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French Armenians holding protests against Aliyev visit

18.09.12 | 12:24

The Armenian community of France is organizing large-scale protest actions against the visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to Paris, accusing him of carrying out a genocidal policy manifested in the latest act of pardoning of a confessed killer of an Armenian.

Aliyev arrived in the French capital on Monday to attend the opening of an Islamic art exhibition at the Louvre Museum. He was also scheduled to meet with French officials, including President Francois Hollande.

Meanwhile, the country’s sizable Armenian community was due to hold a rally today in front of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Paris to express their indignation at both Azerbaijan’s “genocidal policies” and the decision of France to host Aliyev.

Armenian organizations in France believe that France should not encourage the anti-Armenian regime of Azerbaijan. They point at Aliyev’s decision to pardon Ramil Safarov, a man who hacked to death an Armenian student at NATO-sponsored language courses in Budapest, upon his extradition from Hungary last month, as more proof that Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be part of Azerbaijan. That decision led to official Yerevan’s severing ties with Budapest and demanding a clear stance of the international community to condemn the ‘Azerbaijani-Hungarian deal’. France, too, voiced concerns over the possibility of the Safarov Affair “seriously undermining the negotiating efforts” in the Karabakh settlement that it spearheads along with the United States and Russia.

“Granting pardon to the murderer by the Azerbaijani President is clear encouragement of barbarism and anti-Armenianism. These events are the continuation of the genocidal logic of the Azerbaijani regime, which is getting armed more and more for the full destruction of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF) said in a special press release on the occasion. “To receive Aliyev in these conditions means to support his anti-Armenian policy. Ilham Aliyev, who disregards international rights, should not be received in the Elysee Palace. Aliyev, whose regime demolished the Armenian cultural heritage, in particular 4,000 Armenian stone crosses in Old Jugha, should not be received in the Louvre.”

An action of protests against the Azeri president’s visit was also held on Monday in Marseilles by representatives of the local Armenian community.

http://armenianow.com/news/39980/armenia_france_community_aliyev_visit_paris

Turkey to Provide Egypt $2 Billion in Aid
By MATT BRADLEY

CAIRO—Turkey will provide a $2 billion aid package to help Egypt finance infrastructure projects and increase its dwindling foreign currency reserves, Egypt's Minister of Finance said Saturday.

Egyptian financial policy makers have embarked on an aggressive effort over the past several months to solicit foreign assistance and investment in the hopes of mending a gaping budget and foreign currency reserve deficit.

Egypt's budget deficit in the fiscal year that began July 1 could exceed $20 billion, or about 8% of the country's gross domestic product.

Essam El Haddad, assistant president for external relations and international cooperation, signed the deal Saturday in Istanbul, Turkey's commercial capital, according to a statement from Egypt's Ministry of Finance.

Turkey's state-run news agency reported that Ankara extended the $2 billion loan after Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan on Saturday met with Mr. El Haddad, in Istanbul.

According to Anadolu Agency, the meeting was closed to press but Turkish officials agreed to provide the loan to aid the Egyptian economy.

Turkish companies are hoping to capitalize on their government's good relations with Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood party to win lucrative contracts in the construction and manufacturing sectors.

Egypt hopes to attract 171 billion Egyptian pounds, or about $28 billion, in foreign investment in order to reach an economic growth rate of about 4.5% this fiscal year, said Ashraf Al Arabi, Egypt's Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, according to the statement.

Such a growth rate could help absorb some of the 13% of Egyptians who were reported as unemployed in August, Mr. Al Arabi said.

The new administration of Egypt's new president, Mohammed Morsi, is also in the midst of discussions with the International Monetary Fund over a $4.8 billion loan.

European Union officials on Thursday told Mr. Morsi that they would provide Egypt with €500 million ($655 million) of financial assistance if the North African country secures the IMF loan.

http://latino-serialo.ru/meksikanskie_seriali_online/425-ostorozhno-s-angelom-cuidado-con-el-angel.html


Islamic art, covered
By Gareth Harris

The latest addition to the Louvre’s galleries is a display of artistic, cultural and financial surprises

Standing in front of an extraordinary display of Ottoman tiles, a high point of the new Islamic art galleries at the Louvre in Paris, Sophie Makariou, director of the museum’s Islamic Art department, puts into words the labour of love behind the striking ceramics frieze before us.

“We had to comb painstakingly through the collection to find the right pieces; I suppose it gave me a pleasant headache,” she says.

Makariou and her team brought together disparate sets of framed tiles that had previously been displayed in the museum’s Richelieu wing. Using visual clues – matching motifs, borders and hues – she has formed a unified pattern from these random 16th- and 17th-century items.
“We want to create the impression of an Ottoman wall in a monument, so we’ve worked on what can only be described as a gigantic puzzle,” Makariou adds.
The tile exhibit is the dazzling denouement to the new 3,000 sq m suite of galleries built across two levels in the Louvre’s historic Visconti courtyard. More than 2,500 objects drawn from the museum’s 15,000-strong Islamic collection shelter under a gently rippling steel roof (some 3,400 works on permanent loan from the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs also form part of the Louvre’s Islamic holdings). The new wing, which opens on September 22, should attract fresh audiences to the world’s most popular museum, which drew in an astonishing 8.9m visitors in 2011.

“It is important that we try to tell the story of the Islamic world and how it developed on three continents [from Spain to south-east Asia], from the beginning of the eighth century until the end of the 18th century,” Makariou says. “We proceed chronologically and geographically, moving each time from west to east, except for the last section, which goes the opposite way, covering the Mughal, Safavid and Ottoman empires” – culminating in the Ottoman tile section.

How this new wing stands up in comparison to other Islamic art departments at leading museums worldwide will be a point of debate.

“I think the narrative differs from that told by other museums in that we present and consider things in a very French way, one that is deeply sensitive to the [course] of history,” says Makariou. Her thesis is bold and largely convincing: “I’d argue that the Enlightenment does not only belong to the west but that it began in the second half of the eighth century [in the Islamic world] when, for instance, Ptolemy’s theories were translated into Arabic.”

Crucially, the Islamic world has rallied round in a major stroke of cultural diplomacy. The €98.5m project has received state funding of €31m, as well as €17m from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation founded by the eponymous Saudi prince. The republic of Azerbaijan, the Emir of Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman and King Mohammed VI of Morocco have donated in total €26m.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, the Louvre is still seeking sponsors to cover a €10m shortfall in funding. Yet the Louvre Abu Dhabi branch, a hugely significant project at the heart of the Middle East scheduled to open 2015, is supposed to provide €400m over the course of 30 years for its use of the museum’s prestigious brand.

Looking back meanwhile over the chequered history of the Islamic collection, it’s obvious why the museum felt the need to address the issue of a world-class permanent base for the holdings. The Louvre founded its “Muslim art section” in 1893, with the first exhibition space dedicated to the Islamic collection opening in the decorative arts department.

The collection was enriched in large part through donations from private collectors at the turn of the 20th century, with gifts such as a set of Mughal miniatures from the Georges Marteau collection. The Richelieu wing showcased Islamic works from 1993, but only in 2003 did the Louvre make its Islamic section an official department.

“There is a dual trend between interest and indeed repulsion at times towards Islamic art and towards Islam in particular,” notes Louvre director Henri Loyrette. His aim, he says, is to reveal the “radiant face of this civilisation”. He is adamant that the Islamic collection reflects the “universal vocation” of the institution. “At one point [former president] Jacques Chirac asked me whether it [the Islamic collection] would be better off as a separate museum but I said no, it must be in the Louvre because they are collections that have lived here,” he told Apollo Magazine.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ad9c2ff2-f5bf-11e1-bf76-00144feabdc0.html#axzz26laYwRT5


Aliyev to visit France as tension continues

ISTANBUL

Azerbaijan’s President İlham Aliyev will travel to France today, as a group mostly consisting of members of the French-Armenian diaspora prepares to protest his visit.

Aliyev will attend the opening ceremony of the Islamic Arts Hall at the Louvre Museum, and then meet France’s President François Hollande at the Elysee Presidential Palace. His visit comes at a time of high tension between Yerevan and Baku, due to the latter’s pardoning and promotion of Ramil Safarov, an Azeri officer who murdered an Armenian counterpart at a NATO event in 2004.

‘Safarov case’ on the agenda

Hollande will bring the issue of Safarov’s release to the agenda during his meeting with Aliyev, said Franck Mourad Papazian, a prominent figure in the French-Armenian diaspora and a member of the Dashnaksutyun Party, in a telephone interview with Hürriyet Daily News.

The protest of Aliyev’s visit is intended as call for a justice addressed to the entire world, Papzian said. “Aliyev’s government pardoned and promoted Safarov, who killed Gurgen Margaryan just because he was an Armenian. Forgiving a murderer means ignoring and violating international law,” Papazian said. More than 6,000 people all over France are expected to attend the protests.

With regard to the French draft law concerning denial of the alleged Armenian genocide, which had caused tension between Turkey and France, Papazian said the Hollande government will revive the law, and that negotiations to schedule this were ongoing.

Vercihan Ziflioğlu contributed to this report from the Istanbul bureau.

September/18/2012

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/aliyev-to-visit-france-as-tension-continues.aspx?pageID=238&nID=30366&NewsCatID=359


Turkish, Azeri groups of Europe set to protest in Paris
Several Turkish and Azeri groups announced they are set to demonstrate in front of the Armenian embassy in Paris on September 17 at 4:00 pm GMT, independent French journalist Jean Ekiyan told Panorama.am.

The Ramil Safarov affair activated a wave of protests in the Armenian community which will gather in front of the Azerbaijan embassy in Paris today.

The demonstration in front of the embassy of Armenia is organized by the Turkish Federation of France, supported by Azeri lobbies of Netherlands and Germany.

Azerbaijani President Aliev is expected this morning for inauguration of the Arts of Islam to the Musée du Louvre. Later, he will meet French industrialists during a private meeting organized by the MEDEF (Movement of the Companies of France). He is to be received by French President Hollande, despite the deep protests of the Armenian organizations of France.

http://www.panorama.am/en/politics/2012/09/18/paris-protest-safarov/

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