black Hair,” surrendered by the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College. Prosecutors have collectively valued the two pieces at around $2.5 million.
Ten of Schiele’s works have now been returned to the family, but “Russian War Prisoner” remains at the Art Institute of Chicago, which maintains that it was legally acquired.
Grünbaum was the son of a Jewish art dealer and law school student who began performing in cabarets in Vienna in 1906. As the Nazis rose to power, he mocked them, once saying on a darkened stage, “I can’t see a thing, not a single thing; I must have stumbled into National Socialist culture.”
In 1938, he was captured by Nazi officials, who created a trail of paperwork. Manhattan prosecutors say they forced him to give power of attorney to his wife, and then forced her to sign away the art — including around 80 Schiele works — to Nazi officials. Some of the art was sold to fund the Nazi war effort, they say. Elizabeth and Fritz Grünbaum died in concentration camps.
Prosecutors say the works reappeared in 1956 in Switzerland, part of a shady art deal with members of the Nazi regime, that led to them being sold in New York galleries.
On Friday, one of Grünbaum’s heirs thanked leaders at Oberlin College and the Carnegie Institute, saying they “did the right thing.”
“This is a victory for justice, and the memory of a brave artist, art collector, and opponent of Fascism,” said Timothy Reif, Grünbaum’s great-grandnephew and a federal judge in New York City, in a statement released by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “As the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, we are gratified that this man who fought for what was right in his own time continues to make the world fairer.”
A New York judge ruled in 2018 that other two works by Schiele had to be turned over to Grünbaum’s heirs under the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act, passed by Congress.
In that case, art dealer Richard Nagy said he was the rightful owner of the works because Grünbaum’s sister-in-law had sold them after his death. But the judge in the case ruled that there was no evidence that Grünbaum had given them to her voluntarily, writing it was “a signature at gunpoint.”
The Art Institute of Chicago, however, disputes that. And it argues that “Russian War Prisoner,” a pencil and watercolor piece, was legally acquired.
“We have done extensive research on the provenance history of this work and are confident in our lawful ownership of the piece,” said Art Institute of Chicago spokesperson Megan Michienzi.
Michienzi pointed to a prior 2010 ruling from another federal judge that she said “explicitly ruled that the Grünbaum’s Schiele art collection was ‘not looted’ and ‘remained in the Grünbaum family’s possession’ and was sold by Fritz Grünbaum’s sister-in-law.”
Reif and his relatives had been fighting in a separate federal civil court case for the return of the work. The Art Institute of Chicago had the case thrown out in November on technical grounds, successfully arguing that, unlike the Nagy case, the family had missed a lawsuit deadline under the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act.
After that case was dismissed, Bragg’s office earlier this month asked a Manhattan court to authorize the return of the artwork.
NEW YORK — New York prosecutors on Friday returned two pieces of art they say were stolen by Nazis from a Jewish performer and collector murdered in the Holocaust.
The artworks were surrendered by museums in Pittsburgh and Ohio, but prosecutors are still fighting in court to recover third artwork by the same artist, Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele, that was seized from a Chicago museum at the same time.
On Friday in Manhattan, the estate of Holocaust victim Fritz Grünbaum accepted “Portrait of a Man,” which was surrendered by the Carnegie Museum of Art and “Girl with Black Hair,” surrendered by the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College. Prosecutors have collectively valued the two pieces at around $2.5 million.
Ten of Schiele’s works have now been returned to the family, but “Russian War Prisoner” remains at the Art Institute of Chicago, which maintains that it was legally acquired.
Grünbaum was the son of a Jewish art dealer and law school student who began performing in cabarets in Vienna in 1906. As the Nazis rose to power, he mocked them, once saying on a darkened stage, “I can’t see a thing, not a single thing; I must have stumbled into National Socialist culture.”
In 1938, he was captured by Nazi officials, who created a trail of paperwork. Manhattan prosecutors say they forced him to give power of attorney to his wife, and then forced her to sign away the art — including around 80 Schiele works — to Nazi officials. Some of the art was sold to fund the Nazi war effort, they say. Elizabeth and Fritz Grünbaum died in concentration camps.
Prosecutors say the works reappeared in 1956 in Switzerland, part of a shady art deal with members of the Nazi regime, that led to them being sold in New York galleries.
On Friday, one of Grünbaum’s heirs thanked leaders at Oberlin College and the Carnegie Institute, saying they “did the right thing.”
“This is a victory for justice, and the memory of a brave artist, art collector, and opponent of Fascism,” said Timothy Reif, Grünbaum’s great-grandnephew and a federal judge in New York City, in a statement released by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “As the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, we are gratified that this man who fought for what was right in his own time continues to make the world fairer.”
A New York judge ruled in 2018 that other two works by Schiele had to be turned over to Grünbaum’s heirs under the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act, passed by Congress.
In that case, art dealer of Richard Nagy said he was the rightful owner of the works because Grünbaum’s sister-in-law had sold them after his death. But the judge in the case ruled that there was no evidence that Grünbaum had given them to her voluntarily, writing it was “a signature at gunpoint.”
The Art Institute of Chicago, however, disputes that. And it argues that “Russian War Prisoner,” a pencil and watercolor piece, was legally acquired.
“We have done extensive research on the provenance history of this work and are confident in our lawful ownership of the piece,” said Art Institute of Chicago spokesperson Megan Michienzi.
Michienzi pointed to a prior 2010 ruling from another federal judge that she said “explicitly ruled that the Grünbaum’s Schiele art collection was ‘not looted’ and ‘remained in the Grünbaum family’s possession’ and was sold by Fritz Grünbaum’s sister-in-law.”
Reif and his relatives had been fighting in a separate federal civil court case for the return of the work. The Art Institute of Chicago had the case thrown out in November on technical grounds, successfully arguing that, unlike the Nagy case, the family had missed a lawsuit deadline under the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act.
After that case was dismissed, Bragg’s office earlier this month asked a Manhattan court to authorize the return of the artwork.
“Never again for anyone.” Dozens of protesters disrupted the Austrian Parliament calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The ‘Not in Our Name Vienna’ group is at odds with Austria’s support for Israel and wants to see an end to the slaughter and occupation of Palestine.
Israel was set to defend itself against South Africa’s allegation that the war with Hamas amounts to genocide against Palestinians at the United Nations’ top court Friday. Israel strongly denies the claim, and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has blasted the allegations as hypocrisy.
Although the case is likely to take years to resolve, South Africa is asking the International Court of Justice to order an immediate suspension of Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
United States and British militaries launched strikes Thursday on sites used by Houthi rebels in Yemen in retaliation for their attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which the Houthis say are aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Hamas. But their targets increasingly have little or no connection to Israel and imperil a crucial trade route linking Asia and the Middle East with Europe.
The Oct. 7 Hamas attack from Gaza into southern Israel that triggered the war killed around 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage by militants. Israel’s air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,000 people, some 70% of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Currently:
— Israel will defend itself at the U.N.’s top court against allegations of genocide.
— The U.S. and British militaries bomb more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
— Blinken sees a path to peace in Gaza, reconstruction and regional security after his Mideast tour.
— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Here’s what’s happening in the war:
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — United States-led airstrikes on Yemen killed at least five people and wounded six others, military spokesperson from the Houthi rebels Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said Friday in a videotaped address.
“The American and British enemy bears full responsibility for its criminal aggression against our Yemeni people, and it will not go unanswered and unpunished,” Saree said.
He described 73 strikes hitting five regions of Yemen under Houthi control. He did not elaborate on what the U.S.-led strikes targeted.
BERLIN — The electric vehicle company Tesla announced it will halt most of its production for two weeks in its factory near Berlin, from Jan. 29 to Feb. 11, due to the developing conflict in the Red Sea.
“The armed conflicts in the Red Sea and the associated shifts in transport routes between Europe and Asia via the Cape of Good Hope are also affecting production in Grünheide,” Tesla said in a statement Thursday night. “The significantly longer transport times create a gap in the supply chains.”
Normal operations are expected to begin again on Feb. 12, Tesla said in the statement.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — In a case that strikes at the heart of Israel’s national identity, South Africa formally accused the country of committing genocide against Palestinians and pleaded Thursday with the United Nations’ top court to order an immediate halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has vehemently denied the allegations. As a sign of how seriously they regard the case, Israeli leaders have taken the rare step of engaging with the court to defend their international reputation. Israel often boycotts international tribunals or U.N. investigations, saying they are unfair and biased.
During opening statements at the International Court of Justice, South African lawyers said the latest Gaza war is part of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
The court “has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention” that amounts to “a plausible claim of genocidal acts,” South African lawyer Adila Hassim told the judges and audience in a packed room of the Peace Palace in The Hague.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the case and vowed to continue fighting Hamas, the militant group whose fighters stormed through Israeli communities on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians.
“This is an upside-down world — the state of Israel is accused of genocide while it is fighting genocide,” he said in video statement. “The hypocrisy of South Africa screams to the heavens.”
The case is one of the most significant ever heard in an international court, and it goes to the core of one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.
South Africa is seeking preliminary orders to compel Israel to stop its military campaign in Gaza, where more than 23,000 people have died, according to the Health Ministry in the territory, which is run by Hamas.
“Nothing will stop the suffering except an order from this court,” Hassim said.
A decision on South Africa’s request for so-called “provisional measures” will probably take weeks. The full case is likely to last years.
Israel launched its massive air and ground assault on Gaza soon after the deadly Hamas attack. Three months later, the offensive has driven nearly 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes. With only a trickle of food, water, medicine and other supplies entering through an Israeli siege, a quarter of the territory’s residents face starvation. And much of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, has been reduced to a moonscape.
Although the court’s findings are considered binding, it was unclear whether Israel would heed any order to halt the fighting. If it doesn’t, it could face U.N. sanctions, although those may be blocked by a U.S. veto.
The White House declined to comment on how it might respond if the court determines Israel committed genocide. But National Security Council spokesman John Kirby called the allegations “unfounded.”
“That’s not a word that ought to be thrown around lightly, and we certainly don’t believe that it applies here,” Kirby said.
Israel says it is battling a fierce enemy that carried out the deadliest attack on its territory since its creation in 1948. Israeli leaders insist they are following international law and doing their utmost to avoid harm to civilians. The country blames Hamas for the high death toll, saying its enemy operates in residential areas.
In a post on X after the hearing, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat called South Africa’s presentation “one of the greatest shows of hypocrisy” and referred to the legal team as “Hamas’ representatives in court.” He said South African lawyers distorted the reality in Gaza through a series of “baseless and false claims.” He did not elaborate.
That reaction came after South Africa insisted Israel committed genocide by design.
“The scale of destruction in Gaza, the targeting of family homes and civilians, the war being a war on children, all make clear that genocidal intent is both understood and has been put into practice. The articulated intent is the destruction of Palestinian life,” said lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi.
He said the case’s “distinctive feature” was “the reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech throughout every sphere of the state in Israel.”
The Oct. 7 attackers also abducted around 250 people, nearly half of whom have been released. Ahead of the proceedings, hundreds of pro-Israeli protesters marched close to the courthouse with banners saying “Bring them home,” referring to the hostages still being held by Hamas.
One of the Israeli protesters was Michael Nevy, 42, whose brother was kidnapped by Hamas. “People are talking about what Israel is doing, but Hamas is committing crime against humanity every day,” he said.
At a separate demonstration nearby, pro-Palestinians protesters waved flags calling for an end to “Israeli apartheid” and the adoption of a cease-fire.
Chanting by protesters on the streets around the court’s manicured grounds could sometimes be heard in the courtroom.
The case targets the center of Israeli identity and the country’s creation as a Jewish state in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust, which killed 6 million Jews.
It also evokes issues central to South Africa’s own identity: Its governing party, the African National Congress, has long compared Israel’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to “homelands” before ending in 1994.
The two-day hearing continues Friday, when Israel, which has sent a strong legal team to make its defense, is scheduled to address the court.
South Africa sought to broaden the case beyond the Israel-Hamas war.
“The violence and the destruction in Palestine and Israel did not begin on Oct. 7, 2023. The Palestinians have experienced systematic oppression and violence for the last 76 years,” said South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola.
About two-thirds of the dead in Gaza are women and children, health officials there say. The death toll does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
“Mothers, fathers, children, siblings, grandparents, aunts, cousins are often all killed together. This killing is nothing short of destruction of Palestinian life. It is inflicted deliberately. No one is spared. Not even newborn babies,” said South African lawyer Hassim.
The world court, which rules on disputes between nations, has never judged a country to be responsible for genocide. The closest it came was in 2007 when it ruled that Serbia “violated the obligation to prevent genocide” in the July 1995 massacre by Bosnian Serb forces of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.
The nearby International Criminal Court prosecutes individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The case against Israel revolves around the genocide convention that was drawn up in 1948 following World War II. Both Israel and South Africa were signatories.
Israel will be back on the International Court of Justice’s docket next month, when hearings open into a U.N. request for an advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
___
Casert reported from Brussels. Associated Press journalists Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Aleksandar Furtula in The Hague; and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
It’s that time of year again: Leaders, business titans, philanthropists and celebs descend on the Swiss ski town of Davos to discuss the fate of the world and do deals/shots with the global elite at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
This year’s theme: “Rebuilding trust.” Prescient, given the dumpster fire the world seems to be turning into lately, both literally (climate change) and figuratively (where to even begin?).
As always, the Davos great and good will be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s absolute top-drawer dirtbags. While there’s been a distinct dearth of Russian oligarchs in attendance at the WEF since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Donald Trump will be tied up with the Iowa caucus, there are still plenty of would-be autocrats, dictators, thugs, extortionists, misery merchants, spoilers and political pariahs on the Davos guest list.
1. Argentine President Javier Milei
Known as the Donald Trump of Argentina — and also as “The Madman” and “The Wig” — the chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei has it all: a fanatical supporter base, background as a TV shock jock, libertarian anarcho-capitalist policies (except when it comes to abortion), and a … memorable … hairdo.
A long-time Davos devotee (he’s been attending the WEF for years), Milei’s libertarian policies have turned from kooky thought bubbles to concerning reality after he was elected president of South America’s second-largest economy, riding a wave of discontent with the political establishment (sound familiar?). The question now is how far Milei will go in delivering on his campaign promises to hack back public service and state spending, close the Argentine central bank and drop the peso.
If you do get stuck talking to Milei in the congress center or on the slopes, here are some conversation starters …
Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event, accompanied by a giant posse of top Saudi officials.
It’s the ultimate redemption arc for the repressive authoritarian ruler of a country with an appalling human rights record — who, according to United States intelligence, personally ordered the brutal assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Rumor has it that Mohammed bin Salman will make his first in-person WEF appearance at this year’s event | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Perhaps MBS would still be a WEF pariah — consigned to rubbing shoulders with mere B-listers at his own Davos in the desert — if it were not for that other one-time Davos-darling-turned-persona-non-grata: Russian President Vladimir Putin. By launching his invasion of Ukraine, which killed thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of troops, Putin managed to push the West back into MBS’ embrace. Guess it’s all just oil under the bridge now.
Here’s a piece of free advice: Try to avoid being caught getting a signature MBS fist-bump. Unless, of course, you’re the next person on our list …
3. Jared Kushner, founder of Affinity Partners
Jared Kushner is the closest anyone on the mountain is likely to come to Trump, the former — and possibly future — billionaire baron-cum-anti-elitist president of the United States of America.
On the one hand, a chat with The Donald’s son-in-law in the days just after the Iowa caucus would probably be quite a get for the Davos devotee. On other hand … it’s Jared Kushner.
The 43-year-old, who is married to Ivanka Trump and served as a senior adviser to the former president during his time in office, leveraged his stint in the White House to build up a lucrative consulting career, focused mainly on the Middle East.
Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, is largely funded through Gulf countries. That includes a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, led by bin Salman — which was, coincidentally, pushed through despite objections by the crown prince’s own advisers.
Kushner struck up a friendship and alliance with MBS during his father-in-law’s term in office, raising major conflict-of-interest suspicions for the Trump administration — especially when the then-U.S. president refused to condemn the Saudi leader in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, despite the CIA concluding he was directly involved.
Running Azerbaijan is something of a family business for the Aliyevs — Ilham assumed power after the death of his father, Heydar Aliyev, an ex-Soviet KGB officer who ruled the country for decades. And the junior Aliyev changed Azerbaijan’s constitution to pave the path to power for the next generation of his family — and appointed his own wife as vice president to boot.
5. Chinese Premier Li Qiang
Li Qiang is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ultra-loyal right-hand man, and will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year.
Li’s claim to infamy: imposing a brutal lockdown on the entirety of Shanghai for weeks during the coronavirus pandemic, which trapped its 25 million-plus inhabitants at home while many struggled to get food, tend to their animals or seek medical help — and tanking the city’s economy in the process.
Li’s also the guy selling (and whitewashing) China’s Uyghur policy in the Islamic world. In case you need a refresher, China has detained Uyghurs, who are mostly Muslim, in internment camps in the northwest region of Xinjiang, where there have been allegations of torture, slavery, forced sterilization, sexual abuse and brainwashing. China’s actions have been branded genocide by the U.S. State Department, and as potential crimes against humanity by the United Nations.
Li Qiang will represent his boss and his country at the World Economic Forum this year | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
Nicknamed “the Napoleon of Africa” in a nod to his campaign to seize power in 1994, Paul Kagame has ruled over the land of a thousand hills since. He’s often praised for overseeing what is probably the greatest development success story of modern Africa; he’s also a dictator.
Forced from office in 2018 by mass protests following the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, Fico rose from the political ashes to become Slovakian prime minister for the fourth time late last year. His Smer party ran a Putin-friendly campaign, pledging to end all military support for Ukraine.
Slovakian courts are still working through multiple organized crime cases stemming from the last time Smer was in power, involving oligarchs alleged to have profited from state contracts; former top police brass and senior military intelligence officers; and parliamentarians from all three parties in Fico’s new coalition government.
8. President of Hungary Katalin Novák
Katalin Novák, elected Hungarian president in 2022, must’ve pulled the short straw: she’s been sent to Davos to fly the flag for the EU’s pariah state. Luckily, the 46-year-old is used to being the odd one out at a shindig: She’s both the first woman and the youngest-ever Hungarian president.
It’s her thoughts on the gender pay gap, though, that ought to get attention at the famously male-dominated World Economic Forum: In an infamous video posted back in late 2020, Novák told the sisterhood: “Do not believe that women have to constantly compete with men. Do not believe that every waking moment of our lives must be spent with comparing ourselves to men, and that we should work in at least the same position, for at least the same pay they do.” That’s us told.
9. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet
You may be surprised to see Hun Manet on this list: The new, Western-educated Cambodian prime minister has been touted in some circles as a potential modernizer and reformer.
But Hun Manet is less a breath of fresh air and a lot more continuation of the same stale story. Having inherited his position from his father, the longtime autocrat Hun Sen, Hun Manet has shown no signs of wanting to reform or modernize Cambodia. While some say it’s too early to tell where he’ll land (given his dad’s still on the scene, along with his Communist loyalists), the fact is: Many hallmarks of autocracy are still present in Cambodia. Repression of the opposition? Check. Dodgy “elections”? Check. Widespread graft and clientelism? Check and check.
10. Qatar Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani
How has a small kingdom of 2.6 million inhabitants in the Persian Gulf managed to play a starring role in so many explosive scandals?
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani is the prime minister of Qatar, a country that’s played a starring role in many explosive scandals | Chris J. Ratcliffe/AFP via Getty Images
You’d think that sort of record would see Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani shunned by the world’s top brass. Nah! Just this month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Qatari leader and told him the U.S. was “deeply grateful for your ongoing leadership in this effort, for the tireless work which you undertook and that continues, to try to free the remaining hostages.”
See you on the slopes, Mohammed!
11. Polish President Andrzej Duda
When you compare Polish President Andrzej Duda to some of the others on this list, he doesn’t seem to measure up. He’s not a dictator running a violent petro-state, hasn’t invaded any neighbors or even wielded a chainsaw on stage.
But Duda is yesterday’s man. As the last one standing from Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice party that was swept out of office last year, Duda’s holding on for dear life to his own relevance, doing his best to act as a spoiler against the Donald Tusk-led government by wielding his veto powers and harboring convicted lawmakers. All of which is to say: When you catch up with President Duda at Davos, don’t assume he’s speaking for Poland.
12. Amin Nasser, CEO of Aramco
The Saudi Arabian state oil and gas company is Aramco — the world’s biggest energy firm — and Amin Nasser is its boss. If you read Aramco’s press releases, you’d be forgiven for assuming it is also the world’s biggest champion of the green energy transition. Spoiler alert: It’s far from it.
Exhibit A: Aramco is reportedly a top corporate polluter, with environment nongovernmental organization ClientEarth reporting that it accounts for more than 4 percent of the globe’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1965. Exhibit B: Bloomberg reported in 2021 that it understated its carbon footprint by as much as 50 percent.
Nasser, meanwhile, has criticized the idea that climate action should mean countries “either shut down or slow down big time” their fossil fuel production. Say that to Al Gore’s face!
This article has been updated to reflect the fact Shou Zi Chew is no longer going to attend the World Economic Forum.
Dionisios Sturis, Peter Snowdon, Suzanne Lynch and Paul de Villepin contributed reporting.
On the day California lawmakers returned to Sacramento for the new year, hundreds of protesters convened at the state Capitol on Wednesday and shut down the Assembly with calls for Israel to stop its war against Hamas.
Legislators filed out of the Assembly chamber as at least 250 demonstrators chanted, “Cease fire now.” Filling the Capitol rotunda, protesters unfurled a banner stating “No U.S. Funding for Israel’s Genocide in Palestine” and made paper flowers representing more than 22,000 Palestinians killed in the war that began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 240 others hostage.
“We hear them, we support them, however we have to make sure that the legislative business is done for the entire state of California,” Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson) said as the demonstrators’ chants echoed throughout the halls.
“This just stopped what we needed to do,” he said.
On the other end of the state Capitol, the Senate continued with business as usual above the din of shouting protesters outside the chamber. Gov. Gavin Newsom was in Los Angeles for the day to promote his ballot measure to fund mental health care and a new research center at UCLA.
Hundreds of Jewish organizers calling for a cease-fire in Gaza assembled in the California Capitol in Sacramento on Wednesday, interrupting the first week of the legislative session.
(Mackenzie Mays / Los Angeles Times)
Wednesday’s protests thrust the complicated politics of the war into the California Capitol, which has been quiet while the Legislature was on recess for the fall. The U.S. response to the war has triggered a generational divide in the California electorate and a schism among Democrats, while polling shows California Republicans largely want the U.S. to support Israel.
Also on Wednesday, Assembly Republicans introduced a resolution condemning Hamas and the Legislature’s Jewish Caucus sent a seven-page letter to lawmakers describing a searing sense of fear among Jewish Californians amid an “explosion of hate directed at our community.”
The letter asked legislative leaders to form a special committee on antisemitism in California. It also called on lawmakers to address “the toxic anti-Jewish environment” on some public university campuses, proposed legislation enshrining Holocaust education in public schools and proposed expanding a grant program that helps institutions at risk of hate crimes pay for security upgrades.
“I think there’s a lot of people in our community that feel trapped between the far right and the far left,” said Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), a co-chair of the caucus.
“Though the far right and the far left in America view each other as existential threats to everything that they hold dear and holy, the one thing that they seem to agree on is that Jews are uniquely evil, and that Jews are responsible for the world’s problems,” Gabriel said.
While Gabriel and Jewish caucus co-chair Sen. Scott Wiener addressed reporters in a Capitol hallway, protesters in the rotunda chanted, “Scott Wiener, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”
“That’s disgusting and false,” Wiener said. “Apparently supporting Israel’s existence is enough for them to say that we’re supporting genocide, and that is really problematic.”
The protest was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. Organizers said the demonstration included about 400 to 500 people, about half of whom are Jewish.
Jennifer Esteen, a nurse who is running for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, took part in the protest, calling on state lawmakers to issue a resolution to demand a cease-fire.
“These decisions that we can make here in California will absolutely change federal policy,” Esteen said as organizers chanted, “Free Palestine.”
“California leads the way … when the Legislature of the fourth-largest economy of the world pays attention and makes a statement, it will lead this country.”
The demonstration ended peacefully after about two hours. Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher (Yuba City), released a statement criticizing “pro-Hamas radicals” for “shouting down government proceedings and bullying people into silence.”
“We must stand up to this extremism,” Gallagher said. “People have a right to protest, but they don’t have the right to prevent elected representatives from doing the people’s business.”
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The University of Pennsylvania’s president has resigned amid pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she was unable to say under repeated questioning that calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate the school’s conduct policy.
The chairman of the Ivy League school’s board of trustees, Scott Bok, also resigned immediately during a trustees meeting Saturday evening, just hours after Bok announced Liz Magill’s departure as president in just her second year.
Bok, a supporter of Magill’s, defended her through several months of criticism over the university’s handling of various perceived acts of antisemitism.
He called her a good person and talented leader who is not “the slightest bit antisemitic,” but gave a legalistic and wooden response after being worn down by months of criticism and hours of questioning in the congressional hearing.
“Following that, it became clear that her position was no longer tenable, and she and I concurrently decided that it was time for her to exit,” Bok said in a statement also announcing his resignation.
The university said Magill will remain a tenured faculty member at the university’s Carey Law School. She has agreed to keep serving as Penn’s leader until the university names an interim president.
Calls for Magill’s firing exploded after Tuesday’s testimony in a U.S. House committee on antisemitism on college campuses, where she appeared with the presidents of Harvard University and MIT.
Universities across the U.S. have been accused of failing to protect Jewish students amid rising fears of antisemitism worldwide and fallout from Israel’s intensifying war in Gaza, which faces heightened criticism for the mounting Palestinian death toll.
The three presidents were called before the committee to answer those accusations. But their lawyerly answers drew renewed blowback from opponents, focused particularly on a line of questioning from Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who repeatedly asked whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” would violate Penn’s code of conduct.
“If the speech turns into conduct it can be harassment, yes,” Magill said. Pressed further, Magill told Stefanik, “It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth gave similar responses to Stefanik, and Bok pointed that out.
Magill made a “very unfortunate misstep — consistent with that of two peer university leaders sitting alongside her — after five hours of aggressive questioning before a congressional committee,” Bok said.
Still, criticism of Magill rained down from the White House, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, members of Congress and donors. One donor, Ross Stevens, threatened to withdraw a $100 million gift because of the university’s “stance on antisemitism on campus” unless Magill was replaced.
A day later, Magill addressed the criticism, saying in a video that she would consider a call for the genocide of Jewish people to be harassment or intimidation and that Penn’s policies need to be “clarified and evaluated.”
It did not quell criticism.
In a statement Saturday, Stefanik said Magill’s “forced resignation” is the “bare minimum of what is required” and said Harvard and MIT should follow suit.
“One down. Two to go,” Stefanik said, adding that “this is only the very beginning of addressing the pervasive rot of antisemitism that has destroyed the most ‘prestigious’ higher education institutions in America.”
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. said Magill’s resignation allows Penn to “chart a new course in addressing antisemitism on campus.”
Bok said he was asked to remain as chairman to help with the transition to a new president, but decided that now was the best time for him to leave.
Even before Tuesday’s hearing, Magill had been under fire from some donors and alumni this fall. Some also had called for the resignation of Bok, who had defended Magill amid criticism over the university’s handling of various perceived acts of antisemitism.
That included allowing a Palestinian literary arts festival to be held on its campus in September featuring speakers whose past statements about Israel had drawn accusations of antisemitism.
A former U.S. Supreme Court law clerk, Magill, 57, is the daughter of a retired federal judge and was dean of Stanford University’s law school and a top administrator at the University of Virginia before Penn hired her as its ninth president last year.
Bok is chairman and CEO of investment bank Greenhill & Co.
Earlier Saturday, New York’s governor called on the state’s colleges and universities to swiftly address cases of antisemitism and what she described as any “calls for genocide” on campus.
In a letter to college and university presidents, Gov. Kathy Hochul said her administration would enforce violations of the state’s Human Rights Law and refer any violations of federal civil rights law to U.S. officials.
Hochul said chancellors of the State University of New York and City University of New York systems confirmed to her “that calling for genocide of any group” or tolerating antisemitism violates codes of conduct on their campuses “and would lead to swift disciplinary action.”
A popular chant at pro-Palestinian rallies at Penn and other universities has been falsely misrepresented in recent months as a call for “Jewish genocide.”
Experts and advocates say the chant, “Israel, we charge you with genocide,” is a typical refrain heard at pro-Palestinian rallies. Jewish and Palestinian supporters both acknowledge protesters aren’t saying “We want Jewish genocide.”
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Associated Press writers Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey, and Phil Marcelo in New York contributed to this report.
Two first-grade teachers at a public charter school located at a Los Angeles-area Jewish synagogue were placed on leave this week over statements about Israel and Gaza they allegedly shared in the classroom and on social media, according to synagogue and school officials.
On Friday, Senior Rabbi Brian Schuldenfrei told KTLA that one of the teachers at Citizens of the World Charter School, which leases classroom space at Adat Ari El Synagogue in Valley Village, described on social media about teaching “a lesson on the genocide in Palestine” to first-graders.
According to a copy of the post provided to The Times by a representative of the charter school, the teacher wrote on Instagram that they “did a lesson on the genocide in Palestine today w my first graders…” In a separate post, the teacher said that “my fav was a kid who was like “What if they just give the land back to Palestine and find somewhere else to live?”
The school said the second teacher also posted about the lesson.
In a statement, Citizens of the World L.A. executive director Melissa Kaplan said the personal social media posts “raised significant concerns, fear, anger, and harm for many” in the charter school and synagogue community, and that the school will coordinate with the Anti-Defamation League on training for school staff.
The school is investigating the exact content of the lesson, a school representative said Saturday. If the teachers are reinstated, they will not return to the Valley Village campus, the representative said.
Neither of the teachers could be reached for comment Saturday.
In addition, the charter school’s principal will be taking a two-week leave of absence to focus on “sensitivity training,” the school said in a statement. In a statement, the principal apologized for “insensitive questions” she directed to the rabbi about when the synagogue would remove Israeli flags hanging in the courtyard.
The flags have been on display in the courtyard ever since Hamas militants launched an ambush from Gaza on southern Israel on Oct. 7, leaving 1,200 Israelis dead with another 240 taken hostage. In the weeks since, as Israel launched its offensive, more than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
TEL AVIV, Israel — Women, children and older adults hiding in safe rooms gunned down mercilessly. Homes set ablaze with terrified residents still inside them. Children, some bound, forced into a room and slaughtered. Jews, helpless.
For many Israelis and Jews around the world, the horrors committed by Hamas militants during their stunning onslaught on southern Israeli communities is triggering painful memories of a calamity of a far greater scale: the Holocaust.
Long seen as a catastrophe so horrific nothing else should be compared to it, Israelis are now drawing direct parallels between the murder of 6 million Jews in Europe eight decades ago and their most recent tragedy, underscoring how traumatic the attack has been for a country that rose from the ashes of World War II and was created as a safe haven for Jews.
“I have been strict about not using the word ‘Shoah’ in any context other than the Holocaust,” political commentator Ben Caspit wrote in the daily Maariv, referring to the Holocaust by its Hebrew name. “When Jewish children hide in a protected room and their anguished parents pray that they won’t cry, so that the marauders won’t come in and set the house on fire, it’s a Shoah.”
Israel’s retaliation against Hamas in Gaza has also drawn comparisons to the Palestinians’ greatest national tragedy, the Nakba, when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced to flee following the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation. Many Palestinians fear a repeat of that mass exodus after Israel ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza.
Just a few years ago, comparisons to the Holocaust would have been promptly denounced as cheapening its memory and diminishing the horror of the Nazi crimes.
That has begun to erode in recent years — with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluding to the Nazis when talking about Iran and its nuclear program and protesters on rival sides of the political aisle calling each other “Nazis.” Still, such incidents remain rare and often draw criticism.
But the horrors of the Oct. 7 Hamas assault, which killed at least 1,300 Israelis, have tapped into Israel’s deepest fears and revived memories of the Jews’ greatest trauma.
Hundreds of militants stormed across the border, catching the country and its vaunted military off guard on a major Jewish holiday. They attacked sleepy farming villages, slaughtering terrified residents.
The militants killed at least 260 revelers at a music festival, with survivors telling harrowing stories of methodical massacres.
Dozens were dragged away as hostages on motorcycles and golf carts. Some of the dead and captured were Holocaust survivors.
“This is a massacre. This is a pogrom,” said Maj. Gen. Itai Veruv, leader of forces that cleared one of the besieged villages, referring to historic massacres of European Jews.
In the Holocaust, Nazis led a campaign of genocide, rounding up and murdering many of Europe’s Jews, while sending others on trains to death or labor camps.
Israel made protecting Jews from similar atrocities part of its raison d’etre. Many Israelis see their country as a refuge, a nation with a strong army that could protect Jews despite regional threats. Many Jews in the diaspora share that feeling, seeing Israel as a safe haven should Jews be persecuted again.
While the Hamas attack did not nearly approach the Holocaust’s scale, it marked the deadliest day for Jews since then and its well-planned slaughter reopened a wound that remains fresh for many in Israel.
Netanyahu compared the festival killings to the Babi Yar massacre, one of the most infamous mass slaughters of World War II in which more than 33,000 Jews were killed. He has declared that Israel will “never forget,” a clear reflection of Israel’s vow to never let the Holocaust disappear from the world’s collective memory. Dany Cushmaro, an Israeli newscaster, began referring to the Hamas militants as “those Nazis.”
Israel’s allies abroad also have made the connection.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken referred to his late father-in-law, a Holocaust survivor, during a visit to Israel and said the attacks had “harrowing echoes” of Nazi massacres. A reel posted to Instagram by the pro-Israel group Stand With Us shows a candle and the number 6 million slowly ticking up to include the 1,300 slain Israelis.
The memory of the mass murder of Jews looms large over Israel. It holds a memorial day, where Israelis stand still during a one-minute siren to remember the dead. The Holocaust is taught in depth in schools. Youth groups and soldiers visit the death camps in Europe. And visiting dignitaries are taken to the country’s Holocaust memorial.
Israeli historian Tom Segev said it was natural for Israelis to make the connection between the Hamas attack and the nation’s deeply embedded trauma. “This is the ultimate evil that the person in Israel recognizes,” he said.
But he said Israeli leaders across the political spectrum have for decades tried to exploit the memory of the Holocaust for political gain.
Israelis have, in some cases, become furious when comparisons are made.
In a 2016 speech marking Israel’s Holocaust memorial day, Yair Golan, then deputy military chief, said he was witnessing “nauseating processes” in Israeli society that reminded him of the fascism of Nazi-era Germany. The speech drew angry reactions from Israeli leaders and is widely believed to be the reason Golan was passed over for the army’s top job.
Prominent activists on rival sides of Israel’s recent judicial overhaul controversy sparked uproars over Holocaust-related comments.
Some critics of Israel, meanwhile, compare Israeli actions against the Palestinians to the Nazis, which Israel condemns as antisemitism.
Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the Holocaust is being used by Israel and its allies to build legitimacy for its strikes against Hamas, which have killed at least 2,200 Palestinians, and to appeal to Jews in the diaspora.
She said the comparisons could also have dangerous consequences for the way the war plays out.
“When you invoke the Holocaust, it’s the worst of the worst,” Zonszein said, adding that Israel’s response could be severe.
BEIRUT — The swift fall of the Armenian-majority enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani troops and the exodus of much of its population has stunned the large Armenian diaspora around the world. Traumatized by a widely acknowledged genocide a century ago, they fear the erasure of what they consider a central and beloved part of their historic homeland.
The separatist ethnic Armenian government in Nagorno-Karabakh on Thursday announced that it was dissolving and that the unrecognized republic will cease to exist by year’s end -– a seeming death knell for its 30-year de facto independence.
Azerbaijan, which routed the region’s Armenian forces in a lightning offensive last week, has pledged to respect the rights of the territory’s Armenian community. Tens of thousands of people — more than 70% of the region’s population — had fled to Armenia by Friday morning, and the influx continues, according to Armenian officials.
Many in Armenia and the diaspora fear a centuries-long community in the territory they call Artsakh will disappear.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has termed it “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing.” Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry strongly rejected the accusation, saying the departures are a “personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation.”
Armenians abroad also accuse European countries, Russia and the United States -– and the government of Armenia itself -– of failing to protect the population during months of a blockade of the territory by Azerbaijan’s military and a swift offensive last week that defeated separatist forces.
Armenians say the loss is a historic blow. Outside the modern country of Armenia itself, the mountainous land was one of the only surviving parts of a heartland that centuries ago stretched across what is now eastern Turkey, into the Caucasus region and western Iran.
Many in the diaspora had pinned dreams on it gaining independence or being joined to Armenia.
Nagorno-Karabakh was “a page of hope in Armenian history,” said Narod Seroujian, a Lebanese-Armenian university instructor in Beirut.
“It showed us that there is hope to gain back a land that is rightfully ours. … For the diaspora, Nagorno-Karabakh was already part of Armenia.”
Hundreds of Lebanese Armenians on Thursday protested outside the Azerbajani Embassy in Beirut. They waved flags of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh and burned pictures of the Azerbaijani and Turkish presidents. Riot police lobbed tear gas when they threw firecrackers at the embassy.
Ethnic Armenians have communities around Europe and the Middle East and in the United States. Lebanon is home to one of the largest, with an estimated 120,000 of Armenian origin, 4% of the population.
Most are descendants of those who fled the 1915 campaign by Ottoman Turks in which some 1.5 million Armenians died in massacres, deportations and forced marches. The atrocities, which emptied many ethnic areas in eastern Turkey, are widely viewed by historians as genocide. Turkey rejects the description of genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest during World War I.
In Bourj Hammoud, the main Armenian district in Beirut, memories are still raw, with anti-Turkey graffiti common. The red-blue-and-orange Armenian flag flies from many buildings.
“This is the last migration for Armenians,” said Harout Bshidikian, 55, sitting in front of an Armenian flag in a Bourj Hamoud cafe. “There is no other place left for us to migrate from.”
Azerbaijan says it is reuniting its territory, pointing out that even Armenia’s prime minister recognized that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. Though its population has been predominantly ethnic Armenian Christians, Turkish Muslim Azeris also have communities and cultural ties to the territory, particularly the city of Shusha, famed as a cradle of Azerbaijani poetry.
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Azerbaijan took parts of the area in a 2020 war. Now after this month’s defeat, separatist authorities surrendered their weapons and are holding talks with Azerbaijan on reintegration of the territory into Azerbaijan.
Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe think tank, said Nagorno-Karabakh had become “a kind of new cause” for an Armenian diaspora whose forebearers had suffered the genocide.
“It was a kind of new Armenian state, new Armenian land being born, which they projected lots of hopes on. Very unrealistic hopes, I would say,” he added, noting it encouraged Karabakh Armenians to hold out against Azerbaijan despite the lack of international recognition for their separatist government.
Armenians see the territory as a cradle of their culture, with monasteries dating back more than a millennium.
“Artsakh or Nagorno-Karabakh has been a land for Armenians for hundreds of years,” said Lebanese legislator Hagop Pakradounian, head of Lebanon’s largest Armenian group, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. “The people of Artsakh are being subjected to a new genocide, the first genocide in the 21st century.”
The fall of Nagorno-Karabakh is not just a reminder of the genocide, “it’s reliving it,” said Diran Guiliguian, a Madrid-based activist who holds Armenian, Lebanese and French citizenship.
He said his grandmother used to tell him stories of how she fled in 1915. The genocide “is actually not a thing of the past. It’s not a thing that is a century old. It’s actually still the case,” he said.
Seroujian, the instructor in Beirut, said her great-grandparents were genocide survivors, and that stories of the atrocities and dispersal were talked about at home, school and in the community as she grew up, as was the cause of Nagorno-Karabakh.
She visited the territory several times, most recently in 2017. “We’ve grown with these ideas, whether they were romantic or not, of the country. We’ve grown to love it even when we didn’t see it,” she said. “I never thought about it as something separate” from Armenia the country.
A diaspora group called Europeans for Artsakh plans a rally in Brussels next week in front of European Union buildings to denounce what they say are human rights abuses by Azerbaijan and to call for EU sanctions on Azerbaijani officials. The rally is timed ahead of an Oct. 5 summit of European leaders in Spain, where the Armenian prime minister and Azerbaijani president are scheduled to hold talks mediated by the French president, German chancellor and European Council president.
In the United States, the Armenian community in the Los Angeles area -– one of the world’s largest -– has staged protests to draw attention to the situation. On Sept. 19, they used a trailer truck to block a freeway for several hours, causing major traffic jams.
Kim Kardashian, perhaps the best-known Armenian-American, went on social media to urge President Joe Biden “to Stop Another Armenian Genocide.”
Several groups are collecting money for Karabakh Armenians fleeing their home. But Seroujian said many feel helpless.
“There are moments where personally, the family, or among friends we just feel hopeless,” she said. “And when we talk to each other we sort of lose our minds.”
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Associated Press writers Emma Burrows in London, Kareem Chehayeb and Fadi Tawil in Beirut, Angela Charlton in Paris and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed.
TORONTO — The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons resigned Tuesday for inviting a man who fought for a Nazi military unit during World War II to Parliament to attend a speech by the Ukrainian president.
Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.
Observers over the weekend began to publicize the fact that the First Ukrainian Division also was known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
“No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore I must step down as your speaker,” Rota said in Parliament. “I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognizing an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelenskyy.
“That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including to the Jewish community in Canada and around the world in addition to Nazi survivors in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions,” he added.
Rota stepped down after meeting with the House of Commons’ party leaders. All main opposition parties had called for Rota to step down, and House government leader Karina Gould said that lawmakers had lost confidence in Rota.
“This is something that has brought shame and embarrassment to all of Parliament and indeed all Canadians. The speaker did the honorable thing in resigning,” Gould said.
Gould said that Rota invited and recognized Hunka without informing the government or the delegation from Ukraine, adding that the fact that Rota didn’t inform anyone and didn’t do diligence broke trust with lawmakers.
Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka on Friday unaware of the details of who he was.
“Never in my life would I have imagined that the speaker of the House would have asked us to stand and applaud someone who fought with the Nazis,” Gould said.
“This is very emotional for me. My family are Jewish holocaust survivors. I would have never in a million of years stood and applauded someone who aided the Nazis.”
Gould said Rota found out about it over the weekend. “He probably should have resigned as soon as he learned about it,” she said.
Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland had called the incident “incredibly embarrassing.”
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said in a statement that the incident “has left a stain on our country’s venerable legislature with profound implications both in Canada and globally.”
“This incident has compromised all 338 Members of Parliament and has also handed a propaganda victory to Russia, distracting from what was a momentously significant display of unity between Canada and Ukraine. It has also caused great pain to Canada’s Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, veterans and other victims of the Nazi regime.”
In an earlier apology on Sunday, Rota said he alone was responsible for inviting and recognizing Hunka, who is from the district that Rota represents. The speaker’s office said it was Rota’s son who contacted Hunka’s local office to see if it was possible if he could attend Zelenskyy’s speech.
The prime minister’s office said it was unaware that Hunka was invited until after the address. The speaker’s office also confirmed it did not share its invite list with any other party or group. The vetting process for visitors to the gallery is for physical security threats, not reputational threats, the speaker’s office said.
In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman said it was “outrageous” that Hunka received a standing ovation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has painted his enemies in Ukraine as “neo-Nazis,” although Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.
“It’s highly unfortunate and the only winner here is the Putin regime, which is already spinning what happened on Friday to justify its ongoing military actions in Ukraine,” said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal,
The opposition Conservatives in Canada have blamed Trudeau, but Béland noted that the speaker’s role in Canada is as an officer of Parliament who does not participate in partisan caucus meetings and is not a member of the Cabinet.
“Canada’s reputation is broken. This is by far the biggest hit Canada’s diplomatic reputation has ever taken under in history and it happened under Justin Trudeau’s watch,” Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said.
Poilievre said everyone in the House of Commons on Friday should have been vetted with Zelenskyy in attendance.
BERLIN — The German city of Nordhausen is best known as the location of the former Nazi concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora.
On Sunday, a mayoral election could again put the focus on the municipality of 42,000 people if a far-right candidate wins the vote.
Joerg Prophet, a candidate from the populist far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, is the frontrunner in Sunday’s mayoral runoff vote. Earlier in September, Prophet won 42.1% of the vote in the first round of the election and now faces off against independent candidate Kai Buchmann.
Sunday’s election underscores recent gains nationally for the AfD and the increasing influence it has on the political discussion in Germany. It also raises concerns about the normalization of far-right rhetoric in places like Nordhausen, drawing criticism from Holocaust survivors and those who work to combat discrimination.
“The significance of the election in Nordhausen extends far beyond (its) borders,” Felix Klein, the German government’s antisemitism commissioner, told the Funke Media Group.
The AfD was founded as a euroskeptic party in 2013 and first entered the German Bundestag in 2017. Polling now puts it in second place nationally with around 21%, far above the 10.3% it won during the last federal election in 2021.
The party has seen its support grow for a number of reasons. Its politicians have seized on frustration with the German government’s climate and energy policies, such as the plan to replace fossil-fuel heating systems with greener alternatives.
What’s more, a spike in the number of asylum-seekers entering Germany in recent months has put political attention back on the topic of migration, which has long been the AfD’s signature issue.
“The AfD mobilizes their support with two fearful narratives related to cultural and economic modernization: Both migration and climate policies are turned into a threat to people’s cultural identity and lifestyle,” said Johannes Hillje, a Berlin-based political consultant who tracks far- and extreme-right rhetoric in Germany.
That strategy has proven successful in recent months. In addition to growing its support nationally, the AfD won its first executive-level positions earlier this summer: An AfD candidate was elected county administrator in the eastern city of Sonneberg in June, and in July, the party won its first mayorship in the town of Raguhn-Jessnitz.
The AfD’s strength, particularly in eastern Germany, has prompted discussions among other parties about whether and how to cooperate with it. Despite a longstanding taboo against collaborating with the far right, the center-right Christian Democrats in Thuringia made headlines when they recently passed new tax legislation with AfD support.
In Thuringia, the state in which Nordhausen is located, the AfD is both especially strong and especially radical. Recent polling puts the party in first place in Thuringia, where most surveys have its support above 30%.
Bjoern Hoecke, the AfD leader in Thuringia, is the symbolic face of the party’s furthest-right faction. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has placed the AfD’s Thuringia branch under formal observation.
Hoecke has espoused revisionist views of Germany’s Nazi past. In 2018, he referred to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame” and called for the country to perform a “180-degree turn” in its memory culture.
As a result, there’s a particular significance to the prospect of an AfD mayor in a city like Nordhausen, given the work that has been done there to preserve the Mittelbau-Dora camp as a site of memory and to rebuild trust among Holocaust survivors.
“It’s inconceivable that the last survivors of the concentration camps and their families (…) could be welcomed in Nordhausen by a mayor from the ranks of a party whose political program consists of calls for xenophobia, racism, antisemitism, antigypsyism, nationalism and revisionism,” an international committee of survivors of Mittelbau-Dora and the nearby Buchenwald concentration camp said in a statement.
With three important state-level elections in Germany’s east on the horizon in 2024, including in Thuringia, there is increasing pressure on Germany’s other political parties to combat its rise.
Winning posts like mayorships and growing its support nationally helps normalize the AfD in the German political landscape, and puts increasing pressure on parties like the CDU to collaborate with it — which experts argue would only strengthen and legitimize the AfD’s far-right positions.
“It‘s a huge strategic mistake to help the AfD to have political impact,” Hillje said. “This will mobilize their supporters even more.”
KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwanda’s president declared he will run for a fourth term next year, saying that “what the West thinks is not my problem,” after the United States and others criticized the past lifting of term limits to extend his rule.
President Paul Kagame made the announcement in an interview with the French-language publication Jeune Afrique published Tuesday.
The 65-year-old Kagame has been president since 2000 and was declared the winner of the previous election in 2017 with more than 98% of the vote. He has been the de facto leader since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
He is one of a number of African leaders who have prolonged their rule by pursuing changes to term limits. In 2015, Rwandans in a referendum voted to lift the two-term limit. Kagame could stay in power until 2034 if he wins a five-year term next year and then another.
He was re-elected as chair of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party earlier this year for another five-year term.
Rwanda is “not free,” according to the U.S.-based watchdog Freedom House, whose latest report notes that the ruling party has been in power without interruption since 1994, “banning and repressing any opposition group that could mount a serious challenge to its leadership.”
Kagame and his government have received praise for stabilizing the country and developing public health and the economy since the genocide in which more than 800,000 people were killed. But human rights groups and other critics have long alleged that the government harshly targets opponents, including with extrajudicial killings even far outside the country’s borders.
The government has objected to and dismissed such allegations. But earlier this year, under diplomatic pressure, Rwanda released the opposition exile who had inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda” after tricking Paul Rusesabagina onto a plane to the country and convicting him of terror offenses in a widely criticized trial.
The other candidate who has declared to run for president is lawmaker Frank Habineza with the Green Democratic party, who received 0.45% of votes in 2017.
Habineza told The Associated Press his party was not surprised by Kagame’s announcement, and he said they will continue to fight for democracy.
“As we speak now, there is a high level of poverty and people have no food and youth have no jobs. This is what bothers Rwandans,” he said.
But some Kagame supporters believe he needs more time. William Harerimana, a 53-year-old businessman said that “we need to be patient a bit more and under him, the country will register more economic growth and benefit all Rwandans.”
Fierce firefights and heavy shelling echo once again around the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh, an isolated region at the very edge of Europe that has seen several major wars since the fall of the Soviet Union.
On Tuesday, the South Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan announced its armed forces launched “local anti-terrorist activities” in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is inside Azerbaijan’s borders but is controlled as a breakaway state by its ethnic Armenian population.
Now, with fighting raging and allegations of an impending “genocide” reaching fever pitch, all eyes are on the decades-old conflict that threatens to draw in some of the world’s leading military powers.
What is happening?
For weeks, Armenia and international observers have warned that Azerbaijan was massing its armed forces along the heavily fortified line of contact in Nagorno-Karabakh, preparing to stage an offensive against local ethnic Armenian troops. Clips shared online showed Azerbaijani vehicles daubed with an upside-down ‘A’-symbol, reminiscent of the ‘Z’ sign painted onto Russian vehicles ahead of the invasion of Ukraine last year.
In the early hours of Tuesday, Karabakh Armenian officials reported a major offensive by Azerbaijan was underway, with air raid sirens sounding in Stepankert, the de facto capital. The region’s estimated 100,000 residents have been told by Azerbaijan to “evacuate” via “humanitarian corridors” leading to Armenia. However, Azerbaijani forces control all of the entry and exit points and many locals fear they will not be allowed to pass safely.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s top foreign policy advisor, Hikmet Hajiyev, insisted to POLITICO the “goal is to neutralize military infrastructure” and denied civilians were being targeted. However, unverified photographs posted online appear to show damaged apartment buildings, and the Karabakh Armenian human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, reported several children have been injured in the attacks.
Concern is growing over the fate of the civilians effectively trapped in the crossfire, as well as the risk of yet another full-blown war in the former Soviet Union.
How did we get here?
During the Soviet era, Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region inside the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, home to both ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis, but the absence of internal borders made its status largely unimportant. That all changed when Moscow lost control of its peripheral republics, and Nagorno-Karabakh was formally left inside Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory.
Amid the collapse of the USSR from 1988 to 1994, Armenian and Azerbaijani forces fought a grueling series of battles over the region, with the Armenians taking control of swathes of land and forcing the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis, razing several cities to the ground. Since then, citing a 1991 referendum — boycotted by Azerbaijanis — the Karabakh-Armenians have unilaterally declared independence and maintained a de facto independent state.
For nearly three decades that situation remained stable, with the two sides locked in a stalemate that was maintained by a line of bunkers, landmines and anti-tank defenses, frequently given as an example of one of the world’s few “frozen conflicts.”
However, that all changed in 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a 44-day war to regain territory, conquering hundreds of square kilometers around all sides of Nagorno-Karabakh. That left the ethnic Armenian exclave connected to Armenia proper by a single road, the Lachin Corridor — supposedly under the protection of Russian peacekeepers as part of a Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement.
What is the blockade?
With Russia’s ability to maintain the status quo rapidly dwindling in the face of its increasingly catastrophic war in Ukraine, Azerbaijan has moved to take control of all access to the region. In December, as part of a dispute supposedly over illegal gold mining, self-declared “eco-activists” — operating with the support of the country’s authoritarian government — staged a sit-in on the road, stopping civilian traffic and forcing the local population to rely on Russian peacekeepers and the Red Cross for supplies.
That situation has worsened in the past two months, with an Azerbaijani checkpoint newly erected on the Lachin Corridor refusing to allow the passage of any humanitarian aid, save for the occasional one-off delivery. In August, amid warnings of empty shelves, malnourishment and a worsening humanitarian crisis, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, published a report calling the situation “an ongoing genocide.”
Azerbaijan denies it is blockading Nagorno-Karabakh, with Hajiyev telling POLITICO the country was prepared to reopen the Lachin Corridor if the Karabakh-Armenians accepted transport routes from inside Azerbaijani-held territory. Aliyev has repeatedly called on Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh to stand down, local politicians to resign and those living there to accept being ruled as part of Azerbaijan.
Why have things escalated now?
Over the past few months, the U.S., EU and Russia have urged Azerbaijan to keep faith during diplomatic talks designed to end the conflict once and for all, rather than seeking a military solution to assert control over the entire region.
As part of the talks in Washington, Brussels and Moscow, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a series of unprecedented concessions, going as far as recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory. However, his government maintains it cannot sign a peace deal that does not include internationally guaranteed rights and securities for the Karabakh-Armenians.
The situation has worsened in the past two months, with an Azerbaijani checkpoint newly erected on the Lachin Corridor refusing to allow the passage of any humanitarian aid | Tofik babayev/AFP via Getty Images
Aliyev has rejected any such arrangement outright, insisting there should be no foreign presence on Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory. He insists that as citizens of Azerbaijan, those living there will have the same rights as any other citizen — but has continued fierce anti-Armenian rhetoric including describing the separatists as “dogs,” while the government issued a postage stamp following the 2020 war featuring a worker in a hazmat suit “decontaminating” Nagorno-Karabakh.
Unwilling to accept the compromise, Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of stalling the peace process. According to former Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, a military escalation is needed to force an agreement. “It can be a short-term clash, or it can be a war,” he added.
Facing growing domestic pressure amid dwindling supplies, former Karabakh-Armenian President Arayik Harutyunyan stood down and called elections, lambasted as a provocation by Azerbaijan and condemned by the EU, Ukraine and others.
Azerbaijan also alleged Armenian saboteurs were behind landmine blasts it says killed six military personnel in the region, while presenting no evidence to support the claim.
What’s Russia doing?
Armenia is formally an ally of Russia, and a member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military bloc. However, Russian peacekeepers deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh have proven entirely unwilling or unable to keep Azerbaijani advances in check, while Moscow declined to offer Pashinyan the support he demanded after strategic high ground inside Armenia’s borders were captured in an Azerbaijani offensive last September.
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko previously said Azerbaijan has better relations with the CSTO than Armenia, despite not being a member, and described Aliyev as “our guy.”
Since then, Armenia — the most democratic country in the region — has sought to distance itself from the Kremlin, inviting in an EU civilian observer mission to the border. That strategy has picked up pace in recent days, with Pashinyan telling POLITICO in an interview that the country can no longer rely on Russia for its security. Instead, the South Caucasus nation has dispatched humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Pashinyan’s wife visited Kyiv to show her support, while hosting U.S. troops for exercises.
Moscow, which has a close economic and political relationship with Azerbaijan, reacted furiously, summoning the Armenian ambassador.
In a message posted on Telegram on Tuesday, Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia and secretary of its security council, said Pashinyan “decided to blame Russia for his botched defeat. He gave up part of his country’s territory. He decided to flirt with NATO, and his wife took biscuits to our enemies. Guess what fate awaits him…”
Who supports whom?
The South Caucasus is a tangled web of shifting alliances.
Russia aside, Armenia has built close relations with neighboring Iran, which has vowed to protect it, as well as India and France. French President Emmanuel Macron has previously joined negotiations in support of Pashinyan and the country is home to a large and historic Armenian diaspora.
Azerbaijan, meanwhile, operates on a “one nation, two states” basis with Turkey, with which it has deep cultural, linguistic and historical ties. It also receives large shipments of weaponry and military hardware from Israel, while providing the Middle Eastern nation with gas.
The EU has turned to Azerbaijan to help replace Russia as a provider of energy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made an official visit to the capital, Baku, last summer in a bid to secure increased exports of natural gas, describing the country as a “reliable, trustworthy partner.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that the war Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging on Ukraine won’t be over any time soon.
“Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,” Stoltenberg in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group published Sunday. “Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.”
“We all want a quick peace,” said Stoltenberg. “At the same time, we must recognize that if [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist. If President Putin and Russia stop fighting, we will have peace.”
The head of Ukraine’s Security Council Oleksiy Danilov, in an opinion piece published Saturday evening, said the only way to end the war is if Kyiv’s allies speed up deliveries of weapons. “Refusing or delaying the transfer of modern weapons to the Ukrainian armed forces is a direct encouragement to the kremlin to continue the war, not the other way around,” Danilov said.
The Ukrainian military meanwhile continued its counteroffensive, with drone attacks targeting Crimea and Moscow on Sunday, according to Russia’s defense ministry. The attacks disrupted air traffic and caused a fire at an oil depot.
In southwestern Russia, a Ukrainian drone damaged an oil depot early Sunday, sparking a fire at a fuel tank that was later extinguished, the regional governor said. Another drone was downed in Russia’s Voronezh region.
Sunday also saw Russian missiles hit an agriculture facility in Ukraine’s Odesa region, according to Ukraine’s military.
Meanwhile, two cargo ships arrived at a Ukrainian port after travelling through the Black Sea using a new route, Ukrainian port authorities said. They reached Chornomorsk over the weekend, and were due to load 20,000 tons of wheat bound for world markets, the BBC reported. Officials said it was the first time civilian ships had reached a Ukrainian port since the collapse of a grain deal with Russia ensuring the safety of vessels.
Separately, the International Court of Justice — the United Nations’ highest court — will on Monday hear Russia’s objections to a case brought by Ukraine, who argues Russia is abusing international law in claiming the invasion was justified to prevent alleged genocide. Reuters reports the hearings are set to run until September 27.
YEREVAN, Armenia — Azerbaijan has agreed to reopen the only highway linking Armenia to the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh provided local leaders accept aid from Azerbaijan as well, a senior Azerbaijani official told POLITICO on Saturday.
The news comes after authorities in the ethnic Armenian-controlled exclave — inside Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders — announced earlier in the day that it would accept humanitarian shipments from the Russian Red Cross via an alternative road from Aghdam, inside Azerbaijani government-held territory.
According to Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, “Azerbaijan expressed its consent as a goodwill gesture to ensure simultaneous opening” of the so-called Lachin Corridor for ICRC cargo. The road connects the mountainous territory to Armenia. The acceptance, he said, would pave the way for a separate deal to allow passage from Armenia. “In the Lachin checkpoint, Azerbaijan’s customs and border regime must be observed,” he said.
For close to two months, aid organizations including the Red Cross have said they have been unable to transport supplies of food and fuel into Nagorno-Karabakh, despite a 2020 ceasefire agreement between the two sides guaranteeing free use of the road under the supervision of Russian peacekeepers. With essential provisions running low, local Armenians say a humanitarian crisis is already unfolding and the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, last month issued a report warning that a “genocide” was under way.
Both the U.S. and the EU have urged Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin Corridor. The South Caucasus country denies it is orchestrating a blockade, and has insisted the Karabakh Armenians must accept humanitarian supplies from inside Azerbaijan.
Arayik Harutyunyan, the former de facto president of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, told POLITICO in July that he would refuse to accept the supplies despite a deteriorating humanitarian situation because “Azerbaijan created this crisis and cannot be the solution to it.”
Harutyunyan, who resigned last month amid the ongoing crisis, was due to be replaced on Saturday in a presidential election. However, according to Hajiyev, the “sham elections” are a “serious setback and counterproductive” for the situation.
Instead, he reiterated a call from the Azerbaijani government for the Karabakh Armenians to lay down their arms and accept being governed as part of Azerbaijan. “It is the only way to a lasting peace where Armenian and Azerbaijani residents of Karabakh can live and coexist,” he said.
Hajiyev later clarified in a statement on social media that the Lachin Corridor would not be opened immediately, but under the terms of a deal allowing indefinite access for Azerbaijani aid from Aghdam.
UNITED NATIONS — Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council Wednesday over the plight of the 120,000 people in the Nagorno-Karabakh region that Armenia says are blockaded by Azerbaijan and facing a humanitarian crisis.
Armenia asked for the meeting saying Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting mainly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia since July 15, had left its people with dwindling food, medicine and electricity.
Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan, but the region and substantial territory around it came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces who were backed by the Armenian military in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Azerbaijan regained control of the surrounding territory in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020, and the Russian-brokered armistice left the Lachin Corridor as Nagorno-Karabakh’s only connection to Armenia.
At the council meeting, many countries urged Azerbaijan to immediately reopen the road, pointing to orders from the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s highest tribunal, and all 15 nations urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to find a diplomatic solution to their nearly 30-year conflict.
The Security Council did not issue any statement but U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who chaired the meeting, told the Associated Press afterward that “there were strong statements in the council from everyone that the Lachin Corridor needed to be reopened.” That was “the main accomplishment,” she said.
U.N. humanitarian coordinator Edem Wasornu told the council the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only international humanitarian body with access to the area, reported on July 25 that it had been unable to transport food through the Lachin Corridor since June 14 and medicine since July 7.
Wasornu said international humanitarian law requires all parties to facilitate rapid delivery of aid to all people in need, and “it is therefore critical that the ICRC’s delivery of humanitarian relief be allowed to resume through any available routes.”
Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told the council that as a result of the blockade, there is no economic activity in Nagorno-Karabakh, thousands of people are unemployed, stores are empty and women, children and the elderly stand in long lines to be able to buy bread, fruit and vegetables. In addition, he said, Azerbaijan has disrupted the supply of electricity through the only high voltage line between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh since Jan. 9.
Mirzoyan quoted a report from Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, saying “there is a reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed” as a result of the blockade.
“Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon,” he said, warning that “without immediate dramatic change this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.”
Mirzoyan said preventing such a catastrophe is a duty of the Security Council, which is charged with ensuring international peace and security. “I do believe that this distinguished body, despite geopolitical differences, has capacity to act as genocide prevention body, and not as genocide commemoration when it might be too late,” he said.
Azerbaijan’s U.N. Ambassador Yashar Aliyev responded by “categorically rejecting all the unfounded and groundless allegations on (a) blockade or humanitarian crisis propagated by Armenia against my country.”
He accused Armenia of engaging in a “provocative and irresponsible political campaign” to undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin Corridor.
Aliyev said Azerbaijan installed a border checkpoint on the road to safeguard its sovereignty and security and prevent Armenia from using the route “for illegal military and other activities” including rotating its 10,000 military personnel “illegally stationed” in Azerbaijani territory, and transferring weapons and munitions as well as unlawfully extracted natural resources.
He called the genocide allegations false, saying prominent British human rights lawyer, Rodney Dixon, in a preliminary report said there is no foundation for Ocampo’s claim, citing Azerbaijan’s offer to supply good via the town of Aghdam.
Aliyev also held up what he said were photos from social media of people in Nagorno-Karabakh celebrating weddings and birthdays, saying they refute allegations about starvation and a humanitarian crisis.
Aliyev and Mirzoyan blamed each other for so-far failed diplomatic efforts.
The European Union’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Silvio Gonzato, told the council “humanitarian access must not be politicized by any actors,” and the Lachin Corridor must be reopened immediately.
“Azerbaijani authorities bear the responsibility to guarantee safety and freedom of movement along the Lachin Corridor, and to ensure the crisis does not escalate further,” he said.
