Author: Arsine Chaltikian

Kate Winslet is set to play Polish-Armenian Joanna Hoffman — one of Apple’s earliest employees who was known for standing up to Steve Jobs — in the new movie about the legendary Apple cofounder’s life.

The movie, which includes a star-studded cast that features Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs and Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, is set to debut on Oct. 9, according to Business Insider. 

In a recent interview with , Winslet explained how she landed the role. The actress was interested in the role as soon as she heard about the film from her hair-and-makeup artist, who was set to work on the movie after she had finished working with Winslet on “The Dressmaker.” The fact that the film was written by Andrew Sorkin was enough to draw Winslet in, but she was also intrigued by the movie’s three-act format.

Winslet decided to move on the opportunity right away, but there was one hurdle: she looks nothing like Hoffman, the Polish-Armenian immigrant that served as the only marketing person on the original Mac team for more than a year.

So, to audition for the role, she sent her husband out to purchase dark brown wigs in varying lengths. She took photos of herself in the wigs and sent them over to Scott Rudin, the film’s producer.

“I  wanted to please her [Joanna Hoffman] as much as I could. How she sounds, and her accent, is fairly complicated. She grew up largely in Armenia, spent some time in Poland, and has Russians in her family, so she has all three accents, but she’s been in America since she was a teenager, so she had American rhythms,” Winslet said.

 

Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward ‪‎Nalbandian‬ received the Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (‪‎CSTO‬) Nikolay ‪‎Bordyuzha‬.

Welcoming the guest, Minister Nalbandian stressed that Armenia attaches great importance to the cooperation within the CSTO as an important component of its security, and will continue its consistent efforts towards the strengthening of allied collaboration within the Organization.

The Eurasian Fund for Stabilization and Development, where Russia holds the largest share, will provide a $300 million privileged credit to Armenia, Russian Deputy Minister of Finance Sergey Storchak told reporters. Armenia had applied for more, he said.

“The Council of Fund, which convened recently, made a political decision on the provision of the credit,” Storchak said, TASS reports.

Belarus was the first country to receive a privileged credit from the Fund.

Storchak said the loan will be granted on standard terms. “As far as I understand, it’s about 1% annually,” he noted.

Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu has promised to boost security along the country’s border with Syria, after 30 people were killed by a bomb in the town of Suruc, the BBC reports.

Investigators think the blast was caused by a female suicide bomber from the Islamic State group.

Correspondents say Turkey is cracking down on the militants, after previously being accused of ignoring them.

But the blast triggered violent protest in Istanbul, with police using water cannon, teargas and rubber bullets.

Monday’s bomb hit a group of youth activists planning to cross into Syria to help rebuild the town of Kobane.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is expected to present new proposals at a eurozone emergency summit on his country’s growing debt crisis, the BBC reports.

The plan is said to include a demand for Greece’s debt to be cut by up to 30%, after voters rejected the terms of an international bailout on Sunday.

Athens has been urged to make “serious” proposals as Greece risks defaulting on its €323bn debt.

Greece’s banks are to stay closed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is maintaining its pressure on Greek banks, refusing to increase emergency lending and ordering them to provide more security for existing emergency loans.

Eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels later on Tuesday before a full summit of eurozone leaders.

Egypt is accusing Turkey of providing more than 10,000 Turkish passports to members of ISIS, the Islamic State, to facilitate travel of fighters across the region,  reports.

An Egyptian intelligence official who asked not to be named told WND his country delivered a report to the U.S. documenting the astonishing claim.

The official further charged that Istanbul is serving as the “headquarters” for ISIS planning.

“Turkey continues to allow free passage to Iraq and Syria to IS fighters,” the official added.

If the Turkish passport charge is true, it would present a worldwide ISIS travel threat.

Armenian hackers have attacked dozens of Azerbaijani websites overnight.

The Monte Melkonian Cyber Army ( MMCA) says it hacked 47 website, posted data from passports and ID cards of  5,700 Azerbaijanis.

The group says it wa sa response for the recent attack of Azerbaijani hackers.

“Let them know we are awake and ready for an attack. Our response will always be more painful,” the Monte Melkonian Cyber Army said in a Facebook Post. It also provided the.

Borussia Dortmund goalkeeper Mitchell Langerak has signed a three-year contract with Bundesliga rival Stuttgart, Goal.com reports.

The Australia international, 26, joined Dortmund from Melbourne Victory in 2010, making his debut in a 3-1 defeat to Bayern Munich in February of the following year.

Langerak made nine league appearances for the Signal Iduna Park outfit last term and became a regular between the posts in the latter stages of Jurgen Klopp’s stint as coach.

The shot-stopper is the second goalkeeper to arrive at Stuttgart in a matter of days, with Przemyslaw Tyton having joined from PSV last week.

Dortmund, now coached by Thomas Tuchel, brought in Roman Burki from Freiburg earlier this month to compete with Germany goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller.

 

At a meeting with Russian Transport Minister maxim Sokolov Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan expressed gratitude to the Russian law-enforcement bodies for the productive cooperation with the Armenian Prosecutor’s Office in organizing the investigation into the case of murder of a family of seven in Gyumri.

The President said “the decision to hand over the investigation of the case to the Armenian side reflects the spirit of partnership and friendship and fully complies with the provisions of the Armenian-Russian agreement on the stationing of the Russian Military Base in Armenia.

At the same time the President underlined that the “presence of the Russian Military Base in Armenia is an important component of our country’s security.”

 

 

 

 

“In 2014 the Public Radio and Television Company maintained the policy adopted in the previous years but increased the number of social-economic, cultural and educational programs,” President of the Public Radio and Television Company of Armenia Ruben Jaghinyan said at the National Assembly as he presented a report on the budget allocations in 2014.

“We have worked towards expanding ties with international structures and foreign TV companies. The coverage of the satellite broadcasting of the Public TV and Radio has been broadened.  The Public TV has launched a new webpage. All in all, 3 billion 97 million AMD was allocated for the activity of the Public TV and Radio Company in 2014,” Ruben Jaghinyan said.

He added that the deadline for switching to digital broadcasting has been moved from July 1^st to January 1^st. “The digitization was a difficult process, which required years,” he said.