Month: June 2017

Nearly half of Armenian bee colonies die every year

Arsine Chaltikian
ARKA, Armenia

YEREVAN, June 13. /ARKA/. There are about 220,000 bee colonies in Armenia now, however, nearly half of bees die annually due to lack of necessary funds for their treatment and prevention of diseases, as well as due to shortage of experts dealing with their treatment, the chairman of the National Union of Beekeepers of Armenia Telman Nazaryan told a news conference today.

Nazaryan recalled that during the Soviet period, the overall number of bee colonies used to grow by 30-35% per year, but now beekeepers barely manage to keep the population at a certain level. Nazaryan also noted that over the past 25 years the beekeeping has recorded no progress in Armenia. 

"Beekeeping has been practiced in Armenia since time immemorial, and now the government has forgotten about this branch of agriculture," he said.

In his turn, the president of the Armenian Technological Academy Vanush Davtyan, said honey produced in Armenia can not be exported to the EU countries because of improper treatment of bees.
"It is necessary to provide for all factors to receive environmentally clean honey that meets strict European standards," he said.

As Davtyan noted, there are three major beekeeping problems in Armenia- diseases, chemicals that are used to treat fields which harm bees, as well as frequencies used by cellular operators.

Honey bees produce rhythmic sound impulses of a certain frequency during the honey harvest, which contain information about the geography of the honey crop and help the bees to orient themselves in space. According to Davtyan, today cellular operators, although they deny this, use frequencies that interfere with bees, as a result the bees are disoriented failing not find their way back home and die.

He said also that Telman Nazaryan has developed a technology that allows getting more royal jelly, which is highly valued, because of being produced in limited amounts.

"If the technology developed by Nazaryan is used throughout Armenia, we can get more profits than from selling honey," he argued. However, for this purpose it is necessary to purchase special equipment, which, in turn, requires government support.

In 2016, Armenian beekeepers produced a total of 3,500 tons of honey. Annually one bee colony produces now 7-10 kg of honey, down from 30-40 kg produced during the Soviet time -0-

Tourism: 20% more Russian tourists visited Armenia in Q1: report

Garnik Tadevosian
PanArmenian, Armenia
– 16:01 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – TurStat agency has analyzed the statistics of outbound tourism from Russia in the first three months of 2017 which suggest that the number of trips by Russian tourists to Armenia increased by 20% to 65,000.

Armenia is one of the most popular countries among Russian tourists and was thus included in the top three CIS countries in terms of the growth of tourist trips.

The number of tourists traveling to Azerbaijan (139 thousand, + 31%) and Georgia (135 thousand, + 27%) has also increased in the reporting period.

BAKU: Yunus Spouses Explain Problems with Human Rights in Azerbaijan to PACE Rapporteur

Tambiyan Samvel 
Turan Information Agency, Azerbaijani Opposition
 Monday


Yunus Spouses Explain Problems with Human Rights in Azerbaijan to PACE
Rapporteur



Baku / 12.06.17 / Turan: The rapporteurs of the PACE Monitoring
Committee for Azerbaijan Stefan Schennach from Austria and Cesar
Florin Preda from Romania arrived in Baku on 12 June.

On the eve of the visit, Stefan Schennach visited Arif and Leila
Yunus, Azerbaijani political emigrants living in the Netherlands.
During the conversation, he was provided with extensive information on
the situation with human rights and political prisoners, the number of
which has reached 165 people today.

The latest arrests, especially the outrageous stories with the arrests
of Gezal Bayramli and Afgan Mukhtarli, were also discussed. The
participants of the meeting paid special attention to the increase in
the number of people killed as a result of torture - Mehman Galandarly
and the so-called "Armenian spies" on the front line. Also, the
"Nardaran case" and the problem of other convicted believers were
mentioned.

"Our meetings are of a very concrete nature and include the provision
of all materials and documents on the situation in Azerbaijan. As a
result of such meetings people are released or something else happens.

In addition, in the near future a resolution on the situation in our
country will be adopted and now we are fully occupied with this
issue," Arif Yunus wrote on his Facebook page. -02D-

BAKU: President Aliyev: Azerbaijan has very close ties with Islamic countries

Kajoyan Gevork
AzerNews, Azerbaijan
17:54 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan contributes to the strengthening of Islamic solidarity.

President Ilham Aliyev made the remark as he received ambassadors and heads of diplomatic missions of Muslim countries to Azerbaijan on the occasion of the holy month of Ramadan on June 13.

This year was declared the "Year of Islamic Solidarity" in Azerbaijan, said the president, noting that during the year, many events were held in the country.  

“The announcement of this year "The Year of Islamic Solidarity" reflects our policy and demonstrates our intention. I am absolutely sure that we Muslim countries must solve the problems that exist between us peacefully and strengthen solidarity,” he said.

This year, the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games was held in Azerbaijan.

“The Islamic Solidarity Games is not just sports competitions. We wanted these Games to unite the Islamic world. Being in Baku, the athletes and guests lived as one family, and I am sure that on these days the Islamic solidarity reached the highest peak. We must try to maintain this solidarity on high level. I am sure that it will be so,” said the head of state.

President Aliyev hailed that Azerbaijan has very close ties with the countries of the Islamic world.

“We actively cooperate in a bilateral format and in the international arena and also constantly support each other. In particular, our cooperation with the countries represented by you in the UN and other international organizations is very successful,” he said.

Azerbaijan is an active member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), according to the President, who said that the country held many representative events through the organization. He recalled support of the organization and its members to Azerbaijan at the Summit of the OIC in Turkey last year.  

“Azerbaijan, in turn, supports Muslim countries in all international organizations. At last year's Summit, very important steps were taken including a decision on the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The OIC has adopted many documents, resolutions, which support the fair position of Azerbaijan in connection with the conflict,” the president emphasized.

Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan are under the control of the Armenian military and separatists since a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended in 1994. Negotiations lasting for over 20 years have brought little progress in resolving the conflict, though a fragile truce has been in place.

Talking about the Contact Group created last year in connection with the Armenian aggression, Ilham Aliyev appreciated this support.

President Aliyev went on to stress that for many years Armenia has been keeping under occupation some of the Azerbaijani lands, blatantly violating all international norms, ignoring the four resolutions of the UN Security Council, destroying all historical and religious monuments in the occupied territories.
He said there are many documents and video materials confirming these vandalisms.

“We demonstrate the realities connected with the conflict in all international organizations, we bring them to the attention of the world community. Of course, we also bring this to the public of Muslim countries, so that our brothers living in these countries could see atrocities that Armenians committed in the occupied lands,” he said.

This barbarism is committed not only against Azerbaijan, but the entire Muslim world, stressed the head of state.

“Armenians destroyed Shusha mosques, Agdam mosques, as well as mosques in other our cities that are under occupation. This is a crime against the entire Muslim world. We want all Muslims of the world to know this,” he said.