Author: Babajanian Karo

BOURG-LES-VALENCE SIGNE UNE CHARTE D’AMITIE AVEC CHOUCHI

France-Artsakh
(Haut-Karabagh) – Photos

Dans le cadre du rapprochement de la ville de Bourg-lès-Valence avec
la ville de Chouchi (Haut-Karabagh), une delegation conduite par la
dynamique nouvelle maire Marlène Mourier (UMP), accompagnee de Madame
Christiane Montaner et Madame Mariam Kenan, le President du Comite
de Jumelage de Bourg-lès-Valence Jean-Pierre Sandoz, M. Josias
Tchagaspanian, President de la commission Armenie et Gregoire
Tafankejian, a signe, le 5 octobre, une Charte d’Amitie avec la
capitale historique de l’Artsakh dont le maire est Artsevik Sarkisyan.

Sugnature de la Charte

La Declaration vise a faciliter les relations entre les deux villes
et de promouvoir la mise en oeuvre des programmes dans les domaines de
l’education, de la culture, des sports, du commerce et de l’autonomie
locale.

Après une etape a Erevan, la delegation s’est rendue a Talin (ville
jumelle), inaugurer le Parc Bourg-lès-Valence.

La Delegation a Erevan

La delegation est recue par le ministre des Affaires etrangères de
la RHK Karen Mirzoyan

Sarkis Aramian, Maire de Talin et son homologue Marlène Mourier

Pose fruits avec Hovannès Guevorguian, representant de la RHK en France

mardi 7 octobre 2014, Ara (c)armenews.com

L’ANC SE DIT PRETE A SOUTENIR LES PROPRIETAIRES DE PETITES ENTREPRISES CONTRE LE DROIT FISCAL

ARMENIE

Le Congrès National Armenien (ANC) a publie une declaration exprimant
son soutien a la lutte des proprietaires de petites et moyennes
entreprises contre les amendements controverses a la loi sur les
taxes de vente qui sont prevues pour entrer en vigueur le 1er Octobre.

Le parti de l’opposition a dit >.

Des centaines de petits commercants ont organise des manifestations a
proximite des bâtiments du gouvernement et de l’Assemblee nationale
depuis la semaine dernière exigeant que les changements soient mis
au rebut.

Le gouvernement insiste sur le fait que la nouvelle loi qui prevoit
une reduction de la taxe sur les ventes de 3,5 a 1 pour cent est en
faveur des petites et moyennes entreprises, mais les proprietaires
de ces entreprises affirment qu’ils prefereraient continuer a payer
la taxe actuelle, mais etre sauve de la paperasse supplementaire que
la nouvelle loi l’exige.

Les detaillants se plaignent aussi qu’en exigeant des documents
supplementaires de leur part, le gouvernement les utilise efficacement
comme un outil dans la lutte contre l’evasion fiscale par les grandes
entreprises, ce qu’ils considèrent comme injuste et inacceptable.

Dans sa declaration l’ANC a egalement evoque des rapports sur les
detentions par la police de plusieurs commercants ayant manifeste et
exigeait une action rapide de la part du procureur general afin de
veiller a ce que >.

VIENNA’S SHIRAZ SCHOOL PRESENTS GIFT TO YEREVAN’S SHIRAZ SCHOOL

12:57 07/10/2014 >> EDUCATION

The students and teachers of Vienna’s Hovhannes Shiraz Armenian
Saturday School recently held a fundraising event on campus and used
the proceeds to donate a computer to the Hovhannes Shiraz School
in Yerevan. This is the second gift of its type to be presented to
the Yerevan school, following a 2013 fundraiser at Vienna’s Hovhannes
Shiraz Armenian Saturday School held for the same purpose, the Hayastan
All-Armenian Fund reports.

The students of the Yerevan school have expressed their gratitude in
a letter addressed to their young benefactors in Vienna.

“Our students regularly correspond with their peers in Vienna and
they’ve already become good friends,” said Susanna Maloyan, principal
of the Yerevan school. “On our part, we do our utmost to encourage
their bonds of friendship.”

“In 2013, I visited the Hovhannes Shiraz School in Yerevan and
was fascinated by the students’ wonderful conduct and manners, as
well as the care shown to them by the teachers and principal,” said
Beransch Hartunian-Tahmasians, chairman of the Hayastan All-Armenian
Fund’s Austrian affiliate, and added, “I’m happy that such a great
relationship has been created between our students in Vienna and
Yerevan.”

Source: Panorama.am

CHORRORD ISHKANUTYUN: ARMENIAN CABINET TO FACE RESHUFFLE AS VICE PM ABOUT TO QUIT

08:49 * 07.10.14

The Armenian cabinet is reportedly going to face a serious reshuffle,
as Vice Premier and Minister of Territorial Administration Armen
Gevorgyan is quitting office soon.

Citing its sources, the paper says that Gevorgyan has already submitted
his resignation notice, saying that he is no longer willing to work
in the executive.

The report is said to have come as a bad news especially to President
Serzh Sargsyan who later asked the prime minister to talk Gevorgyan
out of his intention.

But Gevorgyan reportedly insisted on the demand to quit.

The paper says that those the government is now in search of a new
candidate who could replace the outgoing minister.

Armenian News – Tert.am

SPONSORSHIP NEEDED FOR SASHA GHAZARYAN AT OUR LADY OF ARMENIA CENTER

SOCIETY FOR ORPHANED ARMENIAN RELIEF (SOAR)

1060 First Avenue, Suite 400, King of Prussia, PA 19406

Office: 610.213.3452 Fax: 610.229.5168

Email: [email protected] Web:

SOAR’s Sponsorship Program is the primary mechanism through which we
provide support to specific orphaned Armenian children. Your entire
donation benefits the individual you are sponsoring. Each week,
we highlight an orphaned Armenian child in need of sponsorship. This
week, we profile Sasha Ghazaryan at the Our Lady of Armenia Center.

Name: Sasha Ghazaryan

Facility: Our Lady of Armenia (OLA) Center

Gender: Male

DOB: October 21, 2002

Health history and current medical conditions:

Sasha is a healthy child, but has eyesight problems. His right eye was
severely injured when he was 4, and he underwent surgery. Because his
parents could not take him to a specialist regularly, he can barely
see with this eye. At OLA, Sr. Arousiag Sajonian took him to several
specialists, but the damage was deemed permanent.

Family history:

Sasha was brought to OLA by his parents from Village Ashotsq (Shirak
region) in November 2013. Sasha’s parents have almost no financial
means to care for their children. In addition, housing conditions are
unfavorable for their development. The father is a herder, and the
mother is unemployed. She has health problems and is in the hospital
regularly. Sasha’s six-year-old sister, Hasmik, has lived at the
Center since April 2013.

If you would like to sponsor Sasha, please contact George S.

Yacoubian, Jr., at [email protected] or select him (under Our
Lady of Armenia) through the Sponsorship Enrollment page.

Thank you in advance for your support!

The Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief (SOAR) is a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization dedicated to providing humanitarian relief to
orphaned Armenian children and adults. Working with a loyal donor
base and a trusted network of partners, SOAR distributes clothing,
educational supplies, medicine, and other essential resources to
orphaned Armenians throughout the world.

The Fresno Bee, CA
Oct 4 2014

Even at age 98, Sally’s strength inspires, sustains

By Danielle R. Shapazian

I walked off a job once. I was 13, with an attitude.

I had been working all of one hour, maybe two, tabulating piece-work
wages and deducting various taxes that I looked up in a government
book. On Friday nights, the farm crews employed by my father’s labor
contracting business were anticipating their Saturday paychecks. I was
a responsible kid who was good with numbers. My dad needed help with
payroll.

Dozens of workers were to get paid, a never-ending list of
similar-sounding names that I recorded with a black pen, line after
line, in a thick yellow ledger. After finishing the calculations and
writing each check by hand, the only fun part of the job was adjusting
the rickety knobs on the number-stamping machine to formally ink the
exact dollars and cents on the line under each person’s name.

I felt a certain power in pulling the handle of the metal contraption,
its internal mechanism supplying a bold contrast to my girlish
penmanship. That still wasn’t enough to keep me interested.

This particular evening, I decided I was sick of the grind. I told my
boss I was done.

“I quit!” I huffed with an air of persecution, throwing up my hands
from the ledger as I rose from the table. “I want to go to the
football game!”

Eighth-grade girls have their priorities.

Fifteen minutes after my dramatic display, lip gloss and Certs tucked
into my purse, my father drove me to the high school stadium.

Task avoidance didn’t become a lifelong theme despite my periodic
petulance. I was raised around enough hardworking women to understand
that honest labor had meaning.

My mother was an import from French Canada, recruited to the Valley as
a nurse. She ultimately landed in Selma, putting in long hours at our
community hospital even as she produced a home-cooked meal every
night. She exemplified what it meant to multi-task long before we had
the term.

Then there was my mother’s good friend, Sally, who lived next door.

Sally Adkins, nee Servart Swanee Avedisian, lived two minutes away by
car, three minutes if you cut through the field, running up the secret
path of missing grapevines between our house and hers. Sally was born
in Fowler, leaving the area during the war years. She moved to the
Selma farm in the early 1950s, where she and her husband raised their
two children. Sally taught me how to drink iced tea and play a smart
game of canasta.

Without knowing it, she also taught me the graces of physical labor.

Legend has it that when Sally’s vineyard was being irrigated, she
would walk the rows, looking down each furrow to check the water,
shovel propped over her shoulder, ready to make adjustments to the
flow as any hardworking farmer would.

Although time has blurred my recall, it’s likely I observed Sally
carrying her shovel as a matter of course. Or maybe she chatted about
her vineyard chores on those summer evenings when the neighbor ladies
would gather to play cards, my young self hanging in the background,
all ears.

Purposely, I haven’t confirmed the story. I’d rather not risk the need
for reconstruction, the genesis of Sally and her shovel less important
to me than my cherished mental picture.

This was a woman who wasn’t afraid of the dirt or of hard work even as
she was, for a time, a well-coifed owner of one of the most popular
dress shops in town.

At times when I feel like throwing up my hands for a more leisurely
life — especially when engaged in messy, physical tasks — my thoughts
often return to Sally. I feel empowered knowing I came from similar
Armenian rootstock, ever determined to get the job done.

Sally doesn’t live on Mitchell Avenue anymore and neither do I. My
mother is gone, and so is my dad. Yet, these role models taught me an
important lesson: satisfaction rises more readily from work than from
play, although you need both for a well-balanced life.

I often see Sally at church on Sundays. My dear neighbor will turn 99
in a few months. Even as her memory has faded, she still smiles when I
approach her.

Strong women carry on.

Rudaw, Iraq Kurdistan
Oct 5 2014

Memorial Honors Armenian-Yezidi Ties

By Teimuraz Shamoian

TBLISI, Georgia–A small town in Armenia has built a memorial honoring
the country’s enduring ties with Yezidis who fled there a century ago.

The Armenian-Yezidi Brotherhood memorial was opened on Monday in
Aknalich, a small town in Armavir province that is home to the only
Yezidi temple in the Caucasus.

The memorial consists several sculptures, including a peacock
angel–worshipped by Yezidis–with an Armenian solar cross symbolizing
eternity.

The memorial also includes three sculptures of Armenian and Yezidi
Kurdish community leaders, who fought together against the Ottoman
Empire from 1915-1918.

Thousands of Yezidi Kurds from Armenia and Georgia attended the event
and the ceremony also drew Armenian officials, Yezidi clerics and
leaders from the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic churches.

The event included prayers for Yezidi victims under threat by Islamic
State (IS) extremists in Iraq and memorialized the persecution of
Yezidis and Armenians during the Ottoman Empire.

About 40,000 Yezidis were uprooted to Armenia from modern-day Turkey
during the Ottoman Empire and continue to live in mostly rural areas.

Many officials spoke about the tragedy in Shingal, were thousands of
Yezidis–who are ethnically Kurdish but practice an ancient
religion–have been killed and kidnapped by IS radicals.

Even though the Armenian government has not taken in Yezidis from
Iraq, it contributed $50,000 in humanitarian aid to Yezidi refugees in
Kurdistan.

“Yezidis and Armenians have been brothers over the centuries, and we
help them as much we can,” said Minister of Justice Hovanes Manukyan.

Gazi Tahir Khaled, Iraq’s ambassador to Armenia, attended the event.
Iraqi Yezidi MP Vian Dakhil, the main advocate for Yezidis in Iraq,
was expected to attend but could not because of health reasons.

On October 1, Armenian MP Naira Zograbyan called on the Council of
Europe to intervene on behalf of Yezidis and other minority groups
that are under IS threat in northern Iraq. She compared the
international community’s “silence” on the current threats against
minorities to its passive position during the Armenian genocide by the
Ottoman Empire.

Earlier, Armenian and Kurdish musicians held a charity concert for
Yezidi refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria. The famous Armenian
singer Shushan Petrosyan announced before the performance, “My
Yezidis, your pain is ours. We know how it feels.”

“I would not call it a lack of talent but dilettantism.” Stepan
Safaryan to the Armenian delegation in PACE.

October 4 2014

According to him, the resolution adopted by PACE in 2005 was not so
terrible as the title of this speech “This is just the consequence of
recruiting a barren, unproductive and unprofessional delegation”, so
responded the member of 2007-2012 NATO parliamentary Assembly, Stepan
Safaryan, in response to the question of Aravot.am of whether the
decision made by PACE to prepare a report on Nagorno-Karabakh based on
the draft resolutions of Azerbaijan is a result of the Azerbaijani
oil-dollars effect, or the negligence of the Armenian delegation to
PACE. Mr. Safaryan is outraged by this fact. He associates it to the
fact that “our delegation members are excessively engaged in PR rather
than acting.” Then, he added, “Unfortunately we either are servicing
someone else’s interests, or do not follow what’s going on.” Stepan
Safaryan recalls that even Azerbaijan was not hiding the fact that he
is going to put resolutions into circulation, which are aimed at
imposing sanctions against Armenia. The other factor is that recently
Azerbaijani President often “rebukes” the international organizations
that they do not fulfill the resolutions adopted thereof, and they
have forgotten the Karabakh problem, and in fact, they had to use
their presidency for the adoption of any resolution on Karabakh
conflict. Mr. Safaryan notices, “The affairs of Azerbaijan and the
West are too tense, and it is sad that in front of the whole world,
Azerbaijan itself, in fact, broke the cease-fire mode, and now it
adopts a resolution, a report, the title of which seems to
legitimizing Azerbaijan’s proprietary to the lands and mitigating the
sentiment towards it.” Mr. Safaryan believes that our delegates should
have discussed Azerbaijan’s behavior promptly after the August events,
which they failed to do. On the contrary, Azerbaijan hereby proofreads
its actions. “It submitted so many resolutions that PACE and Europe
got tired, and to somehow satisfy its whims, winning its favor, thus
trying to induce to improve the human rights situation, is making such
a gesture.” And Armenia remains neglected, because its delegates,
according to Mr. Safaryan, “are engaged in PR, making some ad-hoc
statements, or simply raising questions during the sessions or
attaching statements to the protocols and disseminating them through
the Armenian mass media.” Stepan Safaryan warned that with such steps
“they cannot deceive the one who understands diplomacy.” He was
outraged, “Ilham Aliyev threatens the international organizations and
countries, and endangers their interests, implements a policy, which
torpedoes the plans of the West, and to do nothing under this
situation, moreover, to allow them to prepare such a report, I would
not call it a lack of talent but dilettantism.” To our question of
whether it was right announcing during the discussion of the report on
Karabakh that they will not collaborate and leaving the hall, Mr.

Safaryan responded, “It is not right to take a stance of a sulky child
and then come to justify is not right. To justify their sulky stance,
they would come and say that, you know, the British have oil interests
in Azerbaijan, and it will be hidden from the public that all of this
is the consequence of inaction. First of all, this should not be
allowed to happen, therefore there should be a pressure on Azerbaijan,
and an operative action was required.” Mr. Safaryan noted that the
2005 PACE adopted resolution was not that much terrible as the title
of this report and emphasizes, “Everything should be done to change
the title of the report name up to putting it in another context.

There is no other option, we need to cooperate rather than leaving and
coming home with a sulky stance and give press conferences, of course,
leaves no room for positive expectations.” Stepan Safaryan is outraged
of what the Armenian delegates were doing in summer, none of them
wrote a letter to the presidency of PACE that Azerbaijan is violating
its commitments to regulate the conflict peacefully, which it had
assumed when becoming a PACE member.

Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
Read more at:

MP from Prosperous Armenia Party: Armenian Government has set tax
officials against SMEs again

by Gayane Isahakyan
Sunday, October 5, 11:29

By adopting the new Law on Turnover Tax, the Armenian Government has
actually toughened the tax administration of small and medium
enterprises again, MP from the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) Faction
Mikayel Melkumyan said at today’s press conference. According to the
law, the document control has become compulsory for these entities.

He said that in case of compulsory document control the tax audits of
SMEs will become inevitable some time, because the given law aims to
reveal the real turnover of the enterprises and, consequently, to
increase the tax revenues. “If these revenues do not grow, the tax
officials will have to check the documents on turnover of the economic
entities”, he said.

Melkumyan added that today the ban on different types of inspection of
SMEs has been cancelled. The ban was imposed in 2009. The new law
authorizes the tax inspectorate to check the documents of SMEs.

He pointed out that the PAP voted for the bill in the first reading,
because the bill stipulated reduction of the turnover tax for SMEs
from 3.5% to 1%. The party also demanded revising the provision on
compulsory document control in the second reading. “However, the
Government took no decisions to change that provision even following
the two-day talks. Only the Minister of Finance signed a decree on
abstention from ungrounded inspections of SMEs, except for the risky
cases”, he said.

According to Melkumyan’s estimations, with introduction of compulsory
document control, the SMEs’ turnover will exceed 100 mln AMD and they
will have to pay VAT. “As a result, the turnover tax will reach 8%,
and this will lead the enterprises to bankruptcy”, he stressed.

To remind, starting 1 October 2014, the turnover tax for economic
entities engaged in the field of trade will be reduced from 3.5% to
1%. A status of the family business will be introduced. The economic
entities having up to 12 million drams annual turnover will be
registered as family business and exempted from taxes. Starting 1
January 2015, the following types of responsibility will be applied to
SME: a warning for violation of the law, a 20,000 AMD fine for
repeated violation and a 5% turnover tax for a third case of
violation. The economic entities violating the Law on Turnover Tax for
the 4th time will occur in the field of VAT. Starting 1 Jan 2016, a
SME having no document flow will have to pay the tax at a higher rate
– 5%. VAT tax will be charged, if an economic entity fails to submit
document flow for a second time. Alongside with this, a system
“law-abiding taxpayer” will be introduced. The system implies that SME
will get out of the shadow and start submitting the necessary
documents to the taxation bodies. The responsibility for violation of
the given law and mechanisms of control over administrative violations
will be toughened as well.

Azerbaijan family of Margaret Thatcher’s one-time interpreter plead
for her release

Relatives of Leyla Yunus, who once worked as an interpreter for
Margaret Thatcher, urge BP and British Government to act over her
arrest and alleged abuse

Leyla Yunus, right, with Margaret Thatcher during the latter’s visit
to Azerbaijan in September 1992

By Tom Parfitt, Moscow

8:00AM BST 05 Oct 2014

The family of a woman who once acted as a personal interpreter for
Margaret Thatcher are calling on the oil company BP and the British
Government to intervene and secure her release from jail in
Azerbaijan.

Leyla Yunus, 58, a leading human rights campaigner, was arrested in
July on what are widely seen as trumped up charges of treason and
fraud. Her husband, Arif, 59, an academic, was thrown behind bars a
few days later.

“Leyla has been beaten and dragged by her hair by a prison guard and
she is being subjected to constant psychological abuse,” Ramis Yunus,
her brother-in-law, told The Telegraph.

“I urge BP and the British Government to speak out and pressure the
government of Azerbaijan into releasing all political prisoners,
including Leyla and my brother,” he added.

Mr Yunus said he was disappointed that European governments were
“closing their eyes” to the plight of his relatives. “I’m sure that
Margaret Thatcher would have condemned the arrest of Leyla and Arif
Yunus, whom she knew personally, and she would have found both
political and economic means to pressure the government of Azerbaijan
to let them go.”

Mrs Yunus and her husband were jailed in revenge for her publishing a
list of political prisoners, now numbering 98, and organising a peace
initiative with Azerbaijan’s neighbour and traditional foe, Armenia,
according to their relatives and colleagues.

She was also targeted for helping families whose homes were destroyed
to make way for buildings for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in
Baku, the capital.

Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s hardline president, stands accused of
launching an unprecedented crackdown on dissent that has intensified
since the beginning of this year, jailing dozens of rights
campaigners, lawyers and journalists.

Human Rights Watch describes the charges against Mr and Mrs Yunus as
“completely bogus, and intended to silence them”. The Azerbaijan
government denies the charges are politically motivated.

Mrs Yunus is a former deputy defence minister and skilled linguist who
met Lady Thatcher when she visited Baku in 1992.

Lady Thatcher, who had resigned as Prime Minister two years earlier,
travelled to newly-independent Azerbaijan to hand the Azeris two
cheques worth $30m on behalf of BP that was a down payment on Caspian
oilfields. That agreement paved the way for the “Contract of the
Century” signed in 1994, which saw BP take the lead in a consortium
extracting hydrocarbons from the seabed.

During Lady Thatcher’s visit, Mrs Yunus was given the role of
escorting her, helping translate and explaining the war that was then
raging between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. “They were
both strong women and they got on well,” said her brother-in-law.

Leyla and Arif Yunus in 2013

Mrs Yunus, who is now being held in a pretrial detention centre, has
diabetes, hepatitis and eye problems that her family believe could be
exacerbated in custody. Her lawyers say she has been subjected to
verbal and physical abuse by a senior guard and a fellow inmate in her
cell.

Arif Yunus, who suffered a stroke earlier this year, is in detention
at a facility run by the national security ministry, which is
notorious for torture of inmates.

Analysts believe Mr Aliyev is using the West’s distraction by events
in Ukraine and the Middle East to liquidate all opposition ahead of
the inaugural European Games in Baku next year, which will be
sponsored by BP.

Ramis Yunus, a former chief of staff of the Azeri government who lives
in Baltimore in the United States, said BP should confront Mr Aliyev
and withdraw its sponsorship from the Games. “This event is being used
by the regime to improve its image and cover up its repression,” he
said.

Dinara Yunus, 29, the daughter of Leyla and Arif Yunus, fled
Azerbaijan for Holland in 2009 after her parents received threats that
she would be harmed.

Speaking by telephone from Amsterdam, she said: “Are economic
interests more important than human rights? By telling the government
of Azerbaijan to do something about political prisoners, BP could
raise its image and be more ethical.

“BP should call for the immediate and unconditional release of the
political prisoners, including my parents. BP is powerful enough to
set these rules.”

The campaign against dissent in Azerbaijan peaked this summer. In the
most prominent cases, Rasul Jafarov, a young rights activist, was
arrested on tax evasion charges on August 2, and Intigam Aliyev, a
veteran lawyer who had filed complaints about election fraud to the
European Court of Human Rights, was detained on similar charges a few
days later.

Later the same month, Ilgar Nasibov, a journalist in the Nakhichevan
region, was left unconscious with his face beaten to a bloody pulp,
after an attack by unknown assailants. He had investigated a
controversial case involving a death in custody.

In a statement to The Telegraph, BP said that it had “a strong and
long-standing commitment to respecting the human rights and dignity of
all people, wherever we do business”.

However, the company said it believed “the government of Azerbaijan
has the primary responsibility to protect human rights and we remain
ready to implement their guidance in this regard”.

It declined to comment on whether it would withdraw sponsorship of the
European Games.