Today at IFA 2016, TomTom revealed a trio of new wearables, including its first fitness tracker. Unlike other similar devices, the new TomTom Touch has one feature that particularly stands out: it can analyze your body composition. That’s something y…
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Image: Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral. Yerevan, Armenia. Author: Marcin Konsek / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
A priest’s recent criticism of the Armenian government was a rare display of discord between a church and state that usually pull in tandem.
Father Armen Melkonian, a priest in the church’s diocese in Maastricht, Holland, leveled the criticism at a rally outside the Armenian Embassy in Amsterdam last week.
The church responded by dismissing him from his priest’s duties in Maastricht, although it allowed him to keep taking part in parish activities in an unofficial capacity.
The crowd outside the embassy was demanding the release of 30 armed men whom the government is prosecuting for seizing a police station in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan on July 17.
The raiders, members of the political fringe group Founding Parliament, had demanded the release of the party’s founder, Jirair Sefilian, and the resignation of President Serzh Sargsyan.
On the day they surrendered — July 31 — they also demanded that Armenia begin distancing itself from Russia. Moscow views Armenia as a colony rather than an independent country, and meddles in its affairs, they contended.
The government arrested Sefilian in June of this year on charges of plotting a coup. Like him, many of the station occupiers were heroes of the Nagorno-Karabakh War of the early 1990s.
Many Armenians are upset about the occupiers’ arrests, even though the group has blood on its hands.
The raiders killed a police colonel on the day they stormed the station, and halfway through the siege a sniper killed an officer sitting in a patrol car 400 yards from the station. Police said the sniper fire came from the station. The raiders denied it.
Father Armen told those at the embassy rally that the station occupiers were heroes not only for fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh War but also for fighting against injustices in Armenia.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between 1988 and 1994 was between Azerbaijan and ethnic-Armenian separatists. Both claim the territory as their own.
An uneasy truce between the former combatants prevailed until about five years ago, when a series of flare-ups began.
One, in April of this year, led to Azerbaijani troops capturing parts of a buffer zone alongside Nagorno-Karabakh, although not territory in the enclave itself.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been trying to broker a new Nagorno-Karabakh peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. He has said that both sides need to make concessions to achieve a deal.
Armenians, including those in Nagorno-Karabakh, have been afraid that Sargsyan will give up some of the buffer zone and perhaps even territory in Nagorno-Karabakh to achieve a deal. Sargsyan denies that.
The two-week station occupation galvanized opposition to Sargsyan’s rule that went far beyond the small number of Founding Parliament’s supporters.
Crowds backing the station occupiers swelled from a couple of hundred the first night to 2,000 a night as the occupation continued.
Many Armenians are unhappy with the Sargysan administration’s lack of progress addressing poverty, corruption, the huge gap between rich and poor, and other issues.
Father Armen defended his decision to speak out on a polarizing domestic political issue by noting that “the church belongs to the community, and the community regards the decision (to prosecute the station occupiers) as unjust.”
The priest made even more scathing remarks about the Armenian government when he visited Antwerp, Belgium, on August 26.
Noting that the Armenian diaspora sends hundreds of millions of dollars to the homeland each year, he told members of the Armenian community in Antwerp that they — and he — have the right to speak out.
“How should we punish those murderers who, instead of using that money (from the diaspora) to purchase weapons to defend the borders, use it against us?” he asked.
He apparently was referring to Armenian authorities shooting a number of the police-station occupiers and using stun grenades and billy clubs against those holding demonstrating in their support.
Disputing the government’s characterization of the station occupiers as terrorists, he said that “if they call them terrorists, then I say we are all terrorists.”
There is evidence that Father Armen has struck a chord with the many members of the diaspora worldwide who oppose prosecuting the station occupiers. One sign was that an American Apostolic Church in Germany invited him to hold religious ceremonies there.
A key question is whether Father Armen’s protest is a one-of-a-kind situation or an indication that other priests will speak out against the government.
Given the political turmoil that the station occupation engendered, a schism between church and state is one of the last things the Armenian government wants.
Armine Sahakyan is a human rights activist based in Armenia. A columnist with the Kyiv Post and a blogger with The Huffington Post, she writes on human rights and democracy in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Ghosts of Havana by Todd Moss is a present-day diplomatic and political thriller. In the wake of a rapprochement between the United States and Cuba, many are wondering whether the regime in Havana is truly committed to genuine reform. Might the Cuban government just be trying to hoodwink the international community? After all, well-documented human rights violations are continuing.
Some in the U.S. government decide to turn towards covert action to expedite change on the island. But is that such a good idea? Or might it result in another disaster for the U.S.? Previous intelligence failures in Cuba, like the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, are impossible to ignore.
Protagonist Judd Ryker, a U.S. State Department employee, is currently working on Cuba. Ryker’s wife, an American intelligence officer, is too. To complicate Washington’s bilateral relationship with Havana, Cuban authorities detain four Americans who had crossed into Cuban waters.
This is another good read from Moss — a former State Department official who currently works at the Center for Global Development, a think tank based in Washington, D.C.
Ghosts of Havana is Moss’s third Judd Ryker novel. Like the previous two, the book benefits from his previous experience in government and from his clear, unassuming writing. Readers looking for something fast-paced and fun should consider giving this book a try.
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Did you love “Serial” and “Making a Murderer”? Well, good news: another young woman was horribly murdered! Join us in the small town of Millborough, Maine (population: 915, non-dick population: 12) as One Idiot brings you every twist and turn in the story of Marty Morch, a man on trial for a murder he didn’t commit and Sarah, the documentarian who loves him.
Monday, September 5 8:00pm UCBT Chelsea (Advanced Tickets $6) and Monday, September 19 8:00pm UCBT Chelsea (Advanced Tickets $6).
One Idiot was formed over two years ago by the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre as part of Maude Night, the Monday night sketch program at UCB Chelsea. The team distinguished themselves quickly for crafting thematically connected performances. In November of 2015, the UCB announced that One Idiot would be promoted from Maude Night and given their own bi-monthly show at the theatre. What The Horse Saw ran for nearly a year until the debut of One Idiot’s new project This Murder: A Real Murder. One Idiot has performed across the country including the Austin Sketch Fest, the Philadelphia Sketch Fest and the New York Comedy Festival as The Best Of UCB Sketch.
Team members: Jon Bershad, Caitlin Bitzegaio, Sarah Burton, Caroline Cotter, Carrie McCrossen, Dave Ebert, Drew Freed, Allie Kokesh, Maggie Ross, Davram Steifler and Katelyn Trela.
Showtimes: Monday, September 5 8:00pm UCBT Chelsea (Advanced Tickets $6) and Monday, September 19 8:00pm UCBT Chelsea (Advanced Tickets $6).
Follow One Idiot on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oneidiotcomedy
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
If watching climate-change deniers on TV is enough to drive you nuts, imagine living with one.
Australia’s Collective Noun sketch comedy group shows what that might be like, especially if the climate denier starts applying the same logic to everything.
Let’s just say a simple request for rent money can turn into a bizarre ordeal.
Check it out in the clip above.
(h/t Mashable)
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
FreedomPop is famed for its free, barebones mobile plan, and for its next trick, the operator is mixing up the formula a little bit. Following a similar launch in the US, the provider’s new WhatsApp SIM has come to the UK, offering 200MB of data, 100…
President Enrique Pena Nieto said late on Wednesday some of U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s policies posed grave threats to Mexico, just hours after a controversial meeting in which they sought to repair strained relations.
A stern-looking Pena Nieto, who has come under fire for hosting Trump, said in a television interview he invited the candidate to Mexico precisely to confront those threats.
The president’s tone was markedly different from the more positive note the pair had struck after their meeting earlier in the day.
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Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
HONOLULU ― Days after creating the largest marine protected area on the planet, President Barack Obama on Wednesday traveled to Hawaii to address those attending the world’s largest conservation event, highlighting his administration’s expansion of the nearby monument and the need to swiftly combat climate change.
“No nation, not even one as powerful as the United States, is immune from a changing climate,” Obama told a small, private audience at Honolulu’s East-West Center that included the Pacific Island Conference of Leaders and delegates of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress.
The president’s appearance in Hawaii spotlights IUCN’s World Conservation Congress, which begins Thursday in Honolulu ― the first time the U.S. has hosted the gathering in IUCN’s 68-year history. The congress, held every four years, is the world’s largest environment and nature conservation event, often referred to as the Olympics of conservation.
Obama said conservation has been a cornerstone of his presidency.
“I have to say that Teddy Roosevelt gets credit for starting the National Park System, but when you include a big chunk of the Pacific Ocean, we have now actually done more acreage,” he said of his administration.
Obama’s speech called attention to his move last week to quadruple the area included in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument surrounding the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The White House said the expansion “provides critical protections for more than 7,000 marine species,” many found nowhere else on earth.
Established in 2006 by President George W. Bush, Papahānaumokuākea (pronounced Pa-pa-hah-now-mo-koo-ah-keh-ah ) was already larger than all of the country’s national parks combined. Now 582,578 square miles, it is nearly four times the size of California and dwarfs the United Kingdom’s 322,000-square-mile Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve, which formerly held the title of world’s largest fully protected marine area.
The expansion extends the monument’s protections, including a ban on commercial fishing, from 50 miles to 200 miles around the remote island chain.
Obama’s expansion of the monument and his trip to Hawaii could not come at a more opportune time.
In a May 2014 letter to former IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Obama expressed strong support for Hawaii’s bid to host the event.
“Hawaii is one of the most culturally and ecologically rich areas in the United States, with a wealth of unique natural resources and a distinctive traditional culture that draws from the United States and the Asia-Pacific region,” the president wrote. “The diversity and vulnerability of Hawaii’s natural resources, as well as their importance to the islands’ economy, make Hawaii a perfect location to discuss these challenges.”
Obama on Thursday is expected to travel to Midway Atoll, a small, circular-shaped atoll within Papahānaumokuākea, where he will make a statement on the marine monument expansion.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
We’ve all had bad days at work, but most of us can just soldier through and move on. Unfortunately for Joshua Justice, Google Street View will never let him forget one particularly terrible shift.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
