12:08, 2 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. At least five people were killed and 39 others injured following 6.1 and 6.3 magnitude earthquakes in southern Iran on Saturday, IRNA reports.
According to the Seismological Center of the Geophysics Institute of the University of Tehran, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale followed the 6.1 one that hit the village of Sayeh Khosh of Bandar Khamir Village in southern Iran.
Accordingly, there were more than a dozen aftershocks.
12:19, 2 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. American business magnate, CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk met with Pope Francis in Vatican.
Reuters reports the world’s richest person tweeted a picture where he can be seen standing next to the pope, captioning it: “Honored to meet @pontifex yesterday”.
Musk’s four teenage boys are also pictured.
14:25, 2 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Government Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan shared findings from her recent, three-person ANCA fact-finding mission to Artsakh in testimony submitted this week to the U.S. Senate panel drafting the FY23 foreign aid bill, ANCA reports.
Yerimyan underscored the longstanding calls for to end all U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan and the delivery of an urgently needed $50 million aid package to Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh).
“Having recently returned from a fact-finding mission in Artsakh, I can bear witness to the devastating humanitarian impact of Azerbaijan’s aggression against Artsakh’s civilian population,” stated Yerimyan. “As many as 100,000 Armenians were displaced. Many schools and hospitals, destroyed during the war, remain in ruins. Countless homes remain uninhabitable. The maternity ward of the state hospital has been rendered completely unusable. In addition to losing at least 70% of their indigenous lands, the Armenians of Artsakh now live upon a landscape littered with landmines and, especially, unexploded ordinance, posing a threat to the daily lives of children and families.”
Yerimyan continued, “Azerbaijan, for its part, continues to illegally hold and abuse Armenian prisoners of war, in contravention of the ceasefire agreement and Baku’s own commitments under international law. During our recent ANCA visit to Artsakh we interviewed a repatriated POW – an 80-year-old female civilian who was captured in her village home, witnessed the beating of her husband, and was tortured herself.”
Yerimyan made the case that Congress should hold the Aliyev regime accountable for the ethnic-cleansing of Artsakh and Baku’s ongoing occupation of sovereign Armenian territory by cutting off all U.S. military aid to its armed forces. She also pressed for a long-term developmental investment in Artsakh, to help its families “rebuild their lives and resettle in safety upon their indigenous Armenian homeland.”
In May, Yerimyan, ANCA IT Director Nerses Semerjian, and Programs Director Alex Manoukian were joined by ANC International’s Gevorg Ghukasyan in a week-long fact-finding mission to Artsakh. While there, they worked closely with the ANC of Artsakh, which was launched in September 2021, to focus on protecting the rights of Artsakh’s citizens, securing international recognition of the Artsakh Republic, and restoring Artsakh’s territorial integrity.
The ANCA team discussed Artsakh’s geopolitical challenges with Foreign Minister David Babayan and learned new details about the plight of the 100,000 Armenian refugees forced from their ancestral homes during the 2020 war from Artsakh Republic Minister of Social Development and Migration Armine Petrosyan. Artsakh Human Rights Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan discussed the effects of Azerbaijan’s ongoing attacks on border villages and the water and gas challenges facing the Artsakh population. During meetings with Vardan Tadevosyan, the founder and director of the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Center, the ANCA team learned more about the life-changing assistance the center provides for soldiers and civilians injured during the 2020 Artsakh war, while working with children and adults with physical and mental disabilities. The ANCA team also met with representatives of The HALO Trust, whose demining efforts have saved countless lives in Artsakh for over two decades, in part through ANCA-supported U.S. assistance.
15:36, 2 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Russia and Armenia have created such close, friendly and allied relations at different levels that it is possible to discuss problems and move forward without additional emotions, Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, said at a roundtable in Yerevan today on the topic of the resilience of Russia and the West in Ukraine and its impact on the post-Soviet space.
“Our countries have formed very close relations in different areas – political, military-political, economic and most importantly, humanitarian. Russia’s presence in Armenia, and Armenia’s presence in Russia are very important. The friendly ties exist in the bilateral relations and the Eurasian platform. We appreciate it, it allows us to calmly discuss the issues without emotions where our views are different. We understand that these issues could also be part of the friendly, close and allied relations. All issues could be discussed and moved forward”, he said.
Touching upon the global developments and conflicts, Timofei Bordachev said the world is going to live in a period of quite active military conflicts in coming years, if not in coming decades. However, he stated that this doesn’t mean that a global disaster will happen. According to him, conflicts will continue, and the countries, that are part of that regions, will feel their effect. The other countries of the world will also feel that. He stated that now the international relations of countries will start developing in the shadow of war.
“One of the main tasks of Russia, Armenia and other countries will be to raise the level of domestic stability. The conflicts will continue, the wars are inevitable, and we should live with them”, he said.
Ivan Safranchuk, Director of the Center of Eurasian Research at Moscow State University of International Relations, said all understand well that they are at a point where they would not like to be.
“Due to the developments, the situation became more clear, many issues were clarified for us. We should avoid llusions. Through various thesis an attempt is made to cause fear among post-Soviet countries and not only. Our internal feeling is that Russia is ready to give much greater freedom to the post-Soviet countries, but when we are told that no, you are en empire that is trying to capture and isolate everyone from the outside world, this has nothing to do with what we see. Moreover, I would like to note that the Eurasian integration, that is implemented in recent period, has been formed on the basis that we are ready to share our economic growth with the post-Soviet countries”, Safranchuk said.
16:12, 2 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s capital Yerevan is one of the most preferred destinations for Russian tourists, TASS reports citing the statistics of Aviasales.
The top ten list of the most preferred destinations by Russians also includes Istanbul and Antalya.
“2.9% of the tickets booked on Aviasales for July go to the Armenian capital”, TASS said.
17:11, 2 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. On July 4, the Secretary for West of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of India Sanjay Verma will arrive in Armenia, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan said in a statement on social media.
Sanjay Verma will participate in the 8th session of the Armenian-Indian Intergovernmental Commission on Cooperation in the Fields of Trade, Economy, Technology, Science, Education and Culture.
Tech Week 2022 launched in Gyumri
17:30, 2 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Tech Week 2022 launched in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, on July 2.
The event gathered all those who highlight IT development and aim at creating a single tech community, contributing to proportional and sustainable development of provinces with joint efforts.
A number of events, professional conferences, ggRace, Koriz competition of ideas, Armenia Software Testing Cup, will take place on the sidelines of the Tech Week 2022. There will also be motivational speeches on 12 fields of the digital world, a job fair, etc.
The participants will have a chance to get acquainted with successful Armenian companies operating abroad, listen to their stories.
“We attach great importance to Armenia’s proportional development so that all provinces have the same opportunities like Yerevan has. Being a country with small and few resources, we can’t not develop the provinces. We noticed a gap and decided to unite our efforts and unite with the technological community to implement this. At the moment Gyumri is the second in Armenia as a tech-center, there are many companies here, and many others want to come and open their offices here. This Tech Week will enable to open new offices in the city, and we will witness the continuous discovery of Gyumri’s entire potential: start is given”, TCF co-founder, co organizer of Tech Week 2022, Mariam Hambardzumyan told Armenpress.
Reporting by Armenuhi Mkhoyan
His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia presided over and officiated the blessing of muron—Holy Water—in Antelias on Friday.
The event, which takes place every seven years, was attended by clergy and parishioners from all over the world who had converged on the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia to witness this unique tradition of the Armenian Church.
Western Prelate Bishop Torkom Donoyan with Meher Der Ohanessian who served as godfather of the Muron Blessing
Western Prelate Bishop Torkom Donoyan was among the high-ranking clergy who took part in the ceremony.
Vice Chair of the Western Prelacy Executive Council, Meher Der Ohanessian, served as the godfather of the entire ceremony.
The opposition “With Honor” and “Armenia” Factions of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia on Friday issued a joint statement. It reads as follows, in particular:
“(…) the authorities of the day adopted decisions to recall NA vice president [and opposition member] Ishkhan Saghatelyan and NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs chairman [and opposition member] Vahe Hakobyan from the [aforesaid] positions.
The situation is absurd in that it is being done to distract the public from the existing security challenges, the possible threat of war which they themselves have declared, the Berdzor [(Lachin)] issue, new concessions [to Azerbaijan], and the issue of not returning the [Armenian] prisoners of war [in Azerbaijan] to the homeland to this day.
The international community, despite the obvious retreat of parliamentarism, persistently tries not to notice the current situation, whereas such behavior by the [Armenian] authorities should have been followed by a sharp and immediate reaction [by the international community].
With this behavior, the authorities of the day once again confirm that they are concerned only with positions, busy with persecutions, lacking any opportunity to face the challenges facing the country, have no legitimacy, do not represent the interests of Armenia and Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)]. And under these conditions, [their] removal [from power] is inevitable.”
Opposition MP Artur Khachatryan on Friday submitted his resignation from the post of vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia. He wrote about this on his Facebook.
“Today, the members of the CC [i.e., the MPs of the ruling majority “Civil Contract” Faction of the NA] dealt another blow to Armenian parliamentarism, state institutions of the Republic of Armenia, and Armenian statehood. The CC majority of the parliament adopted decisions to recall NA Vice President [and opposition lawmaker] Ishkhan Saghatelyan and chair of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, [and opposition legislator] Vahe Hakobyan, from their [respective ] positions.
The decisions were adopted unanimously—in line with the most odious traditions of the Soviet Union.
(…) the only concern of CC members is their chairs. (…).
(…). However, I consider it unacceptable to from now on hold a political position in this tragicomic political situation.
Accordingly, I hereby announce that as of today I am resigning from the position of Deputy Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs,” the opposition MP wrote, in particular.