Author: Badalian Vardan

ARMENIANS ARE NOT READY TO PAY FOR HEALTH INSURANCE – RESULTS OF THE SURVEY BY NEWS.AM MEDICINE

March 18, 21:02

According to the survey by NEWS.am Medicine, Armenians are not ready to
pay for health insurance. On the question â?” how much are you ready
to pay for health insurance, 857 (65%) of 1310 respondents answered,
that they are not ready to pay at all, 351 people or 27 % answered,
that they are ready to pay 40,000-60,000 Drams per year, and 102
people or 8 % of respondents were ready to pay 80,000-100,000 Drams.

Lot or a little, and if this opinion of Armenian people coincides
with the opinion of health officials, we asked to comment the head
of the State Health Agency of Armenia Saro Tzaturyan.

According to Tzaturyan, unwillingness of Armenians to pay for insurance
is due primarily to the lack of information on this topic. Tsaturian
believes that if the population of the country is better informed
and if we explain what a health insurance is and why it is needed,
the approach of people towards this issue will change.

”We all pay for medical services, and introduction of health insurance
will provide an opportunity to make payment methods more civilized,
more predictable and more affordable. People pay for medical help
when they are not sick, when they are healthy. And they do not pay
a large amount at once, but in small sums, ” explained Tzaturyan.

On the question â?” is it possible, that Armenians avoid paying for
health insurance, because they have no money â?” Tzaturyan answered:
If mandatory health insurance is introduced in Armenia, most of
the payments will be made â??â??by the employer. As for payments by
citizens, Tzaturyan did not mention what funds Armenians will have to
pay each month, but, according to him, it would be no more than 2-3
per cent of the average wage. As for socially disadvantaged citizens,
their insurance, according to Tzaturyan will be covered by the state.

NEWS.am Medicine

VIDEO FOOTAGE REVEALS SYSTEMATIC EXECUTION OF VICTIMS

WND.com
March 18 2014

Published: 20 hours ago
Bob Unruh

Editor’s Note: EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED: The videos linked and embedded
in this story are extremely graphic, showing brutal executions,
and the bodies of those killed in those executions.

After exposing videos of “ritual human sacrifices” of Christians
by Muslims, a former Palestinian Liberation Organization
member-turned-Christian has discovered a new set of shocking videos
that show human slaughterhouses in which non-Muslims are executed.

The videos, posted by Walid Shoebat, and his son, Theodore Shoebat,
are horrific, showing heads neatly lined up against a wall and bodies
suspended by their feet in a room.

Also shown is the testimony of a witness who was threatened with being
“sacrificed.”

“I have never seen something like this,” Shoebat told WND. “I have been
investigating this story for the past two weeks. The story is probably
the most horrific I have ever [done]. It proves with footage actual
systematic [sl]aughterhouses of human beings, including Christians
in Syria.”

The witness video, translated by Shoebat’s organization, Rescue
Christians, includes the testimony of Saif Al-Adlubi, who inexplicably
was identified for “sacrifice” but then not killed before government
soldiers arrived.

“This is the reality of Islam, it is a pagan and utterly depraved and
sadistic religion. It takes the soul of a man and purges any remnants
of human affection from his very being. Look to your own soul, and
understand your own obligation to help the Christians,” Shoebat said.

Al-Adlubi reported witnessing Armenians who were waiting their turn
to be slaughtered.

An “Egyptian butcher … grabbed the neck of one elderly Armenian
Christian,” Al-Adlubi said.

He said the executioner then said, “You’re an aged man and your neck
is soft and I don’t have to sharpen my knife for you.”

The report blames the “gruesome systematic human extermination
centers” of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS,
a radical Islamic organization in Syria and the Middle East.

Al-Adlubi is described in the report as a Muslim fundamentalist who
joined the Free Syrian Army and was a militant and a media agent for
FSA. He was captured but later “made it out when the Syrian militia”
defeated the rebels in that location.

Al-Adlubi said he was called a heathen, “kafir,” and he responded,
“How could I be considered kafir if I pray and fast?”

“You are ‘murtad’ (apostate),” he was told.

“I asked him, what is my destiny. I want to get a closure. What is it,
a year two years in prison?” Al-Adlubi said.

He said he was told, “Rejoice, you will be sacrificed.”

Al-Adlubi reported seeing “bodies of young men who were systematically
slaughtered and disemboweled.”

“The slaughterhouse was on a hill. It is secluded and is void of
any homes nearby,” he said. “I witnessed lifeless bodies hanging
upside down as if they were slaughtered sheep. In the center of the
slaughterhouse is a huge Egyptian about two meters high. He was the
one doing the slaughtering.”

Editor’s Note: EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED: The videos linked and embedded
in this story are extremely graphic, showing brutal executions,
and the bodies of those killed in those executions.

The interview:

Shoebat said several Arabic language news sources, Alwatan, AlJazeera
and Mufaker, corroborated some of the details.

Reported Shoebat: “The prison centers where the ISIS (Da’ish) controls
have become miniatures of what was during the Nazi SS extermination
camps, except the ISIS carries out the extermination in a much more
horrific way. Da’ish transforms the prisons into kangaroo courts
with systematic slaughterhouses and killing centers to exterminate
Christians and Muslims who disagree with the Takfiri ideology. Once
they are found guilty, the way they deal with the victims was as if
they were cattle.”

He said a Syrian Christian named Kamil Toume also confirmed the
reports, with video, purportedly of the Siba district slaughterhouse
in Homs, Syria.

Editor’s Note: EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED: The videos linked and embedded
in this story are extremely graphic, showing brutal executions,
and the bodies of those killed in those executions.

In an interview, Toume brought additional information, Shoebat
reported.

“You never heard of Umm Muhammad slaughterhouse?” Toume asked.

Additional footage shows two slaughterhouses, one in Bayyada and the
other, from several years ago, in Al-Siba.

Al-Adlubi said the victims included Armenian and Syrian Christians
along with Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Said Walid Shoebat: “The stories told by Al-Adlubi and Toume add up.

Toume sent us some footage that circulated the Syrian community after
the human slaughterhouse finally ended, and the ugly remaining evidence
was revealed when Umm Muhammad’s slaughterhouse in the Siba’ district
in Homs was busted by Syrian police three years ago in August 2011.”

Shoebat said Al-Adlubi’s story “also checks out from footage obtained
from Al-Bayyada, another slaughterhouse, which Rescue Christians was
able to obtain footage from.”

“And just as Al-Adlubi stated, they were hanging upside down,
headless, like slaughtered sheep. The heads were removed from the
root of the chest cavity just as Al-Adlubi stated when describing how
the Egyptian was doing his meticulous methods and how Toume described
the Umm-Muhammad slaughterhouse in Al-Siba’ district.”

Video from the Al-Bayyada slaughterhouse:

Editor’s Note: EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED: The videos linked and embedded
in this story are extremely graphic, showing brutal executions,
and the bodies of those killed in those executions.

“We report this story because of the silence on the systematic killing
of Christians, Shiite minorities and even Sunni Muslims in Syria who
disagree with the Takfirist theology. The story is reminiscent to the
initial reporting on the extermination of European Jewry and other
minorities when little coverage was given to the truth in these days,”
Shoebat said.

WND reported last week Shoebat had uncovered videos showing Muslims
conducting “ritual human sacrifices” by slitting the throats of their
victims or putting a bullet in their heads.

Shoebat noted the speaker in one video uses the term Qurban just
before gunfire erupts and men lined up in a row fall to the floor one
by one. Shoebat explained that the Arabic term “can only signify a
sacrifice, which indicates that the filmed slaughter is nothing but
a ritual human sacrifice.”

Another video shows the throat of the “sacrifice” being slit with
a knife.

“Christians are being killed in these very rituals every day, and
the bloodshed will not stop. We must work together to rescue them,”
Shoebat said.

Shoebat describes himself as a former “radicalized Muslim willing to
die for the cause of jihad.”

According to his biography, he arrived in the United States in 1978
to study in Chicago where he was recruited at a “terror conference”
by Jamal Said, the founder of the Islamic Association of Palestine,
a front group for Hamas that later launched the Washington, D.C.-based
Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Shoebat said he converted to Christianity in 1994. He now is raising
funds to assist Middle East Christians through a foundation he created
called RescueChristians.org.

WND recently reported that Sister Hatune Dogan claimed members of the
jihadist factions in Syria trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad
are draining the blood of Christians they behead and selling vials
to Islamic radicals for $100,000 apiece.

The Christians, she said, are beheaded in ceremonies in which they
are forced to kneel, with their hands and feet bound as the Muslim
radicals read a death sentence imposed because the victim refuses to
renounce Christianity and embrace Islam.

WND also has reported that the ISIS, considered to be the most ruthless
of the Sunni Islamic militant groups fighting in Syria, has ordered a
Christian community in Raqqa, Syria, to pay nearly 38 pounds of gold
as a “guarantee of their safety.” The alternative offered was death.

The videos discovered by Shoebat are graphic.

Editor’s Note: EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED.The following videos show
brutal executions.

MY ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY OF THE HADJIN ORPHAN DRESS AND MY HUNT FOR THE LOST HADJIN ORPHANAGE RUG

By MassisPost
Updated: March 17, 2014

By Rosemary Russell

This is the true story behind the unveiling of the Hadjin Orphan
Dress and the Lost Hadjin Orphanage Rug at the Ararat-Eskijian Museum.

Hello, I’m Rosemary Russell.

In March 2010, I visited the Missionary Church Archives at Bethel
College in Mishawaka, Indiana. I was searching for information on
Rose Lambert and her establishing of the United Orphanage and Mission
together with Maria Gerber in 1898.

Lambert and Gerber set sail for Turkey to help the thousands of
children made orphans after the massive massacre of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire between 1894 and 1896 when Sultan Abdul Hamid II lashed
out savagely against his Christian subjects. Upwards of 200,000 people
died: some were massacred, others succumbed to disease and starvation,
all a result of the sinister policy instituted by the Sultan.

Lambert and Gerber had worked as nurses at the Deaconess Hospital in
Cleveland, Ohio. One day, the hospital staff received a visit from a
survivor of the recent massacres. Garabed Der Hagopian, whose wife
had been killed in their village of Zeitun, appealed to the ladies
to take their work to Turkey where there were at least 50,000 orphans.

Lambert and Gerber embraced the cause, and immediately prepared to
sail to Turkey. The women had no idea what lay before them, but they
struck out courageously on a ministry that would span forty years and
that would record oppressive poverty, widespread sickness, additional
massacres, and eventually the violent destruction of Lambert’s adopted
Armenian town of Hadjin.

It was the search for this story that led me to the Missionary Church
Archives. I crossed the small, quaint campus of Bethel College to the
Bowen Library. I stepped inside and descended the stairs to a small
room in the basement.

Along with some religious books published at the Bible House in
Constantinople, I saw a Bible owned by Mr. and Mrs. D.J. Storms,
a missionary couple who worked at the boys school in Everek (near
Hadjin). These publications were written in Armeno-Turkish, which is
the Turkish language in the Armenian alphabet.

I found what looked to me like silk bookmarks with Bible verses,
many photographs and several mementos donated by a missionary named
Dorinda Bowman.

I was thrilled to find the complete run of the orphanage’s Bi-Monthly
Newsletter which began in late 1914. I culled large bound volumes
of The Gospel Banner, a Mennonite paper, which contained articles,
letters and photographs that spanned the life of the United Orphanage
and Mission.

I saw a box that had also been donated by Dorinda Bowman. It was
large but actually quite light, not at all heavy. I removed the lid
and pushed away some tissue paper. To my great surprise I saw an
article of clothing. I pulled it out and immediately recognized it
as an orphan’s dress. I stared at it, surprised and deeply moved. I
couldn’t believe it was stored in a box. I was holding in my hands
the garment of an orphan that had been virtually untouched since
being stored in the carton.

Of course, it was in an archive, a controlled environment that had
kept it in good condition. But I could not imagine something like
this being stored out of public view. I knew that if Armenians, and
other researchers like myself, knew about this dress, they would want
it displayed.

I continued to dig around and found a small book written by Richard
Bowman, nephew of Dorinda Bowman, who had donated the dress. The book
told of a rug taken out of Hadjin in late 1914 when the missionaries
were recalled as a result of the start of WW I. Upon inquiry, I
learned that the rug was not part of the collection.

Based upon the information in Mr.Bowman’s book about his Aunt Dorinda,
I was able to track him down. To my delight he still owned the rug. I
impressed upon him the value of the artifact and the importance of
joining it to the dress at the archive. Mr. Bowman was about ninety
years old. I worried that the rug would fall into the hands of someone
who did not understand its intrinsic value if he did not designate
it for donation.

Last year after he passed away, Mr. Bowman’s widow sent the rug to
its now permanent home at the Missionary Church Archives.

In November 1914, the mission board instructed the missionaries at
the orphanage to return home immediately. According to Dorinda Bowman,
they had but one day to pack and say goodbye.

The rug bears witness to their precipitous departure. Bowman wanted
to take the rug with her out of Turkey. She urged the orphan girls
who were working on it to finish as quickly and as best as they could.

When time ran out, the orphan girls pulled the rug abruptly from the
loom, resulting in the irregular, unfinished corner. The next day,
under a rain of bullets, the missionaries, the orphan dress and the
unfinished rug made a hasty departure from the orphanage toward the
safety of the New World.

Thank you to the Missionary Church Archives at Bethel College in
Mishawaka, IN.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

His Holiness Aram I inaugurates the 35th Book Fair in Antelias

Antelias – On Sunday 16 March 2014, after the Holy Liturgy, Catholicos
Aram I inaugurated the 35th Book Fair entitled “Source of Spiritual and
Intellectual Enrichment.”

In his message, His Holiness stated that although the current innovations
in communication and the Internet are providing quick information and
knowledge, the Armenian book is the powerful repository of Armenian
spiritual growth and identity. Because they go deeply, books are necessary,
he explained, to communicate the Christian understanding that the body, the
mind and the spirit are inseparable and that this comprehensive
understanding of the human being reveals to us that the mind and the spirit,
the presence of God and the Image of God are embedded within each person. He
then quoted the Bible where Jesus said, “It is written, Man shall not live
by bread alone, but every word that comes forth from the mouth of God
(Matthew 4:4).

The Catholicos then continued, “Historically our people have been nurtured
and inspired by the Bible and the printed reflections, the spiritual hymns,
the prayers and the meditations of our Church fathers and the recorded
heroic acts of our martyrs to defend their faith.” Today, His Holiness
added, “The challenges of modern life are alienating us from the Armenian
book; this reality, he said, is depriving us from our spiritual resources
and even weakening our identity as a people.”

He then asked, “Is our government in Armenia empowering our teachers and
intellectuals to reflect, write and publish and to keep pace with the modern
world? Is the Church encouraging potential authors and enabling them to
publish? Are the wealthy Armenians sustaining the Armenian publications?”
Because, he concluded, “The Armenian book sustains our national existence,
and it enriches our people’s lives through spiritual growth.”

The opening ceremony came to close with the Cilicia anthem sung by the
seminary students.

ARE CRIMEA AND KARABAKH ALIKE?

17:41 17.03.2014

Anna Nazaryan
Public Radio of Armenia

“The events in Ukraine are the result of a geopolitical confrontation
between the West and Russia,” political scientist Aram Manukyan told
a press conference today. He said that the referendum in Crimea
cannot serve as a precedent for the other regions of Ukraine. As
regards Karabakh, he said: “Russia will not spoil the relations
with Azerbaijan, but will not demonstrate an anti-Armenian position,
either.”

According to the political scientist, the Crimea referendum has caused
trouble in Azerbaijan, because the similarities between Crimea and
Karabakh are evident. However, “the international law works only when
there is a powerful force standing behind the given country. There
are still no prerequisites to assume the Karabakh conflict will be
solved soon.”

Expert Manvel Sargsyan sees no similarities between the Karabakh issue
and Crimea. “These are different political issues,” Sargsyan said,
speaking to Public Radio of Armenia. He voiced concern that the OSCE
Minsk Group could be dissolved soon.

Manvel Sargsyan does not share the opinion that the Crimean referendum
was Russia’s victory. “This is an illusion. In reality Russia is not
the master of the situation, as it tries to present,” he said.

UITE CHIEF REITERATES THAT NEW PENSION SCHEME WILL NOT WORK IN ARMENIA

YEREVAN, March 17. / ARKA /. The executive director of the Union
of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE), Karen Vardanyan, has
once again slammed the government today for enforcement of mandatory
funded pension system arguing it would not work in this country and
saying also if the government persists in efforts to ignore popular
protests against the new pension scheme it would see a ‘Maidan’.

“In the past all negative economic processes affected people
indirectly. This is the first time when the government ‘picks’
the pockets of people. If it continues to insist on this reform,
sooner or later it will have a Maidan in Yerevan,,” Vardanyan said
at a press conference on Monday.

According to him, the authorities are unable to adequately perceive
the public outrage, demonstrated by ‘cynical statements’ of the
ministries of finance and social and labor issues and the central bank.

Armenia’s Constitutional Court suspended last month Article 76 of the
new law, which provides for penalties for failed or delayed pension
tax payments, and the third paragraph of Article 86, which obligates
employed citizens to choose a pension fund, among other parts of the
law. The Court says it will conclude the inquiry on March 28, 2014.

The constitutionality of the law was challenged by three opposition
parties in the National Assembly — the Armenian National Congress,
the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and the Heritage Party —
along with the usually pro-government Prosperous Armenia Party.

The new pension system requires that all Armenian citizens born
after 1973 pay social security taxes equivalent to 5 percent of their
monthly wages, which will be matched and doubled by the government.

That money has to be deposited with private pension funds licensed
by the government late last December.

Asked whether a package of draft legal amendments approved by the
government last week that would exempt newly established IT firms
employing up to 15 people from profit tax for three years and offer
also preferential income tax rate for their employees, could reduce
the protests of young people from IT companies against the pension
reform, Vardanyan said the draft law is for start-ups, while the
reform applies to well-established and successful firms.

The chairman of the Union of Domestic Producers, Vazgen Safarian,
said that the new pension scheme could be effective only it is not
mandatory. -0-

– See more at:

ARONIAN BEATS SVIDLER IN CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT ROUND 4

19:00 17/03/2014 >> SPORT

Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian beat Peter Svidler of Russia in
round 4 of the World Champion Candidates Tournament in Khanty-Mansiysk.

India’s Viswanathan Anand remains in the lead with 3 points. Levon
Aronian and Vladimir Kramnik share 2nd-3rd places with 2.5 points each.

Aronian will play against Kramnik in round 5 tomorrow.

1. Anand 3 2. Aronian 2.5 3. Kramnik 2.5 4. Topalov 2 5. Svidler 2
6. Karjakin 1.5 7. Mamedyarov 1.5 8. Andreikin 1

Source: Panorama.am

POLL SUGGESTS 91% RUSSIANS BACK CRIMEA’S ENTRY AS CONSTITUENT ENTITY

March 17, 17:12 UTC+4
According to the opinion poll, 94% believed Russia should protect
the rights of ethnic Russians and other nationalities living in Crimea

Demonstration in support of Crimea in Moscow

ITAR-TASS/Pavel Smertin

MOSCOW, March 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Ninety-one percent of polled Russian
nationals backed Crimea’s entry into Russia as its constituent member,
president of the Public Opinion Foundation told a news conference on
Monday referring to the opinion poll carried out jointly with the
All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (WCIOM) between March 14
and 16.

About 97% voters supported Crimea split from Ukraine – Supreme
Council’s commission Alexander Oslon said “five percent answered ‘no,
I don’t agree’ to the question “Do you agree to Crimea’s joining our
country as a constituent member?” Another four percent of surveyed
Russians found it difficult to answer the question, Oslon added.

Director General of WCIOM Valery Fedorov said for his part that the
absolute majority of the polled people said Russia must protect the
rights of Russian-speaking people.

According to the opinion poll, 94% believed Russia should protect
the rights of ethnic Russians and other nationalities living in Crimea.

Sociologists said 83% believed Russia should protect their rights
“even if it worsens relations with other countries,” and 86% of the
polled Russians said “Crimea is Russia”.

Public Opinion Foundation and WCIOM spoke by telephone to 48,590
people in all Russian regions. Between 300 and 1,000-odd people were
surveyed in each of them. It was for the first time that an opinion
poll was carried out jointly by two research centers, Oslon said.

EXTRADITION OF RAMIL SAFAROV REMAINS A MAJOR EMBARRASSMENT FOR HUNGARIAN DIPLOMACY

14:50 17.03.2014

Gurgen Margaryan, Hungary, Ramil Safarov

“The extradition of Ramil Safarov, a convicted murderer, who was
promptly pardoned, freed and feted as a hero once landing in Baku
remains a major embarrassment for Hungarian diplomacy,” the Budapest
Business Journal writes.

“The events have left a permanent blemish on relations with Armenia,
the home nation of Safarov’s victim, Gurgen Margaryan,” GergÅ’ Rácz
writes in an article analyzing the perspectives of economic growth
in Hungary.

In 2004, Safarov brutally axed to death Armenian Army Lieutenant
Gurgen Margaryan, in his sleep, during a NATO sponsored English
language program in Hungary.

Safarov, who was tried, convicted and given a lifetime prison sentence
in Hungary, was inexplicably extradited to Azerbaijan in 2012, where
he was where he was given a hero’s welcome by President Ilham Aliyev,
in addition to financial compensation and a promotion in military rank.

Armenia decided to break diplomatic ties with Hungary on the day of
Safarov’s release.

RUSSIA SUPPORTS NATIONS’ RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION – EXPERT

13:30 17/03/2014 >> POLITICS

Azerbaijan is worried after the Crimea referendum to join Russia as
it can become a precedent. We cannot but notice the obvious similarity
between Crimea and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, political scientist
Aram Manukyan said.

The expert told reporters that at the same time, the international
law is effective only when the state is backed by some force.

“Under the current conditions, Armenia should carry out consistent
foreign policy and needs to have influential allies whose interests
coincide with those of Yerevan. Only in this case we can hope for a
fair settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” he noted.

According to Manukyan, Russia cannot act against Armenia’s interests in
the Nagorno-Karabakh issue because it has already shown that in similar
conflicts it supports the right of nations to self-determination.

Source: Panorama.am