Iraq's treasures on show in eight 'virtual' halls

(ANSA) - Rome, June 9 - The treasures of Baghdad's National Museum went online for the first time Tuesday as Italy inaugurated the Virtual Museum of Iraq as part of an ongoing cultural collaboration between the two countries.

Looted during the United States-led invasion in 2003, the Baghdad Museum partially reopened in February after six years but the website is designed to make its most important artifacts accessible to everyone.

The site (www.virtualmuseumiraq.cnr.it), in Arabic, English and Italian, offers visitors the chance to walk through eight virtual halls and admire works from the prehistoric to the Islamic period, while videoclips reconstruct the history of the country's main cities.

By AssyriaTimes Staff Writer

In a flash-back to recent years in Assyrian history and to refresh the memories, AssyriaTimes decided to publish the translation of historical letter Mr. Jamal Bawid sent to AssyriaSat after the funeral of Patriarch Mar Raphael Bidawid.

Mr. Jamal Bidawid, the brother of the deceased Mar Raphael I Bidawid, called the AssyriaSat on Tuesday, October 28, 2003, on Dr. Sargon Dadesho’s Live program and read his open letter. The letter reads:

Greetings to my beloved Assyrian nation. Today, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my belated appreciation (I was tied up in Lebanon due to funeral arrangements) to the entire Assyrian nation and especially the AssyriaSat for participating in my beloved brother, Mar Raphael I Bidawid’s funeral. This shows the love and compassion of the Assyrian nation. Your decency will enable you to reach all of your national objectives. My family and I will forever be grateful to AssyriaSat for dedicating special programs in memory of my late brother for three days, and also for showing his entire funeral ceremony. Your love, respect and generosity has moved me and my family in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and America, beyond words. I am unable to show the dept of our gratitude with my pen.

The 26th World Congress of the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) was held in Sydney Australia from 20 to 24th of May, 2009. About 50 delegates gathered from Iraq, Iran, USA, Armenia, Russia, Holand, Japan, and Australia. The AUA delegates declared:

Assyrian Universal Alliance 26th World Congress
20-24th May 2009
Resolution


On Iraq

1. CALLS UPON AND DEMANDS that the Federal Republic of Iraq amend the Iraqi Constitution and add the statement in its preamble “The Assyrians are the Indigenous people of Iraq”.

2. COMMENDS the Federal Republic of Iraq for its efforts in improving country security.

3. DEMANDS that the Federal Republic of Iraq implements and executes further measures to prevent attacks against Assyrian people.

4. DEMANDS that the Federal Republic of Iraq publicly release the results of its investigation into the Mosul Massacre of October 2008.

5. DEMANDS the Federal Republic of Iraq acknowledge and declare that the Assyrians are the indigenous and original people of Iraq, and as promulgated under article 110 of the Iraqi constitution, the Assyrian people of Iraq are therefore entitled to an Assyrian autonomous region encompassing the Assyrian ancestral lands, located between the Greater Zab and Tigris rivers with international borders to the north and west, as part of the Federal Republic of Iraq.

6. COMMENDS the Federal Republic of Iraq for the assistance provided for the displaced Assyrian Refugees and further demands that such programs are adequately implemented.

7. DEMANDS that the constitution of Iraq contain a minimum guaranteed quota for Assyrian representation, consisting of Assyrian ethnicity, at all levels of government, based on the Iraqi census of 1957, which on current official population count, amount to 2,500,000 or approximately 10 percent of the total population.

Preparations are well underway for the twenty-sixth World Congress of the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) which will be held in Sydney - Australia from 20 to 24 May, 2009. The organizing committee for this congress began preparing for this great event and is looking forward to hosting Assyrian delegations from various countries of the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

A long-standing land dispute between the Syrian Orthodox community in south-east Turkey and the local villagers has finally turned into a legal battle attracting international attention. The disagreement has been closely monitored by the European Union for some time, and US President Barack Obama and the State Department are monitoring the dispute.

By Prof. Gabriel Sawma

In a remote village near Midyat, South East Turkey, a land dispute with neighboring villages is threatening the future of Mor Gabriel, one of the World’s oldest Christian monasteries, also known as the monastery of St. Gabriel, a property of the Syrian Orthodox Church (Suryani).

In August 2008, three mukhtars (low level elected officials with limited authority) in Midyat, filed a criminal complaint with a local prosecutor against the Monastery of St. Gabriel alleging it “illegally appropriated territory by building a wall.” (See US Department of State, 2008 Human Rights Report: Turkey.)
On September 4, a Cadastre court ruled against the monastery and reclaimed all but 30 percent of the monastery’s lands. Official papers from the 1950s documented the provincial administrative board’s approval of the monastery’s borders.

St. Gabriel Monastery was founded in 397. It has 3 monks and 14 nuns. It also has 12,000 ancient corpses buried in a basement crypt. On the details of this conflict, see the Wall Street Journal article at http://s.wsj.net/article/SB123638477632658147.html

By Dean Kalimniou
kalymnios@hotmail.com

On 30 April 2009, the South Australian lower house did a remarkable thing; it recognised the genocide of the Christian peoples of Anatolia during the Ottoman Empire. The full text of the motion that was passed is as follows:

“That, whereas the genocide by the Ottoman state between 1915-1923 of Armenians, Hellenes, Syrian and other minorities in Asia Minor is one of the greatest crimes against humanity, the people of South Australia and this House –

President Ahmadinejad welcomes Metropolitan Mar Gewargis Sliwa at the Presidential Palace.

ParsTV

In a meeting in Tehran with one of the leaders of the Assyrian Church of the East on Monday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the salvation of mankind and the establishment of peace and tranquility in the world was the aim of all divine prophets.

"Today, (we) the followers of divine prophets, including those of the prophets Moses and Jesus and the Prophet of Islam, must link hands and, by following their teachings, realize the wishes of these prophets," Ahmadinejad told Mar Gewargis Sliwa, the Metropolitan of all Iraq and Russia, who is on a visit to Iran from his seat in Baghdad.

Assyrian Star Magazine

After a long battle with illness, on the evening of Monday April 27, 2009, the Assyrian historian Dr. Hirmis Aboona passed away at the age of 69, in the city of Toronto, Canada. Rabi Hirmis Aboona Passes Away.

Hirmis Aboona is the author of several books on the ancient and modern history of the Assyrian people. His articles and books deal with the origin of Assyrian identity, the emergence of Assyrian political movements, and the development of Assyrian culture. Dr. Aboona holds a Ph.D. from the University of Exeter, and has lectured at universities, including the University of Sydney, University of Cambridge, as well as various universities in Syria and Lebanon.

Rabi Hirmis Aboona was born in the Assyrian town of Alqosh in 1940, a place whose origins date back to 15,000 B.C. according to one of the many well-documented articles published by him. His parents Mousa Aboona and Maryam Asmaro, made their living by farming their land, and later by running a grocery store. His family is from the original line of the Patriarch of the Church of the East known as the patriarchs of Mar Elia - Beth Aboona. The last was Yohanan Hormizd Aboona who converted to Catholicism. He was the first patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Rabi Hirmis Aboona spent his childhood in Alqosh, where he received his preliminary education before going on to Baghdad to obtain a degree in Surveying and a BA degree in Law from the University of Baghdad in 1963/64. In 1967, he married Nanni Esa Rasho and together they were blessed with three children.

ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has intervened in a land dispute over an ancient Syriac monastery in the southeastern city of Mardin, instructing his ministers to resolve the problem through a peaceful settlement.

Hurriyet

"Our prime minister is closely following the matter," Justice and Development Party, or AKP, Mardin deputy Cüneyt Yüksel told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. "We do not want the problem to cause an international crisis."

The land dispute erupted when the boundaries around Mor Gabriel Monastery in Mardin’s Midyat district and its three surrounding villages were redrawn last year in an attempt to update the national land registry. The monastery is located on an area of 1,227 hectares, out of which the Land Registry General Directorate classified 284 hectares as forestry land and said 244 hectares belong to the Treasury. Villagers applied to the court, asking for the monastery wall to be pulled down and accusing the foundation operating the monastery of taking land they need for their cattle. The foundation petitioned the court to have the new boundaries re-examined, claiming that the monastery has been paying tax since 1938 for the land that has now been turned over to the villages. The next trial in the case will be held May 6. "The government and the state are not taking sides in the case," Yüksel said, adding that the matter would be settled in a peaceful way.

By Michael Doyle
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Abraham Odisho lost part of his left leg in Iraq. He considers himself lucky, in every way.

On Friday, the 20-year-old graduate of Johansen High School endured his eighth surgery since being grievously wounded March 27. Now bedding down on Ward 57 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Army private has a long march ahead of him.

He'll need grueling physical therapy. He'll get a prosthetic. He'll face the prospect of phantom pain and, one presumes, some inevitable nightmares.

And yet for all that, he sounds remarkably composed; content, even, particularly with his now life-altering choice to become a soldier.