Hagop Kamalian – Page 72 – Armenian Directory & News

Armenpress News Agency , Armenia Tuesday Armenia has great potential to develop medical tourism via plastic surgeries YEREVAN, JULY 11, ARMENPRESS. Thanks to great potential in plastic surgery, medical tourism is gradually developing in Armenia. Kazakhstan and Russia are leading in terms of number of people visiting Armenia for plastic surgery purposes. The specialists of the field told Armenpress that the application of foreigners is linked with price-quality relationship in favor of the client. “Foreigners undergo almost the same surgeries as Armenians, nasal and abdominal wall plastic surgery, facial tension and rejuvenation. Quality is almost equal to the quality of surgeries in American or European medical centers, however, it is several times more affordable here. Diaspora Armenians mainly arrive in Armenia for plastic surgery, there are also foreigners”, Armen Hovhannisyan – Chairman of the Armenian Association of Plastic Surgeons, said. He said currently there are organizations that carry out an activity to develop medical tourism in Armenia. “I had several meetings with a number of organizations that conduct a marketing to understand in what directions the healthcare tourism can develop in Armenia”, he said. iMed is among those companies engaged in developing medical tourism in Armenia. The company has created a mobile app through which people throughout the world can connect with Armenia’s plastic surgeons. The users can search and find any doctor via the app. The app also has other tools, such as the user can change the form of the nose and see how he/she will look with other nose. Thereafter, the user can discuss it in-detail with the doctor via the app. The app is available in Armenian, English and Russian. “Kazakhstan is leading in terms of number of visitors arriving in Armenia for plastic surgery. Both Armenians and Russians from Russia arrive in Armenia, moreover, majority of them, 90%, are Russians. There is also a great flow from Australia and the Netherlands, majority of the visitors are Armenians. The number of people from European countries is not so huge, there are applicants from France, England”, iMed CEO Hrachya Arshakyan said, adding that 80% of his clients are from abroad. Hayk Yenokyan, Head of Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery Department at Nairi medical center and Mikayelyan surgery institute, said Armenia has potential to enrich the state budget at the expense of medical tourism. However, steps on this path are being made individually. “Each doctor tries to increase the number of clients through his own resources. I think, here the state assistance is also needed, it’s necessary to develop a state strategy”, Yenokyan said.

Interfax - Russia & CIS General Newswire Tuesday 5:25 PM MSK Blogger Lapshin to stand trial in Azerbaijan BAKU. June 13 The case of Alexander Lapshin, who is charged in Azerbaijan with illegal crossing of the border for visiting Karabakh, has been submitted to a court, the Azerbaijani media said. "The files of the criminal case against blogger Alexander Lapshin were submitted to the court. Alovsyat Abbasov, a judge of the Baku Grave Crimes Court, was appointed the judge in his case," the media reports said. "The preliminary hearing in the case of blogger Lapshin will take place on June 22," his lawyer Eduard Chernin told Interfax. According to Baku, Lapshin, a citizen of Russia and Israel, illegally visited Nagorno-Karabakh without obtaining official permission from Azerbaijan in April 2011 and October 2012, thus violating the provisions of the laws 'On the State Border of the Republic of Azerbaijan' and 'On Passports'. Apart from that, Lapshin called for the recognition of the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on social networking sites on April 6, 2016 and June 29, 2016. Lapshin was included in the 'black list' for having visited Nagorno-Karabakh without the consent of Azeri authorities. Such people cannot enter Azerbaijan. However, Lapshin was able to enter Azerbaijan through Georgia in June 2015, producing a Ukrainian passport with a different spelling of his name. The investigative department for grave crimes of the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case on charges of repeated public calls against the state and illegal crossing of Azerbaijan's state border. A person convicted on these charges may get a sentence of five to eight years in prison. On December 16, 2016 it emerged that Lapshin had been detained in Belarus at the request of Azerbaijan. The Belarusian Supreme Court rejected Lapshin's appeal against his extradition to Azerbaijan on February 7. He was extradited the same day. mg ng kl

Agenda, Georgia

12 Jun 2017 – 13:34:00

De-dolarisation was one of the main topics of discussions. Photo by N. Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

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Agenda.ge,12 Jun 2017 – 13:34, Tbilisi,Georgia

The use of the domestic currency, the lari, in Georgia’s economy is increasing thanks to the efforts taken by the government to strengthen lari-denominated economic activity.

The share of the US dollar in loans taken by individuals has recently declined from 58 percent to 48 percent, while the share of the US dollar in total loans fell from 65 percent to 58 percent, says Georgia’s Finance Minister Dimitry Kumsishvili.

In his words the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank positively praised Georgian Government’s and the National Bank of Georgia’s (NBG) works in the de-dolarisation process.

The high coefficient of dolarisation is a serious challenge for many countries and various governments and central banks try to overcome this challenge,” said Kumsishvili.

De-dolarisation was one of the main topics of discussions at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Consultancy Meeting 2017 which took place on June 9-11 in Armenia.

Consultancy Meeting 2017 took place in Armenia last week. Photo by Georgia’s Finance Ministry.

Kumsishvili also attended the meeting together with the Georgian delegation which included head of the NBG Koba Gvenetadze, Minister of Infrastructure Zurab Alavidze and other high-ranking officials.

As of March 2017 a total of 5,617 loans worth up to $80 million have been converted into the lari within the framework of the Program on the Larisation of Loans.

The Program on the Larisation of Loans was approved by the Government of Georgia on January 11 in a bid to ease the debt burden in the country caused by the fluctuation of the lari against foreign currencies in the second half of last year.

The Program started on January 17 and continued for two months. This was a one-time measure for borrowers who were hit hard by the sharp depreciation of the exchange rate.

Per the program, loans received in US dollars before January 1, 2015 and signed for against real estate collaterals were eligible for conversion into lari-denominated loans.

In total 33,000 loans were identified as falling under the program’s eligibility.

Agence France Presse -- English June 3, 2017 Saturday 1:56 AM GMT In Armenia, a peace prize .. and a music festival? New York, June 3 2017 A year after Armenians launched a generous new peace prize, the frontman of rockers System of a Down sees more to come in the country -- including perhaps a music festival. Serj Tankian, singer of the chart-topping California hard rock band, composed a theme song for the Aurora Prize, which was inaugurated a year ago in the Armenian capital Yerevan. The award, backed by Hollywood A-lister George Clooney, is presented on behalf of Armenians who survived the bloodletting that claimed 1.5 million lives in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Armenia and Western historians describe the killings as genocide, but Turkey vehemently objects to the term. The second edition of the award was presented on May 28 to Tom Catena, the sole doctor in Sudan's conflict-ravaged Nuba Mountains who has cared for thousands of people, treating everything from war injuries to measles. Catena, an American and Catholic missionary, will receive $100,000 plus an additional $1 million which will feed charities of his choice. Tankian, who congratulated Catena in a video appearance at the ceremony as the band prepared for a European tour, said the Aurora Prize showed gratitude to those who helped survivors. "Any group of people that have suffered immensely, whether it's genocide or any other type of human-created catastrophe, should embody compassion and an understanding of that pain better than anyone else," Tankian told AFP. The Lebanese-born Tankian, whose grandparents survived with help from a Turkish mayor and an American missionary orphanage, said that too often, people fail to draw lessons from their ancestors' pain. "I find it really disheartening that there are people who have suffered immensely, or whose grandparents have suffered immensely, and yet their position in life has been unequivocally egotistical and myopic in terms of how they see their lives and how they spend their money," he said. - Integrating Armenia with music festivals - Tankian said he wanted to do more in Armenia and was in the early stages of looking to set up a music festival. The singer voiced hope that Armenia, rarely a destination for Western artists, could be integrated into the European summer festival circuit with touring bands carrying on to the Caucasus country. "I've always dreamed of setting up an international music festival in Armenia," he said. "As much as I have tried to do political work and social work," he said, "I would also like to carve out time to do art work, music work." For the centennial in 2015, System of a Down played its first-ever concert in Armenia. Tankian said he felt overcome with a sense of history, seeing young people and remembering his grandparents. He viewed his band as "part of that catalyst between old and new." "It felt like our whole career was built to play that one show in some ways," he said.

ARMINFO News Agency, Armenia Wednesday Ambassador: Armenia-EU relations are on the right track Yerevan May 31 David Stepanyan. The relations between Armenia and the EU are on the right track, said the head of the EU delegation in Armenia, Ambassador Piotr Switalski, speaking at the conference "Armenia-EU Relations and Their Prospects" in Yerevan. "Today we are engaged in bringing this path to a proper, final form. I think that until November this year, during the presidency of Estonia, Armenia will have the opportunity to connect to the Association Agreement with the EU. I can say Armenia was the first in the post-Soviet space then, who started a constructive dialogue with Brussels in the direction of integration. The forthcoming approval by the parties of the AA will undoubtedly open new ways and opportunities for deepening the existing cooperation," the Ambassador said. According to Switalski, today Europe is trying to realize its own role in the development of Armenia. According to him, Brussels not only does not pursue geopolitical goals in Armenia, the EU lacks even selfish motives. There is only a desire to work with civil society in the direction of Armenia's withdrawal to a democratic state. The main goal of the ongoing work of the EU, according to him, is deep reforms and peace in Armenia. The head of the European diplomatic mission in Armenia noted that Brussels does not intend to determine the priorities of cooperation with Yerevan on its own. According to him, this work is for the government and civil society of Armenia. At the same time, we are by no means going to neglect the opportunities of the "Eastern Partnership". Brussels considers the continuation of the implementation of this program as a practical and tangible goal. I think that the priorities mentioned in the "EP" 20 priorities fully correspond to the interests of both Armenia and the other partner countries. Actually, Yerevan has repeatedly voiced the intention and readiness for the all-round continuation of the development of cooperation with the EU within the framework of this program," summed up Switalski.

Author: Hagop Kamalian

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Music: In Armenia, a peace prize .. and a music festival?

Ambassador: Armenia-EU relations are on the right track