Baghdad -- Nineveh Department of Antiquities and Heritage announced on Sunday that three countries are carrying out archaeological excavations in the governorate, and decided a date to open the ancient city for tourists, according to the Iraqi News Agency (INA).
Assyrian monk Sefer Bilecen, known as Father Aho, was sentenced to 25 months in prison in April 2021 by the Turkish government. The monk is accused of providing aid to a terrorist organization. While a steep charge, the reality of Father Aho's conviction is far more sinister: It reveals the government-led persecution of minority religions, in this case the humble expression of traditional...
The Assyrian Christian Mayor of Dadersh village in the Sarsank region of the Duhok governorate in Kurdistan, Iraq, and one other Assyrian Christian man named James Zaya, were arrested on 11 May after a group of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) loyalists tried to confiscate land belonging to local residents.
ROME -- After several days of searching, the remains of two Syrian Chaldean martyrs, killed for their faith by the Ottoman Empire, were found last week in a chapel outside the Christian village of Qaraqosh in Iraq's Nineveh Plain.
A bungled looting scheme has led archaeologists to an underground Iron Age complex in Turkey that may have been used by a fertility cult during the first millennium B.C., a new study finds. The ancient complex, which has yet to be fully investigated due to the instability of the structure, has rare rock art drawings on its walls featuring a procession of deities depicted in an Assyrian style.
(CNN) -- Donkeys meander through narrow streets past doorways and through low arches, suddenly braying around corners at startled tourists while residents continue on their way, unperturbed. Old stone walls reverberate with the gentle murmur of conversations in Arabic, Syriac, Armenian, Kurdish, Torani, Turkish and Aramaic, an ancient Semitic language once believed to have been used by Jesus.
Ali Shahvari grew up in a traditional and religious Muslim family in Iran. He was devoted to his country to the extent that he twice volunteered to fight on the front lines in the devastating Iran-Iraq War. But after one of his brothers was killed and another wounded in the 1980-88 conflict, he turned to drugs. Two decades later he found salvation on satellite television.
Qamishli, Syria -- "The land that was attacked a few years ago by the militants of the Islamic State, who wanted to eliminate Christians, today rejoices aloud. Our faith and our Cross have won". Father Karam Shamasha, a Chaldean priest from Mosul, thus expresses his emotion at the spectacle that he has seen happen in the cities of the Nineveh Plain.
Easter was celebrated by the Syriac Orthodox community in Syria on Sunday in accordance with the Eastern Calendar, with hymns chanted and prayers recited in several churches and cathedrals. The ceremonies in the governorate of Al-Hasakah began in the morning in the Syriac Orthodox Church of Saint Assia al-Hakim in the district of al-Dirbasiyah and in the Church of St.
Easter was extra special for one Christian community in Iraq this Easter as it opened for services for the first time since being desecrated by ISIS militants eight years ago. St Kyriakos's Chaldean Catholic Church, Batnaya, was attacked by ISIS in 2014. Militants decapitated statues, smashed the altar and used sacred images as target practice.
Lyon, France (AINA) -- Professor Joseph Yacoub is the author of numerous articles and dozen of books, some translated into English. His latest book is titled Les Assyro-Chaldéens : mémoire d'une tragédie qui se répète (The Assyro-Chaldeans: Memory of a Repeating Tragedy) and published in April 2021 by L'Harmattan, Paris.
Baghdad -- A high level meeting between delegations from the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East is set for 9 May in Chicago, United States, the Baghdadhope blog reports. This first step on the long and difficult path could be a decisive moment for reconciliation and reunification after decades of divisions and opposition that followed the schism in 1968.
Lyon, France (AINA) -- Professor Joseph Yacoub is the author of numerous articles and dozen of books, some translated into English. His latest book is titled Les Assyro-Chaldéens : mémoire d'une tragédie qui se répète (The Assyro-Chaldeans: Memory of a Repeating Tragedy) and published in April 2021 by L'Harmattan, Paris.
Chicago (AINA) -- An Assyrian family in Chicago invented the pizza puff. Watch the report by Erica Gunderson for Chicago Tonight. ...
Wurzburg, Germany (AINA) -- The 60th anniversary of the German-Turkish recruitment agreement (German: Anwerbeabkommen) was officially celebrated in many cities across the country end of October 2021. In his speech at the state commemoration event in Berlin, Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, addressed the invited guests, stating that "You helped building up Germany -- You have enriched...
Chicago (AINA) -- In September of 2014, Attorney Robert DeKelaita was indicted for helping a handful of Assyrian (also known as Chaldean or Syriac) asylum seekers obtain asylum. The government, represented by the US Attorney's Office, alleged that the means used to obtain asylum for the handful of the witnesses chosen to testify against DeKelaita was fraudulent.
During the years of World War I 75% (750,000) of the Assyrian population in the Ottoman Empire was systematically murdered. That genocide of Assyrians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 is a fact, but it has largely been forgotten by the world.
(AINA) -- When speaking about the Ottoman Empire and Turkey today, it is not their contribution to civilization that comes to mind. Instead it is human rights violations, confiscation of land and property, genocide and genocide denials that are most frequently discussed in the public discourse. Today's Turkey is still far from being ruled by democratic principles.
A bungled looting scheme has led archaeologists to an underground Iron Age complex in Turkey that may have been used by a fertility cult during the first millennium B.C., a new study finds. The ancient complex, which has yet to be fully investigated due to the instability of the structure, has rare rock art drawings on its walls featuring a procession of deities depicted in an Assyrian style.
(BBC) -- In the middle of the Iraqi desert, just north of the city of Mosul, is a pile of limestone blocks. Even at first glance, they're unusual -- each half a metre (1.6 feet) across, with a square shape and one side decorated with enigmatic symbols. Collectively they look like the remains of a giant pyramid. But this was not their purpose.